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  "You said a family firm. Is it still...?"

  "Yes. We—wait a minute—what the hell is this? I get the feeling I'm under examination. Let's get this—"

  I had been reading the power of attorney. I waved it at the young lawyer and told him, "I am now the client you know. I can fire your ass, with all the force and power of de Medici himself. So let's keep this discussion on the proper level."

  Sloane glared at me for a moment, eyes dancing and mind whirling—then I began getting nicely harmonized thought patterns as he relaxed into his chair with a soft laugh. "You know, you're right."

  "Who witnessed this document?"

  "Our senior legal secretary. That's her notary stamp."

  "So she knows de Medici?"

  "Well...not exactly. But he presented proper identification. And his signature checked out."

  "Who prepared the document?"

  "She did. De Medici dictated it by telephone, came in later to execute it. Meanwhile I had gone over it, found it okay and—"

  "When was this?'

  "Just this afternoon. Well, more like noontime when he called it in. I approved the form and went to lunch. He came in and executed the document while I was out. He also left me a message to get this stuff out here as quickly as possible."

  "Where is your office located?"

  "We're in Santa Ana, near the court house."

  "So it took you about...?"

  "Well it can be an hour's drive, this time of day. I came right out."

  "What else do you have there?"

  "Various records and documents related to the problem."

  I lit a cigarette, studied the smoke for a moment, asked, "What problem is that?"

  He said, “This is very weird. Are you saying that you know nothing about...?”

  I suggested, "Let's say that is the case. I'm totally ignorant. Let's educate me."

  The lawyer sighed, stared disapprovingly at my cigarette smoke, ran a hand through his hair, sighed again. The synaptical firings were getting a bit out of sync when he pushed back his chair, crossed his legs, folded his hands in his lap, told me: "The state of California is making a move on this property."

  "What kind of move? Eminent domain?"

  "No. Well sort of, but.. actually there is a legal question of proper succession to title. It's all very weird and baffling, and..."

  I was going through the other documents, just scanning them to get some sensing of what was there. Original Spanish land grant, or a copy thereof, dated 1782; validation by the new Mexican government in 1835; successive recordings and validations as California further mutated politically into the modern age.

  I commented, "Looks like a lock to me. Goes back for over two hundred years."

  "Well, yes, there's no question in the early abstract," Sloane replied. "The problem is, uh, you see..." He was thumbing through the historical abstract of title, trying to read it upside down, finally placing his finger at the crucial point. "Look at this date."

  The entry was dated August 4, 1921. It recorded the final adjustment to the original land parcel, which once had encompassed thousands of acres but now was confined to the headland jutting into the Pacific, the present boundaries.

  I said, "Yes?"

  "Yes. Please note the date. Note also the name on the entitlement."

  The name was recorded as Valentinius de Medici.

  I said, "Okay."

  He said, "Look at the name on the original grant."

  I did. Again, the name was Valentinius de Medici.

  I said, "Okay. Same family."

  He said, "The Valentinius who recorded the 1921 deed is the final Valentinius of record."

  I said, "Okay."

  "He is the one who retained my grandfather's legal services in 1918."

  "Okay."

  "He was middle-aged at the time."

  "Your grandfather?"

  "Valentinius. My grandfather wasn't even thirty yet."

  I was looking more closely into the documents. They reflected a long de Medici line.

  Sloane sighed, his mental wavelength went almost flat, and he told me, "This guy has got to be over a hundred years old."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. Or else the state of California has a hell of a good case."

  I said, "What is their case?"

  "They are taking the position that the owner of record has died intestate and without natural heirs."

  I said, "Now wait a minute."

  "Therefore the property passes legally to the state. We have got to produce Mr. de Medici, alive and fully documented as the owner of record, within ten days from today."

  “Ten days, eh.”

  "Frankly, I have been wondering if it is possible to do that. I am beginning to wonder even, if my own father is not somehow involved in some conspiracy to...look here, Ford, I have a right to the facts in this case. Valentinius refuses to come forward. Instead he advances you as his proxy. So you must know what is going on here."

