by Joan Smith
“I suggest you find yourself a congenital idiot, preferably one who is deaf and blind.”
Deirdre snapped open her umbrella and used it as a shield for the remainder of the trip. When the gondola docked, they got out and walked in silence to the Léon Bianco. The first thing they saw was Pronto. Latched on to his arm was Elvira Sutton, and a very comical couple they were. Pronto hopping along to keep pace with her longer strides.
When he spotted them, Pronto came forward, smiling from ear to ear. “She’s back,” he announced, rather unnecessarily.
“Elvira!” Deirdre exclaimed, and rushed to greet her. Elvira blushingly held out her left hand, on which Pronto’s signet ring decorated the third finger. “Congratulate me!” She smiled. “We’re engaged.” Her deep blue eyes flashed a triumph beam at Belami.
He was sent reeling but soon recovered speech. “It is unlike you to utter a solecism, Miss Sutton. You must know it’s the gentleman who is congratulated on his victory. To you we offer our best wishes. You returned earlier than expected, did you not?”
She smiled at Pronto. “Shall we tell them?” she asked.
“It’s all right with me,” Pronto said proudly.
“I cut my visit short,” Elvira explained. “The truth is, I had an understanding with my friend’s brother. My friend Jane Blackwell, from Bath. When I told him I had fallen in love with another, I was uncomfortable with them, so I left immediately and was home last night. Jane is angry with me, I fear.”
“You never said Jane had a brother!” Deirdre exclaimed.
“I felt so horrid, hiding it.” Elvira blushed. “But he had to be the first to know of my change of heart. Till I had told Mr. Blackmore, I couldn’t accept Pronto’s offer.”
“Just where exactly do the Blackmores stay—or is it Blackwell?” Belami asked. His brow rose in interest at this slip, the first Elvira had made thus far.
“Blackwell,” Pronto told him. Elvira nodded.
“They were staying with friends outside of Vicenza,” Elvira answered with a clear, untroubled gaze. “I never did get to the house. I told them as soon as Robert and Jane met me at Mestre. We went for a drive in his carriage, had lunch at an inn—I’m sorry, Lord Belami, I can’t give you the name of the inn,” she added mischievously.
“Perhaps you could give me the name of the friends the Blackwells were visiting?” he asked.
“What do you want to know that for?” Pronto demanded.
“I don’t, really,” Dick said. Why waste time following this cold trail? Elvira hadn’t met the Blackwells at Mestre. There were no Blackwells. She’d met Claude at Mira, and whatever she was up to, she’d gotten clean away with it. Why hadn’t his spies seen her come back? “What time did you return, Miss Sutton?”
“Shortly after dinner. It was just coming on dark. I sent a note off to Pronto at once. He spent the evening with us and asked Mama for my hand.”
“She said yes.” Pronto smiled.
What had Nick said last night? The hotel was quiet. Only three arrivals—a French couple and a few English gentlemen, none of them asking for the Suttons.
“Where are you off to now?” Deirdre asked.
“We’re going to Cerboni’s to buy Elvira a wedding ring,” Pronto said. “You folks care to tag along?”
“Do come, Lord Belami,” Elvira urged, with still that laughing light in her eyes. “We have every confidence in your ability. You will know if Cerboni is trying to palm us off with a counterfeit diamond. You come, too, Deirdre. We’ll all go.”
She took Deirdre’s hand as the ladies walked separately a few feet in front of the gentlemen. “This engagement is very sudden,” Deirdre said.
“It has been brewing ever since Paris. I like Pronto amazingly. Don’t you like him, Deirdre?”
“Very much. Much better than his friend.”
Elvira peered at her companion and swallowed a satisfied smile. “I agree with you there, but I shall soon have Pronto under cat’s paw and detach him from that fellow.”
This speech had the effect of causing Deirdre’s shoulders to stiffen. It was one thing for her to denigrate Belami; for Miss Sutton to do it was another matter. She disliked the speech about managing Pronto, too.
