Admittedly she would have preferred Cedric to be there as well; he had a sobriety not always discernible in his friend. However, better one than none at all; and even if Felix shed no light at least he would be a diversion and someone to talk to. She couldn’t recall a stone gryphon but presumably one was there standing sentinel and acting as guardian of the spare key should one be required.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The synagogues had been fascinating, Paolo’s company amusing, and had he the time Felix would have liked to see more of the area. But he didn’t have the time: there was the dog to feed and then of course Rosy Gilchrist was coming. He had no idea what she wanted but she had sounded agitated. He hoped it wasn’t anything too disquieting as he had rather hoped for an early night and to curl up with a good book … well not a good book exactly but to reread yet again that lovely article in the Tatler about himself supervising the Queen Mother’s flowers for her last cocktail party. It really had been most gratifying.
He arrived at the palazzo and let himself in. Rather to his surprise the door to Hope-Landers’ quarters was wide open and from within he heard the sound of a raised voice. Rather more than raised actually – bellowing would be a better term. Startled, Felix paused and lent an ear. Yes the tone was very loud indeed, most unpleasant in fact. He thought he could just catch the murmuring of another voice but couldn’t be sure as the other was making such a racket. Maybe it was the radio. Was Hope-Landers having an unquiet fit? Perhaps he ought to venture in although it would be easier to scuttle past. He recalled his mother’s advice at such moments of crisis: ‘Quick dear, look the other way!’ It had, he reflected, been sound counsel except that on this occasion his curiosity was aroused. Perhaps just the smallest peek …
Other than a haze of cigarette smoke and the shambles of the lodger’s sitting room the peek revealed nothing. The shouting, however, continued. Felix hovered at the threshold and then edging in a little further saw a half-open door to his left revealing a passage. He took a few tentative steps along this and was faced with another door slightly ajar, presumably that of a bedroom or study. It was from here that the shouting came. The voice was unmistakable: an American accent at full throttle.
‘You thieving little bastard,’ Bill Hewson yelled, ‘I saw you take the fucking thing myself. You thought I wouldn’t notice, thought I was too taken up with that Gilchrist broad. Well I wasn’t, see. I saw everything. I can tell you old Bill Hewson doesn’t miss a fucking trick!’
Fearful yet fascinated Felix was drawn to the doorway and stared in. Hope-Landers was lounging on a bed, long legs stretched out, arms folded behind his head. Hewson was towering over him, shoulders hunched and fists clenched. He did look very angry, and it occurred to Felix that had it been himself being thus addressed he would have been under the bed and not on it.
‘Yes it was a bit rash,’ replied Hope-Landers ruefully, ‘but,’ he continued mildly, ‘I imagine you have been missing fucking tricks most of your life. Wouldn’t you say?’
Hewson seemed to freeze and Felix drew in his breath and winced. Idiot! All very well affecting nonchalance but not in the face of such bitter fury: surely a tactical error. He was right for in the next instant Hewson had whipped something from his pocket, lunged at the other and started beating him about the head. Hope-Landers gasped, tried to sit up, was hit again violently and then heaved to the ground and kicked in the ribs.
It was then that Felix stepped forward. ‘You can’t do that,’ he announced with scant conviction.
The attacker swung round: ‘Why if it isn’t the little hairdresser,’ he jeered.
Hairdresser? Felix was enraged! However, he certainly wasn’t going to argue the point because he had suddenly seen what Hewson held in his hand: a heavy revolver. He swallowed hard. It must have been the butt that he had been using on Hope-Landers. But it was less the butt that bothered Felix than the fact that the gun’s muzzle was now being waved perilously close to his own nose. He took a step back. ‘I am sure that’s not called for is it?’ he said hastily. ‘Er, what is it that you are looking for exactly?’
‘You heard,’ Hewson snarled, ‘the vase that the bastard there took from my studio.’ (The bastard there was still on the ground looking distinctly under the weather: blood poured from his nose and he was doubled up as if winded.)
