Ten

 

MY SLEEPLESS NIGHTS WERE BEGINNING TO catch up with me. I didn’t wake till almost noon next day. I had dreamed that some faceless intruder was tampering with the little chest, but when I stretched out an anxious hand, I found it on the nightstand where I had left it. That had been a stupid place to put it, but I had been too tired the night before to think straight. I tucked the chest into a corner of my suitcase and locked the case.

I didn’t see Tony till lunchtime. I found him alone at our table. George had gone off to Creglingen to see the altar there. Tony seemed vexed by this. His mood was not improved when the Gräfin came in, a royal procession of one, and joined us at our table. I wondered what she was after this time.

“I wished to tell you again how sorry I am that your vacation has been so unpleasant,” she began. “It is unaccountable. Never, until you came, have we known such violence.”

“Is that right,” I said. “You surprise me. I would think a place like this had seen a lot of violence over the years.”

“Many years ago, perhaps. But this is ancient history now. There has not been a prisoner in those horrid cells since sixteen hundred and thirty. And on that occasion Graf Otto was severely reprimanded by the emperor.”

I exchanged glances with Tony. Damn her, the woman knew every move we had made.

“You are well acquainted with the family history for someone who is not a Drachenstein by birth,” I said.

“I was forced to amuse myself. To be buried in this provincial spot after Prague, Vienna, Budapest was not easy for a spoiled young girl. My husband loved his home and would not leave it. I painted, embroidered, studied music; but these soon pall.”

“Especially when one has mastered them,” Tony said. It was a reluctant compliment, and not an empty one. I too was sure the old lady could master anything she attempted. She acknowledged his courtesy with a chilly smile.

“So then I turned to a study of genealogy. As a professor of history, you will understand its fascination. Are you making progress with your research into the Peasants’ Revolt, and Count Burckhardt?”

“I’ve been to the town archives.” Tony eyed the woman with what he obviously thought was a look of fiendish cunning. “I imagine you’ve used them too.”

“Oh, yes. I know the story of the Countess Konstanze’s death.”

“Does your niece know it?” I asked.

“She does not. She is already sufficiently unbalanced on that subject.”

Tony was turning red—a sure sign that he was about to lose his temper.

“Irma must know the story,” he said. “How else can you account for what she said in the séance?”

“Must I account for it? ‘There are more things in heaven and earth,’ as your poet so cleverly puts it.”

“Rrrr,” said Tony. He turned the growl into a cough. “I would be more willing to admit the supernatural if there were some quasilogical reason for a haunting. Even a specter has to have a raison d’être. You surely know the classic explanations—unexpiated crime, for instance.”

“How clever!” exclaimed the Gräfin. “But what of innocence abused and unavenged? Konstanze was falsely accused—”

“Naturally.”

“Yes, we moderns know the folly of the witchcraft persecution. Yet her fate was not surprising. She was a learned woman who had been educated by a family priest in her home near Granada. His lessons apparently gave her ideas which were, in that day, dangerously heretical. It is said that she was in communication with Trithemius, at Würzburg.”

“That must be apocryphal,” Tony said. “Trithemius died in fifteen hundred sixteen. But that doesn’t account for the lady’s restlessness. She can’t be worried about her reputation; we know she was innocent. And I’m afraid we’re in no position to punish her persecutors, or give her Christian burial.”

He looked at his hostess with the candid wide-eyed stare that had brought out the motherly instinct in many middle-aged ladies. I could have told him it wouldn’t work; the Gräfin had about as much maternal instinct as a guppy. She smiled gently.

“It is very mysterious.”

After she left, Tony and I discussed the interview. We agreed on one thing: the Gräfin almost certainly knew about the shrine. One of the most common motives assigned to restless spirits is their desire to tell their descendants where the gold is buried. The Gräfin must have been familiar with the whole corpus of supernatural literature; her failure to mention this point was significant.

“She knows,” I summarized, “but she doesn’t know where. If she had the shrine, she’d throw us out of here. She has every excuse; our snooping has been outrageous.”

“I don’t know.” A visit from the Gräfin always depressed Tony. “She might let us stay on just for the fun of watching us stumble around. We must look pretty ridiculous, and her sense of humor is decidedly macabre.”

“She couldn’t risk it,” I argued. “If we find the shrine, we’ll turn it over to Irma—unless Elfrida can lift the loot before we make the discovery public. She’d have to silence us, in that case. Why should she take such a chance unless she had to? I’m sure she hasn’t found it. Not yet.”

Tony looked more cheerful.

“I guess you’re right. Shall we have a look at Burckhardt’s room?”

“Right now?”

“Right now. No more roaming by night. That’s when all the kookie things happen.”

“Okay,” I said agreeably.

But when we reconnoitered, we found Schmidt’s room occupied by a buxom chambermaid who was scrubbing the floor. It was clear that the process would take some time, so we retreated. I tried to console Tony—not, of course, by telling him I had already searched the room—but by pointing out an unpalatable fact that had just occurred to me.

If the Gräfin knew about the shrine, she had certainly searched Burckhardt’s room and all the other obvious hiding places. She wasn’t stupid; if she had not located the shrine, it must be concealed in a more obscure spot than we had anticipated.

The idea didn’t cheer Tony much. It didn’t cheer me either. My reasoning was not invalidated by the fact that I had found the secret drawer. Its contents held no useful clue, and the Gräfin would have no reason to remove them. Perhaps the scraps of parchment and the mutilated bag had not even belonged to Burckhardt, but to one of his many successors or predecessors.

Since there was nothing else to do, we went sightseeing. By Tony’s definition, this activity includes frequent stops for liquid refreshment. The drinking places of Rothenburg are all charming; you can guzzle beer or drink tea in dark, raftered rooms or sit in a cobblestoned square admiring the view. We tried both, and since we couldn’t decide which ambience was preferable, we tried both several times.

I suppose it was inevitable that we should end up at the Jakobskirche. With our chance of finding the shrine seeming even more remote, we were just torturing ourselves by visiting Riemenschneider’s altar, but we couldn’t keep away.

It is so beautiful that all the adjectives critics and art historians use seem inadequate. The dark wood glows. The bodies breathe, and are just about to move. The central carving depicts the Last Supper, at the moment when Christ makes the statement: “One of you shall betray me.” You can see the effect of the words on every face.

I glanced at Tony, who was standing beside me. He never looked at me that way.

“Come on” I said gruffly. “Let’s have another beer.”

We had several more beers before we went back to the Schloss, but the beverage didn’t have its usual effect on our spirits. I knew why I felt so uneasy. For the last thirty-six hours, there had been a strange absence of activity—not even a séance to disturb the peace. It was as if something were waiting for us to move. But it could not wait indefinitely.

I went to bed early that night. Tony gave me the usual lecture about staying in my room, but even that didn’t stimulate me. I had no plans for the night. I was, to use a classic phrase, baffled.

Once in bed I found I couldn’t sleep, or concentrate on the novel I had brought for light reading. The room was very quiet. The single lamp glimmered lonesomely in its restricted circle of light. But as I lay on the bed, smoking one cigarette after another in reckless defiance of every health regulation, I had never felt less sleepy. The sense of something waiting, a mounting pressure against my mind, grew steadily.

From where I lay I could hardly avoid staring straight into the painted eyes of the face that had become an unreasonable obsession. With just a little imagination I could sense a slender presence, just beyond the bounds of ordinary sight and sound, pressing on an invisible door, trying to come through, to tell me something….

I sat upright with a profane remark. Going to my suitcase, I took out the crumbling wooden box. Maybe if I tried some logical research on the fragments of parchment, it would brush the cobwebs from my brain.

But the scraps were hopeless. Only a word here and there was legible, and they were common words such as “have” and “we.” I couldn’t even find a name.

Absently I reached into my pocket and took out the small golden frog. I sat staring into the empty pop eyes as if they held some knowledge. And as I stared, the memory stirred again—the dark memory, like fragments of a childish nightmare….

My finger had dipped into the peculiar gray-black powder in the box. It was an odd substance, dusty but not dust. It was too coarse for dust, almost crystalline….

The monstrous idea struck me like a fist in the stomach. For several seconds I sat gaping down into the box, my finger buried to the end of the nail in the gray powder. When I realized what I was doing, I jerked it out and wiped it against the skirt of my robe.

“It’s impossible,” I mumbled.

But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. It distressed me horribly. It made me sick at my stomach. True or false, the bizarre theory should not have had such a strong emotional impact. It was only a side issue in any case, one which could never be settled.

That last thought was pure wishful thinking. Even as it formed in my mind, my inconvenient memory produced a paragraph from a book I had once read.

I must have stood by my door for almost five minutes, reaching for the handle and pulling my hand back, reaching, pulling back…It was a horrible idea. It was crazy.

I knew I would never sleep soundly again unless I found out.

The hour was later than I had realized. Tony was sound asleep. I beat on his door for quite a while before he answered.

“Come on,” I said. “The game’s afoot.”

I didn’t wait for him. The next victim was Blankenhagen. It took almost as long to rouse him. By the time he opened his door, Tony had joined me, which was just as well; Blankenhagen probably wouldn’t have let me in without a chaperon. A chaperon for him, that is.

They were both furious. After I had talked a while they were still furious—but they were interested. I asked the doctor a question. His face was a sight to behold.

“Heiliger Gott—I do not know. I suppose it is possible….”

“That’s what I thought. Then…” I spoke softly but urgently. Several times Blankenhagen’s mouth opened as if to interrupt, but he didn’t. I think he was struck dumb. Tony kept making strange strangling sounds.

“But,” said Blankenhagen when I had finished. “But — but — now, at this hour?”

“It has to be now. I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve got to find out. If I could do it alone, I would.”

Blankenhagen sat twitching like a hen on a clutch of radioactive eggs. Finally his narrowed blue eyes moved to meet Tony’s. They both turned to stare at me.

“I am insane,” muttered Blankenhagen. “You understand, I have not the equipment, even if—”

“I know. But the first part has to be done now.”

“Allow me then to assume my trousers.”

Tony and I went out into the hall while the trousers were assumed. He was wide-awake now and so torn between anger and fascination that he was barely coherent.

“Why didn’t you — why did you — I ought to kill you, you — you woman!”

“I woke you up,” I pointed out. “I needn’t have done that. I’m sorry I did, if you’re just going to stand around and yell.”

Blankenhagen emerged, with trousers, just in time to prevent an undignified scuffle. I led the way down the corridor, stopping in my room to get a coat and some other equipment. Our next stop was at the carpenters’ shack in the south wing. Then we proceeded to the crypt.

