The Medici Dagger

Mobright departed to get us some tea.

“I have just one question for you, Reb,” Beckett said. “How the deuce did Leonardo get the Dagger up there? The ceiling is nearly sixty-five feet high. Did he use Michelangelo’s scaffolding?”

“No, he couldn’t have. That was taken down immediately after he suspended work so the ceiling could be viewed.”

“Well it’s not possible that he went up from the ground. He must have gone down through the floor above.”

“You mean the roof?” I asked. “How would he do that?”

“No, not the roof. Though you know your history, you’re obviously unaware of the layout of the chapel. It has four levels. Two below, the chapel itself—which is designed rather as a fortress, with high windows—and then above it a guards’ room which leads to a machiolated gangway.”

“What’s machiolated?”

“Walls with holes cut in them, firing slits. The point is, Leonardo could have first paced off the exact spot below God and Adam and then gone above to the guards’ room, paced it off again, and dug down.”

“That’s very good. But how would he do that if the guards were there?”

“My question, exactly,” Beckett sighed, tapping his pen against the tip of his nose. “Even at night, and we can be sure he must have done this at night because—”

“He called Michelangelo ‘the sleeping carver.’ ”

“Right. And the ‘gone back to dust’ bit. If Michelangelo had stopped his work on the chapel to take up a sculpture, that would have given Leonardo the opportunity. But if he took it, he most certainly would have had to go after dark.”

“Still,” I said, “that leaves the problem of the guards. No chance they would have taken the night off, huh?”

“Guarding the pope? Thiswasthe Vatican in the Renaissance. No one turned his back on anyone. Swiss guards and all that.” Beckett chewed on the end of his pen for a minute.

“So, then,” he said, “how did he do it?”

Mobright entered carrying a tray of Danish and tea. “A selection of pastry, sir,” he announced, then retreated once again.

“Blueberry twist?” Beckett asked, offering me the plate. I declined; then it smashed me—the dream I’d had at the Baby Face Nelson Suite. Leonardo on the floor of the cruller case, staring up, in a harness attached to a long rope. Of course.

I pulled the laptop to me, furiously tapped the computer out of sleep mode, and opened the two files with Leonardo’s pages. My eyes darted to the drawings—not the Dagger, not the Circles, but the harness, the nested tubes, and the hoisting system.

“Include me, please,” Beckett said.

“What if these particular drawings aren’t randomly placed on these pages like so many of Leonardo’s other sketches?” I said.

“Go on. I’m with you.”

“What if these three nested triangular tubes with the rope and pulleys are really a telescoping mast that could be mechanically raised to the ceiling?”

“Of course! Then the harness was for him, the hoisting system a differential he used with a rope attached to the mast to raise himself to his rendezvous with God and Adam. Brilliant! You do lift your mental weights, don’t you?”

I barely heard Beckett’s words. Time stripped away and I was there with Leonardo in the dark chapel as he raised the mast, with the aid of the differential. I watched him step into the harness and pull himself arm over arm, up the long rope, carrying in his cloth backpack a drill, a bag of wet plaster, his paints and brushes, and a dagger.

Who else could have done this but Leonardo? Who else could have conceived of it? Melzi could have helped him carry the equipment. Short hop across the courtyard from the Belvedere. Maybe they took an underground route.

Leonardohadcarefully paced out the floor. He knewexactlywhere to go. In the black of night, in the hollow stillness of the Sistine Chapel, by the singular light of his massive genius, he ascended to the ceiling, cut the hole, and slid the Dagger vertically between the outstretched fingers of God and Adam. Then he sealed the opening and repainted it, supremely confident that not even the brilliant Michelangelo would ever know.

Finally, he descended, while the guards above the thick ceiling paced in their uniforms, slapping their thighs to keep warm in the chillnight air. They never learned of the intruder below. Neither did Michelangelo—the sleeping bearded carver.

“Well . . .” Beckett said, patting his lips. “My goodness. I guess I’m on again. I suppose I should grease the Vatican wheels, shouldn’t I? Do excuse me.”

I was rebandaging my leg and contemplating the odd juxtaposition of pain and the electrifying tingle of discovery when Beckett returned.

“Have you gained us access to the chapel?” I asked.

“Naturally, albeit with significant difficulty. The pope’s away just now. We’ll go in from above, of course.”

“Of course,” I repeated. “There’s no way Krell’s people could know this. Even if they do, they’d have to make arrangements to get Tecci into the guard room. You’d know about that.”