‘There it is,’ said Felix, nodding towards a chest of drawers. ‘Now I suggest you take it and then go away.’ He fixed the man with a hard look; the sort of look reserved for the royal corgis when they became overly intrigued by his floral confections.
But not being a corgi, royal or otherwise, Hewson remained unquelled. He strode to the chest of drawers, grabbed the vase and thrust it into a canvas bag. And then turning towards the figure on the floor said softly, ‘But there’s something else isn’t there, Guy; something else that you have and which I need. That book Emilio took from the girl’s room was useless: he reckoned it was one of Lupino’s bits of buggery. But I think you’ve got the real one – you must have otherwise why so keen to get at my vase? Berenstein’s offer is withdrawn in three days’ time. You wouldn’t have bothered with it unless you already had the real frigging Horace. So I’d be obliged if you would tell me where it is.’
‘Go to hell,’ Hope-Landers grunted and appeared to pass out.
Hewson whirled on Felix. ‘Okay, Smarty Pants, so where do you think it is?’
Felix shrugged. ‘Somewhere on his shelves I imagine. He’s got a lot in there.’ He nodded towards the sitting room.
Hewson frowned and seemed to cogitate while Felix regarded him with some nervousness. He had once had an uncle whom his mother had described as always having a wild look in his eyes (a permanent affliction apparently). Looking at Hewson now he was reminded of his mother’s words. He couldn’t remember what had happened to the uncle: something nasty he suspected. Hewson’s eyes were definitely wild and he rather thought the man was off his chump. Whether anything nasty would happen to him Felix could not be sure but it would be nice to think so. Meanwhile, he told himself, the great thing was to play for time: something which according to literature was considered a good ploy.
‘Er, can I offer you a cup of tea?’ he asked politely. ‘We have various types upstairs – Darjeeling, lapsang suchong, Ceylon something or other …’ His voice trailed off as judging from Hewson’s expression these did not meet with approval.
‘Just shut up you pathetic Limey lizard,’ the latter barked levelling the gun at him. ‘I’ve things to do and I’m not having you prancing about messing things up!’
Felix dutifully shut up and found himself pushed on to a chair. He wanted to say that while he may have messed up a few things in his life he had certainly never pranced – but on the whole felt it wiser to keep quiet. The next moment Hewson had snapped open a penknife and slashed the curtain cords. Felix winced as he saw the velvet folds tumble to the floor. But he winced even more when he felt his arms and ankles being tightly bound and lashed to the chair legs and back. And then, horror of horrors, with a light tap Hewson had tipped the chair, and it and the occupant fell to the ground with a crash. Without a backward glance the man rushed from the room and slammed the door leaving Felix bone-shaken and terrified. He heard the lock being turned.
From his upended position Felix contemplated the ceiling and then called out to Hope-Landers. There was no answer and he felt terribly alone. It wasn’t so much his physical discomfort that oppressed him but the deafening silence. By twisting his neck he could just make out the passage light shining under the door. Had the man gone back to the sitting room? What was he doing? Presumably hunting for the book. And if he found it what then? Would he quietly sneak away – or come back in and do Christ knows what? He shivered and called out to Hope-Landers fearful that he might be dead.
There was a groan and a curse. There followed another groan and more silence. Then a faint voice said, ‘You look awful.’
‘So would you if you had your effing feet stuck in the air,’ Felix
snapped. ‘Kindly come and untie me!’
‘All in good time old man. I’m feeling a bit groggy. If you don’t mind I am just going to lie quietly here for a bit.’
Felix sighed. ‘Oh take your time,’ he said acidly.
The next moment there was the sound of the key in the lock and Hewson reappeared looking triumphant and holding a book in his hand. He scanned the room and moved to the rug where he had dropped the canvas bag containing the vase. ‘Mustn’t forget this,’ he sneered, ‘it goes with its pal here.’ And he tapped the book and brandished it in Hope-Landers’ face. ‘My fortune, your loss,’ he taunted.
Hope-Landers shrugged wearily. ‘Ah the vicissitudes of life.’
‘Shut up you fool,’ the other snarled.
