Seven Tears for Apollo

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  Dun-colored earth swirled in gusty clouds as they walked toward the end of the mountain. There the path terminated and steps led up to a stone-enclosed circle. As they mounted this higher platform the tremendous view spread out all around.

  In the center of the plain below the air strip drew a ruled line toward toy buildings of the airport. Olive trees were polka dots cast across the earth. Beyond, hills rolled away to the interior of the island. Turning from the plain, Dorcas could follow the coast line along a gray, rolling sea clear into Rhodes. The nose of the fish was visible, as if they looked down upon a relief map, and even the distant shores of Turkey could be seen.

  They braved the wind for a time because of the splendid view. Here there was no stinging, blinding dust—just a clean, pure wind from the sea.

  “I’m glad we came,” Dorcas said. “Even if there’s nothing to find, I’m glad I’m here. It’s so remote from Rhodes and—” She did not speak the name she was thinking. It was no use.

  Johnny was watching her, and she sensed his continued concern. She held out her hands as clouds blew away from the sun, and its shadow fell on the stone almost directly below. “This is the time to be afraid. They should be about now—the noonday devils. But how are we to know what they think of us, or whether they are for or against us?”

  “With the Stations of the Cross nearby, I expect we’re safe enough,” Johnny said.

  Dorcas turned her back upon the view and crossed the stone circle to where steps led down. The narrow Way stretched from their feet to the Castle of the Princess. She put an arresting hand on Johnny’s arm as he came to stand beside her.

  “Johnny—the Way of the Cross. Of course, of course! Don’t you see—this is a Via Dolorosa.”

  He whistled softly and repeated the words of the note. “Dolorosa, dolorosa, dolorosa!”

  “Yes! There were three of them, Johnny. Now we know where the grave must lie.”

  They hurried along the Way to find the third Station. Overhead the sun was still clear in the sky and the column that held the plaque cast only the thinnest fringe of shadow at its foot. There was spongy, needle-packed earth beneath the close-growing cypress hedge behind the column. Johnny knelt on the ground and felt of the needles with his fingers.

  “We need something to dig with!” Dorcas cried. “This is the place—it must be the place!”

  Johnny’s red hair was bright in the sun as he knelt and his grin was cocky. He reached into a pocket of his jacket and drew out a gardener’s trowel, its handle bright with green paint.

  “You’ll have to give me credit,” he said. “I believed in your notions enough to make this purchase. Would you like to break the earth?”

  She knelt beside him, warm with excitement, not feeling the wind as it whipped through the cypress trees. The spongy, cone-strewn earth was easily lifted in the trowel as she scraped it away. Beneath the loose carpet lay earth more solidly packed. Yet this, too, gave way without great resistance to her trowel. She dug only a few inches when the steel edge struck something hard with a sharp click.

  “There’s a stone in the way,” Dorcas said. “A stone or—” Or—marble? She could not say it aloud.

  Johnny took the trowel from her hand and began to dig systematically around the hard shape of whatever had been buried there in the earth. Once, as he worked, Dorcas stood up and looked all around. It seemed for a moment that she had heard some sound. But birds sang in the pine woods and the little meadow behind was empty and quiet. Along the path dark cypress trees stood guard hiding them from view, and all was lonely, secluded, remote. She knelt again and saw the ellipse of smooth creamy stone showing in the brown earth.

  Neither of them made a sound until Johnny had loosened the packed ground all about. As he dropped the trowel and put both hands into the earth, Dorcas released her breath in a long sigh. Very gently he lifted the head from the grave where Constantine Katalonos must have buried it for safekeeping. The marble was heavy and he rolled it onto the grass where it lay looking up at them in all its young beauty—this head that must be two thousand years old.

  14

  How sweetly the tendrils of hair curled about the young forehead, how terrible was the grief that parted young lips and let fall a single tear upon rounded cheek. One could sense this ancient sorrow as if it were young and fresh.

  Dorcas touched one finger lightly to the little marble tear.

