Rosanna, Johann, Harald.

It took them a while to work out who was missing.

III.

They followed the girl as she led them out of the function room, through a short passage, and towards a store-room. The place was mainly above ground, but it had the atmosphere of a cellar. Rosanna was in a half-trance, feeling her way along a cooling trail. The baron was by her side, like a courteous gentleman helping a blind person not to bump into walls, gently steering her round obstacles. Harald's stomach was beginning to ache and he felt the recent violence as surely as the scryer did.

'He's here,' she said.

'Where?' asked the baron.

'In this room.'

They looked around. This was the way they had come into the Matthias II last night. The window was still open, as was a barrel-door. The place smelled of old beer.

'We looked here last night,' the baron said. 'Those two Leaguers were unconscious in the corner.'

Harald's stomach complained.

Rosanna went around the room, touching things, frowning.

'He's here. Very close.'

She touched a barrel that was standing on its end and leaped back as if it were a heated stove.

'What is it?' the baron asked.

Rosanna pointed at the barrel. 'Inside,' she said.

Harald held up the lantern. The barrel was split near the base and blood had poured out through the taphole. It was sticky on the flagstones.

'Merciful Shallya,' the baron swore.

Harald found a cooper's hammer and tapped the barrel-lid. It gave, and he pulled the wooden circle out whole.

Helmut Elsaesser looked up, his face white, his eyes empty.

Johann could not help but feel responsible. He had, after all, intervened to keep the young officer on the Beast case. Rosanna had flinched away at the sight of the corpse and he had instinctively embraced her. He felt her body pressed warm against him, and a charge crackled from her hair, so close to his face. She relaxed for a moment and then stepped away from him, leaving only the memory of a touch. He wondered if she had seen anything in him that made her want to break contact. She was making herself look at poor, dead Elsaesser. 'Number ten,' Kleindeinst said, respectfully.

'Get him out,' said Johann.

'No, don't,' insisted the captain. 'Not yet.'

'What is it?'

'He didn't die straight away. He bled. There may be something.'

'I don't understand.'

'A message from the grave,' suggested Rosanna. 'Here.'

She was holding the barrel lid up to the light. It was stained with blood. Something was written on it.

'He may have seen his murderer, recognized him.

Johann looked at the scrawl. There were letters. No, numbers.

As he was dying, Elsaesser had dipped a finger in his own blood and drawn numbers on the lid of his makeshift coffin.

317 5037.

'Is it a code?' he asked. 'Why would Elsaesser use a code?'

'He was there when Dickon burned the cloak, wasn't he? He may have expected the message to be found by someone who would want to hush it up. Or even by the Beast himself.'

Rosanna suggested the simplest code. 'Perhaps the numbers are letters of the alphabet. I for A, 2 for B and so on. That would read CA er, G E'

'Yes? What's the nothingth letter of the alphabet, scryer?' asked Harald.

'Obviously, it's not so simple. Elsaesser was just out of the University, wasn't he?'

Johann tried to solve the riddle. 'Perhaps it's a map reference. At the University, they use the grid system. Elsaesser could have been pointing us to the murderer's house.

Harald looked doubtful. 'What's the grid reference for the palace, baron?'

'I don't know.'

'And you live there. How could a simple copper know exactly a map reference in seven digits?'

'You have a point/ 'Maybe the numbers should be in bunches. There's a gap in the middle, and a smaller one here. 317. 50. 37. It could still be an address. 317 could be a house number, and the other two a street and a district.'

'I don't swallow it,' said Kleindeinst. 'Poor Elsaesser was dying, his stomach opened, his throat cut. He must have been in terrible pain. He wouldn't have had time for numerology games. It has to be something obvious/ There's something about the number 317 that's familiar/ Kleindeinst snapped, 'Of course there is, that's the code number for this district.'

'Code?' Rosanna and Johann asked, at once.

'Watch code. Every watch in the Empire has a number, like a regiment of the militia. 317 is the Luitpoldstrasse Station.'

'And do individual officers have numbers?'

