Rosy smiled and was just about to open the patio door when the other said, ‘I say, how are your researches going? I do trust there is no news of the book otherwise I may lose my bet. Not long to go now!’
Ruefully Rosy assured her that the likelihood of its now being found was distinctly remote and that the bet was probably in the bag. ‘But you never know,’ she teased, ‘a deus ex machina might still suddenly pop up from under the floorboards with Horace in one hand and the glass goblet in the other.’
‘Perish the thought!’ Miss Witherington cried.
Rosy went on her way to Hewson’s studio amused by Miss Witherington’s anxiety over her bet. And then abruptly she stopped walking and stopped feeling amused. Good Lord, she thought, supposing the old girl had taken the thing! Maybe she was slightly crazed and had become utterly obsessed by her prospective visit to Longchamp. Could it be that the image of Paris and the fun of the racetrack had taken such a hold of her hopes that she was prepared to go to any lengths to ensure that she won her bet?
Rosy considered the possibility and tried to put herself in Miss Witherington’s shoes. Here was a lady of presumably adequate but limited means whose moderately successful guest house, while ensuring a stable income, did not permit much in the way of costly treats. Yet from what Rosy had deduced, at one time Miss Witherington had led a life of some liveliness and style. Did she now yearn to recapture a slice of that long lost gaiety, to relive her youth wearing scandalous hats and tippling Pol Roger amidst the sporting glitterati? Was this to be the final fling before the unsparing seepage of health and decline into dotage? If so, to have a guest clearly intent on finding the book just when she wanted it so securely lost must have been worrying. The chance of the Murano vase being simultaneously found with the book was remote, but one never knew. One couldn’t take the risk: best to scupper the Horace at least!
Rosy brooded. Might that really be the answer: the snoopings of an anxious old lady determined not to be cheated out of her racing swansong? If so, perhaps if she learnt from Daphne Blanchett that it was the wrong edition the next time Rosy looked she might find it neatly replaced!
However, by now she had reached her destination and thoughts of Miss Witherington and the purloined Horace were put aside as she searched for Hewson’s bell. Rather to her surprise the answering voice on the intercom was female.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Lucia Borgino had not banked on there being other people in Bill Hewson’s studio that afternoon. Using some pretext she had intended to drop in casually when he was there alone, and if the chance arose have a swift scout round for the vase. Indeed she had confidently hoped that if she played her cards right she would be able to wheedle it out of him there and then.
Thus when she arrived and found several visitors including Dr Burgess and the rather stuffy Blanchett woman, she was distinctly peeved. A general tea party had not been her idea at all! But as always with such social gatherings she adapted accordingly and assumed her customary air of patronage and brittle charm. Sympathy over her recent bereavement was met with brave smiles and a stoical shrug.
The apartment intercom had buzzed: and busy with guests Hewson asked if she would mind answering it. The voice at the other end was female and English. She surmised it might be the British Museum person. All the more the less merry, she thought irritably.
As she had guessed, it was indeed the Gilchrist woman. Lucia appraised her. Quite attractive in a rather pallid way she supposed. Legs were good as were the features, but the straight hair and shortish stature was hardly Vogue material. A good six inches taller and willowy in black, Lucia flashed the newcomer a superior smile and then drifted away hoping to catch sight of the vase.
A large area, and cluttered as it was with people and painting paraphernalia, the studio did not lend itself to easy surveillance. To Lucia’s frustration a couple of easels draped in dust sheets now stood in front of the mantelpiece – as did Dr Burgess and some other man. They were deep in conversation. She tried to get a glimpse of the wall behind them but her vision was entirely blocked. Maddening! She hovered by the window waiting for them to move away. Perhaps then she could edge round the easels and take a quick peek; although quite possibly it wouldn’t be there anyway – it was nearly two months since she had last been at the studio and Hewson could well have moved it. She glanced across the room to where the painter was talking volubly to the Gilchrist girl. The latter looked a bit bemused and Lucia guessed he might be explaining one of his pet theories. Hewson had a lot of pet theories and in Lucia’s estimation few of them held much water.
