And now, in the quiet solitude of Lancaster Cemetery, kneeling next to the Winterbottom monument with the smell of earth on his fingers, it was time for him to take an objective look at the circumstances.
Johannes Cellarius had been found murdered in a bog in northern Germany. A ruby was clenched in his fist. Some people speculated the ruby was a recut of one of the lost Tavernier stones. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.
Suppose it wasn’t. Suppose the ruby were merely an heirloom Cellarius grabbed in panic during his abduction. Then there was no connection to Tavernier, and nothing to look for. Or to dwell on.
Suppose it was. Then either the stones were all recut and scattered around the world, or they were still intact, buried somewhere, waiting to be found. If the former were true, then there was nothing to look for or to dwell on. If the latter, then he, John Graf, almost certainly wouldn’t be the man to find them.
Most historians continued to argue that Tavernier’s seventh voyage was mere legend, and that people who tried to fit the “facts” to the legend were only going to become frustrated. John was already frustrated; the problem was interfering with his professional life.
There might not have been any lost Tavernier stones to begin with. And if there were, they might not have had anything to do with Johannes Cellarius. And if they did, they might never be found, because there was nothing besides the ruby in his fist to suggest a connection. And the ruby was disconcertingly silent on the matter.
But then there was that map—that damn map. Cellarius’s depiction of the lower Palatinate was what had been bothering John. It was never the gemstones; it was always the map.
It was the final effort of Cellarius’s cartographic career. It had been lurking in dusty drawers for over three hundred years. Its border contained a secret message. Numerous elements were inexplicable and uncharacteristic of its author.
It had always spoken to John in a voice he could never understand.
He stood up and dusted off his knees. A walk in the cemetery was just what he had needed. His head was clear, he had sorted out an issue, he had identified the problem.
If Cellarius were speaking from the grave, he was not doing so clearly enough. There were too many unanswered questions about the Palatinate map. And as a cartographer, it was reasonable for John to seek the answers. He made a vow to Ramsey and Rosalie, speaking out loud to the weathered marble slab:
“All right, guys. As soon as I make sure the map contains no hidden messages, I’ll quit my search for the lost Tavernier stones and end this obsession before it truly begins.”
When John arrived home, entered his living room, and turned on the light, he found a man sitting cross-legged on the couch.
“Who the hell are you?”
The man held up a dollar bill for John to see. “Watch,” he said. He tore the bill repeatedly in half until the pieces were the size of a postage stamp. Then he slowly “unfolded” them, revealing a restored dollar bill.
“The gist of the trick,” the man said, “is that an accordion-folded bill—the ‘restored’ bill—is already fastened to the back of the bill that gets torn to pieces.”
“Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?”
“You come home awfully late. I got tired of sitting on the front steps, so I came in. Besides, I’m only returning the call.”
“The call?”
The man produced John’s business card. “You gave this to my girlfriend yesterday.”
“Oh,” John said. “You’re him.”
“Yes. I’m him. David Freeman.” He stood up and shook John’s hand. “It appears we have a common interest.”
The infamous gem thief was a lot shorter than John had imagined. And his face was too nondescript to trust. Anyone with eyes that luminous, that black, had been places John didn’t want to go. Maybe tracking the guy down in Philadelphia wasn’t such a good idea after all.
“How did you get in?” John asked. “The door was locked.”
“I unlocked it,” David said. “If you knew enough about me to find me, then you know enough about me not to be surprised by that.”
“What I don’t know is why I bother locking it,” John mumbled. “Look … um … can I offer you something to drink?”
“Like what? I already checked out your kitchen. All you have is mineral water.”
“Then I apologize for my inhospitality. And now, if you don’t mind …”
“Listen to what I have to say. Then, if you want me to leave, I will. It’ll only cost you a dollar, and you already paid.”
“What do you mean?”
“That dollar bill I tore up—I found it on the dresser in your bedroom.”
David spread a photograph, a postcard, and a drawing on John’s coffee table, and the two sat down on the couch. The photograph was of the Cellarius ruby; John had seen reprints of it in the newspaper. The postcard depicted a different ruby, one about the same size. The drawing was a page from the disputed Tavernier manuscript that John also recognized.
“Did you happen to see Dr. Cornelius Bancroft’s interview on TV?” David asked.
“No. But I met him.”
“You met him? Oh, of course. That’s how you got my name. Well, he was right. The Cellarius ruby is a recut of one of the lost Tavernier stones. Look closely.” He pointed to a trapezoidal facet visible on the photograph of the Cellarius ruby, then to what appeared to be the same facet recognizable on one of the stones in the Tavernier drawing. “This is the connection Bancroft made. It’s tenuous, but it suggests the Cellarius ruby came from the larger stone. Now look again.” David moved the postcard between the photograph and the drawing. “Notice anything extraordinary about this kite-shaped facet here?”
“It’s identical to another one of the facets in the drawing,” John said.
“Yes. This stone,” David pointed at the postcard, “was also once part of the Tavernier ruby. Considering the weight lost during a recut, the two stones, combined with a third not yet found, would comprise the original. So there’s another third still missing, although it might have been cut into yet smaller pieces. I doubt it, though.”
