A Fatal Frame of Mind p-4

by William Rabkin

“What does that mean?” Kitteredge said.

  “Hooooooommmmmmm!” Shawn moaned.

  “We’ll have to ask him when he comes out of the trance,” Gus said, hoping that Shawn would come up with some kind of answer soon.

  “Malko can get an answer out of him,” Low said.

  “HOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!” Shawn wailed. Then his head snapped down and his eyes blazed at Low as his hands dropped away from his temples. “The spirits have a question.”

  “What is it?” Kitteredge said eagerly.

  “They want to know what kind of pretentious clown actually uses the word ‘whom’ in conversation,” Shawn said. “Especially when they’re getting ready to torture and kill someone.”

  Gus felt his heart sink. He couldn’t really blame Shawn for not coming up with the miracle words that would free them from danger and make everything all right. But surely he could have tried a little harder than this.

  “So much for the psychic abilities,” Low said. “Although I have to say I’m a little disappointed in the Cabal. I’d like to think that if they were going to make their final move to eliminate their enemies from the face of the earth, they’d send someone a little less transparently fake.”

  Low signaled to Malko, and the hunchback came into the dining room, the black hole in the center of the shotgun never wavering from them.

  “But the spirits aren’t surprised,” Shawn continued, apparently oblivious to anything occurring around him on the earthly plane. “They say that’s often the way with people who are desperate to cover their lack of education and fit into a class to which they don’t really belong.”

  “That’s ludicrous,” Low said, his face paling a little under the white beard.

  “Not according to the spirits,” Shawn said. “They say that just because a man looks like Albus Dumbledore, that doesn’t mean he could actually get into Hogwarts.”

  “I don’t understand,” Kitteredge. “What are these names?”

  “Great wizards,” Gus said quickly. “And, umm, the wizard school.”

  “From a children’s fantasy,” Low said contemptuously.

  “But a children’s fantasy that comes with a great lesson,” Shawn said. “Did we not learn after The Chamber of Secrets that if you stick enough hair on a man’s head and face it doesn’t matter who is beneath it?”

  “What is the point of this?” Low demanded. “Malko!”

  The hunchback marched over to Shawn and shoved him roughly toward the kitchen door. But Shawn simply rocked back into place.

  “If a wig and a fake beard can turn the Singing Detective into a Man Called Horse, imagine what it could do for a forger and a smuggler,” Shawn said. “It could give him the kind of respectability he craved.”

  Low took a step back, as if Shawn had slapped him. His face was ashen.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kitteredge said. “Flaxman Low is a scholar and a great man in our field. If he were a smuggler and a forger, I can tell you there would be many museums across the world with phony masterpieces on their walls. But that’s simply not the case. There has never been a hint of scandal around his name, and unless the Cabal has planted lies, there never will be.”

  There was no doubt in Kitteredge’s eyes, Gus saw, but Low’s were filled with apprehension.

  “I only know what the spirits tell me,” Shawn said. “But sometimes the reception is a little hazy. Let me re-check the message.”

  Shawn tilted his head back, pressed his fingers against his temples, and let out a deafening howl. “HOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!” Then he snapped his head back down. “Apparently, the first time around I woke the spirits up from a nap and they were a little confused,” he said.

  “Confused about what?” Low said tentatively.

  “The century,” Shawn said. “Apparently there was another Low who lived in this house who was a smuggler. He wouldn’t be any relation of yours, would he?”

  “My father was a bootlegger,” Low said, relief heavy in his voice. “He ran his operation out of this house until Prohibition ended, then turned his business into a legitimate winery.”

  Kitteredge stared at Low as if seeing him for the first time. “You never told me this before, Flaxman,” he said.

  “It’s not the kind of family anecdote that breeds trust in a dealer of art and antiquities,” Low said. “I have never told a soul.”

  Kitteredge silently digested this new information. Then his face lit up as its ramifications suddenly became clear. “If you’ve never told anyone, and if there is no public record-”

  “There is none,” Low said. “My father was never arrested, or even suspected.”

