Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 12/01/12 Page 7

  "No need," one of the monks said. "My sister has a collection of scarves. Surely one of them is a bright yellow. I will talk to her this evening, with your permission, Abbot Peter."

  Abbot Peter nodded. "Do so, Brother Stephen. And now let us enjoy the rest of this wonderful stew Brother Anselm prepared. Brother Leo, perhaps you will tell us if we will be able to grow the plants we need. We do want our manuscripts to be as authentic as possible."

  Brother Leo dipped a second helping of stew onto his plate and settled comfortably in his chair. He loved stew, especially tasty today after his day in the crisp air, and he loved talking about flowers.

  "You will have wonderful flowers and they will give you beautiful inks. In the shade at the edges of the meadow, cornflowers and violets will flourish and provide lovely blue ink."

  "Not purple?" Brother Stephen asked.

  "Oh, no, no." Brother Leo seemed shocked. "You cannot use purple. That was the royal color, restricted for royal use."

  Brother Stephen's shoulders sagged. "Oh, dear. Sorry. Good that Brother Geoffrey will be in charge of the inks and not me. Brother Geoffrey has had some experience in printing."

  "Do you agree about the purple?" Brother Leo leaned over to look down the refectory table at Brother Geoffrey.

  "About the purple, yes." Brother Geoffrey put down his fork and turned to face Brother Leo. "However, blue from the violets and cornflowers are adequate, but rather pale. Blue should, undoubtedly, come from lapis lazuli, as it did for the best illuminated manuscripts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries."

  "Lapis did provide the best blues," Brother Leo agreed. "Brilliant blues, indeed. You are right, Brother Geoffrey, of course."

  Abbot Peter laid down his spoon. "No doubt. No doubt. But lapis lazuli is a valuable gem. We can hardly afford to use it."

  "If I might," Brother Geoffrey said, "make an important point. If we use lapis to create the beautiful blues and, perhaps verdigris for the rich greens, our manuscripts will gain the reputation of great beauty, and an authenticity they will otherwise not have. The monastery might well benefit greatly. I believe that if we are to do this project, we should do it well and correctly."

  "Brother Geoffrey," Abbot Peter said. "I remind you that when we agreed on this project, we said that the manuscripts were to be produced with our greatest efforts toward beauty, and I have no doubt that our artist monks will fulfill that goal. But we also agreed that the manuscripts were to be produced in such a manner that they would be affordable for other monasteries, for churches, for schools, for those men and women who wish to own something hand produced. As you might recall, the business professors at the university felt that our plan was a good one, most like to meet with success. The monastery will benefit and we will serve a good purpose."

  Brother Geoffrey picked up his spoon and sank it into his stew.

  Abbot Joseph looked from Brother Geoffrey to Abbot Peter, then at Brother Leo, whose eyes were lowered to his plate. "Brother Leo will see to it that he produces the best possible flowers for the best possible blues. I am sure, Brother Geoffrey, that you will be satisfied."

  Brother Geoffrey continued to stir his stew rapidly.

  "I will also plant mulberries and elderberries," Brother Leo said. They were used in medieval times for blue inks, as were woad plants. And they will grow in any temperate climate."

  Brother Stephen cleared his throat. "And the greens, Brother Leo? What flowers will give us the green ink?"

  "Iris green is a lovely green. From irises, of course. And the pollen will provide you with yellow." Brother Leo glanced down at Brother Geoffrey. "Verdigris is, of course, the best green and was used for the best illuminated manuscripts."

  "What flower will give us verdigris?" Brother Stephen asked.

  Brother Geoffrey dropped his spoon with a clatter. "No flower."

  "Yes," Abbot Joseph said, "Brother Geoffrey is right again. Verdigris is a pigment produced by the action of acetic acid, vinegar, on copper. But the pigment is poisonous."

  "Still," Brother Geoffrey said. "We can produce and use it. It will cost little." He glanced at Abbot Peter.

  "But if it is dangerous, should we?" Brother Stephen asked, his face a bit pale.

  Brother Geoffrey sighed. "It is only dangerous if you ingest it. As long as you resist licking your brush to get the right consistency of ink, you will be in no danger at all."

