Street of the Five Moons vbm-2, page 13
part #2 of Vicky Bliss Mystery Series
‘I’ll go up with you. I must freshen up before lunch.’
‘I can’t imagine how you could look any fresher.’
‘How sweet of you to say so. Seriously, Vicky, I want to have a private word with you before we join the others. The matter you spoke of the other day . . . I promised you I would look over my collection.’
She looked so serious that I stopped short, halfway up the stairs.
‘You don’t mean you found something!’
She shook her head.
‘I didn’t check every piece, of course. But I selected examples I thought would be most attractive to your hypothetical criminals. The Kurfürstenpokal cup, the Sigismund emeralds, a few others. They passed every test.’
‘Well, that’s good news,’ I said, after a moment. ‘I’m not mean enough to hope you were robbed simply to justify my theories.’
‘That doesn’t mean your theories are wrong.’
She was trying to be nice, but she still didn’t believe it, and I found myself unreasonably annoyed by the hint of patronage in her manner.
‘My theories aren’t wrong. I can’t prove them yet, but I will.’
‘Have you discovered anything new?’
‘No, not really. But I think I’m on the right track. That Englishman I told you about – the one who was in the antique shop. He’s Pietro’s secretary.’
‘So I learned,’ she said calmly. ‘You seem suspicious of him, but I can’t think why. His credentials are excellent.’
‘Did you see them?’ I asked bluntly. She smiled her faintly sinister archaic smile.
‘I have met the man himself. I find him attractive. Don’t you?’
‘His looks have nothing to do with his morals,’ I said.
‘You sound like Queen Victoria,’ said Bianca, her smile widening. ‘Do relax, child, and enjoy life. I wonder if I was ever so deadly serious, even when I was your age . . .’
And she sauntered off down the hall, leaving me standing in front of my door feeling more than a little foolish.
Compared to the other meals I had eaten with the Caravaggios, this one positively sparkled. The principessa was the catalyst. She controlled the conversation like an experienced hostess, drawing even Helena into it, heading off at least two quarrels between Pietro and his son, and managing simultaneously to flirt elegantly with Smythe, whose silly head was completely turned by the attention. He babbled and made jokes as if he were being paid for it.
The only thing that didn’t glow was the weather. Clouds began to gather as we lingered over our coffee, and the dowager looked anxiously at her grandson.
‘Luigi, promise you will not go back to that studio of yours while it is raining.’
Luigi, who was in excellent spirits, grinned at me.
‘She thinks I will be hit by lightning,’ he explained, patting the old lady’s hand.
‘My grandmother wouldn’t let me play the piano during a thunderstorm,’ I said.
‘Very sensible,’ said the dowager firmly. ‘Electricity is a strange substance. Who can understand it? Luigi, promise. Come and read to me. You know how I love to hear you.’
‘I must make a few telephone calls first,’ the boy said. ‘Then I will come, Grandmother.’
‘Telephone calls indeed,’ Pietro muttered. ‘He talks all day. No telephoning to that friend in Switzerland, Luigi, the last bill was absolutely outrageous.’
Luigi’s smile faded, but he said nothing. I wondered what perverse quality makes people so unfailingly rude to their nearest and dearest. Many of Pietro’s remarks to the boy were quite uncalled for; he couldn’t seem to resist needling him.
After lunch I went with the principessa and Pietro to look at his collection of rare china. She was preparing a publication on a certain type in private European collections, and she was trying to decide which of Pietro’s possessions to include. China happens to be a subject I know virtually nothing about, and I have no desire to know more than I do. It was fun looking at some of the lovely dishes Pietro displayed, but I couldn’t understand half of what they were talking about. So I made my excuses and went to my room. It was raining steadily, and the soft sound made me sleepy. I lay down on my bed and soon dropped off.
