The Memorist

Chapter 76

Thursday, May 1^st-10:42 a.m.

Sebastian was still missing. None of the reasons Meer had come up with would explain why he’d been gone more than forty minutes. Unless, no…after everything he’d done for her… Something must have happened to him. Unless he was so angry she’d refused to play the memory song for him, he’d walked out in frustration and was sitting in some café stewing. So what should she do now? Go to the hospital on her own? She had Inspector Fiske’s card in her bag. Should she call him? No, not the police. What could she tell him he’d even believe? Besides, he might want to take the flute away from her as evidence and she couldn’t take that chance. Her father and Malachai had to see it before anyone else did. She’d ask the concierge to call her a taxi and go to the hospital.

Sitting down at the desk, Meer wrote Sebastian a note. Just a few lines, telling him where she was going. Then she started to take an inventory of the room-a habit of her mother’s she’d picked up-except she’d come here with nothing but what she wore and the pocketbook she carried. There wouldn’t be an errant bottle of cologne or vial of pills by the side of the bed. Everything she had that mattered was across the room on the piano bench where she’d left the flute beside her purse when she went to take a shower.

She bent to pick it up. Yes, the bag was there. But the flute wasn’t.

Maybe Sebastian had put it inside her pocketbook before he’d gone out in case housekeeping came in while she was showering. Frantically she emptied her bag onto the floor. But it wasn’t there either.

Halfheartedly she checked the rest of the room, almost certain the flute wasn’t going to be there and was in despair when the suite’s doorbell rang. She rushed toward the living room. As she reached the door she heard a man call out, “Fräulein Juska?”

It had to be Sebastian using the name they’d checked in with. He’d apologize and tell her where the flute was and explain that-

Meer jerked open the door without looking through the peephole. A man wearing a bellman’s uniform with the hotel’s insignia on his breast pocket held out an envelope. Suddenly Meer remembered Sebastian’s warning from the night before not to let anyone in, to be suspicious even past logic. This man might be the assailant, might have knocked out the real bellman, stolen his clothes-she slammed the door in his face and threw the lock, the clicking loud in her ears.

“No-please-I’m very sorry,” the man on the other side of the door said in awkward English. “Herr Juska asked me to deliver to you this note at ten-forty-five.”

“Will you…will you slip it under the door?”

“Certainly.”

Dear Meer,

Your father was going to have a procedure this afternoon. His heart’s worse than he’s let on and he was finally going to tell you when he saw you this morning…but he’s missing. No one knows where he is. It’s imperative he’s found and returns to the hospital.

I think I know where he is but I need your help. Please, do what I ask without calling the police yet. Once I explain…then you can call them if you want. Come as soon as you can. Just walk to the taxi stand on the corner and give the driver the address: Engerthstrasse 122. Ring the bell when you get there. I will see you on the video camera to let you in. Hurry.

Sebastian