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killers with relative aplomb. His appearance of Best British sangfroid was not due to
courage but to his insane sense of humour; he couldn’t resist making smart remarks even when the subject of his ridicule was brandishing a knife under his nose. When the wisecracks gave out,
he reverted to type, groaning over every little scratch and trying to hide behind any object in the neighbourhood, including my skirts. I’d seen him turn pale green with fright and livid with
terror. I had never seen him look the way he looked now.
    I let out a muffled croak. John leaped up as if he had knelt on a scorpion. Thrusting the papers into my lap, he reached the doorway in three long leaps and disappeared.
    There were three papers in the lot he had handed me. One was the message from Schmidt, on the back of which I had scribbled Gustaf Jonsson’s home address. One was a receipt from the store
where I had bought my sweater. The last was my silhouette.
    I put them in my purse. I was looking around to make sure John hadn’t missed something when I heard a harsh cough. Someone was coming. Slow, shuffling footsteps, heavy asthmatic breathing
. . .
    The man who appeared in the doorway wore a uniform like that of a guard. That’s what he was – a museum guard. He glanced incuriously at me and walked slowly around the room
inspecting the cases.
    He was the only person I saw on the way out. The museum was about to close. Everyone else had gone. No seven-foot-tall Vikings, no short, bearded men with horn-rimmed glasses, no overdeveloped
females wearing flaxen wigs. I ought to have been relieved. I felt squirmy all over, as if hundreds of eyes were watching me.
    After I had walked a few blocks in the bright summer sunlight the feeling dissipated. Maybe John’s wide-eyed horror had been one of his peculiar jokes, a gimmick designed to allow him to
get away before I could ask any more questions.
    The most interesting question of all was the one I had failed to pick up on because I was distracted by his disguise. He had been there before me. He might have followed me and reached the
treasure room by another route. But his first words had been a compliment on my astuteness. ‘I felt sure you would figure it out.’ Figure what out? Had he known I would find my way to
the Hansson collection? The chalice did mean something.
    I found a cafe and ordered coffee. Taking the catalogue of the Hansson collection from my purse, I turned to the description of the chalice.
    The answer jumped out of the surrounding print as if it were outlined in red – one word that linked the jumbled fragments together into a coherent whole. The name of the chalice.
    Yes, it had a name. Many unique objects do – the Ardagh chalice, the Kingston brooch, the Sutton Hoo treasure. They are called after the places where they were found, in tombs and barrows
and fields. The proper name of my treasure was the Karlsholm chalice.
    My eyes had passed over that word a dozen times without noting its significance, but my good old reliable subconscious had made the connection – that inward eye that is the bliss of
solitude and, upon occasion, the salvation of Bliss. Wordsworth’s inward eye had turned up daffodils. Mine had produced the chalice itself, without outré symbolism or Freudian
nonsense. And I had missed it again. This time I couldn’t miss it. Only moments earlier I had glanced at the paper with Gustaf’s address. That’s where he lived – in
Karlsholm.

Chapter Four

    I DECIDED TO GO back to the hotel instead of struggling with the intricacies of a pay phone. I found several messages waiting for me. Two were from
Schmidt, one was from Leif. The latter had called at eleven-ten, right after I left the hotel. He had not left a number, but said he would call back at six.
    I looked at my watch. It was already after five, too late for some of the calls I needed to make. Served me right, too. I should have taken action that morning instead of trying to play