Excalibur Rising (7 page)

      “No, he’s not,” said Violet.  She staggered clumsily to her feet and made her way to an armchair where she collapsed in an ungainly sprawl.
     Someone spoke from the doorway. “What’s going on?”
      “It’s alright,” said Todd, “nothing to worry about, Mr. Mandretti.”
      “Sure looks like something to me,” said Mandretti advancing into the room.  “What’s the matter, Violet?”
      “He’s dead,” said Violet.
      “She’s had a vision,” said Todd.  “She’s very shaken up.”
     “Yeah.” This was another voice from the doorway. “She looks quite convincingly shaken.”
      Violet managed to focus on the tall figure of Marcus Ryan, lounging against the door frame with a cynical express on his suntanned face.
     “He’s dead,” she repeated.  She seemed to have nothing else to say.  The vision had robbed her of her ability to communicate.
      “Who’s dead?” asked Ryan.
      “Carlton Lewis,” said Todd.  Violet noticed that he had slipped easily back into the role of secretary.  Perhaps his acting skills were stronger than she had thought.
     “Oh really!” said Ryan. “And how do we know that?”
     Violet managed a few more words. “I saw him, in a railway carriage.  Phone him Todd.  Phone his office.  I know what I saw.”  She tried to rise to her feet but Maria pushed her back into the armchair.
      “Madame,” Maria said softly, her Spanish accent back in place, “let me fix your skirt.”
     “What?”
     Violet looked down at herself.  Her corset seemed to have given up its efforts at control, and her skirt had ridden up above her knees exposing her dimpled thighs. She pushed Maria away.  “I don’t care,” she said.       “Phone him, Todd.”
     “I will get you a glass of water,” said Maria.
     “Why is no one listening to me?” Violet asked.
    “Because you’re not making any sense,” said Ryan.  “Oh by the way, I found out something about your friend Carlton Lewis.”
      “He’s dead,” Violet wailed.
      “Yeah, well before he was dead___” said Ryan.
      “Hey,” said Mandretti, “can it, Doc.  Show the lady some respect.”
      He took the sheet of paper from Todd’s hand and passed it to Ryan.
     “Why don’t you read what it says, then perhaps we can get to the bottom of this?”
     Ryan studied the paper. “An office in Chelsea,” he said. “That must be costing him a few bucks.”
      “Just read the letter,” said Mandretti.
     Ryan sighed, and began to read aloud in a monotone.
     “My dear Violet, I was delighted to hear from you after all this time, and I have hastened to follow up on your request.  I hope I will soon have the pleasure of seeing you personally to let you know all that I have discovered.  I am sure that we can come to some amicable arrangement regarding Mr. Mandretti’s fee.”
     Ryan stopped reading and looked at Mandretti.  “So it’s all about money,” he said.
     “Just read it, Doc,” said Mandretti.
     “Okay, okay.”
     Ryan continued to read in a monotone that took all of the life and spirit from the words.
     “I was surprised to learn that Taras Peacock’s last commission was to catalog the artifacts of a regimental museum somewhere in the west of England.  I thought it rather a mundane commission for a man of his talents.  I will endeavor to find out which regiment was involved. 
     I did hear, through the archaeological grapevine, that Peacock had recently unearthed a document in the library of his family home in Shropshire.  Apparently he sent it to the Society of Arthurian Scholars for translation.  I must say that I would not have expected him to need a translator.  I always thought that Peacock was very well versed in ancient languages.”
     Ryan paused.
     “He was,” Ryan said. “He had a gift for ancient languages.”
     Ryan returned to his reading but with a slightly less cynical tone.
     “We in academia,” he read, “wondered why he would send anything to the Society of Arthurian Scholars. He was not known for his interest in the Arthurian myth.”
      Ryan paused again.
     “Just read it,” said Mandretti.
     “As for the sketch of the goblet,” Ryan read, “it bears a resemblance to a chalice that was stolen from a church in Norfolk, although I can’t be certain without seeing it. The police circulated a bulletin to antiquarians with a description of a stolen chalice, but I’m afraid it did not arouse any great interest; thefts from churches are quite common.”
     Ryan stopped reading and looked across at Violet. “The rest are just expressions of … affection,” he said.
      Violet felt a blush creeping across her cheeks. 
     “Never mind about that,” said Todd snatching the paper from Ryan’s hand. 
     Violet pulled herself to her feet and tried to take control of the situation.  Now was not the time to fall apart.  She accepted the glass of water that Maria offered her, took a quick sip, and then turned to Todd.
     “Phone him for me,” she said.
