“You can ask him,” Konrad answered simply. He raised his voice and called out, “Livia! Please come here.”
His daughter came out of the bedroom to join them. Segar saw her eyes go to the four playing cards in the center of the table. “What is it, Father?”
“Go to Cuza’s camper and ask if he is well enough to join us now. If he is not, ask if we might visit him.”
She nodded. “I’ll go at once.”
Segar watched through the window as she cut across the campground weaving through the crowds of townspeople. “You will have your answer very shortly,” Konrad told Radu.
Michael had reached out to pick up the four worn playing cards and was turning them over in his hands. He studied the identical Albanian flags on the back and asked, “Did your father come from Albania, Konrad?”
“He acquired the cards once when passing through there, in the late nineteen thirties.”
“And he kept the rest of the deck?”
“No. He threw it into the campfire.”
“That’s right,” Reynard confirmed. “I remember that part.”
“The black eagle is similar to the one on the old Austrian flag, except it has two heads.”
“Albania is called the Land of the Eagle,” Konrad explained. “The two- headed black eagle is on the red background is the flag Scanderbeg used in his revolt against the Turks five hundred years ago. It is very dear to the Albanian people.”
“Have you been there recently?”
“Not since the Communists took over in nineteen forty-four. Romania is bad enough but at least there is some freedom here.”
Segar started to say something in defense of the present government, but his words were cut short by the sudden return of Livia. She was out of breath from running and her face was ashen.
“What is it?” her father asked, rising to his feet.
“Cuza is dead! He’s been murdered.”
Cuza had come to the festival grounds in a small camping vehicle. A canvas covering at the back gave it the look of a tent, and Captain Segar thought it more in keeping with the Gypsy spirit than the more modern trailers and camping vehicles. Livia led the way under the canvas flap and then held open the door of the vehicle so Segar and Michael could enter first.
The inside was more spacious and modern than one would have guessed from the exterior with bunk beds, a bottled-gas stove and a working refrigerator. There was even running water, apparently from a tank carried at the front of the vehicle. Cuza was in the lower of the bunk beds. Blankets covered his body to the neck but even so it was easy to see the blood from the deep throat wound.
“A knife,” Segar guessed. “A single slash while he slept.”
Konrad Zuloaga entered then, trying to keep Radu and Reynard from following him through the doorway. “Like my brother,” he said his voice full of sadness.
“It means the killer is here,” Michael told them, “on the festival grounds.”
“It means more than that,” Radu Heron argued. “Zuloaga killed old Cuza himself when he saw him at lunch. That’s how he got his clue to the treasure.”
“It does appear that the camper has been searched,” Segar pointed out indicating a half-open drawer and some papers on the floor. He bent to pick up a road map of the area that had been carelessly refolded in the wrong way.
“As I told you,” Radu persisted. “Zuloaga killed him, found the playing card and took it.”
Michael turned to stare at him. “For what purpose? To reveal it to us, as Cuza himself would have done?”
“No, to substitute another card and keep the location of the treasure to himself.”
Konrad could take no more. “I loved and respected your father, Radu, but I can tolerate these charges no longer. Outside, we will settle this with knives!”
“No!” Livia screamed, grabbing her father’s arm. “You’re doing this for me. Stop it, both of you!”
“Not for you,” Konrad told her. “For my honor.”
Radu glared at Livia and spat on the floor. “I will wait outside with my knife.”
“I want to see that knife,” Segar said. “Give it here.”
“By whose order?”
Segar showed his badge and identification. “I have jurisdiction here until the arrival of the local police.” He took the knife that Radu grudgingly surrendered and looked carefully at the blade. He could see no traces of dried blood but decided to keep possession of it for a while.
Michael was sniffing the air around the stove. He stopped to peer care-fully at one of the burners. “Segar, I can see some charred remains here. Something was burned recently. You can still catch a whiff of it in the air.”
Segar glanced at the burner. “Nothing but charred remains, whatever it was.”
He turned back to the others, going through the investigative routine he knew so well. “What time did you last see Cuza alive, Mr. Zuloaga?”
“About one-fifteen. That is when he gave me the card.”
“I’d guess he’s been dead over an hour, so he was probably killed before the start of the two o’clock meeting. If the motive was that playing card, it was important for the killer to strike before the meeting.”
“Of course,” Raynard agreed. “But Konrad already had the card.”
“The killer had no way of knowing that,” Segar said. Radu glared at him.
“You’re saying it was Reynard or me?”
Before Segar could answer, Michael gave a cry of triumph. Still bent over the stove he lifted a portion of the burner and produced a tiny bit of stiff paper charred on one side. “What is it, Michael?” Konrad asked.
“The corner of a playing card. See the red back?”
“The missing card!”
“Can you tell which card it is?” Segar asked.
“I can, but it only confirms what I already knew. The card is the six of spades.”
“The six of spades,” Konrad Zuloaga repeated. “And whose card is it?”
“Your dead brother’s, I think.”
Segar ran over them from memory. “The six of spades, the six and eight of diamonds, the eight of clubs and hearts. How can that tell anyone where the Gypsy treasure is hidden?”
