The Medusa Amulet

by Robert Masello

  He reached into the valise and started to show her the lab reports, but she waved them away. “I will take your word for it, for the time being.” She put it back on the desk, her hands idly twirling the ends of the Hermes scarf knotted around her neck. In Paris, David noted, even the museum curators were chic.

  “Was it an early sketch for the Perseus in Florence?” she wondered aloud.

  “No,” David said, pointing out the view of its reverse and the annotations. “It appears to have been the design for a small hand mirror. Silver, with a niello finish.”

  Mme. Solange frowned and said, “I know of nothing like this from Cellini, or anyone in his workshop.”

  “Neither do we,” Olivia interjected, “but that’s why we’re here.”

  “We found documents in the Medici archives that indicate the piece was given to the Queen of France in the mid-1500s,” David explained. “We need to know if it might be part of the Louvre’s collection.”

  Mme. Solange looked highly dubious but swiveled toward her computer screen and said, “We have such an extensive collection here that only a fraction can ever be properly displayed, but let’s check.” With rapid-fire strokes, she logged into what she explained was the Atlas database. “If there’s anything fitting this description, Atlas will tell us.”

  With David hovering behind her chair, and Olivia perched on the edge of hers, she first entered Cellini himself, but apart from all the references to his most famous statue, there was nothing to match. Then she entered “Medusa” as a key word, and while several hundred objects showed up, everything from urns to coins to ewers, none was a mirror, or a piece of lady’s jewelry. Switching to another database, with the improbable name of LORIS/DORIS, she entered the information again, in several different configurations, without coming up with a hit.

  Leaning back, her fingers leaving the keyboard, she said, “I can’t be the first one to suggest this, but the piece might be lost to the ages. Even if the monarchy still possessed it, it might have been stolen in 1792, when the royal treasury was burglarized.”

  “But the thieves were caught, weren’t they?” Olivia said.

  “Yes, they were-and before they were beheaded, one of them, named Depeyron if memory serves, admitted that he had hidden some gold and gems in an attic in the district of Les Halles. But a piece like this,” Mme. Solange said, touching her fingers to the border of the sketch, “would probably not have been so appealing to them. You say it was only silver, and niello at that. They would have overlooked it.”

  “Even with ruby eyes?” David said.

  “There’s nothing about rubies in that sketch.”

  “I know,” David said, “but in the records I read at the Accademia in Florence, it was mentioned.”

  “Oh well, in that case, there’s always a chance it’s in the mineralogical collection at the Paris Museum of Natural History.”

  “Mineralogy?”

  “In 1887, when the government was afraid of an insurrection from the Bonapartists, the Finance ministry was instructed to auction off whatever crown jewels were still under its control. But if something was deemed a naturally occurring gem, it got a reprieve and was handed over to the Natural History Museum. They’ve got all kinds of things, from mesmerism crystals to some diamond and pearl pins that belonged to Marie Antoinette. For all we know, the ruby eyes might have saved this mirror. It’s not very likely, but then again, who can tell?”

  David glanced over at Olivia, who shrugged as if to say, it’s worth trying.

  “But let me look at their records,” the director said. After a few minutes of rapid work at the keyboard, she exhaled in disgust, and David, glancing at her computer screen, read, in bold black type, “ Aucune approche disponible a ce temps.”

  “They are forever experiencing… what do you call them in the States?”

  “Technical difficulties?”

  “Yes, that would be it. Their records are not currently accessible online. I suggest you go over there tomorrow and ask for the director, Professor Vernet.”

  “It has to be today,” David said, already slipping the sketch back into the valise.

  “But they’re closed today.”

  “Could you call him?” he said. “It’s really very urgent.”

  “Urgent?” Madame Solange said, perplexed.

  “I know Dr. Armbruster would greatly appreciate it,” David said. “And so would I.”

  He was afraid he’d offended her, but after a pause, she said, “All right,” and picked up her phone. “But when you get there, tell him I said that it was time he got his damn files up and running!”

