The Venetian Venture

by Suzette A. Hill

  ‘Beckoning?’ Felix peered down. ‘Oh lor, it’s those twins,’ he muttered.

  He was right, for the next moment the ladies had risen as one and were clearly summoning them down to the towpath, the gondolier already punting in that direction.

  ‘I think they want us to join them,’ Felix said nervously. ‘What about the dog?’

  ‘He’ll have to take his chances with the rest of us. Come on. It would be rude to decline.’

  They made a hasty descent to the quayside where the gondola was already waiting. Caruso leapt aboard with studied nonchalance; his minders landed in a heap.

  The two ladies clapped their hands in delight. ‘What luck!’ exclaimed one. ‘Absolutely!’ chimed the other. She turned to Felix: ‘No young man has aimed a coin at me since VE Day!’

  ‘He wasn’t young,’ corrected her sister. ‘It was Brigadier Polegate, he doesn’t count.’

  ‘Er, wonderful to see you again,’ gasped Cedric from a semi-recumbent position. ‘But do you often take gondola rides? I thought it was a largely tourist thing.’

  ‘Ah,’ responded one of them, ‘but you see this is our gondola. Daddy left it to us and it’s been in the family for years. We rent it out of course for the most enormous fee, but every six weeks we have our own special turn.’ She turned to her sister. ‘Don’t we dear?’

  The other nodded vigorously and gestured towards the boatman. ‘Yes, and Luigi is so charming and very handsome too!’ Handsome Luigi preened and executed a little bow. ‘Although,’ she added sotto voce, ‘between you and me I think he could do with a new straw hat and ribbon, that one’s beginning to look awfully mangy.’

  ‘Well it’s his birthday soon,’ the other replied, ‘we’ll buy him a brand new one and then won’t he look the little Turk!’ She beamed joyfully. ‘Wouldn’t you agree, Felix?’

  Felix studied the half-shaven rapscallion and agreed that he most surely would.

  Actually it was rather pleasant gliding around in the gondola (a rather superior one with a half-canopy), and Cedric and Felix relaxed against the cushions listening with amusement to the prattling of their companions. In fact much of the twins’ commentary was extremely interesting as they clearly knew the city well and were a lively source of information and anecdote. The dog, indifferent to such talk, sat sternly upright at the prow like some canine mermaid.

  After a while Luigi had turned off the Grand Canal and was weaving the craft through the network of minor waterways. At one point he broke into song, something that was met with avid applause from the sisters but which made Cedric and Felix feel embarrassed. Doubtless it was typically Venetian but English reserve made them glad when it finally finished. They passed under numerous small bridges and stared up at ancient gargoyles and flaking balconies decked with pots of flowers. Now and again they would pass a corner and glimpse a crumbling monument or tiny shrine. Cats dozed, washing fluttered and pigeons dawdled undisturbed by eager feeders.

  It was a soothing itinerary, until they reached a place suddenly familiar to them: the bridge from which Edward Jones had made his fatal dive. It was higher than the other ones they had passed and the stretch of water flowing beneath fairly wide. Cedric recognised the two workshops flanking the bridge and the flight of steps leading up from the quay.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he muttered, ‘I fear this is where it happened, where the Jones boy lost his life.’ The scene looked benevolently placid in the afternoon sun.

  The twins were clearly moved and one of them gestured to the boatman to change direction. As he punted back towards the Grand Canal, she said, ‘It must have been dreadful for you all … Oh dear that poor silly boy, what a waste.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed her sister, ‘and of course we had seen him only a few nights earlier. You remember: the night before Guy gave that party in Harry’s. Considering the state he was in when we saw him I am surprised he was able to get to it. I was quite impressed by the speed of his recovery. He was out well after midnight.’

  ‘Ah but the young are so resilient,’ replied the other.

  ‘Not when we saw him he wasn’t, being sick all over the place! Just at the end of the Calle Piccolo. We should have stopped really but we did have Matilda to consider.’

  ‘The Calle Piccolo?’ Cedric asked in surprise. ‘But that’s miles from the Castello area – well some way at any rate. It’s close to the Rialto, near that bookshop.’

