“Oh, I think I’ve seen that kind of thing,” Damian said. “So the first row goes from A to Z, the second from B to A, then C to B, and so on.”
“Exactly, you go on like that till the table is complete. The next step is to pick a code word. First you write your message— for example, “I don’t eat chicken.” Then you remove all the punctuation and the spaces between the words. What’s left is a string of letters, called the plaintext. Underneath the plaintext, you write your code word, repeating it as many times as necessary, until you reach the end of the string. Suppose your code word is ‘car.’ Then you write those three letters, C-A-R, over and over, underneath the plaintext.”
“So if the message is ‘I don’t eat chicken,’ let’s see . . . you put the C under the I, the A under the D, the R under the O, the C under the N, and so forth. Is that the idea?”
“That’s right. The next step is to take each letter combination, like the first I in the plaintext plus the C in ‘car,’ and replace it with a single letter from the grid.”
Meanwhile, Alec had started up the computer. He tapped Damian on the shoulder and swung the monitor around to face him.
THE VIGENÈRE CIPHER: USING THE TABULA RECTA
FIND THE LETTER FROM THE PLAINTEXT
IN THE VERTICAL ALPHABET
FIND THE LETTER FROM YOUR CODE WORD
IN THE HORIZONTAL ALPHABET
THE INTERSECTION OF THE ROW AND COLUMN
IS THE LETTER FOR YOUR CODE MESSAGE
“I know this must be disappointing, Mr. Vanlint, but there’s nothing we can do. As soon as you think you’ve found the code word, let me know, and we can decipher the message in no time.”
“Well, it was very kind of you to go to so much trouble. We’ll take it from here and get back to you soon.”
“Oh, one more thing before you hang up. It’s about the tulip book. I know it may be a sore subject right now, but I would advise your friend to have it restored. It’s well worth the trouble, I promise you that.”
“Yes, I know it’s a valuable book.”
“It’s not just that. This particular tulip book has a rather unusual story attached to it. It’s one of the last ones ever made, for the sale of the tulip collection that had belonged to Wouter Bartelmieszoon Winckel.”
“What was that name again?”
“Wouter Winckel, a renowned seventeenth-century tulip trader. He ran a tavern in Alkmaar but was better known for his unparalleled collection of tulip bulbs. When he died his children ended up in an orphanage . . .”
“. . . and after his tulips were sold, the bubble burst,” Damian said softly, glancing at Alec.
“Ah, so you’re familiar with the auction. Then you know what absurd prices were paid there, and you must understand that this book has special value.”
“What else can you tell me about Wouter Winckel?”
“Not much, except that he probably died of the plague. There was an outbreak around that time.”
“Hmm.”
“You could pay a visit to the municipal archives in Alkmaar. They’re almost certain to have more information about him there. I know the archivist well— we’ve often worked together. His name is Harold van Benthum. Mention me when you call him, and I’m sure he’ll do everything he can for you.”
After hanging up, Damian said, “So what we need now is a code word.”
“As if we didn’t have enough to worry about. Thanks a lot, Frank.” Alec slumped into a chair. “If he had made up a code word himself, we might have been able to guess what it was. He could have used my name, or yours, or Emma’s. No, I know, he would have used ‘Bruno.’ That was his old dog, remember? Or ‘Madeleine,’ that was his mother’s name. Or ‘tulip,’ of course. What could be more obvious? But somebody else picked the code word, back in the seventeenth century.”
Damian rapped his fingers on his desk. “So we need some kind of seventeenth-century word. But how do we find it? It would have been nice if Frank had said something to you about it, instead of just pointing at that date.”
Alec leaped out of his chair, staring at Damian. “What did you say?”
“It would have been nice if Frank—”
Alec came over to him, leaned on the desk, smiled, and said, “You’re a genius. That’s exactly what Frank did.”
“What are you—”
“When he pointed to the book. At first, I thought he was saying ‘tulip,’ but that wasn’t it.”