  "Quite correct," Abbot Joseph said. "The bones of monks from the medieval ages have been, upon scientific examination, shown to contain high levels of mercury, no doubt ingested just as Brother Geoffrey described. I believe that the red ink, produced from cinnabar, the ore of the mercury metal, carried a similar danger. But I am sure that Brother Geoffrey will give you artists many repeated warnings as you use the cinnabar."

  "Why can't we use a plant?" Michael, one of the artist monks, asked. He looked to Brother Leo.

  "I cannot provide a plant that will give you a satisfactory red," Brother Leo said. "You must rely on Brother Geoffrey's chemistry for your reds."

  "And when will you begin the planting, Brother Leo?" Abbot Peter asked.

  Brother Leo brightened up. "I can begin tomorrow. The weather is fine and I will begin turning the earth and placing in some of the plants. I have already put some of them, the violets and cornflowers, outside near where we must plant them. In no time at all, the plants will grow and the monastery will have its inks."

  A few of the monks clapped and soon they all joined in, even Brother Geoffrey, though he stopped first.

  The monastery bell rang.

  Abbot Peter rose. "We must go and prepare for evensong."

  The monks filled out of the refectory. As they headed for their cells, Brother Geoffrey turned and glared for a moment at Brother Leo and Abbot Joseph.

  Brother Leo stopped in his tracks, then looked at Abbot Joseph, but Abbot Joseph seemed not to have noticed.

  Brother Leo gathered his five volunteer monks, his picks, and his shovels, and headed out into the bright morning sunshine toward the field he had selected for the planting of the violets and irises.

  The monks began singing. "Gloria in excelsis Deo," Brother Stephen intoned, the medieval Gregorian chant floating into the cool air in his rich tenor voice. The other monks joined in, Brother Leo lending an undertone with his soft bass voice.

  They wound round the monastery, passing a line of stately blue spruce, then marched away from the building past a row of rich green laurel bushes.

  Brother Leo took a deep breath in preparation for the next phrase of the chant. The sweet smell of pines seemed to run into his very veins. He could almost imagine himself willing to give up the warm desert air of the monastery in Arizona, in exchange for the deep greens of these spruce trees and the blue, almost purple, ridges of the mountains, worn to low, gentle lines by millennia of snows, rains, and winds.

  Today, only a warm sun and a soft wind stirred the air.

  Brother Leo stopped.

  Brother Stephen banged into Brother Leo, grunted, stepped back, then gasped. "W-w . . . b—but," he stuttered.

  The other monks spread out around Brother Leo with gasps, exclamations, a few invoking St. Francis, and, in one case, a quick gesture, forming a cross from forehead, to chest, to shoulders.

  Finally, one of the monks recovered enough to ask. "But what happened here, Brother Leo?"

  Brother Leo shook his head, then moved forward, the other monks following. Brother Leo stopped again, looking down at the disarray of the plants. The irises and violets, which he had carefully set down in their green plastic containers in neat rows, now lay scattered awry, some still in their containers, others outside of them, a few lying at the edge of the planting bed.

  "I don't understand," Brother Leo whispered. He looked up, as if seeking in a dark sky the unkind wind that might have swept down to wreak its violence on the innocent plants.

  The sky was a clear blue, just as it had been the day before.

  "But," Brother Steph
en said, reading Brother Leo's thoughts, "there was no storm last night. How did this happen?"

  "Perhaps an animal," one of the monks suggested. "We have black bear here. Or perhaps deer came and ate some of the plants."

  "More likely a bear," another monk said. "The bear tear things apart. The deer do not."

  Brother Leo looked round. He walked between the scattered plants, trying to find some clue as to what might have happened.

  Brother Christopher called out. "Over here."

  The other monks gathered round him. He pointed to the soil, two feet in front of him.

  "I think this may be the answer."

  "A bear print?" Brother Stephen asked, maneuvering around Brother Leo to see what Brother Christopher had found. "Oh, my," he said, gazing down.

  "Hardly a bear print," Brother Christopher said, staring at the pattern of a boot sole in the dark brown soil.

