Rembrandt's Ghost (13 page)

“Pretty,” said Finn.

“What are we looking for?” asked Billy.

Finn went to the wall at the end of the garden, turned, and looked back at the house. She pointed upward. “There,” she said.

“Bloody hell,” whispered Billy, seeing what she saw.

Seen from outside, the structure of the house was easily identifiable. The house itself was a tall rectangle with the little garden room at the back sticking out, connected to the main house by a short span of stonework. Directly above the garden room on the second floor the stone extension was a set of tall, narrow windows. There were heavy curtains drawn over the panes. They moved slightly to the right. Between the back of the house and the jutting room on the second floor, they could see a tall, narrow window of stained glass.

“There,” said Finn. “The way the windows are laid out on the second floor, that stained glass is in a blind spot. You’d only see it if you were looking for it. The chimney must be a dummy,” she added. “There’s no connecting fireplace down here.”

“And the windows below the chimney piece on the second floor?”

“A hidden room,” said Finn.

“Brilliant,” said Billy.

They went back through the doors into the garden room, and before they went upstairs, Finn carefully paced out the distance between the door and the foot of the stairs.

“Twenty-five feet.”

They went up to the second floor and Finn paced off the distance in reverse. Twenty-five feet took them to a monumental carved wardrobe fitted flush against the end wall of the corridor.

“Did you ever read any C. S. Lewis when you were a little girl?” Billy asked.

“You mean
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
?” said Finn. “Of course.”

Billy opened the door of the wardrobe. Like the one in the book, the cupboard was filled with heavy winter coats. He pushed them aside and felt around on the back wall of the wardrobe.

“There has to be some kind of catch.” His fingers touched a small protuberance in the upper right-hand corner. He pressed firmly and there was an audible
click
. The back of the wardrobe gave under the pressure of his hand. “Got it.” He pushed through the coats, Finn right behind him. The back of the cupboard swung open and they ducked into a narrow, dusty chamber.

Finn felt a sudden chill, aware of what she was seeing. To the left was the tall, narrow stained-glass window with the now familiar Boegart crest. Sun shone through, picking up the tiny motes of dust in a golden haze that struck the old rosewood floor in a puddle of golden light. The chill turned into a shiver that ran up her spine. She was standingexactly where Rembrandt Van Rjin had set up his easel three hundred years before to paint the handsome figure of the wealthy merchant and adventurer Willem Van Boegart. The sense of the master and his subject was so strong she could almost see the scene: Rembrandt, with his brushes and palette, poised; the merchant, tall and arrogant, standing proudly against the far wall; the wonderful honeyed light filtered through the stained glass falling across their shoulders like a benediction. It was almost as if she was standing inside Rembrandt’s ghost, his pale shadow, still shimmering there.

“Look at the door,” said Billy softly.

Ten feet away, at the far end of the little chamber, was a heavy, dark oak door fitted with massive hinges and an ornate lock and latch.

“It was hidden behind the drapery in the painting,” said Finn. “Van Boegart didn’t want anyone to know it was there.” She stepped across the little room and tried the latch. It squeaked noisily and the door opened. Finn stepped through the doorway and into the secret room beyond. She stared.

“My God!” she whispered.

“It’s a cabinet of curiosities,” said Billy. The small room was jammed with shelves, niches, little tables, and glass display cases, all overflowing with a museum of artifacts arranged in no particular order. Hardwood boxes filled with seashells sat next to a case containing a butterfly or moth with jade and crimson wings as wide as a man’s hand.

On a shelf they saw a bell jar containing a dried and mummified head that might have been a man’s or a great ape’s. There was also a collection of glass eyes. An alligator hung by wires from the ceiling. Immense twisted narwhal tusks were leaned in a corner together with a half dozen rusted harpoons. They saw an Indian headdress, a lump of rock with one brightly shining facet, a dozen kinds of skeletons, dried bats in flight, a dusty-looking cat with a missing eye, an impossiblemixture of a huge carplike fish and a monkey’s body joined together.

