Borrower of the Night: The First Vicky Bliss Mystery (25 page)

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Authors: Elizabeth Peters

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BOOK: Borrower of the Night: The First Vicky Bliss Mystery

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“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.