Borrower of the Night

Chapter Nine

THERE WAS NO ONE in the armour now. It was dismembered, helmet and greaves lying across the hollow breastplate. Behind it, the corridor ended in a wall of wood. In its surface was an ordinary door handle, made of iron, and a closed bolt. I pushed the bolt back. It moved sweetly, without the usual screech of rusted metal. When I looked at my fingertips I saw why. They were covered with a thin coating of oil.

I turned the door handle and stepped out into the Great Hall.

The western windows were dull grey squares, but the rosy light of dawn was beginning to show in the east. The room didn’t look haunted or eerie now; it was only melancholy in its faded grandeur. Pale light lay like dust on the scarred panelling; silence filled the space which had once rung with the songs of the minnesingers and the Latin of a vanished nobillty.

As I had anticipated, the door was located in the area under the stairs, where Tony had been attacked. I didn’t let the door close; I had locked my own door from the inside, so I would have to return by the secret passage.

I examined the outside of the door. There was no latch or hinge visible. The panel fitted so closely against the others that only someone who knew it was there could have found it. Finally I found a carved flower that yielded to pressure and then turned on a pivot. As it moved, so did the inner handle. I played with the flower till I was sure I knew how to operate it, and then turned reluctantly back into the hot, airless passageway.

My tablemates were all in their places when I went down for breakfast next morning. Blankenhagen looked as if he hadn’t slept.

‘How is Herr Schmidt?’ I asked.

‘Still critical.’ The doctor looked from me to George to Tony, and it was obvious he wouldn’t have given ten Pfennige for the lot of us. ‘There will be no visitors. None.’

‘Then you ought to take yourself off the case,’ said George, answering the implication rather than the words.

Blankenhagen thought it over.

‘You are right. It is correct. I will give orders that I may not be admitted.’

I couldn’t help laughing.

‘Cut it out,’ I said. ‘I’m sure Schmidt is safe from you.’

Blankenhagen eyed me with moderate approval. Apparently he took my comment as a personal compliment, which was not how I meant it. I meant he was too smart to harm Schmidt under such carefully guarded conditions when he was already under suspicion. However, seeing the doctor’s rare and attractive smile, I decided not to explain myself.

‘He hasn’t said anything?’ George asked carelessly.

‘He cannot be questioned. The criminal – if there is a criminal – is safe for the time being.’

‘Aren’t you being rather melodramatic?’ I asked. ‘With an attack so severe, Schmidt must have experienced great pain. He might well scream, or cry out. Everything indicates he was alone in the room.’

My reasoning did not convince anyone. George laughed and Tony shook his head. Blankenhagen’s face assumed its normal scowl.

‘I would accept that idea willingly were it not for the other strange events which have happened here. Have you heard of what transpired at the church last night? It is all over the town this morning.’

‘No, what?’ I asked, spilling coffee into Tony’s lap. It was still fairly hot; anguish replaced the guilt written on Tony’s ingenuous countenance. I handed him my napkin and said to Blankenhagen, ‘Something happened at the church?’

‘Hurrumph,’ said Blankenhagen, eyeing Tony suspiciously. ‘In the churchyard, to be precise. Desecration of graves.’

‘Graves?’ said Tony.

I was out of coffee, so I interrupted him before he could go on to explain that he thought only one grave had been damaged.

‘What do you mean, desecrated? Dirty words written on the tombstones?’

‘That, yes. Stones and crosses overturned, one grave opened.’ He gave us a critical stare, but by now we were all registering proper shock and surprise. ‘Interesting, is it not, that the opened grave should be that of the steward?’

He left the table, stamping a little. George looked from me to Tony and started to speak. Tony stood up.

‘Let’s go for a walk.’

‘It’s raining,’ said George.

‘I didn’t mean you.’

Rothenburg looked thoroughly medieval in the rain. There were few pedestrians, and the old gabled houses leaned together like gossipy ladies. I knew Tony wanted to get away so we could talk freely, but his first remark took me by surprise.

‘The blanket,’ he said, groaning.

‘The what? Oh, that. It wasn’t marked. Just an ordinary cheap blanket.’

Tony looked relieved.

‘Smart,’ he said.

‘Your conversation is very oblique today,’ I complained. ‘You are now referring to the Black Man? Yes, it was smart of him to attack several graves. The town authorities will be looking for an ordinary sickle. He didn’t fool Blankenhagen, though.’

‘Blankenhagen is too damned bright for his own good.’

‘You are suggesting that he did the desecrating himself?’

