Quest

by Richard Ben Sapir

  “Arthur, since we’re here, I would like to proceed with something, and I’d like your help. It’s just one thing. Please.”

  Artie didn’t want to ask what. He was silent. Stately cars passed them without the honk and din of New York traffic.

  “The statement from Scotland Yard that you gave me, the photocopy—”

  “Yeah?”

  “Could you as a New York City policeman go to Scotland Yard and ask to see the original and see if the paper is suitably aged, get a feel to see if it’s new as I suspect. It may not be. The British could have faked that report, I suspect, from what I know of the Tilbury. I think I understand Captain Rawson’s place in all this. I think he is working for some sort of fraud very possibly by the Crown of England. While you’re doing that, I will travel to Windsor.”

  “You’ll go there and do what?”

  “I am going to sit there until they show me the Tilbury. Make them arrest me or something. I think that just might force them to open up. I wouldn’t do this, Arthur, if we weren’t so damned close. Damned close.”

  “Close to what? What are you looking for?” asked Artie.

  “What’s behind this all.”

  “Why?”

  “You know how I feel about my father.”

  “You’re not going to prove him innocent, Claire, because he wasn’t.”

  “Arthur!”

  She stepped back from him, her feet planted on the bridge, her face tightening in anger.

  “Yeah, he wasn’t storing that cellar in the vault; he was selling it,” said Artie.

  “So?”

  “To a bunch of crooks. Everyone knew it was hot. They didn’t use their right names. And one of them was a major gem thief.”

  “That’s their problem. Dad had financial problems that required discretion. That is why he would sell it from a vault.”

  “You mean to say he didn’t know Tiffany’s was discreet. Cartier’s was discreet. Bulgari was discreet. Hey, he wasn’t a yokel. He knew. Those places are where men buy jewelry for their mistresses—they are the most discreet. He sold it in a damned vault because he couldn’t ask the police to give him protection. That’s why he sold it from a vault.”

  “How do you know he sold it from there?” asked Claire.

  “I saw the damned names in the damned vault registry. He signed in. Crooks signed in. They all signed in the damned registry for the damned vault. That’s how they did it. That’s what he was doing.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before you thought Dad was …” She paused. “A crook.”

  “Because I intended to live with you before.”

  “You’re leaving.”

  “Lady, there’s no place for me next to your obsession.”

  “You agreed it was rational.”

  “Yeah. You rationally care more about this insanity than you do about me. I saw that here. This is going to hurt me a long, long time. I didn’t want to tell you about your father. I didn’t want to hurt you. I thought maybe it would shock you.”

  “Arthur, don’t go,” she said.

  “You can keep me. I think you could keep me forever,” said Artie, and he kissed her once on the cheek and walked away. He heard her run up behind him and felt her near.

  Artie could not look at her. He was not strong enough to do that. He sensed she was crying, and he could not look into her eyes.

  It was a long wide bridge, and the clock high above them boomed away. Claire didn’t speak until it had stopped.

  “Arthur. If my father were a crook, why wouldn’t he break down the cellar into its jewels so that he could sell it? Any criminal would know that.”

  “Because he was a wiseass. How many times did you tell me how he was a self-made man, and people resented him, and he did things his own way. He trusted himself. That’s what you said. He said trust yourself. Do it your way and win, I believe, is what he used to say. So he came from Ohio and he tried to unload that cellar in secret. A wiseass would do that. Good-bye.” He had said it all. She had not stopped him saying it. And he left.

  “You’re not facing right. You’re going away from our hotel.”

  “I’ll find it,” said Artie.

  “I’ll take you,” said Claire.

  “You know, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out Captain Rawson is about the Queen’s business, and that lady, no matter how gracious she might be, sits where she sits because of those things that stuck into people back there. You’re going up against a whole country. And countries tend to win, even against you.”

  “I’m not going to Windsor, Arthur,” said Claire.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m going with you. I’m not losing you, Arthur.”

