“You’ll have to explain the question to me,” I said.
“Then Rob hasn’t told you about the autopsy report,” Tabone said.
“Been busy. Haven’t had time,” a sleepy voice from the bed said. Rob kept drifting in and out of sleep and our conversation in a disconcerting way.
“Galea died approximately twelve hours before you found him, according to Dr. Caruana. I say approximately because of the time lapse between the first and second autopsies. There were indications of freezing in the extremities just as Rob predicted. So he was, we’re almost certain, killed in Canada. The good news is that this should let old Joseph Farrugia off the hook, although I’d still like to know why he went to Rome, just to reassure myself there’s absolutely no connection.
“The bad news… well, you know what it is. They also found two different blood samples on the chest. One, of course, is Galea’s. The second is B positive. Marilyn Galea’s blood is, or was, B positive. It’s not a particularly common blood type for white North Americans, either. We can’t compare it directly to hers, because we can’t find her. But I think we can safely assume it’s hers. Either she cut herself in the act of murdering her husband, or, she was herself injured, or perhaps,” he said carefully, “killed at the same time as he was. I’m not sure which way I’m leaning on that one. The blow that killed him was, according to Caruana, masterful. A quick slice up and between the ribs, puncturing the lung and left ventricle of the heart. Either the work of a professional, or a very lucky, if I may use that term in this regard, blow for an amateur.
“But the fact remains, someone used the ticket, got on the plane, and presumably used Galea’s travel documents to get into Italy. Who and why, I have no idea.
“However, to get back to the problem of the hour. Go back over, one more time, what happened tonight in the Silent City. That’s what they call Mdina, by the way, and it’s what saved you. They don’t call it that for nothing. The fancy residents of Mdina don’t like their peace disturbed. Called the police right away. You and your pursuer, or pursuers as the case may be, were making quite a ruckus, I gather, banging on doors and revving engines and all. We were told there were hooligans loose in the city.”
I went back over the evening’s events. Tabone’s eyebrows raised very slightly and there was the slightest hint of a smile when I told him about stealing the invitation, but other than that, his reaction was low-key, with none of the stomping about that Rob had done. He interrupted my narrative with questions from time to time.
“Did you see a license plate?” Answer: no.
“How many people were in the car?” Answer: two, or at least I thought I’d seen two.
“Are you absolutely certain they were deliberately trying to hit you? You know how we drive here. Perhaps they came back to make sure you were all right.”
“To apologize, you mean?” I asked incredulously.
“It’s possible,” Tabone said in a somewhat defensive tone.
“Noooo,” came a muffled reply from the bed.
“All right, then,” Tabone said. “I’ll check up on Galizia’s party, although there doesn’t seem to be anything unusual about it. Except for your arrival, of course.”
We sat quietly for a few minutes.
“Alex!” the voice from the bed said. “He called. I forgot to tell you. He wants you to call as soon as you get in. Sorry!”
It was still relatively early back home, and I knew Alex was a nighthawk, so I returned his call while Tabone watched over Rob. I apologized for calling him back so late, explaining only that I’d been to a party.
“ T got a copy of the Ellis Graham documentary and had a look. It’s a quite sensationalized account of the history of the Knights of St. John, but a rather good television show, I must say. He mentions a lot of objects that have gone missing, and talks about the old families of Malta who may be hoarding them, but the one object I think he’d be looking for now is the cross I told you about, a silver and gilt cross supposedly carried from Rhodes to Malta by Philippe Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, Grand Master at the time of the Knights’ defeat by Sulieman the Magnificent and their consequent wanderings about the Mediterranean looking for a home.”
“So you think producing the program gave him an idea of where the cross might be, and he came on a treasure hunt of sorts,” I said.
“That was certainly my assumption when I’d finished watching the documentary, and I’ve had my hunch confirmed. I talked to an old friend of mine in L.A. Turns out he worked out of the same studio as Graham, and he says that after doing the documentary, Graham became absolutely obsessed with the idea of finding that cross. He talked about it and the Knights incessantly, to the point where people thought he was a bit daft. He was convinced that the Knights would have left a secret message of some kind, telling where they’d hidden it before Napoleon threw them off the island. That would explain why you saw him peering at tombstones and the like. Anyway, I was convinced we were on the right track here, but then I learned something new. I don’t know whether this is good news or bad, but the cross has been located.”
“You’re kidding!”
“I’m not. I joined a little chat group on the Internet, a bunch of museologists who get together regularly. I thought I might get some information from them. Anyway, I was following along the conversation when one of them said that a museum in one of the former satellite states of the old USSR had just released a catalogue of their collection, and we should all have a look at it because so many of these things had been hidden from us during the Soviet era. I’m sure you’ve guessed the rest. A silver and gilt cross said to have belonged to the Knights of St. John and supposed to have been carried from Jerusalem to Rhodes to Malta, then passed from hand to hand, or should I say Grand Master to Grand Master, after the Knights left Malta, eventually worked its way into this museum. I can’t believe it, but I also can’t imagine there are two. The catalogue even mentions de L’isle-Adam.”
“But presumably Graham didn’t know that, if the news is as current as you say.”
“Exactly. He may have been looking for it, but he couldn’t have been killed for it, because it wasn’t there to find. He could have been looking for something else, of course, but it doesn’t sound like it from what my showbiz friend has told me.”
“This is getting rather bizarre,” was all I could think to say. I thanked Alex for his detective work, and then went back to watch over Rob. Tabone left shortly thereafter, and I sat watching Rob and doing a mental catalogue of my own of where this whole mess stood.
Galea was killed in Canada. Marilyn was either guilty of his murder, or was herself a victim. It looked as if he’d been killed in his own home, since there seemed to be no other opportunity to do it. But someone drove his car to the airport, parked it, used the airline ticket, and got into Italy using Galea’s travel documents.
A second murder victim, Ellis Graham, was looking for something, of that I was reasonably certain, what with the connection to his documentary and his metal detector, and all the places I’d spotted him. But the most likely object of his search wasn’t here; it was in a museum somewhere, something it was unlikely he could have known.