“Stop the order!”
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Valentine pinned to the ground by two burly men who’d removed their coats and rolled up the sleeves of their shirts. There was not a moment to lose. “Release her!” she cried.
“I will,” said the man, “but only if you tell me what your cousin refused to reveal. Tell me where the Montglane Service is hidden. I know with whom your little friend was speaking before she was arrested, you see.…”
“If I tell you,” Mireille said in haste, glancing back to Valentine again, “you will release my cousin?”
“I must have them!” he said fiercely. He regarded her with hard, cold eyes. The eyes of a madman, thought Mireille. Inwardly she shrank from him, but she returned his gaze steadily.
“If you release her, I will tell you where they are.”
“Tell me!” he screamed.
Mireille could feel his foul breath upon her face as he bent toward her. David moaned beside her, but she paid no notice. Taking a deep breath and begging Valentine’s forgiveness, she said slowly, “They are buried in the garden behind our uncle’s studio.”
“Aha!” he cried. His eyes burned with an inhuman flame as he leapt to his feet and leaned across the table to Mireille. “You would not dare to lie to me. For if you did, I would hunt you to the very ends of the earth. These pieces must be mine!”
“Monsieur, I beg you,” cried Mireille. “What I have told you is the truth.”
“Then I believe you,” he told her. Raising his hand aloft, he looked across the lawn to where the two men held Valentine to the ground, awaiting their orders. Mireille watched the dreadful face, contorted beyond imagining, and vowed that as long as she lived, as long as he lived, she would never forget. She would etch his face into her mind, this man who held the life of her beloved cousin so ruthlessly in his hands. She would always remember.
“Who are you?” she said as he faced the lawn without looking at her. Slowly he turned to face her, and the hatred in his eyes chilled her to the bone.
“I am the rage of the people,” he whispered. “The nobility will fall, the clergy will fall, and the bourgeoisie. They will be trampled beneath our feet. I spit upon you all, for the suffering that you have caused will be turned against you. I will bring the very heavens down around your ears. I shall have the Montglane Service! I shall own it! It will be mine! If I do not find it where you say, I shall hunt you down—you will pay!”
His venomous voice rang in Mireille’s ears.
“Proceed with the execution!” he screamed, and the crowd at once set up their hideous cry. “Death! The verdict is death!”
“No!” screamed Mireille. A soldier grabbed at her, but she tore away. In a wild frenzy, she ran blindly across the courtyard, her skirts trailing through the pools of blood that soaked into the cracks between the cobblestones. She saw through the sea of screaming faces the sharpened two-pronged axe rise over Valentine’s prostrate body. Valentine’s hair, silvery in the summer heat, fanned out on the grassy stretch where she lay.
Mireille flew through the mass of bodies, closing in upon the horrible sight, closing in to see the kill at first hand. With a flying leap, she threw herself in midair across Valentine’s body, just as the axe fell.
THE FORK
One must always put oneself in a position to choose between two alternatives.
—Talleyrand
On Wednesday evening I was in a taxi, going across town to meet Lily Rad at an address she’d given me on Forty-seventh Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues. It was called the Gotham Book Mart, and I’d never been there before.
The afternoon before, Tuesday, Nim had driven me into town and given me a quick lesson in how to trigger my apartment door to tell if anyone had been inside in my absence. In preparation for my trip to Algeria, he’d also given me a special phone number that dialed into his computer Centrex at any hour. (Quite a commitment for a man who didn’t believe in using telephones himself!)
Nim knew a woman in Algiers named Minnie Renselaas, widow of the late Dutch consul to Algeria. She was apparently wealthy and well connected and could help me find out anything I needed to know. With this information in hand, I’d reluctantly agreed to inform Llewellyn that I would try to locate the chess pieces of the Montglane Service in his behalf. I felt bad about doing this, as it was a lie, but Nim had convinced me that finding that damned chess set was the only way I could assure myself any peace of mind. Not to mention length of life.
But for three days now I’d been worried about something other than my life or the (possibly nonexistent) chess service. I’d been worried about Saul. There’d been no notice of his death in the newspapers.
There were three articles about the UN in Tuesday’s paper, but they all dealt with world hunger or the Vietnam War. Not one hint had appeared to suggest they had found a body on a stone slab. Who knows, perhaps they never dusted the Meditation Room. But it seemed more than strange. Furthermore, though there’d been a brief note about Fiske’s death and a one-week postponement of the chess tournament, there was no suggestion that he hadn’t died of natural causes.
Wednesday was the night of Harry’s dinner party. I hadn’t spoken with Lily since Sunday, but I felt certain the family would have heard of Saul’s death by now. After all, he’d been in their employ for twenty-five years. I dreaded the confrontation. It would seem more like a wake, if I knew Harry. His staff were all like family to him. I wondered how I could avoid revealing what I knew.
As my taxi turned off Sixth Avenue I saw all the shopkeepers out on the streets lowering the chain-mail grates that protected their windows from burglary. Within the stores, clerks were removing lavish jewelry from the displays. I realized that I was at the very heart of the diamond district. As I embarked from my taxi I saw men standing about in groups on the pavement wearing stiff black coats and high felt hats with flat brims. Some had dark beards shot with gray, so long they rested on their chests.
