Caedmon peered at the frontispiece through the magnifying glass. “The All-Seeing Eye,” he murmured. “Signifying divine enlightenment, the symbol can trace its lineage all the way back to ancient Egypt.”
“The symbol is also on the Great Seal of the United States. Which is printed on the American dollar bill,” Edie informed them. She turned to their host, “Does the All-Seeing Eye have anything to do with the Templar treasure?”
“The answer to that may well be hidden within the imagery that adorns this magnificent rendering.”
“Do you mean to say that the print has an encrypted message?”
“I believe so,” Rubin said in reply to Caedmon’s query. “Sir Francis was an amateur cryptologist who frequently hid secret communiqués within his published works. The iconography on the print is highly symbolic of the hidden stream of knowledge and the seventy-seventh meridian. Given what you’ve told me today, one may reasonably conjecture that the Templars’ sacred relic is part of that esoteric mix.”
Caedmon slowly tapped a finger against his chin, his gaze fixed on the print. “Have you had any luck deciphering the encrypted message?”
“I’m an antiquarian, not a blasted code breaker.”
“I’ll take that as a no. May I have a go at it?”
“Why in God’s name do you think I had you examine the print?” Rubin irritably retorted. “Since the frontispiece cannot leave the premises, I’ll ring the St. Martin’s Lane Hotel and have your things sent around. You and your lady love may stay upstairs in the guest bedroom.”
“So much for a fabulous night on the town,” Edie groused.
Reaching under the table, Rubin opened a drawer. From it he extracted a handheld magnifying glass, which he passed to Caedmon. “You may have need of this. The devil’s in the details, as they say.”
CHAPTER 48
To kill or not to kill . . . always the question.
Standing beside the unkempt bed, Saviour rubbed a hand over his bare chest as he stared at the sleeping woman. At the bony backside. Softly rounded buttocks. Tousled blond hair. A first for him. The fact that she was a woman, not a blond. It’d been rather amusing, the way she’d gasped in surprise when he took her from behind. But gasps soon turned to whimpers and moans. Then a climactic cry. Anemostrovilos. The Greek word for “cyclone.” So similar to the Greek word for “sodomy.”
In no hurry, he took his fill of the somnolent Jocasta. Although Marnie Pritchard claimed to be thirty-five years of age, he placed her closer to fifty. Old enough to be his mother. It’d been a long time since he’d given that bitch even a passing thought. Five years after leaving the flat in Vardalis Square, he’d caught sight of his mother at the Apokries Festival before Lenten Monday. By then, the anger had mutated into a bland indifference; he’d turned and walked away from Iphigenia Argyros without so much as a wave of the hand. A free man.
Tilting his head to one side, Saviour noticed that Marnie had a mole on her upper left back. And a small pucker of cellulite under the curve of her ass. While she hadn’t been a fount, Marnie had given him some valuable information. For starters, he’d learned that Caedmon Aisquith was impersonating someone named Peter Willoughby-Jones. Making him think that Aisquith/Willoughby-Jones might be a fugitive from the law. He’d changed his own last name from Argyros to Panos after he killed Evangelos Danielides. He chose the new surname in memory of Panos Island. So he would never forget the degradation that he’d suffered and how he bested the dragon.
He’d also learned that Rubin Woolf was an expert on Francis Bacon. While he’d never heard of Francis Bacon, Mercurius was well-acquainted with the name and had been greatly interested to learn of this. Throughout the evening, he’d slyly probed and prodded, but Marnie Pritchard clearly had no knowledge of the treasure. A pity that.
His evening’s work unfinished, Saviour left the bed and padded to the dresser and snatched up Marnie’s expensive leather handbag. Purse in hand, he headed for the en suite bathroom, a luxurious room boasting a claw-footed bathtub and gas fireplace. Taking care not to make any noise, he closed the door. Sitting on the commode lid, he riffled through the bag, commandeering a cherry-red mobile phone and a key ring. He muted the ringer before shoving the mobile into his trouser pocket. Fingering through the keys—the organized Marnie having labeled them for him—he removed the silver key marked SHOP.
About to exit the bathroom, he, instead, stepped over to the gilt mirror that hung above the vanity. Frowning, he leaned closer to the glass, annoyed to see two long scratch marks etched into his smooth skin. Mercurius often admired his muscled physique. The reason why Saviour took such care with his appearance, wanting his mentor to find him physically desirable.
Together, he and Mercurius made a perfect whole. Wisdom wedded to youth. Mind and body united. A fact that Saviour realized not long after Mercurius had found him hiding in the Agía Sophía. That was when Mercurius had offered him the opportunity to be reborn, his beloved bestowing upon him a gift that could never be repaid. Though Saviour happily made the effort, Mercurius the only man, other than Ari, whom he had ever trusted. Dishonesty a trait bred in the womb.
As he left the bathroom, Saviour saw a length of fabric hanging from the back of a chair. A Fendi silk jacquard scarf. Perfect. He plucked the scarf from the back of the chair and walked over to the bed.
As he stared at the sleeping woman, he wrinkled his nose. Patchouli. A certain Düsseldorf banker had also doused himself with the sickening fragrance, the fused aroma of patchouli and sauerkraut having triggered a murderous rage.
Saviour wrapped one end of the silk scarf around his palm. Just as he was about to perform the same motion with his other hand, Marnie opened her eyes and drowsily smiled at him.
“Don’t go . . . sweet sorrow and all that.”
Dangling the length of silk, Saviour slowly trailed it over her bare breasts.
To kill or not to kill . . . always the question.
CHAPTER 49
“ ‘God is in the details.’ Who said that, Flaubert or Mies van der Rohe?” Edie, propped against a menagerie of flounced pillows in the middle of the bed, peered over the top of an art magazine.
“No bloody idea.” Caedmon sat on the other side of the guest bedroom at a large oak desk, his arse planted on another of Rubin’s unbearably uncomfortable chairs. This one a Gothic revival fit for a feudal baron. “On second thought, didn’t Michelangelo first coin the phrase?”
“Well, whoever said it, I agree with Gloria Steinem”—Edie wickedly grinned—“ ‘the goddess is in the questions.’ ”
“Well put.”
Craning his neck, Caedmon glanced at the clock on the night table: 10:05 P.M. Time to set out on his quest, smash his nose to the grindstone, and decipher the rare 1614 frontispiece.
“Still convinced that the Muses have something to do with Bacon’s secret message?”
“Mmmm . . . er, yes.” Elbows on the table, he rubbed his eyes. “In Greek mythology the Nine Muses, offspring of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, divinely inspired the arts. But more important than that, in a time before the printing press was invented, the Nine Muses were the source of oral knowledge.”
Tossing her magazine aside, Edie got off the bed. Silk, satin, and tasseled pillows tumbled in her wake. Unlike Rubin’s boudoir, the guest suite was a veritable explosion of clashing Victorian pattern, the color green being the only common denominator.