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  Holmes was one of the more popular professors at Oxford, his lecture course Introduction to Medieval Britain a perennial must-take for first-years. Among his myriad draws was an uber-eccentricity marked by a quasi-Edwardian way of dressing and a ridiculously plumy oration. His high elocution wasn’t reserved for lectures. Arthur got a full measure of plump, rounded words through the speaker.

  “Hallo, Arthur! So glad to catch you. I become rather gloomy when I have to leave one of those awful voice messages.”

  “At your service.”

  “Marvelous, marvelous. Listen, Arthur, you know I have an egalitarian bent when it comes to keeping the Loons up to date on interesting tidbits but I rather thought I should inform you initially about a recent discovery.”

  This was a first. Though he and Holmes were close, Arthur had never knowingly received information before other members of their group, the Grail Loons, as Andrew dubbed them. A group of up to ten, depending on the night, convened several times a year at Holmes’ favorite pub in Oxford to trade often wild theories about the Holy Grail and drink, but mostly drink. If this was, as some of them joked, a modern Round Table, then Holmes was King Arthur, not the oldest but the wisest and certainly the one with the deepest academic footprint. No one in the field would dispute that he was the preeminent Arthurian scholar in Britain.

  Arthur had been brought into the fold some eight years earlier by a mutual acquaintance, Tony Ferro. Tony and Arthur had met at Bristol. At the time Tony was a graduate student in history teaching a section in a course that Arthur had taken to diversify his undergraduate science curriculum. As soon as Tony found out that Arthur was a likely descendant of Thomas Malory he became interested in the younger man and they had become fast friends. Tony was now teaching Medieval History at University College London and had recently added a course: King Arthur—Myth or Reality, which Arthur hoped to audit one day.

  Holmes always had been highly selective of whom he allowed into his Grail inner circle. He had zero tolerance for New Agers, crystal gazers or religious zealots. Each of his Loons had to bring something concrete to the table so most were serious scholars in one field or another, although if they did not possess the requisite admittedly intangible “spirit” Holmes blackballed them. Arthur had made it over the goal line during their introductory pint. His answer to Holmes’ first question had sealed the deal.

  “Why am I interested in the Grail quest?” Arthur had repeated, giving himself a moment to collect his thoughts. “Well look, I think this modern world of ours has diverted our attention from lofty goals. We’re barraged with the notion that we can achieve instant gratification for many of our needs. Hungry? There’s fast food. Need information about something? Google it. Lonely? Online dating. Sad? There’re drugs for that. But there’s no instant gratification for a spiritual quest, is there? That takes work and commitment. Maybe by the end of one’s days you’ve achieved a measure of spiritual fulfillment, maybe not. I see the Grail quest as a real embodiment of that spiritual quest. It’s an ancient pursuit but I don’t see why it shouldn’t also be a modern and relevant one. Besides, what if it’s more than metaphorical? What if the Grail really exists? How cool would it be to hold that beauty in one’s hands?”

  Now Arthur picked up the handset and took Holmes off speaker. “I’m all ears, Andrew. What is it you’ve found?”

  “Well, I rather feel as if I’ve been struck by a cart-full of horseshoes. No one has a right to be so lucky. Or perhaps it’s skill, I wonder?”

  “Is this something to do with the letter you told the group about two months ago—from Montserrat?”

  “Well, no. There are more details about the letter which I’ll publish presently but that’s not why I’ve called. It’s a second find, much more important, seismic, really, as documents go. It concerns you, old boy.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, one Arthur Malory, resident of Wokingham, England, Marketing Whiz by day, Grail-hunter by night. It arose from some shoe-leather work I’m rather proud of. It had a low probability of paying off, which is why I’m especially pleased that it did—and in a spectacular way.”

  “God, Andrew, would you please spit it out?”

  After a lovely Holmesian pause, Arthur heard, “How’d you like to find the Grail, my son? I mean really find it?”

  Arthur found himself smiling. “You know I would.”

