Murder on the Silk Road (29 page)

13

Although the
I Ching
had predicted she would be spending her time waiting, the next day was actually fairly eventful. After being awakened by the buzzing of flies at the crack of dawn (the crack of dawn actually wasn’t so bad, coming as it did at close to eight), Charlotte was startled to hear a loud knock on her door. She opened it to find Chu’s son standing there in his aviator glasses and Boston University T-shirt. He was there to tell her that she had a telephone call from the United States. After flinging on a robe, she followed him back through the guest house’s maze of paths and courtyards to the lobby to take the call. To her surprise, the connection was as clear as a bell. Though conditions in China were generally backward by comparison with those of Western countries, she had often been pleasantly surprised by such efficiencies as telephone connections that were fast and clear, souvenir stands that accepted Western credit cards, and laundry that was returned the same day, neatly folded and stacked.

Its high-toned accent unmistakably identified the voice that had traveled halfway around the globe as that of Bunny Oglethorpe. “Charlotte Graham, is that you?” the voice asked.

Charlotte replied that it was.

“I didn’t think I’d be able to reach you so easily. This is Bunny Oglethorpe. I just got a call from Chief Tracey. He told me that he’d just heard from the New York police. They have a special fraud squad that investigates art thefts. They found our sculpture.”

“Where?”

“At the country house of a professor at the Oriental Institute who was murdered last April during a robbery attempt. The house is somewhere up on the Hudson, near Catskill. The heirs found it when they were cleaning out. When they took it to be appraised, the dealer informed them that it had been stolen.”

“What was the professor’s name?” asked Charlotte.

“Boardmann,” she said. “Adrian or Avery or something like that.”

“Averill,” said Charlotte. So much for getting the problem of the Oglethorpe sculpture off her mind, she thought. Instead of having one less thread in the tangled skein, she now had more than ever.

“Do you know him?”

“I know of him. He was scheduled to lead the study tour that I’m on. When he died, the Institute was looking for someone to take his place, and my stepdaughter, Marsha Lundstrom, asked me. She’s also a professor there. I’m on this trip as his replacement.”

“What a coincidence!” said Bunny.

“Maybe,” said Charlotte, for whom there had recently been a lot of coincidences. “Do the police think he stole the sculpture?”

“Yes, but out of what motive, they don’t know. Maybe he was planning to sell it after some time had passed. Or maybe he just wanted to live with it, like that man who stole the Rodin bronze from the Victoria and Albert.”

“But why that sculpture?”

“That’s what I asked. I’m very fond of our monk, but it isn’t a Rodin. Unless he just stole it because it was easy to steal, and, being a professor at the Institute, he knew about the series of thefts of artworks that had come from Dunhuang and thought he could pass it off as part of that.”

“Maybe,” said Charlotte.

Bunny sighed. “Anyway, I thought I ought to let you know. I didn’t want you going to a lot of trouble trying to find it. It’s on its way back to its place of honor in the garden. With a hole in its back, but otherwise okay.”

“A hole in its back?”

“Yes. The dear professor smashed a hole in its back. Which is one reason why the stealing-it-because-you-want-to-live-with-it theory doesn’t make sense to me. Why would someone deliberately vandalize a piece of sculpture that they stole because they wanted to live with it?”

“The damage couldn’t have been accidental?”

“I haven’t seen the sculpture yet myself. It’s due back here on Friday. But the New York police told Chief Tracey that it looked deliberate. They thought he had used a hammer. But they also said it looked as if it could be easily repaired.”

They chatted for a minute more, with Charlotte promising to drop by when she got back, to say hello and to look at the statue.

She was sure of it, she thought as she walked back to her room. Boardmann’s theft was linked to everything that was going on in Dunhuang. She was reminded of what Bert had said about piecing together a dinosaur skeleton. The skeleton of the
T. bataar
was unusual: except for the skull, it had been as neatly laid out in its sandstone bed as a body in a casket, but this case was like most of the dinosaurs that Bert and his team spent their winters assembling—a jumble of unrelated bits and pieces. Before you could start putting it together, you had to develop a feel for the individual parts; how one fit into another, where each fit in relation to the whole, where the big pieces went and the small pieces went. Bunny’s news about Boardmann was like finding a crucial missing piece. She was now reasonably certain she had all the important pieces. Now she had to get to know them—to turn them over in her hands, to run her fingers over their bumps and hollows and ridges.