“What was he saying?”
“‘Tulipa.’”
“Tulipa. Are you sure?”
Alec nodded. Damian was startled by the sound of his phone ringing again.
“Damian, my boy, this is Dick.” Dick’s voice was almost unrecognizable. He sounded tired and subdued. “I have to talk to you, but please, come alone, without Alec. Do you have time now?”
“Sure, I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
“No, no, not at the office. Let’s meet at that big café on the Spui.”
“Okay, I’ll see you there. Oh, maybe you can help us with something. Have you ever heard of a man named Wouter Winckel? A seventeenth-century tulip dealer from Alkmaar?”
He heard a sharp intake of breath. Then Dick hung up. Damian stared at his cell phone, bewildered.
“That was Dick. He wants to meet, right now.”
“Great, let’s go,” Alec said, turning to leave the room.
“No, Alec, he wanted to talk to me alone. I don’t know why, but he was very clear.”
“That’s odd. Did he say anything about Wouter Winckel?”
“No, he just hung up. I think it would be a good idea to take Wolters’s advice and go to Alkmaar to see what other information about Winckel we can dig up.”
“While you’re talking to Dick, Alec and I can go to Alkmaar. Right, Alec?” Emma said, as she came into the room.
“Sure,” Alec said, “but what’ll we do with Tara?”
Damian stood up. “She can stay here. After what we went through in the car yesterday, it might be better for her to lie low for a while. Besides, we don’t want to tell her any more than we need to. We can leave her a note. I’ll stop by the auction house and tell Wolters to try ‘tulipa.’ Then he can get to work right away. Who knows, maybe things are finally going our way, and ‘tulipa’ really is the code word.”
Tara smiled. As silently as she could, she slipped back down the corridor.
FORTY-FIVE
Dawn didn’t care much for modern architecture, but there was something about the building that intrigued her. As they drove through the security gate, she craned her neck and peered through the windshield. Yes, it had a certain appeal. She had read about it. The Netherlands Forensic Institute was a high-tech marvel. Not just the building, with its layers of glass and steel, but also its labs, which were known for their cutting-edge equipment and advanced techniques. She recalled that the new institute had cost tens of millions to build.
“Not bad, huh?” Ben said.
“Yeah,” she replied, flashing him a smile. “Not bad at all.”
They parked the car and headed toward the entrance. The glass doors slid silently open and they stepped into the futuristic lobby.
“He’s coming to pick us up,” Ben said to Dawn, after he’d signed them in and handed her a visitor’s pass. As they walked over to the waiting area, they heard footsteps approaching.
“Oh, here he is now. Dawn, let me introduce you, this is Kees van Loon.”
Kees looked at her with curiosity. He was a large man, more than six feet tall, his blond hair stiff with gel. He extended his hand.
“Good morning. I am Kees. Welcome. I am not speaking English very well, but I will try. Will you go with me, please?”
They followed him down a long corridor and around a corner. Kees stopped at a door. He slid his pass through the reader and pushed the door open. They found themselves in a preparation area. On the other side of a large window Dawn saw a steel table with a body bag.
“There are the suits,” Kee
s said, pointing to a pile of plastic packages. Once they were covered from head to toe, he led them into the room. There was a powerful odor of disinfectant, but the smell of the corpse was stronger. Dawn ran her hand over her surgical mask.
“You never get used to it,” Ben said.
She nodded in agreement. When Kees unzipped the body bag, she had to fight the urge to back away.
Ben turned to her. “Sorry, I guess I should have warned you. It’s not a pretty sight.”
That’s the understatement of the century, Dawn thought. Ben had said something about the condition of the body on the phone, but she hadn’t expected this. His face was gone. What remained was a pulpy mass of gore like a squashed blood orange.
Kees pulled over the operating lamp with a practiced gesture and shone it onto the spot where Versteegen’s face had once been.