  I said, "I haven't the foggiest, pal. How hard have you tried to find this guy?"

  "I have spent the past year exhausting every avenue. I even traced the family line back to Renaissance Italy. I have found only one record of birth for a Valentinius de

  Medici, and not a single record of death. Yet the name keeps—"

  "Back to when?"

  "What?"

  "What is the date of that record of birth?"

  "The year is 1690, in Italy."

  I sighed, lit another cigarette, reminded my disturbed lawyer, "You said a hundred years old. Sounds more like three hundred years old to me. Is there a problem with that?"

  He said, "It's no time for jokes. Of course I have a problem with that."

  So did I. Because I was beginning to get a glimmer of why I had been "invited" to Pointe House. I told the lawyer, "Not joking. I meant, if I could produce this three- hundred-year-old man for the court's inspection, would that help your case?"

  "I hope to hell you're joking," Sloane said.

  But I was not.

  Like the man said, it was no time for jokes. I understood the ten-day crisis now.

  And I was just wondering exactly what I was supposed to pull off within ten days.

  Chapter Five: A Possible Impossibility

  There is a story that is told and persistently repeated in the literature of the period, concerning a mysterious and influential figure with intimate access to the royal courts of Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, who charmed and astounded the nobility of the Continent for more than one hundred years, and perhaps directly influenced the actual history of the period.

  The man was the almost legendary Comte de St. Germain, believed to be the son of Prince Franz-Leopold Ra- goczy and heir to the throne of the principality of Siebenburgen (Transylvania). The principality was swallowed by the Austrain Empire in the late seventeenth century and St. Germain, as a boy of seven, was thought to have been spirited away and raised under the personal protection of the last Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Duc de Medici. This region of Italy, which includes Florence, Pisa, and Siena, became the greatest center of Renaissance culture under the Medici family, who ruled Tuscany for three hundred years, provided the church with three popes, and became linked by marriage to the royal families of Europe. The Medicis are regarded as perhaps the most prominent patrons of the arts in European history.

  It is possible that St. Germain was a Medici, but his direct lineage—if this biography is accurate—was to the throne at Transylvania. It is possible also that the legend which arose around the man was the direct inspiration for the 1897 Gothic novel, Dracula, by Irish writer Bram Stoker, in which a Transylvanian count has achieved immortality via vampirism.

  I have found no suggestion that St. Germain was ever regarded as a vampire or werewolf, but he was clearly held in awe by all who were exposed to him. Apparently he traveled all over Europe, to Africa, India, and China, and spent several years at the court of the shah of Persia. He was a fami
liar figure in the lives of Louis XV and Louis XVI, Madame de Pompadour and Marie Antoinette of France; of Peter m and Catherine II of Russia; apparently he knew such diverse personages as Tchaikovsky and Voltaire, merchants and princes and artists, scientists and philosophers.

  It was written of him by a contemporary: “The Count speaks French, English, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese equally perfectly; so much so that when he converses with any of the inhabitants of the above countries in their mother tongue, they are unable to discover the slightest foreign accent. The Learned and the Oriental scholars have proved the knowledge of the Count St. Germain. The former found him more apt in the languages of Homer and Virgil than themselves; with the latter he spoke Sanskrit, Chinese, Arabic in such a manner as to show them that he had made some lengthy stay in Asia, and that the languages of the East were but poorly learned in the Colleges of Louis The Great and Montaigne.”

  According to the record, St. Germain was greatly talented in all the arts. He was a composer and an extraordinary musician, a painter who astonished with his remarkably brilliant colors, and a scholar with astounding knowledge.

  "The Comte de St. Germain accompained on the piano without music, not only every song but also the most difficult concerti, played on various instruments. Rameau was much impressed with the playing of this dilettante, and especially struck at his improvising.