  Chapter 23

  “Please tell Madame Solange, when next you see her, that I would be happy to fix the problem,” Professor Vernet declared, as he flicked on the lights in the portico of the Galerie de Mineralogie et de Geologie. They were standing in a wide, high-ceilinged entryway in need of a good scrubbing, though one wall was adorned with an enormous wooden plaque, listing the Board of Governors in gilt letters. “In fact, I’ll get to it just as soon as the Louvre releases some of its own government funding to its poor cousins like us.”

  David had the feeling he’d stepped into yet another territorial battle and elected to remain silent rather than risk saying the wrong thing. Miraculously, so did Olivia. Professor Vernet, wearing a white lab apron over a rumpled suit, looked as if he’d been disturbed in the middle of a rock-pounding session. A hammer stuck out of one pocket and there was dust and grit all over his sleeves. As a result, he kept his dirty fingers off the drawing as David showed it to him and explained what they were looking for.

  “It’s a very impressive piece,” he conceded. “But I can also tell you that we have nothing in our collections that resembles it. With, or without, rubies.”

  “But with your database down-for the moment-how can you be sure? Maybe Olivia and I could help check?” David ventured, afraid of stepping on another set of toes but having no alternative.

  “I already have.”

  David knew that couldn’t be true. They hadn’t been apart since arriving at the museum and just now showing him the Cellini sketch.

  “It’s all right here,” the professor said, turning toward them and tapping his unconvincing copper-colored toupee. “And I can tell you we do not have such a thing.”

  He moved on into the dim gallery, closed to the public today. “Anything we retain of the crown jewels is exhibited in this room,” he said, gesturing at a long and spacious hall, less opulent than the Louvre but impressive nonetheless. He nodded at a solitary watchman, who flicked on another bank of lights, and the glass cases suddenly came to sparkling life. In the center, under a separate light of its own, was a vitrine containing the incomparable Ruspoli Sapphire, a 135-carat, cube-shaped stone, bought by Louis XV. The size of a quail egg, it was the deepest blue David had ever seen.

  Professor Vernet seemed gratified at David’s, and Olivia’s, appreciative gaze. “Over the years, many of the jewels were recut, to avoid identification when they were resold. But not, as you can see, this one.”

  After allowing them time to absorb its beauty, the professor moved on to a longer display case, where he showed them a collection of pins and rings and bracelets adorned with precious stones. “Some of these belonged to Marie Antoinette, some to the sisters of Louis XVI.”

  Studying them on their velvet place mats, brilliant and polished and refined as they were, David experienced a sinking sensation. What he was looking for in no way fit their style. A dull, silver looking glass in the shape of the Medusa’s head? Marie Antoinette would no sooner have used such a thing than a wooden toothpick. He was beginning to think he had gone in the wrong direction, after all, and come, finally, to a bleak dead end.

  But Olivia, who had wandered farther down the gallery, suddenly said, “Take a look at these.”

  The professor glanced in her direction and said, “Ah, the crystals. Far less valuable, of course, but marvelous specimens still.”

&
nbsp; David walked over and saw what looked at first like a display case in a geology museum of the Southwestern United States. There were quartzite crystals, sharp and angular, and lavender geodes split like cantaloupes, their two halves twinkling in the overhead glare. David didn’t understand why Olivia had seemed so interested.

  Then he saw her point at the placard on the display case.

  “ Des possessions personelles de Comte Cagliostro, aussi connu comme Giuseppe Balsamo, environ 1786.” From the personal possessions of Count Cagliostro (aka Giuseppe Balsamo), circa 1786.

  “You are aware of Count Cagliostro?” Professor Vernet asked.

  “Yes,” David said. “We are.” He remembered well the count’s book of Egyptian Masonry that Olivia had pulled from the shelves of the Laurenziana-and now here he was again, smack in the middle of things. “But how did these wind up here?”

  “The count used them in his demonstrations of hypnosis and magic. But when he had to flee Paris, some of them were left behind.”

