with you, except for one tiny detail. Do you see it?’
Payne, Jones, and Ulster stared at the antique boat, trying to figure out what she was alluding to. At first glance, the boat seemed to fit Ludwig’s lifestyle. It was ornate, whimsical and somehow innocent - like something out of a child’s dream. Even the carved figurehead, a naked cupid shooting his bow, seemed appropriate for a man of his ilk.
Sensing their confusion, Heidi gave them a hint to speed up their search. ‘Think about the boat in terms of the riddle. Where would a swan go on his journey home?’
A few seconds later, Payne figured it out.
56
Payne grinned with pride when he solved the riddle. ‘That’s really clever.’
‘What’s really clever?’ Jones asked.
‘The riddle. We were thinking about it all wrong.’
‘Wait! You figured it out?’
Payne nodded. ‘Yep, I figured it out.’
Jones turned towards him. ‘Well?’
‘Well, what? Figure it out for yourself.’
Jones shook his head. ‘You’re so full of shit! You don’t know the answer.’
Payne raised his right hand. ‘I swear to Ludwig, I figured it out. Like I said, we were thinking about it all wrong.’
‘In what sense?’ Ulster asked.
‘The swan isn’t the one going home. So stop thinking about nests and lakes. Think about it from a different perspective.’
Heidi nodded her approval. Until that moment, she wasn’t sure if Payne had actually worked it out. ‘Jon’s right. The “his” in the riddle does not refer to the swan. Someone else is making the journey. Focus on the words. Where would a swan go on his journey home?’
Jones was getting more and more confused by their clues. ‘Wait! What are you talking about? Who’s making the damn journey?’
Ulster broke into a wide grin. Thanks to Heidi’s hint, he had solved the riddle. ‘Lohengrin! Lohengrin is making the journey!’
Jones grimaced at the clue. ‘You mean the Swan Knight? How in the hell am I supposed to know where he’s going? I’m not a travel agent!’
Payne laughed at Jones’s frustration since he was always bragging about how much smarter he was than Payne. ‘You don’t have to know where the knight is going. That doesn’t matter. The question is, where would the swan go on the knight’s journey?’
‘Don’t ask me. I’d never take a bird on a fucking trip.’
Payne and Ulster laughed so loudly tears formed in their eyes.
Meanwhile, Heidi managed to bite her tongue and stifle her laughter. Feeling bad for Jones, she put her hands on his shoulders and gently turned him towards the boat. While standing next to him, she simplified the riddle so he could solve it. ‘Lohengrin used to travel in a cockleshell boat pulled by a swan. In that scenario, where would the swan go?’
Jones shrugged. ‘In the front?’
‘Exactly! The swan would go in the front, or else it couldn’t pull the boat.’
Jones, who was doing his best to ignore Payne and Ulster, pointed at the boat. ‘But I don’t see a swan. I see a fat-ass cupid.’
She nodded. ‘Which is the problem I mentioned earlier. Why would Ludwig build an exact replica of the Swan Knight’s boat in his private grotto but omit the most important part? He wouldn’t - unless the added feature was more important than a swan.’
Suddenly excited, Jones turned towards Payne and smacked him in the back of the head. ‘Are you listening to this?’
Payne’s laughter stopped immediately. ‘Listening to what?’
‘I figured the riddle out yesterday, and you guys made fun of me.’
Payne stared at him. ‘What are you talking about?’
Jones refreshed their memories. ‘Petr said Ludwig had hidden the secret document in his gartenhaus, and I said I had done the same thing while crossing the Afghan border. Remember?’
Payne nodded. ‘What’s your point?’
Always the showman, Jones used his hands to explain the process. ‘According to Heidi, Ludwig took his secret document and stuffed it right up cupid’s gartenhaus. Probably did it in the dark while listening to opera.’
She blushed at his description. ‘I never said that.’
‘That’s because you’re a lady. But that’s what you meant, right?’
‘Not at all! I simply think the document is inside the cherub.’
‘Yeah,’ Jones said, still pleading his case, ‘which is what I said yesterday. The secret document is inside the cupid’s - wink, wink - cherub.’
Payne rolled his eyes at Jones’s antics. His friend would do just about anything to avoid being wrong. ‘As far as I’m concerned, I don’t care who solved the riddle. The only thing that matters is what happens next. How do we retrieve the document?’
Ulster made a suggestion. ‘Why don’t