     “It’s evening over there,” Todd protested. “He won’t be in the office.”
      Violet glared at him. “Then phone his home,” she said.
     Todd turned and picked up the telephone.
     “She doesn’t see things,” Ryan said to Mandretti.  He spoke softly but Violet could hear him. “She reads them in books and then regurgitates them.  She’s a fraud.”
     “No she ain’t,” Mandretti hissed. “You just watch yourself, Doc.  I didn’t bring you down here to insult her.  My brother trusted her, and so do I.
     “I’ll prove it to you,” Ryan said, “just as soon as we’re finished with this little scene.”
       Violet’s panic gave way to anger.  Maybe Todd wasn’t her secretary.  Maybe Maria wasn’t her Spanish maid.  Maybe the house wasn’t  falling down around their heads.  Maybe all these things were lies, but what she had seen was not a lie.  Ryan may have thought that she had been playacting for the benefit of her client, but she knew that it was no act.  She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Carlton Lewis had been stabbed in the heart and left for dead on the grimy floor of a First Class railway carriage.  Rarely had she received such a clear vision.
     “When she had her last vision,” said Mandretti “the one about the king____”
     “Oh yes,” Ryan interrupted, “let me tell you about that one.”
     Mandretti glared at his employee. “When she had her last vision,” he repeated, “she said that the goblet had been under the mud somewhere.”
     “Norfolk,” said Ryan.  “It’s on the east coast of England, very flat country, mostly salt marshes, just as Violet described it, and just as Carlton Lewis himself described it. “
     Violet’s heart skipped a beat.  Although she was concentrating her attention on Todd as he dialed an international call, she was still concerned about what Ryan might say next.  However, Mandretti was not willing to give Ryan a chance to say whatever damning thing he was longing to say.
       “So, Doc,” Mandretti said, “this document the Prof found, was that from this Norfolk place?”
     Ryan shook my head. “No,” he said, “that was from Shropshire, a totally different place; hundreds of miles away.”
      “Oh,” said Mandretti. “I thought maybe we was on to something.”
      “I’m willing to believe that the goblet might just possibly have come from King John’s baggage train,” Ryan said, “but as for the rest of it____”
      Todd gasped and turned to look at Violet.  The room fell silent. Violet held her breath until Todd replaced the receiver.  “Dead,” he said softly.
CHAPTER FIVE
     Violet stared at Todd.  She knew what he was going to say next.
     “His body was found in a first class carriage of the London to Brighton train. He had been knifed.  I’m sorry, Violet.” 
     “It’s alright,” said Violet, because there was nothing else to say.  She knew what she had seen and felt, Todd was only confirming something that had already happened.
    “They left the knife behind,” Todd said.  “It was a dagger, pre-Saxon, possibly Roman.”
      Mandretti interrupted the silence with the certainty of his New York accent.  “They’re sending us a message,” he said.
     “Not necessarily,” Ryan said quickly.
     Mandretti looked at him scornfully. “You might be the expert on old stuff,” he said, “but this kind of stuff is what I know.  They wanted us to see the dagger.  They want us to pay attention.”
     “They want you over there,” Violet said.
     “Yeah,” said Mandretti. “It’s a challenge.”
     Violet knew that she had to pull herself together.  She wiped her eyes, tugged her clothes into place, and picked up the e-mail from the late Sir Carlton.  The feelings of horror returned and she dropped it rapidly onto the desk and took several deep breaths to clear her mind.   She turned her attention to Ryan, who stood in the doorway with a shocked expression on his face. “Mr. Ryan,” she said, “Maria will take you to the sitting room, and bring you coffee.”
     Maria frowned and Violet quieted her with a ferocious glare.
     “Maria will bring you coffee,” she repeated. “I need to talk to Mr. Mandretti for a few minutes.”
     “Just wait a minute,” Ryan protested, “I need to know how____”
      “You don’t need to know anything,” Violet snapped.  The best defense being a good offense, she had already decided to set aside the fact that Ryan Marcus was a tall, slim, educated somebody, while she was a short, fat  nobody, with smeared make up and an out of control corset.  So far as Ryan was concerned she was about to become the chief negotiator and he was not going to have any say in what would happen next.
      “I need to talk to Mr. Mandretti alone,” Violet said.
     Maria squeezed through the doorway beside Ryan and caught hold of his elbow.
     “Come this way,” she said, and Ryan followed her.
     “So…?” said Mandretti.
     “I will take the case,” said Violet. 
     “You’ll go to England?”
     “Of course.  As soon as possible.  I would like to go to Carlton’s funeral.”
