LITMIR.BIZ

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you want my opinion . . . A mandylion? Sorry, that’s a specialist’s term, jargon . . . The Greek word for ‘handkerchief.’ That’s what we call an imprint of Jesus’s face on cloth. Having learned that Jesus was preaching not far from the kingdom of Edessa, King Abgar supposedly had his painter do a portrait. When the artist proved incapable of copying his features, Jesus applied a cloth to his face, and the image imprinted itself onto it. That is known as acheiropoiesa, or otherwise an ‘icon made without hands.’ For example, the Shroud of Turin or the Veil of Veronica, relics that we now know to have been created several centuries after the death of Christ. The Virgin’s Holy Robe is doubtless also a medieval forgery, but looking at it, surprisingly, one hopes that it is not. I have a copy that was sent to me, would you all like to take a look? It’s one fiftieth the size of the original . . .”

      Without waiting for them to respond, he unrolled before them a sheet of Japanese paper upon which a woman’s naked body was drawn in blood. Her breasts, her rounded belly, her shaved pubis, and even her vulval vestibule were there, revealed as if by a thin, transparent, damp cloth.

      “Magnificent,” said Holmes, spreading the drawing out on a chairback in order to examine it better. “This looks like nothing else I know of. You’d swear it was the stamp of a real body!”

      “Indeed,” said Dr. Mardrus, “and, in addition to its anatomical details, it is also in keeping with an inversion of forms. I imagine you likely know that women’s left breasts are always larger than their neighbors to the right. In a painting, the left breast is therefore quite logically presented on the right.”

      “While here,” said Grimod, “the larger of the two is on the left, as if the drawing resulted from the application of the paper to a real body.”

      “Precisely.”

      “And, if I may,” said Canterel, making a show of looking out the window at the countryside, “the dark line that runs from the navel to the pubis suggests that this woman was pregnant.”

      “Bravo, dear sir, and of course that is what makes this relic so valuable: more than just an image of the Virgin, we are dealing with one of Christ in utero!”

      Another passenger who was passing near them, accompanied by her ten-year-old son in a sailor suit, could not help but notice the drawing.

      “How awful!” she exclaimed, trying in vain to turn her child’s gaze away. “How can you flaunt such smut? And in first class! It’s a scandal, I’m going to complain to the conductor!”

      “I’ll go with you,” said Grimod, taking her by the elbow. “I do not understand how anyone can display such filth. If it were merely some actress, that would be one thing, but to dare to exhibit the Virgin Mary’s nightgown! It’s quite unacceptable!”

      For an instant, the woman seemed bolstered in her indignation; it appeared she was about to follow Grimod, but then she raised her eyes to his face and winced in astonishment.

      “Oh my god! Who do you think you are? Don’t touch me or I’ll scream! You don’t know who you’re talking to!” She fled, trailing her brat by the hand.

      “Well played,” said Holmes.

      Grimod cracked a smile.

      “It’s amazing, the way women go mad for me . . .”

      “Shall we go to lunch?” Canterel proposed. “Would you like to join us, Dr. Mardrus?”

      “Absolutely!”

      He folded his sheet of paper carefully and followed them into the dining car. The head waiter led them to an elegant round table. On a white linen tablecloth, large porcelain plates bore the symbol of the Sleeping-Car Company, a design that was also engraved into the silverware and embroidered into the napkins folded in a double Tafelspitz. Hexagonal crystal glasses added a noteworthy touch of refinement, or at least showed how much the decorator had wanted to evoke that sensation.

      While they were being served Ukrainian borscht cooked with Chablis wine, Mardrus continued to expound upon the Holy Robe, including several details regarding certain Syriac texts that may have mentioned it.

      “Do you know that not a single piece of the Virgin’s clothing has come down to us? There is the story of Galbois and Candide, two Arians who converted to Catholicism, who took the Mother of God’s Dress, which had been bequeathed to one of her two Jewish serving women, from Galilee. The relic was kept in Constantinople, in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, at the same time as the Maphorion, or Mantle, of that same person. A concentration that made the sanctuary the holiest place in the Eastern Empire! A ‘regular miracle’ occurred there each Friday at vespers: the silk veil slowly rose up and floated in the air until that same hour on Saturday, at which time it would float back down in front of everyone, softly and promptly, onto an ancient icon. A procession would then take it from that church to the sanctuary of St. Mary Chalkoprateia, where the Cincture of the Theotokos was kept. Yes, yes, dear friends! Her girdle . . .”

      “Am I to understand,” said Canterel, raising his right eyebrow, “that your archaeologists have put together the Virgin Mary’s entire wardrobe, down to the implements that protected her chastity?”

      “That would be saying a great deal,” whispered Dr. Mardrus, “especially since the church in question and all its contents were destroyed by a fire in 1070 and, after its reconstruction, once again in 1434 . . .”

      “Good, we can rest easy, then,” said Holmes, opening his eyes wide at the covered dish their server was bringing over.

      “Roasted fowl with Piedmontese seared quail,” he announced, lifting the sparkling domed cover. “Would you like a little mustard?”

      Confused by this unseemly proposition, then disappointed, Canterel glared at the waiter. This slight error of taste made the whole edifice crumble. Mustard . . . One might as well suggest a glass of vinegar to accompany the tasting of the Château Lafite that they were about to be served!

      The wine had been poured and he was just enjoying its bouquet when the French doors separating the restaurant from the lounge crashed open, making everyone jump. Annoyed, Canterel could not help but turn around to identify the vulgar individual who was capable of so arrogantly displaying a lack of education.

      Clawdia Chauchat was advancing between the tables, smiling and imperial. She was wearing a brownish-pink suit of wool serge, with a belted jacket, a skirt that narrowed at the ankles, and a hat with a wide, raised brim decorated with a double knot of umber silk in front, oversized and jauntily tilted to the side like a propeller.

      She came straight toward them, carried by a wave of tense looks containing a mixture of naïve admiration from the men and annoyed suspicion from their wives. Holmes was the first to react, rising to greet her.

      “Lady MacRae, what a surprise!”

      “I would say, rather, what a landing . . .” scoffed Canterel, clapping slowly and silently. “Such finesse, well done, bravo!”

      “May I ask what you are doing here?” Holmes asked gravely.

      “You didn’t really think I’d let you head off to the ends of the earth without me, did you?”

      “This is a mistake. I told you how dangerous this expedition could prove . . .”

      “Don’t listen to him, dear madam,” said Mardrus, genially. “Look around you: we are in a five-star restaurant on wheels, the only danger you could meet here is boredom . . . or indigestion,” he said, leaning back to let the server slip a Lobster en Bellevue onto his plate.

      “Dr. Charles-Joseph Mardrus,” said Holmes, with a pointed look at Clawdia. “He is traveling with us to Irkutsk.”

      Grimod waved to the head waiter to set a place at their table for Lady MacRae.

      “How did you do it,” he asked, “I mean, get here at the same time as us?”

      “A train from Glasgow to London, a boat to Ostend, and a mail-coach to Moscow. We arrived two days before

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