Vintage Love (108 page)

“Perhaps.”

“We shall see,” he said. “So we have our work cut out for us tomorrow night and the one following.”

“You must think up a way for us to get to the orgy,” she said. “You know the house and some of its secret passages.”

“I’ll try,” he said carefully. “I’ll make no giant promises.”

He saw her home and she went to bed that night in a happier frame of mind than on the previous several nights. At least she had some plan now. First they would try to close in on Gregorio and get him to talk, and failing that, they would get to the orgy and explore Barsini’s villa.

She slept lightly and was wakened by what she thought was the door opening. But when she raised herself up in bed to study it with frightened eyes she saw that it was closed. At the same time she was sure she heard a floorboard creak on the other side of the door.

Unable to restrain her curiosity, she quickly got up and, throwing a robe around her, went to the door and flung it open. She was just in time to see a ghostly female figure enter Irma’s room. The sight of the phantom creature made her gasp and remember what Aunt Isobel had told her.

She rushed down the hallway and opened the door to Irma’s room just in time to see a hidden door in the opposite wall of the room closing. She noted that the candle in the wide glass container was burning before the plaster Madonna. She went to the spot where she was sure she had seen motion and began feeling the wood paneling which covered the wall halfway to the ceiling.

She had no luck until she pressed both hands on a section of the walnut paneling and suddenly the secret door swung back, revealing a dark corridor.

She felt the chill, damp air of the dark corridor and found herself trembling. She’d been told that the house had its share of secret passages, yet she had never found one before. Her good judgment told her to venture no farther but her curiosity overwhelmed any caution. She went to the dresser and found a taper. She lit it and went back to the secret entrance.

She knew she had seen someone or something in the hall. And whoever it was had certainly vanished by means of this hidden passage. She did not wish to believe she was stalking the supernatural, that it was the ghost of her sister she had seen. But she knew there was some eerie truth behind the facts.

Slowly she moved into the dark secret passage and found it was of the same stone as the old palace’s exterior. It was much damper than the interior of the palace and it smelled of being shut off for ages. She came to a turn and a stone stairway which twisted around as she descended it. The walls of the stairway were wet. She held the candle, fiercely not wanting to be left in the dark in this terrifying place.

She came to the bottom of the winding stone steps and was again in a low corridor of stone. This led her to a door. She hesitated and then cautiously opened the door and found herself in still another passage. She closed the door behind her and stood there a moment.

As she hesitated she suddenly heard a click behind her. She was certain that someone had turned a key in the door and made her a prisoner. She turned and tried the iron door handle. It would not turn now. She knew she had been right. She was trapped!

Ahead lay dark shadows and no promise of any exit. If she were in a dead-end tunnel she could picture herself dying of thirst and hunger while whoever had turned that key would wait silently, knowing that time was his aide.

Sick with fear and shivering from the cool of the deep, dark place, she moved along. The tiny candle flame flickered several times and threatened to go out. In spite of her fear she pressed on. And when she least expected it the tunnel turned again and she came to a set of stone steps rising up six or seven feet.

There was no escape; she had to mount the steps. And when she had gone halfway up she saw a trapdoor above her. With the candle still in one hand she used all her strength to lift the door. The first time it would only go so far, then she pushed a bit harder and swung it back all the way.

A musty storage room was revealed to her. She came up the rest of the steps and used the candle to inspect the room. It was filled with ancient furniture and paintings thick with dust lay against the walls. Flung across a broken chair was a brilliant red cloak. She lifted it and smelled it and recognized the perfume Irma had habitually worn still clung to the cloak.

It was a strange find and she did not know what it meant or what to do about it. She decided to close the trapdoor after her, keep the cloak as evidence of her discovery, and attempt to get out of the storage room by some other means.

After she’d lowered the trap door she went to the room’s windows and saw that they were shuttered on the inside. The shutters were locked. She went to the single door and she was not too surprised when on opening it she found herself in a hall at the rear of the ground floor of the palace.

