Read Online Madrigal by J. Robert Janes - Free Book Online Page B

thought of Avignon and of men like de Passe.
    â€˜Ah merde ,’ he croaked, ‘have I gone too far this time?’ The lady’s wrist-watch he had found in her handbag was from Carder’s and, though it was tastefully modest and had but a plain brown leather strap, the watch would have cost from 30,000 to 50,000 francs in 1938, the year it must have been purchased.
    Ovid Peretti gently stroked the girl’s breasts using a swab of cotton wool. He did her hips and arms, the inner thighs. He wasn’t going to miss a thing and that was good. Because I have, thought St-Cyr, cursing himself. There had been three rings on the fine gold chain that had hung about her neck – he was positive of this and had reread his notes – and now, unfortunately, there were only two of them.
    Search as he had, no sign of the third ring had been uncovered. ‘The sisters,’ he said. ‘One of them made off with a trinket.’
    The cotton swab was added to others in a labelled glass vial. ‘ Le bijou par excellence , eh?’ snorted Peretti. ‘Are you still certain the youngest of the sisters was vomiting only because of this place, or are you now wondering if God’s servant, in all of her innocence, also did it to distract you?’
    â€˜That was no act. The younger sister was suffering deeply from grief as well as a queasy stomach, but the older one must have used these against me. The ring had a ruby cabochon of at least four carats.’
    â€˜Pigeon’s blood and free from flaws?’
    â€˜Why did they take it?’
    Had Jean-Louis now realized that, at the very least, the younger sister must also have known what they had been told to retrieve?
    â€˜Was it the bishop’s?’ hazarded St-Cyr.
    â€˜And on loan? You’re asking the wrong person, mon ami. ’
    â€˜Then what about this?’
    At least six hundred years old, the pendant box that was attached to her girdle next to the sewing kit was ovoid in shape, and not more than six centimetres long by about three in width, and one-and-a-half in thickness. Foiled crystals, in silver gilt, threw back a golden light when the box was opened to reveal a thorn.
    â€˜Christ wore a crown of thorns,’ murmured Peretti, ‘but this one bathed herself before going to her death. After the bath, an oil of some kind was used.’
    â€˜One that she had made herself?’
    â€˜Perhaps.’
    In the pendant box, in translucent enamel, Christ was depicted on the Cross, and being lifted gently down from it. The tiny figures wore vivid colours of blue, green, red and saffron yellow. The clothing of the Virgin Mary and of Mary Magdalene and the Disciples was medieval and of a style probably worn fifty to one hundred years earlier than the Babylonian Captivity.
    â€˜Louis the Ninth led the Seventh Crusade,’ muttered St-Cyr, his mind lost to the relic. ‘In 1250 he was defeated at El Mansura and held for ransom, after which he remained in the Holy Land until 1254. He died of the plague in Tunis in 1270, soon after landing at the head of another crusade. History has it that he purchased the Crown of Thorns from the Emperor of Constantinople.’
    â€˜Even canonized kings can be conned,’ said Peretti dryly.
    â€˜Ah yes, but did the bishop lend it to her? The fastener was loose as though an attempt had been made to take it back.’
    And hidden away among the folds of a black habit. ‘Then you’d better ask him in the presence of those two sisters.’
    â€˜I’ll attempt to, but first I must catch up with my partner.’
    â€˜Then before you go, please take a look at this. It was caught in that broken fingernail.’
    The image of a single hair rushed up the ocular to meet the eye – short, stiff and tan-coloured, and most probably from a dog.
    â€˜I’ll need to make microscopic comparisons, and of sections too,’ said Peretti, ‘and for this I must have