An Elegant Solution(34)

“What is your name?” Gottlieb had clasped his hands together behind his back, but made no other move.

“I am Foucault.”

Gottlieb nodded. “I have questions for Caiaphas. Take me to him.”

This presented Gendarme Foucault with a difficulty: To obey his own Master, he needed also to obey Gottlieb. When he finally managed a reply, it was simply, “You must come at once.”

But Gottlieb had him off balance. “Who opened this trunk in Strasbourg?”

“Magistrate Caiaphas did,” he said, before he thought to refuse.

“Caiaphas himself! Even the driver was afraid to admit that. Why did he open it? And why doesn’t he want that known?”

This was far beyond Foucault’s ability. He was a picture of confusion. “You must come!” he said at last. “At once!”

“Yes, take me to him,” Gottlieb said, and I only had time to close the trunk and run after them.



Many places in Basel were suitable for a Magistrate: the Town Hall; the wealthy homes of the great merchants, the grand Councilors, and the Deans and leading Chairs of the University; even the highest churches had very adequate guest quarters. Of course, no place in Basel was sumptuous. Instead, they were honorable and worthy. But the Boot and Thorn was not any of these. Caiaphas had chosen to be a protestant against Reformed Basel by exiling his person to a private room in an inn. At least Gustavus had done him the honor of not requiring him to share it with other travelers.

As we had been the night before, we were taken to somewhere within the pile of the inn that surely couldn’t have existed in real geometry. In and up and in more, all the time turning corners, I felt we must be in the middle of the Barefoot Square if all the distances and angles had been measured. But we were at a door in a narrow hall that had no other doors.

Foucault knocked on that door. “Your guard, Lord Caiaphas. I have brought the man.”

I thought the barracks where we were apprehended must have been Gethsemane. Foucault might have been better named Malchus. I determined myself not to deny that I knew Gottlieb.

“Then bring him in,” Caiaphas said.

Foucault opened the door as if it had been to an imperial chamber. He bowed and stood aside for Gottlieb to enter. The room was no better than any inn had in German or French lands. It was small with bare floor and walls; this had one window. Outside the window was a courtyard which must have been internal to the inn. I’d never seen it.

The only furnishings in the room were a plain chair and barrel table, and the huge bed. The bed was the reason for the room, and on Gustavus’s profitable nights it would hold three or four or five paying sleepers. It filled the space as law filled a courtroom. With Caiaphas present, in his wig and robe, the chamber became a tribunal.

“You are Gottlieb?” he asked.

“You are Caiaphas?” he was answered.

“You know that I am!”

“I do, and you know that I am, though it’s been twenty years since I saw you. I want to know why you have come to Basel.”

I anticipated the Magistrate bursting. He seemed to live in a state of anger. “I have come to require an Inquiry of you.”

“I am the Inquiry,” Gottlieb said. “You have some reason for wanting it, and it wants to know why. Why did you open the trunk?”

“Who told you that I did?” Caiaphas said, and Foucault answered by gasping.

Gottlieb pressed in. “Did you know what would be in it?”

“Your authority doesn’t run here,” he answered. “I am not answering questions.”

“I have authority in all of Basel.”

“You are not in Basel. When I am in this room it is Strasbourg.”

I looked out the window again. The roofs had a different shape than those in Basel, and the houses were darker colors and lower. It might have been Strasbourg.

“Then I will withdraw,” Gottlieb said. “The Inquisitor is required to stay within Basel.” He stepped back across the threshold into his own city, and through the doorway faced the Magistrate in his. “A corpse was sent to Strasbourg and I have been instructed to learn why. To do so, I must know the reason you have come here.”

Caiaphas stood, angered beyond his control. “My reasons have nothing to do with your Inquiry!”

“Basel, not you, appointed me. I am Inquisitor and I will ask my own questions. Why did you come? Why did you open the trunk? What is important enough to bring you here? I will have those answers.” Then his voice changed, less sharp but more pointed. “Twenty years ago we faced each other and you had the better of it.”

“Yet now you have what you wanted,” Caiaphas said, suddenly less angry.