“Where did you find that?”
David flipped the postcard over. “Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois. Can you believe it? The people who most loudly denied the connection had proof of it under their noses. It’s called the Prairie State ruby. I haven’t been able to find much history on it yet.”
John massaged his temples. “So it’s true, after all …”
“This is the first confirmation, ever, of the legend. The lost Tavernier stones exist. And everyone in the world will know it before long.”
“Why is that?”
David tapped the postcard. “They sell these things at the museum. Or at least they used to. The curators took the stone off display on the twenty-eighth of May, the day after Bancroft made his recut theory public. I think it’s fair to predict we won’t be getting much help from the museum staff.”
“We?” John asked.
David nodded solemnly. “I’m betting you don’t know a whole lot about the lost Tavernier stones. And you might as well be aware, I can’t even point in the direction of north. We need each other. That’s why I’m here, and that’s why you were in South Philly yesterday.”
John shrugged. “So what do you suggest we do first?”
“Eat,” David replied.
John got up and headed for the kitchen, but David stopped him. “All you have in there is microwave meals. It’s still early, though. We could hit a restaurant. And bring the map along.”
On their way out, John said to David, “You know, it’s eerie, but I can’t shake the feeling Johannes Cellarius has been trying to tell me something.”
“Well,” David said, “now that you’ve made your confession, I’ll make mine: Jean-Baptiste Tavernier has been talking up a storm to me. And I’ve decided it’s time I started listening.”
FOURTEEN
THE EARTH SUBSEQUEN
TLY SPUN twice on its axis. As it did, fever increased over the possibility of finding a lost cache of priceless gems.
Television talk-show hosts interviewed panels of cartographers, gemologists, and professional treasure hunters. Late-night comedians made one joke after another about dead mapmakers in bogs.
Printers of antique maps could not keep up with demand. Ruby prices soared. Tourists stood in long lines to view the remains of Johannes Cellarius, now on display at the University of Hamburg medical school.
Thursday’s noontime sun seemed to linger over Scandinavia. Urged, finally, by the afternoon shadows, it ponderously moved on.
Near Bergen, Norway, a fisherman blew on his chapped hands, then steered his boat away from the fog-drenched fjords and out to sea. He reflected on the glory days of his people, when fishermen-warriors set out in razor-thin vessels to loot any conspicuously accumulated wealth they could find.
The lost Tavernier stones constituted just such booty. They awakened a spirit in the fisherman that had been dormant in his people for a thousand years.
In Reykjavik, Iceland, a blond, blue-eyed schoolgirl had mapped out the rest of her life and felt it was time to inform the world.
“Papa, I know what I want to be when I grow up.”
Her father turned the page of his newspaper and said, “Hmm.”
“I want to be a mineralogist.”
“Hmm. Wasn’t it just last week you wanted to be an astronaut? Maybe you could put the two together—be the first person to collect rocks on Mars.”
The girl regarded her father with a look of exasperation, as children often do; one that suggested he was the number one idiot in the solar system.
On the southern coast of Greenland, a team of archeologists digging a Viking site took a break to huddle around one of their members and admire the engagement ring she had received from her fiancé.
Nobody said anything; it was difficult now to admire a gemstone smaller than a hen’s egg.
As June third’s sun passed over Europe and slipped west toward open sea, its afternoon shadows stretched slowly east, until they were finally erased by the encroaching night.
Gerd Pfeffer downed the remainder of his beer and stumbled out the door of the Gasthaus in the early morning darkness. He took a pee on the outside wall, leaning against it with one hand, holding his member with the other, shuffling his feet to avoid the expanding puddle. When finished, he shook himself dry and belched, then aimed his member toward home and followed it. Muted yellow light leaking from the Gasthaus windows helped him navigate for about fifty meters. After that, he thrust his arms forward to ward off dogged obstacles.
There had been much chatter at the tables. Some of the customers who knew Pfeffer’s family also knew he had been the detective who recovered Cellarius’s body. But Pfeffer had stayed out of the discussion. In fact, he had sat by himself in a corner and glowered at anyone who took notice of his existence.
When he arrived home, he unlocked and unlatched his gate with the meticulousness of an eye surgeon, then knelt down in the weeds and puked. The garden, he noted as he crawled out of it on all fours, was a tad overgrown. But it was nothing a few liters of weed killer wouldn’t fix.
Once inside, he rinsed his face in cold water, then reached for the phone.
“FBI, Frankfurt field office,” came a tired voice from the other end, followed by a long yawn. “Special Agent Stenner.”
“Hello, Stenner. Guess who.”
The line was silent for a moment, then an alert voice uttered: “Pfeffer.”
“That’s Mister Pfeffer, to you.”
“Crap. What brings you out from under your rock?”
“Let’s just say I’m on a quest for some rocks.”
“You and the rest of the continent. What’s it got to do with us?”
“You have contacts at Fort Meade, right?”
“Right …”
“Well, now, so do I!”
“The hell.”
“You see, now that I’ve been quiet for so long about that ‘creative extradition’ I helped you guys with, I just thought you’d want me to stay quiet about it.”