When they reached Cerboni’s shop, Pronto and Elvira demanded to see the diamond rings. “Something larger than that, if you please,” Elvira said, pouting, when the man showed them a tray of modest rings. “You insult my fiancé to suggest he thinks no more of me than that. We want four or five carats, don’t you think, Pronto?” she asked, batting her eyelashes at her fiancé.
Pronto smiled fatuously. “No, by Jove. Nine or ten.”
Elvira proved a knowledgeable fiancée. She took her time over the selection, always seeking Belami’s advice. “This one is so flawed even I can see the crack with the naked eye,” she complained of one. And later, “You don’t think this one gaudy?” she asked, when she had made a tentative choice of a ten-carat, emerald-cut diamond.
“Very impressive,” Dick said stiffly.
“My hand is large; I can wear it,” Elvira decided. “This is the one, Pronto.”
As Pronto scribbled out a check, Elvira continued speaking to Cerboni. “Have you had any success in finding a teardrop pearl for my sister yet, sir?”
“It’s very difficult, but I have sent out inquiries.”
“We have brought a deal of business your way,” Elvira said. “The least you can do is find us a matching pearl.”
“If anyone has such a thing, he is not eager to sell it. And if a jeweler approaches to buy it unsolicited—well, it would raise up the price, Miss Sutton. You might have to pay twice as much.”
Elvira listened, her intelligent eyes betraying that she understood his reasoning. “Never mind. We’ll pay whatever is asked. My sister has got her heart set on having the mate to my pearl. You just find it, and let us worry about paying. There will be other jewelry purchases to be made soon as well, my good man. We don’t dally when we want something, so you’d best get busy. My mama plans to give me a set of diamonds for my wedding present. I am going to look in the other shops now.”
“Diamonds! Why, I have the best selection in Venice,” Cerboni exclaimed, and began showing Elvira diamond necklaces.
“This one is pretty,” she said, holding an elaborate matched set against her throat. “How much is it?”
“Roughly ten thousand in British currency,” Cerboni told her. His eyes shone with greedy interest.
“Cheap at half the price,” Elvira said, and placed it back on the counter.
They all left the shop. Belami wanted to get his friend alone for a good Bear Garden jaw, but Elvira had taken control of him. “Pronto is taking us to the Lido this afternoon,” she said when Belami tried to arrange a meeting. There was no invitation for Belami to join them. That evening, Pronto was taking the Suttons to a concert.
“I hope Pronto will also take you to Contessa Ginnasi’s masquerade party,” Belami said. “I’d like to see him once more before he’s married. Your family is invited to the party.”
“What fun!” Elvira clapped her hands. The large diamond flashed in the sunlight. “I shall go as the Queen of Sheba, and you must be my Nubian slave, Pronto.”
“Eh?” Pronto looked aghast till Elvira squeezed his fingers and smiled.
It saddened Belami to see his old colleague caught in parson’s mousetrap with such a shrew, but he felt powerless to prevent it. Pronto was a very willing victim—and Elvira was demmed attractive.
“Now we must go home and show Mama my ring,” Elvira decided. She took Pronto by the elbow and carried him off.
Belami cast a glance, half-sad, half-angry, at Deirdre. “I may say good-bye to that good friend,” he said.
“At least we know now that Elvira’s not married to Claude. But we can’t let him marry her, Belami!”
Belami felt a sting to hear himself demoted from “Dick.” “I thought you liked Elvira.”
“I did—before. She behaves dif
ferently now. She’s too greedy and too managing.”
“Too managing, and too mysterious by half. How the deuce did she get back into the hotel without my spies seeing her? I for one don’t believe she went to meet these Blackwells. She must have been wearing a disguise when she returned. Why would she do that if she isn’t up to something havey-cavey?”
“It was disgusting the way she conned Pronto into buying her that huge diamond,” Deirdre said.
“I don’t begrudge a bride her ring, but I do resent that she won’t let him off the leash for a moment.”
They walked back to the gondola, their anger with each other not forgotten, but temporarily submerged in worry for their old friend.
“We should look on the bright side,” Deirdre said. “At least Elvira is well to grass. And their money was genuine.”
“So it was—Elvira was at some pains to see that I was aware of the fact. I wonder...”
“What?”
