The Bernini Bust

by Iain Pears

  From Argyll's standpoint, there wasn't much to be reverential about. From the purely visual, or aesthetic, point of view, Arthur M. Moresby II didn't amount to much. Tiny little fellow, peering myopically around him through thick round glasses, dressed up in a heavy suit much too thick for the weather and which, in truth, did little for his general appearance. He was almost completely bald and slightly pigeon-toed. A thin mouth, mottled complexion and ears that rose up to conclude with a very definite point at the top. He looked, indeed, a bit like a malevolent garden gnome. Putting himself in Anne Moresby's position, Argyll began to see the appeal of a narcissistic concoction like David Barclay.

  Had it not been for the bank balance, it was difficult to imagine anyone gushing over him. On the other hand, he reflected as he scrutinised Moresby more closely, maybe that was unfair. The face indicated a man to reckon with. Entirely expressionless, it nonetheless radiated an air of chilly contempt for the clucking hordes gathered around him. Whatever his possibly innumerable faults, Arthur Moresby knew exactly why people were so keen to welcome him, and realised it had nothing to do with his loveable personality or exciting physique. Then he disappeared into the museum to get on with business, and the excitement was over.

  Chapter Three

  Looking back on events later, Argyll viewed the following couple of hours with profound embarrassment. It was just his luck that, whenever something interesting happened, he would be elsewhere. It was simple enough; he was hungry and, no matter how many virtues oysters possess, no one can call them filling. Not like a burger and french fries, anyway, so after a few moments indecision, resolved when he decided that hanging around in the hope of shaking Arthur Moresby by the hand was a demeaning way of spending an evening, he sloped off in search of a halfway decent restaurant and sat feeling miserable for an hour or so.

  Indeed, he regretted not latching on to Jack Moresby to spend the night getting drunk together. He also regretted agreeing to have breakfast with di Souza. He'd had enough of the man already, what with spending much of the afternoon booking him into the same hotel he himself was staying at, carrying his luggage around, and listening to him at parties. Quite apart from the fact that he knew who was going to end up paying for breakfast.

  And he also regretted his choice of restaurant. The service was interminably slow. The waitress (who introduced herself as Nancy and was most keen that he enjoy his food) did her best, but it was one of those places where the cook evidently begins by grinding his own wholemeal. Alas, he shouldn't have bothered. The end result wasn't worth the effort.

  It was nearly eleven o'clock by the time Argyll set out for his hotel, after two hours spent all on his own with ample opportunity to feel sorry for himself. Apart from that, completely uneventful, except for narrowly avoiding being run over by an ancient truck painted with purple stripes. It was his own fault; he crossed the wide boulevard which led past the Moresby and on to his hotel in the cavalier fashion he had adopted for dealing with Roman traffic, and discovered that drivers in California, while generally slower, are not nearly as accurate as their Italian counterparts. A Roman shaves past your legs and makes your trousers billow in the wind but disappears over the horizon with a triumphant hooting of the horn, leaving no real damage behind. The driver of this particular vehicle either had clear homicidal tendencies or little skill; he flashed past, saw Argyll, blew his horn and swerved at only the last moment, very nearly consigning Argyll to the hereafter in the process.

  As he reached the opposite sidewalk and his heart - boosted by alarm and the remarkable turn of speed he put on to reach safety -calmed down once more, he reflected that it was quite in keeping with life as it was currently progressing.

  Heaving self-indulgent sighs at regular intervals, his thoughts meandered in a haphazard fashion as he ambled mournfully towards the hotel. Such was his mood that he was nearly past the museum itself before it penetrated his consciousness that all was not quite as it was when he'd left to search out nourishment. The floodlights still illuminated the building with ostentatious discretion, cars were still parked all over the place. But the number of people engaged in wearing the lawn down to waste land had grown enormously, and Argyll was fairly certain that the place had not been surrounded by fifteen police cars, four ambulances and a large number of helicopters when he left.

  Strange, he thought. Prompted mainly by the pessimistic view that, knowing his luck, something untoward must have happened to his Titian, he changed direction and headed up the driveway.

  'Sorry. No entry. Not 'til morning.' This from a policeman of impressive dimensions blocking the way in a fashion that brooked no argument. Even without the heavy weaponry strewn about his person, Argyll would not for a moment have contemplated disagreeing with his pronouncement. On the other hand, the scene had tickled his curiosity somewhat; so he announced firmly that the museum director had asked him to come round immediately. Samuel Thanet. The director. You know?

  The policeman didn't, but wavered a little. 'Little fat guy? Wrings his hands?'

  Argyll nodded. Thanet to a tee.

  'He's just gone with Detective Morelli into the administrative block,' he said, uncertainly.

  'And that's just where he told me to meet him,' Argyll said, lying through his teeth in a fashion which made him feel rather proud. He generally wasn't a very good liar. Even fibs gave him a hard time. He beamed at the policeman and asked most politely to be let through. So convincing was he that, seconds later, he was climbing the stairs in the direction of a faint hubbub of noise.