As the work went on, I was convinced of one thing. This particular tomb had not been opened before. It was doubtful whether we could open it now. The mortar chipped away easily, but the stone slab on which lay the carved effigy of Count Burckhardt von und zu Drachenstein behaved as if it were reluctant to leave its place. But it was a couple of inches thinner than the first slab we had raised, and this time nobody sat on the floor and watched. Finally we had the slab propped back, and Blankenhagen climbed down into the vault.

The coffin was metal. Even after Blankenhagen had shot the bolts that held the lid in place, he had to score through the corroded joint. I had anticipated this possibility; our tools included a couple of metal files. When Blankenhagen’s hands gave out, Tony took his place in the vault. I followed Tony, ignoring male chauvinist complaints from Blankenhagen. (There were no complaints from Tony, but not because he wasn’t a chauvinist.) To reach the upper part of the coffin I had to sprawl across the lid, and some of my wilder fancies can be imagined. I got the lid loose at last. My hands were raw and so were my nerves.

Lying on the floor of the crypt, Blankenhagen reached down into the vault and grasped one of the coffin handles. Tony took the other. They heaved in unison; and we found ourselves looking down on the face of Graf Burckhardt, who had departed this life in the year of our Lord 1525.

Thanks to a well-sealed coffin, the Count’s body was fantastically preserved, almost mummified. The features were not nice to look at. They had an expression of twisted agony which was the effect (I kept telling myself) of the shrinkage of the facial tissue. The leathery lips were drawn back over yellowed teeth that looked predatory and vicious in spite of the long moustache that half veiled them. The body wore a gaudy court costume which had suffered more from the ravages of time than the flesh itself. The gold lace was black, and the velvet tore under Blankenhagen’s careful hands.

The doctor appeared quite composed. After medical-school dissections, this probably looked like a relatively tidy specimen. He busied himself with the body. I found, to my disgust, that I didn’t want to watch.

“We are all mad,” he said finally. “But if madness has any method, I have what I require. Shall we…”

Tony helped him with the coffin lid. They got it, and the slab, back into place, though not without effort. Blankenhagen tucked his specimens into an envelope.

“I wonder under what law they will imprison me,” he muttered, as we climbed the stairs into the chapel.

“If you get in trouble, we’ll say we forced you,” I said. “But I doubt if the Gräfin will make an issue of this.”

Blankenhagen stopped under a trumpeting angel and looked at me.

“Professorin…”

I tried not to look pleased. I love that title.

“I am only flesh and blood,” said Blankenhagen, thumping theatrically at his chest. “I am wild with curiosity. You must tell me the truth.”

“I don’t know the whole truth myself. How soon can you give me some test results?”

“If I give you these, you will in turn give me your confidence?”

“Well—okay. That’s fair enough. I—what was that?”

Tony whirled around.

“Nothing. What did you see?”

“I could have sworn something moved behind the altar.”

“Nerves,” Tony said. “Mine are shot to hell.”

Blankenhagen thought for a moment and then said decisively,

“Also gut. I will tell you results tonight. Come, we go to the town.”

“Not the police,” I said apprehensively.

“Ha, ha,” said Blankenhagen, without humor. “I should go to the police with this story? No. I know slightly a man in Rothenburg, a chemist with whom I attended university. He has the equipment we need.”

Blankenhagen’s friend lived in a modern area outside the walls, on a street paralleling the Roedertor. He was a youngish man with quizzical eyebrows and nocturnal habits; there was a light in the upper window of the house, and our soft knock was promptly answered.

Blankenhagen’s explanation of our errand was decidedly sketchy, but it was accepted with no more than a lift of the chemist’s eccentric eyebrows. He ended up doing the experiment himself, after watching Blankenhagen fumble with his equipment for a while. He didn’t even look surprised when the significant dark stain appeared in the test tube.

“You expected this?” he asked amiably.

Blankenhagen’s eyes were popping.

“Amazing,” he muttered. “Expected? It is what she expected.”

Tony was staring at me as if I’d grown an extra head.

“I didn’t think of it,” he mumbled, as if denying an accusation of crime. “Only a real weirdo would think of a thing like this.”

To tell the truth, I was pretty amazed myself. But in view of the general consternation it behooved me to be calm. I thanked the chemist, apologized for our intrusion at such an hour, and led my limp male acquaintances to the door.

The chemist waved my apologies aside.

“I do not ask questions. I do not ask if it is the Central Intelligence, the Federal Bureau, or perhaps Interpol. You will come for a beer, when it is over, and tell me what you can?”

“I may not be allowed to tell,” I said. “You understand?”

“Yes, yes. Foolish, this secrecy; but I know how they are, these people.”

I was tempted to linger; it was rather flattering to be taken for a lady spy.

The streets of the old town were silent under the moon. Shadows clung to the deep doorways and gathered under the eaves. I was in no mood to appreciate it. The past had come alive, but it had not brought the scent of romance or high adventure, only a dirty, ugly tragedy that would not die.

Nobody said anything till we got back to the Schloss. I was heading blindly for the door that would eventually lead to my beautiful bed when two hands caught at my arm. The hands belonged to two different people, but they moved with a unanimity that verged on ESP.

“Sit here,” said Tony, indicating a bench in the garden.

“Talk,” said Blankenhagen.

“I suppose it can’t wait till morning?” I yawned.

“I can’t wait till morning.” Tony sat me down and took his seat beside me. Blankenhagen sat down on my other side. I hunched my shoulders, feeling closed in.

“Also dann, sprich.” Blankenhagen was too absorbed to realize he had abandoned the formal third-person plural and was addressing me with the familiar form. “How did you know that a man dead for half a millennium had been poisoned with arsenic?”

I started out with a complete account of the story of the shrine, for the doctor’s benefit. I was pretty sure by then of Blankenhagen’s innocence, but it didn’t really matter; if he was guilty, he already knew, and if he didn’t know, it would not hurt to tell him.

Blankenhagen listened without comment. He didn’t have to say anything; his reactions were mirrored in his face, which I could see fairly well in the moonlight. I stressed the fact that we had no leanings toward larceny. If and when we found the shrine, we intended to hand it over to Irma.

“But we got distracted,” I went on. “From the first day I walked into this place, I kept losing track of the shrine in my preoccupation with the people who had been involved with it back in fifteen hundred twenty-five. Irma’s uncanny resemblance to her ancestress was one reason for my interest, but it was more than that; as time went on, these people came alive for me. Konstanze and her tragic death; the steward, who had been foully murdered; and the count, Burckhardt.

“He was no worse than many of his peers, but he was not an appealing character. Nothing we learned about him made him any more attractive—his defense of the autocratic bishop, his participation in the torture of Riemenschneider, his murder of the steward. All these things were perfectly in character—as we saw his character. I was prejudiced against him from the start, and my prejudice kept me from seeing the truth.”

Tony’s face relaxed into a half smile as he listened. I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that I was also prejudiced against Burckhardt because he was a lousy male. Konstanze was a woman—intelligent, repressed, and persecuted. I would automatically take her part.

It was quite true. But there was no need to say so.

“I was also biased,” I continued, “by our modern view of the witchcraft persecution. We know witchcraft was nonsense. The countess’s trial was a repetition of the classic features—the curse, the evil eye, the Black Man who came on cloven hooves to lie with his mistress. Bilge, all of it—familiar from dozens of historical cases, but still bilge.

“But in one sense the witchcraft trials were not nonsense. Many of the victims believed. Most were innocent, forced into false confessions by the agony of the torture. But enough of them went to the stake swearing eternal loyalty to their Dark Master to assure us that the belief was genuine. Witches and warlocks really did try to render cattle and people infertile, cause storms, kill and curse. They failed to do evil, not through lack of intent, but through lack of power. And when supernatural means proved ineffective, they might turn to practical methods. One element in the witchcraft cult was the use of poison.”

Tony’s breath caught.

“One of the oldest and most commonly used poisons is arsenic,” I went on. “It’s mentioned by Roman authors, if I remember correctly, and in the thirteenth century the properties of arsenicum were discussed by no other than Albertus Magnus. We found a copy of his well-known work in the library. I think I know now who owned it….”

I turned to Blankenhagen.

“As a doctor, you know that there were no scientific tests for poison till the mid-nineteenth century. Maybe one of the reasons why arsenic was so popular is that the symptoms of arsenic poisoning are identical with those of certain gastrointestinal disorders. I read that in the same book that told me arsenic remains in the body—in the roots of the hair and under the nails—for an indefinite period of time. That’s why I thought we might have luck tonight.”

“I have never heard of it after so long a time,” said Blankenhagen. “But perhaps no one ever tried. Murders several hundred years old are not generally of interest to criminologists.”

“Get on with it,” said Tony, nudging me.

“The other night I just happened to find myself in Burckhardt’s room.”

“I knew it,” said Tony. “I knew it…. We’ll discuss that later. I suppose you tripped and fell and accidentally, not meaning to do any real searching, discovered a secret panel?”

“I found a box,” I said haughtily, “which contained a quantity of grayish powder. I didn’t think of arsenic at first. The color put me off, for one thing. I think of arsenic, when I think of it at all, as white. Either the stuff was contaminated by dust and dirt, or it had been colored, as commercial arsenic is, to keep people from mistaking it for salt or sugar.”

Blankenhagen interrupted.

“What you found may not be arsenious oxide, the ‘white arsenic’ of popular fiction. Elementary arsenic is gray, metallic in structure. Upon exposure to air it takes on a darker color and loses its luster.”

“You can look at it later, if you want to. It’s not important; most forms of arsenic are intensely toxic. It was not the color of the powder that alerted me. It was something else altogether.

“The hidden drawer where I found the box was littered with the bones of dead rats. They had gnawed their way into the box, and—curiosity killed a rat. Defunct rodents aren’t unusual, but it was extraordinary that so many of them should have chosen the hidden drawer as a place in which to die.

“Dead rats…rat poison…arsenic…the witchcraft-poison complex. I guess that was the way my thoughts ran, but I wasn’t aware of the progression; it just seemed to hit me all at once. And with that came another thought. What if we had been looking at the tragedy of Count Burckhardt and his wife backward? What if he was not the villain but the victim of a plot?

“My first reaction was a violent negative. But the more I thought about this new theory, the more things it explained. My assumption of Konstanze’s innocence wasn’t logical. It was based on a number of emotional prejudices which I needn’t go into in detail.”

