Silhouette in Scarlet vbm-3

by Elizabeth Peters

  ‘Very well,’ Georg said. ‘First we must mow the field.’

  It would take too long and serve no useful purpose to report Max’s comments. Eventually one of the men was sent to the house to fetch scythes, and the work began.

  Leif wandered off, perhaps fearing that Max would put him to work. He needn’t have worried; Max wasn’t naive enough to put a large cutting instrument into Leif’s hands. He missed a treat. Watching those inept goons trying to cut grass made my morning. Nobody got decapitated, but Pierre almost lost his left foot to a wild swipe from Hans.

  When the slapstick palled, I got up and strolled around, giving the mowers a wide berth. To the northwest, almost hidden by the trees, I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be the roof of a building. When I sauntered to that side of the pasture, a sharp command from Max sent one of the boys after me, waving his gun. So I went back to my rock.

  Towards midday John appeared, picking a delicate path through the weeds. His attire was country-casual: old tweeds, a cashmere sweater, and a tie with the insignia of some institution – possibly Sing-Sing or Wormwood Scrubbs.

  After a leisurely survey of the proceedings he joined me on my rock, dusting off the surface with an immaculate handkerchief before planting his tailored bottom on it.

  I rose ostentatiously, and he said, ‘Now, now, this is no time for petty spite. We ought to have a little chat about . . .’ Max trotted towards us and John went on, without a change of tone, ‘. . . lunch. Who’s in charge of the kitchen?’

  ‘A good question,’ Max said.

  ‘I suppose you all expect me to do it,’ I grumbled.

  ‘You object?’ Max inquired.

  ‘Of course I object. But I guess I haven’t much choice.’

  Before Max could comment, John said quickly, ‘I wouldn’t advise it, Max. When a liberated woman offers to take on a chore that violates her precious principles, she always has an ulterior motive.’

  ‘I do not underrate Dr Bliss’s intelligence,’ Max said. ‘We can subsist on cold meats and cheese for a few days.’

  He gave me a patronizing smile. I said, addressing the air six inches above John’s head, ‘You lousy fink.’

  ‘It was a rather ingenuous attempt,’ John said. ‘Max is not ingenuous.’

  ‘No,’ Max agreed. ‘Nor am I stupid enough to permit the two of you to confer privately. Smythe, since you are so concerned about your stomach, I will put you in charge. Bring the food here. We will have a luncheon al fresco – a picnic, as you would say.’

  ‘What makes you think he won’t poison you?’ I asked. ‘His motive is more pressing than mine.’

  ‘I am glad you realize that.’ Max bowed. ‘He will not poison the food because Pierre will watch every move he makes. Nothing elaborate, Smythe – bread, cheese, ham, beer. And don’t forget a bottle opener.’

  Pierre was happy to be reassigned. His cohorts looked at him enviously as they mopped their dripping faces. Grass speckled them like green freckles. Hans complained that he was getting a blister on his thumb.

  I might have known John would make a production out of the simple task. He and Pierre came back loaded with baskets and boxes, not to mention cushions and rugs and other luxuries. Among the latter was a stringed instrument of some variety – it looked like a cross between a lute and a guitar – that John had slung over his shoulder by its elaborately woven strap. Max’s eyebrows rose when he saw this device, but he did not comment.

  It was – to put it mildly – an unusual kind of picnic. Sprawled on the rough ground munching sandwiches, we were not exactly your normal little gathering of friends. The assorted artillery struck a particularly inappropriate note. Max was the only one of the gang who wasn’t visibly armed to the teeth, but when he leaned forward to reach for a beer I saw the butt of an automatic under his coat. Other than that he didn’t look out of place. It was only my awareness of what he really was that gave his face a sinister cast. Before I knew his identity I had thought him inoffensive and harmless-looking.

  The same could not be said of the others. Except for Hans, whose blunt features had the deceptive innocence of vacuity, the faces bore the same stamp of evil. There were six of them – Max and Hans and Pierre, a sandy-haired character who spoke German with a thick Austrian accent, another Frenchman, and a dapper little man with the coldest eyes I have ever seen. His name was Rudi, and he appeared to be an eastern European, country unknown but probably glad to be rid of Rudi. The (presumed) Italian guarding the barn made seven, but I couldn’t be sure that was the complete contingent.