'Yes but you would be hard-pressed to find any watch in the Empire, much less in a slum like this, which had over five thousand men.'

'317. 5037.'.

'3. 17. 50. 37.'.

'3,175,037.'.

'This is silly,' said Rosanna. 'Maybe he was just delirious and doing mathematical problems in his head. People die with strange things in their minds. I should know.'

They looked at her and she knew what they were thinking.

'Yes,' she said, resigned, 'of course I'll try to scry him.'

Helmut Elsaesser had died gasping for breath and thinking of his landlady. There were a lot of other things, but no coherent thought.

Rosanna was still not used to violent death. She supposed she would have to go through Milizia's death, too, and still not be able to identify the Beast.

'It's almost as if the murderer can blot himself out of his victims' consciousness.'

'Is that possible?'

'Anything is possible, Johann. It's not like opening a book. It's like trying to count heads at a ball, with all the dancers on the move. I could tell you a lot about this poor boy, but I think it's best to leave him some privacy.'

'Girl,' said Harald, 'if you ever do this professionally, you'll learn that one of the things murder victims don't have is privacy.'

The thought made her unutterably melancholic.

'It's not like the melodramas,' Johann said, 'where murderers leave clues and the clever watchman sleuths them out.'

'This number is a clue,' Rosanna said. 'I'm sure of that.'

'And that green velvet Dickon burned,' said Captain Kleindeinst.

'It's a shame you didn't get to scry that,' said Johann. 'It must have come from the Beast. I held it in my hands, but I've no gift. You know, I can see it now, in every detail'

Rosanna felt the curtains open in her mind. It happened sometimes.

'And so can I.'

'What?' exclaimed Kleindeinst.

'The velvet, I can see it. Worn along the bottom edge.'

'Yes, that's right.'

'The bottom edge?' asked Kleindeinst.

Rosanna and Johann agreed.

'But, those cloaks are thigh-length. How could it be worn along the bottom?'

Johann made a gloved fist. 'It would be worn like that, if the Beast weren't a normal-sized man'

In her mind, Rosanna saw a dwarf The Countess Emmanuelle was determined. They would be leaving for Nuln as soon as possible and remaining there until this frightful business was forgotten.

She told Leos as much in the carriage and charged her brother with making the arrangements. 'Have Dany supervise the packing of my gowns,' she said. 'He'll like that.'

She had been in this city too long, staying away from her social and political responsibilities to, be close to the heart of the Empire.

Mikael had kept her here longer than she had intended. In the beginning, the intense cleric, whose desire for power was as urgent as his desire for her, had been an interesting conquest. Now, he was becoming a bore. Perhaps worse than a bore.

Mikael would be a problem. He was being too ardent. He might prove unpredictably troublesome if he were not cast loose with some tact.

In her dressing room, free from her maids, she scrubbed at her face, removing last night's fading paint. Her dress was ruined. She would never wear it again. And her tiara had been stolen while she slept.

Upright in a chair, no less! She was lucky to come away from the Bretonnian ambassador's soiree with her life.

Behind her, the door opened and a small figure slipped in.

Outraged, she turned.

'De la Rougierre!' she exclaimed. 'I hope you have some explanation for this uncountenanceable intrusion.'

The ambassador grinned and, for the first time, it seemed to Emmanuelle that he really was more dwarf than Bretonnian.

He bowed, his hat swept mockingly low, and sauntered across the room

IV.

Johann felt as if his mind had been scooped out. Rosanna was apologetic, but more taken with Kleindeinst's suggestion.

'Yes, it could be? The cloak must have trailed on the ground a lot. Don't you think so?'

Johann stammered an agreement. He felt a fool for not noticing himself.

Kleindeinst spoke deliberately. 'There was a rumour that the Beast was a dwarf. And most of the knifestrokes were upwards'

He made an underarm stabbing motion.

'Elsaesser said that the Bretonnian ambassador was intimate with several of the victims,' said Rosanna.

Johann's mind came back to him. 'And he certainly knew the dancer last night. The murders started just after he was posted to Altdorf'