Borrower of the Night: The First Vicky Bliss Mystery (15 page)

“All settled,” George announced briskly. He pushed Blankenhagen into the room and followed him, rubbing his hands together with the air of a man who has just finished a painful session at the dentist’s. “The
Gräfin
was quite reasonable. The minister will be up later, and they’ll probably have some kind of service, today or tomorrow. She won’t have the lad in the family vault, though. Says, with all due respect for Tony’s deductions, that she can’t accept the identification as certain, and anyhow, the crypt is reserved for Drachensteins. They’ll bury him in the town cemetery. Lord knows what they’ll put on the tombstone.”

“Good,” said Tony, closing his eyes as Blankenhagen started poking at his shoulder. “What excuse did you give her for our tomb robbing?”

“Funny thing,” said George thoughtfully. “She didn’t ask.”

“You have done yourself no injury,” Blankenhagen said, tucking in an edge of bandage. “But remain quiet and do not raise any more tombstones. Such childishness.”

He stalked to the door and went out. George followed, with a rather wistful glance at me.

“Maybe we ought to keep him in the club,” I said.

“Generosity does not become you. Somebody is behind all these kookie manifestations here, and until I find out who it is—”

“You don’t seriously suspect George, do you? He hasn’t had time to arrange all the things that have happened.”

“I know. I’d like to suspect him, but he doesn’t fit. Herr Schmidt is a better bet. How is he, by the way?”

“Okay, I guess. He’s up and around, anyhow. He wouldn’t even go to the hospital for a checkup, as Blankenhagen suggested.”

“Very interesting. Maybe he faked his faint. He told you his degree is from Leipzig? Convenient that it’s in the East Zone, where official inquiries aren’t easy for us amateurs to make. And of all the suspicious names—it’s as bad as Smith.”

“I think the countess is our man—pardon me, woman.”

“She’s almost too perfect,” Tony objected. “Probably she has a heart of gold under that frosty exterior. I can’t see her galloping around in a suit of armor, either.”

“Don’t be fooled by that air of languid dignity. She’s as hard as nails. She detests Irma; she’s a natural bully, and you must admit Irma asks to be trampled on. Also, the
Gräfin
is the only one to profit if, for instance, Irma fell down the stairs while she was sleepwalking.”

“She could encourage, if not actually induce, the sleepwalking,” Tony agreed. “She’s got that girl mesmerized. But the profit motive doesn’t amount to much if this”—he waved a hand around the poorly equipped room—“is all Irma’s inheritance.”

“Unless she knows about the shrine.”

“Right.” We stared at one another in silence. Finally Tony said,

“We don’t want to face it, do we? But it would be naive of us to assume that we’re the only ones who could have spotted the original clues. Anyone who read that book and who knew Riemenschneider’s life story could have reached the same conclusions we did. And don’t forget the
Gräfin
may have other information. She could have removed significant family papers from that collection before we saw it.”

“But she hasn’t found the shrine yet. Or has she?”

“No. She wouldn’t tolerate our messing around if she had. Hasn’t it struck you how cooperative the old witch has been? Keys to the crypt, keys to the library, no embarrassing questions about our nocturnal wanderings or even about our outlandish performance this morning. Her restraint is completely out of character, unless—”

“Unless she is hoping we can find the shrine for her. She may know that it exists; but if she doesn’t know where it is hidden, she might think that we, with our training, stand a better chance of finding it than she would. Has it occurred to you—”

“That we had better guard our backs if we do locate the shrine? Yes, dear, it occurred to me with a vengeance when that homicidal armor came at me.”

“I don’t think you were in any danger from the armor,” I said callously. “You won’t be in danger until you locate the prize. That was just fun and games, to spur you on. You always think better when you get mad.”

“Fun and games,” Tony muttered. “Somebody has a sick sense of humor.”

“Definitely,” I agreed, thinking of Irma and the séance.

“Enough of this,” Tony said. “We haven’t enough evidence to make sensible deductions about the living villain. Let’s get back to the dead villain. You do see, I trust, what our discovery this morning has to do with the problem of the shrine?”

“I haven’t had time to think about it. But—my Lord, yes. In that letter of Konstanze’s she said the shrine, and the steward, had not arrived. Now we know he did arrive. And stayed here.”