‘He could have.’

‘The man we saw was too tall. And don’t tell me we were misled by the costume and the general air of brimstone. I think Blankenhagen is okay.’

‘You would.’

‘George is tall enough, but he has an alibi, if you believe the Gräfin.’

‘Nobody has a good-enough alibi for anything,’ Tony said sweepingly – but I could see his point. ‘Remember what is at stake, in terms of cold hard cash. The value of the shrine is literally incalculable – a hundred thousand, two hundred, maybe half a million bucks. That’s a lot of dough, even for a man who considers African safaris and original Rembrandts among the necessities of life. I know Nolan is rich – so he says. How do I know how much he’s got and how much more he may fancy he needs? The day after he suggested an alliance I got stabbed. Not seriously, just badly enough to make me require help. No, I don’t accept the Gräfin’s word, or anybody else’s.’

‘Tony . . . Are you sure any person is behind all this?’

‘Don’t tell me you, of all people, are going over to the spiritualists.’

‘A scholar is supposed to keep an open mind. All our instincts are against a supernormal explanation, but instincts aren’t logic. How do we know?’

‘Well.’ Tony brushed raindrops off his face and thought. ‘For one thing, this business is too corny to be supernatural.’

‘Corny?’

‘So far we have had a séance, with spirit possession, a White Lady walking by night, a perambulating suit of armour, a diabolical character in a black cloak, and even a semi-dead man with a look of stark staring horror. It isn’t even good horror fiction; it’s straight out of The Mysteries of Udolpho. By some straining of the brain I could believe in ghosts; but I can’t believe in a ghost that acts like Terror Comics.’

Thanks. I just wanted someone to talk me out of it. It is corny. Do you suppose that’s a clue – to the way the criminal’s mind works?’

‘No. The obvious interpretation is that the criminal is as corny as his plot – a retarded adolescent who is naïve enough to believe people will be intimidated by his pulp-fiction ghosts. But he may be just the opposite – a sophisticate with a sardonic sense of humour, who is smart enough to know that people are intimidated by pulp-fiction ghosts. Or he may have practical down-to-earth motives for all the things he’s done, motives that escape us now, but that – ’

A large raindrop tobogganed off his nose and fell straight down his throat. Cut off in full eloquence, Tony gargled and clutched at his Adam’s apple. I laughed.

Maybe it was the laugh, or maybe I overdid my attempt to boost his ego. Anyhow, Tony got very defensive and mean. He had not suggested going out because he wanted to walk in the rain with me. He had an errand. It led us to the telephone-telegraph office, and the rat wouldn’t tell me what he intended to do there.

In view of the rain he consented to let me enter the office, but he sat me in a corner and I couldn’t hear a word of his conversation with the girl behind the counter. The conference took some time and ended with the dispatch of several cables. When we left the office together the rain had stopped, although the skies were still grey. Naturally I didn’t ask any questions. I have my pride.

We found a Bierstube on a back street, and ordered beer.

‘Look,’ said Tony abruptly. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

I made encouraging noises. More ego boosting was obviously in order if I wanted to get anything out of him.

‘You were saying the other day that we seem to be obsessed with ancient history instead of concentrating on the shrine. It’s true. I can’t get these people out of my mind – Burckhardt, Nicolas, Konstanze. But there’s some method in this particular madness. Our reconstruction of what happened in the crypt that night in fifteen twenty-five is not just antiquarian hobbying. It has helped us in our search. We know now that the shrine was in Count Harald’s tomb at one time. We don’t know whether it was Burckhardt or the steward who put it there, but that’s not important. What matters is who took it out. And we know it wasn’t Nicolas.’

I was inclined to agree with that.

‘Burckhardt was on the loose that night; it’s almost certain that he murdered Nicolas. So he must have been the one who disposed of the shrine. Therefore we can make a few deductions as to where he may have hidden it.’

Tony summoned the waitress and ordered more beer.

‘The hiding place can’t be too obscure,’ he continued. ‘Burckhardt wasn’t a man of great subtlety, and I don’t imagine he intended to find a permanent hiding place. Only his sudden death prevented him from disposing of the shrine.’

‘I’ll bet he didn’t plan to give it to the church.’

‘It’s a safe bet. Why hide it, if that was his intention? Now there aren’t that many places where it could have been hidden. I’ve made a list. Maybe you can think of some more.’

Tony pulled out his notebook.

