The Aztec Heresy by Paul Christopher Read Free Book Online

again.
    ‘‘It’s on a street called Ridley Hall Road,’’ said Finn, looking down at the map of Cambridge in the Blue Guide. They reached the end of the Fen Causeway, then turned right. ‘‘Off Malting Lane.’’
    ‘‘That’s not far from the old Granta Pub,’’ said Billy. ‘‘Good shepherd’s pie if I remember my school days.’’
    ‘‘I thought you went to Oxford.’’
    ‘‘But I had a lady friend in Cambridge.’’
    ‘‘What happened to her?’’
    ‘‘Sadly she couldn’t abide boats. She married a doctor and moved to New Zealand. Rather a rich gynecologist’s wife than an impoverished duchess, I suppose.’’
    ‘‘Turn here,’’ said Finn, pointing to the left. A street appeared, wisps of fog caught in the branches of a row of ancient alder trees. ‘‘Right this time,’’ she said a few seconds later. And then they were on Ridley Hall Road.
    ‘‘Hardly rates as a road,’’ said Billy, pulling the car to a stop. ‘‘Only a block long.’’ On their left was a big slate-roofed institutional building, added to over the decades in varying shades and styles of brickwork that went from dark red to pale yellow, windows from Victorian arched through midcentury sash and modern thermopane.
    ‘‘That has to be Ridley Hall,’’ said Finn.
    ‘‘Which makes that the residence of our mysterious Franciscan,’’ said Billy, nodding to his right. ‘‘Poplar Cottage.’’
    ‘‘I don’t see any poplars,’’ said Finn, ducking down to look through Billy’s window. ‘‘And I wouldn’t call that a cottage.’’ The house opposite Ridley Hall was a large, slightly sooty-looking place with half a dozen eaves and at least that many chimney pots sprouting up from every corner. It was two and a half stories, covered in a nicotine-colored stucco, the windows tall, arched, and covered with what appeared to be heavy drapes. It was the sort of place where the upstanding citizenry in Sherlock Holmes stories lived, or a suspicious-looking clergyman in an Agatha Christie tale. As though to offset the building’s slightly dowdy outward appearance, the narrow front garden was a riot of color, flowers blooming everywhere.
    Finn and Billy climbed out of the car and went up the flagstone path. The arched, planked oak doorway had huge wrought-iron hinges and a lion’s-head knocker. Below the knocker was a worn-looking brass plate that read: Br. Luca Pacioli.
    ‘‘Doesn’t sound very Jewish to me,’’ said Billy.
    After a moment the door swung open and an old man in a cardigan and twill trousers peered out at them over the lenses of a pair of bright red reading glasses. The man had long, snow white hair and a Vandyke beard, neatly trimmed. He looked like Santa Claus on a diet for the summer. He appeared to be in his eighties, but fit enough. In one hand he held an old briar pipe.
    ‘‘Martin Kerzner?’’ Finn asked.
    The man’s eyes widened. ‘‘I haven’t been called that since the war,’’ he said. ‘‘How extraordinary!’’
    ‘‘Matthew Penner from Lausanne sends his regards,’’ said Finn. ‘‘My name is Finn Ryan and this is my associate, Billy Pilgrim.’’
    ‘‘Brother Matthew. Dear me, I thought he was long dead.’’
    ‘‘He said you might be able to answer some questions we had about Friar Bartolome de las Casas and the Order of the Black Knights.’’
    ‘‘Well,’’ said the old man, ‘‘I know Friar Bartolome is long in his grave, spinning merrily I have no doubt, but the knights are something else altogether.’’ He stepped aside. ‘‘Do come in. I’ll fix us some tea and biscuits and tell you all about it, if you like.’’
    The interior of the cottage had the same Agatha Christie feel as the exterior. The hallway was dark, paneled wainscoting rising waist-high, the wall above done in a small flower print that had faded to almost nothing. There was a bay-windowed dining room immediately to the left, a kitchen and scullery to the right,