  "The Count paints beautifully in oils; but that which makes his paintings so remarkable is a particular colour, a secret, which he has discovered, and which lends to the painting an extraordinary brilliancy. Vanloo, who never tires in his admiration of the surprising colouring, has often requested the Count to let him participate in his secret; the latter, however, will not divulge it.

  "Without attempting to sit in judgement on the knowledge of a fellow-being, of whom at this very moment that I am writing, both court and town have exhausted all surmises, one can, I think, well assert that a portion of his miracles is due to his knowledge of physics and chemistry in which sciences he is well grounded. At all events it is palpable that his knowledge has laid the seeds for him of sound good health; a life which will—or which has—overstepped the ordinary time allotted to man; and has also endowed him with the means of preventing the ravages of time from affecting the body."

  That last sentence quoted is most interesting and most pertinent to our own story, as is the following account: "There appeared at the Court [of Louis XV] in these days an extraordinary man, who called himself Comte de St. Germain. At first he distinguished himself through his cleverness and the great diversity of his talents, but in another respect he soon aroused the greatest astonishment.

  "The old Countess v. Georgy who fifty years earlier had accompanied her husband to Venice where he had the appointment of ambassador, lately met St. Germain at Mme. de Pompadour's. For some time she watched the stranger with signs of the greatest surprise, in which was mixed not a little fear. Finally, unable to control her excitement, she approached the Count more out of curiosity than in fear.

  "'Will you have the kindness to tell me,' said the Countess, 'whether your father was in Venice about the year 1710?'

  "'No, Madame,' replied the Count quite unconcerned, 'it is very much longer since I lost my father, but I myself was living in Venice at the end of the last and the beginning of this century; I had the honour to pay you court then, and you were kind enough to admire a few Barcarolles of my composing which we used to sing together.'

  "'Forgive me, but that is impossible; the Comte de St.

  Germain I knew in those days was at least forty-five years old, and you, at the outside, are that age at present.'

  "'Madame,' replied the Count smiling, 'I am very old.'

  "'But then you must be nearly one hundred years old!'

  "'That is not impossible.' And then the Count recounted to Mme. v. Georgy a number of familiar little details which had reference in common to both, to their sojourn in the Venitian States. He offered, if she still doubted him, to bring back to her memory certain circumstances and remarks, which—

  "'No, no,' interrupted the old ambassadress, 'I am already convinced. For all that you are a most extraordinary man, a devil.'

  "'For pity's sake!' exclaimed St. Germain in a thundering voice, 'no such names!'

  "He appeared to be seized with a cramp-like trembling in every limb, and left the room immediately.

  "I mean to get to know this peculiar man more intimately. St. Germain is of medium height and elegant manners; his features are regular; his complexion brown; his hair black; his face mobile and full of genius; his carriage bears the impress and the nobility common only to the great. The Count dresses simply but with taste. His only luxury consists of a large number of diamonds, with which he is fairly covered; he wears them on every finger, and they are set in his snuffboxes and his watches. One evening he appeared at court with shoebuckles, which Herr v. Gontaut, an expert on precious stones, estimated at 200,000 Francs."

  Another contemporary view places St. Germain in England during the Jacobite revolution of 1745. In a letter to a friend in Florence, Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford, writes: "The other day they seized an odd man who goes by the name of Count St. Germain. He has been here these two years, and will not tell who he is or whence, but professes that he does not go by his right name. He sings and plays on the violin wonderfully, is mad, and not very sensible."

  Apparently the authorities had suspected St. Germain of revolutionary activities, but he was quickly released with full apologies and entertained at dinner by William Stanhope, Earl of Harrington, Secretary of the Treasury. Commenting on this incident, the British Gazetteer further elaborated: "The author of the Brussels' Gazette tells us that the person who styles himself Comte de St. Germain, who lately arrived here from Holland, was born in Italy in 1712. He speaks German and French as fluently as Italian, and expresses himself pretty well in English. He has a smattering of all the arts and sciences, is a good chemist, a virtuoso in musick, and a very agreeable companion."