  After lunch Pierre took the empty bottles back to the house and the dig began in earnest. John reclined on his cushions like a sultan watching the serfs at work and strummed his guitar. I knew he played the piano with considerable skill, but I had not realized his musical talents were so diversified. He sang one folk song after another, in a dozen different languages; from time to time he switched to a piercing falsetto. If I hadn’t been so furious with him, I’d have enjoyed the game. It reduced poor old Max to the brink of hysteria. Every time he looked at John resting and crooning, he got a shade redder.

  Leif, who had returned when the food appeared, sat like a monolith, hands on his bent knees, eyes fixed on his brother. Georg had found some stakes and string and was setting up a grid system, like any normal archaeologist preparing a normal excavation. There was something terrifying about his intense absorption. It was as if he were living in a world totally removed from the realm the rest of us inhabited – a world of crime and kidnappmg and mass murder.

  The crooks dug. Max clung stubbornly to his metal detector; whenever he located something the gang flew into action. By late afternoon they had dug up a horseshoe, a rusty axe blade, and seven tin cans. John was asleep, his lute across his knees; Leif was still brooding; and I was bored to screaming point.

  ‘I’m halfway tempted to help dig,’ I said to Leif.

  ‘What? ‘ He turned drowsy eyes towards me. ‘Wake up, dammit. We’ve got to do something; we can’t just sit here.’

  ‘What?’ It was a different kind of ‘what.’ At least he was paying attention.

  ‘Well . . . plan. Have you had any new ideas?’

  ‘The old man is not in the house,’ Leif said. ‘There was a shortwave radio. It is smashed.’

  ‘I think I know where Gus is being held. Look over there.’

  Leif caught my hand as I raised it to point. ‘He will hear you,’ he muttered, nodding at John.

  ‘He’s asleep.’

  ‘He is not.’

  John opened one eye. ‘If either of you has a useful idea, I wish you’d let me in on it. No one can possibly be more interested than I in finding a way out of this.’

  ‘Cheer up,’ I said heartlessly. ‘Max and the boys will be too tired to torture you tonight.’

  ‘They are torturing him now,’ Leif said, in a tone as flat and hard as the rock against which he leaned. ‘Waiting for the inevitable is the most painful torment of all. Never knowing at what moment the executioner’s sword will descend . . .’ He made a graphic, shocking gesture, drawing his hand across his throat and opening his mouth in a silent scream.

  Seeing my expression, he smiled apologetically. ‘I ask your pardon. I do not care for this man. If I were not civilized, I would help Max to kill him.’

  ‘But you are civilized,’ I pointed out. ‘We may as well join forces, since we’re all in the same boat. Keeping in mind,’ and I turned a critical eye towards John, ‘that we can’t trust the dirty dog an inch unless his self-interest is involved.’

  ‘My self-interest is deeply involved in my own survival,’ John said sincerely. ‘And my best hope of survival is with you. I’d gladly cooperate with Max, but he won’t let me.’

  ‘What have you to contribute to the general welfare?’

  ‘The first thing, as our Leif has so brilliantly suggested, is to find Gus. That hut in the trees is a definite possibility. Someone ought to check it out.’

  ‘Som
eone?’ I said.

  ‘You’ve the best chance of moving about unobserved. Max likes you. Whatever did you do to win his heart?’

  ‘Mom always told me that good manners and consideration for the feelings of others paid off in the end,’ I said.

  ‘That’s always been my motto as well; but it doesn’t seem to be working at present. No matter; Max has a soft spot for you. And he has the typical middle-aged European male tendency to underestimate women.’

  ‘You can eliminate two of those adjectives,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t underestimate you,’ John assured me, with a flash of blue eyes. ‘However, I’ll volunteer for the job. Any distraction you could provide would be gratefully received.’

  ‘What sort of distraction did you have in mind?’

  ‘Improvise, love, improvise. We can’t make plans until we know what security measures Max has in mind for tonight.’

  ‘Hmph.’ I turned to Leif, who had withdrawn into his private thoughts, and jabbed his elbow. ‘What do you think, Leif?’