  “Then there’s no way the Cabal could have given Mr. Spencer this information. And there’s only one way he could have learned it.”

  Low nodded his assent. “He does indeed seem to have special abilities.”

  “Of course,” Shawn said cheerfully, “if you’d like further evidence, I can check back in with the spirits. I’m sure they’d be happy to tell me much more about your father-and even about you.”

  Malko looked to Low for instructions, and his employer signaled him to leave the room again. Shouldering the shotgun, the hunchback glared at Shawn and Gus, then disappeared back into the kitchen.

  “That would be fascinating,” Low said. “But I’m sure there are better uses to which we could put your skills.”

  Gus wanted to reach over and give Shawn a hug. He wasn’t sure exactly what Shawn had done or how he’d done it, but something he’d said had spooked Low enough accept him as a real psychic. Or at least to pretend to in front of Kitteredge.

  “So now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, maybe we could get back to the subject at hand,” Shawn said. “Which was dessert. I’m starving.”

  Shawn plunked himself down in his chair and scooted up to the table.

  “I think there’s something a little more important than food,” Kitteredge said.

  “If you mean coffee, I was including that with dessert,” Shawn said. “Although I think I’ll stick with decaf. The shotgun in my face was enough stimulation for the moment.”

  “I’m talking about The Defence of Guinevere,” Kitteredge said. “It’s time we all got a good look at it.”

  Chapter Thirty

  While Malko cleared away the dinner dishes, the others moved on to Low’s library, a massive room with oak-beamed ceilings and a fireplace the size of Gus’ first apartment. Paintings covered the dark wood walls between the vast shelves of antique books, and while the past days’ exposure to Professor Kitteredge had not greatly expanded Gus’ knowledge of art history, he thought they seemed to be in the same general style as the one he’d glimpsed so briefly in the museum.

  Flaxman Low settled himself in a large leather armchair facing the fire, a sketchpad across his knees and a pencil poised above the paper.

  “Although he never pursued it, Flaxman is a superlative artist,” Kitteredge said. “Whatever you describe he can duplicate.”

  “I’ll bet,” Shawn said.

  Low glowered at Shawn, then turned to his pad. “The painting,” he said. “If you can really see it.”

  Shawn nodded, then pressed his fingertips to his temples and closed his eyes. “I see a marble hallway,” he said. “It seems to lead on forever. And a crowd of people pushing to get through.”

  Kitteredge looked stricken. “A marble hallway? I don’t remember that.”

  Shawn didn’t seem to hear him. “And there’s something on the wall. A sign. Suggested donation twenty dollars.” His eyes flashed open. “What does that mean, anyway? If you walk into the museum without following their ‘suggestion,’ the guards are going to haul you out.”

  Low looked ready to jam his pencil into Shawn’s eye.

  “Sometimes the spirits are not as precise as you want them to be,” Gus said hurriedly, then glared at Shawn. “Or as we need them to be. Right now.”

  Shawn shrugged and closed his eyes again. “Okay, we’re trav
eling down that hallway. Traveling, traveling. Pass through a door. Okay, we’re in the gallery. Good thing we got here early, so there aren’t any tour groups fussing around the picture. We’ve got a clear view.”

  Kitteredge leaned forward in his chair. Low, although he looked dubious, pressed his pencil to the paper.

  “In the center of the picture there’s a woman,” Shawn said. “She’s got long curly red hair and a sharp nose.”

  “That’s Jane Burden,” Kitteredge said excitedly. “Morris’ wife and Rossetti’s favorite model.”

  Low hadn’t yet started drawing. “Go on,” he said.

  “She’s standing in the middle of this enormous room. It looks like it must be in a castle,” Shawn said. “The walls are stone where they’re not covered with tapestries. She’s wearing this big drapey dress, and she’s got her arms outstretched to someone who’s sitting in a big chair. Can’t see him, though-just the back of the chair.”

  “That would be King Arthur,” Kitteredge said. “He is sitting in judgment of his wife, who has committed adultery with Sir Lancelot. In Morris’ poem she is defiantly stating her own defense.”