  She looked a little puzzled. ‘Yes that’s right.’

  ‘But I gather that Edward had told Lucia he had gone to walk off his hangover in the other direction: to the Giardini Pubblici.’

  She sighed. ‘Edward was a mercurial creature, and to put it politely he often said things that were not strictly accurate.’

  Felix cleared his throat. ‘If you don’t mind my asking, who is Matilda and where were you going with her at that time of night?’

  ‘Matilda? Our cat of course. She’s fearfully old and fearfully difficult. She sleeps all day and will only deign to go out after midnight, and then we have to put her in a collar and lead otherwise she wanders off and we have to call the fire brigade or the police. We can’t stand her. But you can’t sling people out of the way just because they are tiresome. So we are stuck with her until she decides otherwise.’

  ‘I see,’ Cedric said slowly. ‘So you were exercising Matilda when you nearly bumped into Edward looking rather the worse for wear.’

  She nodded. ‘Reeling, bilious and wretched. He didn’t see us of course, far too preoccupied. And, as said, we didn’t approach as the sight might have upset the cat’s nerves.’

  ‘Exactly,’ added Duffy (or Dilly), ‘and after all, she had had a nasty scare from that other encounter!’

  ‘What encounter?’

  ‘Bill Hewson. Pounding along like a bat out of hell.’

  ‘Rather a fat bat,’ the other tittered. ‘But yes he was lumbering along at quite a pace. Sweating too one couldn’t help noticing.’

  ‘How curious,’ Cedric remarked. ‘I wonder where he was going at that time of night and in such a hurry.’

  There was a collective shrug and the twins exchanged sly looks. One of them cleared her throat and said, ‘One doesn’t wish to be indelicate but there is a notorious house of ill-repute in that quarter and now and again the police raid it: a formality of course but they have to do it and names are taken. We think he was trying to race home before the raid started, or had slipped out in the middle. One gathers the police are fairly obliging and generally telephone ahead but sometimes they pounce unannounced especially if there’s someone new in charge.’

  ‘Did he see you?’ Cedric asked, slightly startled by their fund of local knowledge.

  ‘Oh no, we were under an awning arguing with Matilda. She was being so difficult!’

  By this time Luigi had tied up the gondola and with much bowing and boater-doffing bid arrivederci to his passengers.

  One of the twins gestured towards a sprawling corner house with flaking blue shutters and high filigree iron gates. ‘That’s our funny old place,’ she said, ‘we have lived there since we were in the nursery, haven’t we Duffy?’

  ‘Oh yes Dilly, and long may it last!’ And turning to Cedric and Felix, Duffy executed a broad wink and in a fair imitation of a Bronx accent, said, ‘Say, why don’t you come up and see us sometime?’

  Giggling happily the two sisters turned and walked towards the high gates.

  Their companions also turned; and when Felix glanced back at the house, squashed against one of its windowpanes he saw the lowering face of Matilda.

  Later, over a pot of China tea in a corner of Florian’s, they reflected upon their experiences with the two ladies.

  Cedric lit a cigarette and leant back against the velvet upholstery. ‘A most instructive afternoon,’ he declared.

  ‘Yes they certainly know their Venice all right,’ Felix agreed. ‘I suppose it comes with having lived here since children. Fancy being in the same house all those years, you would think they�
�d get bored.’

  ‘Which would you prefer, fifty years in an old waterside house in Venice or five years in a new bungalow in Penge? I know which I would find the more boring … But as a matter of fact I wasn’t simply thinking about our instruction from the boat trip, absorbing though it was, but more specifically about Jones and Hewson. You do realise that from what the two Ds said both were very close to Pacelli’s shop during the night of his murder. The body wasn’t found till about eight in the morning but the press report said the attack was judged to have occurred sometime between midnight and two. According to the ladies that was roughly when both Jones and Hewson were in the vicinity and yet neither said anything about it – or at least apparently not.’

  Felix smiled. ‘But also according to the ladies Hewson was in a somewhat compromising position and was haring home to avoid embarrassing questions. And if he knew he hadn’t seen anything shady en route why should he go to the trouble of revealing what he was doing at that hour? I certainly wouldn’t!’