  “So you were right,” Johnny said. “You were right all along. Now we’d better get this back to the museum fast. What are we going to carry it in? I don’t fancy bearing it away openly in my hands. And my credibility didn’t prompt me to bring along a bag.”

  Dorcas stood up, brushing pine needles and earth from her knees. “That canvas tote bag Fernanda put the stone ball into—it’s the very thing. I’ll go fetch it from the car.”

  “Good girl,” he said. “I’ll stand watch against the squirrels while you go after it.”

  She took the long, straight path on flying feet. The wind at her back seemed to carry her buoyantly along. She had been right! She had known. Now Johnny would believe—not only this, but all the other things as well.

  The tourist bus was gone and there were no cars but theirs in the open space. She knelt in the back of the car and tumbled the stone ball out onto the floor. With the tote bag in hand, she hurried back. She was out of breath and panting a little by the time she reached the third Station of the Via Dolorosa.

  “I’ve got it, Johnny!” she cried, and went through a gap in the cypress barrier.

  For a moment she thought he had stretched out face down upon the grass to sleep. Then she saw the wet red stain upon the collar of his jacket, the matting of the hair above. She dropped to her knees and bent over him in alarm.

  “Johnny, Johnny! Can you hear me?”

  He stirred as her hand touched his shoulder and moaned faintly.

  “Lie still,” she said. “Don’t try to speak.”

  She looked all around, but the loneliness prevailed and there was no one in sight. Somewhere down the hill she heard a sound like the starting of a car. The sun was hot and bright now, and the noonday devils must be laughing. She thought of running to the monastery for help, but she couldn’t leave Johnny alone and bleeding. She loved him so very much, and she hated with all her heart the one who had done this thing. If Johnny died—

  She was praying for strength, for help as she searched her handbag and found a stock of extra handkerchiefs, always carried because of Beth. Only once did she glance toward the empty grave. The head was gone. She had known the moment she saw Johnny that it would be. It did not matter now.

  The wound seemed superficial, but scalp wounds could bleed badly and what injury to the bone there had been she could not tell. She fastened a padding of handkerchiefs to the place with strips of adhesive bandage, and the bleeding seemed to be contained. As she worked he began to recover consciousness. He would not lie still, but rolled over and sat up dizzily, his head in his hands.

  “Someone must have been watching us,” Dorcas said. “He must have come upon you from behind. You didn’t hear anything? Or see anyone?”

  He groaned and opened his eyes. “Nothing, no one. I wasn’t paying any attention. I didn’t expect—”

  “I know,” Dorcas said. “Everything seemed so peaceful. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have believed they’d let us find it. We must have shown them the way. I’m the one who knew about them—I should have been on guard.”

  Johnny got groggily to his feet and Dorcas put an arm about him, offering her shoulder. This time the distance seemed far greater because he weaved a bit and could not move with any speed. She wanted to stop at the monastery, rout out the caretaker, but Johnny refused.

  “I’ll be okay. Let’s get back to the hotel.”

  She helped him into the back seat where he could stretch out. She had never been much of a driver in hilly country and the road down to the plain frightened her. But she did what had to be done, swinging the car around
the zigzag turns, keeping it under control. It was all right once they were on the level. The road was empty and she could step up their speed.

  By the time they reached the shore road, Johnny was sitting up in the back seat, making plans.

  “The hotel first,” he said. “We’ll tell Fernanda, if she’s around, and then we’ll turn this over to the police. If I’d half believed in all this, I’d have gone to them in the first place. Or at least to the museum people. Now all I’ve done is lose the head for them—perhaps for good.”

  “Rhodes is an island,” Dorcas said. “They can’t get it away at once. I heard a car starting up after I found you. We can’t be far behind them.”

  At least he wasn’t doubting her now. At least he wasn’t regarding her as unbalanced and neurotic. No matter what Fernanda might say, Johnny would be on her side from now on.