‘The crypt is one place. I don’t see why the old boy should have removed the treasure from one tomb only to put it in another, but it won’t take long to check. I’ll examine the other tombs this afternoon. The chapel was remodelled in the eighteenth century, so that’s out. You’ve looked at the library, and didn’t find anything. Burckhardt wouldn’t choose his wife’s room, or the servants’ quarters, or any of the public rooms such as the kitchen, scullery, etcetera. It seems to me that the best possibilities are Burckhardt’s room and the cellars. I’m going to check the cellars first because of the fact that the plan of that part of the Schloss is missing. Does this make any sense to you?’

‘It does. But I can think of one other place.’

‘Where?’

‘The Wachtturm.’

We looked there.’

‘Not thoroughly. Another point. The Schloss seems to be riddled with secret passages. Maybe there is one from the crypt to the tower. Or the crypt to – almost anywhere. I can’t see Burckhardt carrying an object the size of the shrine through the public corridors on that fateful night.’

‘It’s a point. Well, we won’t find anything sitting here dinking beer.’

He stood up and the waitress swooped down on him with the bill. I stayed put.

‘Do I understand you are inviting me to join you in your investigations?’ I inquired.

‘Understand whatever you like.’ Tony hesitated. Then he blurted, ‘I don’t want you poking around in those lonesome places by yourself. You’re dumb enough to go exploring on your own, even after what has been happening. If I have to take you with me to keep you out of mischief, that’s what I’m prepared to do.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘You’re so sweet to little helpless me. I don’t know how to thank you. I’m just all a-twitter . . .’

‘I’ll even put up with your smart-aleck remarks,’ Tony said shortly. ‘Come on.’

I had been trying to decide whether to tell him about the secret passage and my discovery of the missing armour. I decided not to.

A little later, dressed in working clothes and equipped with flashlights, we descended into the crypt. After an hour of eyestrain and general wear and tear, Tony rose stiffly to his feet.

‘If any other stone has been moved within the past five hundred years I’ll – well, I don’t think it has. Have you got a cigarette?’

We sat against the pillar and rested for a short time. But before his cigarette was half finished, Tony stood up.

‘I can’t sit, I’m too restless.’

‘I know what you mean.’ I followed as he headed for the far end of the long, shadowy chamber. ‘Like the clouds overhead, a feeling of impending doom . . .’

‘Stop that.’

The beam of his flashlight darted frivolously around the room, glancing off ponderous stone pillars, illuminating a carved face or two bronze hands clasped around the hilt of a sword.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘There ought to be a door down here somewhere. For workmen, repair materials – they wouldn’t drag lumber through the chapel . . . Ah, I thought so.’

The north end of the crypt was made of brick instead of the stone prevalent elsewhere. Set into the wall was a low door fashioned of heavy wooden beams bound with iron. One of the keys on the Gräfin’s ring fitted the massive keyhole, but in addition there was a modern padlock and a series of bolts and chains. When these had been dealt with the door opened into a corridor with a number of rooms leading off it. The first was typical of all the others – a vaulted stone chamber, poorly lit by a grating high in the wall. It contained nothing but some scraps of wood and a broken pottery bowl.

‘Storage room,’ said Tony, after an inspection had yielded nothing of interest. ‘We must be under the far end of our own wing now. My God, this place is big.’

‘Too big. All we need to do is miss one stone, in one wall or floor.’

‘It isn’t as bad as that. These are public rooms – places the servants had access to. It’s unlikely that the count would have a secret wall safe down here.’

We gave the other storerooms only a cursory search. Finally we reached a big room lit by several windows at ground level, but still dark and dismal. On one wall was a flat stone slab like a table. In the corner was a hooded fireplace big enough to roast a couple of oxen.

‘Kitchen,’ Tony announced unnecessarily. ‘How would you like to whip up a meal in this mausoleum? We’re under the Great Hall – I’ll bet that stair goes up to it. Here’s where the banquets were cooked.’

‘We won’t have to thump on these walls, then. I haven’t got any skin left on my knuckles.’

‘Here’s your well.’

Tony tugged at a stone which was equipped with a rusted iron ring. The stone slid aside with a screech, leaving a gaping hole. Peering into it I saw, far below, the glimmer of water.

‘Cover it up,’ I said suddenly, glancing over my shoulder.

Tony heaved the stone back into place.

‘You can see,’ he said, ‘why I don’t recommend solitary exploring. If something went down there, it wouldn’t come up.’

He led the way along the corridor outside the kitchen, dismissing a series of closed doors with the comment, ‘More storerooms.’

At the end of the corridor we found something that couldn’t be dismissed so casually.