She returned her gaze to the pair by the far wall. Good, they were moving off. She weaved her way towards the easels and took a quick glance sideways … Yes! Amazingly the vase was still there and displaying a wilted geranium stalk and a couple of pencils. Nobody was looking. If she was quick she could sweep the whole lot into her straw holdall and it would be gone in a trice. She unclipped the fastening.
‘Ah, Lucia,’ cried Daphne Blanchett. ‘How nice to see you; thought you might have left for your poor brother’s funeral.’
‘My flight is tomorrow,’ replied Lucia soberly, hating the Blanchett woman with all her being.
Meanwhile Rosy was rather enjoying herself. Like Lucia, she had been surprised by the crowd; but in a way was glad. Amusing though he could be she felt Hewson’s extravert personality was something to be taken in small doses; and after the recent ‘tantrum’ at lunch she wondered if he was quite as carefree as he seemed. Thus the presence of others (English and Italian mostly) made for a relaxing diversion. A few were obviously prospective purchasers, but like herself most were there simply out of interest or were friends who had dropped in for a casual chat. Among the latter she was glad to see Mrs Blanchett and Dr Burgess who were helpful in making introductions.
‘We don’t know him terribly well,’ Daphne Blanchett said, ‘but I did once buy one of his early paintings of Torcello at dusk which pleases me very much; although,’ she added lowering her voice, ‘I have to say that his later work is not entirely to my taste.’
‘She means,’ Burgess explained, ‘those pictures outside your bedroom – or for that matter those over there.’ He gestured towards a couple of indeterminate abstracts propped against the wall. ‘He says they are all about form and texture.’
‘And then what?’ asked Rosy.
‘Exactly. And then what?’ Burgess echoed.
She wandered around eying some of the unfinished canvases and inspecting the completed ones displayed on the walls. Like Daphne Blanchett, she found the occasional one distinctly compelling, whereas the majority struck her as a trifle bland and the recent ones raucous. There seemed a curious lack of direction and she wondered if Hewson would have done well to follow the habit of established musicians and retain the guidance of a professional mentor.
She asked him about his current work and was given a fulsome account of its concept and aim. His words were not especially enlightening but she assumed the fault lay with herself rather than the confident exponent. Despite Cedric’s suspicion and the cryptic nature of Edward’s note, Rosy felt that there was a frankness and lack of subtlety about Bill Hewson which made him an unlikely target for blackmail. Still, as directed, she would endeavour to carry out a ‘reconnaissance’ for the wretched Murano thing. According to Lucia’s remark in Tonelli’s it was supposed to be on the mantelpiece. Well, she would take a look once that tiresome woman had got out of the way.
She stared across the room at Lucia Borgino standing by one of the draped easels. The cool aplomb with which she had greeted Rosy at the door seemed to have entirely vanished. She looked strangely ruffled, agitated in fact. The pale cheeks were flushed and she bore the look of a punter whose horse had fallen in the last lap. Huh! Rosy thought, with luck someone has snubbed her. At that moment there was a tap on her shoulder. ‘Hello,’ said Guy Hope-Landers, ‘good to see you again.’
Having been variously waylaid by other guests and forced
to listen to more condolences re her brother, it had taken Lucia some while to regain her original position by the mantelpiece. When she did so she had the shock of her life: the bloody thing wasn’t there! Where the vase had been there was now only the geranium stalk and a single pencil – the other having fallen on the floor. She stared in angry astonishment. What had happened? Surely that old fool Hewson hadn’t suddenly taken it into his head to put it somewhere else. That seemed hardly likely at a time like this with everyone milling around and chatting inanely. Besides he was being the genial impresario and showing off the paintings and answering earnest questions about his technique; he would scarcely have had a moment on his own. And in any case why suddenly decide to conceal the damn thing now? Could it have been Daphne and her sidekick Burgess? Possible but unlikely: far too smug and staid to pilfer their host’s paltry ornament!