She had covered all this area of the house by means of secret stairways and passages. And the ghostly creature who had sent her on this strange trail must have used the same path of escape. But there had been someone else involved! Someone who had locked that door shut after her. Who? Had it been a human hand or had the ghost been responsible. Irma’s ghost!

Della preferred to believe this was all part of the dark business of the stolen Madonna. That there were members of the criminal gang at work in the old palace. The house was deathly still as she made her way back up the main stairway to her bedroom. Now she knew that Aunt Isobel had not been all that wrong. She had really seen a mysterious figure.

She waited until Prince Raphael arrived the next morning and then took him up to her room to show him the cloak. She said, “What do you make of that?”

He took it with a scowl on his handsome face. “It is surely one of Irma’s,” he agreed.

“I found it in a storage room. Her perfume is still noticeable on it. As if she’d just flung it aside.”

He stared at her. “You’re suggesting Irma was in the house and left this behind?”

“Yes. I was following close after her. She may have wanted to put on something else when she left the palace. So she left this to don a heavier coat.”

Raphael said, “That would mean Irma is a part of the conspiracy.”

“Unless it was her ghost,” she said. “And I don’t think that. My aunt has insisted she has seen her about the palace and in the garden.”

He said, “Assuming she is alive and she was here, why would she return without allowing us to know?”

“I can only think she is in this with Barsini,” Della said. “They are both still frantically searching for the Madonna. She has a confederate in the house. The person who locked that door after me.”

“If what you say is true, Irma is in no danger,” the young man said. “She is playing this game to try and make you talk. Thinking you still know where the Madonna is.”

“And she may think I brought it here with me and have hidden it somewhere. That is why she returns in the secrecy of the night.”

“It’s a wild theory,” Raphael said grimly. “I do not think Prince Sanzio would accept it.”

“Because he adores Irma and thinks she can do no wrong,” Della said. “But I know how she is under the spell of Barsini. I have seen her writhing on the altar with him in a sexual orgy witnessed by dozens of others.”

“I know,” he said with a deep sigh. “The way things stand, anything is possible.”

“I’m glad to hear you admit that,” she said.

“Show me the entrance to this secret passage,” he said.

“Come with me,” she told him. And she took him to Irma’s room.

He halted before the Madonna and the giant glass bowl filled with wax, its wick offering a constant light.

He said, “I had no idea Irma was so dedicated to her religion.”

“Apparently she kept the candle burning continually. Now Guido sees that it doesn’t go out.”

“Show me that door,” her companion said.

She went to the paneling and applied pressure as she had the night before. Nothing happened! She tried several other places with an equal lack of result.

“I don’t understand it!” she said, frustrated.

“If there was a secret door here last night it has to be here now,” Raphael said, trying the wall.

Studying the wall grimly, she said, “My guess is that whoever followed me into the secret passage last night, came back and somehow locked the entrance from the other side.”

“In that case we are wasting our time.”

“We might start at the storage room and work back,” she suggested.

“All right,” he said. “Let us try it.”

She accompanied him downstairs and took him to the storage room, feeling all the while that her credibility was being destroyed. While Raphael had made no comment, she had the feeling he was less convinced by her story than at first.

They reached the dark, dusty storage room and she went ahead of him to the trapdoor. She said, “Once we open this we can work our way back along the secret passage. At least as far as the locked door.”

He knelt and took the ring of the trapdoor in his hand and tried to lift it. The door refused to budge. He tried again and again, but had no success.

Looking up at her, he said, “It also seems to be locked!”

“It can’t be!” she protested. “I opened it myself last night.”

Raphael tried again. “It won’t move!”

He was still on his knees studying the trapdoor when Prince Sanzio appeared in the open doorway of the storage room in his wheelchair.

“What are you two doing in here?” he demanded sharply and wheeled himself into the room as far as possible.

