The first contained little more than a polite exchange of formalities and was composed with a tentative, halting tone, as if Innocenta were feeling her way toward Mrs. Rockefeller through a darkened hallway. Nonetheless, the odd reference to Mrs. Rockefeller’s artistry was contained even in this letter-“Please know that the perfection of your artistic vision, and the execution of your fancy, is well noted and accepted”-a reference that brought all of Verlaine’s ambition back the instant he read it. The second letter was a longer and slightly more intimate missive in which Innocenta explained her gratitude to Mrs. Rockefeller for the important role she held in the future of their mission, and-Verlaine noted with particular triumph-discussed the drawing that Mrs. Rockefeller must have included in the letter: “Our most admired friend, one cannot fail to marvel at your delicate renderings or receive them with humble thanks and grateful understanding.” The tone of the letter hinted that an arrangement had developed between the two women, although there was nothing concrete to be found, and certainly nothing to suggest that a plan had been arrived at. The fourth letter contained another of the references to something artistic: “As always, your hand never fails to express what the eye most wishes to behold.”
Verlaine began to explain his theory of Mrs. Rockefeller’s artwork, but Gabriella urged him to read on, clearly annoyed that he would stop. “Read the final letter,” she said. “The one dated December fifteenth, I943.”
Verlaine sifted through the pages until he found the letter.
December 15, 1943
Dearest Mrs. Rockefeller,
Your latest letter arrived at an opportune moment, as we have been laboring at our annual Christmas celebrations and are now fully prepared to commemorate our Lord’s birth. The sisters’ annual fund-raiser has been a greater success than expected, and I daresay that we will continue to draw many donations. Your assistance is also a source of great joy to us. We give thanks to the Lord for your generosity and remember you in our hourly prayers. Your name will long remain upon the lips of the sisters at St. Rose.
The charity benefit described in your letter of November has been met with great approval by all at St. Rose Convent, and I hope it will make quite a difference to our efforts to bring in new membership. After the travails and hardships of our recent battles, the great privations and declines of the past years, we nonetheless see a greater brightness emerging.
While a discerning eye is like the music of the angels-precise and measured and mysterious beyond reason-its power rests in the cast of light. Dearest benefactress, we know you chose your renderings wisely. We eagerly await further illumination and ask that you write in due haste, so that news of your work will lift our spirits.
Your fellow seeker,
Innocenta Maria Magdalena Fiori, ASA
As he read the fifth letter, a particular phrase caught Gabriella’s attention. She asked Verlaine to stop and repeat it. He backtracked and read, “‘… a discerning eye is like the music of the angels-precise and measured and mysterious beyond reason-its power rests in the cast of light.’”
He placed the stack of yellowed papers upon his lap. “Did you hear anything of interest?” he asked, anxious to test his theory about the passages.
Gabriella appeared lost in thought, gazing past him, staring out the window, her chin resting on her hand. “It is half there,” she said at last.
“Half?” Verlaine said. “Half of what?”
“Half of our mystery,” Gabriella said. “Mother Innocenta’s letters confirm something I have long suspected-namely, that the women were working together. I will need to read the other half of this correspondence to be certain,” she went on. “But I believe that Innocenta and Mrs. Rockefeller were choosing locations. Even months before Celestine brought the instrument from Pans-even months before it was retrieved from the Rhodopes-they were planning the best way to keep it safe. It is a blessing that Innocenta and Abigail Rockefeller had the intelligence and foresight to find a secure location. Now we need only to understand their methods. We need to find the location of the lyre.”
Verlaine raised an eyebrow. “Is that possible?”
“I will not be certain until I read Abigail Rockefeller’s letters to Innocenta. Clearly Innocenta was a brilliant angelologist, much smarter than she’s given credit for. All along she was urging Abigail Rockefeller to secure the future of angelology. The instruments were placed into Mrs. Rockefeller’s care only after great forethought.” Gabriella walked the length of the room, as if movement ordered her thoughts. Then she stopped short. “It must be here in New York City.”
“You are certain?” Verlaine asked.
“There is no way to know for sure, but I believe it is here. Abigail Rockefeller would have wanted to keep an eye on it.”
“You must see something in the letters that I can’t,” Verlaine said. “To me they’re just a collection of friendly exchanges between two old women. The only potentially interesting element about the letters is referred to time and time again but isn’t actually there.”
“What do you mean?” Gabriella asked.
“Did you notice how Innocenta returns over and over to the discussion of visual images? It seems that there were drawings or sketches or other artwork Abigail Rockefeller included in her letters,” Verlaine said. “These visual images must be in the other half of the correspondence. Or they have been lost.”
“You are quite right,” Gabriella said. “There is a pattern of some kind in the letters, and I am certain that this will be confirmed once we read the other half of the correspondence. Surely the ideas proposed by Innocenta were refined. Perhaps new suggestions were sent. Only when we can lay out the correspondence side by side will we have the whole picture.”
She took the letters from Verlaine and paged through them once more, reading them over as if to memorize the lines. Then she tucked them into her pocket. “We must be extremely careful,” she said. “It is paramount that we keep these letters-and the secrets they point to-away from the Nephilim. You are certain that Percival has not seen them?”
“You and Evangeline are the only people who have read them, but I did show him something else that I wish he’d never seen.” Verlaine said, removing the architectural drawings from his bag.
Gabriella took the drawings and examined them with care, her expression turning grave. “This is very unfortunate,” she said at last. “These give everything away. When he looked at these papers, did he understand their significance?”
“He didn’t seem to think they were important.”
“Ah, good,” Gabriella said, smiling slightly. “Percival was wrong. We must go at once, before he begins to understand what you have found.”
“And exactly what is it that I’ve found?” Verlaine asked, feeling that he might at last learn the significance of the drawings and the golden seal at their center.
Gabriella placed the drawings on the table and pressed them flat with her hands. “These are a set of instructions,” she said. “The seal at the center marks a location. If you notice, it is at the center of the Adoration Chapel.”
“But why?” Verlaine asked, studying the seal for the hundredth time and wondering at its meaning.
Gabriella slipped into her black silk jacket and headed to the door. “Come with me to St. Rose Convent, and I will explain everything.”
Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, New York City
Percival waited in the lobby of his apartment building, his sunglasses shielding his eyes from the unbearably bright morning. His mind was wholly absorbed in the situation at hand, one that had suddenly become even more mystifying with Gabriella Lévi-Franche Valko’s involvement. Her presence at Verlaine’s apartment was enough to signal that they had in fact hit upon something significant. They would need to move immediately, before they lost track of Verlaine.