The first piece she wanted to take a look at was the newest one—the hole in the back of the statue. Something about it rang a bell. And then it struck her what it was. Item one: a cache of manuscripts had recently turned up inside a statue, and it was to translate these manuscripts that Marsha and Victor had been invited to Dunhuang. Item two: the statues that had been toppled from the dais in Cave 323 had had holes in their backs which had been made by looters looking for concealed treasure. Item three: Marsha had said that manuscripts and other valuables were traditionally hidden inside the bellies of the statues at Dunhuang to give them spiritual power. Charlotte had examined the piece. Now she put it into place. They had figured out that Wang had hidden the manuscripts in the cubbyholes, and then drawn up a list of his hiding places, a copy of which Charlotte had found in Peter’s room. But they had never thought to wonder where Wang had hidden his original list.

It made very good sense to her that he had hidden it inside a sculpture, namely that of the Oglethorpe’s monk.

Later that morning they scouted out the ninth cave on the list, under the guise of doing research for Marsha’s lectures. If Ned, who was now her chief suspect—the Boardmann connection had only strengthened the case against him—had taken the manuscripts from the eighth cave last night, he could be expected to visit the ninth cave tonight, and they intended to be there. The cave, which was Cave 328, was located in the southern group of caves near the. Cave of Unequaled Height.

As they climbed the cliff, Charlotte filled Marsha in on Bunny Oglethorpe’s call. “One more thing,” she added, after telling her about Boardmann’s theft of the statue. “It had a hole in its back.”

“A hole in its back?” asked Marsha, puzzled.

“Like the Tang statues in Cave 323. I think the Oglethorpe sculpture was also used as a hiding place—by Wang.”

“For more manuscripts?” asked Marsha.

“No. For the list describing where the manuscripts were hidden. As accustomed as he was to hiding things away, Wang wouldn’t have left the list just lying around. It was a valuable document, and, as you pointed out, there was a long tradition of hiding treasure inside of statues.”

“Do you know who the Oglethorpe sculpture was supposed to represent?” asked Marsha. “I know it was a Buddhist monk, but do you know which one?”

“I don’t remember his name,” Charlotte replied between breaths. Thank God for all those hikes up the mountain to her cottage in Maine; without them, she wouldn’t have been up to this trip. “He was the famous pilgrim who carried the Buddhist scriptures across the Himalayas from India.”

“Hsuan-tsang,” said Marsha. “He was Wang’s patron saint. If Wang was going to choose a particular sculpture in which to hide his most valuable document, it would have been a sculpture of Hsuan-tsang.”

“That’s right!” said Charlotte. “Victor talked about Hsuan-tsang being Wang’s patron saint in his lecture.”

“That’s how Stein won Wang over: he also claimed Hsuantsang as his patron saint,” said Marsha. “Okay,” she continued. “Wang hid his list in the statue of Hsuan-tsang. After Wang died, the sculpture was sold to an art dealer, who sold it to the Oglethorpes. But after that, I’m lost.”

They had paused to catch their breath on the porch of one of the caves, about halfway up. In the distance, the jagged ridge of the Mountain of the Three Dangers was sharply outlined against a deep blue sky.

“You mean, how did Boardmann know that Wang’s list was hidden inside that particular statue when there are twenty-four hundred statues at Dunhuang?”

Marsha nodded. “For that matter, how did he know the list existed?”

“That’s where I’m stuck too.”

For a moment, they studied the view. Charlotte could no longer see Larry’s white Toyota Land Cruiser in the shadows of the foothills, nor could she see the tents. Reynolds must have given orders for the camp to be dismantled.

After a few minutes, Charlotte spoke. “The only explanation I can think of is that Boardmann, in the course of his research, came across a document in which Wang mentioned that he’d drawn up a list of the manuscript hiding places and where he had hidden it.”

“His daybook!” exclaimed Marsha. “Wang was a meticulous record-keeper. That’s how the Chinese know which foreigners took away what from the caves. There’s a photocopy of it in the library. But”—a frown crossed her face—“Averill wouldn’t have had any reason to study Wang’s daybook.”