  ‘I am wondering,’ Leif said, ‘how much longer it will be before Max decides the project is hopeless.’

  Chapter Seven

  I HAD BEEN WONDERING the same thing. Both men relapsed into moody silence. Leif’s unblinking stare settled on John, and the latter began to show signs of strain. His face remained studiedly bland, but when he picked up the guitar he produced a series of chords so consistently off key that I suspected his fingers were none too steady.

  I wandered towards the end of the field where the men were working. Georg was puttering away in his own little section. He had removed the topsoil from an area about a metre square. It was an academically neat excavation, with sharp right-angle corners and a level surface; at that rate it would take him about ten years to cover the entire field.

  Max’s haphazard digging was no more impressive. The areas of exposed subsoil looked pitifully small amid the rolling waves of stubble. It was a hopeless project; a whole crew working for three months might accomplish something. Might . . . Nobody knew how deep the treasure was buried, or how widely it was scattered – or even if it was there.

  Max stood with his shoulders bowed as he watched the diggers. ‘Can I go back to the house?’ I asked meekly. ‘I’m bored.’

  ‘If you like.’ He didn’t look at me. I took that for a bad sign. As I turned away he added, ‘We will all be returning shortly.’ And that was an even worse sign.

  The sun was high and surprisingly hot. I headed for the shower. The cool water streaming over my body improved my physical state, but mentally I was in a grim mood. Max and his men, who had been engaging in strenuous physical activity most of the day, would be even hotter and dirtier and more discouraged than I. If Max had had any archaeological experience he would have seen at first glance that he couldn’t hope to find what he was looking for in the space of a few days. Sitting in his city office, he had probably visualized the procedure with the mental eye of ignorant optimism – a stretch of dirt about twenty feet square, with bits of gold sticking up out of the soil. He might be ignorant, but he wasn’t stupid, nor was he the man to waste time on a hopeless project.

  I cut my shower short. I wanted to search the house before they got back.

  Max and his crew had taken over one wing, the one on the south, corresponding to the flanking wing in which my bedroom was located. All the doors along the corridor were locked. I figured there wasn’t any point in trying to pick the locks. Max was not the man to leave weapons, or any other useful item, lying around.

  On the second floor were more bedrooms, none of them in use. The curtains were drawn, the furniture draped with white dustcloths. One chamber, larger than the rest, with an adjoining bath and dressing room, was fancy enough to have been the master’s quarters. Perhaps Gus had occupied it until his physical handicap made stairs difficult. I opened the door of one of the heavy oak wardrobes. It was filled with women’s dresses, swathed in linen to keep off the dust. A strong smell of mothballs wafted out – the odour of the past, of memories preserved and cherished . . . Feeling like an intruder, I tiptoed out.

  A door under the stairs presumably led to the cellar. It was locked and looked heavy enough to withstand a battering ram. I pressed my ear against it and then ventured a soft ‘Gus? Are you there?’ If he was, he didn’t answer.

  I had explored the whole house except for one area – the kitchen and service section. It lay behind the dining room, separated from the latter by a butler’s pantry whose shelves were filled with shining glassware.

  When I walked into the kitchen my first thought was, ‘Poor Mrs Andersson.’ So far the mess wasn’t too bad – dusty footprints dulling the white stone floor, trays of dirty coffee cups and dishes put down everywhere on counters and tables. But it was bound to get worse before it got better, and I could see that this was the housekeeper’s favourite place – sitting room as well as workshop. One end of the big room had been furnished with woven rugs, rocking chairs, and a few tables. An enormous peasant-style pewter cupboard stood against the wall, its looming blue sides painted with bright pink roses and red hearts. In the cupboard section, under the open shelves, were some of Mrs Andersson’s personal belongings, including stacks of magazines and a knitting bag. The latter held balls of soft grey yarn and one sleeve of a man’s sweater, almost completed. If she was a confirmed knitter, like some of my aunts, she probably worked on several projects simultaneously; this was the one she picked up when she sat rocking, after the meal had been served and the maids were cleaning the kitchen. I could see her sitting there, swaying back and forth in time with the click of her needles, her face . . . Suddenly the unwashed dishes and dusty floor struck me as horrible and disgusting.