“I wonder how the Suttons plan to pay for the rest of the jewelry and whether I’ll be invited to attend that session as well. That first purchase may have been made to establish their bona fides. Cerboni now feels they are well-to-do tourists. Pronto’s purchase reinforces the idea. Cerboni won’t look too closely at the color of their gold next time around.”
“Elvira didn’t say how her mama would pay. Probably by check. I shouldn’t think they’d carry thousands of pounds in gold around with them.”
“No more should I, not if it’s genuine money. Of course a big purchase paid for in cash would be a clever way to unload the counterfeit coins and have something they could sell in return for real money. Réal didn’t find any such cache when he searched their rooms.” Dick stopped walking and frowned.
“What’s the matter?” Deirdre asked.
He looked at her, one brow riding at a quizzical angle. “What’s wrong is that we’ve just enlarged our circle of suspects. We, at least I, thought only Elvira was involved with the Jalberts, through Claude. Now it seems she’s not married to Claude. What we’ve been saying suggests that the whole family is involved.”
“Oh, dear. That can’t be true. Elvira manages her mama as easily as she manages Pronto. She’s pulling the wool over their eyes—using some stunt to get hold of her mama’s inheritance.”
“That inheritance is beginning to smell as fishy as everything else about Miss Sutton. Did she ever give a name for this nabob uncle?”
“It was Mrs. Sutton’s uncle, her father’s brother. What was her maiden name? It sounded Irish—Mc something. McMaster, I think. Yes, that was it.”
Belami increased the pace and soon handed Deirdre into the gondola. “Aren’t you coming back with me?” she asked.
Belami cast a surprised look at her. “This is a good sign. You weren’t at all eager for my company when we left this morning.”
Deirdre remembered why she was angry and sniffed. “I am not eager for your company. I only thought we might think of some way to save poor Pronto. He’s my friend, too.”
“That’s exactly what I plan to do. Rescue Pronto. Maybe I’ll even find a way to rescue Belami while I’m about it. He’s not the rake you imagine, you know.”
Deirdre tossed her head angrily, but she was not so immune to his pleadings as she pretended. Something in her wanted to believe him. “How do you plan to rescue Pronto?” she asked.
“Very carefully. I can’t let him know what inquiries I’m instituting about his ladylove or he’d marry her to spite me—and after all we’ve been through together, too.” His accusing eye spoke more of herself than of Pronto. “Why is it I attract such hardhearted friends, do you suppose?”
Deirdre gave him a withering stare. “Any friend of yours needs a hard heart. You give it such a battering.”
“That’s what I get for trying to be a Good Samaritan. It’s well that virtue is its own reward. There don’t seem to be much else in it for the virtuous.”
He shoved the gondola adrift with his boot and stood looking till it was underway. Deirdre wasn’t facing him, but she turned around just once and looked back. She looked—doubtful. And ravishing, as she always did, never more so than when he wasn’t allowed to touch her.
What had made him fall in love with Deirdre Gower? She was pretty, but not an incomparable. A provincial little prude was what she was, and it seemed hard that he, who counted himself up to all the rigs, should be ridden over roughshod by her.
Then she turned away, and his thoughts drifted to Pronto. Hoppner was his best hope. He’d have to cast some official block in the way of that marriage. Papers would have to be found to be irregular.
Belami’s heart thudded angrily. Why was he so furious with Elvira? He usually felt some troublesome attraction to his female quarry. Carlotta, for instance, was rather sweet in that raffish way of the demimonde, but for Elvira Sutton he felt nothing but anger and a determination to unmask her and save Pronto.
Chapter Eleven
Belami turned his steps toward the British consul’s office and was shown into Mr. Richard Hoppner’s office.
“Good morning, sir. I’m back on behalf of that friend of mine who is interested in getting married in Venice,” he began.
“Is it time to offer my congratulations, Lord Belami?” Hoppner asked roguishly.
“To the bridegroom, you mean?” Belami replied, feigning dullness. “I fear not. The fact is, I have come to believe the match is a poor one and want some new information. What can be done to delay a marriage of foreigners here in Venice?”
