Borrower of the Night: The First Vicky Bliss Mystery by Elizabeth Peters Read Free Book Online Page B

“As soon as my gratuity to one of the help produced the name of Rothenburg, I put two and two together.”
    We both burst out laughing. Tony glowered. Blankenhagen lowered his newspaper, gave us a contemptuous stare in common, and hid behind it again.
    The waitress, a stolid blond damsel, came with our soup, and the meal proceeded. Tony sulked in silence, Blankenhagen read his newspaper, and George and I kept up the social amenities. He was a master of the double entendre, and I don’t mean just the sexual entendre. He kept dropping hints about sculpture and secret passages in ancient castles. Tony writhed, but I was pleased to see he was learning to control his tongue. Part of George’s technique was to probe until he got an angry, unthinking response.
    With the dessert came Irma, hot and harassed, but still disgustingly beautiful, to inquire how we had liked the meal. She didn’t give a damn, really. It was just part of the job. Tony bounded to his feet the moment she appeared, and even Blankenhagen registered a touch of emotion. I began to wonder about Tony’s joie de vivre . Maybe it had another cause than the one I had suspected.
    When the meal was over, Tony got to his feet and reached for my hand.
    “Excuse us,” he said firmly. “I want to talk to Vicky alone.”
    George was amused.
    “Help yourself,” he said.
    We proceeded, in pregnant silence, to the courtyard. Behind the sheltering hedge lay a diminutive garden, its flowers pale pastel in the twilight. Tony sat me down on a bench and stood over me.
    “Well?”
    “Well what?”
    Tony sat down beside me and reached out.
    “Oh, come off it,” he mumbled. “Don’t be that way. No reason why we can’t be civil, is there?”
    “Civil, is it?” I said, into the hollow between his neck and his right shoulder. “Hmmm…I wasn’t the one who started this stand-off business, you know.”
    The succeeding interval lasted a shorter time than one might have expected. All at once Tony took me by the shoulders and pushed me away.
    “I can’t concentrate,” he said in an aggrieved tone. “Why did we start this silly fight in the first place? I haven’t been able to think of anything else for months. It’s interfering with my social life and my normal emotional development.”
    “You challenged me,” I reminded him. “Want to take back what you said?”
    “No!”
    “Then we’d better kiss and part. I can’t concentrate on any other subject either; and we aren’t collaborating, are we?”
    “No…”
    “Only?”
    “Only—well, we could compare background notes, couldn’t we? Nothing significant, just research. So we can start out even.”
    “Hmmm,” I said. “Why the change of heart?”
    “It isn’t a change of heart. I’m not asking you to give anything away, and I’m not going to tell you anything important. Only—well, Nolan bugs me. I didn’t realize he was so hot on the trail. And if I can’t find the thing myself, I’d rather have you get it than Nolan.”
    I didn’t return the compliment. If I couldn’t find the shrine, I hoped nobody would. But his suggestion made sense. I didn’t have anything that could be called a clue; maybe he did. I had nothing to lose by collaborating.
    As it turned out, I didn’t gain much. For the most part, Tony’s research duplicated mine.
    We had both gone back to the old chronicle, which contributed very little except a description of the shrine. If my appetite had needed whetting, that description would have done the trick.
    According to the chronicler, the reliquary depicted the Three Kings kneeling before the Child—the “ Anbetung der Könige ,” as the Germans put it. The subject was popular with European artists in earlier, more devout, eras, so it is not surprising that another version of the Anbetung , by Riemenschneider, should exist. This one is a bas-relief, on the side panel of the Altar of the Virgin, which he did for the church at Creglingen, not far from Rothenburg. So when