Aaron Elkins - Old Scores

Unlike the other books in the case, this was no fancy piece of bookbinder's art. The cover was plain, sturdy buckram, darkened at the corners from use. I glanced furtively over my shoulder again-I must have looked every bit as sneaky as I felt-snatched it up, and took it to a part of the room where an angle in the wall made a recess in front of a set of French windows. There I couldn't be seen from the other side of the door. I lifted the cover.

In the middle of the first page, written in a large, careful hand, was Les peintures de Rene Vachey. There was another line, but the ink was old, and the two parchment-shaded lamps that were turned on in Vachey's study were more for the golden, Rubenesque ambience than for seeing by. I didn't dare turn on the overhead lights, but I did quietly open the curtained French windows to let in some light from the outdoor spotlights that illuminated the courtyard. If Vachey wasn't worried about the effects of urban air pollution on his five-hundred-year-old paneling, I didn't think I had to be either.

I got up close to the windows to let the light fall directly on the page. An unexpected aroma wafted up from it, not of musty old paper, but of something fresh and citrusy. Collection complete, a partir du 4 novembre, 1942.

The Paintings of Rene Vachey. The Complete Collection, Beginning November 4,1942. Ah, my skulking was justified; there was something here. If there was information about the Rembrandt, I reasoned, it would probably be toward the end, so I flipped quickly-

Something hit me hard between the shoulder blades. The breath burst from my lungs. The book flew from my hands. I shot headfirst through the open windows, tumbling wildly into the night and down toward the old cobblestone courtyard two stories below.

A word about French windows. French windows are built on the order of French doors; that is, they come in pairs, opening on hinges at the sides. However, not being doors, there is no need for them to go all the way down to the floor, and in seventeenth-century buildings they commonly end a little below knee height, at a wide sill that is often used today to hide desirable but unsightly modern improvements such as radiators. On the outside, this sill often extends to make a decorative little balcony, too narrow to stand on, that is surrounded by a low stone or wrought-iron balustrade, also strictly for cosmetic purposes.

Now here's what happened. When the unexpected shove came, I had one foot up on the inner sill, with the book on my knee. This was bad for me, because I was already halfway up and out. It couldn't have taken much to propel me all the way, and out I went. If it's all the same to you, I think I won't dwell on the next half-second or so, when I found myself airborne, with nothing but twenty-plus feet of thin night air between my nose, with which I was leading at the time, and the rough cobblestones, angled cars, and rusty iron gratings below. Suffice it to say that the assertion that the ground seems to leap up at you is discouragingly accurate.

I'm not trying to keep you in suspense, I'm just trying to explain what happened.

Out went my head into the night, yes, and my upper body along with it. Everything, in fact, right down to my ankles, which is where that low balustrade came into play. My feet, you see-the insteps, that is- hooked on the iron railing as I shot over it. So instead of continuing on that long and ill-fated parabola, I pivoted sharply around the railing, swinging back toward the building, head down, with my feet still hung up in the railing above me. Somehow, I was able to ward off the oncoming wall with my left arm while at the same time reaching up with my other hand to grab a wrought-iron curlicue of the balustrade beside my right ankle. For someone who is not ordinarily the world's most coordinated person, it was a hell of a performance-reflex all the way, I assure you. When it got through to me that I was splattered neither on the cobblestones nor against the wall, I reached upward-that is, toward my feet-with a shaky left hand and got a firm grip on some more wrought-iron filigree next to my left ankle. And there I hung, dazed and giddy.

"Hey!" I said.

Don't ask me what I had in mind. I could hardly expect whoever had shoved me out the window to pull me back in, but I had to do something. The blood was pounding in my head, the pressure on my insteps was excruciating, and I didn't think I could hold on to the rough, narrow iron very long.

As expected, there was no response from the study, but at least the guy didn't lean out and start hacking at my grip. I shifted my weight a little and groaned. By some complicated twisting that very nearly dropped me straight on my head onto the stones I was able to rearrange one foot at a time to get the worst of the pressure off them, but my shoulders were starting to burn. I made a try at pulling myself back onto the balcony, but my first movement tipped me so much off balance that I almost toppled off altogether. I yelped, gulped, hung on for dear life, and decided not to try it again. I had never felt more helpless. I couldn't even see; the twin spotlights above the window were blinding.

I shouted again for help, more loudly, but let me tell you, the mind under stress is a peculiar thing. I dreaded being found almost as much as I did letting go. I felt like a complete idiot. I mean, there I was, in my tuxedo, hanging by my hands and feet outside Vachey's window like some bizarre, blind tree sloth, yelling "Au secours! Au secours!" It was going to take some considerable explaining.

As it was, the need didn't arise. No one came. I could hear the continuing babble in the gallery, but they couldn't hear me. I was going to fall, then, and I didn't want to do it on my head. While I still had some strength in my fingers I twisted some more and managed to extricate both feet from the balustrade, my arms shaking with the strain. Now I was dangling by my hands, feet down. I thought about trying to swing up and over the balustrade, but I knew I didn't have the strength left. All I could do was hang there, and I couldn't do very much more of that. When I let go it might mean a couple of broken legs, maybe a broken pelvis, but not a broken head. An improvement, but nothing to look forward to.

I tried to remember everything I'd heard about jumping from a height: Keep the muscles loose, bend the knees when you hit the ground

…

There were footsteps, several sets of them, in the study, and excited voices.

"But there's no one here," someone said in French. "I thought-"

"I'm out here!" I croaked. "I'm-"

"It's coming from outside," another voice said. "Downstairs, the courtyard."

"Let's go," somebody said.

"No, wait!" I tried to call, but they were already running for the stairs, and I couldn't suck in enough air to do it anyway. I knew that I wasn't going to last until they got outside. I couldn't breathe, my arms felt as if they were being dragged out of their sockets, muscles were jumping everywhere, and I couldn't feel my fingers at all. Still, I managed to hang on for another few seconds, or rather my fingers did it on their own, and then, just as I heard my would-be rescuers burst through the doorway below, my grip came undone, and down I plummeted.

No, I didn't land on anyone, although I suppose I might have aimed for them if they'd been within reach. I don't know whether I remembered to stay relaxed (between you and me, I rather doubt it) or to flex my knees. What I do remember is a totally unexpected whump as my feet hit, followed by a ponderous, elastic bounce, along the lines of what a 747 does when it hits the runway. My knees flexed-without any instructions from me, thank you-my feet shot out from under me, and I wound up, with another, lesser whump, on my behind, there to rock gradually to a stop.