Dagger Magic

Chapter Nineteen

HE recoiled with a startled gasp, instantly muffled in the crook of one arm as he threw the flag from his hands. White light splintered behind his eyes like a splash of hot needles, but immediately dissipated. Only belatedly did he feel the bolstering pressure of a hand on his shoulder.

"Easy," came Adam's calm voice. "Did it give you a jolt?"

Coming out from behind his arm, Peregrine nodded and drew a shaky breath as he chanced a cautious look at the heap of crimson, black, and white. His two companions were staring at him in undisguised concern.

"Whew! I won't try that again soon," he mumbled. "The flag's protected somehow. I couldn't See past it. It's linked with something that doesn't want to be Seen."

"Perhaps the submarine it came from," Adam said slowly. "And that bears further thinking. It appears we aren't talking about a mere artifact of war here."

"Bloody hell!" McLeod muttered, exchanging a black look with his chief. "Do you suppose it connects with one of Hitler's Black Lodges?"

"The prospect looms increasingly likely," Adam said grimly. "I couldn't begin to be specific at this point, but U-636 and its crew appear to have been bound up in some nefarious plan - which explains why it should have been brought to our attention."

"You mean, I was somehow directed to find Scanlan's body?" Peregrine asked.

Adam waggled one hand in a yes-and-no gesture. "I don't know that I'd go that far - and I couldn't begin to tell you where your ghost-monk fits in. But there's no getting around the fact that Scanlan was murdered - probably by a man wielding what appears to be an Oriental dagger - and that he did procure a Nazi submarine's flag from somewhere. This all suggests that whoever originally sent out the sub - or their descendants - may well still be functioning - and still deadly."

Peregrine swallowed loudly. "But - Nazi Germany collapsed half a century ago," he said plaintively.

"True enough," Adam agreed. "But the dark forces that fuelled much of its power still flare up occasionally. You surely haven't forgotten what we encountered in the Cairngorms."

"Christ!" McLeod muttered under his breath. "You don't think it's that lot again, do you?"

"I hope not. But I was warned to expect the reappearance of an old enemy." Adam sighed. "I think we'd better see about finding that sub."

"More easily said than done," McLeod retorted. "There's no way we can try that here, especially in light of the whammy Peregrine just got. And I certainly hope you aren't suggesting that we abscond with official evidence."

"Not abscond, no; we'll ask," Adam replied. "But the flag is the only direct link we've got to the sub. And if you can find out where Scanlan was patrolling, when he and his partner went missing, that should narrow down the location before we even start resorting to more drastic measures."

"It's the drastic measures that are worrying me," McLeod grumbled, as Adam carefully gathered up the flag and began folding it. "Even if I could borrow it, how do you propose to get past what zapped Peregrine?"

"I haven't figured that out yet," Adam conceded. "Actually, I doubt it's the flag that's protected; more likely, we're talking about spillover from the sub itself, which is protected. But that can be got around, if I can trace the link back. What I cannot do is make the link without the flag."

Before McLeod could respond, Somerville himself returned, waving a dismissive hand at someone in the outer office as he came in and closed the door behind him. He looked restive and harried, as if whatever business had called him away had not gone as well as he might have hoped.

"Bloody red tape," he muttered under his breath, jerking a chair out from the table and flouncing into it with a sigh. "I hope you gentlemen had better luck than I did."

McLeod glanced obliquely at Adam, who was tucking the flag back into its plastic bag.

"We've come up with a few ideas. But I'll warn you right now, they're nothing you could print in the newspapers without being branded a raving lunatic."

"Not another one of those cases?" Somerville muttered. "Never mind, I don't want to know. Just help me solve this case, and I won't ask any questions that might embarrass us all."

"I hope you mean that," McLeod said, "because in order to test our ideas, Dr. Sinclair and I need to borrow the flag for a day or two."

Somerville's grizzled eyebrows climbed. "That's asking rather a lot, considering it's my name on the sign-out. I can't alter the production book for you, Noel."

"I wouldn't ask it," McLeod said. "Forty-eight hours - and we'd be careful."

"I don't know…"

Adam was familiar with production-log procedure, and fully understood Somerville's concern.

"We'll be more than careful, Inspector," he assured him. "If it would make you feel any happier, Noel and I would be prepared to offer you a solemn pledge to that effect - for the sake of the widow's son."

His use of the Masonic phrase earned him a sharp look from Somerville, who glanced then at McLeod.

"Is he on the level?" he asked.

McLeod inclined his head. "And on the square. It's important, Jack."

"So I gather." The Strathclyde inspector pursed his lips. "If I were to let you have temporary custody of the flag, what exactly would you be planning to do with it?"

"Do you really want to know?" McLeod asked with a wry smile.

"On second thought," Somerville said, "maybe not." He drew a deep breath. "Seeing as how it's you who's asking," he ventured, "I suppose I can let you have the flag on trust. You said forty-eight hours?"

"Hopefully, no longer," McLeod said, with another oblique glance at Adam.

"Quite hopefully," Adam agreed. "At the most, seventy-two."