  “You’re not,” he said.

  If nothing else, she felt he should admit there was a royal subterfuge going on here. Great Britain was at least as guilty of something as her father, but she knew that in Arthur’s mood he didn’t want to hear about intrigue as anything but something to avoid. She was not certain what she would do. All she knew was that she was not going to let herself lose Arthur at this moment. And probably never.

  Harry Rawson arrived in London in time to hear an impassioned plea before tea that he should do something, anything to stop Claire Andrews. Now. Here in London if she were still here. Back in New York when she arrived. Suborn, bribe, blackmail, kill, maim, anything. But now. She had to be stopped now.

  Sir Anthony accused Captain Rawson of negligence, of using Crown funds for his own pleasure, of dallying while England had entrusted him with its most sacred mission.

  “This woman will expose us all, every one of us from Elizabeth the First to you and me! How could you let her get this far? Your orders were specific. It was even more important to England, to the survival of what is left of us, that it never, under any circumstances, be known that we had that object for the span of our greatness.”

  Sir Anthony hit the carved wood mantle of the fireplace in the rear parlor of his Belgravia townhouse. Rawson sat in the stuffed damask-covered chair and crossed a leg.

  “How far has she gotten?” he asked.

  “To telling some people the Tilbury isn’t in Windsor. To saying we’re liars. She knows it was the Tilbury.”

  “Which means?”

  “If she’s gotten this far, she can go the rest. She’ll have it, Captain Rawson.”

  Harry Rawson held out his left hand. Only a few dark reddish stripes indicated that he had ever stopped a blade trying to catch pieces of heathstone in the bowels of Windsor’s Round Tower.

  “My hand has healed. I daresay, even with the best of stonemasons, that little inscription will not be put back all that clearly. The link is gone.” Rawson opened and closed his left hand several times. The palm bore only a few faint reddish traces of what had once been scars. “Healed. Gone.”

  “Captain, precautions were taken so that no one outside of the royals themselves would even know precisely what the Tilbury looked like. I never did. I only knew it was a gold saltcellar with gems. A ‘glory’ so to speak. Neither its shape nor its exact form did I know. Even the different jewelers who measured the stones when the Tilbury was moved from Windsor for the duration never saw the whole cellar. For centuries, our sovereigns thought the secret was safe. Now this woman tracked down a sketch we knew nothing about secreted in an Italian castle. She will know.”

  “Indeed, she is impressive, Sir Anthony. My sympathies are with her boyfriend. I would hate to wake up with a hangover next to her hearing that midwest twang question me on the previous night’s whereabouts.”

  “She knows it’s the Tilbury. She knows I am lying. And she damned well may break the secret of Elizabeth the First, and that, Captain, is a disaster.”

  “Just what do you propose? You mentioned several options. I suppose you have one in mind?”

  “Is that all you can say? You swore here, you took an oath to defend the sanctity of the Crown, to return it … damnit, to return our Grail to Her Majesty’s
possession, to preserve at all costs this great secret of our island race.”

  “I not only took the oath, Sir Anthony, I meant it. But you are going to have to accept that there is a great leap between British peculiarity over a saltcellar and possession of the Holy Grail itself. That is a thing of King Arthur and the Round Table, Celtic legends in Ireland, providence and chivalry, Wagner, von Eschenbach, Morte d’Arthur, Tennyson. It is our great European myth of the great chase won by virtue and holiness.”

  “I am talking about the cup Christ used at the Last Supper, Captain Rawson.”

  “And that is even farther removed. That is Jerusalem. That is Semitic. What Jew or Muslim reveres dinnerware?”

  “What are you talking about, Captain? Out with it now.”

  “The cup Christ used at the Last Supper is probably among the other clay shards that make up the rubble layers upon which that city was built.”

  “I beg your pardon, Captain.”

  “Relics were a thing of later Christianity. Certainly Christ’s Jewish followers who abandoned him to the Romans were not about to save the damned drinking cup if they wouldn’t save him.”