The Gotham Book Mart was about a third of the way down the block. I made my way through the clusters of men into the building. The entrance was a small carpeted lobby like a Victorian house, with stairs to the second floor. To the left were two steps down to the bookstore.
There were wooden floors, and the low ceilings were circuited with tin hot-air ducts running the length of the room. At back were entrances to several other rooms, all completely jammed from floor to ceiling with books. Piles were about to collapse in a tumble at every turn, and the narrow aisles were jammed with readers who grudgingly made way for me to pass and then resumed their places, presumably without missing a line.
Lily was standing in the very back room wearing a brilliant red fox coat and wool knit stockings. She was deep in conversation with a wizened old gent half her size. He was dressed in the same black coat and hat as the men on the street outside, but he had no beard, and his dark face was mapped with weathered lines. His thick gold-rimmed spectacles made his eyes look large and intense. He and Lily made an odd couple.
As Lily saw me approaching she put her hand on the old gentleman’s arm and said something to him. He turned to me.
“Cat, I’d like you to meet Mordecai,” she said. “He’s a very old friend of mine and knows a great deal about chess. I thought we could question him about our little problem.”
I assumed she was referring to Solarin. But I’d learned a few things myself over the last few days and was more interested in getting Lily aside to discuss Saul before I had to beard the family lions in their den.
“Mordecai is a grand master, though he doesn’t play any longer,” Lily was saying. “He coaches me in tournament play. He’s famous. He’s written books about chess.”
“You flatter me,” said Mordecai modestly, smiling at me. “But actually, I’ve made my living as a diamond merchant. Chess is my avocation.”
“Cat was at the tournament with me on Sunday,” Lily told him.
“Ah,” said Mordecai, studying me more closely through his thi
ck glasses. “I see. So you were a firsthand witness of the event, I suggest you ladies join me over a cup of tea. There’s a place just down the street where we could talk.”
“Well … I wouldn’t like to be late for dinner. Lily’s father will be disappointed.”
“I insist,” Mordecai said charmingly but with finality. Taking my arm, he steered me toward the door. “I myself have pressing engagements this evening, but I should be very sorry not to hear your observations on the mysterious death of Grand Master Fiske. I knew him well. I hope your opinion may be less farfetched than those my … friend Lily has put forth.”
There was some confusion as we tried to pass back through the first room. Mordecai had to relinquish his hold on my arm as we proceeded single file through the narrow aisles, Lily breaking the way. It was a relief to get back to the cold air of the street after the cluttered bookstore. Mordecai took my arm again.
Most of the diamond merchants had dispersed by now, and the shops were dark.
“Lily tells me you’re a computer expert,” said Mordecai, propelling me down the street.
“Are you interested in computers?” I asked.
“Not exactly. I’m impressed with what they can do. You might say that I am a student of formulas.” At this he cackled merrily, his face split into a wide grin. “I used to be a mathematician, did Lily tell you?” He looked back over his shoulder where Lily was trailing, but she shook her head and caught up with us. “I was a student of Herr Professor Einstein for one semester in Zurich. He was so smart that none of us could understand a word he said! Sometimes he would forget what he was talking about and go drifting out of the room, but no one ever laughed. We all respected him very much.”
He paused to take Lily’s arm too as we crossed the one-way street.
“Once I was ill in Zurich,” he continued. “Dr. Einstein came to visit me. He sat at my bedside, and we talked about Mozart. He was very fond of Mozart. Professor Einstein was an excellent violinist, you know.” Mordecai smiled at me again, and Lily squeezed his arm.
“Mordecai’s had an interesting life,” she told me. I noticed that Lily was on her good behavior around him. I’d never seen her so subdued.
“But I chose not to follow a career as a mathematician,” said Mordecai. “They say you must have a calling for it, much as for the priesthood. I chose to be a merchant instead. However, I am still interested in things that pertain to mathematics. Here we are.”
He pulled Lily and me through a double door that led upstairs. As we started up, Mordecai added, “Yes, I have always considered computers to be the eighth wonder of the world!” Then he laughed his cackly laugh again. As I ascended the stairs, I wondered whether it was merely a coincidence that Mordecai had expressed an interest in formulas. And in the back of my mind I heard a refrain: “On the fourth day of the fourth month, then will come the eight.”
The small cafeteria was on a mezzanine overlooking a huge bazaar of little jewelry shops. Everything downstairs was closed for the evening, but the cafeteria was jam-packed with the old men who’d been chatting on the streets less than half an hour earlier. They’d taken off their hats, but each still wore a small skull cap. Some had long curling locks at the sides of their faces, as did Mordecai.
We found a table, and Lily offered to go for the tea while we talked. Mordecai held a chair for me and went around to sit at the other side of the table.
“These earlocks are called payess,” he told me. “A religious tradition. Jews are not supposed to cut their beards or shave the earlocks because it says in Leviticus, ‘Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.’” Mordecai smiled again.
“But you have no beard,” I said.