Animal, vegetable, and mineral—everything was represented, even abstracts, like a half dozen wooden models of geometric designs. There was no surface left uncluttered. Even the walls and the ceiling of the little chamber were a wonder, a masterpiece of the plasterer’s art, intricate designs of flowers, fruit, animals, and birds, a carved, stark white jungle setting for the glorious insanity of the relics on display.

Billy cleared his throat, then quoted: “ ‘A goodly, huge cabinet, wherein whatsoever the hand of man by exquisite art or engine has made rare in stuff, form, or motion; whatsoever singularity, chance, and the shuffle of things hath produced; whatsoever Nature has wrought in things that want life and may be kept; shall be sorted and included.’ Sir Francis Bacon, 1594.”

“You’re kidding. You memorized that?”

Billy nodded. “Benefits of a classical education again. Part of Bacon’s well-known monologues from the
Gesta Grayorum
, the Gray’s Inn guest book.”

“Sure, very well known,” laughed Finn.

“Look,” said Billy, his finger outstretched.

At the point where the walls met the ceiling above the door, a Latin motto had been carved into the plaster:

“Fugio ab insula opes usus venti carmeni,”
said Finn. “Escape from my island of treasure… and something about wind… ‘venti.’ ”

“More like, ‘Escape to my hidden island of treasure on winds of music,’ ” said Billy promptly. “He must mean this room. His hidden island.”

In the center of it all was a table covered in ancient, dusty fabric and set out with a scattering of large seashells, as well as a half dozen brass maritime instruments including an astrolabe, precursor to the sextant. Among the instruments was a calfskin-covered book, the same one that had been in Willem Van Boegart’s hand in the Rembrandt portrait. Leaning casually on the table, almost as though it had been left there only moments before, was the basket-hilt rapier that had been in the Dutchman’s other hand. Finn felt the cold chill run down her spine again; the ghostly presence of the man in the painting was so strong that she almost expected him to step into the room and introduce himself. Without thinking she looked back over her shoulder at the open doorway.

“Collections of all the things he saw on his travels,” said Billy. He stepped forward and carefully picked up the calfskin book from the table. He opened it gently. “It’s a
rutter
,” he said. He turned another page. “And it’s in English.”

“What’s a
rutter
and why is it in English?” Finn asked.

“A
rutter
is a book of dead reckoning—point-to-pointnavigation,” explained Billy. “You go from one physical landmark to the next. Rather like hares and hounds again. It’s where the word ‘route’ comes from. The French called it a
routier
. It’s what they used to navigate before they had proper charts.”

“And the English?”

“Part of the Boegart tradition. They sent all their children to Sherborne School in Dorset and then Cambridge. Me as well.” He smiled. “Except I was a black sheep and went to Oxford afterward instead of Cambridge. That’s how the English side of the family came about.”

“Cambridge again,” said Finn.

“It made sense in those days to write in English,” Billy went on. “
Rutters
were worth their weight in gold. You didn’t want other people to know how to get where you were going, so writing in English would have been like writing in code. Not many people could write at all, let alone in another language.” He eased over a page in the book and read a little more. “Good Lord,” he whispered. “This is Van Boegart’s
rutter
for the first voyage of
Vleigende Draeack
, the Flying Dragon.” He read aloud from the opening page:
“ ‘Being a Journey in Search of the Hidden Islands and the Secret of Bao Tse Tu, the Leopard King.’ ”

“Vleigende Draeack,”
said Finn. “The ship in the painting.”

“This book is a treasure map,” said Billy, excitementrising in his voice. He flipped through page after page. “Unbelievable!”

“What are the Hidden Islands?” Finn asked. “Do they actually exist?”

“According to this they do,” said Billy, holding up the book. “They’re a myth, like Neverland in
Peter Pan
. Islands somewhere in the China Seas populated by lions and tigers and elephants and all sorts of other creatures.”

“And this Leopard King with the Chinese name?”