  “Good. Because if I’m right, the Grail has your name written all over it. I think it can actually be found but I’m going to need your help.”

  “Anything, Andrew. You know I’m always game. Busy, but game.”

  “Yes, I’m reasonably swamped myself. Besides being immersed in the salutary things which have happened, I’ve got a heavy teaching load and I’ve got to deal with a nitwit who broke into our departmental offices and ransacked several rooms, including mine. I don’t think anything is missing but there’s still an inventory to complete. Fortunately I keep my important papers at home. Arthur, between the two of us perhaps we’ll be able to crack this glorious walnut. Can you come over Thursday night? It’s Anne’s birthday and we want you to have dinner with us. We’ve got reservations at her favorite place. I’ll tell you everything then.”

  “Of course. I’ll be there.”

  “Just one thing before I let you go back to your work enticing people to purchase things they may or may not require. You wouldn’t have an extra rib, would you?”

  Arthur scrunched his face in surprise at the question. “Actually, Andrew, I do. How in God’s name would you know that?”

  #

  He was a small balding man in a large dark room spotlighted almost theatrically by a halogen reading lamp. Jeremy Harp’s wife called through the closed library door and he gruffly allowed her to enter. She knew full well that his inner sanctum was sacrosanct but he’d have to remind her once again, wouldn’t he?

  “Really, Lillian! The house had better be on fire.”

  “I’m sorry, Jeremy, but Stanley Engel is ringing. From Tibet, so he said.” She looked apprehensive, as if expecting a tongue-lashing. Her appearance was skeletal, the result of a high-protein and cigarette diet, her face too smooth from cosmetic procedures.

  “Took him long enough to get back to me. I’ll pick up.”

  He’d heard the phone ring and supposed it was her idiotic son asking again for money, something he did regularly to support a drug habit. When first they were married, following Lillian’s divorce, the boy was a relatively cute toddler; at thirty he was no longer cute.

  “Stanley, about time. What the hell are you doing in Tibet?”

  The line had a whooshing digital distortion.

  “I’m on my cell, sorry about the connection. I’m trekking. I only just got your e-mail at the lodge.” Though he was a long-standing professor of physics at UC Santa Barbara, Engel’s nasal Brooklyn accent was still strong. “Are you sure this is a secure line?”

  “If you’re on the phone I gave you, it’s secure. I sent you an encrypted audio file from a phone call Andrew Holmes made to Arthur Malory this morning. What did you make of it?”

  “It’s interesting, of course; very interesting. Your tap on Malory’s phone’s been paying off lately. What’s our next move?”

  “You heard what Holmes said about keeping his important papers at home. It explains why Griggs came up empty at his office. More importantly, it seems he’s found more than the Montserrat letter. It sounds like he’s onto something rather concrete. I want to get into Holmes’ house next Thursday night while they’re at dinner. It’s a perfect opportunity. They almost never go out.”

  “Don’t you think it’s risky?”

  “Without risk there’s no reward. But Griggs will endeavor to minimize it.”

  “So what do you want from me?”

  “We operate by consensus. I want your buy-in to pursue the matter aggressively.”

  “So go for it. What do the others say?”

  “They all said I should move ahead.”

 
; “Good. So I’ll say the same thing. Happy?”

  “Delighted.”

  “So what’s with this rib business?” Engel asked.

  “I’ve no idea. It’s something completely new. I’m desperate to know more. I must tell you, this is the first time in my lifetime I’ve been hopeful about the Grail, really hopeful. I feel it in my bones.”

  “Your bones, eh? An empirically powerful statement from a world-class scientist.”

  Harp snorted at that. “The Grail has been lost for two thousand years, Stanley. I’m prepared to use my head, my heart and even my bones to find it.”

  3

  When the doorbell chimed Andrew Holmes grabbed his zippered portfolio and bounded down the stairs. He tossed the case onto the sofa but his aim was poor and it overshot, slipping behind the furniture. He swore but left it and answered the bell instead. He’d get it later after dinner—or rather, he’d have Arthur retrieve it, as he was younger and more limber. He hadn’t decided if he would tell Arthur about the new letters before showing him or simply have Arthur read them unprepped. Either way, it was going to be epic.