  “You could have told me that before you began, Captain. It would have been good to know.”

  “What makes you think it would make a difference, Sir Anthony? This is the most important thing in my life. It doesn’t matter if I am chasing the Grail or one of the multitude of frauds so prevalent in Europe. It does not need to have been used by that Jesus in Jerusalem. It only has to be the one Her Majesty orders me to get. It is her orders that are sacred, Sir Anthony. And that means so are yours.”

  “Then stop that American—woman.”

  “So that you won’t be embarrassed? Don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t swear to protect the Crown’s silly cover story about the Tilbury. I swore to protect the Crown, to protect England’s secret, to protect England. Once we have it back, no one can say we are doomed without it. Of course, they won’t even know we have it back,” said Rawson. He waited for an answer.

  Sir Anthony trembled. His dark gray suit hung on him as though carved, a rigid man in a rigid suit angry at a world of change.

  “You’re close to it, then?” asked Sir Anthony.

  “Very,” said Rawson.

  XXII

  Long suffering is like the emerald whose color never varies. For no temptation of whatever magnitude can overpower long suffering which always gleams with a green and constant light.

  —WALTER MAP

  Queste del Saint Graal, 1225

  In the north light, finally in the north light, the great pigeon’s blood ruby showed its magnificent red strength, eighty-seven karats of it. The coloring held power throughout, even at the peculiar angles chosen for carving. The ruby among all stones was usually cut wrong to include as much stone as possible. This one was no exception, but its last lapidaries probably lived after A.D. 300 because the dominant and therefore most recent strokes carved the face of Jesus Christ, this over some other image, carved with another instrument, probably of a previous god.

  Still, even through the shameful marks, this great ruby showed its passion. Norman Feldman looked into its soul through the jeweler’s loupe. The almost imperceptible chrome inclusions were the absolute final proof that this was natural ruby and not some synthetic. No matter how science had advanced, it could not produce synthetic imperfections, not like these, which made the ruby parade as it turned in the light, and in those imperfections and the size and purity of color of the rest of the stone lived its greatness.

  “This one has the smell of new death. Too many bodies,” said Norman Feldman. “Everyone’s been acting like an idiot. Well, at least you haven’t destroyed it. So far. It would have been a shame.”

  Dr. Peter Martins, trained as a surgeon, and now dealing jewels across borders that would change a lot sooner than any of the gems, noticed two things. First, Feldman had not asked him about the killings. It was as though they didn’t exist until he implied he didn’t want the ruby because of them. Secondly and more importantly, the ruby dealer did not push the stone back across his desk, but held it, turning it over and over, never taking his eyes away from its insides.

  “So you’re here. You can’t move the stones. I knew you’d panic. You knew how to steal, but you didn’t know what you were stealing.”

  Dr. Martins slapped his kidskin gloves on his left wrist and crossed his legs. The ruby dealer was still examining the gem.

  Feldman went on: “Everybody gets into the act, and nobody knows what he’s doing. Everyone’s been a fool. That art dealer person, for trusting you. The Roman who did this engraving, for desecrating this stone on one surface. Vern Andrews, who came from Ohio and knew it all. And some very smart people to boot. Fools, but you’re looking at the biggest fool of them all. I’ll deal it.”

  Dr. Martins reached across the clean desk of Feldman’s office.

  “I can’t leave it with you,” he said.

  “How can I deal it then?”

  “I’ll stay near you.”

  Norman Feldman gave up the stone, careful to place it securely in the center of Dr. Martins’s palm. Even a fall to a wooden desk could damage a ruby, especially one of an extraordinary eighty-seven karats.

  Feldman shook his head, with a little smile. He was not going to let that man near him without watching him. He was not going to go to sleep with that man within a walking block.

  “I can’t let you take it away. This is not a business with sales receipts,” said Dr. Martins.