“Indeed he did. Now,” said Tony patronizingly, “go on. What was old Nicolas doing down there with the count’s dagger between his ribs?”

“Hmm. How about this? The steward was not a faithful hound after all. He stole the shrine for himself, sneaked into the castle—which he knew well—at the dead of night. He was about to hide the shrine in the old count’s tomb when Burckhardt wandered in—to pray, or pay his respects, or something. Seized by rage at the sight of his double-dealing servant, and the shrine—which he assumed had been lost on the way from Rothenburg—Burckhardt stabbed Nicolas, tumbled him into the readymade grave, and hid the shrine himself. Then he got sick—wait, wait! Remember the testimony of the nurse? The murder must have happened that very night. Burckhardt was already ill, ill and delirious. That’s why he never told anyone where he put the shrine. It’s still hidden!”

“Not bad.”

“Not bad! What else could have happened?”

“You have fallen in love with your own theory,” said Tony severely. “A dangerous fault in a scholar. I can think of at least one other possibility. The count himself came home with the caravan and the shrine. He and the faithful steward hid it, at dead of night, as you so quaintly put it, in the old count’s tomb. Konstanze didn’t know a thing about this. Later the count got to worrying about the safety of the hiding place, and went down, with the steward, to move the shrine. They hid it somewhere else, and then the count stabbed the steward, etcetera, etcetera.”

“I don’t mind making the count the villain,” I said. “I never liked him anyway. But you have a slight credibility gap, bud. Why should Burckhardt hide his own property and kill his faithful retainer?”

“Remember what was supposed to happen to the shrine? Count Harald’s will left it to the church. The countess is definite about that in her letters, and she agrees that it should be done. Suppose Burckhardt didn’t agree. The jewels were worth a pile, you know. Maybe he needed money. He wouldn’t let anyone, especially his pious wife, know he wanted the shrine for himself. When the faithful steward realized what Burckhardt had in mind, he threatened to expose him, and Burckhardt murdered him. That way Konstanze never would know where the shrine was hidden, and Burckhardt wouldn’t be about to tell her.”

“Plausible,” I admitted. “But all the theories are plausible. You’re the one who used to lecture me about the difference between possibility and proof; judging by some of the articles I read in the journals, a lot of historians don’t know the difference. We have no proof, Tony. We can’t even be sure that the shrine was ever here, in the castle, much less in that vault.”

“Oh, yes, we can.” Tony was so proud of himself he swelled up like a toad. Reaching into his pocket, he carefully withdrew a small object.

I looked at it as he held it up to the light, and my stomach got a queer queasy feeling. The object was a wing, carved of wood and lightly gilded. In form it was the sort of thing that might have been broken off a phoenix, or a golden bird in flight; but there was a quality about it that eliminated these possibilities and defined it as what it was—

“An angel’s wing,” I whispered.

Eight

I HELD THE PIECE OF WOOD IN BOTH CUPPED hands. I didn’t speak because, to tell the truth, I was afraid my voice wouldn’t be steady. I mean, that wing really got to me, and not just because it confirmed an almost abandoned hope. For the first time I visualized the thing we were after, not as a prize or a treasure, but as a work of art. I was seeing golden angels.

When I had suppressed this surprising burst of sentiment, I said with affected coolness,

“Game and set to you, Tony. You’re ’way ahead. But you haven’t won the match yet.” Reluctantly I put the carved wood down on the table. My hand felt oddly empty. “Do you realize this is the first solid piece of evidence we’ve found?”

“We’ve been distracted by side issues. I still am,” Tony admitted. “I can’t get that woman out of my mind. I keep seeing her—a girl with Irma’s face—standing in the flames and screaming.”

“Stop it.”

“Sorry. But—”

“Of course she haunts us,” I snapped. “Who wouldn’t be disturbed by a gruesome story like hers? If it weren’t for her resemblance to Irma, though…”

I let the words trail off, and Tony looked curiously at me.

“What?”

“It’s gone. I almost had an idea there, for a minute…. Let’s stick to the important question. We know now that the shrine did reach Rothenburg. It has to be here somewhere. Let’s have a look at those maps.”