  Arthur was at the door smiling broadly and clutching a wrapped present for Anne.

  “Ah, right on time,” Holmes said. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to this. Help yourself to a drink while I fetch my keys and try to get Anne out the door.”

  Soon Holmes was in a lather trying to find the car keys. He mumbled that he was certain they were in the house because he’d driven home from college only two hours earlier.

  “I’m far too young to be this senile!” he bellowed loud enough to make Arthur wince.

  “Are you looking for your keys?” his wife called out from upstairs.

  “Yes, I bloody well am.”

  “Near the kettle. That’s where you put them down.”

  Anne appeared wearing a nice green dress, perfect for a spring evening. She came into the kitchen as Holmes was pocketing the keys and merrily waved at Arthur but he could tell straight off she didn’t look well. She was unsteady on her feet and more reliant on her cane than he’d seen before; and it appeared she’d since lost weight.

  “I don’t know why I put them there,” Holmes said absently.

  “If you leave them in the front hall whenever you get home, think how much more time you’d have to do other things: added up, it would probably equal a whole extra day of life.”

  “Very amusing.”

  “I’m sorry to involve you …” Anne started to apologize.

  “Not at all,” Arthur replied, handing her a wrapped present. “Happy Birthday.”

  “You needn’t have done that,” she said, putting the present down on the kitchen table. “I’d give you a hug but I’ve got some sort of a bug.”

  “A bug?” Holmes asked. “Can’t a microbiologist be more specific?”

  “All right.” She sighed. “An enterovirus.”

  Holmes grunted. “You sure it’s not Eloise?”

  She was on medical leave from her job at a university research lab for a flare of her multiple sclerosis that had left her weak in one leg and a little dizzy. She was the kind of optimist who couldn’t bring herself to call it MS. So she gave her disease a cheerful name.

  “No, it’s not Eloise,” she said.

  Holmes nodded and inspected her present. “Looks like a book.”

  “A book it is,” Arthur said. It was a photographic volume on English gardens, a subject that interested Anne. “You can open it now if you like or save it for later.”

  “Later,” she said, “after dinner. I enjoy the anticipation.”

  Holmes dangled the keys as a signal to make way to the car. “You’re going to have to wait too, Arthur. I’ll show you my discovery after dinner when we return. Anticipation.”

  Holmes focused again on Anne, peering at her over his narrow glasses with an air of concern. “Your color is strikingly similar to your dress. Are you sure you want to go out?”

  “It’s my birthday. I’m not going to miss out. It’s hard work pinning you down to a dinner date.”

  They left at dusk and night was coming fast. Five minutes after they were gone a man emerged from the driver’s side of a car parked down the road. Griggs walked to the side of their house and opened the gate to the back garden as casually as someone returning home from work. He was tall and broad with cropped hair. His leather jacket fit tightly against a flat belly. He had a coarse face—a brawler’s face—but handsome enough to attract the kind of women who appealed to him.

  There was no burglar alarm; he knew from a previous reconnoiter. The back garden provided a shield against intrusion from neighbors. He took a rock from a flower bed and lightly tapped it against a back door pane until it shattered with a musical tinkle. He reached in with a gloved hand to turn the lock.

  The wandering beam of a flashlight would be more suspicious to passersby than a lighted room, so he switched lights on and off as needed. The downstairs rooms were uninteresting—a formal sitting room, dining room, kitchen, and TV lounge. It took a few minutes to vandalize them. He did so in a desultory manner, tipping over lamps, emptying drawers, quietly breaking a few pieces of china. Then he climbed the stairs and immediately found what he was looking for.

  #

  Arthur sat in the backseat of Holmes’ car and felt as though he were watching two characters in a play act out a semicomic scene involving two fuddy-duddies in a domestic dispute.

