Borrower of the Night - Elizabeth Peters [86]
I looked at my bare arms, which were covered with a network of scratches, and squinted at the tip of my nose, which had a scab on it, and I said dispiritedly, ‘Oh, no problem. I had a talk with your aunt last night. I was dignified, but convincing.’
‘You should not have let her escape,’ said Blankenhagen critically.
‘It would be hard to prove her guilty of anything except poisoning Irma’s mind. That kind of crime is hard to describe in a court of law.’
‘It was a nightmare.’ Irma shivered prettily. ‘To think that the soul of that dead woman could seize my body . . ’
All of us looked at that astounding portrait. ‘Damn it,’ Tony muttered. ‘The resemblance is uncanny.’
‘Not really.’ I lifted the portrait off the wall. I had had plenty of time to study it, and I wasn’t proud of myself for seeing the truth. It should not have taken me so long. ‘The Gräfin didn’t miss a trick. See how faded the rest of the picture is, compared to the face? Someone has touched it up.’
‘You mean – that is not how she looked?’ Irma gasped.
‘No one will ever know what she looked like.’ I tossed the portrait carelessly onto the bed. ‘When your aunt mentioned that she had studied painting . . .’ I shrugged. ‘If you doubt me, have an expert examine this thing. Even I can see that it is modern work.’
‘It started so long ago,’ Irma said, pressing her hands to her face in another of those pretty, fragile gestures. ‘Even before my uncle died, she hated me. Then, later, she started to tell me stories – terrible stories about the crimes of the Drachensteins and the burning of Konstanze. I had not noticed the portrait till she showed it to me; there are so many faded pictures here.’
‘She had to keep you off balance so she could steal your belongings,’ Tony said.
‘She sold even the locks from the doors. She said there was no money from my uncle, that we had to live.’
‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘Everybody has a few rotten apples on the family tree. We all have the same family tree, if you go back far enough. I have a little surprise for you that should take your mind off your troubles.’
‘I hope,’ said Blankenhagen apprehensively, ‘that you do not want any stones moved?’
‘I’m no more anxious to move stones than you are. George has already been here, so it shouldn’t be necessary.’
Mortar had been cleared from around four stones that formed a door. It yielded easily to the pressure of my hand, exposing a dark cavity in the wall. The space was almost filled by a big wooden box. Everyone rushed forwards to help me get it out onto the table. I brushed off some of the encrusted dirt and broke the corroded hasp with a twist of my hands. The front of the box fell away.
Against a Gothic tracery of carved vines and flowers sat the Virgin, her unbound hair flowing over her blue robe, her hands lightly touching the Child on her knee. Above them, cunningly supported by sections of the vine, hovered two angels, slender youths with austere young faces and lifted golden wings. One of the wings was missing.
The three kings knelt at Mary’s feet, and for a disgraceful interlude my eyes forgot the beauty of the carving and lingered greedily on the stones set in the sculptured forms. Balthasar was dressed in crimson; on his head, framed in gold, was an emerald whose depths caught the sunlight and flung it back in a thousand green reflections. Melchoir, behind him, wore a turban set with a great baroque pearl. The third king, balancing the group on the right, lifted his gift in both hands: a golden bowl, holding a globe of scarlet fire.
Irma’s eyes were as round as saucers.
‘Mine?’ she said, in a childish squeak.
‘Yep,’ I said.
She was staring at the stones, not the figures. Her open mouth was pink and pretty and wet and greedy. And then, just as I was enjoying my contempt for her, she did something that cut the ground out from under my feet.