The Flanders Panel

I. Painting dated 1471. Game of chess. The mystery: What really happened between Ferdinand Altenhoffen, Beatrice of Burgundy and Roger de Arras? Who ordered the death of the knight? What has chess got to do with this? Why did Van Huys paint the picture? Why, after painting the inscription Quis necavit equitem, did he paint over it? Was he afraid they might murder him too?

II. I tell Menchu about my discovery. I go to Alvaro. He already knows all about the painting; someone has consulted him about it. Who?

II.Alvaro is dead. Dead or murdered? Obvious link with the painting, or perhaps with my visit and my research. Is there something somebody doesn’t want me to know? Did Alvaro find out something important I don’t know about?

V. An unknown person (possibly the murderer or murderess) sends me the documents compiled by Alvaro. What was it that Alvaro knew that other people believe to be dangerous? What does that other person (or persons) want me to know, and what does he or she not want me to know?

. A blonde woman takes the envelope to Urbexpress. Is she linked with Alvaro’s death or merely an intermediary?

VI. Although we are both investigating the same thing, Alvaro dies and I (for the moment) do not. Does the person want to facilitate my work, or guide it towards something, and if so, what? Does it concern the painting’s monetary value? Or my restoration work? Or the inscription? Or the chess problem? Or is it a matter of finding out or not finding out certain historical facts? What possible link can there be between some one in the twentieth century and someone in the fifteenth?

II. Fundamental question (for the present): Would a hypothetical murderer benefit by an increase in the price of the painting at auction? Is there more to the painting than I have so far uncovered?

III.Is there a possibility that the whole thing has nothing to do with the value of the painting, but with the mystery of the chess game it depicts? Munoz’s work. Chess problem. How can that possibly cause a death five centuries later? That’s not only ridiculous; it’s stupid. (I think.)

IX. Am I in danger? Perhaps someone is waiting for me to find out a bit more. Perhaps I’m working for him without realising it. Perhaps I’m still alive because he still needs me.

She remembered something Munoz had said the first time he saw the Van Huys, and she began to reconstruct it on paper. He’d talked about the different levels in the painting. An explanation of one of them might help her understand the whole thing.

Level 1. The scene within the painting. A floor in the form of a chessboard on which the people are placed.

Level 2. The people in the painting: Ferdinand, Beatrice, Roger.

Level 3. The chessboard on which two people are playing a game.

Level 4. The chess pieces that symbolise the three people.

Level 5. The mirror that reflects a reverse image of the game and of the people.

She looked at the result, drawing lines between the different levels and managing only to establish disquieting links. The fifth level contained the four previous levels, the first was linked to the third, the second to the fourth. It formed a strange figure turned in upon itself.

In fact, she said to herself while studying the curious diagram, it seemed a complete and utter waste of time. The only thing those links demonstrated was that the painter who created the picture had a brilliantly devious mind. It did nothing to help clear up Alvaro’s death. Five hundred years after The Game of Chess had been painted, he had either slipped in the bath or someone else had made him slip. Whatever the result of all those arrows and boxes, neither Alvaro nor she could be contained in the Van Huys, whose creator could not possibly have foreseen their existence. Or could he? A disquieting question surfaced in her mind. Confronted by a collection of symbols, like that painting, was it up to the viewer to attribute meanings to it, or were the meanings there already, from the very moment of its creation?

She was still drawing arrows and boxes when the phone rang. She jumped, startled, looking at the phone on the carpet, unsure whether to answer it or not. Who could be phoning her at half past three in the morning? None of the possible replies to that question set her mind at rest, and the phone rang four more times before she moved. She went slowly over to it, suddenly feeling that it would be much worse if it were to stop ringing before she found out who was calling. She imagined herself spending the rest of the night curled up on the sofa, looking in terror at the phone, waiting for it to ring again. She hurled herself on it with something approaching fury.

“Hello?”