The Flanders Panel

She looked again at the board, feeling the blood beating silently in her wrists and temples. She could see only the defenceless white queen, but she felt the danger like a dead weight on her back. She looked across at Munoz, asking for help, and saw that he was shaking his head thoughtfully, the furrow between his eyebrows deepening. Then the vague smile she’d noticed on other occasions flickered briefly and humourlessly across his lips. It was the fleeting, rather resentful smile of someone who finds himself obliged, most reluctantly, to acknowledge his opponent’s talent. And Julia felt an explosion of intense, dark fear, for she understood that even Munoz was impressed.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, barely recognising her own voice. The squares on the board swam before her eyes.

Exchanging a grave look with Munoz, Cesar said: “It means that the white rook’s move threatens the black queen. Isn’t that right?”

Munoz gave a lift of his chin.

“Yes,” he said. “The black queen, who before was safe, is now under threat.” He stopped. Venturing along the path of non-chess interpretations was not something he felt at ease doing. “That might mean that the invisible player is trying to communicate something to us: his certainty that the mystery of the painting has been resolved. The black queen…”

“Beatrice of Burgundy,” murmured Julia.

“Yes, Beatrice of Burgundy, the black queen, who, it would seem, has already killed once.”

Munoz’s last words hung in the air without expectation of any response. Cesar reached out a hand and, with the meticulousness of someone who desperately needs to do something in order to remain in touch with reality, delicately flicked the ash from his cigarette into an ashtray. Then he looked around as if he might find the answer to the questions they were all asking themselves in one of the pieces of furniture, one of the pictures or objects in his shop.

“You know, my dears, it really is an absolutely incredible coincidence. This just can’t be real.”

He raised his hands and let them fall in a gesture of impotence. Munoz merely gave a gloomy shrug of his shoulders.

“This is no coincidence. Whoever planned this is a master.”

“And what about the white queen?” asked Julia.

Munoz moved one hand towards the board where it hovered over the piece in question, as if not daring to touch it. He pointed to the black rook on c1.

“There’s a chance she could be taken,” he said calmly.

“I see.” Julia felt disappointed. She thought she would have felt more of a shock if someone had confirmed her fears out loud. “If I’ve understood you correctly, the fact of having discovered the picture’s secret, that is, the lady in black’s guilt, is reflected in that move of the rook to b2. And if the white queen is in danger, it’s because she should have withdrawn to a safe place instead of wandering around making life difficult for herself. Is that the moral of the message, Senor Munoz?”

“More or less.”

“But it all happened five hundred years ago,” protested Cesar. “Only the mind of a madman…”

“Perhaps we’re dealing with a madman,” said Munoz with equanimity. “But he played, or plays, damned fine chess.”

“And he might have killed again,” added Julia. “Now, a few days ago, in the twentieth century. He might have killed Alvaro.”

Cesar, scandalised, raised a hand, almost as if she’d made an improper remark.

“Now, hang on, Princess. We’re getting ourselves tied in knots here. No murderer can survive for five hundred years. And a painting can’t kill.”

“That depends on how you look at it.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. And stop mixing things up. On the one hand there’s a painting and a crime committed five hundred years ago… On the other hand there’s Alvaro, dead.”

“And the sending of the documents.”

“But no one has yet proved that the person who sent the documents also killed Alvaro. It’s even possible that the wretched man cracked his own head open in the bath.” Cesar raised three fingers. “Third, we have someone who wants to play chess. That’s all. There’s nothing that proves there’s any link among the three things.”

“The painting.”

“That’s not proof. It’s just a hypothesis.” Cesar turned to Munoz. “Isn’t that right?”

Munoz said nothing, refusing to take sides, and Cesar gave him a resentful look. Julia pointed to the card on the table next to the chessboard.