The Mask of Destiny (22 page)

The door banged open and Gerald was bundled into the corridor, his hands behind his back and a scowl set on his face. Lethbridge had a heavy paw on his shoulder and was shoving him forward.

‘Stop struggling!' he barked. Gerald muttered a curse under his breath. The constable turned to the group of security guards who were still waiting in the hallway. Somehow they all had cups of coffee. ‘Thank you for your assistance,' Lethbridge said. ‘
Molte grazie
. We have a car waiting to take us to the airport.'

Lethbridge was followed out of the room by Sam and then Ruby, who pulled the door closed behind her.

Dr Serafini stepped from an adjoining office, a puzzled expression on his face. He called after Lethbridge as they barrelled down the corridor. ‘What about the American?'

Lethbridge looked back over his shoulder, still pushing Gerald ahead of him. ‘He's on the phone to the embassy,' he said. ‘He won't be a moment.'

Lethbridge shoved Gerald harder. By the time they reached the end of the corridor they were almost running. They burst around the corner and set off.

‘How long do you think we've got?' Sam asked, his feet skating across the tiled floor.

‘As long as it takes for Walter to free himself,' Gerald said.

‘Those handcuffs aren't coming off without a key,' Lethbridge said. ‘And that radiator pipe will take some moving. He won't be going anywhere for a while.'

‘Nice touch with the sock, by the way,' Sam said to Gerald. Gerald felt his bare right foot squelching inside his shoe.

‘I wouldn't fancy having it stuffed into my mouth,' Gerald said. ‘I haven't changed it in three days. But it should keep Walter quiet for a bit.'

Ruby laughed. ‘It couldn't have happened to a nicer person.'

They reached a flight of stairs and took them two at a time. Gerald stepped over a velvet rope strung across the top and into a gallery full of tour groups.

Lethbridge, Ruby and Sam clustered around him. ‘Which way now?' Ruby asked.

‘Dr Serafini said the Tower of the Winds isn't open to the public and I don't fancy asking a security guard for directions,' Gerald said.

‘Maybe we should join the tourists and keep an eye out for a sign?' Ruby said.

‘I guess that's as good a plan as any,' Gerald said. He turned to Constable Lethbridge. ‘Thanks for helping us get away, but it's probably best if we go it alone from here. You tend to stick out a bit.'

Lethbridge nodded and wiped his palm down the front of his trousers. ‘The least I could do,' he said, shaking Gerald's hand. ‘I was getting sick of being bossed around by that fellow anyway.'

‘Won't you be in trouble?' Ruby asked. ‘Will Inspector Jarvis be angry?'

Lethbridge snuffled a laugh. ‘Inspector Jarvis was born angry. I'll say you forced me to do it.'

‘What!' said Gerald. ‘Won't that get
me
into trouble?'

Lethbridge turned to the exit. ‘No more trouble than you're already in, sunshine,' he said. And with a wave, he was lost in the crowd.

‘He's not as silly as he looks,' Gerald said.

They tagged onto the end of a school group and tried to blend in. They passed through gallery after gallery with walls and ceilings covered in murals.

‘Look,' Ruby said to Sam, ‘I think we're coming up to the Sistine Chapel.' Before Sam could open his mouth, Ruby said, ‘Don't ask. Just look and appreciate.'

The torrent of tourists swept through a doorway and emptied into a large chamber. The first thing Gerald noticed was that everyone was looking up with their mouths flopped open.

His eyes were drawn up, too.

And he joined the slack-jawed masses.

‘Oh my,' Ruby whispered. ‘It's…magnificent.'

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel stared back at the crowd below. The entire surface, including the walls, was covered in the most extraordinary frescoes. Light poured in from tall windows, lifting the colours on the walls to even greater brilliance.

‘Look,' said Ruby. ‘
The Last Judgment
.
The Creation
of Adam
. It's astounding.'

Even Sam seemed impressed. Gerald scanned the walls. The artist had divided them into a jigsaw of shapes, all filled with recreations of the stories of antiquity. Hundreds of figures were depicted across the ceiling and walls, their clothes a rainbow of oranges, yellows and blues. Cherubs and angels vied for attention with mortals and prophets. Around the perimeter were a dozen giant portraits each with its name inscribed underneath.

