The Stolen (34 page)
Authors: T. S. Learner
Holding them under the light he could see that the outer metal edges were bevelled, as if they were meant to slot into a larger structure. He laid Christoph's symbol so that the tip was balanced on the tip of Ulrich's symbol. He then tried to place the hourglass symbol over the apex of the two but it didn't quite fit. Nevertheless he had the feeling that the hourglass made up the heart of the whole puzzle-key. The assemblage looked incomplete. He was certain he was missing two more triangular pieces of the puzzle-key that would make up the shape of a square with the hourglass as the centre. He glanced at the book, turning to the illustration of the four eighteenth-century clocks commissioned for Marie Antoinette. On the opposite page were the descriptions for each clock:
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The Queen commissioned the four clocks of the Elements as a tribute to the ephemeral nature of Time and also all that maketh the World, that is to say Earth, Fire, Air and Water. But she also wanted the Horloger du Roi â Monsieur Jean-Antoine Lépine â to embody the beings of both the Heavens and of the Earth, the highest and the lowest. This was the emphatic instruction of her highness. It was understood that once the commission was complete the clocks were to be a surprise gift for her husband â King Louis XVI. Alas neither King nor Queen lived long enough to see the commission finished.
Lépine was also ingenious enough to design one key to wind all four clocks; this was to emphasise that there was to be one owner and that owner supreme in his power â King Louis XVI â himself an amateur key maker. To illustrate the point further Lépine⦠placed the symbol for Infinity upon the end of the gold key, an implied witticism that the King would rule for all of infinity and that Time, after all, was perhaps not that finite. Alas, this was not to be.
The Earth clock designed by Monsieur Jean-Antoine Lépine has a case originally fired in the city of Delft. This case containing the movements is made from porcelain and the scenes on the three sides of the porcelain case are glazed on in the traditional Delft blue and black colours and represent the fecundity of the Earth and Man's dominance over it. One side is of a winter field being ploughed. A flock of crows fly after the horse-drawn plough enticed no doubt by the worms revealed by the upturned soil, while the farmer, head bent against the freezing wind, appears oblivious: Man against the elements. The second side is of the same field in late spring now filled with the growing wheat with two courting doves in the foreground. The third side is of early autumn and the harvest: there is a haystack in the background while women, working in rows, harvest the ripe wheat into baskets, a low sun overhead. The actual face of the clock has the naked figure of Man as the clock hands; his two arms operate as the pointers. This base, also made of solid gold, has the symbol for the element Earth: the inverted triangle with the tip sectioned off, inscribed deeply next to the Latin proverb:
Ad seminandum est messores
â To sow is to reap.
The Water clock, like the Air clock, has a case also made of glass, but here Monsieur Jean-Antoine Lépine has ensured that the glass has no impurities or air bubbles; instead its clarity represents the purity of water and the glass itself has a bluish tint as if it were the still waters of a lake or the mighty waves of the ocean. The three sides of the glass case are all depictions of the manifestations of Water, the illustrations themselves delicate, complex etchings inlaid with gold leaf. The right side (in relation to the clock face) of the case is a river scene, with references to Leda and the Swan. Leda, here represented by a naked nymph bathing in the tranquil waters of the broad river, is being watched by a large swan who looks on upstream; only the appearance of a sleeping snake on the bank indicates the rape that will follow. The left side (to the clock face) of the case is etched with an ocean in full storm, the arched back of a whale is seen through the choppy waves, water gushing dramatically from its waterspout; in the foreground a tilting sail ship has begun to slide under the waves. The back of the clock is etched with the scene of a large lake. A barge carrying a party of celebrating people floats on its surface, while reeds waving in the breeze fringe its banks.
The clock face itself has Neptune as the centrepiece; the trident he holds is one of the clock hands, his raised arm the other.
Inscribed into the gold base is the Latin proverb:
Sine aqua, non vita est
â Without water there is no life. Besides this, as is in the other clock bases, is the symbol for the element Water â a blank triangle balancing inverted on one sharp corner.
The Fire clock, like the other three, was designed and built by clock-maker Monsieur Jean-Antoine Lépine and like the others the actual material it is made of was chosen to reflect aspects of the element. In this case Fire: therefore this case is made of pure gold and consequently the most valuable of all four clocks. Thematically it is an exploration of both the constructive and destructive aspects of fire. The right side (to the clock face) therefore is a scene of a foundry etched into the gold plate. The blacksmith sits at his anvil, the pinnacle of industry, his hammer held high ready to descend, as he is about to fashion a piece of iron. Behind him the flames of the furnace leap almost to the ceiling of the foundry. The second side of the case, left of the clock face, is a depiction of Hell, a seething pitch of flames and fire into which the wicked souls of the Dead are captured mid-air, screaming as they fall to their damnation. At close scrutiny one of these figures bears a strong resemblance to the lawyer and revolutionary Maximilien de Robespierre, one of the most prominent critics of the Queen at the time the clocks were being made â an addition Lépine would have inserted to both amuse and further endear himself to the Royal couple.
The final and back face of the clock depicts a simple domestic scene of the Royal kitchen, with the chef's assistant cooking a roasting piglet on a spit, the fire beneath now tamed and benign, a reminder of one of the more benevolent aspects to fire. Inscribed on the gold base of this magnificent clock is the Latin proverb:
Flamma fumo est proxima
â There is no smoke without fire. Beside this, as with the other clocks, there is inscribed the symbol for the element Fire, a simple blank triangle.
