|
In silence, they continued on, crossing several more beams. Finally, up ahead Langdon saw a heartening shape in the darkness. The viewing platform! The precarious planking on which they were walking led directly to a much sturdier structure with guardrails. If they climbed onto the platform, they could continue on along the walkway until they exited the garret through a doorway, which, as Langdon recalled, was very close to the Duke of Athens Stairway.
As they neared the platform, Langdon glanced down at the ceiling suspended eight feet below. So far all the lunettes beneath them had been similar. The upcoming lunette, however, was massive—far larger than the others.
The Apotheosis of Cosimo I, Langdon mused.
This vast, circular lunette was Vasari’s most precious painting—the central lunette in the entire Hall of the Five Hundred. Langdon often showed slides of this work to his students, pointing out its similarities to The Apotheosis of Washington in the U.S. Capitol—a humble reminder that fledgling America had adopted far more from Italy than merely the concept of a republic.
Today, however, Langdon was more interested in hurrying past the Apotheosis than in studying it. As he hastened his pace, he turned his head ever so slightly to whisper back to Sienna that they were nearly there.
As he did so, his right foot missed the center of the plank and his borrowed loafer landed half off the edge. His ankle rolled, and Langdon lurched forward, half stumbling, half running, trying to make a quick stutter step to regain his balance.
But it was too late.
His knees hit the plank hard, and his hands strained desperately forward, trying to reach the crossing strut. The flashlight went clattering into the dark space beneath them, landing on the canvas, which caught it like a net. Langdon’s legs pumped, barely propelling him to safety on the next strut as the plank fell away beneath him, landing with a crash eight feet below on the wooden lacunar surrounding the canvas of Vasari’s Apotheosis.
The sound echoed through the garret.
Horrified, Langdon scrambled to his feet and turned back toward Sienna.
In the dim glow of the abandoned flashlight, which lay on the canvas below, Langdon could see that Sienna was standing on the strut behind him, now trapped, with no way across. Her eyes conveyed what Langdon already knew. The noise of the falling plank had almost certainly given them away.
Vayentha’s eyes bolted upward to the ornate ceiling.
“Rats in the attic?” the man with the camcorder joked nervously as the sound reverberated down.
Big rats, Vayentha thought, gazing up at the circular painting in the center of the hall’s ceiling. A small cloud of dust was now filtering down from between the lacunars, and Vayentha could swear she saw a slight bulge in the canvas … almost as if someone were pushing on it from the other side.
“Maybe one of the officers dropped his gun off the viewing platform,” the man said, eyeing the lump in the painting. “What do you think they’re looking for? All this activity is very exciting.”
“A viewing platform?” Vayentha demanded. “People can actually go up there?”
“Sure.” He motioned to the museum entrance. “Just inside that door is a door that leads up to a catwalk in the attic. You can see Vasari’s truss work. It’s incredible.”
Brüder’s voice suddenly echoed again across the Hall of the Five Hundred. “So where the hell did they go?!”
His words, like his anguished yell a little earlier, had emanated from behind a lattice grate positioned high on the wall to Vayentha’s left. Brüder was apparently in a room behind the grate … a full story beneath the room’s ornate ceiling.
Vayentha’s eyes climbed again to the bulge in the canvas overhead.
Rats in the attic, she thought. Trying to find a way out.
She thanked the man with the camcorder and drifted quickly toward the museum entrance. The door was closed, but with all the officers running in and out, she suspected that it was unlocked.
Sure enough, her instincts were correct.
CHAPTER 47
OUTSIDE IN THE piazza, amid the chaos of arriving police, a middle-aged man stood in the shadows of the Loggia dei Lanzi, where he had been observing the activity with great interest. The man wore Plume Paris spectacles, a paisley necktie, and a tiny gold stud in one ear.
As he watched the commotion, he caught himself scratching at his neck again. The man had developed a rash overnight, which seemed to be getting worse, manifesting in small pustules on his jawline, neck, cheeks, and over his eyes.
86/205 首页 上一页 84 85 86 87 88 89 下一页 尾页
|