I don’t believe that dreams are vehicles for messages from the supernatural world, but I do think they can serve as a means of dragging certain subconscious worries out into the open. I had a very peculiar dream that afternoon. It was all about art – Raphael’s erotic drawings, the ‘Pietà’ of Michelangelo, the Greek statues in Pietro’s salone – all of them spattered and streaked with vermilion and aquamarine, like Luigi’s awful painting. When I woke up, the rain was still drizzling drearily on the balcony outside my window, and I lay blinking into the grey twilight for a while, trying to think what it was that bothered me.
It had something to do with Luigi and his studio. Those portfolios of drawings, sketches, watercolours . . . The boy had experimented with many artistic techniques. Why hadn’t he tried sculpture or modelling in clay?
There were a number of reasonable explanations. Maybe he didn’t work well in three dimensions. Yet some of the sketches I had seen through a haze of heat and perspiration had a certain something . . .
It wasn’t a theory, it was just a nebulous, incredible suspicion. But I knew I had to check it out, right away. I grabbed my raincoat and was almost at the door when I caught sight of the clock on the dresser. It was four thirty. So I went back to the telephone.
Schmidt’s secretary, Gerda, answered the phone, and I had to gossip with her for a few minutes before she put me through. She is the worst talker I have ever met, but she’s a good kid. Yet I found it hard to chat; a mounting sense of urgency made me as twitchy as a dog with ticks. Finally Schmidt came on the line.
‘I think I may be on to something,’ I said. ‘No, I can’t tell you yet, it’s too amorphous. But I’ll call you later if my hunch works out. If you don’t hear from me tonight, forget it – but expect the usual call tomorrow.
He was full of questions, but I cut him short. I didn’t have much time. If I did not show up in the drawing room for cocktails, someone might go looking for me. But I was wild to check out my crazy hunch, and with the rain keeping everyone indoors, I might never have a better chance.
The door of Luigi’s studio was closed, but not locked. It yielded to the pressure of my hand. Once inside, I wiped the raindrops off my face and looked for a light switch.
In the bluish glare of fluorescent bulbs the studio looked cold and depressing. It certainly was a good imitation of a starving art student’s garret. The velvet draping the model’s throne was worn and dusty, and the chairs looked as if they had been chewed by a large dog. The rain pounded on the skylight like the drums of a regiment marching into battle.
I pulled out some of the canvases that had been placed in racks along the wall. Luigi had gone through several ‘periods.’ Like Picasso, he had enjoyed a blue period. Like his namesake Caravaggio, he had experimented with chiaroscuro. He had tried pointillism, and cubism, and imitations of Van Gogh, with an overloaded palette knife. The dreary collection proved that the boy couldn’t paint in any style known to man, but it also proved that he was dedicated. Why hadn’t he ever tried sculpting?
A long table under the windows held a miscellaneous assortment of paint tubes, turpentine, stained rags . . . and the portfolios of sketches. A bolt of lightning splashed across the skylight, but I hardly noticed it. Those sketches . . .
They were bad; there was no question about that. But they had a certain quality. I looked at a dozen of them – amateur renditions of heads and animals and parts of bodies – before I realized what they did have. His anatomy was terrible, and he had no feeling for design or form. But there was one pen-and-ink drawing of a female head that was so good I thought for a minute it must be a print. I knew I had seen the original somewhere. Then I recognized it. I had seen the original, in the Bargello in Florence. It was a sculptured bust by Mino da Fiesole. Luigi had no creative talent, but as a copyist he was absolutely first rate. I put the drawings carefully back in the portfolio and started to search the room.
The trapdoor was under the model’s throne, which slid on rollers. There must have been some way of anchoring the throne when it was in use, or Luigi’s models would have gone gliding around the room like the Flying Manzinis; if so, he had forgotten to take care of that little detail. Why should he? If I was any judge, the trapdoor was used a hell of a lot more than the model’s throne.
The light of the subterranean room at the bottom of the stairs went on automatically when the trapdoor was raised. There was a very complete little workshop down there. I couldn’t identify all the objects, but many of the tools of the trade have not changed over the centuries. Gravers, punches, hammers, a soldering iron . . .
