“And my friend Marilyn will be back on, I suppose. Has she turned up?”
“Nope. No sign of her. I talked to my chief before you got back. We’ve had men with dogs out searching the ravine behind the house, and we’ve gone over the house and his car in the airport garage with a fine-tooth comb. No blood in the car anywhere. Only the fingerprints you’d expect in his car and his house. His, the maid’s, and lots of other prints we assume are hers. We have his prints from his visa application, and Tabone has also sent a copy of the real thing from here. There aren’t many prints on the steering wheel. He wore driving gloves most of the time, I’m told. Anyway, the short answer to your question is that there is no sign of Mrs. Galea.”
He served up the beef with a green salad and poured a very passable Maltese Cabernet. As we ate we talked about our experiences as tourists on this charming island, and we seemed, for a brief moment or two, to be establishing rapport.
Inevitably, however, the conversation turned to the two murders.
“Don’t you think it’s odd that two foreign visitors turn up dead—murdered no less—on this tiny little island within a few days of each other?”
“Tabone said much the same thing. He said the place was going to the dogs, or words to that effect. Two visitors murdered, and a couple of priests attacked someplace—Mdina, I think he said. You’d think priests would be pretty safe in a place like this, wouldn’t you? All these churches!” he mused. “But if you’re thinking there might be a connection, very unlikely, I’d say.”
“I don’t know why, but I can’t shake the feeling that they are linked in some way, that if we followed the threads, worked our way through the two cases, we’d end up at the same place, somehow.”
“I’m here to investigate Galea’s death and I’m going to stick to that. Investigating Graham would be a waste of time, in my opinion,” he said. “I mean if you’re looking for a link between Galea and Graham, the only obvious link is you. You knew Galea, you were on the same plane as Graham, you’re the one who kept bumping into him. I didn’t come here to investigate every crime on the island!”
I could feel myself getting really irritated. “And why exactly are you here?” I asked in a faintly accusing tone. “Do they usually send a sergeant from the RCMP every time a Canadian gets killed abroad? What is this, a reward for good behavior or something? Got some information on your chief he’d rather you not report?”
He looked at me for a second or two. “Consolation prize, more likely,” he said finally. “I’ve been on disability leave for a while. Had a bit of an accident. I thought I was closing in on some big-time drug dealers. It turns out they were closing in on me.” I just looked at him, and after a pause he continued.
“We had a bit of a confrontation, of the automotive sort. The trouble was, I was driving a squad car, they were driving a truck. I don’t remember much except the headlights coming at me broadside. I woke up a few days later in hospital. I was a bit of a mess. I’d like to say ‘you should see the other guy,” but the other guy got away. I had a lot of time to contemplate the state of the universe, whether to stay on—on the force, I mean—and I guess I will. I’m due back soon, but I guess I’m in for a desk job. I hope I’ll get used to it,“ he said tersely.
“But to answer your question more directly: The Maltese authorities asked for some help with this one. There really wasn’t anyone available, but I guess they thought I was well enough to muddle my way around an island sixteen miles long.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling like a jerk. I’d noticed he was limping a couple of times, and I’d just never thought about it. I wondered why this was the way it was between him and me. I always assumed the worst about him, and then found out that quite the opposite was true. “I was being a bit of a pig.”
“Forget it,” he said. “I was being a bit of a pig myself. To give your musings the attention they deserve, let’s assume there is a link somehow between the two. What would Graham be doing here that would get him killed?”
“I kept wondering if all the places where I saw him have something in common, other than Gerolamo Cassar, I mean,” I replied. “I did a little research and found they do. Although what it all means, I’m not sure.”
“Go on,” he said.
“Well,” I said, drawing a deep breath, “Anthony emphasized the architecture of Valletta, overemphasized it, I’d have to say, because of his enthusiasm for his subject. He took me to see many of the buildings designed by Gerolamo Cassar, but other than mentioning briefly that Cassar had studied with some other architect—Laparelli, I think he said—who was the Pope’s architect, he didn’t say much about him. But Cassar was the architect to the Knights of Malta, or more formally, the Sovereign Military and Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta, the so-called Knights of St. John. Malta was their home for about 250 years.
“The Knights were organized into what were called langues, languages or tongues. There were eight originally, named for the countries the Knights originally came from. Langues were headed by piliers or priors and were accommodated in their own inns or auberges. The Head of the Order was called the Grand Master.”
“And so?” Rob said.
“So, all the buildings Anthony took me to were originally buildings belonging to the Order. The Prime Minister’s office: originally the Auberge of Castille et Leon; the Post Office, the Auberge d’ltalie; the Museum of Archaeology, the Auberge de Provence. The House of Representatives was the Palace of the Grand Master. Verdala Palace—it was near there that I had the little incident on the road—was once the summer house of the Grand Master.
“And the clincher,” I said, “is St. John’s Cathedral. That was the Knights’ own church, and the crypt is where many of the Grand Masters are buried!”
“And your point is… ?” the Mountie said.
I glared at him. “I’m not really sure. But every place I saw Graham was related in a very direct way to the Knights. There are lots of stories about the Knights, both the Knights of St. John and the Knights Templar, those whose job it was to guard the temple in Jerusalem. There are all kinds of rumors of great treasure of incomparable worth hidden by the Knights, like the Chalice, for example, and more than that, lots of conspiracy theories, that some of the Knights went underground, so to speak, and are now in very powerful positions, except that we don’t know who they are.” I knew as soon as the words came out of my mouth that they would not sit well with this particular law enforcement officer.
He looked at me rather disdainfully. “I’ve read about those. What’s that Italian semiotics professor—Eco? He wrote a book about that.”
“Foucault’s Pendulum!”
“Right. That’s the one. Great book, or should I say, great work of fiction. Surely you are not talking about secret societies that rule the world unbeknownst to us! Are you saying that Graham, if that’s his name, was killed to protect the conspiracy, or something? That he was stuck on a Knight’s sword as a sign, no better still, a warning?”