I had to know the worst. “Who painted the forgeries, Miss Harcourt? Was it Giles?”
“Yes, it was Giles.”
“But why? Why did he have to get himself mixed up in anything like this?”
Adeline rushed to his defence, her affection plain. “The poor boy found it so hard to make a living selling those little paintings to tourists. They will not pay very much for a souvenir. Then one day a couple of years back he showed me something he had done for his own pleasure. It was a portrait of a young woman, very much in the style of Raphael. Guido was staying here at the time, and it was he who thought up the whole scheme. He said it would be amusing to hide the picture in the attics amongst some old paintings I had up there, and persuade somebody to buy it believing they were getting an old master at a bargain price. And it worked without any difficulty.”
“The way you’ve been talking,” I said shortly, “it sounds like a regular business.”
She smiled faintly, “I’m afraid so. Guido has been sending people over here, ready primed with a story about a silly old woman who doesn’t realise she’s got a Raphael amongst the lumber in her attic. He would explain that because I know he’s an expert, I would smell a rat if he tried to buy it for himself. But for a consideration he will give them my address, to try their luck. The poor fools always fall for it.”
The answers to other puzzles were beginning to click into place. I could see now why there were so few visitors to this attractive guest house.
I said rather bitterly: “I suppose the only people you ever have staying here are prospective suckers?”
“No no, darling!” Adeline was shocked. “That would be much too suspicious. We always have a sprinkling of ordinary guests. Our little honeymooners, for example.”
So it boiled down to this—a sordid confidence trick! The mugs were cleverly blinded to an obvious fraud by their own monstrous greed. They all imagined they were putting one across a simple old lady, whereas in fact a very astute woman was outwitting them.
It was right up Adeline Harcourt’s street! A glorious charade, an elaborate performance to bedazzle the poor dupes Zampini prodded to her door. How she must have enjoyed stringing them along, first pretending reluctance, at last being persuaded...
And all of it neatly justified in Adeline’s mind by giving the profits of crime to a convent. The nuns would be distressed to know the true source of those freewill offerings.
I had thought Adeline had dozed off, but when I shifted in my chair her eyes flashed open. There was more to tell, and having got started she was determined to tell it.
Giles, I learned, had been keeping up a steady trickle of the forgeries, always in the style of the same painter. He had the knack of Raphael, she explained artlessly. Afterwards, when the deal was done, Zampini would be at hand to warn the buyers that the painting must be smuggled out of Sicily. He would tell them they’d never get official permission to remove such a fine work of art.
“We could not risk an intelligent Customs man asking awkward questions,” Adeline pointed out.
The answer, it emerged, was simple. Giles would obliterate the ‘masterpiece’ with a scene of Taormina bay. Hey presto! It had become just another of Giles Yorke’s souvenir pictures, well known to the Customs. Who would ever guess what lay concealed underneath?
To me it all sounded highly complicated. And I couldn’t see where it got them.
Adeline made an impatient cluck. “For the overpainting, Giles used materials that can easily be removed; and Guido furnished the buyers with an address in their own country where the work can be done. He has contacts everywhere.”
“And has nobody ever brought charges against you, when they eventually discover the fraud?"
Her lips curled into scorn at my innocence. “A man will not easily admit to the world that he has been hoodwinked. And of course there is nothing criminal in what we do. I have never so much as hinted that a painting might be genuine.”
“You didn’t need to. Zampini had already done that job for you.”
Reluctantly she admitted it. “I have been wanting to stop for some time. But it is so difficult. What started as a mere amusement has got out of hand.”
“How can you call it amusement?” I asked reproachfully. “It’s downright dishonest, whatever you say.”
There was a silence before she answered slowly: “You are right, of course, Kerry darling. I should never have started this silly game.”
Even now, I doubted if Adeline could really understand the wrong in what she’d been doing. Her need to perform was so strong-rooted; it justified almost anything.
I said firmly: “Tomorrow you must tell the Blunts it was all a mistake. And then finish with the whole wretched business.”
Despite her obvious guilt, Adeline had been telling the story with a sort of inner amusement. She was still half-enjoying the joke. But my suggestion stunned her. She looked really frightened again.
“But Guido would never agree to that.”
“So what?” I asked impatiently. “Just tell him you’re not prepared to carry on any longer.”
In a snap she became a feeble old lady once more. Her words jerked out in little sobs. “I cannot do that... You don’t know him...”
“There’s nothing he can do about it. He can’t force you.”
“I dare not!” she cried. “I dare not tell him...”
“Then I will.”
“No!” She yelped the word in startled terror. “You must not say anything, Kerry. It is too dangerous. You must not allow Guido to know I have told you so much.”
“I don’t see why not. If he knows that I know, he won’t risk carrying on.”
She had lifted her head from the pillow, shaking it wildly from side to side, refusing to listen to me.
“Why are you so afraid of Zampini?” I asked, puzzled. “It’s as if he’s got some kind of hold over you.”
“Oh, you do not understand,” she moaned. “He is my friend. He was poor dear Vittorio’s friend too.”