Tony snickered. I took the golden amulet from my pocket and handed it to him.

“You weren’t exactly logical about Konstanze either,” I reminded him. “And your emotional prejudices in her favor aren’t hard to understand. Take a look at this. I found it in the box with the arsenic. Then I remembered something you told me when we were discussing the witchcraft cult one time. I think it was the Burning Court affair, under Louis the Fourteenth, that set you off.”

“Damn my big mouth all to hell and back,” said Tony calmly. He handed the image to Blankenhagen, who was practically sprawled across my lap in his anxiety to see. “Probably of Moorish workmanship—possibly even older. I’ve seen something like it in an ethnological museum. So, when you saw the little frog god, you remembered the theory that the witchcraft cult was a survival of the old prehistoric nature religion.”

“Right.”

“Ingenious,” said Blankenhagen. “But there is nothing in the amulet to suggest the countess rather than the count. You found it in his room. Why should he not be the one who worshipped devils?”

“Where I found it is irrelevant. The countess had the whole castle at her disposal after her husband died, and it would be smart of her to conceal such damning evidence outside her own room. I thought of her, instead of him, because of the suggestion of Eastern design. She came from Spain. The Moors were there for a long time, and cultural traits linger on. That’s weak, though. You’re overlooking the conclusive point.”

“Bitte?”

“It was the count who died,” said Tony.

“Ach, so.” Blankenhagen grinned and rubbed his chin. “Yes, the symptoms described could well have been those of arsenic poisoning. In fact”—he looked startled—“we know now that they were. But the motive. Why did she kill him?”

“Maybe he found out about her unorthodox religious beliefs,” Tony offered. “In that day and age it would have been a legitimate motive for murder—although Burckhardt would have called it execution. There’s no reason to suppose he wasn’t a proper son of Holy Church; our theories about his unwillingness to give up the shrine were based on nothing except the necessity to account for behavior which was otherwise unaccountable.”

“That’s right,” I said. “But I suspect Burckhardt had a more personal reason for being annoyed with his wife.

“Remember the maid’s hysterical story about the Black Man? It sounded like pure fantasy; the records of witchcraft trials are full of similar lies. But stripped of its supernatural interpretations, what did that story amount to? The maid saw a man, cloaked and booted, in traveling costume, sneak into the castle in the dead of night and embrace the countess.”

“Booted?” said Blankenhagen dubiously.

“The wench heard his spurs clicking on the floor. That was what suggested cloven hooves.”

“Du Gott allmächtig!”

“In short, what the maid gave us was a description of a midnight rendezvous. The count, as we know, was still in Würzburg. So the Black Man must have been—”

“Nicolas the steward,” said Tony, with a groan. “Oh, my big swollen empty head!”

“It had to be Nicolas. The Black Man was wearing traveling costume, hence he was not living in the Schloss. Yet he must have been familiar with the place or he couldn’t have entered it and reached the countess’s room without being challenged. Who but the trusted steward would know the secret passages and hidden stairs? And—this is the most ironic thing, I think—Konstanze couldn’t defend herself from the witchcraft charge by telling the truth. Adultery was a serious crime in those days. And there was the little matter of the arsenic.”

“My God, yes,” said Tony soberly. “She had to kill Burckhardt; sooner or later he was bound to learn about her and Nicolas. He must have found out the night he killed the steward. Then he went after his cheating wife…. She was trapped, all right. By the time she came to trial, maybe she didn’t care any longer. Her lover was dead….”

“You’re a hopeless romantic,” I said scathingly. “I can’t see our witch-poisoner-murderess wasting away for any man. The witches took drugs, you know; that was how they got their hallucinations of satanic orgies and visits to the Sabbath. The kindest thing you can hope for Konstanze is that she died believing—that in the fire she felt the embrace of her true lord and lover.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” I added, clutching at Tony. “I keep hearing things out there in the dark, rustling the bushes. Let’s go in.”

“But wait,” said Blankenhagen methodically. “We have not finished our deductions. You have solved a mystery which no one so much as suspected for hundreds of years; but you have not yet solved the mystery that brought you here. This story is fascinating, but I fail to see its usefulness.”

I wished he hadn’t raised the point. Because, of course, our chemical experiment had not only solved a crime, it had solved the secondary mystery too. Now I knew what had happened to the shrine. There was only one place where it could be. And Tony, whose mind works the way mine does, saw the truth at once.

“I’ll be damned,” he exclaimed, bounding to his feet.

He almost was. Something streaked past his arm, chunked into the tree behind him, and hung there quivering.

I snatched at it—Count Burckhardt’s dagger, which I had last seen lying among the dried ribs of the steward.

Tony was staring incredulously at his left arm. His shirt was slit as neatly as if by scissors, and a thin dark trickle darkened the white cloth.

“That son of a gun tried to kill me!”

“What an ungrateful ghost,” I said. “Here we are trying to clear Burckhardt’s name, and he throws knives at us. He’s a practical ghost, though. He must have sharpened this thing recently.”

“Burckhardt, hell. Stop trying to distract me with spooks, Vicky, I’m already way ahead of you. Blankenhagen was in the crypt alone with the bones and the dagger for a good ten minutes. Hey—”

Blankenhagen was already gone, presumably in pursuit of the knife thrower. With a few well-chosen words, Tony took off after him.

I followed. I wasn’t anxious to stay in that haunted garden alone. As I ran, I wasn’t sure whom Tony was chasing; he surely didn’t think the doctor could throw a knife like a boomerang. Too many people had had access to the steward’s belongings—including the cloaked grave robber.

I reached the Hall in time to see Tony disappearing through the door which led to the cellars. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I was relieved to see that Tony had had sense enough to bring a flashlight. By its glow I found the two men in the kitchen. Tony had apparently decided to keep his suspicions of the doctor to himself. The conference sounded reasonably amicable.

“I lost him when he descended here,” said Blankenhagen. “Where do these doors go? I do not know this place.”

“That’s a dead end.” Tony indicated the passage leading to the dungeons. “I assume our quarry knows that; he knows this place too damned well. He must have gone the other way.”

The trail was easy to follow—too easy, though this didn’t occur to us till it was too late. One of the storeroom doors swung invitingly open. The room was empty. The only break in the walls was a ventilation slit too narrow to permit egress of a lizard, much less a man.

Tony swept the floor with his flashlight. One of the paving stones was out of line by a full inch.

Tony handed me the flashlight. Dropping to his knees, he tried to get the fingers of his right hand into the crack between the stones. Meanwhile, Blankenhagen picked up the crowbar which was lying conveniently in a corner and inserted its edge into the crack. He grunted as he put his weight behind the tool; and the stone flew up with a jaunty swing that threw Blankenhagen over on his back and almost decapitated Tony.

Balanced,” said Tony, feeling his chin as if surprised to find it still there.

“Wait,” said Blankenhagen, getting to his feet as Tony prepared to lower himself into the hole. “Should we not go for help?”

“And let this guy get away?” Tony was getting suspicious again. “You go first, Doc.”

Blankenhagen shrugged, but complied. There was a streak of romanticism under that stolid exterior of his; by now he was as reluctant to abandon the chase as Tony was.

Tony lay flat, shining his light down into the hole.

“Vorsicht!” The doctor’s voice came hollowly up. “Careful when you descend. The stairs are of wood, and shaky.”

Tony turned around and prepared to follow. He glanced up at me. I could see his face; it wore a broad grin.

“Go call the cops, Vicky,” he said, and started down.

From where I stand now—and even from where I was to be standing an hour later—I can see that this might have been the smartest thing to do. But at the time I had a number of objections to the idea. I was pretty sure of Blankenhagen, but I wasn’t ready to risk Tony’s neck on anything less than a hundred-percent certainty. If I left the two of them alone down there…

Also, Tony had the light. I was still thinking in percentages, and there was a fifty-fifty chance that the clearly defined trail was a decoy. I had no desire to meet the knifethrower in the dark cellar as I groped my way toward my room. I squatted by the opening, trying to make up my mind what to do.

I didn’t have to make the choice. Matters were taken out of my hands.

Blankenhagen had reached the bottom of the shaft. I could hear him cautioning Tony, who was partway down. Tony had the light directed downward so he could pick his footing on the rickety stairs. It was very dark up there where I was. It got even darker. Somebody dropped a sack over my head, picked me up and—while I was still stiff with surprise—dropped me down the shaft feet first like a clothespin into a bottle.

I fell on Tony and swept him neatly off the staircase, which promptly collapsed. Blankenhagen, down below, had no chance to move. We both landed on him, as did the splintered pieces of the staircase. Oddly enough, I remember the noise as being the most hellish thing of all. In that narrow space the echoes of crashes and screams and yells and thuds were magnified into a roaring chaos.

Being on top, I came out best. I didn’t even lose consciousness. I had my lumps; a strategic section of my anatomy had bounced off the wall as I fell, and my whole lower surface was full of splinters. But compared to the two men I was in good shape.

They were both out cold. I discovered that by feel; for all practical purposes I was blind. Tony’s flashlight had gone with him. There was no light from up above. Nor was there any flow of air.

That realization stopped my humanitarian activities for a second or two. I should have suspected it; if someone had put me down the shaft it was because he wanted me there, and naturally he would make sure I stayed there. The stone up above had been closed and, no doubt, secured in some fashion.

I went back to my fumbling. There were arms and legs all over the place, and at first I couldn’t figure out which belonged to whom. Then I found Tony’s face, which my hands know as well as my eyes. He mumbled something when I touched his cheek. I was so relieved I might have cried, if I’d had the time. Instead I located his pockets and found what I was hoping to find—two packets of matches.

I lit one of the matches. While it burned I made a quick examination.

Tony was semiconscious and cursing. That was good. Blankenhagen, on whose chest Tony’s head was pillowed, had a broken arm. It wasn’t hard to diagnose, since I could see the bone sticking out. Both men were dirty and torn and bloody.

The match burned my fingers. I blew it out and went on examining in the dark. Blankenhagen’s face was a bloody mess, but after running my fingers over his head I decided his skull had not been fractured.

At that point Tony woke up completely, and we had a rather emotional session for a minute or two. I lit another match, then, while Tony confirmed my diagnosis of the doctor’s injuries.

“I don’t dare move him,” he said, as the match flickered out. “Something else could be broken.”

“See if we can wake him up. Maybe he can diagnose himself.”

We worked over the unconscious man until I started to get scared. Finally he stirred.

