Trojan Gold - Elizabeth Peters [71]
“Something stood on that shelf for years, probably decades,” he said. “Something heavy and rectangular—”
“The treasure chest?” I said dubiously. “Boy, talk about jumping to conclusions—”
“I know it was a chest.” John put the shelf down and indicated a smaller pile of scraps, off to one side. “Here are the pieces of it. The dimensions fit the marks on the shelf. Now observe—there is nothing up my sleeve….” He carried the scraps to the workbench and laid them out. “Bottom, sides, top. It’s oak, hardened with age. Even Freddy must have had a spot of bother chopping it up. Threads caught on splinters within indicate it was once lined with wool, possibly a piece of blanket.” I opened my mouth to object; John raised a minatory finger. “Wait. The best is yet to come.” From his breast pocket he took a small plasticized envelope, the kind jewelers use, and waved it. Sparks flared and danced. I snatched it from him.
“Gold!”
John resumed his pose on the edge of the bench, his foot swinging. “Gold. A grand total of five minuscule grains caught on splinters, or on the wool threads. No, don’t open it, they’re so light they’ll simply float away. There’s not enough to test, but from the color and the texture it appears to be virtually pure—twenty-four carat.”
“No wonder they smashed the Schrank,” I murmured. “It was there—my God, it was there all the time, while I sat listening to Brahms with Hoffman. Less than five feet away from me….”
The small envelope swayed in my fingers; the gold twinkled like tiny stars. John took it from me and replaced it in his pocket.
“That would appear to be the case,” he said coolly. “Friedl knew where it was kept; when she went looking for it, after Hoffman’s—shall we stretch a point and say ‘accident’—she found he had removed it. Hell hath no fury, et cetera; she may have been angry enough to kick the chest to bits with her own dainty foot.”
“I can’t believe he would be so casual about it! Right there in his living room—”
“Oh, that’s comprehensible. He’d want it close at hand, where he could look at it and gloat over it.”
“Well, that’s very interesting, but I can’t see that it gets us anywhere. Friedl may not know where he hid it—”
“Friedl does not know. Jest all you like, but my theory is the only one that fits the facts.”
“We don’t know where it is either.”
“How about your elongated gentleman friend from Chicago?”
I tried to raise one eyebrow. Though I have practiced for hours in front of a mirror, the feat is still beyond me; both eyebrows slipped up. “If I didn’t know better, I would suspect your harping on Tony’s height betrays jealousy of a taller and better man. I’m convinced Tony is innocent, but he is no longer unwitting. Friedl got to him and spilled part of the beans. I’m going to tell him the rest.”
Instead of objecting, John nodded. “You may as well. I do not share your blind faith in the lad, but if I’m right and you are wrong, he knows anyway. If you are right and I’m wrong, it’s too late to remove him from the line of fire; the bad boys have seen him with you and they will assume he’s a coconspirator.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. I thought we had decided the attack on me and Schmidt was a single aberration.”
John raised one eyebrow, without visible effort. “We hope that’s what it was. If they are waiting for us to come up with a solution, we may all die of old age here in Bad Steinbach. I am completely without inspiration.”
“Me too.”
The glum silence that followed was broken by another outburst from the parlor. Even with two heavy doors in between, it sounded like a large child having a large temper tantrum. John flinched. “I can’t stand much more of this.”
“Maybe she wants out,” I suggested.
“I know she wants out. As soon as I let her out, she wants in again. I have spent the afternoon letting her in and letting her out.” John’s voice cracked. “I can’t let the creature sit outside the door howling, for fear the neighbors will hear and come to investigate.”
“I never thought I’d see the