Borrower of the Night - Elizabeth Peters [53]
‘Hmm. How about this? The steward was not a faithful hound after all. He stole the shrine for himself, sneaked into the castle – which he knew well – at the dead of night. He was about to hide the shrine in the old count’s tomb when Burckhardt wandered in – to pray, or pay his respects, or something. Seized by rage at the sight of his double-dealing servant, and the shrine – which he assumed had been lost on the way from Rothenburg – Burckhardt stabbed Nicolas, tumbled him into the ready-made grave, and hid the shrine himself. Then he got sick – wait, wait! Remember the testimony of the nurse? The murder must have happened that very night. Burckhardt was already ill, ill and delirious. That’s why he never told anyone where he put the shrine. It’s still hidden!’
‘Not bad.’
‘Not bad! What else could have happened?’
‘You have fallen in love with your own theory,’ said Tony severely. ‘A dangerous fault in a scholar. I can think of at least one other possibllity. The count himself came home with the caravan and the shrine. He and the faithful steward hid it, at dead of night, as you so quaintly put it, in the old count’s tomb. Konstanze didn’t know a thing about this. Later the count got to worrying about the safety of the hiding place, and went down, with the steward, to move the shrine. They hid it somewhere else, and then the count stabbed the steward, etcetera, etcetera.’
‘I don’t mind making the count the villain,’ I said. ‘I never liked him anyway. But you have a slight credibility gap, bud. Why should Burckhardt hide his own property and kill his faithful retainer?’
‘Remember what was supposed to happen to the shrine? Count Harald’s will left it to the church. The countess is definite about that in her letters, and she agrees that it should be done. Suppose Burckhardt didn’t agree. The jewels were worth a pile, you know. Maybe he needed money. He wouldn’t let anyone, especially his pious wife, know he wanted the shrine for himself. When the faithful steward realized what Burckhardt had in mind, he threatened to expose him, and Burckhardt murdered him. That way Konstanze never would know where the shrine was hidden, and Burckhardt wouldn’t be about to tell her.’
‘Plausible,’ I admitted. ‘But all the theories are plausible. You’re the one who used to lecture me about the difference between possibility and proof; judging by some of the articles I read in the journals, a lot of historians don’t know the difference. We have no proof, Tony. We can’t even be sure that the shrine was ever here, in the castle, much less in that vault.’
‘Oh, yes, we can.’ Tony was so proud of himself he swelled up like a toad. Reaching into his pocket, he carefully withdrew a small object.
I looked at it as he held it up to the light, and my stomach got a queer queasy feeling. The object was a wing, carved of wood and lightly gilded. In form it was the sort of thing that might have been broken off a phoenix, or a golden bird in flight; but there was a quality about it that eliminated these possibilities and defined it as what it was –
‘An angel’s wing,’ I whispered.
Chapter Eight
I HELD THE PIECE of wood in both cupped hands. I didn’t speak because, to tell the truth, I was afraid my voice wouldn’t be steady. I mean, that wing really got to me, and not just because it confirmed an almost abandoned hope. For the first time I visualized the thing we were after, not as a prize or a treasure, but as a work of art. I was seeing golden angels.
When I had suppressed this surprising burst of sentiment, I said with affected coolness, ‘Game and set to you, Tony. You’re way ahead. But you haven’t won the match yet.’ Reluctantly I put the carved wood down on the table. My hand felt oddly empty. ‘Do you realize this is the first solid piece of evidence we’ve found?’
‘We’ve been distracted by side issues. I still am,’ Tony admitted. ‘I can’t get that woman out of my mind. I keep seeing her – a girl with Irma’s face – standing in the flames and screaming.’
‘Stop it.’
‘Sorry. But – ’
‘Of course she haunts us,’ I snapped. ‘Who wouldn’t