She glared across the room and saw the Gilchrist girl talking to Guy who had come in late still wearing that awful old reefer jacket he kept for his sailing trips. She regarded it with distaste. She would make sure he got rid of it once they were together – and the awful boat with it! But what about the girl smiling up at him so angelically? Being after the Bodger book maybe she too was aiming at the vase. A million pounds would set her up for life and she wouldn’t have to work in that stuffy museum any more … Lucia’s eye swept the room taking in the twenty or so other guests. Hell it could have been any of them!
For a few seconds she seethed with angry frustration and then gave a careless shrug: nothing to be done now. She must get home and pack for the flight and the funeral … and also plan how she was going to curry favour with her grandfather to see if she couldn’t squeeze a little more money out of the old miser. Thus snapping her handbag shut (it had been reopened in preparation for the vase) she bid goodbye to her host; and smiling coldly at Rosy and blowing a lavish kiss at the intended fiancé, removed herself from the scene.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Altogether, Rosy felt, it had been a congenial event; and despite her earlier reluctance she was glad to have gone. Admittedly there had been nothing on the mantelpiece remotely like a vase or goblet. Doubtless it had been discarded or put in another place. But it certainly hadn’t been her purpose to go snooping around in her host’s kitchen or bedroom. So a fruitless reconnaissance after all, but the visit itself had been pleasant.
However, the thing at the end had unsettled her. It had been so unexpected! She had been leaving at the same time as Daphne Blanchett and Dr Burgess, and as they opened the door into the street they almost collided with a man coming in. He had stood back, muttered apologies and then continued up the staircase.
‘Wasn’t that the man who came to hang the pictures?’ Daphne asked Burgess, ‘the one who made all that dust for you to clear up?’
‘Yes I think perhaps it was,’ Burgess agreed. ‘Not the most professional of workers – made an awful mess and then left the frames crooked.’ He laughed. ‘If Hewson uses him with other clients there’s bound to be complaints.’
Rosy had said nothing, too surprised to comment. She had recognised the man instantly: it had been the same one who had approached the painter in the square after they had lunched together and who had given her that quizzical look. And as she had thought then – and on closer scrutiny now knew – it was also the same man who had been with Pacelli on the night she had gone to Florian’s. If Daphne Blanchett was right, it was somehow disquieting to think it was also he who had been hanging the pictures on the landing outside her room.
She started to walk back to the pensione puzzled by her own unease. Just because she found the man rather distasteful was no reason to feel bothered by his link with William Hewson. After all it was no concern of hers whom he chose to deal with or employ. And yet foolishly she did feel bothered and kept imagining the man alone on the landing busily measuring, hammering, leaving his dusty mess; and then with job done gathering his tools and walking back down the stairs again … But more insistently she was nagged by another scenario, i.e. with job done the man cautiously trying the handle of her bedroom door, and finding it unlocked slipping inside.
She paused, exploring the possibility. It wasn’t entirely out of the question. After all she had been out when the paintings arrived, and it was when she returned that she had discovered the Horace gone. Could he really have been the culprit? Was it so absurd? To steady her thoughts she stopped at a café and ordered a double espresso: perhaps the caffeine would focus her mind. Not bothering with a table she stood at the counter as the locals did, sipping slowly and thinking.
Yet why him? Certainly he had had the opportunity but was it likely? Well he obviously knew about the Horace (unlike presumably the chambermaid) as it had been he who with Pacelli had brazenly told her to go home and not bother with ‘silly poems’. Motive? Obviously to match it with the Murano vase in the hope of getting Berenstein’s vaunted prize money … But what on earth made him think she had found the book, and how in any case would he know which was her room?
