The Tavernier Stones (35 page)

Authors: Stephen Parrish

BOOK: The Tavernier Stones

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Nevertheless, John could still smell the lingering odor of leather and stale baked goods. As the Hauptstrasse sloped down toward the Marktplatz, the smells dissipated and the trio began to pass rock and mineral shops. They too were buttoned up, their sidewalk displays tucked in, leaving the street looking bare. Some of the jewelers had left their lights on to deter burglars, but John wondered how anyone would distinguish between a burglar and a janitor. Others had merely covered their display cases with blankets to inhibit temptation.

When the three reached the Marktplatz, they cut across its northwest corner and climbed the steps to the Felsenkirche in single file, with David in the lead, Sarah following, and John bringing up the rear. The great rock that loomed over the town of Oberstein was just an opaque shadow jutting into the sky. The church itself stood out against the shadow as a soft white glow. Castle ruins on the rock’s peak, former home of Wyrich and Emich, were awash in orange spotlights. High above both structures, stars crowded the heavenly arena like so many impassive observers.

Lampposts on the path were rare, so John had to measure his steps carefully, mindful of variations in the thickness of the stone slabs. Where lights did shine, the well-worn slabs glistened as though wet.

David stopped the train once, just long enough to check his watch, then led the rest of the climb to the cobbled platform in front of the tunnel gate. The town below was dappled with white lights that flickered like mirror images of the stars above.

The arch-shaped gate consisted of thick bars of iron painted black. Ambient light penetrated a few feet into the tunnel, then retreated abruptly, leaving a solid wall of darkness.

John pulled on the gate handle. It was locked. “Here’s an obvious obstacle,” he said.

David removed a leather wallet from his back pocket and unfolded it. Inside was an array of picks and torque wrenches in an assortment of shapes and sizes. He took a penlight from his shirt pocket, got down on one knee in front of the gate, and shined a thin beam on the lock.

“Now the job starts to get ugly,” John said uncomfortably.

David shrugged. “You want me to ring the doorbell?” He chose a pick and a torque wrench from the wallet, inserted the pick into the keyhole with his right hand, the torque wrench with his left. Then he raked the pick in and out of the keyhole with a gentle sawing motion.

A full minute passed. John said, “When they do this in the movies, it only takes a few seconds.”

“You’re right,” David answered, “but we’re not in a movie.”

“Where did you get your experience with this kind of thing?”

“By breaking into Amish homes.”

John smiled. “Oh, yes. I remember. That’s how we met.”

“It’s a great way to make new friends.” David stood up. “Now try it.”

John pulled on the gate. Nothing happened.

“Push,” David said.

John pushed, and the gate swung open.

They went up the steps through the tunnel, again in single file. David’s penlight scarcely brightened the interior, making John feel like he was in a subterranean cavern.

The second door, an ordinary wooden one, was the last obstacle between them and the church. David dropped to one knee again and performed the same operation as he had on the gate. Within seconds, he pushed down on the stainless steel handle, and the door popped open.

“Sometimes reality does imitate Hollywood,” he said. He pulled the door wide open, and the three entered the church.

By now, John’s eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness. Light emanating from the town below leaked through the stained glass windows on the south wall and softly illuminated the interior.

“It’s best you turn the flashlight off,” Sarah told David. “Someone might see it from the street.”

David turned off the penlight and put it in his pocket.

They went down the aisle and stepped over the “no trespassing” rope, onto the altar. The gold paint on the triptych glowed even in the dim light, as though it were radiating energy of its own. John and David nodded to each other grimly, then took opposite ends of the marble-topped table sitting in front of the triptych’s center panel—
The Elevation of the Cross
—and moved it into a corner.

“I’m of average height,” David said, “so I’ll get down and do it.”

“Your height isn’t your only average dimension,” Sarah said. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

After taking off his jacket and unstrapping the shovel, David laid down on his back and centered himself on the painting, pressing the bottoms of his feet against the wall. He rested his head on the stone tiles, then lifted it so John could mark the spot with a quarter.

“There,” John said, pointing at the coin as David stood up. “That’s where we hypothesize the lost Tavernier stones to be.”

“We’ll lift that tile,” David said, “and the eight surrounding it. It’ll give us enough room to drop down into any space we uncover, and to compensate for errors in pinpointing the location.” He rummaged through Sarah’s purse until he found a hammer and a large regular screwdriver. “There’s no grout, so I think I can get them up without breaking them. Which will make it less likely anyone will discover our work.”

He placed the edge of the screwdriver between two of the tiles and lifted the hammer to strike it. Then he hesitated.

“What’s wrong?” John asked.

“I’m just recalling what happened to the last guy who did this—he dangled from the end of a rope.”

He and John took turns chiseling until they had loosened all nine tiles and stacked them off to the side. John frequently looked over his shoulder—at the closed wooden door across the nave, at the empty pews arrayed before him, at the darkened balcony above. He couldn’t rid himself of the sensation that someone was watching them. The sooner this job was over, he thought, the better.