“Don’t move yet, Blankenhagen,” Tony ordered. “You’ve got a broken arm and God knows what else. Can you hear me?”

“Yes…. What has happened?”

“The stairs gave way,” I said. “And the trapdoor above is closed.”

The silence that followed this cheering summary was so prolonged that I began to think I had overestimated Blankenhagen’s stamina and shocked him back into unconsciousness. Finally he said, in a gloomy voice,

“You are here too? I wish you were not.”

“So do I.”

“I will see what is wrong with me,” said Blankenhagen.

“I’m glad somebody around here is a doctor,” said Tony.

I offered to light a match, but Blankenhagen refused. Maybe he didn’t want to see the damage. I didn’t enjoy the following minutes; I could tell by Blankenhagen’s grunts and gasps whenever he found a new bruise.

“Nothing has been broken,” he announced, “except the arm. You cannot go for help?”

“I don’t know,” Tony said. “We haven’t explored yet. But I have a feeling the guy who tricked us in here isn’t going to leave an exit open.”

“Perhaps you would care to look?” Blankenhagen suggested. I didn’t blame him for sounding sarcastic.

“Okay,” said Tony meekly. He stood up; and then sat down again, clutching his head.

“I am sorry,” said Blankenhagen, feeling his weight descend. “I did not think…You are injured. If you will come here, I will try—”

“Oh, don’t be so damned noble,” said Tony grumpily. “I’m all right. I just had a thought. Maybe some of this wood might make a torch. We’d have an easier time with a little light.”

“Without oil or petrol,” Blankenhagen began.

I interrupted him with a hoot of triumph.

“I have some oil. I got it so I could oil the locks.”

I fished the almost forgotten can out of my coat pocket and gave it to Tony. He wasted several matches experimenting, but finally a chunk of wood consented to burn.

We looked first at the shaft. One look was enough.

A few stairs remained, at the very top. The lowest tread was five feet above my up-stretched fingertips.

Tony turned the light into the passage that led out of the shaft. It was faced with stones cemented together. We could see only a few feet of its length; it turned a corner not far from us.

Tony started down the passage, but he had taken only a couple of steps when he swayed dizzily and fell back against the wall. I grabbed the torch from his hand.

“Sit down till you get your strength back,” I said. “I’ll have a look.”

He didn’t argue. He looked sick.

The roof of the passage was so low that I had to stoop. I went on around the corner, but I didn’t go far. Just behind the bend, the passage ended. It was not the original end. A mass of loose stones and dirt had spilled down from the roof, filling the tunnel from top to bottom. To me, it looked like a very recent cave-in.

 

Eleven

 

I HAD NOT EXPECTED TO FIND AN OPEN DOOR with an EXIT sign beside it; but I hadn’t anticipated anything quite as bad as this. My hands were shaking as I wedged my torch into a crack in the wall and started digging. It didn’t take long to verify my pessimistic suspicions. The dirt and rubble continued for some distance. For all I knew, the rest of the tunnel might be filled. And I was here, in a neat airless trap, with two injured men.

I gave vent to my emotions briefly, but I did it without noise. Then I wiped my face on the sleeve of my coat and went back to the wounded.

Tony, squatting with his back up against the tunnel wall, looked a little better. I had put on a cheery smile, but it didn’t deceive him.

“No way out?”

“It doesn’t look good.” I handed him the torch and knelt down by Blankenhagen, whose eyes were closed. “Doctor. If you can tell me what to do as I go along, I’ll try to fix your arm.”

“I will tell you first,” said Blankenhagen, without opening his eyes. “I am about to lose consciousness.”

And he did, too, as soon as I put my clumsy paws on his arm. Tony offered to take over, but I clamped my lower lip between my teeth and elbowed him away. Like mine, his knowledge was purely theoretical, derived from far-off memories of Scout manuals and Red Cross training. I did the job, with strips torn from my blouse and pieces of wood from the stairs; but I was covered with perspiration by the time I was through.

After a while, Blankenhagen opened one eye.

“Finished?” he inquired warily.

“Finished is right.” I was sitting on the floor next to Tony.

“Then speak,” ordered Blankenhagen, prone but positive. “What is our position?”

I told them. Neither of them liked it very much.

“Seems to me,” I concluded, “that our best bet is to try to dig through the earth fall. Even if I could climb the shaft—which I can’t—we can be sure that trapdoor is closed for good. The stone is a foot thick, and it’s down in the cellars, where no one ever comes. But if the dirt is just a localized fall, we can dig through it. Maybe.”

“I can climb the shaft,” said Tony, squinting up at it. “It’s a simple chimney job. But I agree with your other conclusions. I could hang up there yelling till I sprouted mushrooms before anyone would hear me.”

“I didn’t know you could climb,” I said, distracted.

“I have many talents you don’t know about.” Tony tried to leer, but didn’t do a very good job of it. “How far underground do you suppose we are?”

“You mean we might try to dig out through the ceiling of the tunnel? We must be twenty or thirty feet down; the land rises behind the Schloss. What would we do with the dirt? There’s enough of it out there in the tunnel right now.”

“But,” said Blankenhagen, “if you dig through, and find the exit at the other end is also blocked?”

“Let’s not cross bridges till we come to them,” I said. “However, I don’t think our friend would have created a landslide if the exit at the other end were easy to close.”

“It was deliberate, you believe?”

“The dirt hasn’t been there long. And the rest of this is deliberate. I can assure you I didn’t dive feet first down that shaft on purpose. I’ll bet the stairs were partially sawed through, too.”

“Someone flung you down?” exclaimed Blankenhagen, as if the idea had just occurred to him. “You saw who it was?”

“I saw nothing. I still don’t know who has been behind all the skulduggery. I suspect two people—”

“One of whom,” said Tony, “could be you, Blankenhagen.”

Blankenhagen surveyed his battered form in meaningful silence. Tony shook his head.

“That part could have been an accident—the stairs, I mean. You could have rapped me on the head and left me here if the stairs hadn’t collapsed.”

“That’s silly,” I said impatiently. “My money is still on the countess and Miss Burton. Good Lord, they are the only two left. And this argument isn’t getting us out of here.”

“And,” said Blankenhagen, “we may not have so much time.”

He didn’t have that much time. My surgery had been crude, and we had no antiseptic. A couple of days down here in his condition and he wouldn’t care about getting out. But that was not what he meant. The air in the tunnel had always been close and dry. Now, it seemed to me, it was already perceptibly warmer.

With Tony’s help, Blankenhagen managed to drag himself along the tunnel to where the dirt blocked the way, but when he tried to dig he collapsed.

“I told you so,” I said, helping Tony drag him out of the way. “I’ll start digging. I am, if you will pardon the expression, in better shape than either of you. And put out that torch, it’s just using air. This is going to be mostly by touch anyhow.”

Then began a period of time which is the worst memory of a not wholly pleasant summer. I started with great energy, sending out a spray of dirt like a burrowing puppy. Despite my boast I wasn’t feeling all that hot; I hadn’t had any sleep and my bruises ached. But there is no incentive quite as persuasive as the fear of dying of asphyxiation.

It was slow, heartbreaking work. The dirt slid down from above almost as fast as I dug it out. Finally I went back and got some boards from the fallen staircase to shore up my miniature tunnel. It helped some.

When Tony tugged at my ankles, I let him pull me out and take my place. Utterly exhausted, I curled up on the stone floor and, incredibly, fell asleep.

I slept uneasily, dreaming there was a steel band around my chest. I awoke with a gasp to find Tony shaking me.

“The air is pretty bad, Vicky. We’ve got to get through soon, or we’ll never make it. If you clear away the dirt I push out…”

“Blankenhagen?” I croaked, rubbing eyes that felt as if they were glued shut.

“He’s still breathing, but he won’t be for long. If we don’t get out of here soon, none of us will be.”

I insisted on taking his place in the hole. The air was foul in that narrow space, even worse than it was in the tunnel, and he had been breathing it for some time.

I felt as if I were working under water. Each movement had the languid deliberation of a swimmer’s armstroke. I could see nothing. Eyes can adjust to a tiny amount of light, but there was no light at all in that stinking hole. My senses were foggy; I couldn’t hear anything except the echo of my own hoarse breathing. After a time the only sense remaining to me was that of touch, the only reality the gritty yielding substance under my bleeding fingers. Occasionally I backed out of the hole to breathe the slightly less noxious mixture that passed for air out in the tunnel. I found Tony flat on the floor the second time I did this, and dragged him out of the way so the dirt wouldn’t cover his face. Then I crawled back in, and worked till I started to see flames dance against the darkness.

Finally I waited too long. When I tried to back out, I couldn’t move.

My hands went to my throat, as if to tear away the thing that was blocking my lungs. No use…Blankenhagen and Tony were dying, maybe dead. And I was dying too. I would fall down in this awful dirty hole and never wake up. It was almost a relief to feel the pain of my laboring lungs fade as I fell forward into blackness no more absolute than that which already surrounded me.

When I came to, I was breathing. The shock of this discovery woke me completely.

I had been on the verge of breaking through the earth fall when my last convulsion threw me against the thin shell of soil remaining. I was lying with my head and shoulders on a downhill slope of dirt. The rest of my body was still in the hole. By a miracle, it hadn’t caved in.

I went back through my little tunnel as fast as I dared. Tony was already stirring as the fresh air from beyond reached him. Ruthlessly I slapped him awake. We didn’t waste time feeling Blankenhagen’s pulse or handling him gently. I backed through the tunnel dragging him by the shoulder, with Tony pushing from the other end. Tony barely made it. The ceiling began to subside as his head came out of the hole, and he had to pull his legs through solid dirt.

The first thing I did was light a match. The feeble flame was a beautiful sight. I’ve had a slight phobia about darkness ever since that night.

To our surprise and relief, Blankenhagen was still breathing. That was all we bothered to find out. Tony was on his feet, swaying dizzily, but driven; I followed, lighting matches with reckless abandon.

The tunnel went straight on without bending. It ended in a flight of wooden stairs.

I let Tony go up. The stairs looked solid, but there was no point in risking a double weight. If only the stone I could see at the top was movable….

When Tony came down, his face was gray. He didn’t need to speak. He just shook his head.

The match went out. Holding hands, we stumbled back to where we had left Blankenhagen. He had not moved. We curled up, one on either side of him. Tony was mumbling about shock, and keeping the patient warm, and it all made very good sense to me at the time, but I didn’t really care. All I wanted to do was rest.