“Providing they plan to use an English cleric, as I suggested, nothing can be done,” Hoppner told him.
“If their papers weren’t in order—” Belami suggested. He remembered Pronto’s passport, still in his own care.
“A couple of witnesses to identify them is all that’s required really. If youngsters are determined to marry, they will find a way.”
“That’s true.” Belami nodded and went on to his next question. “Do you happen to know of any British tourists in Venice with some connections in India? I’m trying to learn something about a nabob named McMaster.”
“Old Brian McMaster?” Hoppner asked. “The Irishman who was British resident for one of the nawabs at Jaipur?”
“That’s probably him.”
“We have a fairly large contingent of nabobs here,” Hoppner told him. “They can afford to travel, and like our warm climate. McMaster never did come to Italy himself, but his friends often speak of him. A colorful gentleman, to judge by their stories. He was already in failing health when he returned to England. He stayed at Tunbridge Wells trying to recuperate there, but he didn’t last long. What is it you want to know about him?”
“He’s dead now, I take it?”
“Oh, yes, some five years ago.”
Belami’s eyes lit up. The Sutton inheritance was supposed to be only a year old. “Any notion who his heirs were?”
“There’s no question there. He left his entire fortune to the East India Company School at Haileybury, where young lads are trained up for the EIC. Being an orphan, he considered John Company his nearest relative.”
“An orphan, you say?” Belami asked. A peculiar smile played over his lips.
“That’s right, an orphan and a bachelor. He left the bulk of his estate to the school to set up a library. Was there any particular reason...”
“Not really. I heard someone mention McMaster the other day—their name was also McMaster.” Belami figured he knew where the Suttons had hit on the name McMaster. Watering spots like Tunbridge Wells were a haunt for disreputables hoping to con some money out of the nabobs.
“A coincidence,” Hoppner said.
Belami was in a fever to get on with his case and made an excuse to leave very soon. He was desperate to see Pronto alone. He hoped to at least put a doubt in his head about his fiancée. His hopes for success weren’t high, but he left a note for Pronto at the hotel asking him to come to the palazzo that afternoon.
To his consid
erable astonishment, Pronto came. He arrived around three. Luncheon had been a particularly gruesome meal. Carlotta was out with friends, leaving Belami and the conte alone with the duchess and Deirdre. Such conversation as had occurred was mainly the duchess telling the conte to eat his lunch “like a good boy,” and Deirdre refusing all her suitor’s overtures with a cool “I shall be busy today, Belami.”
Pronto bounded out of a hired gondola, very nearly upsetting it, and went in search of Belami. “Well, I’m here. What is it you want?” he asked.
“Need you ask?” Belami said, putting his arm around Pronto’s shoulder. “We are best friends, Pronto. I’ve missed you. Let’s have a glass of wine and talk.”
“I’ll have the vino, but if you’re planning to bend my ear about Elvira, don’t. Fact is, I just came to pick up my passport. Don’t fear I’ll lose it, for Elvira’s going to keep it for me.”
Belami didn’t want to start the visit on a bad foot and sent off for the passport. He also requested that Miss Gower be informed of Mr. Pilgrim’s presence, hoping that would nudge her out of her sulks. It was a good enough excuse for her to do what she’d been wanting to do all afternoon—join Belami.
After a few glasses of wine to get Pronto back in humor, Belami began raising some more important matters than mere chitchat. “It’s like old times, we three friends together again,” he said leadingly. “I’ll certainly miss you when you’re married, Pronto.”
Deirdre felt a stab of regret. She’d been missing Pronto, too. He was her semiofficial mender of fences when she and Dick were at odds, as they so often were.
“You ain’t losing a son, Dick, you’re gaining a daughter. It’ll be the four of us together, solving cases. Elvira’s sharp as a needle. Be no end of help to us. We’d like you and Deirdre to be our witnesses when we get married.”
“When will the wedding take place?” Deirdre asked.
“Day after tomorrow—on Saturday.”
“That soon!” Deirdre exclaimed, and shot a wild glance to Belami. “But that’s the day of the contessa’s masquerade party. You won’t be here for it,” she said.