  It came from Samuel Thanet's office, a carefully designed piece of upmarket administrative chic; whatever the museum architect's limitations on exterior appearance, he had worked overtime on getting the office space right. A slightly anonymous room to Argyll's mind, he preferring a more cosy and cluttered look, but expensively tasteful, nonetheless. White-washed walls; off-white sofa; beige-white woollen carpet; tubular modern armchairs covered in white leather; black wooden desk. The whorls and lines of two harshly illuminated modern paintings from the museum provided the only colour in the whole room.

  Apart from the blood, of course, of which there was an appallingly large amount. But that was obviously a very recent addition rather than part of the decorator's overall design concept.

  And on the carpet lay the prostrate and immobile form of Samuel Thanet. Argyll stared horror-struck as he came through the door.

  'Murdered?' he said aghast, eyes unable to tear themselves away from the sight.

  A scruffy, tired-looking man, dressed in a casual fashion that would have been entirely unacceptable in the Italian polizia, and even in the carabinieri, looked up at him, wondering for a moment who this interloper was. He snorted contemptuously.

  "Course he's not been murdered,' he said shortly. 'He's fainted, that's all. Came in, took one look at that and keeled over. He'll be all right in a few minutes.'

  'That' being a man-sized mound behind the desk covered, appropriately enough, by a white cloth, part of which was stained crimson. Argyll peered at it and felt a little queasy.

  'Who the hell are you?' the man, apparently Detective Morelli, went on with perhaps forgivable directness.

  Argyll explained.

  'You work for the museum?'

  Argyll explained again.

  'You don't work for the museum?' he said, proceeding inexorably towards the truth. Argyll agreed this statement summed the matter up admirably.

  'Get out, then.'

  'But what is going on?' Argyll insisted, natural curiosity overcoming him completely.

  The detective made no answer at all except to bend down and casually flick back the white sheet from the mound on the floor. Argyll stared at the figure underneath, wrinkling his nose in disgust. No mistaking those ears: seen once, never forgotten.

  The sudden and unexpected demise of Arthur M. Moresby, President of Moresby Industries (among other things) had clearly been caused, as the unemotional language of officialdom would put it, by a shot i
n the head from a pistol at close range. It was not an appealing sight, and Argyll was heartily glad when the detective replaced the cloth and made the object once more a fairly unobtrusive shape under a sheet.

  Morelli was in a bad mood. He had just been turned down for a promotion and felt a summer cold coming on. He'd been on duty for eighteen hours and badly wanted a shave, a shower, a decent meal and some peace. On top of that he had chronic gum inflammation and dreaded the prospect of a visit to the dentist. It wasn't the pain; that he could cope with. It was the bill that would follow that alarmed him. As his dentist kept on telling him, fixing gums was an expensive business. The man collected antique cars, so it must be profitable as well. Detective Morelli wasn't sure whether his gums were really going, or whether the dentist merely wanted a new carburettor for his 1928 Bugatti.

  'Do you need any help?' Argyll asked, thinking it was a supportive thing to say. No harm in offering, after all.

  The detective looked scornful. 'From you? Don't trouble yourself.'

  'No trouble at all, honestly,' he said brightly.

  Morelli was halfway through indicating that the Los Angeles homicide division, having managed without Jonathan Argyll for more than half a century, could probably stagger on without him for a bit longer when a pained groan came from the other recumbent form on the floor. Thanet, when he collapsed, had done so inconsiderately, straight in front of the door, causing a major bottleneck to traffic. The groan was caused by a large police boot inadvertently kicking him in the ribs.

  'Oh, the Sleeping Beauty,' Morelli said, then turned to Argyll. 'You really want to be useful? Bring him round and get him out of the way. Get yourself out of the way while you're at it.'

  So Argyll did, bending over the director and slowly helping him to his feet. Propping him up uncertainly, he called to Morelli that they'd be down the corridor, if needed. Then he steered Thanet in that direction, settled him on a sofa and fussed around vainly trying to open windows and, more successfully, to provide glasses of water.

  Thanet was no great shakes at conversation for some time. He stared at Argyll owlishly for several minutes before the power of speech returned.

  'What happened?' he asked, with a striking lack of originality.

  Argyll shrugged. 'I was rather hoping you'd tell me that. You were on the scene. I'm just a nosy passerby.'

  'No, no. Not at all,' he said. 'First I knew was when Barclay came running back to the museum, telling people to phone the police. He said there'd been some sort of accident.'

  'He must be a bit thick if he thought that was an accident,' Argyll commented.

  'I think he was concerned not to let on too much to the newspaper men around. They always turn up. Can't keep anything secret from them, you know.'

  'He found the body?'

  'Mr. Moresby said he was going to use my office to talk to di Souza . . .'

  'Why?'

  'Why what?'

  'He could talk to him anywhere, couldn't he?'

  Thanet frowned disapprovingly at the Englishman's concentration on irrelevancies. 'Di Souza wanted to talk about that bust and it's in my office. Anyway, later on . . .'