  Now Low was sketching quickly. “Was the throne on her right or her left?”

  Shawn squeezed his eyes shut even more tightly for a moment. “Left.”

  Low blocked that in.

  “What else?” Kitteredge said.

  “There are a bunch of servants or pages or something on her right and two knights standing behind her to the left,” Shawn said. “At least I assume they’re knights. They’re wearing chain mail and holding shields.”

  Low looked up sharply. He and Kitteredge exchanged an excited look. “Just two?” Low said. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m pretty good at counting,” Shawn said. “At least as far as two. Once we get past six it’s a little tricky, but we’re definitely on safe ground here.”

  Gus tried to figure out why Kitteredge and Low suddenly seemed so fascinated. “Is that important?” he said.

  “In the poem, the entire Round Table has assembled for the trial,” Kitteredge said. “If Rossetti painted only two knights, that’s a major change and unsupported by any literary account of the event. I can’t believe I didn’t notice that detail, but there was so much to see. This could well be the key to the message he was trying to send.” He turned eagerly to Shawn. “Are their shields marked in any way?”

  “The shorter guy on the right-he’s got a silver lion standing up on its hind legs on his shield,” Shawn said. “And a gold crown.”

  Low filled in the shape of the shield with the images and lifted the paper for Shawn to see. “Like that?”

  “Pretty much,” Shawn said.

  Kitteredge and Low exchanged a significant look.

  “Does that mean something?” Gus said.

  “The lion rampant and crown d’or,” Kitteredge said, trying to put pieces together in his mind. Then they seemed to snap into place. “That’s the crest of George Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham.”

  “That can’t be what it means,” Low said. “Villiers died early in the seventeenth century. Why would Rossetti place him in Camelot?”

  Kitteredge thought for a moment, then broke out in a smile. “I think it’s a little pun,” he said. “In Morte d’Arthur, Malory mentions there was a knight called Sir Villyars at the Round Table. This is Rossetti’s way of labeling him.”

  “But why Sir Villyars?” Low said. “Does he have any significance in the poem?”

  “Morris doesn’t mention him at all,” Kitteredge said. “In fact, I believe the sole reference to him in all the Arthurian literature comes in Malory’s long list of Round Table knights.”

  “Then maybe we’re looking at the joke the wrong way around,” Low said. “Perhaps Rossetti wanted to call attention to Villiers, but needed to find a way to reference a sixteenth-century courtier in a medieval picture.”

  “Or possibly not the man, but his name,” Kitteredge said. “There is still a Villiers Street in London, near where York House used to stand.”

  “If he was the Duke of Buckingham, couldn’t that mean Buckingham Palace?” Gus said, getting swept up in the excitement of the moment.

  Before the others could answer, Shawn cleared his throat loudly. “Spirits have a message here,” he said. “They say one conversation at a time. These interether connections aren’t easy on any of us, you know.”

  Low looked annoyed at the interruption, but Kitteredge was immediately apologetic. “Please, go on,” he said to Shawn, then turned to Low. “We’re trying to form a pattern from one piece of data. We need to know more.”

  Low nodded his agreement, then picked up his pencil again. “What about the other knight?”

  Shawn squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fingers against his temples so hard it looked like they might break through his skull and meet in the middle. “He’s got a shield, too. And it’s got a lion on it, although that lion is sitting.”

  Low and Kitteredge looked baffled. “Another lion? What can that mean?” Kitteredge said.

  Low threw down the sketchpad and stalked across the vast library. He ran his hand along a shelf of books until he found what he was looking for and pulled out a large volume.

  “If it existed, it will be in Fox-Davies,” he said, carrying the tome back to his chair. Gus could make out the words Complete Guide to Heraldry on the cover. “Now, what color is the second lion?”

  Shawn squeezed his eyes, then blinked a couple of times. “Gold.”