When I finally awoke I knew I had slept for hours. All my bruises had solidified, and I was as stiff as Blankenhagen’s splinted arm. Otherwise I didn’t feel too bad. The first thing I did was take a deep breath. The air was still fresh. No problem there.

With that vital matter settled, I started to take stock. I could hear Tony snoring; it was loud enough to wake the dead. So I knew he was okay. Blankenhagen…

At least he was warm. I was in a good position to know. Somehow his one usable arm had gotten around me and my head was on his shoulder. His heart sounded a little fast.

I extricated myself, sat up, and lit a match. Blankenhagen’s eyes were open.

The shreds of my blouse were wrapped around his left arm. I wasn’t embarrassed. I wear less on the beach, and anyhow I was covered by a coating of dirt.

“Sorry for leaning on you,” I said. “Did I hurt you?”

“Hurt me? You have saved my life—you and he.” But he didn’t look at Tony. “You are an amazing woman.”

“And you,” I said, returning his du, “are quite a guy. How do you feel?”

“Quite well.” He smiled at me.

It was a silly question, and a ridiculous answer. He felt terrible. His face was flushed and his eyes had the glassy glitter of fever. The hand that reached for mine was dry and hot. But the smile was as attractive as ever. One thing you had to say about Blankenhagen: his emotions were wholehearted and consistent. When he disapproved of something, the very air turned icy. When he approved…Clearly he now approved of me. All of me.

The match went out. I felt sort of silly sitting there in the dark, so when he pulled at my hand, I lay down.

I’m not sure what would have happened next if Tony hadn’t waked up.

Every time I heard him go through this process I decided that, if I was ever weak-minded enough to marry the guy, I would insist on separate bedrooms. He snorted, choked, gargled, and flailed around. By the time he was fully awake, Blankenhagen was clucking with alarm and I was sitting detached, wrapped in my dirt and my dignity.

Since we were undistracted by details such as breakfast and baths, we got right to work. I don’t suppose Tony’s hopes were any higher than mine; but we had been too tired to examine the exit closely, and after all—what else could we do but try? Sitting in peaceful silence waiting to die of starvation wasn’t in keeping with any of our characters.

Blankenhagen could walk, but not much. Tony towed him to the foot of the stairs and propped him up, remarking,

“Sit and watch. Criticize, complain, cheer politely now and then to encourage us—”

“And think,” I interrupted. “We could use a few ideas.”

Tony went up the stairs. The first time he had banged and shoved and given up. This time he just looked. We were running low on matches, so he used pages from his notebook, twisted into tight little spills. Then he came down.

“There’s a chance,” he said. He was trying to sound matter-of-fact, but his voice shook slightly.

“You can lift the stone?”

“No.” Tony dropped to the floor and took out his cigarettes. Those nice cancer-producing cigarettes…Without that vicious habit we wouldn’t have had any matches. “No, there’s something barring the trapdoor—metal, by the feel of it. I jabbed it with my pocketknife. But I’ve had an inspiration. Look at the way this place is built. We’re sitting at the bottom of a narrow shaft. This tunnel, and the shaft, are faced with stones bonded with mortar. They’re old. The mortar is crumbling.”

He dug at a section with his knife blade and dislodged an impressive chunk of plaster.

“Gently,” muttered Blankenhagen. “One landslide is enough.”

“Okay, Okay. Now the stone that blocks the shaft is a monolith, must weigh hundreds of pounds, like the stones used to build the Wachtturm. I figure that’s where we are—under the floor of the keep. The stones here in the shaft are much smaller. Behind them is—plain dirt. If I can remove part of the wall of the shaft, and dig out enough dirt to expose the floor slab next to the trapdoor, I can remove it. Either it will push up, or I can chisel out the mortar and let it drop down.”

“Can’t you let the trap drop down?” I asked.

“Stupid question. Trapdoors are designed not to drop down. This one is held up by a rim of stone and some solid metal hinges. We’d have seen it the other day, Vicky, if the floor of the keep weren’t so overgrown. No, the side stone is the only chance.”

The old mortar crumbled under Tony’s vigorous knife. When the first wall stone came out, it was followed by a shower of dirt that got into our eyes and made me wonder whether he was about to start another avalanche. It trickled out, however, and he went on working. When four stones had been removed, there was enough space to allow a man’s body to pass. Tony began to shovel out the dirt. He remarked,

“I have a feeling I’m never going to want a garden.”

I didn’t answer. My eyes were glued on that gap on the wall, which I was illuminating by means of another homemade torch. By this time we could see the end of the floor slab, and there was a considerable pile of dirt on the stairs.

In less than an hour Tony had cleared the lower surface of the stone. He began to chip out the mortar. This was the trickiest part of the job; we ended up replacing some of the dirt Tony had laboriously removed, in order to support one end of the slab so it wouldn’t give way all at once and mash Tony. After a couple of heart-stopping scrapes, he finally managed to do what he had set out to do. There was an opening a couple of feet square in the wall of the shaft.

Tony turned.

“I think we can make it now.”

But for several seconds none of us moved. We stared at one another with the white-faced incredulity of shipwrecked sailors who finally see a sail on the horizon.

“Better let me go first,” I said. “I’m the thinnest.”

At the expense of a few square inches of skin, I got through. A push from Tony and I was out, gooseflesh popping out on my bare arms as the heavenly coolness of the night air hit them. My coat was still down below, and so far as I was concerned, it could stay there. Nothing, not even the shrine, could have gotten me back into that hole.

At first I just lay there on the floor and admired the view through the open door. As Tony had predicted, I was on the ground floor of the keep, and the moonlight scene without was exquisite. A desert would have looked good to me just then if it had a sky over it.

The sight of the silvery moonlight reminded me of a minor discomfort that had been overridden by more pressing worries. Suddenly I was dying of thirst. Leaning over the hole I croaked out, “Put out the torch and come on.”

Getting Blankenhagen out wasn’t easy. Only fortitude and hope had kept him conscious; he was a dead weight, and even with Tony pushing from below and me pulling from above we had a hard time. When we finally extracted him, he collapsed at full length on the floor and lay there without moving.

Tony followed, breathing hard and looking as if he were going to be sick. We were both flat on the floor, just breathing, when the beautiful silver moonlight was blotted out by a shape in the doorway.

The figure crossed the room without a glance at the shadows where we were sprawled, and disappeared.

I applied grubby knuckles to my eyes. I knew the stairs leading up to the next floor had provided the means of exit for that incredible apparition, but I couldn’t believe I had really seen it—a tall figure, cloaked and hooded, wearing boots that rang metallically on the stone floor—and carrying in its arms the white-robed figure of a woman.

Tony stared speechlessly. Blankenhagen sat up. He had no voice left; but the air came out of his lungs in an explosive whisper that broke my paralysis like a dash of cold water.

“Irma!”

 

Twelve

 

I HAD NOT RECOGNIZED IRMA. I WOULDN’T have known my own mother under those confusing conditions (especially my mother, under those conditions). But I was willing to take Blankenhagen’s word for it. I couldn’t figure out what Irma was doing there, but I decided maybe I had better go up and find out.

Tony beat me to the stairs. Blankenhagen was behind me, but not for long; I heard him stumble and fall after a few steps.

We kept going up—all the way up. I don’t know what I expected to find up there. I wasn’t thinking coherently. But I felt a mild shock when I came out of the opening onto the roofless top story, and saw what was happening.

The character in the cloak stood at the edge of the platform, with not even a ridge of stone between him and the ground some sixty feet below. Irma lay at his feet. She was drugged or unconscious—probably the former, because her face was quite peaceful and she was breathing heavily through her nose. If the poignancy of the moment had not raised my mind above ordinary cattiness, I would have said she was snoring.

The man who had brought her there was wearing riding breeches and boots. The hood of his dark-gray loden cloak was thrown back, so that his fiery head gleamed in the moonlight. His gun gleamed too. It was big and shiny and it was pointed straight at Tony’s stomach.

“So it was you,” I said unoriginally.

“In part. No, Tony, don’t try anything. A bullet hole in you wouldn’t spoil my plans at all. As soon as I’m finished here, you two go back where you came from. Where’s Blankenhagen?”

Tony sat down, yawning. I couldn’t help admiring his nonchalance. He didn’t even look surprised….

“You knew,” I said to him. “You knew it was George.”

“I knew George was one of the villains. Unfortunately, he isn’t the only one.” Tony looked at the villain. “Blankenhagen? He’s down there someplace. Broke his arm when the staircase gave way.”

“I admire your tenacity,” George said, baring his teeth in one of those toothpaste-ad grins. “I didn’t think you could get out.”

“I’m a little tired,” Tony admitted. He yawned again. “Can I sit over there, against the parapet, without your shooting me?”

“Just don’t stand up.”

Tony obeyed literally; and George raised his eyebrows politely at me. I shook my head. I didn’t want to sit down. I had a feeling I would be lying down only too soon, and permanently.

“Found the shrine yet?” Tony asked.

“Oh, yes. I followed you last night and over-heard Vicky telling Konstanze’s life story. It wasn’t hard to figure out what it meant, so far as the hiding place of the shrine was concerned. I had prepared the tunnel with no specific plan in mind—an emergency reserve, you might say—but I had to get you down there right away, before you could use your information. I had plenty of time after that to search.”

“I hope you haven’t told anyone else where it is,” Tony said.

I wished George would stop grinning. He looked like an Aztec death mask—the kind that is half teeth.

“I’m not such a fool as that.”

Tony wasn’t as calm as he seemed. I could see the tension of bunched-up muscles in his legs and shoulders. I kept very still and watched him. He was leading up to something and I wanted to be ready to back him up, whatever he did.

“I don’t know, Nolan,” he said. “I find your position somewhat shaky. What are you going to do with Irma?”

“Somnambulists are accident-prone, old son. They even have fatal accidents.”

“And you can always go down after you throw her off and make sure.”

“What’s one more?” said George.

It took me a couple of seconds to understand what he meant.

“Now, wait,” I said energetically. “Let’s not be hasty. You haven’t killed anybody yet. We can’t even accuse you of attempted murder; shutting us up in that hole was just a boyish prank, right? Why kill anybody? Just take the shrine and split. We haven’t any proof.”

“Wouldn’t work,” said George promptly. He waved the gun at Tony, who tried not to cringe. “He’s been too nosy. Sending cables all over the place.”

“You’ve been reading my mail!” Tony said angrily.

“Only the cables that arrived today. You know too much about the state of my finances, brother. And you were too inquisitive about Herr Schmidt.”