“A funny sort of friend to have! Terrifying the life out of you.”
Very quietly Adeline whispered: “In Sicily, it is like that.”
“What do you mean?”
“The villa is isolated, you see.” She spoke as if this accounted for everything. But I didn’t catch on.
“We need protection,” she explained. “We must have a friend in the... the Old Movement.”
It took a second to click. “The Mafia, you mean?”
Nervously, she skated away from the word. “Guido was Vittorio’s contact. His friend. After Vittorio’s death, when I inherited the villa, Guido became my friend.”
I was appalled. “But you treat him like a real friend.”
“It is something one learns to accept.”
“And if you refuse to accept it?”
She put up her hands to her cheeks. “I am so afraid of Guido. He will stop at nothing...” She hesitated, and then added quietly under her breath: “Look what happened to Carlo.”
The fear I’d been contemptuously dismissing got a sudden swift stranglehold. I shivered, beginning to understand why Adeline was so afraid. The squalid traffic in forged paintings had all at once become charged with sinister overtones.
“What do you mean about Carlo?” I faltered.
Huge tears trembled upon the old lady’s eyelids. They slid slowly down her cheeks and wet the white pillows with dark rings.
There was a long, heavy silence.
“I should never have told you so much,” she murmured sadly at last. “It was unfair of me.”
“What did you mean about Carlo?” I persisted. “The police said it was because of a vendetta, a family rivalry.”
Adeline was worn out. Her whispered words came very slowly. “Carlo also knew too much, and he was blackmailing me...”
“Blackmailing you?” I grated out.
“I did not really mind that—it was only a little money. But Guido was furious when he found out this
morning.”
“Are you really saying...?” I hesitated at the very brink. The idea was too fantastic. Adeline must have meant something quite different.
Seconds added together until they seemed like whole minutes before she summoned the energy to speak again.
“Yes, it was Guido. I do not know who did the actual knifing, but Guido was responsible for Carlo’s death, I am certain of it.”
Chapter Eleven
I stayed the rest of the night in Adeline’s room. I had to. I dared not leave her alone with Zampini possibly still on the prowl.
Unfortunately, I had chosen a high-backed chair with hard nobbles which prodded my spine. By the time they were getting painful it was too late to do anything. Adeline was asleep, her fingers locked tight into mine.
Her slowly hissing breath punctuated heavy silence. The rhythm was hypnotic. My mind drifted, building a weird picture montage of the story she’d just told me. A walking nightmare. Overshadowing everything else was the climax of horror. A handsome young Sicilian being violently done to death!
I could see every sharp detail of that back alley drama, except for the murderer himself. He was a shapeless black blur in my mind. Had Zampini’s own hand held the knife? Or was it wielded by some cheaply-bought assassin?
I didn’t doubt the truth of what Adeline had told me. So much was explained now; so much had clicked into place—neatly, nastily, horribly. The elaborate plot and counter-plot, the double bluff. And all acted out with superb professional skill against the beautiful backcloth of the Villa Stella d’Oro.
To Adeline it had been just a game, a harmless enough joke. And while she was laughing, Zampini counted his profits, ruthlessly exterminating an upstart waiter who had tried to get in on the act.
What about Giles? I brooded sadly. Just how deeply was he involved?
I understood now why he’d so eagerly abandoned me to Philip yesterday afternoon. He’d had a rush job on hand, going hell for leather covering George Blunt’s fake Raphael with a stock view of the bay. Once a deal was done, they’d want to get rid of the sucker, and fast.
To my surprise I found I wasn’t all that cut up about Giles. I’d been kidding myself about him, I realised—trying to make myself fall for him. But all along I’d known I couldn’t really do it. Never in a hundred years. Not while Philip Rainsby was on the same planet.
Yet I’d raised a tight guard against Philip; wanting to trust him, but not daring to. If only I could believe his every word, uncritically, without reservation. But I was faced with his own admission that he’d lied to me.
I still couldn’t decide if even now he was being honest with me. Why should a professional art buyer hang around at the Stella d’Oro if he expected to be offered forgeries? Was it because he was so infatuated with Rosalind Blunt?
The more I knew, the more I didn’t know. Philip, Giles, Adeline, Carlo. And Zampini...
Why had the vicious Italian been in such a tearing rage, ranting at Adeline in the middle of the night? She’d told me a lot, but she hadn’t explained that.
Unburdened, the old lady looked very peaceful. Now that her fear of Zampini was shared with me, she was able to let go and lose herself in sleep.
I wished I could do the same.
Sitting here beside her, my mind adrift, was sheer escapism. I was sidestepping the problem of what I was going to do in the morning. I needed advice. I needed help. And there was only one person I could conceivably go to. I’d got to trust Philip. I had to assume, whatever his game might be, that in the final analysis he was on the right side.
My watch pointed the improbable fact that it was already half past six. I couldn’t delay any longer.
Adeline still slept. Stiff from my long vigil, I got up without disturbing her. I opened the bedroom door and put a cautious ear into the corridor.
Silence! Everything was utterly quiet. Even the servants were not about yet.