‘Actually,’ said Felix boldly, ‘I think it might be you who is being foolish. Don’t you realise everyone knows you killed Pacelli?’ (By ‘everyone’ he meant of course that he and Cedric had discussed it.) ‘There were witnesses, Dilly and Duffy.’
‘Huh! Those old hags! What do they know about anything?’
‘Well I can assure you they’ve told the police,’ Felix lied. ‘Big deal,’ Hewson snorted. ‘You don’t really think the police will listen to their bilge, do you? They have enough work always being called out to chase the sodding cat!’
He glared at the man on the floor, and picking up the remnants of rope used on Felix proceeded to bind his wrists to a leg of the bed. He grinned: ‘I wasn’t in the navy for nothing; darn good knots these!’ Snatching the swag he hurried from the room again and locked the door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Having nothing better to do and feeling excruciatingly uncomfortable Felix started to wriggle about in his chair, and with a heave succeeded in jolting it over on to one side. His limbs were still tightly bound, but at least his legs were now down which gave some relief and he was able to lie in a foetal position on his side. He looked over at Hope-Landers sprawled a few feet away by the bed. The blood from his nosebleed had dried but he looked a bit seedy. Felix sighed and tried to ease the rope on his wrists. Nothing happened.
‘You do realise he is mad,’ said Hope-Landers faintly.
‘It had crossed my mind,’ Felix replied. ‘But if you don’t mind my saying it was pretty stupid of you to have messed about with that vase thing. I take it that the Horace he snatched was the genuine article?’
‘Oh yes it’s the right one all right. I took it from your cousin’s table some time back, the day after Carlo left it there, and replaced it with a counterfeit – the one Cedric found in her bookcase and gave to Rosy.’
‘Oh so it was you who switched the book,’ Felix exclaimed. ‘Whatever for? And what were you doing with the fake anyway?’
Hope-Landers gave a tired sigh. ‘I can answer your first question quite easily: I wanted the money. Having seen the Murano vase at Bob’s studio earlier on I realised that if I could obtain the pair and get to Farinelli in time I stood a good chance of winning the old fool’s favour. I hadn’t anything to lose and it was worth a try.’ He gave a rueful smile.
‘Really?’ Felix said sceptically. ‘Seems a lot of effort to me. Are you so short of funds? I mean you seem to live quite an agreeable life here in Venice – convivial company at Harry’s, supper invitations, a small pad in a palazzo and driving that boat around. Not too distasteful surely?’
‘On the face of it no. But such things pall, especially when you have no prospect of doing anything else … Being fêted by elderly ladies and grateful tour guides is pleasant enough but there is more to life I suspect. In fact sometimes I get so bored that I have even considered swapping The Times crossword for the Manchester Guardian’s.’
‘Good grief!’ Felix exclaimed.
‘And then of course there’s Lucia. At first I thought she was rather amusing and she’s certainly easy on the eye … I like people to look nice,’ he added simply. ‘But now she irritates me and has become a sort of albatross. One could do without her really.’
Felix knew exactly what he meant and nodded vigorously. However, his prurient curiosity was also roused: ‘Uhm, if it’s not an indelicate question’ – it was of course – ‘did you have a little fling with her?’
‘Did I sleep with her you mean? Briefly; but it rather tailed off – or rather I did. I have a dicky heart you see, and one has to be a bit careful about such things … although to tell you the truth she wasn’t terribly engaging: too self-centred and a curious mixture of the frigid and the ferocious.’
‘Goodness, I don’t suppose that would do the old ticker much good; sounds terrifying!’ (Felix, who had a lurid imagination, shuddered.) ‘It just goes to show,’ he remarked helpfully, ‘every cloud has its silver lining or whatever it is they say.’
‘Pale copper I should say.’
‘Er, yes perhaps … Anyway, presumably you wanted the money so you could chuck it all up and get away.’
Hope-Landers’ face hardened. ‘Exactly. To get away. But there’s no point in getting away unless you escape to something utterly different and exciting, something extraordinary and exotic and fulfilling, and where you are not plagued with predatory sirens and irksome chores. I have spent too much of my life being obliging to vicars and old ladies and now I should like to break out – sail to foreign parts, hunt marauding tigers or ride on an elephant. Such things need funding.’
