Jeffrey responded to Alexander’s urgent fax by arriving at Heathrow Airport two hours before his Cracow flight was scheduled to land. The plane was delayed as usual, which meant that Jeffrey was fit to be tied by the time the customs doors opened to admit an Alexander burdened by more than his usual post-flight fatigue.
Jeffrey rushed forward, took hold of Alexander’s overnight bag, demanded, “What’s the matter?”
“Not just yet, please. Allow me at least a moment to recover my wits.”
“Sorry.” He directed them toward the car-park. “I decided to hire a car and drive you back myself. From the sounds of your fax, you had something to say that was for my ears only.”
“A correct observation.” Alexander showed confusion when Jeffrey stopped in front of a small stand selling freshly squeezed fruit juices at outrageous prices. “What is this?”
“Something Katya suggested. She said it would give you the stimulus you required and be much better for you than a quart of coffee.”
“How kind of her to think of me. Very well, Jeffrey. Purchase the libation and let us leave this madhouse behind.”
Jeffrey remained silent as he threaded the car through the parking deck’s maze, paid the fee, and entered the aggressive stream of rush-hour traffic pressing forward at a snail’s pace. For once, the slow speed bothered him not a whit. He was still far from comfortable driving a car on the left hand of the road, with the steering wheel on the right.
Once they were on the motorway and packed snugly between other cars and trucks on every side, Jeffrey asked, “How are you feeling now?”
“Much better, thank you. I do believe Katya was correct.”
“Will you tell me what happened?”
“Yes, I suppose there is no reason to delay the news any further.” Alexander settled back in his seat. “I arrived in Cracow yesterday afternoon and went directly to the Marian Church. As you well know, I wanted to be rid of the responsibility for the chalice as quickly as possible, and I returned it in person because I had accepted it personally from Karlovich. The curate was there waiting for me, I handed it over, thanked him as gracefully as I knew how, and departed. As far as I could tell, nothing was the matter.
“I proceeded directly to Gregor’s—he has almost completed preparations for your buying trip, by the way. We took care of a few minor items and then I went to my hotel, had dinner, and went to bed. There was no good reason for my staying the night, except that the idea of two international flights in one day positively curdled my blood.”
Alexander sighed. “The next morning, Rokovski arrived in an absolute panic.”
****
Rokovski called Alexander’s Cracow hotel room in a state of hysteria. He bluntly refused to allow Alexander to come down and meet with him in the lobby. Instead, he rushed into Alexander’s room, absolutely beside himself—his tie loosened, his hair disheveled, his face creased with worry. He walked blindly past Alexander’s outstretched hand and threw himself into the plastic-veneer chair by the window.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” Rokovski announced.
“What is it, old man? What’s wrong?”
“I have some dreadful news. Dreadful. Karlovich called me first thing this morning, insisting that I come over at once. That man is not easy to deal with, I don’t need to tell you.” Rokovski mopped his brow with a crumpled handkerchief. “I went to his office immediately this morning, and said that he seemed most distressed on the telephone.
“ ‘Distressed! Distressed, indeed!’ he told me, pulling on his beard and pacing the floor. He said, ‘I am more than distressed. I am shocked. Horrified.’ ”
“What about?” Alexander demanded.
Rokovski held up his hand. “Wait, my friend. Wait. I want to lay it out for you just as it was presented to me. Hopefully our two heads will then be able to make some sense of this matter.” Rokovski kneaded his forehead. “I asked him, ‘What is it, the chalice? I know Mr. Kantor planned to return it yesterday. Has there been some damage?’ ”
“Karlovich fell into his chair at my question. ‘Damage?’ he said. ‘No. Damage can be repaired. But such damage as this is permanent.’ ”
“I am growing more alarmed by the moment,” Alexander said.
“As was I. I demanded that he tell me what he was talking about. Karlovich fastened me with those great, glittering eyes of his and said, ‘The chalice that has been returned to me is not the chalice I was good enough to lend.’ ”
“Impossible,” Alexander exploded.
“That was exactly my reaction, but Karlovich was most insistent.”
“How can that be? Did you see it?”
