I asked the young policeman what he thought had happened, and he seemed to think it was all pretty clear. The man had fallen, pure and simple. He did, however, have to ask me to go with him to the police station to discuss one or two things.
I spent several hours in Miskolc, a city that stretches on endlessly and not in a particularly attractive way. But maybe it was my mood. While I waited for them to check that my passport was valid, I was asked a number of questions about what I was doing in the Biikks. I told then I had Hungarian friends in Toronto who had raved about how beautiful they were, that I loved hiking and climbing, and that I'd just decided to go and have a look. They asked me if I'd come alone. I said yes. They asked if that wasn't a bit unusual for a woman. I just shrugged.
They asked me several times if I'd come with Kovacs. I said no. I told them I'd stayed at the Flora Hotel the night before, and that I'd been alone, something I thought the hotel would verify. I then waited while they checked. They did not ask me if I knew the victim, which was a jolly good thing, because I had no idea what I would say. If they found out later, I'd just have to pretend I hadn't understood them, which was not so far-fetched, because by and large I couldn't. All the while they were asking, they kept looking at the car rental papers, my passport, my driver's license, my birth certificate. This was clearly a country in which papers matter a very great deal.
Then I waited some more. I picked up the diaries and reread the sections on the Biikks.
September 14
Today is the most exceptional of days, so much so that my hand shakes as I write this. Our work, undertaken at considerable inconvenience has reached a happy conclusion. I will put it simply. We have found a skeleton in the second cave! It is, I am certain, very old, and a most distinguished individual, judging from the decoration of the cadaver. On the bones there are traces of a red substance, and it is much garlanded with necklaces and bracelets, made, I believe, of shells. What is particularly interesting is that we have some idea of how this person died. There is a smallish stone which has been worked into a point and surprisingly sharp, that, for all the body has been disturbed, it is still possible to hypothesize once rested between the ribs. It can only be that this person was stabbed and died of the wound.
With the skeleton we have found a carving, the like of which I have never seen, but very fine in character. It is of a woman, but unfortunately much damaged, except for the head and part of the torso. It is, I believe, of some sort of bone or perhaps ivory. I am much taken with it, not just because it is beautiful, but because it is an indication that this man and those of his time, capable of such artistry, are worthy ancestors indeed. That this object could have been carved with the crude tools we have found in the same stratum as the skeleton is a wonder.
My companions are quite as excited as I. We will carry the skeleton down to Lillafured to study it more carefully.
"IS LILLAFURED FAR from here?" I asked my English-speaking policeman.
"Not far, no," he said. "It is very beautiful."
"I'd like to see it," I said.
"You can go now," he said. "No climbing on rocks, please, alone." I went. The restriction was just fine with me.
Lillafured is indeed beautiful, situated as it is where two rivers meet, in a long and narrow gorge with waterfalls cascading out of dense woods. It has a rather grandiosely large and semi-elegant hotel in a turn-of-the-century hunting lodge kind of way, the Palota, in which I had no trouble getting a room. Indeed, it looked as if the season in Lillafured was almost at an end. It had a kind of "last days at Marienbad" feeling what with the spa downstairs and the dining room empty except for a few desultory visitors like me, and except for the decor, which was what Clive would call ye olde Englishe, a medieval theme with the waiters in silly costumes. I suppose it might, under different circumstances, be rather romantic there, but right now, romance was far from my mind. I called the hotel in Budapest and asked for Morgan.
"Where are you?" she said.
"Lillafured," I said.
"Lilla what?"
"It's a town in the Biikks where Piper stayed," I said. "When he was digging in the caves."
"Have you found the cave yet?"
"I'm afraid not. I did find a body, though."
"What?"
"Some guy fell," I said. "I had to spend most of the day in a police station, and I am still a little shaken, so I decided not to drive back to Budapest tonight."
"I guess not," she said. "You poor thing."
"How did you all do on Piper's house?" I said, trying not to burst into tears at this expression of sympathy.
"This is really difficult. Grace keeps saying that we mustn't complain in her usual schoolmarmish way, and Diana keeps grumbling that this is just not possible, because there have been two wars since Piper lived here, and the city was rather badly bombed. Both points of view have some validity, I suppose. Cybil on the other hand is right into this. She's convinced she's lost five pounds already. I can't tell you how far we walked. My feet will never recover."
"Does the term sensible shoes mean anything to you?" I said.
"No, it doesn't," she replied. "Despite all of the above, we have three possibles. We figured out from our 1900 book that Leopold korut is now Szent Istvan, St. Stephen, kbrut. Then Grace and I walked north and west from the Basilica—also called Szent Istvan, by the way—while Cybil and Diana walked in from the Danube near the Parliament buildings. We think the house has to be a little bit north of the Parliament, actually. There's one place on a street called Honved utca, and another one on a street called Falk Miksa utca. The third is on a street that crosses both, Marko I think it's called."
"Did you say Falk Miksa?" I said.
"Yes," she said. "Neoclassical building just up from the Parliament. Do you know it?"
"I think so," I said. Of course I did.
"Are you all right?" she said.
"Yes," I said. "I wish I was in Budapest right now, though. The hotel is practically empty and it's starting to rain. But Piper was here, so I'll have a look around and come back in time for dinner tomorrow."
"That reminds me," she said. "I picked up your messages. You're invited to dinner with Laurie Barrett and Jim McLean. Do you know these people?"
"I met Laurie in the Gerbeaud," I said. "That's nice of her. Give me the number and I'll call her."
"There's another message, too," she said. "From Karoly Molnar. Perhaps you know him too."
"See you tomorrow," I said.
"Hold it!" she said. "Since when was Karoly in Budapest?"
"A couple of days, I think. Gotta go, though. This call may be expensive."
"No, you don't," she said. "I'll reimburse you. How would he know where we were?"
"Frank told him," I said. "And don't bother asking me who told Frank, because I don't know. I'd like to, though."
"So would I," she said. "I'd vote for Cybil."
"Talk to you later," I said. She sounded genuinely surprised about Karoly and Frank, but right now I was too tired to think straight, and I wasn't convinced my antenna for deceit was working as well as it should.
I ate my dinner in the medieval-themed dining room which was in the basement, when it came right down to it, a round, tower-shaped room with stained glass windows that were supposed to represent territories stolen from Hungary over the years. The waiters' costumes had not improved any since I'd peeked in on my arrival. I sat there feeling as if the walls were moving in on me. I suppose spending time hiding out in caves will do that to you, especially if you find dead people when you venture forth. I was more shaken by what had happened than I would ever be prepared to admit out loud. It was bad enough that he was dead. What was worse was that I had no idea why he'd followed me. I'd made him very nervous, asking all those questions about the Venus's provenance. He knew where my hotel was. If he wanted to say something, why didn't he just talk to me there? If I'd really rattled some skeletons on the subject of the Venus, maybe he intended to kill me, and a nicely isolated spot in the country was the place to do it. Maybe it was a really lucky break for me that he'd fallen.