  It seems that the mystery man lived as a prince in Vienna for a year or two, close friend to Prince Ferdinand von Lobkowitz who was first minister to Emperor Francis I. He traveled Europe with the wealthy grandson of Fou- quet, Marechal de Belle-Isle, who was "strongly taken with the brilliant and witty St. Germain," and went to India with British General Clive and Vice Admiral Watson. Louis XV assigned him a suite of rooms at his royal Chateau of Chambord and outfitted an experimental laboratory in which St. Germain taught certain skills to an august assemblage of students that included such as the Baron de Gleichen, the Marquise d'Urfe, and the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst (mother of Catherine II of Russia).

  The Gazette of the Netherlands reported in 1761: "The so-called Count of St. Germain is an incomprehensible man of whom nothing is known: neither his name nor his origin, nor his position; he has an income, no one knows from whence it is derived; acquaintances, no one knows where he made them; entry into the Cabinets of Princes without being acknowledged by them!

  "Letters from Paris state that when starting for this country, to which he came without asking permission of the King, M. de St. Germain returned his Red Ribbon: but it is practically certain that he has an understanding with the King of Denmark."

  The British Museum was the repositor of pieces of music composed by the Comte de St. Germain in 1745 and 1760, and Prince Ferdinand von Lobkowitz's library in the castle of Raudnitz in Bohemia proudly displayed a personally autographed book of music by St. Germain, where it was said that he was a splendid violinist and "played like an orchestra."

  He has been linked closely to the cause of the German-born empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, and perhaps to the political intrigue that enthroned her in 1762. Catherine's thirty-four-year reign was the most enlightened in Russian history, and it was her vision that led an emerging Russia into closer participation in the politics and culture of Europe. St. Germain is credited in a contemporary writing as having "played a great part in their revolution,"
and is mentioned in an anonymous 1869 publication titled: "A few Words about the First Helpers of Catherine II."

  In 1763 a nobleman in Brussels, Graf (Count) Karl Co- benzl, in a letter to Prince Kaunitz, described St. Germain thusly: "It was about three months ago that the person known by the name of the Comte de St. Germain passed this way, and came to see me. I found him the most singular man that I ever saw in my life. I do not yet precisely know his birth; I believe, however, that he is the son of a clandestine union in a powerful and illustrious family. Possessing great wealth, he lives in the greatest simplicity; he knows everything, and shows an uprightness, a goodness of soul, worthy of admiration. Among a number of his accomplishments, he made, under my own eyes, some experiments, of which the most important were the transmutation of iron into a metal as beautiful as gold, and at least as good for all goldsmith's work; the dyeing and preparation of skins, carried to a perfection which surpassed all the moroccos in the world, and the most perfect tanning; the dyeing of silks, carried to a perfection hitherto unknown; the like dyeing of woollens; the dyeing of wood in the most brilliant colours penetrating through and through, and the whole without either indigo or cochineal, with the commonest ingredients, and consequently at a very moderate price; the composition of colours for painting, ultra-marine is as perfect as if made from lapis lazuli; and finally, removing the smell from painting oils, and making the best oil of Provence from the oils of Navette, of Colsat, and from others, even the worst. I have in my hands all these productions, made under my own eyes; I have had them undergo the most strict examinations, and seeing in these articles a profit which mount up to millions, I have endeavoured to take advantage of the friendship that this man has felt for me, and to learn from him all these secrets."

  Dieudonne Thiebault writes in about the year 1769: "There came to Berlin and remained in that city for the space of a year a remarkable man, who passed by the name of the Comte de St. Germain. The Abbe Pernety was not slow in recognising in him the characteristics which go to make up an adept, and came to us with wonderful stories." Princess Amelie called on St. Germain in Berlin, and Thiebault remarks that the aged Baron Knyhausen was always addressed by St. Germain as "my son."