  “Why did you sell the sapphire to that Swiss businessman, if you want to call him that? I was curious why someone would do something like that. I knew it was you when I figured out the price. You think of yourself as a dealer in gems. I don’t know why you gave up surgery.”

  “You have to love surgery, and I have my contacts, and my sources, and I do quite well in gems.”

  “Selling a velvet-blue one hundred and forty-karat sapphire without inclusions for a low six figures is not doing well.”

  “I’ve never dealt in stones this big; that’s why I’m here.”

  “You don’t know who to sell it to.”

  “I understood it was a low price to that Swiss businessman, but I had my reasons. If there weren’t other pressing problems, I never would have dealt with him. I’m not that big a fool.”

  “Sell your ruby then. Get out of my office.”

  “What is it worth?”

  “Ah,” said Feldman, “not forty times what a two-karat ruby would sell for. This one you have to figure out its time in the world, and who is out there in the world. Not a number you could come up with.”

  “Could I buy an appraisal?”

  “Sure,” said Feldman. “For five thousand.”

  “Very well. What is it worth.”

  “A minimum of four million and possibly, if someone absolutely cannot live without it, and that depends on who, we might be touching ten million.”

  “I’ll sell it to you for three million.”

  “Eight hundred thousand to a million,” said Feldman.

  He folded his hands over his dark vest and let the perfectly groomed and most elegant Dr. Peter Martins squirm in the hard chair in front of the desk.

  “But you said it was worth a minimum of four million dollars.”

  “For those who know what they’re doing.”

  “You’re being rather hard,” said Dr. Martins.

  Norman Feldman laughed at the gall of the man to say that, the sheer chutzpah of it.

  “Please. Life is too short. I will probably end up with that stone sooner or later. Unless, of course, someone like Lady Constance Jennings steals it from you.”

  “Lady Jennings?”

  “She lives in Paris, Dr. Martins,” said Feldman. He noticed that Dr. Martins’s cashmere coat seemed to fit his shoulders better than a suit. The tie had a glistening richness to it. He dressed well, thought Norman Feldman. Of course, lots of people dressed well. Dr. Martins should dres
s for a living, thought Feldman. This was what he thought that first day in the bank vault with the man from Ohio and the craziness of selling all those big stones in one lump piece as though it were a building or a car or a necklace.

  “Are you giving me the name of a buyer?”

  “Of course not. Lady Jennings does not like rubies. It’s not her stone. Of course, she has some, but not this. This is something else. I would love to deal this stone. I would love to own it for a while. I want it.”

  “Can you give me some collateral?”

  “I will take half the profits. I will give you a large pigeon’s blood ruby, the last offer for which was over two million,” said Feldman, raising his hand so Dr. Martins would not interrupt. “That ruby is nothing like this, but still it’s a great gem. Even you could tell that. I will give you some lesser stones that even you could deal. That would be collateral. When I sell the ruby, you give me back my stones, and I give you your cut.”

  “But I can’t sell your ruby for a good price. I don’t know the buyers or any other person who would deal with me on this.”

  “Probably,” said Feldman.

  “And what if you run with my stone.”

  “Don’t be a fool. Where am I going to run? Why should I run? I’ll leave that to your kind, but let me warn you now. If I sense you’re following me in any way, I’m going to kill you.”

  “What if you kill me not to make a payoff?”

  “I have never done that. I leave that to your kind.”

  “Let me see your stones,” said Dr. Martins. When the deal was struck and Dr. Martins had surrendered the large Christ’s head ruby, he also added sixteen one-ounce bars of gold.

  “What’s that?” asked Feldman.

  “Your appraisal fee,” said Dr. Martins. “My kind pays its bills, sir.”

  Norman Feldman was amused by Dr. Martins’s sense of hurt pride. As he took the gold, he did not respect Dr. Martins one iota more for paying the fee. This was not the coin respect was earned by, although gold was easily the most portable and sellable commodity ever taken from the earth.

  BEFORE NATIONS AND BEFORE CALENDARS