“Yes, of course. It was there in his safe. He pulled it out, still in the leather carrying case, set it on his desk, and motioned for me to take it.” Rokovski pantomimed his movements. “I looked at it very carefully, placed it back down, and said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is exquisite. To think that this could be a forgery is, well—’ ”
“Positively absurd,” Alexander finished for him.
“You will understand that I did not wish to say it outright, but that is what I was thinking.”
“How could anyone have duplicated it in the short time that it was in our possession?” Alexander scoffed.
“My thoughts exactly. As you know, I have quite some experience in these matters, and this is what I told him. But the curate raised his hand and declared to me, ‘As God is my witness, this is not the chalice from the Marian Church collection.’ Then he said something equally remarkable.”
“Go on,” Alexander said impatiently.
“ ‘As I was putting the chalice away,’ the curate told me, ‘it struck me that something was amiss. I recalled the pattern of the signets around the central structure, and that two of the signets bore a different symbol. Yet with this chalice, there is the same letter in each of the faces. I wasn’t sure, of course, but I was dreadfully worried. So I went through my records and found this.’
“My dear Alexander, you should have seen the mess about his desk. Stacks and stacks of books and drawings and portfolios with half-unrolled papers all over the floor behind his desk. A pile of dusty leather-bound tomes almost as high as his table. And on top was a very old portfolio. He opened it to a page, undoubtedly ancient, of museum quality itself.”
“Get on with it, man,” Alexander snapped.
“Yes, of course.” Rokovski mopped his brow once more. “The page had detailed drawings of the chalice with explanations in Latin along the top and down both sides.”
“You are certain it was a drawing for the chalice?”
“No, of course not. How could I be? And yet Karlovich was so sure, so completely certain. He pointed to that broad center section and said, ‘You see, on this wreathlike portion surrounding the stem, there are two different emblems, just as I recalled, directly opposite each other. The other signets are all identical to those found on this chalice here. And yet what I did not know was that this central section contained a secret. One I discovered only when examining the description written here.’
“He stabbed at the writing on the left side of the page, and said, ‘Our chalice had a secret compartment. By pressing these two opposing signets, one carved with alpha, the other with omega, the cup portion of the chalice detaches to reveal a small, hollow compartment inside the stem. If you will examine this particular chalice, you will find no such compartment.’ ”
Alexander mulled it over. “And you searched.”
“Quite thoroughly, I assure you. No such symbols were carved anywhere on this chalice, and I could find no compartment. And while I searched, Karlovich kept stabbing at the bottom left corner of this diagram and talking. He said, ‘But the gravity of the matter does not hinge on the lack of the secret compartment. You cannot imagine how I shuddered with amazement and horror as I examined this small inset at the base of the drawing. This shows the contents, which now are also missing.’ ”
“And those contents are?” Alexander demanded.
“Mind you,” Rokovski cautioned. “It is a legend only. There is no evidence save for an ancient drawing, one that no one has inspected in decades. Even centuries, perhaps.”
“And save for Karlovich’s insistence that the chalice I returned is not the one I received from him.” Alexander shook his head. “To think that such a thing could happen.”
“I, too, can scarcely believe this was taking place. While I sat in the man’s office and examined what looked for all the world to be an ancient and valuable chalice, this gentleman began pacing back and forth amidst the scattered documents, bemoaning the loss. ‘Of course I knew nothing about the compartment. Or that the chalice was also a reliquary. I would not have dreamed to allow such a sacred treasure to leave Polish soil. And now, alas, I make this dreadful discovery.’ ”
“The man sounds like a bad actor,” Alexander retorted. “He actually called this supposedly missing chalice a reliquary? As if the compartment held some religious artifact?”
“He did.”
“And did he also perhaps mention what that artifact was?”
Rokovski gave him a stricken look. “ ‘A small fragment,’ he told me. ‘One about the size of your thumb. A thorn, to be precise. From the final crown worn by the Son of God.’ ”
Alexander was on his feet. “You expect me to believe that such a relic could lie forgotten for centuries in a Polish crypt?”
“I expect nothing. I am simply telling you what was reported to me.” Rokovski looked up in appeal. “Did you offend him in any way?”