I got a little excited. I went running around the room grabbing things and dropping them, pulling out drawers, shuffling through papers. The tools of the trade might not be enthralling, but the materials certainly were. Gold wires and sheets of thin gold, silver nuggets; tiny compartments filled with imitation pearls and emeralds, rubies and opals; chunks of lapis lazuli and turquoise and orange-red carnelian – for the Egyptian crown and other objects of that period; stones of every colour of the rainbow, from pale-yellow citrine to garnets like drops of blood; sheets of ivory, malachite, porphyry, jade. All fakes, no doubt, but the general effect was dazzling.
A file on one of the workbenches held detailed sketches of a number of pieces. They weren’t all jewellery. Some were plates, reliquaries, goblets. The piece Luigi was working on had been covered with a cloth. I lifted it gently.
Only a few surviving pieces have been definitely attributed to Benvenuto Cellini. I had seen one of them, the Rospigliosi cup in the Metropolitan Museum. The bowl itself is shell-shaped, exquisitely curved; it stands on a base consisting of an enamelled serpent mounted on a golden tortoise. Luigi had not ventured to copy any of the known pieces. Even that gang of arrogant swindlers wouldn’t dare claim they had burgled the Met. But this could have passed for one of Cellini’s works; the various elements of which it were composed were all based on parts of other pieces. It was a golden chalice, with the same elegant curves as the Metropolitan’s bowl. The handles were jewelled serpents, and the whole thing was supported by a voluptuous nymph modelled on the lady on the saltcellar in Vienna. Luigi was branching out, no longer imitating known works of art. I wondered what a hitherto undiscovered Cellini would fetch in the market. I couldn’t even guess. Worth the effort, certainly.
The thunder outside was making quite a racket. The noise itself didn’t make me nervous. What made me nervous was the fact that I couldn’t hear anything else over the thunder – like, for instance, the sound of someone upstairs. I had to get out of there fast, and I had to come back – with a camera.
I started up the stairs. My nerve ends were twitching, but when I cautiously put my head up out of the hole the studio was still deserted. I closed the trapdoor and shoved the throne back into position. I felt a little more secure then, but not much; no one would believe I had been overcome by an irresistible urge to see more of Luigi’s work during a rainstorm. I wished I had not turned on the studio lights. They would be visible for quite a distance, thanks to that skylight.
The studio was perilous ground, but I would have to risk coming back, at least once more. I needed photographs of the shop, the tools, the sketches, the unfinished chalice. The photographs wouldn’t be proof of a swindle. There is no copyright on antique art. But if I could find out what jewels had been sold, the photographs would be damning evidence of forgery.
I was awfully pleased with myself, and I guess conceit made me careless. I opened the door and stepped out into the rain, and a fist that hit me on the jaw.
Chapter Eight
I WOKE UP in the cellars. There was no question about it. I had seen those rough-hewn limestone walls before, though I did not recall this particular room. There were actually three rooms, as I discovered when I got my aching body off the floor. Open archways, doorless, led from one chamber to the next. The only exit from the suite, if I may call it that, was in the room where I had awakened. The door was of wood so old it was practically petrified. When I pounded on it experimentally, I hurt my knuckles.
The rooms were windowless, but there was light in the first one from a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. I appreciated that light, though there was little to be seen: only a pile of blankets and comforters, upon which I had been lying, and a low wooden table. The air was cool and dank. The farthest room of the three, dirt-floored, had sprouted a fine crop of mushrooms. This room also boasted a primitive sanitary arrangement. I must admit I was relieved to see this. I had always wondered how prisoners managed that little detail; my favourite mysteries and thrillers ignored the point with prissy delicacy, but let’s face it, the problem is important to the prisoner.
Exploring my prison did not take long. I lay down on the pile of blankets and nursed my aching jaw. I had been hit on the same place twice in a week, and it hurt. Maybe I would have to go on a liquid diet. Of course that might not be a problem. My captors might decide not to feed me at all.
I don’t usually wear a wristwatch, so I had no idea of the time, not even the time of day. But I fancied it must be later the same evening. My next telephone call to Professor Schmidt wasn’t due until five o’clock the following day. They had all night and most of the next day to decide what to do with me.
