Elizabeth Peters - Silhouette in Scarlet

‘There were several calls, Dr Bliss. If it is urgent, our switchboard will be open.’

Leif had stood to one side like a little gent, pretending not to listen when I mentioned my room number. Curiosity got the better of him when he saw the messages.

‘I hope nothing is wrong,’ he said.

I held the papers up so he could read them. ‘They’re all from Schmidt. Head of the National Museum, as you surely must know.’

‘Vicky, you do not need to convince me – ’

‘Just thought I’d mention it.’

‘He seems to want you very badly.’

‘I know what he wants. It’s not important. Well . . .’

I stuffed the notes in my purse and turned from the desk. Leif bowed stiffly. ‘Good night, Vicky. Sleep well.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Good night. And thanks.’

‘May I telephone you tomorrow?’

‘Yes, you may.’

He bowed again, turned on his heel, and strode away, moving with military precision.

Feigning personal interest is one way of keeping tabs on a suspect. I preferred to believe he wasn’t feigning. He was a gorgeous sight as he made his lordly way through the lesser mortals in the lobby; his flaxen hair clung to his head and covered the nape of his neck like a gilt helmet.

The pleasures of the past few hours had not let me forget certain other matters. I went into my room with all the panache of the Cowardly Lion, an inch at a time, and I didn’t relax until after I had searched every corner. No one was there. As far as I could tell, no one had been there.

Four of Schmidt’s messages were labelled ‘Urgent.’ Before I called him, I had a nice leisurely bath and made myself a cup of coffee with my handy plug-in electric pot. Schmidt is something of a night owl, and besides, I didn’t particularly care whether I woke him up. He had his nerve, harassing me when I hadn’t even been gone a day.

Naturally I called collect. He wanted to talk; he could pay. He accepted the call without so much as a gulp, and it was then that I began to think I had been mistaken about his reason for calling.

He didn’t even say hello. ‘What are you up to now?’ he shrieked. ‘What is it you think you are doing? A little holiday, you say. The land of your ancestors, you say. You betray me, you lie to me – your friend, your benefactor, your – ’

‘Wait a minute! I didn’t lie to you, Schmidt. Would I do a thing like that?’

‘Yes.’ He stopped to catch his breath. When he resumed he had evidently decided to try subtler tactics. His voice wheedled. ‘Is it a case like the Riemenschneider, my dear Vicky? Another prize for our museum?’

He was referring to an art object by a medieval German sculptor, which I had located after it had been lost for four hundred years. I had met Schmidt during that bizarre business, and though I would be the first to admit that I had a certain amount of assistance in my quest (none from Schmidt; he was a first-class nuisance from beginning to end), my success had given him an exaggerated idea of my abilities.

‘No.’ I made the negative as convincing as I could. Once Schmidt got a notion in his big round bald head, nothing less than a blunt instrument could get it out. I didn’t want him rushing off to Sweden to join in the fun. Where the museum was concerned, he was almost as crooked as John. The two of them together . . . Well, the very idea made cold sweat pop out on my brow.

‘I resent your attitude,’ I went on. ‘You have no right to make accusations.’

Usually Schmidt crumples up when he is attacked. Not this time. ‘You tell me it is nothing that today I should hear from three persons calling themselves cousins and wishing urgently to find you? Never in all these years has one cousin called. Now it is three in a single day.’

‘I have about two hundred cousins,’ I said, after a moment’s thought ‘We’re a prolific family.’

‘Three? In one day?’

‘Did they leave their names?’

‘Oh, certainly. One was Cousin Bob.’

I have a Cousin Bob. Last I heard he was living in Chicago with his fourth wife and holding down three jobs in order to keep up with his child-support payments. As I said, we are a prolific family. It was barely conceivable that Bob might be in Europe, but it was damned unlikely.

‘That’s one,’ I said encouragingly.

‘Number two was Cousin George.’ Schmidt’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

I really do have a lot of cousins. I could not recall one named George.

‘That’s two. Didn’t anyone give a last name?’

‘Number three did so.’ Schmidt sounded genuinely puzzled. ‘He was different from the others, Vicky. He was the first to telephone, and when he said he was the Swedish cousin whom you planned to visit, I thought only that you had missed one another.’

A hideous qualm passed through me, surpassing in hideousness all the minor qualms I had felt in the course of the day. I croaked, ‘I hope to God you didn’t tell him where I was staying.’

‘You take me for an old fool? I told him I could not do that, and he was most gracious. Indeed, he was kind enough to approve. He was glad, he said, that you had so careful and sensible a friend.’

‘Thanks, Papa Schmidt,’ I said sincerely.

‘Bah,’ said Schmidt. ‘He was an old papa too, Vicky. At least his voice sounded like that of an elderly man, and he gave to me not only his name and address but references from everyone except God.’

‘What?’

‘You don’t hear me? His name is Gustaf Jonsson.’ He spelled it. ‘Was not Johnsson your mother’s name?’

‘My father’s mother. How did you know that? You’ve been snooping in my files again, Schmidt.’

‘Mr Gustaf Jonsson told me,’ Schmidt said stiffly.

I apologized. Schmidt does snoop, sometimes looking for rough drafts of Rosanna’s future adventures (little does he know I make them up as I go along), and sometimes out of general inquisitiveness. I don’t mind. It keeps him happy.

‘Hmph,’ said Schmidt, when I had abased myself sufficiently. ‘Have you a pencil? I give you the address and telephone of Mr Jonsson. He asks that you call him.’

I reached for my purse and then remembered my notebook was no longer in it. I wrote the information on the back of one of the messages.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

‘I hope you have cause to thank me,’ Schmidt said ominously. ‘Vicky, I am not happy about this.’

I wasn’t happy about it either. However, I tried to sound more puzzled than alarmed as I questioned Schmidt about my callers. He couldn’t tell me much more. ‘Bob’ and ‘George’ both had ordinary voices, without any accent Schmidt could distinguish. Neither had pressed him for further information after learning that I was out of the country and was not expected back for several weeks. By contrast Mr Jonsson had been absolutely loquacious. He really had given Schmidt references – two banks and a former minister of state.

‘Well, it’s all very mysterious,’ I said. ‘I appreciate everything you did, Schmidt – and everything you didn’t do. I’ll be in touch.’

I didn’t expect to get rid of him that easily, and I didn’t. Admonitions, warnings, and suggestions gushed out of him. Finally I hung up.

I got up off the bed where I had been reclining and went to the window. My room was in the front of the hotel, overlooking the quay. I suspected I owed that choice location to Schmidt’s influence.

Directly opposite, the ‘City Between the Bridges’ filled its island from shore to shore, its close-packed structures rising in successive tiers. It looked like a single giant building, a citadel or castle, with a thousand lighted windows, and the dark water, streaked with splinters of reflected light, might have been a protective moat.