Borrower of the Night - Elizabeth Peters [48]
Intrigued, I trailed along after him. George answered the door right away; alert and bright-eyed, stylishly dressed in brown slacks and a fresh white sports shirt, he was a sight for sore eyes. He hauled Tony over the threshold and deposited him in a chair.
‘God, you look terrible,’ he remarked. ‘Didn’t I tell you not to worry? I sat up most of the night, didn’t see a thing. Never need more than three, four hours sleep . . . What’s on your mind, Tony?’
‘You made me an offer yesterday. I’m ready to take you up on it.’
‘Now I wonder,’ said George thoughtfully, ‘why you changed your mind.’
‘Good God,’ Tony said querulously. ‘After last night, how can you wonder? It may be you or Vicky who gets the axe next time. Worst of all, it might be me again. We foreigners ought to form a protective alliance. I don’t intend to take you by the hand and lead you to the shrine. But I’m willing to share some of my brilliant deductions in exchange for some help.’
‘Great.’ George stood there beaming, all tanned and white-toothed. ‘You do the thinking, I do the dirty work. Is that it?’
‘Approximately.’
‘Then let’s get at it, whatever it is.’
‘After breakfast.’ Tony rose with a theatrical groan. He avoided my eye, and I wondered what low-down scheme he had in mind now.
During breakfast Tony was honoured by a personal call of condolence from the Gräfin. She pressed him back in his chair when he started to rise, and he sat back with a thud. Quite by accident, of course, she had her hand on his injured shoulder.
‘I am so sorry for your terrible experience,’ she said, smiling like a wolf. ‘I hope it has not made you decide to leave us.’
‘On the contrary. I wouldn’t leave a bunch of helpless women alone in this place. Unless, Gräfin, you intend to call the police?’
‘Do you honestly think, Professor, that the police can give the kind of help we need?’
She walked away, giving him no time to retort.
‘Get her,’ I said. ‘Now she’s a believer.’
‘Oh, she doesn’t believe in the supernatural,’ Tony said disgustedly. ‘Didn’t you watch her at the séance? She’s using the ghost theory for her own ends, and God knows what they are.’
‘I know I’m not supposed to be thinking,’ George said. ‘But I’ll throw in this little tidbit as my contribution to general goodwill. Irma is the heiress. This place and everything in it belongs to her.’
The only new thing about that tidbit was that George was aware of it. But until then I hadn’t considered the corollary.
‘What happens if Irma dies?’ I asked.
‘I didn’t think it would be smart to ask that. But I guess the old lady would inherit everything. Which isn’t much – just this old pile of stones and a lot of work. Every object of value has already been sold . . .’
He stopped. None of us finished the sentence aloud. We didn’t have to.
Except the shrine.
‘The old lady couldn’t possibly know,’ Tony began.
‘Wanna bet?’ I said.
‘No. Well, Nolan, let’s get going – if you’re still game. What I’m proposing to do is not only socially unacceptable, it is probably against several laws I can’t call precisely to mind at the moment.’
‘I’ve broken a number of laws in my time,’ said George – with perfect truth, I felt sure.
It was Sunday. The workmen who had been remodelling the south wing were gone for the day. Tony loaded George down with tools and led the way to the chapel. When we reached the stairs to the crypt, George stopped.
‘What are we going to do down there?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘Just a spot of tomb desecration,’ Tony answered.
George dropped a crowbar. He gave Tony a funny look, but bent to retrieve the tool without comment.
When we reached the tomb of Count Harald, Tony knelt down and shone his flashlight along the cracks between the tombstone, with its carved effigy, and the stone floor.
‘When I was here before I noticed something different about this tomb. Look. The stones on the other tombs are cemented into place.’ He opened a pocket knife and illustrated on the next tomb, that of Count Burckhardt. The knife blade ran along the crack