“It tells us that,” Michael insisted, “and it also tells us who killed Greystone and old Cuza.”
While they waited for the Oradea police to arrive, Michael herded everyone back to Zuloaga’s mobile home. In addition to Konrad and Reynard and Radu, Livia joined them, along with Charlotte, the woman traveling with Reynard. As they settled down around the table, Livia averted her eyes from Radu. She had not spoken to her former husband all day so far as Michael and Segar could tell.
“I'll try to keep this as brief as possible,” Michael explained, “so we can wrap it all up before the local police become involved. There are really only two logical possibilities regarding that burnt six of spades. One, it was Cuza’s card and Konrad burned it after killing him so he could substitute the eight of clubs he showed us earlier. But I think I can show that it’s highly unlikely any of the cards were substitutions.
“We’ve heard that Konrad and Greystone’s father burned the rest of the original deck after passing out those five cards years ago. Since a deck with an Albanian flag on the back would be difficult to obtain in Romania, especially during the war, I think we can safely assume that none of you had a duplicate card or deck at the time. Did one of the five obtain a duplicate deck years later with the purpose of hiding the treasure’s location from all but himself? No, again, because all four of those cards came from a deck printed prior to nineteen forty-four.”
“How do you know that?” Livia asked.
“Look again at the Albanian flag. A two-headed black eagle against the red background. Is that same flag in use by Albania today?”
“Of course it is,” Konrad insisted.
Michael Vlado smiled and shook his head. “A minor but important change was made in 1944 by the new Communist government. A gold-edged red star, a
symbol of Communism, was added just above the eagle’s twin heads. So we can safely say the playing cards are the genuine article, because we can prove that they predate nineteen forty-four. Now if these four are genuine what about the fifth one? There would be no purpose served in burning a fake card. Yet if the fifth one is genuine it could only have come from Greystone. It must be the missing fifth card, and we can reasonably assume it was brought to Cuza’s trailer by Greystone’s killer, who then killed Cuza.”
“Wait a minute,” Konrad interrupted. “Why would he keep my brother’s card for a few days and then burn it?”
“He kept it as a possible match to Cuza’s or others that he found. But after killing Cuza he must have realized that if the card was found on him it would link him with this latest murder. So he burned it before leaving the trailer.”
Konrad shook his head. “I would think he would keep the cards if he was seeking the treasure. Why kill us just to destroy them?”
“Exactly,” Michael agreed. “Just to destroy them. The most likely reason is that the killer already knew the location of the treasure. He killed to keep the rest of you from finding out the location and discovering that the treasure is no longer there.”
“Not there?” Radu gasped. “Where is it?”
“Remember the cards. Forget the suits – they’re not important. The cards were three eights and two sixes. And what is that combination of cards called?” The others around the table looked blank. “The American game of poker is played throughout the world – even among Gypsies, as we saw when we arrived here today. And English-language phrases are often use. This combination of the three of a kind and two of a kind is called a full house.”
“A full house,” Konrad repeated.
“The house of Rudolph Fuhl, that farmer from across the road. We heard that the Prando farm was formerly on both sides of the road, and when the treasure was hidden the Fuhl house was part of it. In the intervening years, Fuhl found the treasure, perhaps from a clue left by his father. Then you wrote to say the Gypsies would gather to uncover the hiding place and he knew he had to act. He killed Greystone and Cuza in the hope of stealing their cards and keeping the hiding place a secret forever. It would be a simple task for him to return here this afternoon with the crowds and sneak into Cuza’s trailer.”
Radu Heron was on his feet. “Let’s get him!” he shouted and ran for the door. Segar made a grab for him but missed.
They hurried after him with Michael and Segar in the lead. To Rudolph Fuhl, watching from his house, it must have seemed as if the entire Gypsy encampment might be storming the place. He appeared at the front door, rifle in hand and killed Radu with a single shot. Before he could fire again, Captain Segar brought him down with two bullets from his pistol.
Fuhl confessed to the killings before he died, and in the basement of his house they found what little was left of the Gypsy treasure. “There’s something, at least,” Konrad Zuloaga said. “It’ll feed a few families.”
Michael nodded. Then he said, “I must be getting back to Gravita. The only treasure there is the beauty of the hills, but perhaps that is all we really need.”
PUNISHMENT FOR A GYPSY
There are places in the mountains of Romania where the old customs die hard, where even the country’s Communist government has had little impact on changing the way people have lived and worked and died for centuries. It is a land of superstition compounded by Gypsy lore and vampire myth, a land where one sometimes hopes and prays that things are not what they seem.
The following happened in the village of Bistritz, where people believed that the old superstitions could only be fought by the old laws. Michael Vlado told it to his friend, Captain Segar, one summer’s day in Gravita as they watched Gypsy children playing on a freshly made haystack.
Michael had driven down the mountain for supplies and it was only by chance that he decided to take the rougher but shorter road that led through the village of Bistritz. Unlike Michael’s own home at Gravita, Bistritz was not a Gypsy settlement, although a few of his people were known to travel in the area.