Stairs led down into Stygian darkness, far below ground level. Below was a short corridor with three doors opening onto it. The doors were of iron, with bolts as thick as Tony’s arm. In the upper half of each door was a small barred opening that could be closed by a sliding iron plate.

We didn’t need Tony’s keys. The doors had not been locked for centuries, not since the last Count of Drachenstein had given up his seignorial privileges of imprisonment and execution to the state. But the doors looked functional, even now.

‘They will squeak,’ Tony warned, and pushed on the first door.

Squeak was hardly the word. The hinges screamed like a wounded animal.

I was secretly relieved when the flashlight showed no heap of mouldering bones, no grinning skeleton held erect by rusted chains. There was nothing in the cell, not even a bench or a shard from a broken water bowl. It was simply a square, windowless stone box about eight feet by eight. Yet there was an aura in that room which would have made human bones seem like meaningless stage props. The cell stank of fear and despair; a miasma of ancient agony shrouded the walls like fog. It required all the courage I possessed to step into that evil little room. From the sound of Tony’s breathing I suspected he didn’t like it either.

The walls and floors seemed to be solid. The second cell was a duplicate of the first, and the third, which was so small that neither of us could stand erect in it, was equally unproductive. Tony let me precede him in a retreat which closely resembled flight, and neither of us stopped running until we stood panting in the Great Hall, with a closed door between us and the grim medieval kitchen.

I don’t know how Tony passed the rest of the day; I spent quite a lot of time washing. I was grey with dust and sticky with perspiration, but I kept on washing long after my surface was clean. The stink of those cells had penetrated to the bone.

I had another errand to take care of. By the time I finished, I was good and hungry. The dining room was full when I arrived. Glancing around, I realized I had been so absorbed by the small group of guests who occupied my wing of the Schloss that I had lost track of the others. The family from Hamburg and the honeymooners were gone. Most of the tables were occupied by a party of German students, husky, tanned youngsters who made even Tony look elderly.

George was brash and cheery as ever.

‘Where were you two?’ he asked. ‘I went downtown later, but I couldn’t find you.’

‘We drank beer,’ I said. ‘What did you do for amusement?’

‘Went to church. I was breaking the Tenth Commandment – or is it the Ninth?’

‘Coveting your neighbour’s goods?’ Tony was not amused. ‘The Riemenschneider altar?’

‘Yes. I’d steal it if I could think of a way to get it out of Germany. There’s another altar at Creglingen, across the valley. I think I’ll drive up there tomorrow.’

‘It is considered his masterpiece by some,’ said Blankenhagen suddenly. ‘I myself prefer certain figures in the museum of Würzburg.’

‘We’ll have to see Würzburg,’ George said. ‘Maybe after we leave here. How much longer do you plan to stay, Vicky?’

‘I never make plans. I’m just a creature of impulse. Don’t let me interfere with your arrangements.’

Blankenhagen gave me an enigmatic look, and continued to be informative about Riemenschneider.

‘He was one of the councillors of Würzburg. During the Bauernkrieg, he and eleven other councillors supported the peasants, and when the nobles captured the town he was imprisoned.’

‘So he picked the losers,’ George said. ‘He got his, I suppose.’

Blankenhagen shifted in his chair.

‘They pierced his hands,’ he said. ‘Never again did he do a work of sculpture.’

‘Artists shouldn’t dabble in politics,’ George said. ‘He should have stuck to his last, or chisel, or whatever he used.’

I wanted to hit him with something – something hard. I consider myself unsentimental, but I could not have joked about an atrocity like that. What made it worse was that George wasn’t joking. He meant what he said.

‘He had at least the knowledge,’ snapped Blankenhagen, ‘that he suffered for a cause he believed was right.’

‘I wonder,’ said George, ‘if that was any satisfaction to him.’

We spent the evening in the lounge, yawning at each other. Tony was silent and rather peaked-looking. For the first time in too long I remembered his injury. I hadn’t even had the decency to ask how he felt. Feeling guilty, I let him escort me to my room when the witching hour of ten struck. If he had asked me nicely, I might even have agreed to stay there. But he didn’t ask. He told me.

‘Stay put tonight. That’s an order.’

I nodded. A reflexive movement is not binding legally.

The next two hours were difficult. I didn’t want to leave my room until I was sure Tony had fallen asleep. It would be just like him to check up on me. But I had a hard time keeping awake. I was short on sleep and long on tiring adventures.

