'Don't worry,' de l'Orme said to the panicked Dominicans, 'your original is in the next room, perfectly safe. I switched this one for the purpose of demonstration. Your reaction tells me the resemblance is all I'd hoped for.'
The older Dominican swung his wrathful gaze around the room and fastened the look of Torquemada upon that fifth carabiniere, haplessly backed against the wall.
'You,' he said.
The carabiniere quailed. So, thought Thomas, de l'Orme had paid the soldier to help spring this practical joke. The man was right to be frightened. He had just embarrassed an entire order.
'Don't blame him,' de l'Orme said. 'Blame yourself. You were fooled. I fooled you just the way the other shroud has fooled so many.'
'Where is it?' demanded the Dominican.
'This way, please,' de l'Orme said.
They filed into the next chamber, and Vera was waiting there in her wheelchair. Behind her, the Shroud was identical to de l'Orme's fake, except for its image. Here the man was taller and younger. His nose was longer. The cheekbones were whole. The Dominicans hurried to their relic and alternated between scrutinizing the linen for damage and guarding it from the blind trickster.
De l'Orme became businesslike. 'I think you'll agree,' he spoke to them, 'the same process produced both images.'
'You've solved the mystery of its production?' someone exclaimed. 'What did you use then, paint?'
'Acid,' another suggested. 'I've always suspected it. A weak solution. Just enough to etch the fibers.'
De l'Orme had their attention. 'I examined the reports issued by Bud's STURP. It became clear to me the hoax wasn't created with paint. There's only a trace of pigment, probably from painted images being held against the cloth to bless them.
And it was not acid, or the coloration would have been different. No, it was something else entirely.'
He gave it a dramatic pause.
'Photography.'
'Nonsense,' declared Parsifal. 'We've examined that theory. Do you realize how sophisticated the process is? The chemicals involved? The steps of preparing a surface, focusing an image, timing an exposure, fixing the end product? Even if this were a medieval concoction, what mind could have grasped the principles of photography so long ago?'
'No ordinary mind, I'll grant you that.'
'You're not the first, you know,' Parsifal said. 'There were a couple of kooks years ago. Cooked up some notion that it was Leonardo da Vinci's tomfoolery. We blew 'em out of the water. Amateurs.'
'My approach was different,' de l'Orme said. 'Actually, you should be pleased, Bud. It is a confirmation of your own theory.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Your flash theory,' said de l'Orme. 'Only it requires not quite a flash. More like a slow bath of radiation.'
'Radiation?' said Parsifal. 'Now we get to hear that Leonardo scooped Madame
Curie?'
'This isn't Leonardo,' de l'Orme said.
'No? Michelangelo then? Picasso?'
'Be nice, Bud,' Vera interrupted mildly. 'The rest of us want to hear it, even if you know it all already.'
Parsifal fumed. But it was too late to roll up the image and kick everyone out.
'We have here the image of a real man,' de l'Orme said, 'A crucified man. He's too anatomically correct to have been created by an artist. Note the foreshortening of his legs, and the accuracy of these blood trickles, how they bend where there are wrinkles in the forehead. And the spike hole in the wrist. That wound is most interesting. According to studies done on cadavers, you can't crucify a man by nailing his palms to a cross. The weight of the body tears the meat right off your hand.'
Vera, the physician, nodded. Rau, the vegetarian, shivered with distaste. These cults of the dead baffled him.
'The one place you can drive a nail in the human arm and hang all that weight is here.' He held a finger to the center of his own wrist. 'The space of Destot, a natural hole between all the bones of the wrist. More recently, forensic anthropologists have confirmed the presence of nail marks through precisely that place in known crucifixion victims.
'It is a crucial detail. If you examine medieval paintings around the time this cloth was created, Europeans had forgotten all about the space of Destot, too. Their art shows Christ nailed through the palms. The historical accuracy of this wound has been offered as proof that a medieval forger could not possibly have faked the Shroud.'
'Well, there!' said Parsifal.
'There are two explanations,' de l'Orme continued. 'The father of forensic anthropology and anatomy was indeed Leonardo. He would have had ample time – and the body parts – to experiment with the techniques of crucifixion.'
'Ridiculous,' Parsifal said.
'The other explanation,' de l'Orme said, 'is that this represents the victim of an actual crucifixion.' He paused. 'But still alive at the time the Shroud was made.'
'What?' said Mustafah.
'Yes,' said de l'Orme. 'With Vera's medical expertise, I've managed to determine that curious fact. There's no sign of necrotic decay here. To the contrary, Vera has told me how the rib cage details are blurred. By respiration.'
'Heresy,' the younger Dominican hissed.
'It's not heresy,' said de l'Orme, 'if this is not Jesus Christ.'
'But it is.'
'Then you are the heretic, gentle father. For you have been worshiping a giant.'
The Dominican had probably never struck a blind man in his entire life. But you could tell by his grinding teeth how close he was now.
'Vera measured him. Twice. The man on the shroud measures six feet eight inches,'
de l'Orme continued.
'Look at that. He is a tall brute,' someone commented. 'How can that be?'
'Indeed,' said de l'Orme. 'Surely the Gospels would have mentioned Christ's enormous height.'
The elder Dominican hissed at him.
'I think now would be a good time to show them our secret,' de l'Orme said to Vera. He placed one hand on her wheelchair, and she led him to a nearby table. She held a cardboard box while he lifted out a small plastic statue of the Venus di Milo. It nearly slipped from his fingers.
'May I help?' asked Branch.
'Thank you, no. It would be better for you to stay back.'
It was like watching two kids unpack a science fair project. De l'Orme drew out a glass jar and a paintbrush. Vera smoothed a cloth flat on the table and put on a pair of latex gloves.
'What are you doing?' demanded the older Dominican.
'Nothing that will harm your Shroud,' de l'Orme answered.
Vera unscrewed the jar and dipped the brush in. 'Our 'paint,'' she said.
The jar held dust, finely ground, a lackluster gray. While de l'Orme held the Venus by the head, she gently feathered on the dust.
'And now,' de l'Orme said, addressing the Venus, 'say cheese.'