“Bao Tse Tu. A Chinese Marco Polo who found the Fountain of Youth on one of the Hidden Islands and who stole an Emperor’s treasure for himself.”

“And Willem Van Boegart found it, right?”

“Part of it, or so the legend says,” Billy said with a shrug.

“Do you believe it?” Finn said.

Billy reached out and plucked a roughly shaped, bloodred crystal from one of the display cases. It was the size of a hen’s egg. “If this is a ruby, maybe he really did after all.”

“So now what do we do, or need I ask?”

“I think there’s a pretty good chance Pieter Boegart disappeared looking for the treasure his ancestor was after. That’s what this ship, the
Batavia Queen
, is all about.”

“We’re supposed to follow him?”

Billy nodded. “I think that’s the idea.”

“You’d think he would have taken the
rutter
along with him,” said Finn, nodding at the book in Billy’s hand.

“He had to leave us something. He probably made a copy.”

“And what if we’re wrong about all of this?” Finn said. “What if we’re overestimating Pieter Boegart? It could be it’s all a coincidence: the painting, the room, the book. Maybe they’re not connected. Maybe this is all a fantasy.”

Billy gave her a long look. “I’m not like some detective on a cop show who doesn’t believe in coincidences. I think they happen all the time, but this… ?” He held up the book. “I don’t care if it’s coincidence or if it’s some kind of warning from the heavens. Willem Van Boegart’s blood runs in my veins, and yours as well by the sound of things.” His voice was almost pleading in its intensity. “This is the kind of adventure I’ve been waiting for all my life.” He paused and Finn could see the muscles in his jaw working as he tried to keep his emotions in check. “What do you say?”

“What about those people in London?” Finn asked. “This is no adventure to them. This is serious business. They were out to kill us. They may still be on our tail.”

“Then they’ll still be on our tail whether we run away or not,” argued Billy.

Finn thought about it for a long moment. “All right,” she said at last. “Let’s go find out what happened to cousin Pieter and his lost treasure.”

“Put this in your bag,” said Billy, handing her the
rutter
. “Then let’s get out of here.”

They found a Kinko’s a few canals away and spent an hour carefully photocopying the old log-book, then shipped it to Tulkinghorn in London for safekeeping. They spent the rest of the day organizing their trip to Singapore, getting the appropriate shots, and shopping for tropical clothes. That done they headed back to Durgerdam to arrange for long-term berthing of the
Busted Flush
. They got off the bus in front of the Oude Taveerne, then stopped for a bite to eat. After sleeping in the
Flush
’s narrow bunks for the better part of a week they decided to treat themselves to a pair of rooms above the restaurant for the night. They dropped off their purchases in the rooms, then went down the narrow street along the dike, heading for the marina.

The setting sun had turned the windows of the little houses on the inland side of the dike into sheets of liquid gold, and the sky over their heads was deepening through purple into the black silk of night. Finn could just make out the turning vanes of an old windmill in the fields behind the village. A faint breeze riffled the water on their left. It was the perfect image of peace and for the first time in days she felt herself truly relaxing. Even Billy fit perfectly into the scene, and watching the wind blowing through his thick blond hair she could easily see his clear-eyed Dutch ancestors as they set sail for distant lands.

“I’ve never owned a tramp steamer before,” she said as they walked, almost laughing out loud at the thought of it. She’d never even owned a car, let alone a nine-hundred-fifty-ton anything. “What does nine-hundred-fifty-ton displacement mean?” she asked.

“It’s not the weight of the vessel. It’s the amount of water she displaces when you put her in the water. Then there’s gross tonnage, which is calculated in multiples of a hundred cubic feet and doesn’t have anything to do with weight, net tonnage, which is useful space for cargo and passengers, and deadweight tonnage, which is the actual weight of the cargo, fuel, passengers, and stores a ship is capable of carrying. The
QE2
, if memory serves, is about forty-five thousand tons of displacement and seventy thousand gross tonnage. Does that help?”