"This keeps getting more complicated," Somerville grumbled, "but all right. Come on out to the front office while I take care of the necessary paperwork."

"Thanks," McLeod said, handing the flag to Peregrine to deposit in his sketchbox. "I'll make sure you don't regret this."

As the two police officers began heading for the door, Adam summoned Peregrine with a glance and then said, "I think we'll wait for you in the car. I'm going to use your cell phone to make a call."

Lady Julian Brodie's jewellery studio was situated on the upper floor of her handsome Edinburgh town house. Even on grey days, the big windows and louvered skylight kept the room flooded with natural light, sufficient for all but the most exacting work. The walls were lined with low counters supporting a wide array of tools and apparatus, including an enamelling kiln, rolling mills, and a centrifugal casting unit. The air was permanently redolent of hot metal, borax solution, and pickling acids, but years of exposure had rendered Julian cheerfully oblivious to the atmosphere associated with her chosen avocation.

Today, to the background accompaniment of an old D'Oyly Carte recording of The Mikado, she was finishing a commission for an old friend, a graduation present for his granddaughter, soon to receive her law degree. The piece was a golden miniature of a disk-shaped bronze mirror of the T'ang dynasty, the detailing inlaid in silver, the whole thing hardly larger than a 50p. piece. Creating the wax matrix for the design had been a fiercely demanding task, involving much close work under a magnifying glass; but though Julian Brodie was nearly seventy, the infirmity that now confined her to a wheelchair had done nothing to diminish the sharpness of her eye or the steadiness of her hands. She had just begun maneuvering a flawless blue-tinged moonstone into a bezel replacing the center boss of the original design when the telephone chirruped from across the room.

Humming a line from "Three Little Girls from School," Julian spun her wheelchair around and headed over to where she had left the portable telephone she habitually kept near her when left alone in the house, for Grace Fyvie, her live-in companion and housekeeper, had gone out to do the shopping. She turned down the stereo before picking up the phone.

"Bonnybank House."

"Julian, it's Adam," said a familiar male voice. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything critical, but have you got a moment or two to spare?"

"For you, my dear Adam, always," she said warmly. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm ringing on Noel's cell phone," came his tense reply. "I need to pick your brain."

"Of course."

His reminder of the need for circumspection, coupled with a friendship that went back to Adam's earliest childhood, warned her that what was to come was not a casual inquiry.

"I've stumbled onto a rather curious artifact that looks as if it must have come from someplace in the Far East," he told her. "Have you ever seen, or do you know anything about, a sort of Oriental dagger with a triple-edged blade and a hilt carved with some kind of grotesque heads?''

Julian's brow narrowed thoughtfully. "This begins to sound familiar. Can you tell me more?"

"I haven't got the exact proportions to offer you," Adam's voice continued, "but I would estimate this thing to be perhaps twelve to fourteen inches long, from pommel to blade-tip. The blade itself is heavy - almost more like a spear-head than a conventional dagger. The hilt reminds me a bit of a North American totem pole in miniature, with a succession of grotesque heads piled on top of one another. Each head seems to have more than one face. I wouldn't call the item at all attractive."

"I see," Julian said, at his pause. "I can't be sure without seeing it, of course, but it sounds not unlike a piece I picked up years ago at a bazaar in Katmandu. I'd like to have a look at mine before I commit myself to an opinion, though; I believe it's languishing on the back of a shelf downstairs. Can I ring you back? I'm afraid I'll lose you when the door closes on the lift."

"That's fine," Adam said. "You have Noel's mobile number, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," she replied. "Give me about ten minutes, and I'll get back to you."

While Adam waited for her return call, gazing distractedly at Peregrine's open sketch pad in his lap, Peregrine himself paced restlessly up and down outside the car. After about five minutes, still with no sign of McLeod, the phone gave a strident ring. Peregrine returned at once as Adam picked it up, leaning down to listen as Adam said, "Yes?"

"It's Julian, dear," came the expected silvery voice. "This dagger we're talking about - what would you say the blade was made of?"

Adam frowned. "I'm not sure; we're working from a sketch. Peregrine, what's the blade made of? Do you know?"

Peregrine shook his head. "Metal, I think. But I can't be more specific than that."

"He says metal," Adam repeated into the phone. "I don't suppose that's much help."

"No." Julian's voice sounded mildly frustrated. "Well, I can't be entirely sure, but judging from what's in my hand, I rather think that the object you're interested in is probably a Phurba."

"A Phurba"

"It's a Tibetan ceremonial dagger," Julian explained. "As symbolic items - which most of them are - they're usually made of wood, but the ones created for serious ritual use are supposed to have blades of meteoric iron."

"That's very interesting," Adam said, scribbling a note of the name at the foot of Peregrine's drawing as Peregrine looked on. "When you say 'serious ritual,' what exactly are you talking about?"