The Air clock is, like the Water clock, made entirely of glass, but, unlike the Water clock, Monsieur Jean-Antoine Lépine deliberately left bubbles of air trapped in the liquid glass, to emphasise the element attributed to this clock. Three sides of the glass case that contain the visible gold and copper movements are etched with three moods of the sky â a thunderstorm, a clear sky with Sun and a sky filled with clouds. The actual face of the Air clock has a depiction of Gabriel the angel in the centre in profile; his raised sword and one long wing serve as the pointers for the clock face. The base of the clock, like the other three clocks in the collection, is solid gold.
Inscribed into the face of the gold base is the Latin proverb: Spiritus ascendit â The Spirit ascends. Next to this is the traditional symbol for the element Air â a triangle with the tip sectioned off.
Matthias sat back. He now recognised Christoph's symbol as Air, as embodied in the box clock representing the same element. Ulrich's symbol was Water â he remembered Ulrich telling him this was his element in honour of his brother in the German navy. But how did this relate to the other factors: the hourglass symbol, Janus Zellweger, whom Klauser had obviously thought was involved? And the mysterious fourth member of the cartel. He stared at the illustrations of the clocks themselves. The illustrator had carefully drawn the symbol for each element under the etching of each one and its three sides.
Matthias pulled out some paper and drew all four symbols. The missing elements had to be Fire and Earth â as they had also appeared encrypted in the lists of Nazi plunder. He stared at the paper â so far all he had were the symbols for Air and Water, with the small hourglass that slotted into them and jutted out below. With a pair of scissors he cut the two other symbols out â Earth and Fire, then slotted the three metal pieces together, and fitted the paper symbols into the gaps, point first. The paper Earth slotted in as the top triangle, the paper Fire as the left triangle, while metal Air and Water slotted into the bottom and right respectively. As he thought, the whole assemblage made up a square. He could imagine that if the other two symbols were also made of metal the whole thing would look like a sophisticated key.
As a physicist the symbols appealed to him. The marriage of the timepieces with the four basic elements had an alchemy he understood. It was also typical of Christoph, who was obsessive about the importance of symbols and had loved any kind of historical synergy. Matthias could imagine how the conceit might have been Christoph's suggestion, fuelled by Ulrich's fanaticism. The object he had bequeathed was undoubtedly a clue to where the plunder was hidden, a clue that cost Christoph his life. The question was: how did this key fit with the four clocks and who owned the other two pieces? On his deathbed Christoph had told Liliane the symbol was a map â but how? And what about Ulrich's comment about the hourglass symbol hidden in the East German safe for all those decades:
Think about the symbol, Matthias â what rolls on regardless of everything else?
Ulrich's words echoed in his mind. âTime,' Matthias answered the riddle out loud. But how did Time link to where the gold and the statuette were being kept?
He stared at the centre of the design, where potentially Time and the four points of the elements converged. Clockwise, Fire, Earth, Water and Air and at the centre, Time. If this were astrophysics, he observed wryly, this point would represent a black hole, or if he were religious, perhaps a consciousness beyond, before and after time. God â or Kali, the goddess the statuette represented. He remembered Helen describing the symbolism of Kali, how she embodied the void before creation and the void after creation, and how this way she became the goddess of energy, of change, destruction and time. A figure beyond time â was this a deliberate connection? he wondered, then dismissed it as esoteric aggrandising â a folly of both Christoph and Ulrich.
He pulled out Klauser's newspaper articles on Janus Zellweger. The first one, dated 16 August 1961, included a photograph of the arms manufacturer looking suave and sitting on the edge of a sweeping modernist desk. A large framed poster in the background advertised his company, Zellweger Enterprises, whose logo was a blank triangle sitting point up with the initials of the company emblazoned across it.
Blank triangle, point up â the symbol for Fire â firearms â weaponry! Of course!
So Zellweger's fire symbol made up a quarter of the key. But it still begged the question â who held the missing symbol of Earth?
Matthias turned back to the second clipping: an article on an arms fair in Dallas, Texas, in March 1963. The photograph attached showed a display of Zellweger weaponry, a large military tank surrounded by models posing with machine guns, and the logo hanging over the display was completely different. The article was about how Zellweger had just signed a huge contract with the US army â weaponry for the upcoming Vietnam war. Why had he changed the logo between August 1961 and March 1963? Matthias picked up the telephone and made an appointment to see Timo Meinholt, the young detective who'd worked with Klauser.
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They rolled away from each other damp with sweat, still panting. Then magically at the same moment, both of them began laughing. Their lovemaking had been frantic, both fighting to lose themselves in each other.
âI can't tell you how good that feels, like coming home. Whatever that means.' Matthias spoke first.
âIt means we make good lovers,' Helen purred.
He turned towards her, breathing her in, his finger curling round a lock of hair. âMaybe you're the answer. Maybe this' â his hand swept in the both of them â âwould be a way of defining myself.' He switched to English. âI becomes we.'
She broke into laughter again. âYou make it sound like a lesson in grammar.'
âI apologise; I sound a little pedantic in English,' he said, now a little shy, then switched back to Schweizerdeutsch. âSo tell⦠your research?'
Helen sat up. âWhile you were away I discovered two more accounts of the statuette, one in eleventh-century Armenia, another in 1418 in Strasbourg. Both are reports from non-gypsies, describing a tribe of the Roma who, among their chattels, have a statuette they say is made of
bolimaskero sastro
â sky iron. And the Armenian record talks of a group of travelling dancers, magicians and metalworkers, “worshippers” from a land called Rajasthan and how they sang of being forced to flee their lakeside temple and carry their goddess far, far from her home, but their great strength was that they carried with them the blessing of Kali and that this would protect them, for it would smite down their enemies if need be.'