  When they left the car at the hotel, Johnny refused help and managed to walk in by himself. They went upstairs to Fernanda’s room. She had just come back from lunch and she opened her door in amazement.

  “Ask the hotel desk to call a doctor—Johnny’s been hurt,” Dorcas said at once.

  Fernanda picked up the telephone without needless questions. “Mr. Orion has had a serious fall,” she told the desk clerk. “We wish a doctor to come as quickly as possible.”

  “Where is Beth?” Dorcas asked as she put down the telephone.

  “Vanda has taken her out,” Fernanda said. “Lie down on my bed, Johnny, and tell me how it happened.”

  Johnny seemed glad enough to stretch out on his stomach, one cheek turned to rest gingerly on an arm. “It wasn’t a fall,” he said. “Tell her, Dorcas.”

  Dorcas told the story. The whole story this time—of how they had gone searching for the marble head because of the Owl’s letter that had been sent to Gino by Constantine Katalonos. Of how they had found the head on the Via Dolorosa—and lost it, with Johnny struck down from behind and left bleeding on the ground.

  As she talked, Dorcas watched Fernanda intently. She saw the flush of color rise in her face, and then recede, leaving a pallor behind. She knew exactly what Fernanda was thinking—that Gino was behind all that had happened. He might not have told her everything.

  “What do you propose to do?” Fernanda asked when the story ended.

  “We’ll see the police,” Johnny said. “And we’ll call in the museum people, put the job of finding the head in professional hands.”

  Fernanda walked restlessly to the balcony and pushed open the shutters that shielded the room from the sun. She turned abruptly at his words, her exclamation involuntary.

  “Oh, no! Don’t do that!”

  Johnny lifted his head a little to stare at her, and Dorcas spoke quickly.

  “Why not, Fernanda? Why don’t you want us to see the police? Is it because you’re protecting Gino?”

  Fernanda came back to them and it was clear that she had made one of her quick decisions and was once more in full control of herself.

  “I was hoping that you’d come home from your drive completely recovered from your hallucinations, Dorcas. I see you haven’t, and I’m afraid I’ll have to hold to an earlier conclusion I’d come to. I’ve sent Beth away with Vanda to a safe, comfortable place. She will stay away from you, Dorcas, until you are over this. Beth is Gino’s child and I have a duty to her. I will not let her be disturbed and frightened by these notions and this emotional state of yours. I’m sorry to hurt you, but until you recover—because you are ill, my dear—she’ll have to stay away.”

  Dorcas grasped Fernanda by one wrist and was glad to see the older woman wince.

  “What have you done with Beth?” she cried. “Where have you sent her?”

  Fernanda pulled her hand from Dorcas’s grasp and stepped back without answering.

  Johnny rose a bit dizzily from the bed and put an arm about Dorcas. “Steady on. We’ll get Beth back to you, of course. Fernanda, maybe you didn’t understand. I didn’t fall—this was a murderous attack. Everything that Dorcas has claimed since we arrived is true. The man on the balcony, the effort to get the information the note contained—I believe in them all now. Today we were undoubtedly followed and because I was a fool and listened to you, instead of to Dorcas, we walked into a trap. There’s no need for you to worry about her being unstable or unfit to care for Beth. Dorcas is as well balanced as you are, and maybe more so than I am at this particular moment. If she wants Beth, you’d better bring her back.”

  Expressions of outrage, indignation, and amazement chased themselves across Fernanda’s face, settling into a pattern of obstinacy that Dorcas knew all too well. When the telephone on the bed table rang Fernanda picked it up and answered without a tremor in her voice, gave instructions, and set down the receiver.

  “It’s the doctor,” she said. “He’s coming right up. Johnny, you’ll tell him it was a fall and neither of you will say anything else. Neither of you will go to the police, or to the museum people, or to anyone at all. Not for a while, at least.”

  “You can’t stop us!” Dorcas burst out.

  “I can stop you,” said Fernanda levelly. “Because if you make one move toward the authorities, I can’t answer for Beth. If you want to see her again, you’ll say nothing at all.”