  Argyll opened his mouth to ask how much later on. This concentration on detail was a habit he'd picked up from Flavia over the years. But he decided it might throw Thanet off his stride, so shut it again.

  '. . . later on, Mr. Moresby used the internal phone to call Barclay and told him to come over. He went, and found . . . that. We called the police.'

  Argyll had about two dozen questions he wanted to ask, but made the grave mistake of pausing briefly to arrange them in order of importance. What was the conversation with di Souza about? Where was di Souza? What time was this? And so on. Unfortunately, Thanet took advantage of the momentary silence to wander off in pursuit of his own thoughts.

  These came across as almost entirely selfish, although this was perhaps forgivable under the circumstances. Samuel Thanet had never liked Moresby; no one had. While it was dreadful that the man should be shot, to Thanet's way of thinking it was much more terrible that such an event should take place in his office and in his museum. The worst thing of all was that it should take place before Moresby had made his announcement about the Big Museum. Had all the relevant documents been signed? He'd be frantic with worry until he found out.

  'I assume that all the papers were drawn up and signed in advance,' he said. 'But it really couldn't have come at a worse time.'

  'You mean to tell me that Moresby was topped just before he publicly committed himself to this project? Doesn't that strike you as odd?'

  Thanet stared at him blankly. Clearly, everything struck him as odd at the moment. But before he could reply, the door opened and Detective Morelli, hair ever more rumpled and rubbing his inflamed gums in a thoughtful fashion, walked in.

  'Case in your room,' he said flatly. 'What is it?'

  Thanet paused a moment while he collected his thoughts. 'Case?' he asked.

  'Big wooden thing.'

  'Oh, that. That's the Bernini. It hasn't been opened yet.'

  'Yes, it has. It's empty. What's a Bernini, anyway?'

  Thanet's mouth flapped around uncertainly for a while before he stood up and rushed out of the room. The other two trailed after him, and reached his office just in time to see him bent over the large wooden box scrabbling around desperately among all the packing inside.

  'Told you,' Morelli said.

  Thanet re-emerged with little bits of plastic padding in his thinning hair, white with shock.

  'This is terrible, terrible,' he said. 'The bust has gone. Four million dollars, and it wasn't insured.'

  It occurred to Morelli and Argyll simultaneously that Thanet was more obviously upset about the Bernini than he was about Moresby.

  Argyll suggested that it was a little careless not to insure it.

  'The insurance came into operation tomorrow morning, when we were going to move it into the museum. The company won't cover stuff in the administration building. It's not secure enough for them. Langton had it put here temporarily so Moresby could inspect it if he wanted. We didn't feel he should have to go down to the storerooms.'

  'Where is Hector di Souza?' Argyll asked, finally deciding that this was the central point that needed to be answered.

  Thanet looked blank. 'I've no idea,' he replied looking around as though he expected to see the Spaniard emerging from a cupboard.

  There was a brief interlude as Morelli asked who di Souza was and Argyll explained.

  'Senor di Souza brought the bust over from Europe. He was upset about something and wanted to talk to Moresby. They came over here to discuss it in Thanet's office. Some time later, Barclay discovers the body and presumably by then the bust had gone as well.'

  Morelli nodded in a fashion which communicated understanding and profound irritation in equal parts. 'And why didn't you mention this di Souza before?' he asked Thanet. It was clearly a rhetorical question as he didn't wait for an answer. Instead, he picked up a phone and gave instructions that di Souza was to be found as fast as possible.

  'If you ask me . . .' Argyll began, thinking that Morelli would undoubtedly want the benefit of his experience.

  'I'm not,' the detective pointed out kindly.

  'Yes, but . . .'

  'Out,' he said, pointing helpfully to the door, lest there be any confusion about where the stairs were situated.

  'All I mean . . .'

  'Out,' he repeated. 'I'll talk to you later to see if you have any relevant information. Now, go away.'

  Argyll was displeased. He liked constructing theories, and generally found the Roman police receptive to them. Well, Flavia sometimes was. Evidently the Los Angeles police were less sophisticated in their approach. He glanced at Morelli, saw that he meant it, and reluctantly left.

  Morelli breathed a deep sigh of relief, and scowled at the quiet snicker from a colleague who'd been listening to his attempts to restore control.

  'Right,' he said, 'L
et's start again. From the beginning. Can you identify this man?' he asked formally.

  Thanet swayed once more, but managed to stay perpendicular. This, he said, was Arthur M. Moresby II.

  'No doubts?'

  None whatsoever.

  Morelli was deeply impressed. Northern Los Angeles, while not the battle zone of other parts of the city, undoubtedly had more than its fair share of mayhem. Generally speaking, however, the victims were not enormously illustrious. Only rarely did a member of the social register get himself disembowelled. Hollywood directors, television magnates, noted authors, fashion models and all the other exemplars of local industry were usually remarkably adept at keeping themselves alive.