Schmidt would go to the police if I failed to report on time. I knew him well enough to be sure of that. I also knew him well enough to suspect that the police would not be impressed by what he told them. They would call the villa, and Pietro would have a plausible story to account for my failure to telephone. A young, healthy female has to be missing for much longer than twenty-four hours these days before any police department in the world is going to get worried. Pietro’s social position would disarm suspicion, and even if they suspected something, they would be unable to prove it unless they could find me. My daily telephone calls had been a bluff, nothing more; and the gang had called my bluff.
Pietro must be a member of the gang after all. That workshop could not have been equipped without his being aware of it. I wondered how deeply involved Luigi was. Some famous forgers have claimed they were used by unscrupulous people; they had no idea their pretty little replicas were being sold as genuine art objects! Well – it was possible, if implausible; people can be pretty naïve. Luigi might be innocent, but his father was guilty as hell. As a detective, I was batting about .200. I hadn’t figured Pietro for the mastermind.
I was lying there staring up at the stained ceiling and trying to decide whether the biggest patch of mould looked like a map of South America or George Washington’s profile, when someone came to the door.
They had that place locked up like Fort Knox. Chains rattled, bolts squeaked, bars slid back, rusty keys turned in rusty locks. I lay still. There was nothing else I could do. I might have hidden behind the door and tried to hit the newcomer over the head, if (a) I knew which way the door opened, in or out; and (b) there had been anything in the room to hit him with.
The door opened inward. That wasn’t much help, since point b was still negative. I closed my eyes and pretended to be unconscious. I felt sick. The man outside the door might be my executioner.
I was not reassured to recognize Bruno. However, the fact that he was carrying a tray cheered me somewhat. The cups and silver covers on the tray looked outré in that dank underground hole, but they obviously contained food, and if they were going to feed me, they couldn’t intend to kill me right away.
Bruno stood in the doorway eyeing me suspiciously through squinted eyes, and I lay still, watching him through my lashes. Finally he put the tray on the floor, shoved it into the cell with his foot, and closed the door. I waited till the jangle of bolts and chains had stopped, and then got to my feet.
My appetite was not too good, but I took the covers off the plates to see what they were giving me. The food had undoubtedly come from Pietro’s dinner menu; there was a veal Marsala with mushrooms, a dish of pasta, salad, bread, and even a carafe of red wine. I was reminded of the old tradition of feeding the condemned man a hearty meal just before the hanging.
However, I told myself I ought to keep my strength up and began to nibble on the salad. Then my appetite revived and I started on the veal. I had eaten most of the food before it occurred to me that it might have been drugged or poisoned. When it did occur to me, I shrugged mentally. There was no need for them to drug me, they could walk in and knock me out cold anytime they wanted to. Conscious or unconscious, I was no match for Bruno.
The food revived me, and I set out on another tour of my prison. It would have been a waste of time if I had had anything better to do, which I didn’t. I found a pile of rotting wood, the remains of shelves, perhaps, and a couple of pieces of metal so rusted they broke in my hands. There was nothing that could possibly be used as a weapon, even supposing I got up enough nerve to try and ambush Bruno.
I thought about digging myself out, like the Count of Monte Cristo. How long had it taken him and his buddy, the old abbé, to get out of the Château d’If? Years. And if I remembered the story correctly, the tunnel hadn’t worked anyway. The floor of the third room was of dirt, to be sure, but the only implement I had to dig with was the spoon that had been on the tray. Figure a teaspoonful of dirt every two seconds, one hundred teaspoons to a cup, four cups to a peck, five billion pecks of dirt between me and the open air . . . I went back to the pile of blankets and lay down.
I should have been plotting and scheming and thinking up ways to escape. Instead I fell asleep. I don’t know how long I slept, but I woke with a start when the chorus of chains and bolts began again. This time I was able to rise before the door opened.
It was good old Bruno again. He had brought me another present. It hung over his left shoulder, feet dangling. When Bruno saw me on my feet, he put his hand in his pocket and took out a long, shiny knife.
