“Thank you,” I said. “I don’t feel that I ought to interfere…”

“Well,” Tony said grudgingly. “I guess you are entitled to an opinion.”

He was flushed and bright-eyed, and he looked awfully cute with his hair tumbling down over the romantic bandages on his undamaged brow. In the heat of argument, or for other reasons, he had risen to his feet. Blankenhagen cannily remained seated, but he was right about his height. That was unimportant. If it didn’t bother him, why should it bother me?

I sighed. Turning to Tony, I said, “Have you had a chance to read the answers to your cables yet?”

“My God, how can you ask at a time like—”

“Do you know who Schmidt really is?”

Tony sat down with a thud.

“You’re going to marry Schmidt?”

“Schmidt,” I said, “is the top historian at the National museum. I had a long talk with him this afternoon.”

“Anton Zachariah Schmidt?” Tony gasped. “That Schmidt?”

“That Schmidt. One of the foremost historians in the world. At the moment he is a sad and sorry Schmidt…”

“He should be,” said Blankenhagen, unimpressed. “Such disgraceful behavior for a grown man and a scholar.”

“He’s a nut,” I said. “What’s wrong with that? Why, the nuts found the New World and discovered the walls of windy Troy! Where would we be without the nuts? Schmidt has dabbled in parlor magic and spiritualism since he was a kid. He’s in good company. Businessmen and politicians consult astrologers; many scientists have been suckers for spiritualism. When he got on the trail of the shrine, Schmidt went a little haywire. It was his dream come true—sneaking around the halls of an ancient castle, finding a treasure, and presenting it to his precious museum. When Tony and I arrived, he had horrible visions of rich Americans stealing his prize—it had become ‘his’ by then.”

“Even so,” said Blankenhagen coldly. “Even so…”

“You’re a fine one to talk. You’re a secret nut yourself. If you were as sensible as you think you are, when I came around in the middle of the night babbling of arsenic you’d have sent me away and gone back to bed. You would have gone for the police when the knife missed Tony, instead of chasing George into the tunnel.”

“Umph,” said Blankenhagen, turning red.

“Schmidt didn’t mean any harm,” I said. “He’s a sweet little man. I always liked him.”

Blankenhagen’s face got even redder.

“You are going to marry Schmidt!”

“I’m not going to marry anybody,” I said. “I’m going to take the job Herr Schmidt has offered me, at the Museum, and write a book about Riemenschneider, and also a best-selling historical novel based on the Drachenstein story. Maybe I’ll call it ‘The Drachenstein Story.’ The plot has everything—murder, witchcraft, blood, adultery…. I’ll make a fortune. Of course I’ll publish it under a pseudonym so the scholarly reputation I intend to build in the next five years won’t be impaired. Then—”