“Trying to open the trapdoor and find out where it leads,” she said.

The old Prince showed annoyance. “You should have spoken to me first.”

“I’m sorry,” Prince Raphael said. “We meant no harm. Della has heard so much about there being secret passages in the palace that she wanted to see for herself.”

Prince Sanzio scowled. “That trapdoor is sealed. It has not worked for years. There is a passage under it leading to the cellars but it is not used these days.”

Della was shocked. She said, “But—”

Raphael interrupted her, telling the old man, “I’m glad you came along. You saved us a lot of useless effort.”

The old Prince gave Della a reproachful glance. “Your main thoughts now should be of your sister and how to save her. Not worrying about secret passages.”

She was going to tell him that the secret passage was part of her concern, but Prince Raphael gave her a warning glance so she said nothing. The old man turned his wheelchair around and left them.

Neither of them said anything until he was out of earshot. Then she said tensely, “He simply doesn’t know the trapdoor has been unsealed and the passage placed in use again.”

“I gathered that the moment he spoke,” Raphael said. “But we’d gain nothing arguing with him.”

“Whoever is responsible has cleverly sealed off the passage at both ends,” she complained.

They were out in the hallway now and the young man said, “I want to believe you, Della, but the evidence is all against you.”

“Because someone knew I’d discovered the passage,” she told him. “They closed it at once.”

Raphael said, “In other words we’ll need a good deal more evidence before anyone will listen to your story.”

They were back in the living room when Guido came in bearing a sealed envelope in his hand.

“For Miss Standish,” he said.

She thanked him and took the envelope and tore it open. Inside there was a hastily scribbled message in pencil which she read aloud for Raphael’s benefit: “Dear Miss Standish, whatever your opinion of me, I beg you to come in summons to this message. My life is in danger and I have valuable information which I wish to sell you. This is a fair deal with no risks for you. Your friend, Father Anthony. P.S. Meet me at the catacombs of St. Calixtus.” She looked up from the note. “Do you know where that is?”

“Yes,” he said. “But I’m not going there.”

“Why not?”

“You’ve been fooled by him before. This is another trick to get you in his hands,” Raphael complained.

She folded the paper. “I say that Father Anthony is ready to break with the thieves, whichever group he’s associated with, and do business with us.”

“I don’t trust him!” Raphael was adamant.

“Very well,” she said. “I’ll go meet him on my own.” And she started out of the room.

Raphael came hurrying after her. “All right! I’ll go! You know I can’t let you risk it alone!”

She smiled at him coquettishly. “If you hadn’t made Henry leave I wouldn’t have to depend on you!”

“You do not need your English lawyer,” he exclaimed with annoyance. “I am here.”

A short while later they were in the carriage on their way to the catacombs of St. Calixtus. She asked the young Prince, “What is the story behind these catacombs?”

Raphael said; “It began when Marcus Aurelius started to persecute the Christians.”

“Wasn’t he the last of the Good Emperors?” she asked.

“Yes. But he marred his record by turning against the new Christian community. Many of them had to seek hiding places. And where but the long underground caverns where a large number of people could remain in safety. Caves or galleries of this type are common under many cities in the Mediterranean area. When quarrying opened up a suitable cave, many poor people were quick to move into it. By easy tunneling they often extended the caves. In times when they weren’t harassed the Christians buried their dead in the catacombs. They also built simple chapels there where they would not be molested. When dangerous times arrived they simply went underground to live.”

“And these catacombs extend for miles under the city, don’t they?”

He nodded. “Like a series of underground alleys,” he said. “People have been known to become lost in them and starve to death before being found.”

She shuddered. “Frightening!”

“I don’t see the catacombs as the most desirable place for a rendezvous,” he observed.

“Father Anthony likes to select unusual spots.”

“He has done it this time.”

“He may be afraid he’s being watched,” she said. “There is a tone of desperation about his message.”