Transylvania's Most Wanted by M L Dunn Page B

you two go
get some dinner and then come back here and hang out in the lobby
tonight? Just keep your eyes open.”
    “Okay chief,” Dunne said starting away.
    “And no drinking,” Red shouted after him.
“Let’s just have us a walk around the hotel,” Red told Tom and
Inspector McElroy. “Mac you go check out the lobby and restaurants,
while Flynn and I take a walk outside.”
    Red and Tom went out the front of the hotel.
The Triumph has a large circular driveway which surrounds a
fountain and in the middle of the fountain is a twenty foot tall
marble statue of Perseus. Red went and stood by the fountain and
looked up from there toward the ballroom.
    “I don’t see how anyone could climb up
there,” he said. “It’s pretty far off the ground and I don’t see
any easy way to scale it, but I’ll make sure more than one
constable is stationed out front here keeping an eye on
things.”
    They walked back into the hotel then,
through the lobby and into the kitchen where a pair of constables
were just generally keeping an eye on things. Red checked in with
them and seemed satisfied with the orders they’d been given and
then he and Tom went out back of the hotel.
    The hotel grounds in back offered the guests
an Olympic-size pool and Red went and stood by the diving board and
looked up at the second floor.
    “I don’t see any way someone could access
the second floor. No windows they could climb through,” he said,
“That’s good.”
    Tom looked up at the five story hotel. It is
a magnificent stone building with colonnades. The top three stories
were guest rooms and jutting out from the third floor was a
balcony. Right then, some hotel guests were standing there enjoying
the view of the Black River. Just the other side of the river was
River Road, then some farms and orchards, and then further out was
a stretch of deep, dark woods and finally the cliffs that surround
the entire valley.
    A boardwalk led from the hotel toward the
river and Red and Tom started down it. At the end was a pier where
a few small boats were tied up. A few young couples in row boats
floated down the river as people were out enjoying Halloween
already.
    Red went and stood on the pier. He nodded as
he stood there looking back at the hotel. “I think everything has
been thought of,” he said.
    “We still don’t know Pandora’s whereabouts,”
Tom said.
    “I don’t see what she could have against the
prince. I mean the king is her brother-in-law and the prince and
princess were her husband’s blood nephew and niece right?”
    “There must have been some reason she left
there.”
    “True,” Red said. “And she sure wanted that
chest all of a sudden, but I think we’ve done all we can at this
point to protect the prince.”

Chapter 10
    Pawn to King’s
Four
     
    He was to meet Krakov across from the Hotel
Triumph at 7:40pm. It was 6:45 now and Mr. Slang had a few more
items to arrange before then as he entered the Hotel Triumph and
walked up to the front desk.
    “My name is Browning,” he told the clerk
“I’m in room 324, may I have my key?”
    While the clerk turned to retrieve the key,
Mr. Slang looked around the lobby. Everywhere people moved about,
some in costume even, every leather chair and couch in the grand
lobby was occupied and many waiters were busy delivering drinks to
guests playing cards or waiting to be called to have dinner in one
of the fancy restaurants inside the hotel. There was much laughter,
conversation and music as a band was playing inside the tavern. Mr.
Slang’s eyes moved to the pair of uniformed constables at the
bottom of the staircase.
    He watched as a vampire couple presented
their ball tickets. The two constables patted them down thoroughly
and not finding anything, the couple was allowed to start up the
staircase.
    “Your key Mr. Browning,” the clerk said.
    Mr. Slang turned around and accepted the
key, picked up the suitcase and hat box he was carrying, and then
headed toward the