  ‘Perhaps. But Edward had nothing to hide – except the ignominy of being drunk and sick in the gutter, though I doubt if that would have bothered him unduly. Why did he persist in his tale to Lucia of being in the opposite direction clearing his head wandering around in the Public Gardens?’

  ‘Covering his rear: terrified of being called in for questioning simply because he was in the area. Who knows, short of anyone else the police might have marked him as a suspect. It’s not unknown … perfectly innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time finding a murder charge pinned on them.’

  ‘Possible. But it occurs to me that there may have been something else. Supposing he saw something?’

  ‘Ah light dawns! You think that Edward’s blackmailing note to Hewson was to do with his having seen him rushing hell-for-leather from the knocking shop and that that is why Hewson shoved him under the water!’ Felix chuckled and winked at the dog. ‘With all due respect that strikes me as a rather inadequate reason for such drastic action. It’s also a pretty ropey reason for blackmail; I mean it’s not even as if the chap has a wife and children to protect. He’s on his own here in Venice. And while patronising a certain type of establishment may not be the most couth of pastimes, unless the target happens to be the headmistress of Roedean I doubt if it carries much blackmailing profit.’ Felix gave a dismissive laugh and Cedric watched irritably as his friend spooned large doses of sugar into his lapsang. It was a filthy habit; quite ruined the flavour!

  He sighed and tapped an impatient finger on the table. ‘No,’ he retorted, ‘I am not such a fool as to suggest that. His visit to the knocking shop, as you so charmingly put it, is very likely no more than a product of the twins’ florid imagination.’ Cedric slid the sugar bowl away from Felix’s cup; and then bending forward said quietly: ‘I think that what Edward Jones may have seen was not Hewson fleeing a police raid but fleeing from the bookshop where he had just bludgeoned Pacelli.’

  ‘I never did like him,’ said Felix, retrieving the sugar.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Leaving the palazzo Rosy decided to return to the pensione before embarking for Hewson’s studio. That third glass of Prosecco had been a grave error and she could already feel the stirrings of an impending migraine. If she could get to the aspirin bottle and sit quietly in her room for half an hour it might be forestalled. There was plenty of time. Besides it would mean she could dump her earlier shopping: she had nearly left the bag at the palazzo and it would be silly to risk it again, especially as it contained such a beautiful silk headscarf!

  Thus back in her room she threw down aspirin, drank two tumblers of water and lay on the bed rather wishing she could just drift off to sleep and forgo the studio visit. She closed her eyes and mused over the contents of Edward’s note and Cedric’s interpretation.

  Was blackmail really what it had been about? At the time, persuaded by wine and the tone of Cedric’s conviction, it had seemed plausible; but now alone in her room and her mind soothed by the aspirin she was less certain. Admittedly, as she herself had observed, the reference to the vase was curious. But there might be some perfectly simple explanation and the comments she had overheard between the siblings in the café of no relevance. She thought about Cedric and Felix: they were inveterate gossips and she sensed that they didn’t much care for the painter. Perhaps she had allowed herself to be too easily drawn into their speculative musings, had become absurdly collusive in their game of Cluedo. Cedric had termed her visit to Hewson’s studio a ‘reconnaissance’. How melodramatic!

  Yes she would doubtless glance at the mantelpiece, but other than that she would treat the visit as no more than it surely was – a congenial afternoon among an artist’s paints and sketches admiring his work. She opened her eyes, and feeling much better started to get ready.

  She was tempted to wear the headscarf she had bought that morning but it was so exquisitely wrapped and beribboned that it seemed a shame to open it just yet. Much nicer to wait till she returned home and present it to herself as a post-holiday gift. She opened the dressing-table drawer intending to stow it with the other things she had bought. Slightly to her surprise the postcards left in a neat pile on top were in some disorder. The drawer fitted badly and presumably they had been dislodged when she had pulled too roughly.

  Resisting the urge to give the little china harlequin yet another doting inspection, she was about to deposit her new purchase when she stopped, puzzled. Where was the damned Horace for goodness’ sake? Surely she had put it there; it had been cluttering up the dressing table and she had wanted it out of the way. She scrabbled under the postcards and folded lace table mats. Nothing.

