Trojan Gold - Elizabeth Peters [26]
Though I felt sure he hadn’t meant to do so, John had given me a clue with one casual question. He hadn’t asked why the photograph had been sent to me. He had asked why the photograph had been sent to me. The stress made all difference. Why send it to me, of all people? And why in heaven’s name hadn’t it occurred to me to ask myself the question?
I knew why I hadn’t asked myself, and the answer did me no credit. Vanity, all is vanity, saith the poet. Whom else would a repentant thief look up but the great Victoria Bliss, art historian extraordinaire and famous amateur sleuth?
Which was nonsense. I wasn’t famous. In the field of pre-Hellenic art, I wasn’t even well known. I had not written on the subject or lectured about it.
Somewhere, at some time, I must have met the sender of that photograph, talked to him—bragged, more likely—about my status and my expertise.
I had no opportunity to explore the hypothesis that afternoon. When I dashed into the museum, already ten minutes late for a meeting, Schmidt was lying in wait for me. He was furious—not because I was late, but because I had eluded him earlier—and I had to stand there in my wet, icy boots while he bawled me out.
The meeting lasted for over two hours, and then I had a dozen odds and ends to deal with. When the long day was over, I drove straight home without bothering to see whether Schmidt was following me.
The first thing I did was to call the number on the card John had given me. It turned out to be an answering service, just as he had said. I had expected some kind of practical joke, and it wasn’t until the bored voice asked for whom I was calling that I realized I didn’t know.
“John Smythe?” I mumbled, making it a question.
“I am sorry, we have no client of that name.”
Hot with fury and embarrassment, I was about to hang up when it hit me. “Schmidt,” I said. “John—Johann Schmidt.”
“Your message?”
“Never mind,” I growled, and hung up.
Caesar growled too, and lunged for the phone. The strange black object had offended me; he was anxious to mete out the punishment it deserved. I pushed him away and was about to replace the phone when it rang. The caller was Schmidt, suggesting he drop by and take me out to dinner. I didn’t ask where he was; I suspected he was calling from the kiosk on the corner. I told him no, I didn’t want to go out, I was catching a cold, I had a headache and a lot of work to do. He didn’t believe me. Finally I hung up on him.
The phone kept ringing. Schmidt again; then Gerda, wanting me to go out with a cousin of hers who was in town for the holidays. I know what Gerda’s cousins are like—she had set me up with a blind date once before—so I declined. Schmidt called again. Another friend called, asking me to a party I didn’t want to go to. Schmidt called again. After that I unplugged the phone.
It took me some time to get the things I wanted together. The appointment books, receipts, and letters made a dusty, depressing heap on the coffee table—four years of my life reduced to a pile of papers. There was a pot of black coffee on the table, too, and Caesar’s head was on my feet. I didn’t have the heart to push it off, even after my toes went numb. Poor guy, he led a boring life—not even a pile of paper to remind him of past triumphs and past failures. He was alone all day; though he definitely preferred people to other forms of animal life, I suppose he’d have settled for a squirrel or even a mouse to keep him company. I had no mice, and although there were plenty of squirrels around, I couldn’t leave Caesar outside when I was away from home. Not only did he bark maniacally at the slightest sound or movement—to the extreme annoyance of my neighbors—but he could get over or under or through any fence constructed by human hands.
I sipped my coffee and gloomily contemplated the pile of papers. I had been meaning to organize them for lo these many years.
Somehow I wasn’t at all surprised when the first paper I plucked out of the pile