I hated leaving Adeline. Zampini might come back while I was gone, to have another go at her.
I decided to lock her in. He’d hardly be likely to have a key to the door. And if he was mad enough to force it open, I’d be sure to hear him. Swiftly I shifted the key from inside to outside, and turned it.
Early sun blazed the length of the corridor. After the gloom of Adeline’s bedroom I was half blinded. Blinking, I made my way to Philip’s door, and tapped gently.
There was no reply.
I tapped again, rapping with my knuckles this time. I was afraid of making too much noise. Zampini’s room was not very far away.
At length I tried the handle. It turned, and I opened the door a few inches.
“Philip!” I called softly. “Are you awake?”
There was still no answer.
The bedroom was dark, the thick curtains drawn across. I slipped inside, shutting the door behind me before snapping on the light switch.
Philip was not there! The bed was rumpled, but empty.
My bitter disappointment told me just how much I’d been depending upon Philip. I knew now that I’d been banking on him to sort out the mess. I’d wanted him to decide what to do.
Had he just happened to get up early to go walking while it was fresh? Checking, I felt the bed sheets. They were cold, quite cold.
Philip had been gone for some time. What was he up to, out of his room at the crack of dawn?
At a loss, I went outside again. There was still no sound, no stirring of life in the big house.
I’d left Adeline locked in, so she would be safe enough while I investigated downstairs.
But Philip was nowhere around. Not in the salon or the dining-room. Nor, as far as I could see through the windows, was he outside on the loggia, or anywhere in the gardens.
Half-heartedly, I tried the kitchen regions. And then, on a sudden thought, I went round the back of the house to the old stables where his hired car was garaged.
It was gone.
The big Mercedes that Zampini used was also missing.
* * *
It was while I was dressing, miserably wondering what to do next, that I heard a car draw up outside. Just the faint scrunch of tyres as it braked.
Hastily I stepped into my dress and zipped it up. Giving my hair the merest flick of a comb, I ran out to see who had turned up.
Philip was just reaching the head of the staircase. For an instant he looked plain startled to see me. Then a masking smile fell upon his face.
“Hallo, Kerry...”
While he walked up to me, I waited in silence, held back by newly surging doubts. But again it came to me—who else dared I trust?
Cesare? But turning to Cesare for help would mean bringing him in officially, as a policeman. I couldn’t ask him not to report what I told him.
Was it fair, at this stage, to fetch the weight of law down on Adeline’s head? The old lady had got herself involved much deeper than she had ever intended, driven by Zampini into perpetrating more and more frauds. She wasn’t really a criminal. The whole of life was a stage play to Adeline Harcourt, every action studied, every emotion over-expressed. She had gone into this forgery business as nothing more than a piece of light comedy. She had meant no harm beyond burnt fingers for a few greedy amateur art collectors who could no doubt well afford the loss, anyway.
And I believed what she’d told me about her share of the profits going to the nuns of Santa Teresa. I could imagine that to Adeline this would seem to be squaring the account, a sort of moral tit-for-tat.
No, I couldn’t speak to Cesare; not until I knew more than I did now.
I realised that Philip was waiting for me to say something. I thought he looked a bit ill-at-ease, as though he’d been hoping to slip into his room unnoticed. But I couldn’t be sure of that. The low-slanting sun was shining straight into my eyes, and his face was half in shadow.
“What is it, Kerry?” he said at last.
Was I to confide in him, or not? Should I boldly take a chance and ask for Philip’s help, or timidly hold b
ack and risk an even worse outcome?
There could only be one answer.
“Please, I want to talk to you. It’s important.” I threw open the door of my room again, and walked in. He followed me, slowly. I could tell he was very unwilling.
The moment the door was shut, I challenged him directly. “Where have you been?”
His silent stare asked me what business that was of mine.
“I mean,” I added weakly, “going off so early in the morning...”
He took his time about replying. His lips curled in a faint, unamused smile. “I just went out.”
He wasn’t going to tell me, and I couldn’t make him.
“What was it you wanted to say to me, Kerry?”
Doubt made a last-ditch stand. To overcome my reluctance to talk, I had to rush in. I flung the story at his head so wildly it must have been almost incoherent.
“Those forged paintings... you were right about them. Zampini’s the one... and Giles too—he does the actual work. And Adeline Harcourt’s in it as well...”
He listened impatiently as though I were talking gibberish. I had expected him to congratulate me, but the moment I took a pause for breath, he slid a damper in.
“You’ve got it all wrong, Kerry. You’re imagining things.”
I was staggered. “But it was you... What about that painting you showed me?”
He was frowning. “I suppose I am to blame. I shouldn’t have put fool ideas into your head.”
“Ideas!” I blazed at him. “Are you saying now the picture was not a fake?”
He looked like a man caught on the hop. “You see, Kerry, a thing is only a fake if it pretends to be something else. A painting might be very like a Raphael, but if nobody tries to make out it’s genuine, then it can’t possibly be called a forgery.”
“But you told me it was going to be offered to you as a genuine Raphael.”
“It seems I was mistaken. Nobody’s made any approach to me up to now.”
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