“The killer has used enormous force,” Kees said. “A blunt object, we are thinking maybe a big hammer, you know, a . . . Ben, what do you call it in English, a—”
“—sledgehammer,” Ben replied.
Dawn nodded. “Are there any other injuries?”
“No, just the opposite. Someone stroked his head. Here, on the scalp, you see a couple of fingerprints, yes? Here. We have no idea who has made them. It was not a big person, maybe a small man, maybe a woman. You know of the footprints on the mattress?”
“Yes, Ben told me.”
“They were from a man, a big man. So this is something strange. Maybe the murderer was not alone, or maybe someone else found Mr. Versteegen before the house keeper.”
“The house keeper told me that Versteegen’s stepdaughter had been staying with him,” Ben said to Dawn. “We haven’t managed to track her down yet.”
“Did you happen to find any gold leaf on his body?” she asked hopefully. Except for the crushed skull, there was nothing to indicate this was the same killer. No lacerations on the chest, no missing nails. Yet she knew it was the same man, she could feel it.
“Gold on his body?” Kees asked.
“Gold leaf, the kind they use to decorate old books.”
“No, nothing like that. Why are you asking?”
“Ben probably told you I’m looking for a connection between this case and the murder of Frank Schoeller. They knew each other. On Schoeller’s hands, we found flakes of gold leaf.”
“And you think it came from a book?”
“That’s right.”
“If you cannot find the answer, send us a sample,” Kees said, and he zipped up the bag.
FORTY-SIX
In the car, Emma felt uneasy about being so close to Alec. Why on earth had she suggested that the two of them go to Alkmaar together? What had she been thinking? She wanted to kick herself. After last night’s conversation with Damian, this was the dumbest thing she could have done. She turned to Alec, who was sitting calmly beside her, his hands lying loosely in his lap.
She took a deep breath. “Damian knows.”
He went rigid. “How long has he known?”
“Since the day it happened, I think. He suddenly started talking about it last night.”
“So what did he say?”
“I’ve just told you that. He said he knew,” she snapped.
“He didn’t say anything to me about it.” Alec looked at her. “Emma, what’s done is done, there’s no going back now. I didn’t know you would regret it so much.”
Her stomach clenched and her face grew hot. Images of the night they had spent together flashed through her mind. The tension between them had been building for years. The way she saw it, that moment of release had been inevitable.
“I don’t regret it one bit, Alec. It’s just that I feel so guilty.”
Alec nodded. So often he’d wanted to tell Damian, but every time, the fear of ruining their friendship had stopped him. Now he could no longer pretend it had never happened. He had no choice but to talk to Damian about it. That was what he should have done right away, the morning after. He should have gone to Damian. He should have said something. But he had lacked the courage.
“I’ll talk to him,” Alec said.
In the reading room at the municipal archives, they each filled in a visitor’s card. When Alec had called Harold van Benthum and mentioned Wolters’s name, the archivist had grown excited and offered to do some preliminary research for them. At the information desk, they asked if they could see Mr. Van Benthum, and the man on the other side put out his hand.
“Ah, it’s you. I’m Harold, pleased to meet you. You told me Jacob Wolters sent you here?”
“That’s right,” Alec said.
“Give him my best wishes when you see him. Now, please come with me,” he said, emerging from behind the desk. “I’ve already pulled a few things off the shelves for you.”
He led them through the reading room into the hallway and ushered them into his office. “You can work here if you like. There are fewer distractions.”
The small room was organized efficiently. Along the right wall was a desk with a computer. The desktop was bare except for a mouse pad. Next to it was a poster of the Grand Canyon. Against the left wall were two narrow tables, one covered with neat stacks of file folders. On the other table were three thin folders, and beside it were two chairs. Harold went over to the table and tapped the folders with one finger.
“This is what I’ve been able to find so far. I’ll keep looking, but in the meantime you can go through these.”
“It’s so kind of you to go to all this trouble for us,” Emma said.
