The Flanders Panel

Munoz, standing by the table, was looking at the piece of paper on which, the moment Feijoo had left, he’d noted down the contents of the card found by the body. Cesar was sitting on the sofa where Menchu had spent the night, staring in stupefaction at the empty easel. When he heard Julia speak, he shook his head.

“It wasn’t Max who did it,” he said. “There is absolutely no way an imbecile like him could have thought all this up.”

“But he was here. At least in the building.”

Cesar bowed before the evidence, but without much conviction.

“There must be someone else involved. If Max was, so to speak, the hired help, someone else was pulling the strings.” He slowly raised one hand and tapped his forehead with his index finger. “Someone with brains.”

“The mystery player. And now he’s won the game.”

“He hasn’t won it yet,” said Munoz, and they turned towards him in surprise.

“He’s got the painting,” Julia pointed out. “If that isn’t winning.. ”

There was a gleam of absorbed fascination in Munoz’s eyes; their dark pupils seemed to see, beyond the four walls of the room, the mathematical meeting in space of complex combinations.

“With or without the painting, the game goes on,” he said, and showed them the paper:

“This time,” he added, “the murderer doesn’t suggest one move, but three.” He went over to his raincoat and took out his pocket chess set. “The first is obvious: Q x R, the black queen takes the white rook. The taking of the white rook represents Menchu Roch’s murder, just as, in this game, the white knight symbolised your friend Alvaro and, in the painting, Roger de Arras.” Munoz arranged the pieces on the board as he talked. “Therefore, so far in this game, the black queen has taken only two pieces. And in reality,” he glanced at Cesar and Julia, who’d gathered round to study the board, “each of those two pieces represents a murder. Our opponent identifies himself with the black queen; when another black piece takes a white piece, as happened two moves back when we lost the first white rook, nothing happened. At least, not as far as we know.”

Julia pointed to the paper.

“Why have you put question marks by the next two moves by White?”

“I didn’t put them there. They were on the card; the murderer has foreseen what we will do next. I assume those signs to be an invitation for us to make those moves, if you do this, I’ll do this‘, he’s saying to us. And if we do that” – he moved some pieces – “the game would look like this.

“As you can see, there have been important changes. Having taken the rook on b2, Black foresaw that we would make the best possible move we could, that is, move our white queen from square e1 to e7. That gives us an advantage: a diagonal line of attack threatening the black king, who is already fairly limited in his movements by the presence of the white knight, bishop and pawn nearby. Assuming that we would make the move we’ve just made, the black queen moves up from b2 to b3 to support the king and to threaten the white king with check. The latter has no alternative but to withdraw to the square to his right, as in fact we have done, fleeing from c4 to d4, out of reach of the queen.”

“That’s the third time he’s had us in check,” said Cesar.

“Yes. And one could interpret that in several ways. It could be a case of third time lucky, for example, since the third time he has us in check the murderer steals the painting. I think I’m beginning to understand him a little. Including his peculiar sense of humour.”

“What next?” asked Julia.

“Black then takes our white pawn on c6 with the black pawn that was on b7. That move is protected by the black knight on b8. Then it’s our turn to move, but our opponent makes no suggestion on the card. It’s as if he’s saying that what we do next is up to us, not up to him.”

“And what are we going to do?” asked Cesar.

“There’s only one good option: to keep playing the white queen.” He looked at Julia as he said this. “But playing the queen also means we risk losing her.”

Julia shrugged. All she wanted was for it to be over, whatever the risks might be.

“The queen it is then.”

Cesar was leaning over the board, his hands behind his back, as if he were subjecting the questionable quality of a piece of antique china to particularly close scrutiny.

“That white knight, the one on b1, doesn’t look too safe either,” he said in a low voice, addressing Munoz. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I know. I doubt Black will Jet him stay there much longer. His presence, threatening Black’s rearguard, provides the main support for an attack by the white queen. There’s the white bishop on d3 too. Both of those pieces near the queen could prove decisive.”

The two men looked at each other in silence, and Julia saw a current of sympathy grow between them that she’d not seen before. It was like the Spartans’ resigned solidarity in the face of danger at Thermopylae, when they heard the distant sound of the Persian chariots approaching.