     “Yeah, sure,” said Mandretti, “but this ain’t about your friend, sorry for your loss of course, but it ain’t about him. It’s about___”
     “I know what it’s about,” said Violet.”
     “I want the sword,” said Mandretti.  “All the rest of it, that’s personal. “
     “People have been killed,” Todd protested.
     Mandretti shrugged his broad shoulders. “And that,” he said, “tells me that this sword exists and it ain’t just some myth.  People don’t get killed over myths.  There’s something real at the bottom of all this. There’s blood in the water, big sharks swimming around.”
      Violet did not care for Mandretti’s analogy.  She had never liked swimming, or perhaps she had never liked the sight of herself in a bathing suit.  Whatever the reason, the thought of dark shapes slipping through deep water made her shiver. 
     She felt the pressure of Todd’s hand against her back.  What was he trying to say to her?  She had never felt close to Maria, but sometimes she felt as though Todd really was her brother.  He wouldn’t want to see her get hurt, not even if the payoff was enough money to restore the Chambray family home and keep them all in luxury for years.  Todd was trying to tell her that she didn’t really have to do this, but he was wrong.  This time she had to follow through, and find the truth behind her visions.  Who was the nun in the stone chamber?  What was the source of the scrap of paper Marcus Ryan carried in his pocket?  Why was she able to sense these things while those around her remained blind?  Somehow the answer to these questions was linked to the mysterious sword, the sword that could not possibly be Excalibur.
     “I’ll get you three first class tickets to London,” Mandretti said.  “I can fly you up to Miami in my Gulfstream.”
     “Three?” said Violet, tearing her mind away from her own personal questions. “Why three?”
     “You, the Doc, and fancy boy here,” said Mandretti.
     “Not Ryan,” said Violet, horrified at the idea of Ryan trailing her around England in a cloud of cynicism.
     “I’m not going,” said Todd.
     “What?”
     “I’m not going,” Todd repeated. “I have commitments.”
     “I don’t need Professor Ryan,” said Violet. 
     “Wait a minute,” said Mandretti.  He looked at Todd. “What do you mean, you’re not going?”
     “I’m not going,” said Todd.  “I’m opening in Blithe Spirit tomorrow night; I’m not leaving the Keys.”
     “Todd, really!” Violet protested.
     “I’m not going,” Todd repeated, setting his penciled eyebrows in a firm line.  “I’m committed to the company, and we open tomorrow.”
     “Oh come on,” Mandretti said, “some rinky-dink little theater.  They won’t miss you.  I’ll send someone to replace you.  I’ll get them a real actor from Vegas.  They’ll love it.”
     “What do you mean, real actor?” said Todd,  his outrage momentarily blocking out Violet’s thoughts of how very much she did not want to be accompanied by Professor Ryan.
      “Well, you know what I mean,” said Mandretti.  “Someone with sex appeal.  I mean, what are you supposed to be? You ain’t exactly leading man material.”
     “Don’t typecast me,” said Todd.  “You don’t know what I am until you see me on stage.  I am not going.”
      “He’s not going,” said Violet, masking her own disappointment, “and I have no wish to take your tame treasure hunter with me.  I’ll do perfectly well on my own.”
     “Ryan’s going,” said Mandretti.
     “No,” said Violet.
     “I’m paying the bill,” said Mandretti, “and Ryan’s going.  No offense Violet, but Ryan’s the one with the degrees.”
     “I’m the one who finds things,” said Violet.
     “So does Ryan,” said Mandretti, “and he finds them on TV.”
     “He’s a has been,” Todd interjected.
     “He goes,” said Mandretti. “He has the reputation, he’s a professor, and he’s the one who works for me.  Fancy Pants can stay behind if he wants to, but Ryan goes.”
     “Fancy Pants,” said Todd under his breath.
     Violet shot him a glance to advise him not to push things any further.  Mandretti seemed to be in a good mood.  Perhaps his sympathy for Violet in the loss of her friend was holding back his more violent side, but it wouldn’t be held back for ever. He could be pushed so far, and no further.
     “Todd,” said Violet, “you’ll need to find some clothes for Ryan.”
     “He has clothes,” said Mandretti.
      “You mean the old network blazer that was supposed to impress me?” said Violet.  “I mean real clothes, so he won’t stand out like a sore thumb in England.”
     “London Fog, and Harris Tweed,” said Todd.
      “Absolutely,” said Violet.  “A raincoat, tweed jacket, and some kind of sweater.  You must have something at the theatre with all the Coward   and Christie you do.”