  "A hunter," Brother Michael said.

  "Maybe," Brother Christopher said. "But hunters do not usually trample around wrecking flower beds. Most of them are quite careful about the land on which they hunt."

  "Perhaps this hunter was angry," Brother Stephen said.

  "But why?" Brother Michael asked.

  "Perhaps he did not like the idea of a flower bed, tended by monks, smack in the pathway he uses to enter the forest. Perhaps he thought our activities would scare away the deer."

  "Maybe," Brother Christopher said, staring at the ground.

  "I think Brother Stephen is right." Brother Leo sighed. "Back in our monastery in Arizona, I worked near an old cemetery. Someone was angry then too. I seem to stumble into areas where someone does not want me to work."

  "Do not so easily believe that this destruction was at the hand of a human," Brother Michael said. "The print tells us only that someone walked here. But even if it were a hunter who became angry, why would he scatter the plants about? He would surely realize that we could and will easily pick them up and plant them. No, Brother Christopher, I think that this is the work of an animal. Do not worry, Brother Leo. Let us set to work and get your garden planted." Brother Michael bent to pick up an iris plant.

  At the same time, Brother Christopher walked ahead a little and bent down. "Brother Leo," he called. "Had you begun to dig the holes for the plants?"

  "I had begun, but did not work very long before the dusk made it difficult to see."

  "Would you have dug a hole this deep?" Brother Christopher pointed to a hole a good twelve inches deep, then pointed to another farther away.

  "Why, no," Brother Leo said. "The iris and violets would be lost in such holes."

  "Perhaps the bear was searching for food," Brother Michael said.

  Brother Christopher stood up. "Or perhaps the hunter was searching for something."

  His four fellow monks stared at him.

  Finally, Brother Stephen voiced their thoughts. "But that seems very unlikely. What could possibly be here in the ground to search for?"

  Brother Christopher looked around. "I cannot think of anything. Probably my dark imagination from years working in a crime lab. It is quite tedious work, you know, and one tends to spin tales in one's mind to keep one's attention going."

  "A bear it is, then," Brother Michael said. "So let us get to work on the garden."

  "What's to prevent the bear from returning tonight and tearing up the garden again?" Brother Stephen asked.

  "I'm sure the bear has moved on, having found nothing here to eat." Brother Michael had already collected several plants in his basket. "To work. To work."

  The others joined him.

  Abbot Joseph looked back at the monastery from the path down which he had wandered. The rock walls of the building rose formidably from the ground, a dappled gray, unlike his own whitewashed monastery in Arizona, and here the gray contrasted with the green pines and a deep blue sky, not the sun-lightened blue of the desert sky and the tans, oranges, and light greens of the Arizona landscape. This, Abbot Joseph thought, was the place to produce the manuscripts. The colors here seemed perfect matches to the vivid greens and deep blues of the Gothic manuscripts. The new manuscripts would reflect the natural world around the monastery. The artist monks could draw and paint the dark, glossy green leaves of the rhododendron bushes, the bright red of the cardinals, and the blue of the jays, even the golden brown of the deer with their white tails.

  How beautiful the world could be, Abbot Joseph thought. He pulled out his copy of Hopkins's poetry. Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Jesuit, a priest, not an abbot like himself, busy running a monastery, but a teacher with some time to immerse himself in the natural world and to write poetry in its praise. "'Glory be to God for dappled things,'" Abbot Joseph recited aloud. "'For skies of couple-colour like a brinded cow.'"

  Just then, a snake slipped quickly from the path, disappearing into the underbrush.

  Abbot Joseph stood still. Of course, he thought, nature had its dangers too. He thought of the shot that had scared Brother Leo. No doubt a hunter, Abbot Joseph assured himself. He wandered farther, following the path as it circled round toward the back of the monastery. At the edge of the woods through which the path led, he found a smooth gray rock, sat down, and stretched his legs out.

  Even the back of the monastery loomed majestically, its stone walls seeming almost to grow naturally out of the dark earth and deep green bushes and pines. He had to inquire about the history of the building. He liked knowing when and why buildings had been erected, and who had journeyed to them, lived in them, died in them.