  “Must you take these corners so sharply?” Anne complained. “It doesn’t do my stomach any good, you know.”

  “They should straighten out the road.”

  “Yes, of course they should. What a thing to say.”

  The GPS mounted on his dash announced a turning.

  Anne pointed at the device. “We’ve only lived here twenty years and been to the restaurant several dozen times. How is it possible you need this box to get us there?”

  “You didn’t marry me for my sense of direction,” Holmes objected. “But I do miss those bygone days when you’d sit with your folding map and berate me like a screeching bird.”

  “I daresay I was a better navigator than this Tom.”

  “I believe his proper name is TomTom.”

  Anne suddenly clutched her belly and moaned faintly.

  “I don’t think this is going to happen, is it?” Holmes said. “I’m sorry but I think I should have TomTom return us home.”

  #

  Holmes had a generous study that had been constructed by knocking down the wall between two bedrooms. As it was front-facing and well above the height of the hedges, Griggs pulled the curtains before switching on a lamp. He checked his watch. With yards of shelving, filing cabinets galore, and books and papers everywhere, the job had the potential to be a needle-in-the-haystack affair.

  He went for the desk first and unplugged a laptop computer from its charger. A quick rummage through drawers instantly yielded one of his targets: a folder marked in Holmes’ calligraphic script Montserrat Abbey—The 3 Amigos. The folder contained handwritten notes, a typed manuscript marked draft, and several photographs. Griggs pursed his lips and said to himself, “One down, one to go.”

  #

  Griggs was having no luck completing his task. He emptied the desk drawers onto the floor as a burglar might have done. For effect he also pocketed an envelope stuffed with euros and other international currencies from Holmes’ trips abroad. He wasn’t sure if his second target was inside a folder or notebook or just loose papers, but whatever its form, it was not in or on the desk. He started on the filing cabinets, hoping that Holmes and company would have a long, leisurely dinner.

  He heard a car door closing and before he could part the curtains, a key in the front door. He did not panic; it wasn’t in his nature—but he swore under his breath at a plan gone bad. Time to go to Plan B. With Griggs there was always a contingency. He mentally activated it as the door was opening.

  Arthur was last in. He heard Anne exclaim, “O
h my God! We’ve been burgled!” The three of them stared at the disarray.

  “Let’s leave,” Arthur said quietly. “They may still be inside. I’ll ring the police from the car.”

  Before they could leave, Griggs appeared at the top of the stairs, smoothly drawing a gun from his waistband, a Bersa .40, a deadly little Argentinean piece that was his preferred carry weapon. He descended slowly, pointing the gun at Anne for maximal psychological effect.

  “All of you. Move to the sitting room. Now.”

  Arthur was immediately struck that this man was no burglar. He was too cool, too confident. Burglars didn’t swagger.

  They were scared. Shielded behind Anne and Andrew, Arthur thought he could cleanly make it out the door but that might have drawn fire. So he did as he was told and retreated to the adjoining room with the others, the intruder following.

  Holmes was breathing heavily, the threat of violence plunging him into apparent turmoil. “My wife is unwell. She has to sit down.”

  “Then sit,” Griggs commanded.

  “Take what you want,” Anne said, “then please leave.”

  Griggs ignored her and aimed the gun at Arthur. “You’re Arthur Malory.”

  The pronouncement made Arthur’s knees buckle. “How did you know that?”

  “I know a lot about you.” He used his gun casually as a pointer and let it drift toward Holmes. “You too.”

  “Who are you?” Arthur asked.

  “That’s not important.”

  Holmes noticed that in his free hand the man was clutching his computer and Amigos folder. “Whatever do you want with those?”

  Griggs ignored the question. “I need one more thing. If you give it to me, I’ll leave quietly. If you don’t, things won’t go well.”

  “What? What is it?” Holmes asked sharply.

  “I want everything you have concerning Malory and the Grail. Documents, notes, all of it, all the material you recently found.”

  Holmes sprouted a look of utter incredulity but said nothing.