Silhouette in Scarlet - Elizabeth Peters [15]
‘Well, it’s all very mysterious,’ I said. ‘I appreciate everything you did, Schmidt – and everything you didn’t do. I’ll be in touch.’
I didn’t expect to get rid of him that easily, and I didn’t. Admonitions, warnings, and suggestions gushed out of him. Finally I hung up.
I got up off the bed where I had been reclining and went to the window. My room was in the front of the hotel, overlooking the quay. I suspected I owed that choice location to Schmidt’s influence.
Directly opposite, the ‘City Between the Bridges’ filled its island from shore to shore, its close-packed structures rising in successive tiers. It looked like a single giant building, a citadel or castle, with a thousand lighted windows, and the dark water, streaked with splinters of reflected light, might have been a protective moat.
It was so beautiful I forgot my troubles for a minute and just enjoyed the view. Then I turned my attention to more practical matters, noting with approval that my room was on the fourth (European) floor, and that the nearest balcony was a considerable distance away, below and to the right. The street and the quay in front of the hotel were bright as daylight. Nobody could get at me by way of the window unless he was a human fly. Which John might well be, but being also a cautious man, he would hardly risk crawling up the front of a fully lighted building in plain view of a hundred people.
John was the first person I thought of when Schmidt started listing unknown ‘cousins.’ On second thought, however, I doubted that he had been one of them. He wouldn’t call himself Bob or George; he’d have given some crazy name like Agrivaine. Also, there was no reason for him to check up on my whereabouts. He knew where I was. He had seen me. No doubt he had also seen the label on my suitcase; he had eyes like a vulture’s.
Leif might have been one of the ‘cousins,’ checking to make sure that the woman he had seen at the airport carrying Dr Victoria Bliss’s bags was the real Victoria Bliss and not a ringer. But that didn’t make sense either. If he was a policeman, he could inquire through official channels without inventing unimaginative names. If he was a policeman . . .
I would have liked to believe that Bob and George were John and Leif. The alternative, that several parties unknown and probably inimical were on my trail, was distinctly unpleasant. Most peculiar of all was Cousin Gustaf. Should I get in touch with him? First I thought I would. Then I thought I had better leave well enough alone. Then I decided I would go to bed and let my subconscious wrestle with the dilemma. I have a great deal of faith in my subconscious. Sometimes it’s the only part of my brain that works.
Chapter Three
WHEN I WOKE UP next morning I felt terrible. At first I couldn’t imagine why. Then I remembered my cousins. The dilemma was still unresolved. Apparently my subconscious had taken the night off.
It wasn’t until I was brushing my teeth that the dream came back to me.
Not surprisingly, Leif had been the featured actor. Dressed in leggings and a tunic open to the waist, his fair hair shoulder length, he wore a smith’s leather apron and flourished a hammer the size of Thor’s fabled Mjolnir. Outside the crude shelter where he was working was a sign: ‘Wayland’s Smithy; Good Work at Low Prices. If you didn’t get it at Wayland’s, you paid too much.’
Hypnotized by the ripple of bronzed muscle on his arms and chest, I didn’t notice the object on the anvil till his great hammer was high in the air. It wasn’t a sword or a piece of armour, it was a chalice – a footed cup made of silver and bound with strips of gold. Inlaid garnets and scarlet enamel flashed in the light.
My dream self sprang forward with a voiceless shriek, trying to save the precious thing. I was too slow; but just before the hammer struck, a figure materialized out of nowhere and a long, thin arm snatched the chalice away. The figure was that of the silhouette cutter, his face no longer meek and humble, but set