There was a small crowd of people in the center of the village, at the cross-roads, and rather than try driving around them Michael brought his pickup truck to a halt. That was a mistake. A tall man wearing a black suit and a neck-tie spotted him at once and pointed a finger. “A Gypsy! We have us a Gypsy!”
At once the truck was surrounded by a half dozen men and Michael was dragged out of the cab. “What is this?” he shouted. “Let me go! I am Michael Vlado from Gravita –”
But if they recognized him as a Gypsy leader, it meant nothing to them. “We don’t care who you are,” the tall man growled. “There’s a job to be done and you’re the one to do it.”
“What job?” Michael managed to ask with growing alarm.
“The Gypsy, Arad Bercovia, is to be executed for murder at high noon. We are following the ancient law that says the first Gypsy met on the road is to serve as his executioner.”
“That’s insane!” Michael protested. “Even in Romania that custom has not been practiced for a hundred years.”
“His crime is an old one,” the tall man said. “So we have chosen a punishment just as old.”
“You spoke of murder.”
“So I did. I am Konrad Kanici, the magistrate of Bistritz. It is I who passed sentence on the Gypsy, Bercovia, for the murder of our shopkeeper, Marco Rapnell, in his own home.”
“I am no executioner,” Michael insisted. “I was simply driving through your village.”
“Hang them both!” someone shouted from the crowd.
The others surged around him and Michael was outnumbered at their mercy. He couldn’t save the condemned man or himself by continuing to resist. He had an hour before the appointed time of execution and a great deal could change in an hour’s time. “All right,” he told the black-clad magistrate. “Show me the man I must execute.”
They led him inside a wooden building that served as a meeting hall to a table where he stood facing a weeping, terrified young man wearing a colorful Gypsy shirt and bandanna and a single gold earring.
“Are you Arad Bercovia?” Michael asked.
“I am Arad.”
“This Gypsy is to be your executioner,” the magistrate announced, “according to the old law. You will hang from that pine tree in one hour’s time.”
“No!” the young man cried. “I swear I did not throw the knife which killed Rapnell!”
“Let me spend some time alone with my Gypsy brother,” Michael pleaded. “I must hear his story.”
“His story is simple enough. He was traveling with a carnival when he met and seduced Rapnell’s daughter Myra. The father threatened to kill him and there was bad blood between them. Two nights ago, the Gypsy came to Rapnell’s door and was seen to hurl a knife inside. Rapnell was found with the knife in his chest, dead in his kitchen.”
“Who else was in the house at the time?” Michael asked Kanici.
“No one. His daughter had fled the place after they argued.”
“He beat her!” he Gypsy insisted. “I went there to warn him to stop treating her like that. I never entered the house!”
“But you threw your knife,” Michael said.
“I admit that. Several people saw it.”
“And like all Gypsies you are skilled at knife throwing,” said Kanici. “That is all the evidence we need.”
“I didn’t kill him! He was nowhere in sight when I threw the knife.”
Michael was weighing the possibilities. “Could I speak with the dead man’s daughter? He asked. “Could I see the house where the crime was committed?”
“You are neither judge nor jury but only the executioner,” Konrad Kanici reminded him. “Bercovia has already been convicted.”
“I only want to help a brother Gypsy if I can.”
“Your help will be to slip the noose around his neck.”
Arad Bercovia wailed at the words and buried his face in
his hands. “Come –” Michael turned to Kanici “– show me the scene of the murder. We have nearly an hour before the execution.”
“I will take you there,” the magistrate decided. “But it will do you no good. The Gypsy will die at noon, and you will be his executioner. It is already written in my book of judgment.”
They left Bercovia sobbing at his table in the meeting hall, guarded by one of the villagers. Outside, the crowd still waited. Michael couldn’t help noticing the table which now stood beneath the pine tree and the coil of rope resting on it. Kanici led him down the street away from his parked truck, where another guard now stood. Escape seemed as impossible for Michael as it did for the condemned man.
“Here is the house,” Kanici announced pausing before the two-storey wooden dwelling badly in need of paint. “Rapnell was buried this morning. Here is his daughter Myra.”
A young woman dressed in black saw them and came forward. Her pale face seemed a reflection of her grief. A bearded man by her side looked equally grief- stricken as he asked, “Has justice been done?”
“He will hang at noon,” Konrad Kanici told them. “We have found a passing Gypsy to perform the execution according to the old laws.” The bearded man stared hard at Michael, as if he might know him, “You are from near here?”
“From Gravita, farther up the mountain. I am Michael Vlado.”
“My name is Hans Becker. I am a cattle buyer from Leipzig. You may remember I called at your village once last summer but we could come to no agreement.”
Michael did remember him. “Are you buying cattle?”
“I am a friend of the Rapnells. I was visiting them when this terrible thing happened.”
“Arad Bercovia claims he did not kill your father,” Michael told the young woman.
“I want to believe him but I cannot. Hans and others saw him throw the knife.”
The Iron Angel Page 8
