clock. About thirty inches tall, it was identical to the one depicted in the memorial back in the main nave. Except this one was intact.
He walked over and tried to lift it. Way too heavy.
“We’ve not moved it in years,” the curator said.
He examined the exterior, gently running his fingers across the marble.
“That’s a valuable piece of history,” the curator said, in a tone that advised caution.
“I don’t have a good track record with those.” He’d already noticed that this clock had a glass front across the face that opened, exposing the hands—a way to wind it and surely to access the inner workings. The face was set to twenty minutes before two.
“Does this thing work?” he asked.
“Not to my knowledge. It’s sat here since the 18th century.”
Why was he not surprised. “You don’t change a lot of things, do you?”
“It’s important that the building remain as it was. History matters, Mr. Malone.”
That it did.
Something occurred to him. “I thought Napoleon looted everything?”
“I doubt a heavy marble clock that doesn’t work would have interested him. There’s nothing special about it, beside the fact that it’s old. It survived, as did a lot of other artifacts, because it carried no obvious value.”
No way to determine if there was anything rattling around inside, but he assumed if that had been obvious somebody over the course of the past two hundred years would have noticed. Within his eidetic memory he visualized the targeted memorial.
“On the cracked-open clock out in the nave,” he said, “if you close the hinge the time would read twenty minutes before two. Just like here. This one is also identical in size, shape, and color.”
“It was not uncommon for items in the cathedral to become part of the tombs,” the curator said. “Either the knight himself would fashion the memorial, or a relative or a friend would do it in honor of him. It all depended on the ego and resources of the knight.”
The cardinal examined the clock. “What we want is inside this thing?”
“It certainly seems that way,” Cotton said.
Though the sides and base were marble, the ornate, pointy top was fashioned of ceramic, cemented to the stone by a mortar joint.
Cotton examined the seam.
Solid and old.
“We’re going to need a hammer and chisel,” he said.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Luke studied the buildings facing Republic Street. All were dark and quiet, most of their windows shielded by metal accordion screens. Few people milled about on the sidewalks. Valletta had finally settled down for the night. But Laura Price had not. What was she doing in that shop? She’d clearly wanted to get there, as it had been her idea back inside the cathedral to check outside. He’d been suspicious of her ever since the safe house. He could not isolate one particular thing that had tripped his suspicion button, but something about her simply had not rung right.
He kept the gun at his side, close to his thigh, the barrel pointed down as he left the square, crossed the street, and approached the door she’d entered. It sat ten feet past Republic, in a darker narrow alley that ran on forever to another distant street. He tested the knob. It turned.
The door was open?
Nothing about that was good.
Why would she use a key to gain entrance, then leave it unlocked? Was she expecting someone else who didn’t have a key? Or was this a trap laid just for him? Being the deer in the hunt was never fun. But like those cagey animals back in frigid Nebraska twenty years ago, he wasn’t stupid. He pushed open the door, entered, then closed it, leaving it unlocked.
Why not?
Just in case there were others invited to the party.
He stood inside a small foyer. A doorway to the right opened into what appeared to be a souvenir shop. A stone stairway directly in front of him led up at a steep angle. Since all was quiet in the shop, Laura had to have gone up. He brought the gun out before him and climbed the narrow risers. Not a sound betrayed his presence. The stairway was nearly pitch-dark, only scant residual light leaking in from the shop windows below. He seemed vulnerable, as those deer should have felt when they were flushed back to the draw.
He came to the top.
A short hall led past two more open doorways.
He approached the first, pressed his right shoulder to the wall, and stole a quick glance inside. The minuscule room was filled with chairs, stacked one onto another,