“You crook,” I said to Tony. “Were those the cables you sent that day it rained? How did you know where to inquire about Schmidt? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You have a lot of nerve talking about cheating,” Tony shouted. “Squatting like a setting hen on all those little tidbits you dug up—”

“Sssh!” George danced irritably up and down. “Somebody will hear you!”

I expected Tony to jump him then; I braced myself, ready to move. There was a nasty cold lump at the pit of my stomach. I had never seen a gun from quite that angle. It is a disconcerting sight, and I had no desire to see it any closer. But we had to do something; I didn’t intend to let myself be herded back into that hellish tunnel without putting up a fight. We would be in a better position to attack if we waited till George had us on the stairs. But we couldn’t wait. He was going to kill Irma first.

Tony settled back.

“Does Schmidt really have a degree from Leipzig?” he inquired conversationally. “I haven’t had a chance to read my mail, you know.”

George laughed.

“I think you’ll be surprised when you find out who Schmidt is. He was using his own name. Not his fault if it’s a common name.”

“One thing I already know,” said Tony. “He was the one who engineered the armor and the séance. What is he, an amateur hypnotist, or just a common garden-variety fortune teller?”

“Both. He hypnotized Irma with some crazy idea that she might have ancestral memories he could tap. Until the great séance he didn’t realize that what he was doing could hurt the wench.”

The gun barrel dropped, casually, to indicate the girl’s motionless form, and my heart skipped a beat.

“Why don’t you shoot her, if that’s what you’re going to do?” Tony said, between his teeth. “Get it over with.”

“No bullet holes in Irma. That would spoil the illusion.”

Tony was rapidly losing his calm. He glanced at me. Then, following his eyes, I finally realized what he was up to. He was trying not to look at the square opening of the stairwell, which was now, thanks to his maneuver, out of George’s direct line of vision. I didn’t share his optimism. Blankenhagen might come, but I doubted it. The man wasn’t superhuman.

“So Schmidt hypnotized Irma,” I said. “He was the one who prompted her with all that stuff about fires and possession.”

“He had help. The old lady has been working on the kid for years.”

“She would,” Tony muttered. “Just for fun.”

“It came in handy, after Schmidt appeared at the Schloss with his questions about the shrine. He didn’t realize Irma was the heiress. He went straight to Elfrida and they started searching. He was no match for the old witch; he did just what she told him to.”

“How did he find out about the shrine?” I asked curiously.

“He read the same book you all found, and reached the same conclusion. When you arrived he got panicky. He wanted the shrine and he was afraid you’d beat him to it. I met him prowling the corridors one night and persuaded him to join forces with me to discourage you. But he didn’t realize how far I was prepared to go. The night we staged the armor episode, I had to use the dagger myself, after I tapped Tony on the head. The sight of blood sent the old fool into a tailspin. I had to keep him from yelling, and in the struggle he passed out. I thought I was going to have an attack myself before I got him out of that armor and into his room, so I could rush down to take my part in the drama.”

“And the second attack? Staring eyes, look of horror?”

“Baffling, wasn’t it?” George grinned. “I only meant to scare him. He was threatening to confess all.”

“Then the Gräfin is in with you,” I said.

“It’s not fair,” Tony said wildly. “Everybody’s guilty. There’s only supposed to be one criminal. What about Miss Burton?”

“She is innocent, if that consoles you any. Arrogant, stupid, and innocent.”

“Nolan, don’t you see you’re being used?” Tony demanded. “That old bitch is in the clear. She’ll end up with the shrine, after you’ve killed Irma, and you’ll end up in the chair, or whatever they use in this country. You’re a stooge, buddy; a lousy cat’s-paw.”

For the first—and last—time in his life, he hit George where it hurt. The big white grin disappeared. George took a step forward, almost stumbling over Irma, and Tony braced himself. I got ready to jump. Then I saw two things.

One was a hand, whose whitened fingers were curled gruesomely over the edge of the topmost step. The other was Irma’s eyes—wide open.

“No,” I said hysterically. “No, don’t! Don’t kill us!” I threw myself onto my knees, yelped as the gritty stone bit into my lacerated skin, and wriggled gracefully forward until my body was between George and the stairwell.

It was no use. George’s gun stayed smack on Tony’s liver, and Blankenhagen followed his hand out onto the roof.

He looked like death walking—tattered, bloody, smeared with dust and cobwebs. He was an automaton, moving by pure will. It was so awful it was fascinating; I half expected to see him walk stiff-legged into a hail of bullets, like the monster out of Frankenstein.

Everybody has his limits, though, and Blankenhagen reached his. He fell to his knees, his eyes crossed and his mouth half open.

“What do I have to do, use a meat cleaver?” George demanded irritably. “All right; you’ll be out of your misery in just a few seconds.”

I didn’t see exactly what happened. My eyes, like those of the others, were fixed on Blankenhagen. I saw enough, though, to keep my dreams uneasy for some time to come. Suddenly Irma was up on her hands and knees. George’s arms were in the air, flailing frantically. I’ll never forget the expression on his face. The sudden change from triumph to failure, and his awareness of it, were blended with the most ghastly terror. For a moment he tottered on the edge of oblivion. Then he was gone. His scream came up like a shriek of anguish from some bodiless ghost borne through the air by the scudding clouds. It ended in another sound. Then there was silence.

I looked at Irma. She had risen to one knee. Her arm was lifted in the gesture that had just sent a man to a messy death. Her black hair was whipped about her face by the wind, and her eyes were enormous.

“Well,” said Tony weakly, “well, well, well…”

He might have gone on like that indefinitely if Irma had not interrupted.

“He would have killed you,” she cried, gesturing from Tony to the prostrate form of the doctor. “Should I lie still and see him kill you?”

She didn’t mention me. I was in no position to complain; I don’t mind having my life saved as an afterthought.

I cleared my throat. Nobody looked at me. Irma had decided the doctor was the more pathetic of her two heroes, and had taken his bloody head onto her lap. She was crooning over him, and I thought I detected a slight smirk on his face. One of his eyes was open; when he saw me staring, it quickly closed. Tony was trying to look pitiful too, but he couldn’t match Blankenhagen’s performance.

“Somebody should go for help,” I said. “Hey, Tony—”

“Aber nicht!” Irma gave me a cold look. “He cannot go, he is bleeding, in pain—near death, in saving our lives. Run! Go at once!”

“Run?” I said. “Me?”

Tony moaned and let his head fall back against the parapet.

“You creep,” I said to him. I looked at Blankenhagen. “The same to you,” I said. With great dignity I crawled to the stairs and started down them.

I covered about half the distance to the Schloss before my legs gave out. Shivering with shock and reaction, I squatted in a patch of nettles and let my mind wander.

The outlines of the castle wall wavered like fog in front of my half-closed eyes. I was sick. I was thirsty. I was all covered with dirt, and nobody loved me.

After a while my head cleared a little, and I tried to think. Maybe I should go directly to the police. The idea made me giggle wildly. They would take one look at me and send for a doctor. Meanwhile the Gräfin would be on the loose. What if she took a notion to go out and see how George was coming along with his murder? Tony’s groans weren’t altogether phony, he wasn’t in shape to fight anybody, and the Gräfin had always scared the hell out of him. She wouldn’t have to shoot him; she would just stare at him. He would shrivel up and blow away. So would I, if I ran into the old lady now. She could demolish me with a breath.

“What I need,” I said aloud, “is an army. Right now.”

Then I remembered a fact out of a past that seemed years away. I hauled myself to my feet and headed for the front door of the castle.

My entrance was public, and as spectacular as any ham actress could have prayed for. In the hall I met one of the blond waitresses on her way to the lounge with a big tray of steins. I grimaced into her horrified face and went on my way, hearing the crash of glassware behind me. In the lounge was the group I had hoped to see—the university kids, brimming over with beer and song and youthful joie de vivre. I was incapable of counting them, but the general effect was just what I wanted.

“Guten Abend,” I said politely; and saw four…eight…sixteen—good heavens, how many were there?—all those eyes focus in glazed stares. I’m sure they expected me to bend over and extract a knife from my stocking. Only I wasn’t wearing stockings.

“There has been an accident,” I said, in my best German. “We must have the police. And a doctor. And on the top of the keep, behind this place, you will find several people who need to be transported to the Schloss. And—could I have a drink?”

I fell flat on my face, but they wouldn’t let me pass out; dozens of enthusiastic arms bore me to a couch and another arm poured the dregs of a glass of beer down my throat. I lapped it up like a dog, and somebody brought a full glass, and somebody else held my head…I have some unpleasant memories about my sojourn at the Schloss, but the heavenly coldness of that beer trickling down my dusty gullet compensated for all of them.

I shouldn’t have had it, though; on an empty stomach it was almost disastrous. After a while I found myself lying flat on the couch with my head floating up somewhere near the ceiling and a handsome tanned boy bending over me with a glass of brandy.

“Oy,” I said, pushing it away. “That I don’t need. Will you please—”

“I am a student of medicine,” said the boy grandly. “Rest quietly, Fräulein, all has been done as you directed. But what in God’s name has happened?”

“Look at my face,” I said hysterically. “I know I’m drunk, but I can’t help looking like this, I didn’t do it on purpose; and I don’t know why all you men can’t stop looking at my—”

He had been patting me—absentmindedly, I’m sure. He got quite red and leaped to his feet.

“I apologize! No disrespect was intended—”

“I know,” I said sadly.

I had not forgotten the Gräfin, but I was no longer worried about her; with all those husky witnesses running around, it was unlikely that she could do any more damage. She must have heard all the activity and come down to see what was going on. When I saw her standing in the doorway, I struggled to a sitting position.

She dismissed the student with an autocratic wave of her hand. Her faint smile, as she studied my unkempt person, told me more clearly than any mirror how terrible I must look. It stung me into relative coherence.

“Grin all you want,” I said. “You still lose. All is known.”

Her smile didn’t change.

“Poor girl, you are delirious after all you have suffered. But if you will insist on prying into places where you have no right to be—”

“It won’t work,” I said. “George is dead.”

That did it. Her smile vanished.

“I’m going to let you go,” I said. “I hate to do it, but without George I’m not sure how much we can prove. In your position, though, I wouldn’t risk it.”

“You would turn an old woman from her home?”

“You can go live with Miss Burton. I’ll bet she’s loaded; you wouldn’t cultivate her for her gracious personality. And you probably have plenty stashed away. You’ve been milking this place of its salable antiques for years.”

