I was in a hurry to get back to the house. It was, with all the fussing about at Mnajdra, getting well into the afternoon, and I was expecting Alex to call. I’d left a message on the answering machine at the shop, knowing that Alex always checked that from home very early, and it had been the middle of the night Toronto time when I’d been able to extract details on the Great White Hunter out of the Mountie. I’d learned, after considerable dancing around the subject, a great deal of pretending that our tiff of the evening before had never taken place, and on top of it all, having to cook him breakfast, that the corpse in the safari suit was an American by the name of Ellis Graham. His home address was Los Angeles; his occupation was listed as film producer. Rob had obviously had a call from Tabone the previous evening. I’d heard the phone ring but was too busy sulking to ask about it at the time, and too proud to ask directly the next morning.
Alex, a man of many talents, had worked very briefly as an actor when he retired and was trying to find a way to supplement his pension. He’d gone to one of those cattle call auditions and actually got to play the grandfather in a commercial for a burger chain. As a result, flushed with success he told me, he’d joined Actors Equity. It was his first and last part, but I figured his union connections might assist us in getting information on Ellis Graham, film producer.
While I waited for his call, however, I had to deal with a sad Marissa and a very agitated Anthony. He arrived just as I was explaining to Marissa what had happened at Mnajdra and was showing her Sophia’s torn costume.
“Mum!” he shouted, coming through the door at breakneck speed. “Where are you? They’ve taken Dad away. The police. They’ve taken him to Floriana for questioning. What will we do?”
Marissa looked sad and uncomfortable. “Anthony,” I said, “relax. They’re interviewing all of us. I was there a couple of days ago and so was your mother.”
“But Dad wasn’t even here when Mr. Galea arrived, I mean, when his body got here. I don’t understand this!” he exclaimed, his lower lip trembling.
“I’m sure they are talking to everyone who knew Mr. Galea, to help them with their investigation,”‘ I said in my most soothing tone, the one usually reserved for irate customers. “I’m sure your father will be glad to help the police with their investigation.” Anthony looked somewhat mollified, but I felt awful.
“Anthony,” I said, “how’d you like to help out with a real problem? The storage shed at Mnajdra was broken into last night, and the outside was damaged. It needs to be painted, and with the performance only two nights away, it’s a bit of an emergency. Victor Deva, a friend of Dr. Stanhope, is getting paint and some help from a cousin of his, but I’m not sure they can get it done in time. It’s a big job. Do you think you could help? I’m sure Sophia would really be pleased.”
Anthony looked slightly dubious.
“You could take the car. That is, if your mother thinks it’s okay,” I added. Anthony capitulated totally. Soon he was off, engine revving, to help out at Mnajdra.
“Thank you,” Marissa said, taking Sophia’s costume out of my hands and smoothing it carefully. “I’ll take very good care of this dress,” she said. Then, as she turned to leave, she asked, “Do you have children?”
“No,” I replied.
“Perhaps you should have,” she said. “You handle Anthony better than I do.”
“You know that’s not true. If’s always easier for a stranger in these circumstances,” I said in an offhand way, but the truth was I didn’t much want to think about what she had said. It was a conversation I’d had with myself often enough to know I didn’t like the conclusion I reached. Mercifully, the phone rang, and there was Alex.
“Make yourself comfortable, Lara. This will take a while, long-distance call or no. The good news is that Sarah has been assured by the executors of Martin Galea’s estate that, unless one of us is found to have murdered Galea, there will be no problem with payment of our account, I’m pleased to say. Dave Thomson has been told the same thing, by the way. Much relief all round. The wolf was nearing the door.
“Now let me get to your question, the possible link between Graham and the Knights of Malta. I’m going to cut to the chase, here. I think Ellis Graham was a treasure hunter, and I even have an idea of what he was looking for. On the surface, Graham was exactly what he said he was: a film producer. He was actually a documentary filmmaker, and he specialized in documentaries on lost treasure: Aztec gold, shipwrecks, that sort of thing. Most recently he did a piece for the BBC on, you guessed it, the Knights of Malta, and on a great treasure belonging to the Knights, which he believed had been missing for a very long time. I actually watched the documentary on television some months ago, but I didn’t know who the producer was until I researched this for you this morning.
“The point Graham made quite vividly, as I recall, was that the Knights were fabulously wealthy. To get into the Order, you had to come from only the best—by which was meant aristocratic—background, with an impeccable family history, which is to say, no hint of illegitimacy on either side of the family back for several generations. Technically, anyway. It seems some Popes were able to get offspring into the Order. One can only imagine the contortions they would have put their family history through for that.” He laughed. “It reminds me a bit of some exclusive schools and colleges: Parents had to register their sons at birth, and the admission fees were hefty to say the least. So the Knights began life as wealthy people, and they became even wealthier.
“Having been driven from Jerusalem, Acre, and Rhodes, the Knights settled on Malta, and after surviving the Great Siege by the Turks, stayed there for 268 years, growing ever richer. They might have stayed forever, I suppose, except that they had a date with destiny in the person of Napoleon, who took Malta in 1798 on his way to Alexandria and his confrontation with Nelson at the Battle of the Nile.
“Napoleon didn’t stay long, but he was there long enough to order the Knights to leave—which they did with barely a struggle, because by this time they had grown lazy and corrupt and were in no position or condition to fight—and he was also there long enough to loot and pillage. For example, it is believed he had the silver platters that the Knights used to serve their patients melted down to pay his soldiers for the Egyptian campaign. Various works of art were loaded onto ships and taken away from Malta, the British in hot pursuit. One ship, the Orient, was sunk with its treasure aboard.
“Anyway you get the idea. The point is because of the Knights‘, shall we say, ambulatory and event-filled history, there’s no way of being certain what they had nor what might be missing. Who’s to say what got left behind in Jerusalem, or Acre, or Rhodes, or what got hidden away on Malta before they left thinking perhaps they would return, or for that matter, melted down or carted away by the French? You can almost understand the rumors, considering the history.
“Nonetheless, Ellis focused most particularly, if I recall, on a specific religious relic, a special silver cross the Knights had carried with them all the way from Jerusalem, that he felt might still be in Malta. He left the impression, and I don’t have any idea whether or not this is correct, that a lot of the treasures are still on the island, hidden away in wealthy people’s homes.
“My recollection is that Graham thought the cross could be found hidden either in Valletta, or in another city, Mdina, I think it was, where wealthy families are rumored to have stored away many treasures of the Order: silver, paintings, (there are rumored to be Caravaggios hanging in back rooms of the old houses) porcelain, stunning jewels. With the chaos that would have taken place when the Knights were expelled, that might have been easy enough to do. I wonder if he thought the Knights would have left clues to the location of these treasures. I have a mind he was searching for clues when you kept running into him. Maybe he thought there was a secret code in the carvings in the crypt or something like that.