The Bishop and the Three Kings

"They’ve stolen the bodies of the three kings!" Sean Cardinal Cronin, by the grace of God and the strained patience of the Apostolic See announced in his most dramatic tenor voice, pointing his finger at me accusingly, as if I personally was responsible for the theft.

He had swept into my study like a crimson tornado, his usual style when he needed a favor from me. His tall, spare frame was clad in a cassock with crimson buttons, and a cummerbund, cape and zuchetto of the same color. He wore an ostentatious, bejeweled pectoral cross, a gift from his sister and sister-in-law Senator Nora Cronin. Some social event of considerable moment must have transpired earlier in the evening.

"Blackwood," he had announced as he seized a full bottle of my treasured supply of Bushmill’s Green from its hiding place, "We’re in trouble."

I had turned away from pentium computer and my long essay on "Russian Trinitarian Mysticism as a Love Affair" – a late evening amusement – to face him head on: if Milord Cronin said we were in trouble, it usually meant that I was in trouble.

"Indeed?" I had said cautiously.

He had filled a Waterford tumbler for me and poured a much smaller amount for himself. Since he did not usually drink a nightcap at all, I had become all the more convinced that I was in trouble. I had glanced at the icons on my wall – I called them icons now that I was into Russian mysticism – and prayed for help. The only one I could count on was the medieval ivory Madonna which my old fella had given me because it reminded him of my mother. The Johns of my youth – Pope, President and Baltimore quarterback would be of no use in the present situation. Neither would the newest addition – Clare Marie Raftery Boyle, a young woman who had helped me solve a mystery a hundred years old.

The Cardinal had removed a pile of computer output from my easy chair – Cathedral financial records in this instance, depressing as always – sank into the chair, sipped from his tumbler, stretched out in satisfaction, and announced the grave robbery.

"Deplorable . . . " I said with a loud sigh as I sipped cautiously from my Waterford. "Which three kings?"

"The three kings from the orient, Caspar, Baltassar and Melchior," he replied as his blue Celtic mercenary warrior eyes flared with indignation. "What other three kings are there?"

"I would you remind you that the current translation of the readings of the Feast of the Epiphany, which you yourself have approved for use at Eucharistic celebrations in this Archdiocese, depict them as astrologers, which may be more accurate but lacks some narrative vigor."

"That’s besides the point, Blackwood," he insisted, a frown creasing his handsome face. "The point is their bodies have been stolen."

"From the Archdiocesan Cemetery system?"

"No, of course not, from the Cathedral in Cologne! This is a very big deal, outside of Rome and Compestella, the Kings were the object of the greatest pilgrimages in the middle ages. They deserve credit for making Cologne one of the great cities of Europe. To lose them permanently would cause a grave crisis in the Church."

"It is the devout and plausible conviction of the Greeks and the Russians that there were twelve of these astrologers. They argue that since there are twelve apostles and twelve legions of angels and twelve tribes of Israel there must be twelve, uh, astrologers. In its own way that argument merits some credence, particularly if you happen to be a Russian or a Greek. We on the other hand conclude to only three because there were three gifts brought, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. One gift, you see, one king. It is, I must concede, a typical manifestation of the western empiricism which the Greeks and the Russians abhor."

"How come then that there are only three bodies in the Cologne Cathedral?" He demanded, baffled by my little excursus into scriptural interpretation.

"Is no one permitted to observe that it is very unlikely that the bones entombed in that lovely city on the Rhine are in fact those of the wise men, of whatever number, who came out of the East to Bethlehem . . . Moreover, As I remember they were stolen from the Cathedral in Milano by that exemplary Catholic king, Frederick of the Red Beard. So this is not the first theft."

"That, Blackwood," Milord Cronin informed me, "Is totally besides the point!"

I refrained from noting that this was the second time he had accused me of missing the point. In fact, he was well aware that I was deliberately missing the point, because I didn’t like what it obviously was.

"The point is that it is close to Christmas."

"Ah," I said. "I had thought that it was the first week in October, fully eighty-five shopping days till Christmas."

"If we don’t get the Three Kings back before Christmas, the word will leak out and all the world will be in Cologne to reveal yet another Catholic scandal. In the days of Freddy Barbarossa, you didn’t have Christine Armanpour descending from a helicopter to tell in shocked tones that the Catholic Church had spoiled Christmas."

"Beat the grinch to it," I said trying to sound sympathetic.

The leprechaun who haunts my quarters at Holy Name Cathedral had stolen most of my aqua vitae as he usually does. I decided that it would be pointless to refill the glass: I would not sleep much that night at all. At all, at all.

"You Ryans like to travel," Milord continued, stating what he knew was a total falsehood. Under normal circumstances we consider a trip from the South Side of Chicago to the campus of the University of Notre Dame an scarcely tolerable affront.

"Patently, we do not. Why leave Chicago as my sister the Federal Judge often says; when we have everything here."

That dictum from the good Eileen is something of an exaggeration. Various members of the clan have traveled to the far ends of the earth for reasons of necsssity – kicking, screaming, and complaining all the way out and back.

"Except the bodies of the Three Kings."

"Arguably."

"Claus is a good friend, right?" he continued, circling around our trouble."