She stood there looking at me with the Medusa stare that had paralyzed so many luckless victims. It didn’t affect me. She had no power, except over weak minds like Irma’s and Miss Burton’s.

“The police will be here any minute,” I said.

She left.

The local constabulary of Rothenburg, accustomed to drunken brawls and traffic jams, were out of their depth at the Schloss. The case was closed. There was nothing for them to do but gather up the wounded. However, they were understandably confounded by the train of events. Finally one of them settled the matter.

“Mad,” he said, tapping his forehead. “The man was mad, no doubt.”

Everyone agreed. Then, at long last, they led me to my room, and with a groan of voluptuous satisfaction I fell full length on the bed, dirty and half naked as I was, and let my poor old eyes close.

 

 

It was late the following afternoon when we all assembled in my room for the denouement. I had slept till noon. Then I washed. That took quite a while. I spent the rest of the time at the hospital with Schmidt, who was coming along nicely. We had a fascinating talk. I was giddy with the implications when I joined the others.

Tony and Blankenhagen were still acting like wounded heroes. I thought Tony had overdone the bandages just a bit, but the effect was impressive.

Irma looked beautiful. She hadn’t dug through forty feet of dirt or fallen down a shaft or crawled through a couple of miles of brambles. She had simply rested peacefully for a few hours. She was safe, rich, beautiful, and surrounded by men who had risked all for her sake—at least that was how she thought of it. No wonder she looked gorgeous. She could even afford to be nice to me. She made me a pretty little speech thanking me for my help.

I looked at my bare arms, which were covered with a network of scratches, and squinted at the tip of my nose, which had a scab on it, and I said dispiritedly, “Oh, no problem. I had a talk with your aunt last night. I was dignified, but convincing.”

“You should not have let her escape,” said Blankenhagen critically.

“It would be hard to prove her guilty of anything except poisoning Irma’s mind. That kind of crime is hard to describe in a court of law.”

“It was a nightmare.” Irma shivered prettily. “To think that the soul of that dead woman could seize my body…”

All of us looked at that astounding portrait.

“Damn it,” Tony muttered. “The resemblance is uncanny.”

“Not really.” I lifted the portrait off the wall. I had had plenty of time to study it, and I wasn’t proud of myself for seeing the truth. It should not have taken me so long. “The Gräfin didn’t miss a trick. See how faded the rest of the picture is, compared to the face? Someone has touched it up.”

“You mean—that is not how she looked?” Irma gasped.

“No one will ever know what she looked like.” I tossed the portrait carelessly onto the bed. “When your aunt mentioned that she had studied painting…” I shrugged. “If you doubt me, have an expert examine this thing. Even I can see that it is modern work.”

“It started so long ago,” Irma said, pressing her hands to her face in another of those pretty, fragile gestures. “Even before my uncle died, she hated me. Then, later, she started to tell me stories—terrible stories about the crimes of the Drachensteins and the burning of Konstanze. I had not noticed the portrait till she showed it to me; there are so many faded pictures here.”

“She had to keep you off balance so she could steal your belongings,” Tony said.

“She sold even the locks from the doors. She said there was no money from my uncle, that we had to live.”

“Forget it,” I said. “Everybody has a few rotten apples on the family tree. We all have the same family tree, if you go back far enough. I have a little surprise for you that should take your mind off your troubles.”

“I hope,” said Blankenhagen apprehensively, “that you do not want any stones moved?”

“I’m no more anxious to move stones than you are. George has already been here, so it shouldn’t be necessary.”

 

 

Mortar had been cleared from around four stones that formed a door. It yielded easily to the pressure of my hand, exposing a dark cavity in the wall. The space was almost filled by a big wooden box. Everyone rushed forward to help me get it out onto the table. I brushed off some of the encrusted dirt and broke the corroded hasp with a twist of my hands. The front of the box fell away.

Against a Gothic tracery of carved vines and flowers sat the Virgin, her unbound hair flowing over her blue robe, her hands lightly touching the Child on her knee. Above them, cunningly supported by sections of the vine, hovered two angels, slender youths with austere young faces and lifted golden wings. One of the wings was missing.

The three kings knelt at Mary’s feet, and for a disgraceful interlude my eyes forgot the beauty of the carving and lingered greedily on the stones set in the sculptured forms. Balthasar was dressed in crimson; on his head, framed in gold, was an emerald whose depths caught the sunlight and flung it back in a thousand green reflections. Melchoir, behind him, wore a turban set with a great baroque pearl. The third king, balancing the group on the right, lifted his gift in both hands: a golden bowl, holding a globe of scarlet fire.

Irma’s eyes were as round as saucers.

“Mine?” she said, in a childish squeak.

“Yep,” I said.

She was staring at the stones, not the figures. Her open mouth was pink and pretty and wet and greedy. And then, just as I was enjoying my contempt for her, she did something that cut the ground out from under my feet.

“No, it is yours,” she said suddenly. “Three gems, for the three who saved my life. Do they measure any value compared to that?”

“Certainly not,” said Blankenhagen; and “My God, no,” said Tony.

They could afford to be noble. Whoever married Irma—and I figured they had an equal chance, she was ready to fall into the arms of any man who asked her—got all three stones. I felt old and wise and rather sad. She was corny, but she was a good kid. I think she really meant it—for about a minute and a half.

“Aw,” I said, “shucks. Forget it, Irma.”

“But I mean it!”

“Sure you do. But we can’t accept anything like that.”

“But—but what can I do with it?” Irma asked helplessly.

“The National museum, I think,” said Blankenhagen. “It is the richest in Germany; it will offer a fair price.”

“The Met, or some foreign museum, might offer more,” said Tony. Irma looked at him.

“No,” said Blankenhagen firmly. Irma looked at him. “It is fitting that such a treasure should remain in Germany.”

“Hmmm,” I said. “Tell you one thing. If I were you, I’d take those jewels out and sell them separately. Nobody can afford to buy the shrine as it is; and the jewels will attract every crook on two continents. You can substitute paste copies without affecting the beauty of the workmanship; and isn’t that the important thing?”

“Are you always right?” asked Blankenhagen, looking at me severely. “You are too clever. That is a very annoying quality. How did you know the shrine was here, in this room?”

“Oh, well,” I said modestly, “that was easy. You told Irma about the arsenic, and Burckhardt’s murder? But don’t you see, that was the clue we were looking for. Many of the details will never be known; but I think I can reconstruct the outlines of the story now.

“Konstanze was young, seventeen or eighteen, when Burckhardt married her and brought her here. Yet even then she must have been deeply involved in the witch cult; they started young, usually at puberty. It isn’t surprising that she should have learned to despise her oafish husband. Maybe she turned to Nicolas because he was available, and corrupted him. Maybe he didn’t need corrupting. A man of his ability must have hated the social system that labeled him inferior, and the ignorant clod who exemplified that system.

“Anyhow, I’m sure the two became lovers before the Revolt broke out. Konstanze had been poisoning her husband for some time; it takes several months for arsenic to work its way through the body and show up in the hair and nails. And there were all those references to Burckhardt’s queasy stomach, remember?

“Burckhardt’s call to arms must have pleased her. She wouldn’t have shed any tears if he had been killed in battle. Then the matter of the shrine came up, and that was a real bonus. I can see Konstanze drooling over those jewels and cursing the old count for giving them to the church.

“At first, everything seemed to be working out for the lovers. Burckhardt practically handed the shrine over to them by sending it to Rothenburg in Nicolas’ charge. Nicolas murdered or bribed the guards and brought the shrine to the Schloss alone. He and Konstanze hid it in the tomb of the old count. Then Konstanze wrote that letter to her husband saying that the expedition had never arrived.”

“He kept her letters,” Tony muttered. “Carried them around with him, brought them here….”

“He was a stupid sentimentalist,” said Blankenhagen, looking contemptuously at Tony. “Stupid not to suspect such a story…”

“We didn’t suspect it,” I said wryly. “And he was deeply in love with her; love has a very dulling effect on the brain. There was no reason why anyone should have been suspicious. Even when we found Nicolas’ body, and the wing that had been broken off the shrine, there was no evidence to show that Konstanze knew anything about it.

“After that night, when Nicolas appeared as the Black Man, he went into hiding. He couldn’t be seen hanging about; Konstanze meant to kill her husband, if he wasn’t killed in battle, but until he was dead she couldn’t let him get suspicious. And he wasn’t the only one who had to be deceived. The bishop was after the shrine and he was giving Konstanze a hard time. I’ll bet her reputation was already shaky. The mere fact that she read authors like Albertus Magnus and Trithemius would be enough to start nasty gossip.

“So Burckhardt came home from the wars, hale and hearty, and delighted to see his loving wife. She didn’t waste any time. He was taken ill the day after his return.

“On the crucial night, the night of the steward’s murder, the conspirators decided to move the shrine. We’ll never know why; Burckhardt was dying, so maybe they thought it was safe to proceed with their plans. At any rate, there they were, down in the crypt; I can see Konstanze holding the lamp and Nicolas working on the tombstone. He raised it. The shrine was lifted out, losing a wing in the process. And then…

“Then they looked up and saw, in the lamp-light, the face of the man they had robbed and cheated and tried to murder. God knows what aroused him, or how he got the strength to come looking for them. But he was there. He must have been there. He saw the lovers, with the shrine between them, and he knew the truth. You can’t blame him for turning berserk. The theft of the shrine was bad enough, but the knowledge that his servant and his beloved wife had cuckolded him…he went mad. By the time he finished Nicolas, who must have put up a fight, Konstanze was gone—with the shrine. I suppose she had someone with her, a servant maybe, who had helped with the heavy work. She could quietly bump him off at any time with her handy store of arsenic. Nobody asked questions in those days about the death of a serf.

“After stabbing Nicolas and throwing him down at Harald’s feet, like a dead dog, Burckhardt piously closed his father’s tomb. What I can’t get out of my mind is a suspicion that Nicolas wasn’t dead when the stone was lowered. If you remember the position of the body…Well, enough of that. It certainly wouldn’t have worried Burckhardt. Having disposed of one traitor, he went after his wife. He would have killed her too, if it hadn’t been for the nurse, who thought he was delirious. She testified to his insane strength and mentioned that his dagger was not at his belt. But Burckhardt was half dead from arsenic poisoning. They wrestled him back into bed, and Konstanze finished him off in the next cup of gruel.

