Silhouette in Scarlet - Elizabeth Peters [0]
Praise for Elizabeth Peters
‘Elizabeth Peters has always known how to romance us.’
New York Times Book Review
‘I really do think Elizabeth Peters’ books are great entertainment.’
Angela Rippon
‘The perfect recipe for splendid entertainment!’
Maxim Jakubowski, Guardian
Also by Elizabeth Peters
The Amelia Peabody murder mystery series: (Titles listed in order)
The Vicky Bliss murder mystery series: (Titles listed in order)
Crocodile on the Sandbank
Borrower of the Night
The Curse of the Pharaohs
Street of the Five Moons
The Mummy Case
Silhouette in Scarlet
Lion in the Valley
Trojan Gold
The Deeds of the Disturber
Night Train to Memphis
The Last Camel Died at Noon
The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog
The Hippopotamus Pool
Seeing a Large Cat
The Ape Who Guards the Balance
The Falcon at the Portal
Thunder in the Sky
Lord of the Silent
The Golden One
Children of the Storm
Guardian of the Horizon
The Serpent on the Crown
Tomb of the Golden Bird
Constable & Robinson Ltd
3 The Lanchesters
162 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 9ER
www.constablerobinson.com
First published by Avon Books, 2000
This UK paperback edition published by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2007
Copyright © Elizabeth Peters, 2000, 2007
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-84529-531-8
eISBN: 978-1-78033-453-0
Printed and bound in the EU
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
To Paula and Jim
Music I heard with you
was more than music,
And bread I broke with
you was more than bread
Conrad Aiken
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter One
THIS TIME IT WASN’T MY FAULT.
On several previous occasions I have found myself up to my neck in trouble (and that’s pretty high up, because I am almost six feet tall), -which might have been avoided if I had displayed a little ladylike discretion. This time, however, I was innocent of everything except stupidity. They say some people attract trouble. I attract people who attract trouble.
Take Herr Professor Dr Schmidt, for instance. You wouldn’t think to look at him that he could be so dangerous. Physically he’s a combination of the Wizard of Oz and Santa Claus – short, chubby, disgustingly cute. Intellectually he ranks as one of the world’s greatest historians, respected by all his peers. Emotionally . . . Ah, there’s the rub. The non-professional parts of Schmidt’s brain are permanently frozen at fourteen years of age. He thinks of himself as D’Artagnan, James Bond, Rudolf Rassendyll, Clint Eastwood, and Cyrano de Bergerac, all rolled into one. This mental disability of Schmidt has been partially responsible for propelling me into a number of sticky situations.
Yet Schmidt’s profession, which is also mine, sometimes requires its practitioners to enter a world far removed from the ivory towers of academia. He’s the director of the National Museum in Munich; I work under him, specializing in art history. Nothing duller or more peaceful than a museum? Tell that to any museum director and listen to him giggle hysterically.
There is a flourishing black market in stolen art objects, from historic gems to great paintings. Murph the Surf, who lifted the Star of India from New York’s American Museum of Natural History in 1964, was a veritable amateur