"That depends on the practitioner," said Julian. "I've read of some Buddhist sects whose adherents regard Phurbas as votive objects. They accord them the same degree of veneration or even worship that Buddhists give to holy paintings and statues, and believe that such an object represents a physical locus for the saint or deity it depicts. On the other hand, there's a more primitive school of Phurba worshippers whose practices hark back to the shamanistic traditions that predate Buddhism. Students of this school view Phurbas as ceremonial objects to be used in the execution of certain magical rites." She added, "I don't suppose you've been offered one of these for sale?"

"Not exactly," Adam said.

"I see." Julian's tone conveyed an immediate appreciation for the restricted conditions under which he was laboring. "Well, I'm certainly not an authority in this area, but I can put you in touch with someone who is. If you want to know more in detail, you should talk to my old teacher, Lama Tseten Rinpoche."

"I sincerely hope you aren't suggesting that I catch the next flight out to Tibet," Adam said with a smile.

"Not at all," Julian assured him with a chuckle. "Rlnpoche came to this country years ago. You can probably find him at the Samye Ling Tibetan Centre, down in Dumfriesshire."

Adam was familiar with the community's existence. "What's his name again?" he asked.

"Tseten," Julian repeated, and gave him the Anglicized spelling. "Rinpoche is the appropriate honorific. It's pronounced Rin-po-shay, and translates roughly as 'precious master.' The name Tseten means 'possessing long life' - a fitting appellation, I might add. He must be nearly a hundred."

"And you say he's down at Samye Ling?"

"He should be. He doesn't see many outside visitors these days, but I expect he could be persuaded to see you. Just mention my name. I'll warn you now, though, that you'll need an interpreter: Tseten speaks only Tibetan. If Tseten himself is unavailable, for whatever reason, I suggest you talk to Lama Jigme, who's a member of the same community. Jigme-la is only in his late thirties, maybe early forties, but he's Tseten's best student, and his English is excellent."

Adam added the name Jigme to the notes in front of him.

"Thank you for the leads," he told her. "I'll let you know how we get on."

"I shall take that as a promise," she replied. "Take care, my dear."

Adam was finishing the last of several more calls by the time McLeod finally emerged from the police station, tucking a thick sheaf of forms into an inside coat pocket.

"I practically had to sign my life away, but at least we're semiofficial," he said brusquely at Peregrine's look of inquiry. "I also got the map coordinates on the stretch of coast where Scanlan and his mate went missing. What's going on?"

Before the artist could respond, Adam leaned out of the car and offered McLeod the cell phone.

"Why are you giving this to me?" McLeod muttered, adding fatalistically, "Don't tell me, let me guess: You want me to call Jane and tell her I'm not coming home tonight."

"Right the first time, I'm afraid," Adam said, "but I'll tell you what I've learned, before you make the call."

Inviting his two associates to join him in the car, he briefly recounted his conversation with Lady Julian.

"So I've spent the last little while trying to get in touch with at least one of the two men she spoke of," he informed them. "The route was not exactly direct, but I was finally able to get through to this Lama Jigme, who's agreed to see us.

"The bad news is that Jigme's not at home in Dumfriesshire, but out on Holy Island, off Arran, where he's been supervising some conservation work. The good news is that Julian's old master, Tseten, is there on the island as well, though he's on an informal retreat. Once Jigme has heard us out, he'll decide whether or not Tseten should be disturbed on our account. In any event, I've said we'll contrive to meet Jigme tomorrow morning, as early as possible."

"On Holy Island?" Peregrine asked.

"Correct. Which leaves us with the logistics problem of making the rendezvous. It's just past five now. I'm sure we could make the last Arran ferry - at this time of day, it's a couple of hours' drive down to Ardrossan - but aside from that being a bit unfair to Julia, whose honeymoon has already been interrupted, it would involve our trying find accommodation on Arran at very short notice. Under the circumstances, I think it will be better for us to spend the night somewhere on the mainland, with the intention of catching the first ferry out in the morning."

"When is that?" McLeod asked.

"Seven o'clock," Adam said with a raised eyebrow. "Which means we ought to plan on being at the dock by no later than six forty-five - which, in turn, means a six-thirty rendezvous. That's why I'm suggesting we not go back to our respective homes for the night. Think you can manage that, Peregrine? Noel and I will find a B & B near the ferry terminal, so you're the one who'll have the really early start, if you're still in Glasgow tonight."

With a groan, Peregrine settled back in his seat. "So much for a leisurely breakfast with my wife, with bacon and sausage, and fruit scones with butter - "

McLeod choked back a snort and began punching in a number on his cell phone. "With the breakfasts and dinners you've probably been putting away on your wedding trip, old son, I expect you can afford to skip one full breakfast. And at least you'll have the pleasure of your wife's company."

"Speaking of which," Adam added, as McLeod waited for his wife to pick up, "why don't we take a rain check on that dinner I promised? If I'm going to steal you away from your bride tomorrow, the least I can do is give you back some privacy tonight. Just don't miss the boat in the morning."

Peregrine pulled a lopsided grin. "I'll try."

"Good. The main crossing takes just under an hour and I've been told there'll be a boatman to meet us at Lamlash just after eight o'clock. He'll run us out to Holy Island itself, where, hopefully, someone will be able to give us some of the answers we need."