‘Ride on an elephant? That’s a bit rash isn’t! I should stick with the vicars.’ Felix was not entirely joking: he had an aversion to elephants ever since being unceremoniously pushed aside by one at the London Zoo; but it was not so much the slight that had rankled as the hiding he had received from his mother for breaking loose from his reins. The memory went deep.
However, dismissing the elephant he returned to the fake. ‘But what were you doing with it?’
Hope-Landers frowned. ‘Yes that is a bit of a saga but since you ask, here goes. You know that other bookshop near the Arsenale, the one that is run by Pacelli’s cousin?’
‘The one currently closed?’
He nodded. ‘I had a flat in that area and used to know its owner Lupino moderately well – a bit slippery but in his way quite interesting and certainly more fun than Pacelli. Within certain discreet Venetian circles both were renowned for their forging skills, or at least the elder was. Lupino, the younger, was the novice – though apparently now quite the skilled maestro. I would often buy books from him and we used to share the odd bottle of wine and he would teach me Italian. One evening I asked him about the finer points of forging. He explained that he hadn’t yet reached the finer points but he would show me an item he had recently done, a sort of practice job. He pointed out the methods he had used but also its flaws. It was most interesting (the sort of thing that as an undergraduate I’d like to have had a go at; more fun than Virgil I suspect. A forger manqué that’s me!) Anyway I told him I was very impressed but he laughed and said it was rubbish – as apparently his mentor had made perfectly clear. He then said that as it was such a botched job he had no use for it and since I seemed so interested I was welcome to have it.’
‘And it was a mock-up of the Horace?’
‘Yes. And as I hadn’t read any of the verse since leaving Oxford and didn’t have a personal copy I thought I might as well refresh my memory with a crude piece of fakery; after all the poems were the same.’
‘But surely when you saw the original at my cousin’s, the one that Carlo had forgotten, why didn’t you just filch it and say nothing? Why bother to import your own?’
Hope-Landers grinned. ‘Your cousin may be a bit scatty and short-sighted but even she would have realised that the thing was no longer where she had left it, particularly as she was expecting Carlo to come back. Something had to be there for her to pick up and hand to him. We had been doing the crossword together, and if she had noticed its absence the following day she could easily have assumed that I had taken it. Substituting the spare was at least a sort of delaying tactic, a holding operation you might s
ay. And as it happens of course, I was in luck because Carlo completely forgot about the whole thing and the matter was literally shelved. Convenient!’ He laughed.
‘Hmm, but there was still a risk wasn’t there? I mean it was pure chance that Carlo didn’t return, and if he had then presumably at some point he would have realised the book wasn’t his and started asking questions.’
Hope-Landers sighed. ‘We all have to hope for the best and take a gamble now and again. Haven’t you ever done that?’
Felix most certainly had; and the recent escapades in St John’s Wood remained horribly vivid. But nothing was as horrid as this! ‘And I suppose too you thought that the rest of the procedure would be quick: snaffle the vase from Hewson, whip off to F. Berenstein, collect the prize and bugger off.’
The other nodded bleakly. ‘Something like that. Silly really.’
‘You can say that again,’ Felix replied indignantly, ‘look where it’s landed us!’
He glanced up at the clock. It was roughly the time that Rosy Gilchrist was due. With no answer from the buzzer she would have to use the key and let herself in as he had told her to … But maybe she had arrived already! The entrance hall was too far off for them to hear anything. Supposing at this very minute she was being confronted by Hewson; supposing he had bashed her up as he had Hope-Landers – or worse still she was lying dead in a pool of blood. Felix closed his eyes: the bastard had done it before and in his present state he seemed capable of anything! He swallowed and tried to think of something better: Hewson fled, and Rosy seated in the salon sipping a dry martini while patiently awaiting her host’s arrival. Helplessly he clung to the hope.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
As Felix feared, no such homely scene was being enacted. Rosy had indeed arrived and getting no reply from the buzzer had found the key under the gryphon and let herself in.
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