“No,” said Mordecai ruefully. “As it says elsewhere in the Bible, ‘My brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man.’ I should like to grow a beard, as I think it would make me look rather dashing.…” His eyes twinkled. “But all I can raise is the proverbial field of chaff.”
Lily arrived with a tray and set steaming mugs of tea around the table as Mordecai continued.
“In ancient times the Jews used to leave the corners of their fields unharvested, just as the corners of the beards, for the elderly of the village to glean and for wanderers who were passing through. Wanderers have always been highly regarded in the Jewish faith. There is something mystical connected with the concept of wandering. My friend Lily tells me you are about to depart on a trip?”
“Yes,” I said. But I was uncertain what his reaction would be if I told him I was going to spend a year in an Arab country.
“Do you take cream with your tea?” asked Mordecai. I nodded and started to rise, but he was already on his feet. “Allow me,” he said.
As soon as he’d departed I turned to Lily.
“Quick, while we’re alone,” I whispered, “how is your family taking the news about Saul?”
“Oh, they’re really pissed off at him,” she said, passing the spoons around. “Especially Harry. He keeps calling him an ungrateful bastard.”
“Pissed off!” I said. “It wasn’t Saul’s fault he got bumped off, was it?”
“What are you talking about?” said Lily, looking at me strangely.
“Surely you can’t believe Saul arranged his own murder?”
“Murder?” Lily’s eyes were getting bigger by the moment. “Look, I know I got a little carried away, imagining he’d been kidnapped and all. But he came back to the house after that. He resigned! Just flat up and left us. After twenty-five years of service!”
“I’m telling you he’s dead,” I insisted. “I saw him. He was laid out on a slab at the UN Meditation Room on Monday morning. Somebody killed him!”
Lily was sitting there with her mouth open, the spoon in her hand.
“There’s something definitely weird about this,” I continued.
Lily shushed me and glanced past my shoulder. Mordecai was arriving with some little packets of cream.
“It was like pulling teeth to get these,” he said, sitting between Lily and me. “There is no such thing as friendly service anymore.” He glanced at Lily and then at me. “Well, what’s been going on here? You look as if someone just walked over your grave.”
“Something like that,” said Lily in a muffled voice, her face white as a sheet. “My father’s chauffeur seems to have … passed away.”
“Ah, I’m sorry to hear that,” said Mordecai. “He was in your family’s service a long time, wasn’t he?”
“Since before I was born.” Her eyes were glazed, and her thoughts seemed a million miles away.
“He was not a young man, then? Hopefully he didn’t leave a family to provide for?” Mordecai was looking at Lily with a strange expression.
“You can tell him. Tell him what you told me,” she said.
“I don’t really think—”
“He knows about Fiske. Tell him about Saul.”
Mordecai had turned to me with a polite expression. “Some drama is involved, I take it?” he said in a light tone. “My friend Lily seems to think Grand Master Fiske did not die a natural death, and perhaps you are of the same opinion?” He sipped his tea casually.
“Mordecai,” said Lily, “Cat told me that Saul was murdered.”
Mordecai put down his spoon without looking up. He sighed. “Ah. That was exactly what I was afraid you were going to tell me.” He looked at me with big sorrowful eyes from behind the thick glasses. “Is it true?”
I turned to Lily. “Listen, I don’t really think—”
But Mordecai interrupted in a polite voice.
“How does it happen that you are the first to hear of this,” he asked me, “when Lily and her family seem to know nothing about it?”
“Because I was there,” I said.
Lily started to speak, but Mordecai shushed her.
“Ladies, ladies,” he said, turning to me. “Perhaps you could start at the beginning. If you would be so kind?”
>
So I found myself telling the story I’d told Nim all over again. Solarin’s warning at the chess match, Fiske’s death, Saul’s mysterious disappearance, the bullet holes in the car, and finally Saul’s dead body at the United Nations. Of course I left out a few choice items such as the fortune-teller, the man on the bicycle, and Nim’s story of the Montglane Service. The last I’d sworn to keep secret, and the others sounded too bizarre to be repeated.
“You’ve explained everything very well,” he said when I’d finished. “I think we may safely assume that the deaths of Fiske and Saul are somehow related. Now we must determine what events or persons tie them together and establish a pattern.”
“Solarin!” Lily said. “All the circumstances lead right to him. He’s surely the obvious link.”
“My dear child, why Solarin?” asked Mordecai. “What would be his motive?”
“He wanted to bump off everyone who might beat him. So he wouldn’t have to give them the weapons formula.”
“Solarin isn’t a weapons physicist,” I chimed in. “He got his degree in acoustics.”
Mordecai looked at me strangely. Then he went on. “Yes, that’s quite true. Actually, I know Alexander Solarin. I have never told you that.” Lily sat silently with her hands in her lap, obviously hurt that there was any secret her revered chess master had not shared with her.
“It was many years ago, when I was still active as a diamond merchant. I went to visit a friend in Russia as I was returning from the Amsterdam bourse. A young boy was introduced to me, about sixteen years old. He’d come to my friend’s house for chess instruction—”