"Well, I suppose that's-"
"Or wait, wait! How about this?" She spilled a little wine in her enthusiasm and dabbed at the table with a napkin. "Maybe Bolzano was behind the storage-room break-in. Maybe the idea was that this fake-which everyone thinks is real-was going to be stolen along with everything else, and Bolzano was going to claim the insurance on it, but all the time he'd have the real one hidden away someplace where he could still enjoy it. Then Peter found out about it, and that's why he was killed."
I had listened open-mouthed, my glass held motionless. "Boy, you really get into this, don't you?"
She laughed. "You think it sounds improbable?"
"Just a little, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be true. But there are a few things that rule Bolzano out, I think."
"Like what?"
"In the first place, and most important, Bolzano very willingly OK'd the analysis of the paintings; never hesitated. Why would he do that if he had something to hide? And he gave me the micropattern on the copies without my having to ask twice for it."
"Yes, that's true."
"And Peter himself said Bolzano didn't know about the forgery; don't forget that."
"Mm. Well, what about the son, Lorenzo? Maybe he's trying to cheat his father. Maybe he sold off a real painting years ago and kept the money, and replaced it with a copy so his father wouldn't notice. Maybe-"
"I don't think so. Oh, it wouldn't amaze me to find out he was trying to put one over on il padrone- there' s a lot of tension between them-but if he had a guilty secret to hide, he'd hardly let it be shown in a public exhibition, would he? Too risky by far."
Anne nodded gloomily and finished her wine. "Yes, you're right. Back to square one."
"Back? I've never been off it."
Anne had a lunch meeting at the Zum Turken with a Bavarian state official to talk about an upcoming German-American friendship week, and I rose to go when he came in. But the middle-aged, jovial Herr Wecker was so gregarious and agreeable that I stayed to join them.
"Will you take your friend to see the night-shooting, Captain?" Herr Wecker asked, blotting his mouth with care after finishing his plate of roast beef and potatoes.
"I thought I would, yes," Anne said over the last of her wurst. "The weather's lovely."
"The night-shooting?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, and laughed. "An old ceremony, quite famous. There is gun-shooting at midnight to welcome the Christ Child. It is done at several locations around Berchtesgaden."
"They welcome the Christ Child by shooting?"
He chuckled again. "That's correct-it was done in your country, too, until this century. A very ancient custom. You are interested to know more?"
I nodded.
Herr Wecker pursed his lips while he pared the apple he had ordered for dessert. "In olden times, the farmers used to make noises with pots and pans to keep away the evil spirits. Later this noise becomes an expression of joy to praise the Christ Child, and later yet the pots and pans are replaced by pistols. No one who comes here at Christmas should think of missing this. The Berchtesgadener Weihnachtschutzen."
"It sounds quite interesting," I said politely.
"It is, actually," Anne said with a smile. "They fire beautiful old black-powder pistols, and they dress in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century hunting costumes. They even hold a session up here on the mountain. We could drive to it in five minutes, or there's a trail through the forest if you're in the mood for walking."
Herr Wecker nodded while he meticulously quartered the apple and cored the segments. "Everyone shoots on signal from the leader. The flashes are so bright you would think it is daytime. You almost cannot look. It is marvelous." He carefully inspected the apple pieces. "Don't forget about your kidneys."
"Pardon me?" Anne and I said at the same time.
"It will be very cold at midnight. You must protect your kidneys adequately."
"Ah," I said, "we shall." I should have realized what he meant. From an American perspective, Europeans expend an exorbitant amount of energy figuring out how to protect their kidneys. That doesn't include the English, who spend their time worrying about their livers.
Herr Wecker ate his apple quarters with wonderful delicacy, holding them with two fingers in front of his mouth and reaching for them with his lips, as if they were juicy mangoes that might splatter his neat green Bavarian-style suit. When he finished the last one, he wiped his hands thoroughly on the cloth napkin, grasped my forearm, and delivered a final inducement. "The noise is so great you will believe you are going deaf."
Anne looked at her watch, then drained her coffee, sighed, and stood up. "Christmas Eve or not, Herr Wecker and I still have an afternoon's planning ahead of us. I'll see you for a late dinner, Chris, if you don't mind waiting. And we can skip the Weihnachtschutzen if you're not in the mood."
"Not in the mood?" I said. "I wouldn't miss it."
"Gut," said Herr Wecker with approval. "You will enjoy it wonderfully."
He would have been surprised to know that the prospect of being blinded and deafened by gunfire held no appeal whatsoever. But the idea of a wintry Alpine walk with Anne under a black velvet sky glittering with stars was another thing.
I spent most of the afternoon in shameless indolence while Anne and Wecker slaved over their planning. I wandered along piney, deserted trails, my mind contentedly emptied by the sparkling air and the stunning views of mountains, forests, and snowfields through the trees.
At about four I checked into the General Walker, the rambling U.S. military hotel that had originally been constructed as a "people's guest house," where the crowds who made the pilgrimage to the Obersalzberg could spend a full day and night within a few hundred yards of their glorious fuhrer for a single mark. From my room I called Jessick in Berlin.
"Did Kohler get in to look at the paintings?"
"Yes, sir, he came and went already. He said to tell you that-wait a minute, he left a note…" Paper rustled near the telephone. " 'Piero della Francesca,' " he read slowly, " 'was originally painted in tempera. Restored at least four times, three in tempera, once in oils. Never extensively. No reason to doubt attribution.' He said if you call him he'll explain what he did."
So that was that, and I can't say I was surprised. Now I was down to the three paintings from the cache: the Vermeer, the Titian, and the Rubens. That should have made me feel that I was getting closer, but it worried me. None of them was really a credible fake, if it makes any sense to put it that way. I still had some checking to do on them in London, but I had a stomach-sinking conviction that they would all turn out to be the real thing; that I'd been pursuing something that wasn't there.
And where would that leave me? Would it mean that Peter had been wrong, that perhaps he'd spotted what I had on the Piero, and had jumped to a false conclusion? Unlikely. Or maybe the forgery was there, all right, staring me in the face, but I was too dense to see it. Or did it mean that there had never been a forgery in the first place; that Peter, with all his oddly cagey talk, had been trying to tell me something else? But what? And if there were no forgery, why had he been so elaborately murdered? Whew.
"Hey," Jessick said, "-er, sir-how's Berchtesgaden? Boy, I love it down there at Christmas."
"It's beautiful. And Conrad, 'hey' is fine."
"Yes, sir. Are you going to the shooting? It's fantastic."
"I think so. Conrad, has Harry Gucci tried to reach me there? I've been trying to get him since yesterday."
"Uh-uh. He's supposed to be back here tomorrow, but."
"Good. Will you ask him to give me a call? No, tomorrow's Christmas; you won't be in the office, will you?"
"Gee, I'd be glad to," he said sadly, "but I won't be here. It's Christmas."
"Oh, is it? Well, merry Christmas, Conrad."