When the tiles were up, what lay beneath looked like weathered rock, as David had predicted. It was sandy, with little or no humus or evidence of vertical development.

The two men went to work with pick and shovel. But they didn’t get far: the weathered material turned out to be fill from a previous dig. Someone—John guessed the man who was hanged in 1858—had dug in the same place before. At any rate, when they tried to go beyond the limits of the previous dig, about three feet down, they ran into solid rock—as John had predicted.

“Maybe the hangman got it all,” he suggested.

“Maybe nothing was here to begin with,” David countered. “Maybe we were naïve to think it would be as simple as lying down in front of a painting and pounding on a screwdriver.”

“There’s something I don’t get,” Sarah said. “If the tiles were pried up once before, why weren’t they loose when
we
got to them?”

“Who knows?” David answered. “The job might have been discovered and repaired.”

“Don’t forget that the church has been remodeled extensively over the years,” John said. “The tiles might be relatively new. David, maybe we just dug in the wrong spot.”

“Somebody else dug here. Was he wrong too?”

“Maybe he found the stones. Or maybe the church is just a source of more clues, rather than the actual location of the stones.”

David brushed dust from his pants. “If the stones were found, they would have been disseminated. They’d be in circulation. The Great Mogul diamond would be in a museum, rather than missing in action. If the lost Tavernier stones were out and about, believe me, I’d know it.”

“Maybe they were removed and hidden somewhere else.”

“Hell,” Sarah said, “we could ‘maybe’ for the rest of our lives. If they’re not in this church, we’re not going to find them.”

“She’s right,” John said. “It’s like the drunk searching for his lost keys at night. If the stones aren’t here—under the only streetlamp we have—they’re nowhere within our grasp.”

David made a show of peering into the empty hole. “The stones aren’t here, John.”

They filled the hole back in, replaced the tiles, and swept up as best they could with their bare hands. Then they carried the altar table back to its place in front of the triptych.

All John felt as they departed the church was relief that the ordeal was over. The others were silent and pensive. On the way back to the hotel, there was none of the childlike enthusiasm that had characterized their search up till now.

Later that night, after he had spent another two hours poring over his notes, John changed into pajamas, brushed his teeth, and climbed into bed. Just as he was reaching to turn out the light, he heard a soft knock at the door.

When he opened it, he found Sarah standing in the hallway, wearing nothing but a nightshirt. Her weight shifted from one foot to the other, and her eyes looked everywhere but into his. The nightshirt, a man’s T-shirt enlisted for the purpose, did not cover any significant portion of her thighs.

“David’s asleep,” she said.

“And?”

“And, I just thought, you know …”

Light spilling into the hallway from his bedside lamp highlighted the contours of her face. She shifted her weight again, raised her shoulders in a shrug, and met his gaze.

He opened the door wider and stepped aside. She entered the room.

Moments later, he turned out the light.

THIRTY

THE NEXT MORNING, JOHN, David, and Sarah reentered the church as soon as it opened for tourists. John could tell something was troubling David, but David made no effort to share what it was. He avoided eye contact and spoke only in short, crisp sentences.

So he knows, John thought. So he wasn’t asleep after all. Then again, maybe we woke him with all the noise.

They loitered in the church for a few minutes with their hands in their pockets, randomly inspecting artifacts. Then Sarah got an idea.

“Will you translate for me, John?”

The three approached the ticket counter at the entrance and waited until the woman working there had finished with a customer. Then John said to her in German, “The lady here,” pointing at Sarah, “would like to know whether the paintings behind the altar have always been in their present location.”

“No, certainly not,” she answered. “Everything was removed from the nave after a big rock fall in 1742, even the altar itself.”

“Did the rock fall do great damage?”

“It destroyed half the church.”

Sarah leaned impatiently over John’s shoulder. “Ask her where the paintings were hanging before the rock fall.”

The woman pointed at the balustrade opposite the stained glass windows. “Only the north side of the church, the side embedded in the rock, survived.”

“And the windows?”

“What you see are remnants of the old stained glass interspersed with modern replacements. But every effort was made to match the original design.”

“Ask her if she knows
exactly
where the paintings hung on the balustrade.”

“No,” the woman answered. “Nobody does. In fact, we only know about the former location through oral tradition. Why does the lady ask these questions?”

“Sarah, she wants to know why you’re asking these questions.”

“Tell her we’re art historians. This stuff is important, you know. Go on, tell her.”

“The lady is an art historian,” John told the woman. “The exact position of the paintings with respect to eye level is important to her from a display perspective.”

“Interesting. No one’s ever asked such questions before.”

John translated, and Sarah muttered, “That’s a relief.”

“What did she say?” the woman asked.

“She said, she wants to be the first to publish her findings.”

The three went wordlessly back down the tunnel and emerged on the platform outside the gate, blinking in the sunlight.

“We dug in the wrong place,” John said.

“Yes,” David agreed. “And so did that man in 1858.”