Street Of The Five Moons Part 8

If I don't mention the footman or the butler or the maid more often, it is because I would have to mention them too often. Servants were all over the house, like fleas, jumping out at you when you didn't expect them. Many of the more personal family encounters I was to witness took place in front of this audience; none of the Caravaggios seemed to mind them, but I couldn't be sure whether it was because they were regarded as members of the family or as pieces of furniture.

Pietro sputtered helplessly during his son's outburst. When the boy ran out, he would have shouted, had he not caught his mother's eye. The dowager said nothing. She didn't have to. It was quite clear what she thought of the whole thing, and with whom her sympathy lay. Obviously both she and Luigi a.s.sumed Pietro had given his girl friend the brooch to keep.

The remainder of the c.o.c.ktail hour pa.s.sed uncomfortably. At least I was uncomfortable, and so was Pietro. Helena, never sensitive to other people's feelings, basked in the reflected glitter of diamonds. The dowager sat like a stiff black effigy, her wrinkled white hands folded over the top of her stick. She never took her eyes off the swaggering, self-conscious figure of her son.

The only thing that made the situation bearable was Smythe's playing. He went from Tchaikovsky to Bach to Vivaldi and finally lapsed into Rudolf Friml, which he performed with a swooping, saccharine sweetness that made the melodies sound like satires of themselves. I don't think he was playing to be helpful, he was only amusing himself; but music does soothe the savage breast, and it pleased Pietro.

It was a long evening, though. The dowager stuck with us till long after dinner - in order to punish Pietro - and it was almost ten o'clock before the four of us returned to the drawing room for coffee. Like a naughty little boy, Pietro relaxed as soon as his mother left. He had drunk quite a bit, and was well into his aggressive mood; the fact that he had had to repress it in front of the old lady made him even more belligerent. He turned on Smythe, who was drifting toward the piano, and snarled.

"A fine performance, I must say. So this is how you carry out your duties!"

Smythe raised an eyebrow and did not reply. Pietro looked at me.

"He has been here less than a week, and you see how he behaves! Like a guest in the house. I take him in, employ him, because he is well recommended; he does no work, he sits by laughing when my own son insults and defames me. What do you say to that?"

"Terrible," I said. The complaint was totally unreasonable, of course, but I was not inclined to defend Sir John Smythe. If Pietro had proposed stringing him up for horse stealing, I'd have lent a hand on the rope.

"Don't be so silly, Pietro," Helena said, fingering her diamonds. "What do you expect Sir John to do? It is your problem if your son misbehaves."

The old saying, that it takes two to make a fight, is a lie. One person can start a fight all by himself if he is determined to, and Pietro was. Helena's defense of Smythe only gave Pietro a convenient handle. By the time he was through, he had accused his secretary and his mistress of carrying on an affair right under his nose. I think he was looking for an excuse to take the brooch back, and Helena, never too bright, fell right into the trap.

Smythe fell into another kind of trap. When Pietro started slapping his chest and shouting about his family honor, Smythe put his coffee cup carefully down on a table and stood up.

"Oh, all right," he said in a bored voice. "Let's get it over with. Fetch the umbrellas."

"Ah, you mock me," screamed Pietro. "Umbrellas, you say? You wish to make me a laughingstock. You do not take me seriously. You will see if a Caravaggio is to be insulted." And he rushed out of the room.

He was back in less time than I would have supposed possible, brandishing - yes, you guessed it - only it wasn't one sword, it was two, one in each hand. He flung one of them down on the floor in front of Smythe. Gold shone. I remembered those rapiers; they were a matched pair, part of the jewel collection, because they had gorgeous decorated hilts. They were court swords, meant to be worn with a fancy uniform; but the blades were of Toledo steel, and "quite sharp.

Smythe contemplated the weapon blankly as Pietro tried to struggle out of his coat. The footman had to come and help him. Then he took up his sword and fell into what he fondly believed was an att.i.tude of defense, flexing his knees and waving his arms.