“Why not?”

“His specialty was sculpture. The entries in Wang’s daybook all have to do with the manuscripts and artworks that he sold to Stein and the other foreigners. The only sculpture that was removed from the caves during the period of Wang’s stewardship was the Bodhisattva that Langdon Warner carried off to the Fogg.”

“What about Peter?” asked Charlotte as they continued their upward climb. “Would he have had occasion to study Wang’s daybook?”

“Yes,” said Marsha thoughtfully. “Very much so.”

“Okay, let’s say it was Peter who comes across the entry in Wang’s daybook. The entry says that he’s drawn up a list describing where he’s hidden the remaining manuscripts, and that he’s hidden the list in a statue of Hsuan-tsang in Cave X. Peter goes to Cave X, and finds that the statue is missing.”

“Of course! If Peter had wanted to trace the missing statue, the first person he would have consulted was Averill. He is—or rather, was—the reigning authority on Dunhuang sculpture. It’s because of his work that the Academy has been able to track down so much of the missing sculpture.”

“How well did they know one another?”

“Pretty well, I think,” said Marsha. “They were both here together for three months last year. Peter was working on his book, and Averill was studying the sculptures. People can become quite close very quickly in such a small place.” She smiled at her statement, which applied as well to her and Bert.

“So I’ve noticed,” said Charlotte with a raised eyebrow.

Marsha grinned.

“To continue,” said Charlotte. “Peter goes to Boardmann and says, ‘Look what I’ve found.’ Maybe he even showed Boardmann the reference in Wang’s daybook. He asks Boardmann if he knows where the statue is, and Boardmann tells him. Then they plot together to steal the statue.”

“They both would have known about the thefts of the Dunhuang artworks,” added Marsha, “and they probably thought it would be easy to make the theft of the Oglethorpe sculpture fit in with the others.”

“Did Boardmann need the money?” asked Charlotte.

“Academics always need money. But Wang’s daybook still doesn’t answer the question of who killed Peter. Whoever it was must also have had access to the list of hiding places, or wanted access to the list.”

They had paused at the foot of a staircase.

Charlotte turned to Marsha. “How did Averill Boardmann die?” she asked. “I want all the details.”

“Do you think …?”

Charlotte nodded. Though she might be wrong, her intuition told her that Boardmann’s death was linked to the other murders, and experience had taught her that more often than not, her intuition was right.

“He was murdered on the street in New York during a robbery attempt. He was out walking his dogs, a pair of Pekingese. It happened early in the morning, just as the sun was coming up.”

“And the guy they arrested?”

“A vagrant, an ex-con who hung out on the upper West Side.”

“How was he killed? With a gun, a knife?”

“A knife,” Marsha replied. “Stabbed through the heart. They never did find the murder weapon. The police said he had struggled with his attacker. He had slash marks on the undersides of his forearms.”

“Just like Peter,” said Charlotte.

“He died several hours later on the operating table at St. Luke’s. The vagrant they arrested had been seen picking garbage out of the garbage cans in the vicinity, but he denied committing the murder.”

“Then what evidence did they have?”

“Averill’s watch. He was wearing Averill’s watch.”

They had reached their destination, which was the same cave from which Langdon Warner had taken the Bodhisattva. The Buddha in the center of the group of sculptures was flanked by three figures on the right, and two on the left. Where the third figure should have been on the left was only an empty dais with a post in the center that had once supported the missing sculpture.

Marsha pointed to a sign on the wall behind the empty dais. “It says, ‘Stolen by American so-called archaeologist Langdon Warner in 1924. Now in the Fogg Museum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.’”

“Looks like Chu’s work,” said Charlotte.

Marsha nodded. “He’s put up signs like this in all of the caves from which artworks were removed by Western explorers.”

“The statues are exquisite,” said Charlotte. “Especially this one,” she added, nodding at the small Bodhisattva that was the twin of the one in the Fogg. Its erect posture was stately, its long limbs graceful and elegant, the expression on its broad, smooth face serene. Its necklaces, armlets, and bracelets were sumptuous and the colors of its long, pleated skirt—vermilion, malachite, and gold—were rich and vibrant.