“Maybe he had time, before he died, to whisper an accusation to a servant or priest. Maybe not; she would have watched him closely, and arsenic doesn’t leave a man particularly coherent. In any case, the bishop got suspicious. He disliked Konstanze anyhow. So she got her just deserts, by an ironic miscarriage of justice—though I think the punishment was worse than the crime.”

“Death by arsenic poisoning is exceedingly painful,” said Blankenhagen.

“I know. But the count had helped torture Riemenschneider and had bashed in the skulls of a lot of miserable peasants who were only trying to get their rights…I guess they were all rotten.”

“So we figured,” Tony said sweepingly, “that the shrine had to be in the countess’s room. The count had the whole castle at his disposal, but she was limited to her own room.”

“We,” I said. “Yes.”

“One more thing,” Tony said, ignoring me. “I don’t think anyone else caught this. Remember Irma’s cry at the séance—‘das Feuer’? That was the result of Schmidt’s hypnotic talents and the Gräfin’s gruesome stories; but what I didn’t think of until later was that Konstanze didn’t know German. She was a Spaniard, and she and Burckhardt probably communicated by means of the Latin spoken by the noble classes in those days. So if she had given a last frantic scream, as she may well have done, it would have been in Latin or Spanish. In other words—no ghost.”

“Obviously,” I said.

“Sooo clever,” murmured Irma.

“That’s about it,” I said briskly. “No more questions?”

“Only my heart’s gratitude,” said Irma mistily. “Now I go to see that we have a celebration dinner. I cook it with my own hands, and we dine together, yes? And a bottle of Sekt.”

“Sekt,” I said glumly. Sekt is German champagne. It is terrible stuff.

Irma departed, to cook her way into somebody’s heart. I wondered whose heart she was aiming for.

I looked from one man to the other. Neither of them moved.

“Well,” I said.

“I want to talk to you,” said Tony to me, glaring at Blankenhagen.

“And so do I,” said the doctor, staying put.

“Go ahead,” I said.

“If we could have some privacy…” said Tony, still glaring.

“I do not mind speaking in your presence,” said Blankenhagen. “I have nothing to hide.”

Tony said several things, all of them rude. Blankenhagen continued to sit.

“Oh, hell,” said Tony. “Why should I care? All right, Vicky, the game is over. It wasn’t as much fun as we expected, but it had its moments. So—speaking quite impartially, and without bias—who won?”

“Me,” I said. “Oh, all right, Tony, I’m kidding. Speaking quite impartially, I’d say we came out about even. It was partly a matter of luck. You would have fingered George sooner or later—if he hadn’t fingered us first. I solved the murder of Burckhardt, but primarily because I was the one who found the arsenic. Shall we call it a tie?”

“That’s all I ever wanted to prove,” said Tony smugly.

“You’re a damned liar,” I said, stung to the quick. “You were trying to prove your superiority to me. And you did not. I didn’t need you at all. I could have figured out the whole thing—”

“Oh, you cheating little crook,” said Tony. “You said you would marry me if I could prove you weren’t my intellectual superior. I proved it. I didn’t need you, either. I could have handled this business much better if you hadn’t been around getting in my way and falling over your own feet—”

“Liar, liar,” I yelled. “I never said any such thing! And even if I did, you haven’t—” I stopped. My mouth dropped open. “I thought you wanted to marry Irma,” I said in a small voice.

“Irma is a nice girl,” said Tony. “And I admit there were moments when the thought of a soft, docile, female-type woman was attractive. But now she’s rich…. Let Blankenhagen marry Irma.”

“No, thank you,” said Blankenhagen, who had been an interested spectator. He looked severely at Tony. “You use the wrong tactics, my friend. You do not know this woman. You do not know how to handle any woman. Under her competence, her intelligence, this woman wishes to be mastered. It requires an extraordinary man to do this, I admit. But—”

“Really?” said Tony. “You think if I—”

“Not you,” said Blankenhagen. “I. I will marry this woman. She needs me to master her.”

“You!” Tony leaped out of his chair. “So help me, if you weren’t crippled, I’d—”

“You,” said Blankenhagen, sneering, “and who else?”

“You can’t marry her.” Tony added, unforgivably, “You’re shorter than she is.”

“What does that matter?”

“Right,” I said, interested. “That’s irrelevant. I can always go around barefoot.”

“Shut up,” said Tony to me. To Blankenhagen he said, “She doesn’t know you. You could be a crook. You could be a bigamist!”

“But I am not.”

“How do I know you’re not?”

“My life is open to all.” Blankenhagen had kept his composure which put him one up on Tony. Turning a dispassionate eye on me, he remarked, “You are somewhat concerned, after all. Perhaps we should hear your views.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I don’t feel that I ought to interfere…”

“Well,” Tony said grudgingly. “I guess you are entitled to an opinion.”

He was flushed and bright-eyed, and he looked awfully cute with his hair tumbling down over the romantic bandages on his undamaged brow. In the heat of argument, or for other reasons, he had risen to his feet. Blankenhagen cannily remained seated, but he was right about his height. That was unimportant. If it didn’t bother him, why should it bother me?

I sighed. Turning to Tony, I said, “Have you had a chance to read the answers to your cables yet?”

“My God, how can you ask at a time like—”

“Do you know who Schmidt really is?”

Tony sat down with a thud.

“You’re going to marry Schmidt?”

“Schmidt,” I said, “is the top historian at the National museum. I had a long talk with him this afternoon.”

“Anton Zachariah Schmidt?” Tony gasped. “That Schmidt?”

“That Schmidt. One of the foremost historians in the world. At the moment he is a sad and sorry Schmidt…”

“He should be,” said Blankenhagen, unimpressed. “Such disgraceful behavior for a grown man and a scholar.”

“He’s a nut,” I said. “What’s wrong with that? Why, the nuts found the New World and discovered the walls of windy Troy! Where would we be without the nuts? Schmidt has dabbled in parlor magic and spiritualism since he was a kid. He’s in good company. Businessmen and politicians consult astrologers; many scientists have been suckers for spiritualism. When he got on the trail of the shrine, Schmidt went a little haywire. It was his dream come true—sneaking around the halls of an ancient castle, finding a treasure, and presenting it to his precious museum. When Tony and I arrived, he had horrible visions of rich Americans stealing his prize—it had become ‘his’ by then.”

“Even so,” said Blankenhagen coldly. “Even so…”

“You’re a fine one to talk. You’re a secret nut yourself. If you were as sensible as you think you are, when I came around in the middle of the night babbling of arsenic you’d have sent me away and gone back to bed. You would have gone for the police when the knife missed Tony, instead of chasing George into the tunnel.”

“Umph,” said Blankenhagen, turning red.

“Schmidt didn’t mean any harm,” I said. “He’s a sweet little man. I always liked him.”

Blankenhagen’s face got even redder.

“You are going to marry Schmidt!”

“I’m not going to marry anybody,” I said. “I’m going to take the job Herr Schmidt has offered me, at the Museum, and write a book about Riemenschneider, and also a best-selling historical novel based on the Drachenstein story. Maybe I’ll call it ‘The Drachenstein Story.’ The plot has everything—murder, witchcraft, blood, adultery…. I’ll make a fortune. Of course I’ll publish it under a pseudonym so the scholarly reputation I intend to build in the next five years won’t be impaired. Then—”

“You aren’t going to marry anyone?” Tony asked, having found his voice at last.

“Why do I have to marry anyone?” I asked reasonably. “It’s only in simpleminded novels that the heroine has to get married. I’m not even the heroine. You told me that once. Irma is the heroine. Go marry her.”

“I don’t want to,” Tony said sulkily.

“Then don’t. But stop hassling me.” I smiled impartially at both of them. “You’re very sweet,” I said kindly. “The trouble is, neither of you has the faintest idea of how to handle women—not women like me, anyhow. But you’re both young, and fairly bright; you can learn…. Who knows, I might decide to get married someday. I’ll be around; if, in the meantime, you feel like—”

Blankenhagen’s expression changed ominously, and I said, with dignity.

“If you feel like taking a girl out now and then, I am open to persuasion.”

I smiled guilessly at him.

After a long moment he smiled back.

“Also,” he said coolly. “I will be here. I will continue to be here. I do not give up easily.”

There was a knock at the door, followed by the voice of one of the maids telling us dinner was ready. I started for the door.

Tony got there ahead of me.

“It wouldn’t help Schmidt’s reputation if this affair were made public,” he said meditatively. “I don’t suppose you intimated—”

“Why, Tony,” I said, with virtuous indignation. “That would be blackmail! Would I resort to such a low trick?”

“Of course not. Schmidt offered you a job because of your brilliance. I’m brilliant too,” said Tony. “I imagine Herr Schmidt could find another job at the Museum, if I asked him nicely….”

Blankenhagen stood up.

“You talk to me of rascals!” he exclaimed. “You are an unprincipled, dishonest—”

I left the two of them jostling each other in the doorway and went humming down the corridor. The next five years were going to be fun.

 

About the Author

 

Elizabeth Peters was named Grandmaster by the Mystery Writers of America in 1998. She earned her Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago’s famed Oriental Institute. In addition to the Vicky Bliss mysteries, Elizabeth Peters is the author of the bestselling Amelia Peabody mysteries.

 

 

Books by Elizabeth Peters

 

THE APE WHO GUARDS THE BALANCE

SEEING A LARGE CAT • THE HIPPOPOTAMUS POOL

NIGHT TRAIN TO MEMPHIS

THE SNAKE, THE CROCODILE AND THE DOG

THE LAST CAMEL DIED AT NOON • NAKED ONCE MORE

THE DEEDS OF THE DISTURBER • TROJAN GOLD

LION IN THE VALLEY • LORD OF THE SILENT

THE MUMMY CASE • DIE FOR LOVE

SILHOUETTE IN SCARLET • THE COPENHAGEN CONNECTION

THE CURSE OF THE PHARAOHS • THE LOVE TALKER

SUMMER OF THE DRAGON • STREET OF THE FIVE MOONS

DEVIL MAY CARE • LEGEND IN GREEN VELVET

CROCODILE ON THE SANDBANK • THE MURDERS OF RICHARD III

BORROWER OF THE NIGHT • THE SEVENTH SINNER

THE NIGHT OF FOUR HUNDRED RABBITS

THE DEAD SEA CIPHER • THE CAMELOT CAPER

THE JACKAL’S HEAD • THE FALCON AT THE PORTAL

HE SHALL THUNDER IN THE SKY

THE GOLDEN ONE

CHILDREN OF THE STORM

And in Hardcover

GUARDIAN OF THE HORIZON