  “Why the hurry?”

  “Because of the Affair of the Queen’s Necklace,” Olivia interjected, and the professor nodded.

  David had only a rudimentary recollection of that episode, and the professor seemed only too happy to provide a synopsis. David had the impression that the professor, at first annoyed at the intrusion in his schedule, had warmed at the enthusiasm of the comely young Olivia and enjoyed regaling her with his stories.

  “The official court jewelers, two partners named Boehmer and Bassenge, had assembled a fabulously expensive necklace, in the hopes that Mme. du Barry, and later Marie Antoinette, would buy it. But neither of them did. Instead, a confidence artist, an attractive young woman named Jeanne de Lamotte Valois, managed to perpetrate a very great swindle.”

  “The greatest of its day,” Olivia added.

  “She persuaded an eminent, but unscrupulous, Cardinal to pay for it. He thought he was simply buying it on behalf of the queen, who would secretly reimburse him, but the queen did not know anything about the transaction. Nor did she ever receive it. Instead, the necklace was stolen by Valois and her confederates, broken up into pieces, and sold. And despite the fact that Marie Antoinette had never owned the necklace-indeed, she had pointedly refused to buy it on several occasions-the people of France never believed her. The necklace was often cited as just one more example of her extravagance.”

  “And Count Cagliostro was involved?” David asked, still feeling like the student who’d been left behind.

  “Mme. Valois deliberately implicated him in the plot because she knew him to be a great favorite at court. The queen enjoyed his company, and had richly rewarded him with various tokens of her esteem. There was a trial, but after nine months in the Bastille, the count was finally acquitted. Still, he was smart enough to know that he had worn out his welcome in France and left Paris the next day.”

  “And look at these, down here,” Olivia said, directing David to several amulets carved in the shape of scarabs and other foreign symbols. One was an amber gargoyle, grinning maliciously.

  “Yes, those were the sorts of things the queen bestowed,” Vernet explained. “She knew he had a taste for anything of an exotic or occult nature and I think he was afraid to spirit some of them out of France.”

  “Is it possible that La Medusa was one of the tokens of her esteem that he left behind?” Olivia speculated.

  It certainly looked to David like the mirror might have been more to the count’s taste than hers. “And these are all of his things, in the cases here?” David asked the professor.

  The professor shrugged and said, “All but some of his papers. They’re stored in the archives, next door.”

  “May we see them?” Olivia asked, eagerly.

  The professor, who looked as if he could refuse her nothing, brushed some dust from the front of his apron and said, “For such a lovely young visitor, I don’t see why not.”

  David felt distinctly de trop, but didn’t care.

  The professor led them out the other end of the gallery and down a long hall connected to an annex, talking all the way. “After leaving Paris, Cagliostro fled to Rome-unwisely, as it turns out-since the Pope found him guilty of blasphemy, burned his books, and imprisoned him in the Castel St. Angelo.”

  “Cellini’s old home,” David observed.

  “From there, he was moved to an even more remote prison-the Castel San Leo,” Vernet remarked, as they passed through the first of several security checkpoints, “where he survived for four years before being strangled by one of his jailers.”

  The professor opened a sticky steel-plated door and led them down a metal spiral staircase. They must have gone down three or four levels before he stopped and turned on a row of overhead lights.

  Endless shelves, stacked with boxes, stretched as far as David could see, but Vernet appeared to know exactly where he was going, burrowing down one row, then turning into another before stopping and pointing to a large brown box on a top shelf.

  “Could I ask you to take that one down?” he said, and David gladly obliged. A film of dust rose like a cloud from its top.

  “And bring it over here,” Vernet said, leading them to an equally dusty research table surrounded by some beat-up wooden chairs. David plopped the box down, and the professor said, “Every day that Cagliostro was imprisoned, he scrawled one sentence, with a sharpened rock, on the wall of his dungeon. Napoleon-who was also a great believer in the occult-later sent an aide to the cell where Cagliostro had died, with instructions to copy down all the words and images that remained.” Tapping the top of the box, the professor said, “I’m afraid there are no amulets in here, but perhaps the information will guide you in your quest?”

