The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs by Alexander McCall Smith Page B

foreboding, as one does with any telegram received while away from home, and saw that the message came from the Patriarch. He was, he explained, in a monastery in the Apennines. For various reasons he was unable to come to Rome to collect the relics, and he wondered if von Igelfeld would be kind enough to come to the monastery to deliver them to him. The relics would be safe there, he assured him.
    Von Igelfeld showed the telegram to the Prinzels, who immediately consulted their road atlas and found the town from which it had been sent. The telegram had emanated from Camaldoli, a small town in the mountains, some four hours from Rome.
    ‘If we leave after breakfast tomorrow,’ said Prinzel, ‘we shall arrive by noon. According to our guidebook there is an inn there. We can stay there and complete our mission the following day.’
    The plans laid, they booked themselves out of the Garibaldi, on the understanding that should they wish to return after a day or two there would be no difficulty in finding them rooms. In fact, they were all ready to leave Rome. Von Igelfeld had effectively come to the end of his work in the Vatican Library and the Prinzels were running out of Baroque churches. It was time for a change of surroundings.
    The journey to Camaldoli took them high into the mountains of Umbria. From a landscape of rolling hills and comfortable villas they ventured on to mountain roads and broad views of valleys and pine forests. Although it was still sunny, the air now had a sharp edge to it, and the streams which cascaded boyishly down the hillsides were icy cold. The inn was exactly as one might expect an old-fashioned Apennine inn to be; wood-panelled, with open fireplaces in which the evening log fires had been laid. Each room, which was simply furnished, had a view either of the mountain rising above or the valley falling away below on the other side.
    The monastery, they were told, was about an hour’s walk away. It could not be reached by car, as it was tucked away on the mountainside above the town. It was too late to go there that afternoon, but they were told that unless an unexpected mist descended the following morning they could easily make the journey up and down before lunch. That night von Igelfeld slept with the reliquary under his mattress. He did not sleep well. From time to time he awoke to some sound and froze, thinking that there were schematics outside the door. But the switching on of his light dispelled such terrors, and he would eventually drift back into an uneasy sleep.
    At breakfast the next day there was another message. The Patriarch had heard of their arrival and had sent a note with a boy who was making his way down the mountainside to collect bread for the monks. In the note, he explained that he would be down in the town the next day and that they should do nothing until then. ‘Please do not leave the hotel,’ he warned. ‘Even at this late stage, there may be dangers.’
    They read and re-read the note, each more frightened than could be publicly admitted. It was decided that they would interpret the Patriarch’s warning liberally. As long as one of them was in the hotel at any one time, the others should feel free to wander about the small town or go for a slightly longer walk along the river.
    Prinzel and Ophelia went for such a walk after breakfast, leaving von Igelfeld in the hotel. He was sitting in the cramped living room, paging through old Italian magazines and listening to the chatter of the kitchen staff, when the new guests arrived. He looked up to see who they were. Germans perhaps? They were. It was Unterholzer and his wife, and, following closely behind them, their unfortunate dog, with its prosthetic wheels.
    There was a great deal of mutual surprise.
    ‘I thought you were all in Rome,’ said Unterholzer, pumping von Igelfeld’s hand enthusiastically. ‘We had no idea we would meet up with you. What a marvellous coincidence!’
    ‘Yes,’ said von Igelfeld