He was referring to Claus Maria, Heinrich, Rupert Eugen, Graf von Oberman, the Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne.

"Arguably," I said again, with the loudest of my West of Ireland sighs.

"We do him favors, he does us favors, right?

"That is the Chicago political tradition."

I sighed again.What he meant was that, if I did a favor for the genial Viking pirate who presided over Köln, to spell it properly, he, Cardinal Sean Cronin would have a marker to pick up. Such is the nature of the responsibility of auxiliary bishops whose role is roughly analogous of the character played by the excellent Harvey Keitel in the film Pulp Fiction: we sweep up the messes that real bishops make.

"So if we can help him get the Three Kings back, he will owe us one very big favor."

"That is the way it works," I assented.

"Besides," he said swirling around the remaining precious fluid in his glass, "this little puzzle is not without certain interesting aspects."

He had stolen the line from me, patently. I in my turn had stolen it from Sherlock Holmes.

"Indeed."

"Oh, yes. The casket with the remains of your three friends is the largest gilded monument in the occidental world."

"Impressive."

"It would take four, arguably six, men to move it."

"Indeed."

"It is protected by large, transparent case which looks like glass but is in fact bullet-proof plastic."

"In case terrorists wanted to destroy the shrine with automatic weapons."

"Or something like that . . . Needless to say that case is wired with an alarm."

"Naturally."

"Moreover, it is behind the high altar which they no longer use for Mass, ah, the Eucharist because we have different ideas of where the altar should be than the Goths did."

"Franks in this case, though both were Germanic tribes."

"Whatever . . . The whole area around the high altar and the shrine is protected by a wrought-iron fence which is also wired and is locked unless opened by one of the head vergers of the Cathedral."

"A reasonable precaution."

"Finally, they lock the cathedral up at night, unlike this place . . ."

"No one has stolen anything from our cathedral," I pointed out.

I hold the odd position for a priest of our age, that a church building belongs to the people who paid for it and that it should be open to them at all hours of the day and night. A ring of visible light encircles a section in the back of the nave and warnings are posted that anyone who violates that circle will call down upon himself, the Chicago Police Department, the Cook County Sheriff’s Police, the Illinois State Police, the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Fire Arms Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and possibly the Swiss Guard. The warnings exaggerate somewhat, but only somewhat. There are also various electronic wonders, not excluding TV monitors, which preclude the possibility of anyone doing harm to anyone else in our ring of light without the risk of unleashing sounds that would awaken not only the intrepid Cathedral staff but most human beings living within the boundaries of the parish.

We have had only a few false alarms.

"They wire their place at night too. They should with all the treasures inside. I wouldn’t think it is as elaborate, however, as your network of instruments from hell."

"Undoubtedly it is not. No church in the world . . ."

"I’m sure," he held up his hand. "The point is that you have a locked shrine inside a locked fence within a locked cathedral, all of which are not only locked but armed."

"Fascinating," I admitted grudgingly.

"Last week the priest who comes over to say the first mass . . ."

"Doubtless the pastor as in this cathedral."

". . . Notices that the shrine is missing. The transparent cage is locked, the fence is locked, the alarm system is still functioning, but the three kings have disappeared."

"Most fascinating."

"I knew you’d think so," he said, triumphantly bounding out of the easy chair.

"What did the good clergy of the Dom do about their loss?"

I discretely replaced the financial output papers. One must have an orderly room.

"They replaced it with the fake before they let anyone inside the place."

"Fake!"

"Sure, you gotta have a fake. When they take the real one down to the basement to fix it up, they put in a wooden one that’s painted gold. From a distance you can’t tell the difference."

"Ingenious . . . No one knows about this surrogate and presumably boneless shrine?"

"Be reasonable, Blackwood! Everyone knows about it. When they were doing major repairs back in the seventies, they had the fake in for six months. Didn’t bother the pilgrims at all, even if they knew which they probably didn’t."

"All the Kölners knew, however."

"Sure . . . They’ve talked to the Ministry of Justice or whatever they call it over there. Everyone is keeping it a secret, however, for fear of publicity. I guess they’re having some kind of election."

"The Polezei don’t know?"

"You got it."

He leaned against my door jamb, relishing the approaching moment.

"No one claims credit, no one seeks ransom?" I asked.

"Not so far."

"Nor is there a market for gilded shrines with the purported bones of three astrologers."

"Precisely."

"Though there are always the rich private collectors who enjoy knowing that they have something no one else has."

"Creeps," Milord Cronin agreed. "But super rich creeps."

"It is, as you say, a little puzzle that is not without some interest."

"So Claus remembers that you do locked rooms and wants you to come over and have a look around. Strictly private. He doesn’t want to upset the Ministry of Interior or whatever by bringing in an auslander.That means foreigner."

"How can I be a foreigner," I asked, "when patently I am an American?"

"Spoken like a true offspring of the South Side Irish . . . Anyway we’ve got to help Claus get it back."

"So I understand," I said with the loudest of all my sighs.

"One of the young guys can take care of this place. They have more energy anyway.’

"Arguably."

"We have to recover the Three Kings to save Christmas! See to it, Blackwood!"

Then like a carmine jet which had just turned on its afterburners, he swept from my study, trailing as he always does under such circumstances maniacal laughter.

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