  David doubted it, but for want of any other lead, he was certainly prepared to follow this one. And Olivia looked genuinely elated.

  “Normally, you understand, you would not be allowed to work here unattended,” Vernet said, glancing at an old wall clock as it audibly clicked off another minute, “but I have some work to finish, and the archives are technically closed today.”

  “We’ll be careful with everything,” Olivia assured him, “and replace the box before we leave.”

  Vernet still hesitated, then said, “If mademoiselle would just be so kind as to drop by my office on her way out, I would like to hear how things went.”

  “Delighted,” Olivia said, pouring it on.

  And David couldn’t resist adding, “I’ll come, too.”

  The professor appeared not to have heard him, but before he’d rounded the corner of the shelves, David had popped the lid off the box. Inside, there were several plastic sleeves, each with its own typed label, many of them yellowed and peeling off. Olivia peered in, rummaged through, then grabbed one and plunked herself down in a chair on the opposite side of the table. David picked out another, this one marked “ Documents originaux, C. San Leo, 1804.” These would be the first field notes from Napoleon’s emissary, and he removed them with all the appropriate caution.

  Written, or drawn, on paper as yellowed and crinkled as papyrus, and in an ink that had faded from black to gray, the entries were barely legible-and, as far as David could tell, they were all over the lot. Many of them were the traditional Masonic symbols-hammers and mallets, bricks and trowels-but others were crude facsimiles of Egyptian hieroglyphs. He recognized Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the underworld, and Isis, goddess of nature and magic, crowned with the curving horns of a bull. The aide had dutifully copied them down, as well as the sentences scrawled on the stone in Italian.

  “The eye of the pyramid sees into all things,” was one.

  “The master of the Lost Castle possesses the secret of secrets,” was another.

  To David, they seemed like nothing more than the ravings of a man consigned to a dungeon.

  But suddenly, one of them brought him up short.

  “The immortal Gorgon belongs to Sant’Angelo.”

  The Gorgon… could this be a referen
ce to La Medusa? And why would he say it belonged to a Roman prison? Had Cagliostro hung on to the glass when he fled France and run to Rome? Had the Pope relieved him of it, along with all his other blasphemous possessions? Or had he managed to hide it there, somewhere within the prison walls, before being taken away to San Leo? David focused all his attention on the pile of sketches and writing-whoever Napoleon had sent had done a thorough job of it-as he dug through them, front and back, but there was nothing more that seemed explanatory or revealing.

  Still, it was a start, and it was only when he was about to tell Olivia about what he’d found that he realized she had fallen uncustomarily quiet ever since they’d opened the box.

  When he glanced across the table at her, he saw that she had opened an envelope containing old black-and-white photographs, each one about eight-by-ten. Slowly, methodically, she was going over each one, then laying it on the stack in front of her.

  “I think I might have found something,” he said, relating the line about the Gorgon. “Sounds like it was too important to Cagliostro for him to leave it behind.”

  But Olivia, still absorbed in her own task, nodded absentmindedly, and said, “I think I’ve found something, too.”

  David reached over and turned one of the photos around. It showed the ruins of a fortress, atop a craggy cliff, and was captioned San Leo. So this was where Cagliostro had been imprisoned.

  He turned another shot around, and this one showed a low dungeon door, with thick iron bars. The third picture was taken inside the cell, where portions of the stone wall had completely disintegrated and fallen apart. There were holes large enough to reveal fallen timber and rubble in the next cell.

  “Something tells me Napoleon’s crew didn’t take these Polaroids,” David said. “Who did?”

  “Turn them over,” Olivia replied, laying down yet another one on the pile.

  David flipped the photo, and saw a faded black stamp on its back-two jagged lightning bolts, on either side of the words Das Schwarze Korps. The Black Corps. It meant nothing to him.