Finally I barred my door and shoved the heavy cupboard away from the wall. As I started down the hidden stairs I noticed that the beam of my flashlight was getting dim, and I retraced my steps. I had bought extra batteries and a can of oil in town earlier, and I was taking no chances on having my light fade out in the middle of some dark hole. Then I went back to the passage.

This time the door at the other end opened without difficulty. My errand that afternoon had taken me to Schmidt’s room. His door was locked, but, as I had expected, my key opened it. Those locks were a joke. I assumed that the old ones had been ripped out and sold. If they were like the beautiful handmade antique locks I had seen in museums, they had been valuable. The Gräfin hadn’t missed much.

Naturally I couldn’t give the Burckhardt-Schmidt apartment the careful search it demanded during the day, with people wandering the halls and servants popping in and out. My aim was to clear the secret entrance so I could come and go in the small hours.

Since I knew where the passage ended, it didn’t take me long to locate the sliding panel and figure out how it worked. The mechanism was a variation of the carved rosette pattern in the Great Hall. It controlled a bolt instead of a handle; the door could be locked, but only from the inside.

I confess that bolt amused me. A tyrant, medieval or modern, needs all the locks and bolts he can get. But since one branch of the passageway ended in the bedchamber of the Countesses Drachenstein . . . Marriage was as perilous in those days as it is today.

In the still hours of the night the unoccupied chamber had an uneasy atmosphere. It didn’t feel abandoned. Too many Drachensteins had breathed their last in the carved, canopied bed. It may have been a trick of my imagination, but I almost fancied I could see a depression the size and shape of a human body in the smooth counterpane.

I wedged a chair under the door handle before I got to work. Schmidt was safely locked up in the local hospital, but that didn’t make me feel safe. He might be the villain who had engineered some of the supernatural games, but he couldn’t have played the star role of the Black Man. Some source of malice was still on the loose, and I didn’t want it interrupting me.

By this time I was becoming an expert on secret panels. It took me only a few minutes to find another carved rosette. The old craftsman hadn’t been very imaginative about that device, but maybe he had to select a design his dim-witted patrons could remember. The mechanisms controlled by the rosette were varied and ingenious; this one opened a panel rather than a door. It was only a couple of feet square, and its outlines were cleverly concealed by carved mouldings that were part of the design of the panelling.

The count’s wall safe was a single block of dressed stone that slid out of the wall like a drawer. I knew right away I hadn’t found the shrine; the stone was only half a metre high. I lowered it to the floor and thrust my hand into the cavity in its top.

I touched some small brittle objects that felt like twigs. I shone my light down into the stone drawer and jerked my hand back with a snort of disgust. The brittle twigs were rodent bones – the remnants of a battalion of long-dead rats.

The bottom of the drawer was covered with scraps of chewed parchment and paper. I cursed the rat bones and selected a few scraps which were big enough to offer some hope of decipherment. Then I removed the only other object the drawer contained: a small chest, made of wood and bound with silver.

It had been a beautiful object – a rich man’s prized possession. But the silver had turned black and the revolting rodents had ruined the box. One corner was completely gnawed away. I lifted the top with a quick twist that ripped out the decayed hasp and lock. The chest was beyond repair.

Most of the interior was filled with the remains of a linen bag, also gnawed by rodent teeth. When I tried to lift it, the rotted cloth dissolved, spilling a heap of coarse grey powder into the bottom of the box.

I touched it with a cautious finger, wondering what it had been. The centuries might have reduced any substance, solid or semi-solid, to this state. My fingertip, penetrating more deeply, touched something hard. I extracted it and held it up to the light.

Not more than an inch in height, the small gold figure might have been an amulet; there was a rounded link at the top of it. After considering the object, I decided I would not care to wear it. It was meant to represent an animal of some kind. The wide, grinning jaws and pop eyes rather suggested a frog, but no frog I had ever met had such a wicked look. The Drachenstein crest had nothing to do with frogs. Whatever this monstrosity had been meant to be, it was not a dragon. It certainly wasn’t one of Riemenschneider’s pieces. He couldn’t have produced an abortion like this if he had wanted to. In fact, the trinket had a look of antiquity far older than the sixteenth century.

I shrugged and dropped it into the pocket of my robe. Maybe it was a talisman or lucky piece belonging to an ancestor of Burckhardt’s – that same crusading count who had brought the jewels back to Drachenstein. The amulet had an eastern look . . .

And with that, a dark and elusive memory stirred unpleasantly in the back of my mind – stirred and subsided, like a slimy thing in a swamp.