  Kitteredge got up from his own chair to look over the back of Low’s as he paged through the book. “A golden lion,” he said. “That would have been the symbol for England, which meant it would have been on Arthur’s shield. But Arthur is on the throne, so he can’t be standing behind her. It simply wouldn’t make any sense.”

  Low flipped through page after page. “This is useless,” he said finally. “The lion is one of the most common symbols in heraldry. Without more details, we can’t tell a thing.”

  “Hold on a second,” Shawn said. “It’s not all gold.”

  “If it’s got a red tongue and claws, that’s no help at all,” Low said. “They all do.”

  “Well, the tongue and claws are red,” Shawn said. “But the spots are all black.”

  Kitteredge and Low stared at him. Gus didn’t understand what was happening, but it must have been important because Low nearly dropped the book.

  “Spots?” Kitteredge said.

  “Yeah, it’s got black spots all over,” Shawn said. “Does that mean anything?”

  “It means it’s not a lion,” Low said. “The only large cat with a spotted coat is a leopard.”

  “Although in heraldry, the animal was almost never painted with spots,” Kitteredge said.

  “It’s possible that Rossetti didn’t know that,” Low said. “Not everyone has your level of knowledge, Langston.”

  “He knew,” Kitteredge said, a tone of rising excitement in his voice. “The Pre-Raphaelites were extremely well versed in medieval decoration. If he put a spotted leopard on that knight’s shield, it’s because he wanted to make sure that someone viewing it would not mistake it for a lion.”

  “But why would that be so important?” Low said, flipping to another part of the book. “There are almost as many leopards in heraldic history as there are lions.”

  “But not in Arthurian legend,” Kitteredge said. “There was only one knight of the Round Table who wore a leopard on his shield.” His voice dropped to a whisper as he said the name. “Lancelot.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Low said. “Lancelot is the one knight who couldn’t be in this scene. During Guenevere’s trial he was in exile, and mad with grief at the loss of his love and the betrayal of his king.”

  “When I was in third grade, I sat next to a kid named Bernie Schwartzman who drew airplanes all day long,” Shawn said. “Maybe Rossetti was like Bernie, only he painted leopards because airplanes hadn’t been invented yet.”


  Low weighed the book in his hand as if he wanted to hurl it at Shawn’s head. “That’s not a mistake Rossetti would have made casually.”

  “It’s not a mistake at all,” Kitteredge said. “It’s the message. There’s something about the placement of these two knights that contains a clue to Excalibur’s hiding place.”

  Shawn dropped his hands away from his head and opened his eyes. “Does this mean you’re done with the spirits for a while?” he said. “Because I still haven’t had dessert.”

  Kitteredge and Low ignored him. And while Gus was beginning to feel a slight rumble in his stomach he knew could best be silenced with chocolate, he did, too. This moment was thrilling. They were on the verge of unraveling a secret that had been hidden for over a hundred years.

  “What could Rossetti be telling us with this pairing?” Low said.

  “You have the most famous knight in literature next to one who’s mentioned only once, and then just in a list,” Kitteredge said. “Could it be something about high placement and low?”

  “Something both celebrated and unknown?” Low speculated. “What could that describe?”

  “When you think about it that way, it’s clear there’s only one answer,” Shawn said. “C. Thomas Howell. Famed far and wide as one more instance of teen heart-throb vanished into video obscurity, but who among us knows the real C. Thomas?”

  “You’re not helping,” Gus said.

  “You have to admit, it would be a great bit of symmetry,” Shawn said.

  Gus glanced over to see how Kitteredge and Low had taken this interruption. Fortunately, they were so wrapped up in their own theorizing that they seemed not to have heard any of it.

  “I have an idea,” Gus said.

  This time the two older men did look up. Low only scowled at him and turned away again, but Kitteredge gave him the same welcoming smile he bestowed on any student willing to stand up and volunteer an opinion in class. “Yes?” he said.

  “I know Rossetti wanted to hide his message, but would he really get so symbolic that no one could figure it out?” he said. “Maybe it’s simpler than the most famous and the most unknown. Maybe it’s the name.”