She turned from the mirrored bar and leant against the counter watching the street outside with its fading sun and strolling pedestrians. A man stopped, bent his head and lit a cigarette. The tip glowed as he took his first puff, and then he walked on. The commonplace action triggered something in Rosy’s memory and in a trice her mind had darted back to the night at the pensione when looking out from her window she had been so startled by that watching presence – the movement in the shadows, the flashing of a lighter and glint of a cigarette tip.
That was it! The watcher had been no Peeping Tom at all but someone who, like herself only an hour ago, had been set on a mission of reconnaissance … Yes it was obvious. She had been deliberately followed that night, and, as revealed by her own form at the lighted window, the position of her room duly noted. Rosy swallowed the last dregs of the espresso and shivered. It was horrible – the idea of him watching and waiting, and then later creeping into the empty bedroom and quietly ransacking the place. No wonder he had left the landing in such a mess: couldn’t get down the stairs quick enough!
Leaving the café she continued her walk home, the twisting alleys seeming to mimic the twistings of her mind. There was of course the other question, a question crucial to the whole thing. What made the man think she had the book in the first place? Who else knew other than the donors Cedric and Felix, and Carlo who had spurned it? And, she recalled, Guy Hope-Landers and Bill Hewson. Yes of course! They had been having drinks at the palazzo when Cedric had presented her with the thing and had toasted the lucky find. She thought of Hewson and Cedric’s distrust of him and his suspicion that Edward Jones had been blackmailing the painter. Was there really something not quite straight about the man, something a bit skewed?
Again she thought of Lucia’s apparent assertion that he possessed the vase. If she was right – and it would seem so judging from Edward’s allusion in his note – then Hewson might also be seeking the Bodger Horace. And if that were the case perhaps it had been he who had directed the picture hanger to steal it, had even had the pictures delivered there for the express purpose!
She pondered. Could that really be so? Far-fetched surely. And yet just as she was about to dismiss the thought, with a sudden jolt she remembered Edward’s hostility in the restaurant and his snide confidential warning: ‘Don’t trust that one, my dear, he’d cut your throat given half a chance.’ A common enough cliché and typical of the young man’s taste for drama but the point had been clear enough: Hewson was dubious, dangerous even. She frowned trying to think what else the boy had said … ah that was it: ‘I’ve got your number,’ he had shouted. What number? What was it that Edward knew or thought he knew about Hewson? But the taunt could have been meaningless, merely the product of drunken pique. Yet it had been hurled with such force; he must have meant something! And if so what? That Hewson was capable of organising petty larceny? … Or something more sinister?
‘If, if, if,’ she muttered to herself and recalled her Camb
ridge history tutor’s scathing comment on over-speculation: ‘Conjecture without facts is the death of truth,’ he had hammered home. But he had said something else as well: ‘In pursuing fact do not discount the value of theory; it has opened innumerable doors.’ Yes well, she had enough theory to open doors galore but whether they would reveal anything was another matter.
By this time Rosy had reached the pensione and despite her scepticism was both intrigued and unsettled. What she needed was reassurance, or at least to be able to decant her concern on to someone else. Who to confide in? Obviously Cedric and Felix. But were they ‘in residence’? And in any case having entertained her earlier in the day would they want a repeat dose of her company that evening? Ignoring such consideration she decided to telephone the palazzo and find out.
The line was frustratingly poor; full of squeaks and crackles. But she managed to make out from Felix that she would be welcome to go round there later but that it would be only himself as Cedric was otherwise engaged – with what she couldn’t hear. The line faltered and then she heard Felix say, ‘anyway, I have just bought some marvellous cheese and salami, so we might try a little of that. The only thing is that I am not exactly sure when I shall be back – Paolo is keen to show me some of the Jewish quarter and its synagogues and I’m just about to go. But about half past eight should be all right. Tell you what though …’ The line faded but then grew loud again and she heard Felix say, ‘so the key is under the stone gryphon on the left.’ The sound broke up and then collapsed altogether.
The Venetian Venture Page 17