  Blue-and-white-checked curtains swayed at the windows, and sunlight streaked the flagstone floor. Except for a few homey touches of that nature, the working end of the kitchen was a model of modern efficiency, and every appliance was the best procurable – refrigerator, stove, two wall ovens, and a couple of kilometres of counter space and cupboards.

  I started opening cupboard doors. Mrs Andersson might be a traditional, old-fashioned lady, but she had a sneaking fascination for the latest in cooking gadgets. I had never seen such things, except in gourmet-kitchen shops – the latest-model Cuisinart, with every attachment known to man or woman, an electric pasta maker, an ice-cream machine – not the Italian model with which I was familiar, which retails at a mere four hundred dollars, but the aristocrat of ice-cream makers, a Minigel. There were an American milkshake mixer, a German coffeemaker with a built-in digital clock timer, a Danish waffle iron . . .

  I was raised by a Swedish cook – two of them, in fact, for when my grandmother came to visit, she kicked Morn out of the kitchen and took over. Being a normal child, I had fought the effort of these ladies to turn me into another of the same breed, but they had moulded me better than they, or I, had realized. Mrs Andersson’s kitchen brought old instincts to reluctant life.

  Drawers and more cupboards . . . Baking pans of every variety, for quiches, for tarts, for madeleines, for popovers. Rosette irons, woks, fish poachers, larding skewers, artichoke steamers, poachette rings . . . What the poor, frustrated woman did with all of it I could not imagine. If Gus was as antisocial as he claimed, she didn’t often get the chance to cook an elaborate meal. Maybe she played with her toys during the long winter evenings and stuffed the housemaid and the gardener with chocolate shakes, poached eggs, and apricot flan.

  As I continued to explore, I saw there was one conspicuous omission in the collection. No knives, no cleavers, nothing with a sharp edge. The knife we had used at lunch was on the table, its surface dulled by smears of cheese and sausage. The message was as clear as print: Don’t try it – my absence will be duly noted. Besides, it was a foot and a half long, not the sort of weapon a girl can conceal in her bra.

  Next to the kitchen was a pantry, its shelves filled with canned and packaged and bottled goods. A deep freeze muttered and c
licked in one corner. We wouldn’t starve, at any rate. No, we wouldn’t starve . . .

  The deep freeze was packed to the brim. Thoughtfully I hefted a ten-pound roast, and those suppressed impulses stirred anew. They weren’t violent impulses – I was not contemplating a murderous assault on Max with a frozen rump roast. I didn’t need to resort to esoteric blunt instruments; the house and grounds abounded in large, hard, lumpy objects. I had no intention of getting that close to Max or any of his boys.

  I put the roast back into the freezer and opened the fridge. The signs of clumsy foraging were only too evident; the food was all jumbled around, and some oaf had tipped over a jar of jam, which had leaked over two shelves before forming a sticky puddle on the bottom. Ancestral urges won. I cleaned up the mess. When I started to straighten the shelves, the first thing I found was a large fish. The layers of plastic wrap encasing it did not dull the hostile gleam of its bulging eyes. Pikes are not your ordinary placid fish – they are predators, and look as mean as they act.

  The fish had been cleaned and scaled, and the gills removed, so I assumed it was supposed to be served with the head intact. I had never eaten pike, but my grandmother used to bake trout that way, brushed with beaten egg and sprinkled with breadcrumbs.

  Well, why not? I had nothing better to do at the moment.

  A short time later the place was – not spotless, I’ll never be a good Swedish housewife. But it was clean. The dishes were washed and stacked, the floor swept, and attractive smells were seeping out of the saucepans that bubbled on the stove. The pike was in one of the ovens, sans its head. Mrs Andersson and Granny wouldn’t have approved of decapitation, but I can’t stand those boiled white eyes looking up at me from a plate. When I opened the other oven, a heavenly odour almost cancelled out the stench of fish. The feeezer had contained stacks of pies, tarts, and pastries. All had been neatly labelled, but since my Swedish is minimal, the labels were of no use to me. This pie looked, and smelled, like red raspberry.