Alexander thought it over. “No. Certainly not intentionally. Nor do I recall anything which might have indicated by look or word that he was offended.”
Rokovski threw up his hands. “Then I don’t know what to say.”
“My dear Dr. Rokovski, I assure you—”
“Your reputation is one bound with an honor that goes back decades, Alexander. I do not know what the answer is here, but your honor is not in question.”
“Yet the chalice is.”
“According to Karlovich, yes.”
“There must be some mistake.”
“Perhaps. But I can assure you that the chalice you returned was not the chalice in his drawings.”
“They differed only in this secret compartment and the signets?”
“And the contents,” Rokovski added. “If the drawings are indeed of the chalice that he gave to you. If he was correct about your chalice’s having those differing emblems.”
“But why would the man go to such trouble?” Alexander ran frantic fingers through his hair. “I admit to being at a complete and utter loss.”
“As am I.” Rokovski hesitated, then said, “Alexander, I hate to ask you this, but did anyone other than yourself have access to the chalice?”
“Only about eight hundred guests at my gala.” He shook his head. “No, forgive me. It was a feeble jest. Security there was impeccable. I had the chalice at my shop, which is most carefully secured and guarded, and then as an extra precaution it was removed to a vault at a leading bank.”
“Well,” Rokovski sighed. “I certainly am not going to make formal enquiries at this point. Whatever search we make must be done as discreetly as possible.”
“So you do believe that the original chalice is missing?”
“What choice do I have? Why would this man lie to me?”
Alexander settled back into his chair. To that question he had no reply.
Alexander went directly to the Marian Church and found Karlovich awaiting his arrival, the chalice still on his desk. Alexander seated himself and examined the artifact, determined not to allow the curate’s all-pervasive energy to force him into a hasty conclusion. After quite some time, he set the chalice back on the desk and declared, “This is absolutely extraordinary handiwork. I am virtually certain that this chalice is genuine gold and silver, and that the work dates back several centuries. Possibly more.”
“Whether that is true or not,” Karlovich replied coldly, “I as a simple curate cannot say. But what I can tell you is that this is not my chalice.”
“Who else might know of this secret compartment of which you spoke to Rokovski?”
“I don’t know. I would have thought no one in all Poland. No one alive, in any case. The cellar has been closed to the public and to most priests since before the war. Secrecy over our collection was the only insurance we had against its being stolen by either the Nazis or the Russians. In fact, this collection has been kept in virtual secrecy since the Austro-Hungarian invasion two hundred years ago. Even the existence of the crypt itself was a fact known only to a handful of people.”
Alexander sat and listened intently to this dark-bearded, powerful man with the eyes of a zealot. The curate clearly felt he was telling the truth. “What do you intend to do?”
“What can I do? I certainly could not make a formal enquiry without losing my job for allowing the reliquary to travel outside Poland, not to mention perhaps causing an international outrage. And of course we must not scare the thief into some rash act. Clearly this was done with the intention of not being detected.”
“I assure you that I am a man of honor, and that I shall do whatever it takes to right this situation. What do you wish me to do?”
“Find me my chalice,” Karlovich replied. “But do not worry about your good name, Mr. Kantor. I am most willing to keep this entire matter very quiet. I understand the importance of your reputation, and I would not want to taint it with any hint of impropriety.”
“You are most kind,” Alexander murmured.
“And of course, your success in retrieving the chalice would depend upon secrecy.”
“Rest assured I shall do everything in my power to unravel this mystery. Yet what if the chalice is not recovered?”
Karlovich spread out his arms. “Then perhaps you would consider arranging to have a suitable sum of compensation paid. Such money would of course be devoted to the most noble of church purposes.”
“I understand,” Alexander said quietly, wishing that were so.
“I have no idea when others might discover that the chalice you returned is not in truth the reliquary. I can only hope that my purpose in life has been accomplished by then, and that I have been called to my eternal home.”
Alexander rose in confused defeat. “Please be so kind as to give me a few weeks. I shall come back to you, either in person or through Dr. Rokovski. I know the market in religious antiques quite well, and I shall try to draw out this piece by posing as a buyer. Failing that, I am of course most willing to offer some financial compensation, however meager it may be in comparison to your loss.”