“Listen, Pfeffer.”
“Mister Pfeffer.”
“Mister Pfeffer. Hold one moment, please.” The man went off the line for several minutes, then returned and said, “Perhaps we’re in a position to offer some friendly advice.”
“Now you’re talking.”
“Will we be even?”
“Dead even.”
“Good. I—we—don’t expect to ever hear from you again.”
“You won’t. Say hello to J. Edgar Hoover for me.”
“He’s dead.”
“Oh. Sorry to hear that. Please forward my condolences to his family.”
When Frieda Blumenfeld crossed the cobbled square of Liebfrauen Platz, she found Mannfred Gebhardt already waiting outside the entrance to the Gutenberg Museum. She stared wordlessly into his gray eyes, allowing just the hint of a smile to appear on her face.
“You found it,” Gebhardt declared.
“It’s called the Prairie State ruby. I’ll tell you about it inside.”
“We’re going in the museum?”
“Of course. Why else do you suppose I told you to meet me here?”
Illuminated manuscripts dominated the museum’s holdings. Ornate calligraphy, delicate engravings, and a riot of primary colors on pages stained by the centuries gave them a distinctively medieval look. Some had tanned leather covers that fastened shut with brass buckles. Others were bound in wood. A few were so large, Blumenfeld wondered whether she would even be able to lift them.
On the top floor of the museum, wedged between hieroglyphic tablets and broken pieces of Roman column, were the Vigenère manuscripts—the reason Blumenfeld had chosen the Gutenberg Museum as a meeting place.
“It’s funny,” she said. “I’ve probably toured these exhibits a dozen times over the years, but I’d never even heard of Vigenère until the Cellarius-Tavernier story broke. And here his stuff has sat all this time.”
The manuscripts were plain compared with most others in the building; their fonts had fewer serifs, less overall flourish, and not a speck of gold foil adorning them. As a result, the text was damn near legible. Some of the book covers were mere paper—they constituted the world’s first paperbacks. Vigenère, or whoever had printed his works, obviously concerned himself more with the comfort of the reader than with his own place in the history of the craft.
Few visitors were on the floor; Blumenfeld and Gebhardt had the exhibit to themselves.
“Any luck on the cipher?” Blumenfeld asked.
Gebhardt didn’t answer. Instead, he silently studied the printed pages before him.
She shook her head. “I see.”
“I still think the pigpen characters are just border decorations.”
“They may, in fact, be border decorations. They may, on the other hand, be significant. If they’re significant, the significance will elude obstinate men like yourself. We need a good cryptologist, someone who specializes in the seventeenth century and prior.”
“Where do you suggest I look for one of those? The telephone book?”
“I suggest you visit Dr. Ernst Spengler, a Latin professor at the University of Mainz.”
“What makes you think he’ll be of any use?”
“Well, he’s published journal articles on cryptology, and he happens to be the very person who prepared the Vigenère exhibit you are now viewing. We have to move on this. There’s no telling how many people may be working on the problem, including Spengler himself.”
“Tell me, Frieda. Why do I always get stuck with the actual work? Is it just my imagination, or is it because you don’t want to do any of it yourself?”
Blumenfeld took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Faults though I may have, and numerous though they may be, I submit that lethargy is not among them. I’m busy with the necessary historical research, for which you are most
unsuited.”
“And I suppose your banking and finance background is what qualifies you.”
She put her glasses back on and crossed her arms. “Tell me, what should happen to Spengler, should he have something to share, after he has shared it?”
“He should be persuaded most aggressively not to share it with anyone else.”
“And which one of us is best suited for such a task?”
Sighing: “I am.”
“Good boy. Anytime you want to take charge and make decisions, just let me know.”
Blumenfeld knew she was capitalizing on Gebhardt’s most valuable asset. She also knew he’d employ that asset against her the instant she became his only remaining obstacle.
John Graf awoke on the morning of June fourth unable to figure out what century he was in. He looked at his pajamas, but they were no help. He scanned his room, but a dearth of adornments and a plain wooden floor suggested nothing. He looked out the window. Telephone wires and an Amtrak train rumbling in the distance finally clued him in: Oh yes, the twenty-first century. Of course. Where else.
He rose, showered, and dressed quickly. David and Sarah were visiting today to conduct what David had referred to as a “staff meeting.” John had requested the day off from Harry Tokuhisa, whose first reaction was to raise his eyebrows in alarm. It was the second such request from John in a week, and Harry would not have expected as many in a decade.
John presumed David had conducted more than a few “staff meetings” during his nefarious career, either in candlelit cellars or in bare rooms dimly lit by swinging drop cords. By contrast, his own apartment was bright and spotless. He had scoured and dusted last night to prepare for the visit and had even gone shopping to stock up the pantry. He hadn’t been sure what to buy, so he bought something that sounded versatile and broadly appealing: Hamburger Helper.
Now, in the back of his mind, alarm bells were softly ringing, because it occurred to him that Hamburger Helper might need to have some hamburger to help, and his didn’t. Maybe Sarah would know what to do with it.
The Tavernier Stones: A Novel Page 10