We spread them out on the bed. They had been rolled for so many years it was hard to hold them open; they had a tendency to snap back on our hands like teeth. I leaned on two of the corners while Tony flattened the other side.

“Okay,” he said, after studying them for a moment. “This top plan concerns the remodeling of the east wing in seventeen hundred fifty-two. We needn’t worry about that. If there had been anything there, the workmen would have found it.”

I put the parchment down on the floor. The sheet underneath was yellower and the writing more faded.

“Here we have a general layout done in—early seventeenth century, wouldn’t you say? There’s no date. It’s not detailed enough to be of any use. Same for this…”

I added two more rolls to the one on the floor.

“Now here,” said Tony, looking with satisfaction at the next maps, “we get to red meat. These are plans of the
Schloss
as it was in the early fifteen-thirties. I’ll bet they were done by Burckhardt’s successor when he took over the title.”

“What a mess,” I said.

“The new count was no draftsman,” Tony agreed. “And the parchment needs cleaning. But you can make out most of it. Ignore the east wing, which was later demolished. Here’s the wing we are presently occupying—this line of rooms. The master bedchamber…is the one now inhabited by Schmidt.”

“I suspected as much.”

“Oh, you know everything, don’t you?”

“I said ‘suspected.’ How come Schmidt rated that particular room? Tony, maybe he’s already found the shrine!”

“Think it through,” Tony said, with maddening superiority. “Schmidt is still here, poking and prying and acting suspicious. If he had found the shrine he wouldn’t stick around. Do we then conclude that the shrine is not, after all, concealed somewhere in the chamber that belonged to Burckhardt?”

“We might if we were sure of two things.”

“One, that Schmidt is a good hunter; two, that Schmidt is a hunter, not a weird but innocent bystander. All right, we don’t conclude anything. The room next to his is mine now. According to the plan, it was once two smaller chambers occupied by servants of the noble pair. The next room—yours—belonged to the countess.”

“How modern,” I said, with a flippancy I did not feel. I wasn’t sure I wanted to have Konstanze that close to me.

“It was unusual for them to have had separate bedchambers.” Tony squinted at the dirty parchment. “Well, the legend is clear. Maybe she used it as boudoir or dressing room. Maybe she liked to sleep with the window open and Burckhardt liked it closed. Maybe he snored. Maybe—”

“Surely her room would be right next to his. If not…”

Tony grinned.

“They didn’t have our hang-ups about sex. I can see the count stamping down the corridor between rows of genuflecting servants on his way to spend the night with the countess…. But one of the noble gentlemen was more sensitive—or maybe he was susceptible to drafts. See this line?”

“Between the count and countess’s rooms?”

“Through the wall. I think it’s a passageway. Maybe blocked up now.”

“That’s all we lacked—a secret passage.”

“Nothing unusual about it. This isn’t Cleveland, Ohio; we’re in medieval Europe here. The place is probably riddled with secret passages. When you have walls ten feet thick, you can do all sorts of interesting things. I wish this parchment weren’t so filthy; I can’t make out all the fine lines. But this looks like another passage, from the library to one of the guest chambers. The count probably put his questionable acquaintances in that room, so he could eavesdrop on their conversations.”

“What’s this?” I pointed to a drawing of something that looked like a thick chimney.

“It would appear to be the count’s concept of an elevation drawing of the tower. Note that there seems to be a hidden stairway in the outer wall.”

“In the tower, eh? Then Irma could have gotten out of her room even with the door locked.”

“Maybe,” Tony said shortly. He lifted the last parchment and stared at the bedspread. “That seems to be all.”

“Seems to me it’s enough.”

“No, there’s something missing. We have two sheets covering the first and second floors of the
Schloss
. Where’s the plan of the cellars?”

“Right on. There must be a subterranean level, for storage and cooking. Maybe a dungeon or two. The count had to deal with crimes on his own premises; there weren’t any policemen. And I’d expect a well. If the defenders had to retreat within the castle walls, they were gone geese without a water supply—”

Someone banged on the door, interrupting my discourse. I kicked the whole collection of maps hastily under the bed.

“Come in,” Tony said.

It was George.

“The
Gräfin
asked me to tell you that the services are this afternoon.”

“How come so fast?” asked Tony.

“How should I know? Maybe she doesn’t want him lying around.”