An Irish priest guiding a party of nuns around the chapel stopped beside Gerald. ‘Look, sisters,' he said. ‘The twelve seers. There's Daniel. And Ezekiel. Over there is Jonah. And right in front of us is the sibyl of Delphi.' Gerald followed their gaze to a painting of a young woman holding a scroll in one hand. She was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. She had a purple cape over her shoulders and her head was wrapped in a plain scarf. She was looking off to the side, as if distracted by someone entering the room. What was she thinking? What could she see?

It took the blast of a police whistle to snap Gerald back to reality.

His head darted around, searching for the guards. The whistle seemed to come from all directions at once. But another blast pinned the origin. By the chapel entrance stood three security guards.

And they were all pointing at Gerald.

Ruby dashed up to him, dragging Sam by the arm. ‘The exit's this way,' she said, and dived into the crowd.

The guards moved as one, making their way through the crush of tourists. Gerald didn't falter—he flew after Ruby and Sam, and they elbowed their way to the exit.

‘Quick!' Ruby said. ‘Through here.'

She hurdled a velvet rope strung across a narrow entryway and they bolted up a tight stairwell to a small alcove facing a closed wooden door.

Gerald turned the handle and they bustled into a gallery that seemed to stretch on forever—the high vaulted ceilings accentuated the narrowness of the room. The walls were hung with enormous paintings of maps, which gave the gallery a blue hue of water.

All the tourist traffic was coming towards them. Gerald could see they would have to battle the tide.

‘We can't go that way,' he said with a jab of his thumb. ‘That'll take us back to the Sistine Chapel.'

Ruby prodded him between the shoulder blades. ‘Then lead on MacGerald,' she said. Sam gave her a confused look and she raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘I'll explain later.'

Sam fell in behind Gerald as he ploughed through the various groups of school students and retired Americans. They finally reached a set of glazed double doors and heaved their way into another long gallery. This one was hung with enormous tapestries.

Gerald ducked into a corner next to the doorway. On the ground was a map of the museum that someone must have dropped. He unfolded it and Sam and Ruby crowded around to see.

‘We must be here,' Gerald said, pointing to a long gallery on the western side. ‘But I can't see “Tower of the Winds” marked anywhere.'

Ruby took the map and studied it closely. She shook her head. ‘Nothing,' she said. ‘What do we do?'

Sam had taken a step back and was staring vacantly down the gallery. ‘What do you think
Torre dei Venti
means?' he asked.

Ruby and Gerald looked up from the map. ‘What was that?' Ruby said.

‘
Torre dei Venti
,' Sam said. ‘It's on a signpost up there.' They followed the direction of his outstretched finger to a slender wooden pole with a number of cross boards showing the way to various galleries. ‘
Torre
sounds like tower. And
Venti
could be winds. It sounds right. What do you think?'

Ruby stared at her brother for a second—then hugged him. ‘You continue to surprise me,' she said, giving him an extra squeeze.

Sticking close to the side of the gallery, they managed to avoid the main flow of tourists and were almost at the signpost when Ruby grabbed Gerald.

‘Guard,' she said in his ear. ‘Over by the stairs.'

They shrank back and pretended to admire one of the tapestries. Gerald sneaked a look over his shoulder. The guard had a finger to his ear and seemed to be focused on listening to something through an earpiece.

‘Is he getting an update on us?' Sam said.

‘Well, I don't think he's listening to the cricket,' Gerald said.

Ruby looked further up the gallery. ‘Those stairs at the end must lead to the tower,' she said. ‘There's nowhere else the sign can possibly be pointing to.'

‘How do we get past laughing boy?' Gerald said, nodding towards the guard. ‘Dr Serafini knows we're looking for the tower. There's no way it's going to be left unwatched.'

Sam patted Gerald on the shoulder. ‘Have you seen this?' He pointed to the tapestry in front of them. It was a particularly graphic depiction of the assassination of Julius Caesar in the Roman Senate, complete with thrusting daggers and tormented faces.

‘That's great, Sam,' Ruby said. ‘But now's not the time to discover a love of art.'

‘Don't be daft,' Sam said. ‘
This
.' Sewn into the tapestry in golden thread, at the bottom of a pillar, was a triangle of forearms, linked at the elbows, around a blazing sun.

Gerald shook his head. He was beyond being surprised by his family crest turning up in strange places. He resisted the urge to bend down and touch it. It couldn't be there simply for decoration—it had to signify something. An idea popped into his head.