  “You—you wouldn’t harm her?” Dorcas faltered.

  “Of course I wouldn’t harm her. But I’m in a position to keep you from seeing her if that appears advisable. And that’s what I’ll do if you open this up in any way at all.”

  Johnny went back to the bed and sat down. “You’re crazy, Fernanda. There are laws about kidnaping.”

  The doctor’s rap sounded on the door and Fernanda spoke cheerfully as she went to answer it. “How silly you’d look with a kidnaping story. Especially with Dorcas’s history of instability—near insanity. Where do you think you would be if I pooh-poohed this whole notion of an attack?”

  “The museum is missing the marble head,” Dorcas said quickly.

  Fernanda opened the door and the doctor came into a surprisingly silent room. Dorcas looked at Johnny in mute pleading as the doctor walked to the bed. He spoke a little English and when he asked how this had happened, Johnny told him briefly of a fall from a stone wall on Mount Philerimos. The doctor examined the wound and said that the damage did not appear to be serious, though an X ray might be advisable to check against fracture. He arranged a more professional bandaging and suggested that Johnny stay in bed for the rest of the day and take plenty of aspirin.

  Dorcas sat in a chair across the room, staring at her hands. She could not bear to look at Fernanda. What had happened was too fantastic to comprehend all in a moment. But she had no doubt at all that Fernanda meant exactly what she said and Johnny knew it, too.

  When the doctor had gone, Johnny got up and went to Dorcas without a glance for Fernanda, “How about seeing the invalid to his bed of pain?”

  “Now look here, you two,” Fernanda said, a ring of astonishing good will in her voice, “you needn’t feel that the sky has fallen. As long as you behave sensibly, all this is sure to turn out right in the end.”

  “I wouldn’t rest easy if I were you,” Johnny said. “We’re not going to take this lying down, you know. As a start, you can consider that I’ve resigned from your employment. As of now.”

  They left Fernanda looking virtuously aghast, and Dorcas followed Johnny to his room.

  “I’ve got to find out where Fernanda has sent Beth,” she said the moment the door was closed.

  “Of course,” he agreed. “We’re going downtown to talk to the police as soon as we can.”

  Dorcas stared at him in alarm. “No, Johnny! We can’t do that. Not yet.”

  “It’s the only sensible move,” he said. “I hate to involve Fernanda, but I see no other way.”

  Dorcas shook her head. She knew Gino better than Johnny did. While they were going through the difficulty of making themselves understood by the police, Gino would be off, and Beth with him—if that was wh
ere Fernanda had sent her. At the back of Dorcas’s mind a plan was beginning to form. But she dared not tell Johnny what she meant to do. In his present state he could not help her and he would be sure to worry. It was necessary to act before Fernanda had a chance to collect herself and take steps of her own.

  “You’ve got to rest, as the doctor said,” she insisted. “I’ll keep an eye on Fernanda in case she makes any move. She can cause an awful lot of trouble, Johnny. Even though I’m frantic about Beth, I can’t afford to make things worse.”

  Somewhat reluctantly he gave in. He took off his bloodstained jacket and lay down on the bed with a sigh of relief.

  “Give me an hour,” he said. “I can think better lying down. This nutty stand of Fernanda’s will take some circumventing.”

  She drew the blanket gently over him. What had happened to Johnny was further evidence of the danger of the situation. She wanted no further harm to come to him because of her.

  “An hour,” she said, and went quietly out of the room.

  In the hall she stood listening outside Fernanda’s door. There were reassuring sounds from within. She was still there. Apparently she was not flying into immediate action.

  Dorcas went swiftly toward the stairs and ran down to the lobby. She walked downtown at a brisk pace and hurried along Mandraki. A crowd of tourists, just off a boat, were streaming toward the city walls. She sidestepped the current and went through the gate at the foot of the Palace of the Grand Master—the castle that had been so brightly lighted in last night’s make-believe.