  He drowsed a little in the sun, opened his eyes and saw another monk walking on a path across the field. Abbot Joseph hoped the monk would not approach. He was enjoying the peaceful solitude. The other monk, too, apparently sought solitude, for he turned and disappeared down the path. Probably reading his meditation verses for the day, as I should, Abbot Joseph told himself.

  He fingered his prayer book, but then half closed his eyes again, imagining the children who might have learned their lessons here, or the adults who might have come here for work, for meetings, perhaps for pleasure.

  He watched a deer step out delicately from some bushes. The deer stopped, its ears erect and stiff. Then it turned and fled, it white tail upright.

  Abbot Joseph looked in the direction the deer had been looking.

  A figure in a dark jacket moved slowly at the edge of the woods, pushing something in front of him.

  Abbot Joseph watched for a few moments, then recognized what the man was doing. He rose, then hesitated. Everyone thought that a hunter of deer had been responsible for the shot taken at Brother Leo. This man was a hunter of a different sort, but anyone, even this man, could have taken the shot.

  The mission bells rang out. The man looked toward the monastery, then returned to his slow forward movement.

  From the right, three monks emerged from a back door of the monastery where they had been restoring the floor of a large room, and headed round the monastery.

  Abbot Joseph grabbed the opportunity. Lifting his robe, he sprinted toward them, dodging a few pine trees. "Wait here, just at the corner, please," he told the monks. "I will join you in a moment or two."

  Ignoring the surprised looks, he turned to the left and walked toward the man. "Hello," he called out softly, not wishing to startle him.

  The man looked up. He waited for Abbot Joseph to approach.

  "I'm Abbot Joseph, visiting here at the monastery."

  The man glanced over at the three waiting monks, then put out his hand. "I'm Mark Scanton. Not a visitor, I'm afraid. More of an intruder, I guess."

  "Looking for what?" Abbot Joseph asked, keeping his voice pleasant and casual.

  Scanton looked down at his metal detector. "Oh, this." He laughed. "Afraid I don't really know. Whatever turns up. This is a hobby of mine. Searching for old stuff. I guess I'm a bit of an archeology buff without the degrees to head off to Egypt or Mexico or even Arizona. So I fiddle about in places like this." He gestured toward the monast
ery.

  "What would you expect to find?"

  Scanton shrugged. "I just got started up here. It's only my third pass over the grounds. I'm looking for coins, bits of jewelry. Nothing that would warrant even a small inset in an archeological magazine. I found a ring the other day. Pretty thing, but not really valuable. Anyway, I wouldn't sell it. I prefer to keep what I find."

  "I see. A hobby."

  "Exactly," Scanton said. "I hope you don't mind. I try not to disturb anything or get too close to the monastery itself. But I'm very glad the monks took over the building. They've cleaned up the place nicely. Used to be about impossible to get on the grounds with all the brush and broken up pieces of concrete and other stuff. I read in a news article about the monks maybe doing some gardening and opening the place to visitors."

  "Yes, they've done an impressive job with the building too."

  "It's a beautiful piece of architecture. I'd have hated to have seen it torn down."

  "Why would you expect to find coins or jewelry here? What was the building originally?"

  "A hotel. Didn't you know? The monks buying the place sparked some interest in the old hotel. There's been a couple of articles in the papers recently. That's when I got interested."

  Abbot Joseph shook his head. "I'm just a visitor here, and I hadn't yet asked the other monks. What sort of hotel was it?"

  "A mountain resort." Scanton waved his arm toward the surrounding mountains. "For people from Philadelphia, escaping the heat and crowds of the city. You know, take the train up, get away from their jobs, maybe hike or go fishing."

  Abbot Joseph looked toward the mountains, blue-green under the sun. "Yes. I can understand that. Tell me, during your rambles here, have you ever had trouble with deer hunters?"

  "Trouble?"

  "Yes. I mean with careless shooters."

  Scanton frowned. "Yeah. Funny you ask. A hunter whizzed a shot by me a few days ago. But most deer hunters are pretty responsible."

  "Someone was shooting around here yesterday. Scared one of the monks."