“I’m sorry about the noise,” she said.
“Huh?” Mr. Tedrow said.
Then he turned toward her and seemed to notice her for the first time.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said. “What do you want?”
“I said I’m sorry about the noise.”
Mr. Tedrow’s eyes moved back to the computer.
“Noise?” he said. “What noise?”
London was startled.
“Uh, there’s a bit of work going on just outside,” she said.
“I hadn’t noticed.”
Apparently not, London thought.
“They’re installing a doggie door for my room,” London explained. “My dog will be able to come and go as he pleases. Just like you suggested.”
“Is that so?”
He sounded as though he had no idea what this could possibly have to do with him. London wondered if maybe she should just leave. Still, she felt that she owed him some sort of explanation.
“You were complaining about my dog barking,” she said.
“Oh, yeah, that.”
“Well, it won’t happen now that he’s not cooped up in the room alone.”
“That’s good.”
For a moment, London didn’t know what else to say. She half-wondered whether it had been a waste of effort to get the doggie door installed. Didn’t Mr. Tedrow care about noise after all? But she figured installing the door had still been a good thing to do, if only for Sir Reggie’s sake. Life aboard the Nachtmusik was going to be a lot better for him now—and surely more fun as well.
But again she felt concerned about this passenger.
How could this elderly gentleman possibly be enjoying himself, cooped up alone in his room like this?
Maybe he’s the one who really needs a doggie door, she thought wryly.
“Mr. Tedrow, if you don’t mind my asking …”
“Well?”
“What are you writing?”
“I can’t talk about it.”
“All right,” London said.
But as she turned to go, he spoke again sharply.
“Jeez, you’re not going to leave it alone, are you? You’ll just keep nagging until you hear all about it. OK, if you insist, I’ll tell you.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” London said.
“I’m writing a book,” he said.
“Oh,” London said.
That was obvious, of course. But now London felt more than ready to leave the topic alone and to get out of the room.
“It’s going to be a blockbuster,” Tedrow said. “It’s going to be a bestseller. It’s going to make me rich and famous.”
“That’s great,” London said, fidgeting a little.
“And now I guess you’ve just got to know what it’s about,” he said.
Not really, London thought.
But would it be rude to tell him otherwise?
“It’s a murder mystery,” he said.
London’s eyes widened.
A murder mystery?
Was he writing a book about what had happened to Mrs. Klimowski? But of course London knew that was impossible. He’d been so isolated here in his room, he didn’t even know the ship had stopped in Gyor, much less that anyone had gotten killed there. The fact that he was working on a mystery of his own invention was just a bizarre coincidence.
He stared at her silently, then muttered, “You’d never understand how difficult this is, figuring out how a murder can take place. Leaving clues for my detective to discover, creating a group of plausible suspects, revealing the true culprit at the end …”
With a shake of his head, he turned his gaze away and started typing again.
“One of these days, you’ll be able to tell your passengers that Stanley Tedrow wrote his first bestseller right here on the Nachtmusik. People will pay extra just to stay in this room where I did it.”
“That’s—that’s really exciting.”
“You bet it’s exciting. But if you think I’m going to tell you the plot, you’re wrong.”
“OK.”
“Plead and badger me all you want, I’m not going to tell you that.”
“OK,” she said again, worried that he was about to tell her the plot in agonizing detail. “I’ll go now. Good luck with your writing.”
“Thanks.”
As she left the room, she saw that Archie and his workers had just finished putting her door on its hinges and were cleaning up the mess they’d made.
“We’ve got it done,” Archie said. “Let me show you how it works.”
He whistled, and sure enough, Sir Reginald himself popped out of the doggie door.
“Are you happy with our work, buddy?” Archie asked him.
Sir Reginald let out a yap of approval, then went through the door back into the room again.
London thanked Archie and his crew, who picked up their tools and left.
She realized that she was starting to feel hungry. Fortunately, she was still carrying around the to-go bag that Bryce had given her back in the restaurant. She had a long list of tasks to take care of today, but now seemed as good a time as any to take a lunch break.
She considered going into her stateroom and having her lunch in private, but she had spent much of the morning in and out of staterooms. London realized she needed some fresh air. She was on a boat, after all, traveling one of the world’s most beautiful rivers, so she decided to take the elevator up onto the Rondo deck.
When London stepped onto the outdoor deck, she was momentarily surprised by the sight that met her eyes. Instead of hills and forests, the Nachtmusik was flanked either side by a city with both very old and very modern buildings.
Bratislava, she realized.
This was the capital of Slovakia, a city that also straddled the border between Hungary and Austria.
A group of passengers was clustered near the bow, staring at a massive and peculiar-looking bridge that stretched out across the Danube. It appeared to be quite lopsided, with a single gigantic tower near one end that sprouted cables to support a long, broad span. As usual, London had done some studying and was prepared to explain what they were seeing.
“What do you think of the famous UFO Bridge?” she asked as she approached the group.
“The UFO Bridge?” one passenger asked.
“Is that really its name?” another asked.
London laughed.
“Well, its official name is the Most SNP, or the Bridge of the Slovak National Uprising. But you can see why people who live right here in Bratislava call it the ‘UFO Bridge.’”
As she pointed, people let out exclamations of agreement. The round structure perched at the top of the tower, almost 300 feet above the Danube, did look like some sort of flying saucer.
London explained, “The ‘UFO’ structure has got both a restaurant and an observation deck.”
“It certainly looks odd,” one woman commented.
“Don’t let it distract you from some of the city’s nicer sights,” London said, pointing to the shore. “Over there is St. Martin’s Cathedral, where eleven Hungarian kings and queens were crowned between 1563 and 1830.”
The tall cathedral stood out impressively, with its simple and severe Gothic lines. As the ship passed slowly under the bridge, four broad traffic lanes loomed high above the Nachtmusik. London pointed to the shore again as the boat emerged out from under the bridge.