‘Gerald?' Ruby asked. He put a finger to his lips and glanced at the guard by the stairs, then ducked into the narrow gap between the tapestry and the wall.

‘What are you doing?' Ruby said. Gerald's feet were clearly visible beneath the tapestry. ‘There's no point hiding there.'

Gerald popped back out with a huge grin on his face. ‘I wasn't hiding,' he said. ‘I've found something.'

He beckoned Ruby and Sam to follow him. But before they could take a step a shrill whistle cut through the crowd's murmuring.

Everyone in the gallery froze. The guard by the stairs to the tower had his finger to his ear again. The doors at the end of the gallery were open, and the three guards from the chapel stood in the entryway.

‘Stop where you are!' The tallest of the guards at the door pointed a baton at Gerald.

Gerald's eyes darted about. It was a long shot. But it was the only shot they had. ‘On my signal,' he said to Sam and Ruby, ‘drop to the floor and roll behind the tapestry.'

Ruby nodded. ‘Okay. What's the sig—'

‘FIRE!
FIRE!
'

Gerald's shout rang along the gallery. In a second, there was a screaming stampede for the exits.

Gerald, Sam and Ruby hit the tiles and barrel-rolled behind the tapestry. Gerald pushed Ruby through a tight manhole in the wall. Sam was through a second later. The feet of panicking tourists pounded by just centimetres away. The whistle kept up a constant screech, but it wasn't getting any closer. The guards couldn't make headway against the rolling crush of the crowds funnelling through the doors. Gerald scrambled after Sam. He glanced back to see four sets of black boots on the other side of the tapestry. He fitted the manhole cover back in place and wished he could see the guards' faces when they realised that the three runaways had vanished.

A dim light from high above illuminated the tight crawlspace behind the wall. It was as if they were sitting in a fireplace and staring straight up the chimney. A series of iron rungs fixed into the brickwork led to the top. Gerald squeezed into place and started to climb.

Hand over hand, he hauled himself up. His backpack scraped against the bricks behind him and he strained to make as little noise as possible. Finally, he emerged in a cramped alcove at the start of a passage; the ceiling was so low he had to sit on the floor. He shunted along to make space for Ruby and then Sam as they climbed out of the shaft.

‘I wish we'd got new batteries for the headlamps,' Ruby whispered. ‘I can't see a thing.'

‘It's all right,' Gerald whispered back. ‘Looks like the only way out is along here and it seems lighter up that way.'

He started along the passage on his hands and knees. As far as he could tell, they were angling back across to the other side of the tapestry gallery. Up ahead, light filtered through a cluster of holes in the centre of a panel in the wall.

Sam and Ruby bunched up behind Gerald as he put an eye to one of the holes.

‘Can you see anything?' Sam whispered. For a few seconds, there was no response. ‘Gerald?'

Gerald looked back over his shoulder, his eyes bright. ‘I think we might be close,' he said.

‘What is it?' Ruby asked.

Gerald put a finger to his lips and turned back to the panel. He ran his fingers around its edges and found what he was looking for. He twisted two wooden latches, took hold of the anchor points on either side and shoved it. Light flooded into their escape tunnel, blinding them for a second. Gerald tumbled through the opening, rolling onto a cold floor of brown paving stones. Ruby and Sam followed.

‘Wow,' said Sam.

And that seemed to sum it up for Gerald and Ruby as well.

They were standing in the heart of a chamber that seemed to climb to the heavens. Every wall was covered in brightly coloured frescoes. One depicted a shipwreck, its survivors struggling onto a rocky shore. High above, the ceiling was painted an intense blue. Angels and cherubs danced around its perimeter. In the centre, directly above Gerald's head, was what appeared to be an enormous clock face, its hands pointed together.

‘This must be the Tower of the Winds,' Ruby whispered. ‘It's just like the picture on the book.'

Gerald turned a full circle to take in the kaleidoscope of colours and images. It was almost too much to digest. Then he looked down to the floor, and saw the white line that split the room in two, just as Dr Serafini had described it. It ran from the tunnel opening they'd fallen through, across to the opposite wall. In the centre of the room, where Gerald was standing, the line bisected an octagonal design set into the tiles. Each of the eight points in the octagon was connected by thin lines to each other point.