Elizabeth Peters - Trojan Gold

“It wasn’t John Donne, but I liked it. Do go on.”

“That’s enough; I wouldn’t want it to go to your head. We might try to have a look at the hotel register. This hypothetical expert of yours must have visited Bad Steinbach during the spring or summer of last year.”

“She may have met him earlier,” I said. “And remembered him when she learned about the gold….”

John knew every nuance of my voice. He said alertly, “You’ve thought of someone.”

“No. It’s not only unsubstantiated, it’s pure fiction.”

The arm around my shoulders tightened painfully. “Don’t hold out on me, Vicky. I’m willing to collaborate in this little venture of yours, but only if you tell me everything.”

“Old habits die hard,” I said apologetically. “In our past encounters, we’ve been on opposite sides. I’m not accustomed to trusting you.”

The even movement of his breathing did not alter. After a brief, internal struggle, I said, “All right, then. I happen to know of five people—six, including myself—who had at least one of the necessary qualifications, and who were at the hotel last year.”

“I think you may have something there,” John said, when I had concluded the explanation. “While the old gentleman was learning to know—and of course, love—you, Friedl was learning to know someone else, in quite another sense of the word. Later, when the matter of the gold came up, she would think of him—or her?”

“Who’s to know?”

“Who indeed? The encounter needn’t have been heterosexual or even sexual. You say three of the lot have surfaced lately?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean what you think. Suppose Hoffman contacted some of the others, as well as me? You and I know I’m uniquely wonderful, but Hoffman might have decided to check out a number of candidates before settling on one. We don’t know how many copies of that photograph he mailed, or how much information he gave other people. I’m sure I would have received a letter or a phone call if he hadn’t died.”

“Or been murdered.”

I moved uncomfortably. “I thought of that, of course. But much as I abhor the woman, I can’t believe…”

“Always assume the worst; then you are never disappointed.”

“John, I really have to get to work sometime today. Schmidt is sure to come looking for me—”

“Speaking of Schmidt—you don’t mean to involve him in this, do you?”

“I wish I could keep him out of it. Your turning up didn’t help. Schmidt is fascinated by you.”

“I will endeavor to put a lid on my notorious charm when next we meet. Seriously, Vicky. I don’t want to be constantly distracted by having to rescue Schmidt.”

“And I don’t want Schmidt to be in a position where he needs rescuing. We’ll just have to elude the little rascal, that’s all.”

“Agreed. It behooves us, then, to investigate the people you mentioned. Their reputations, their recent activities, any suspicious circumstances. You might give me a list.”

“I can do better than that. I have snapshots of all of them—they’re in a box on the coffee table. You’ll recognize the ambiance. There was Dieter Spreng from Berlin, Rosa D’Addio from the University of Turin, Tony…”

“Tony?”

“Tony,” I repeated. Caesar was howling, the sunlight lay golden on the floor…. I sat up with a gasp. “What time is it?”

For some reason, he was still wearing his wrist-watch. “Two.”

“Two P.M.? Oh, God! Wednesday. It’s Wednesday, isn’t it?”

“The last time I looked it was Tuesday. That was last night, so logic suggests—”

I jumped up and began groping for my clothes. “Tony. He’s here. His plane lands at two. I told him I’d pick him up.”

John sprang out of bed. Clad only in a wrist-watch and a lordly sneer, he struck a pose like Jove about to hurl a thunderbolt and declaimed, “‘Yet she/Will be/False, ere I come, to two, or three.’ Aren’t you scheduling your appointments rather too tightly? Far be it from me to…Tony Lawrence from Chicago?”

Jeans, shirt, shoes…“Don’t leave!” I ordered. “Oh, well—maybe you had better leave, come to think of it. Where can I reach you? Write it down. I want an address and a phone number—and a name! Any name so long as it’s one to which you are currently answering….” I ran to the door.

John had dropped down onto the edge of the bed and changed his pose—Rodin’s Thinker instead of Athenian Jove.

It’s a wonder I made it to the airport in one piece. As I wove in and out of the traffic, my brain felt like my spare-room closet, stuffed with odds and ends that had been shoved in, helter-skelter. It was all John’s fault. Our discussion had clarified several of my amorphous ideas, but John Donne and the Discobolus kept elbowing into my attempts at deductive reasoning. For God’s sake, hold your tongue, John Donne, and let me think.

Tony. I had to concentrate on Tony; he was the most imminent of the concerns of the moment. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten about him. Now that he had been recalled to my attention, I couldn’t believe the things I was thinking about him.

I could handle the possibility that Tony might be one of several people whom Herr Hoffman had contacted, and that he was keeping mum about it because he hoped to outsmart me in a hunt for the Trojan gold. That possibility was looking less likely, though. According to what Müller had told me, there had only been one envelope. It was conceivable that Hoffman had dispatched other communications earlier (he certainly hadn’t sent any later). But—call me egotistical—I couldn’t believe that the old gentleman would have left me until last, or that he would have given me less information than he had given the others. It was one thing for me to take a day off work and drive sixty miles to check out a wild theory; for Tony to spend time and money on a trans-Atlantic flight, he’d need more to go on.

On the other hand, Tony said he had been planning to go to the meetings. If the trip had already been in the works, it wouldn’t be much out of his way to stop over and find out what I was up to.

I wanted to believe it, because the alternative was an ugly one. If Tony was the faceless hypothetical conspirator John and I had invented, it would mean he was a cold-blooded, dishonest bastard who was ready to betray every ethical and professional principle—and that he had been making out with Friedl at the same time he was supposed to be enjoying my company. Guess which bothered me more.

I refused to believe it. There was a third possibility, and that was that Tony was completely unwitting. A man is innocent until proven guilty, after all. But if he was unwitting, I preferred to keep him that way. Tony and I had collaborated once before, with some success, but I didn’t want to make a habit of it. Even if John had not turned up…

John. I should have locked him in the closet, tied him to the bed…. Not that he couldn’t get out of any prison I could construct. He had gotten out of worse ones. What if he disappeared and never came back?

And then there was Schmidt. The thought of my boss, and of the possible permutations—all disastrous—of Schmidt and Tony, John and Schmidt, Tony and John, and all three—sent my brain into overload. The terminal was in sight. I decided to emulate Scarlett O’Hara and think about it tomorrow.

I had hoped the plane would be late, or that it would take Tony a while to get through customs. Both those contingencies would have occurred if I had been breathlessly anticipating the moment when I could fold him in a passionate embrace. Since I wasn’t, they didn’t. He was already there.

Though the terminal was crowded with holiday travelers, I had no trouble spotting him because he was a head taller than anyone else. He was bareheaded. His hair, thick and black and wavy, is the kind women love to run their fingers through, which is probably why Tony, thoughtful soul that he is, seldom wears a hat. He looks like a popular misconception of a poet (who usually looks like the popular misconception of a truck driver). He has delicate hollows under his cheekbones, and a thin, sensitive mouth, and a high forehead over which his hair tumbles in distracting curls.