  At first she assumed that her memory was playing tricks and that in her haste she had put it in some other ‘safe’ place – suitcase, wardrobe, underneath her maps and guidebook … It was in none of those places; and neither was it any of the other drawers. They stared up at her in barren mockery. Extraordinary!

  What the hell had happened? She knew she had had it; and the more she brooded the more vivid was her memory of putting it away with the other things. She paced about the room, stared out of the window, picked up her handbag and put it down again, combed her hair, straightened the bedspread … Yes there were only two possible conclusions: either she was going mad and suffering delusions or someone had removed it.

  On the whole she thought the first unlikely – as far as she was aware there had been no other symptoms. Presumably therefore it had been taken. When? What for? And by whom for God’s sake! Could it have been Angelina the chambermaid? It seemed unfair to immediately think of her, and besides what on earth would the girl want with a copy of Latin poems? Had Miss Witherington herself slipped into the room and deftly rifled the drawers? Unthinkable! One of the guests? Ridiculous; they were far too staid. She pulled open the other drawers again and examined them carefully. Any sign of rummaging? It was so hard to tell, she wasn’t the neatest of travellers. Still there was a pair of stockings and a jumper that seemed strangely out of place, and had she really left the clothes brush on top of the blue petticoat? The problem was she couldn’t be sure! But one thing was certain all right: the book was nowhere to be found.

  She sat on the bed and stared blankly at the wall and to her annoyance found she was feeling quite shaky. How stupid! People mislaid books every day. In the scale of things it was hardly something to get upset about; and it wasn’t as if it were of value. According to Carlo it was a total fake; so she didn’t need the damn thing anyway and Stanley certainly wouldn’t thank her for it. Yet she was upset. Unnerved, because she was convinced that she hadn’t mislaid the thing: it had been nicked – someone had sneaked into her bedroom, searched for it and taken it. She felt slightly sick.

  But there was nothing to be done. It was out of the question to enquire of Miss Witherington or any of the guests as it might be thought she was making insinuations; and it would be unpardonable to accuse the maid. Rosy tried to comfort herself by thinking t
hat since it had inexplicably disappeared perhaps it would just as miraculously reappear. Stranger things had happened – or so one heard. But of course that wasn’t really the point: the point was that someone had entered her room uninvited and taken one of her belongings. Beastly!

  She heaved a sigh. There was no point getting in a panic, disturbing though it was. Presumably whoever it was had found what they were after and wouldn’t need to return to filch her underclothes! She suddenly giggled: perhaps it was the mythical man from the Bodleian. She checked her watch and realised she had better start to make tracks for Bill Hewson’s studio, and wondered vaguely what she should say if the host asked her opinion of the ‘scrambled egg’ pictures.

  As she crossed the courtyard she bumped into Miss Witherington who evidently also had the pictures in mind. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘what do you think of our new acquisitions on the landing? I am not sure if they are quite what one would have personally chosen but he seemed so keen it seemed rude to decline.’

  ‘William Hewson’s paintings? Uhm, interesting,’ Rosy said. And then feeling something more was required added, ‘Very bright.’

  ‘Ye-es,’ Miss Witherington replied looking doubtful, ‘that’s what I thought but he seemed to think they would enliven a dull area. I had suggested the vestibule downstairs but he was clearly determined they should be hung up there. I suppose artists know about such matters … light and perspective and all that sort of thing.’

  Rosy was puzzled. ‘So you bought them did you?’

  ‘Oh no. They are on a long loan – although I am not too sure what “long” signifies: until we get tired of them I suppose – or someone complains! He does this occasionally, asks friends to display his pictures in the hope that they will get exposure and hence a sale. Saves the costs of exhibitions let alone gallery commissions. Generally he hangs them himself but this time he sent one of his framers to do it. Not the most meticulous of workmen, he left an awful mess with dust and bits everywhere! It was Angelina’s day off but Dr Burgess was most kind and offered to hoover it up. So we are all spick and span again.’ She paused and then added wryly, ‘Naturally Mr Downing made a complaint about the hammering, but for one who snores so heavily it did strike me as being a mite unjust.’