Oliver Pötzsch - The Werewolf of Bamberg

Simon nodded. “But evidently the perpetrator found Hieronymus first. Katharina told us she had lost sight of her father in the courtyard, so we can guess that this unknown avenger was among the guests and reached out to strike there. Who could that have been? There must be a clue, something. .” He looked around the cluttered room. “If Hieronymus really found something here, where would he have put it?” He walked through the room, then stopped in front of the bookshelves. “Where?”

Simon closed his eyes and tried to put himself in the place of Hieronymus Hauser. He imagined him running through the room. .

I’m terrified. I’ve learned something terrible, and now I want to be certain, so I’ll start taking books off the shelves at random. No, not at random-I’ll look for something very specific. .

Simon opened his eyes, bent down, and picked up a heavy volume with a sewn binding lying on the floor in front of him. He leafed through it with trembling fingers. It was an old accounts book for the city, showing tax receipts as well as expenditures for a new gallows, building materials, and food for the kaiser’s emissaries.

Two hundred guilders for eight barrels of Rhine wine, plus five pigs at twenty guilders, a cartload of wood. .

Simon reached for the next book, but that, too, only recorded city expenditures-endless columns of figures-and soon his eyes began to swim. Again Simon tried to think about what Hieronymus had told him during their last conversation. Just what were his final words?

The council has ordered me to recopy a huge pile of old, barely legible financial records. .

“He must have found something in these old volumes and receipts,” Simon mumbled to himself. “But what? What, damn it?” He put the book aside, closed his eyes, and tried again to put himself in the place of the clerk. The others watched him-and waited.

I’m grabbing book after book from the shelves, looking, paging through, and finally I find something. I’m in front of the shelves, but the book is too heavy to spend any more time standing here and leafing through it. I can’t hold it any longer, so I go. .

Simon opened his eyes and looked around.

To the lectern.

There in the corner stood the lectern with a pile of books on top. A large book lay open at the bottom of the pile, looking similar to the other books on the floor. Simon hurried over, took the books on top and put them on the floor, and then studied the open page of the book that had been on the bottom. At first he was disappointed, for once again what he saw were lists and columns of income and expenses. But suddenly he noticed a particular name and knew at once he was on the right track.

Confiscation of the property of the Haan family, 4,865 guilders, distributed in equal parts to the commission, the city, and the Prince Bishopric. .

“Did you find something?” Jakob asked, rising from his stool and looming over Simon like a huge shadow.

Simon nodded silently, then continued reading.

. . less 400 guilders to the Carmelite Cloister on the Kaulberg to care for the minor Wolf Christoph Röhm, son of Martin Röhm and Katharina Röhm, née Haan. Attested to December 17, anno domini 1629. .

Now Simon turned to the others, looking at them ashen-faced.

“I think we’ve found our werewolf,” he said in a soft voice. “It says here Wolf Christoph Röhm -son of a Haan, so, in fact, the chancellor did have a grandson. What irony.” He shook his head. “His parents really gave him a suitable name for his crimes to come.”

Magdalena waited impatiently in the little guardroom of the city prison for Captain Lebrecht to finally release her and Bartholomäus. She was certain their family was worried and eagerly awaiting them. But there was nothing they could do-the captain was not going to let them off that easy. It seemed to her he was even intentionally taking his time with the paperwork.

“And you come from Schongau, do you?” he asked her for perhaps the tenth time. “Where’s that again?”

Magdalena sighed. “A few hours south of Augsburg, north of the Alps, like I’ve already told you.”

Lebrecht didn’t answer but continued scratching letters with a quill into a thick folder. Magdalena shifted nervously back and forth in her seat and cast annoyed looks at her uncle.

Just as they’d been leaving the old house with the baboon stashed safely away in the cellar, the city guards, alerted by the beggar Josef, appeared. In a fierce struggle, the men succeeded in pulling the biting and scratching Luther out of the cellar and tying him up. Three guards wrapped the animal in a blanket and took him back to the menagerie, while Captain Lebrecht ordered Magdalena and Bartholomäus to follow him back to the city jail. Ostensibly, the reason was to take their testimony, but Magdalena quickly realized that Martin Lebrecht had something quite different on his mind.

“I want to stress again that nothing-I repeat, absolutely nothing -about this incident is to be made public,” the captain said, gazing sternly at Magdalena. “This order, by the way, comes not from me but from the prince-bishop himself, and I’m telling you this only to stress its urgency. His Excellency fears that the citizens of Bamberg might blame this entire werewolf story on him.”

“But it’s clear that Luther can’t kill or kidnap anyone,” Magdalena added, shaking her head. “He’s much too small for that, and then the traces of all that torture-”

“Perhaps that’s clear to you, but for many people such a strange animal would be taken for an emissary of the devil,” Lebrecht interrupted, sounding exhausted and rubbing his temples. “If you don’t want to obey the order of the bishop, then do it for me. I’ve been looking for this beast for days and am elated that the problem has been solved. It doesn’t do anyone any good if an outraged mob storms the bishop’s menagerie and opens the cages.”

Bartholomäus grinned. “But Solomon, the old bear, would be thrilled. The succulent bodies of people would be much more to his taste than the old, stinking meat scraps that I bring him when I stop by.”

“You’ll have plenty of work to do, Master Bartholomäus,” Lebrecht answered, pointing back to the entrance to the dungeon. “We have almost a dozen sinners here to be tortured soon, most of them actors from that troupe that performed yesterday evening. I hope they’ll confess quickly, so we can finally put an end to this madness.” He sighed. “But I’ve just heard that the torturing will be postponed once again, until after His Excellency the elector and bishop of Würzburg has left the city. These high and mighty gentlemen don’t know what to do, either, and we commoners have to pay for it with this chaos.”

Suddenly the captain stopped short and turned to Magdalena. “It just occurred to me that the leader of this group, a certain Malcolm, asked about you this morning. He urgently wanted to talk to you. I just put him off, but since you’re here. .” He shrugged. “If you wish, I’ll let you in to see him for a few moments. But be careful. We discovered some magical devices in his possession, and he seems to be a warlock.”

Magdalena hesitated. She and Bartholomäus should have returned home hours ago. On the other hand, she couldn’t turn down this request from Sir Malcolm. She was still convinced that he was innocent and the allegedly magical objects were only props. She could certainly find a little time for him. Besides, she was curious what Sir Malcolm might have to say to her.

“I’ll go and visit him,” she said finally. “Where can I find him?”

Lebrecht pointed down the hall. “In the last room. The guards will show you the way. But take the hangman along. Maybe the fellow will soften up a bit when he sees the executioner and we can spare ourselves a long and expensive interrogation.”