Harold stroked his beard. “No trouble at all. These days a lot of people here like to give the impression they’re in a rush. Usually the opposite is true. Have a seat. I’d say it’s time for a cup of coffee.”
He opened a thermos and filled two cups decorated with the Alkmaar city coat of arms.
“Right, I’ll be back in a little while.” In the doorway, he turned back to face them. “I can hardly believe you own the tulip book they made for the sale of Winckel’s collection. I can certainly imagine you’d like to know more about him.” He grinned and said, “If you ever feel inclined to lend the book, I’m sure the city museum would be very interested.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Alec said.
They each opened a folder and went to work. After a few minutes, Alec said, “Here’s something intriguing. This article is about the history of Doelenstraat, a street in Alkmaar’s historic center. Wouter Winckel’s inn used to be there. It says he was a respected businessman, an inn-keeper, and a tulip dealer. His tavern was called the Old Archery Hall.”
“Is it still around?”
“No, it was demolished in the twenties to make room for a school. It does say something about another building with almost the same name: the New Archery Hall. The city museum was housed there until the year two thousand. Hold on, there’s a reference to another article. Oh, here it is.”
He skimmed through it and said, “That’s funny. This other building— the New Archery Hall— happens to be the place where his tulip collection was auctioned off.”
Emma stirred her coffee. “Remind me how much they made?”
“Ninety thousand guilders,” Harold said, somewhat short of breath, as he walked into the room with a couple of documents under one arm. He put them down and said, “It was an unbelievable sum. In fact, when I first saw the figure a few years back, it seemed so unbelievable that I did a little research of my own.”
“And? Did you come up with anything interesting?” Alec asked.
“Well, I couldn’t figure out why the auction brought in such huge proceeds. I guess it must have been market forces at work. That was probably also why the bubble burst right after the auction— a combination of factors. But I’ll tell you what I did discover.”
Harold pulled up a chair and sat down.
“Apparently, just before the Alkmaar tulip auction, someone made a deal with the director of the orphanage. A few days earlier, this person paid him a large sum of mone
y for several bulbs. Bulbs that are not included in the sale list for the auction.”
“So the orphanage director pocketed the money,” Emma said.
Alec nodded. “There’s a big difference between a ten percent commission and one hundred percent of the profits. Do you know how much he got for those bulbs?”
“Twenty-one thousand guilders,” Harold said. “A fortune in those days. And that’s not all.”
He thumbed through the papers he had brought with him and fished out a couple of them.
“This is unrelated to the auction, but I also discovered that Wouter Winckel didn’t die of the plague, as some people say.” He held up the pages. “It turns out that the city physician kept meticulous records of every autopsy he performed.”
He glanced down at his papers. “Those records clearly show that Wouter Winckel was killed in his own tavern.”
“Murdered, you mean? Who did it?” Alec asked.
Harold shrugged. “I have no idea.” He looked at his watch and stood up. “Sorry, I have a meeting to go to. I’ll be back afterward to see how you’re coming along.”
When Harold had closed the door behind him, Alec said, “Suppose the orphanage director had something to do with it.”
“With Winckel’s death?” Emma raised her eyebrows.
“No, no, with the bidding frenzy at the auction. We keep hearing how unusual it was for an auction like that to raise ninety thousand guilders. First Dick mentioned it, then Wolters, and now van Benthum. If everyone feels that way, maybe there really was something fishy going on.”
“You think it wasn’t just market forces after all?”
“If the orphanage director was really so greedy, he probably wasn’t satisfied with the twenty-one thousand guilders he had already embezzled. Maybe he manipulated the auction to inflate the final proceeds— and his own commission.” Alec grabbed her by the arm. “Hey, what if that’s what happened? What if he planted bidders in the auction hall, who kept raising their bids and driving up the asking prices? All they would have to do is stop in time and let someone else outbid them.”
“It’s possible,” Emma said. “But there was always a risk they would have to buy the bulbs at inflated prices.”
The Tulip Virus Page 18