Borrower of the Night - Elizabeth Peters [87]
‘No, it is yours,’ she said suddenly. ‘Three gems, for the three who saved my life. Do they measure any value compared to that?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Blankenhagen; and ‘My God, no,’ said Tony.
They could afford to be noble. Whoever married Irma – and I figured they had an equal chance, she was ready to fall into the arms of any man who asked her – got all three stones. I felt old and wise and rather sad. She was corny, but she was a good kid. I think she really meant it – for about a minute and a half.
‘Aw,’ I said, ‘shucks. Forget it, Irma.’
‘But I mean it!’
‘Sure you do. But we can’t accept anything like that.’
‘But – but what can I do with it?’ Irma asked helplessly.
‘The National museum, I think,’ said Blankenhagen. ‘It is the richest in Germany; it will offer a fair price.’
‘The Met, or some foreign museum, might offer more,’ said Tony. Irma looked at him.
‘No,’ said Blankenhagen firmly. Irma looked at him. ‘It is fitting that such a treasure should remain in Germany.’
‘Hmmm,’ I said. ‘Tell you one thing. If I were you, I’d take those jewels out and sell them separately. Nobody can afford to buy the shrine as it is; and the jewels will attract every crook on two continents. You can substitute paste copies without affecting the beauty of the workmanship; and isn’t that the important thing?’
‘Are you always right?’ asked Blankenhagen, looking at me severely. ‘You are too clever. That is a very annoying quality. How did you know the shrine was here, in this room?’
‘Oh, well,’ I said modestly; ‘that was easy. You told Irma about the arsenic, and Burckhardt’s murder? But don’t you see, that was the clue we were looking for. Many of the details will never be known; but I think I can reconstruct the outlines of the story now.
‘Konstanze was young, seventeen or eighteen, when Burckhardt married her and brought her here. Yet even then she must have been deeply involved in the witch cult; they started young, usually at puberty. It isn’t surprising that she should have learned to despise her oafish husband. Maybe she turned to Nicolas because he was available, and corrupted him. Maybe he didn’t need corrupting. A man of his ability must have hated the social system that labelled him inferior, and the ignorant clod who exemplified that system.
‘Anyhow, I’m sure the two became lovers before the Revolt broke out. Konstanze had been poisoning her husband for some time; it takes several months for arsenic to work its way through the body and show up in the hair and nails. And there were all those references to Burckhardt’s queasy stomach, remember?
‘Burckhardt’s call to arms must have pleased her. She wouldn’t have shed any tears if he had been killed in battle. Then the matter of the shrine came up, and that was a real bonus. I can see Konstanze drooling over those jewels and cursing the old count for giving them to the church.
‘At first, everything seemed to be working out for the lovers. Burckhardt practically handed the shrine over to them by sending it to Rothenburg in Nicolas’ charge. Nicolas murdered or bribed the guards and brought the shrine to the Schloss alone. He and Konstanze hid it in the tomb of the old count. Then Konstanze wrote that letter to her husband saying that the expedition had never arrived.’
‘He kept her letters,’ Tony muttered. ‘Carried them around with him, brought them here . . .’
‘He was a stupid sentimentalist,’ said Blankenhagen, looking contemptuously at Tony. ‘Stupid not to suspect such a story . . .’
‘We didn’t suspect it,’ I said wryly. ‘And he was deeply in love with her; love has a very dulling effect on the brain. There was no reason why anyone should have been suspicious. Even when we found Nicolas’ body, and the wing that had been broken off the shrine, there was no evidence to show that Konstanze knew anything about it.
‘After that night, when Nicolas appeared as the Black Man, he went into hiding. He couldn’t be seen hanging about; Konstanze meant to kill her husband, if he wasn’t killed in battle, but until he was dead she couldn’t let him get suspicious. And he wasn