"Come," he shouted. "Defend your honor, if you have any!"

"Wait a minute," I said uneasily, as Smythe bent to pick up his weapon. "Those points look pretty sharp. He could hurt himself."

"He could also hurt me," said Smythe indignantly. "After all, I didn't start this nonsense."

Pietro ran at him, roaring. He slid neatly to one side, and the point of the sword punctured the back of the chair in which he had been sitting. Pietro tugged at it, cursing luridly, and Smythe moved discreetly back a few feet. He looked at his sword and then at Pietro's plump posterior, temptingly tilted as he tried to free his sword from the sofa.

"Don't do it," I said. "You'll just make him mad."

"He's mad already," was the reply. "Stark, staring mad. Why don't you soothe him? Say something calming."

I glanced at Helena, thinking she might try to control her outraged lover, but she was giggling happily as she watched. Two men were dueling over her; what more could a girl ask of life? I looked at the footman, and realized I wasn't going to get any help from that quarter. Before I could think what to say, Pietro had tugged his sword free, bringing a little cloud of stuffing with it, and had turned back to his secretary. He took a wild swipe at Smythe, who brought his blade up just in time. Steel rang on steel, and I sat up a little straighter. Pietro was beside himself. That blow would have split Smythe's skull if it had connected.

The duel with the umbrellas had been pure farce, but only because the weapons were harmless. Pietro hadn't pulled his punches that time, and he wasn't doing it now; I couldn't tell whether he was so drunk he did not realize he was holding a sharp blade, or whether he didn't care. There was a streak of violence in that little fat man after all. And he knew how to fence. Luckily Smythe seemed to have had some experience too. Pietro was no Olympic gold medalist, but Smythe's defense was complicated by the fact that he didn't want to injure his infuriated employer, or even allow him to injure himself. Smythe had to defend two people, and refrain from attacking. He wasn't smiling as he retreated, with careful consideration for the rugs scattered hither and yon on the dangerously slippery polished floor. Once Pietro tripped on a fringe; if Smythe's blade hadn't knocked his aside, he would have stabbed himself in the calf.

I decided the affair had gone on long enough. If Pietro didn't cut somebody, he would have a stroke; he was purple in the face and streaming with perspiration. I slid in behind him, and as his arm went forward I grabbed his biceps with both hands, and squeezed.

That hurts. Pietro shrieked. The sword dropped clattering to the floor, digging a long gouge in the parquetry.

Smythe stepped back and lowered his point. I could see that he was about to make some rude remark, so I dropped to my knees and wound my arms around Pietro's legs. It made a pretty picture, I must say, and it also kept Pietro from falling over.

"I couldn't let you kill him," I choked. "Pietro - it would be murder! Your skill is too great. It would be like fighting an unarmed man."

Pietro's fiery color subsided.

"Yes," he said grudgingly. "Yes, you are right. It would not be honorable."

He was still angry, though. He turned on Helena, whose face mirrored her disappointment at the tame ending. She had wanted to see some blood.

"No thanks to you that my honor is not tarnished," he snarled. "You hoped I would be killed, eh? Then you and your lover would steal away with my jewels. Give them to me!"

Clutching the brooch, Helena backed away. Pietro followed her, waving his arms, and elaborating on his theme. Smythe sat down. He had collected both swords and was holding them firmly.

"Leave them alone," he said, as I started after Pietro and Helena. "He'll pa.s.s out soon, and then we can all go to bed."

Pietro did not pa.s.s out. The exercise had used up some of the alcohol he had consumed, and he was quite lively and looking for trouble. He pursued Helena in their ludicrous game of tag, and she retreated. The French doors onto the terrace were wide open, and I wondered why she didn't go out; she could get clean away from him in the gardens. But she avoided the windows, and finally he got her backed into a corner. I didn't see exactly what happened, only a scuffle of flailing arms and agitated movements. Then Pietro toppled over and hit the floor.

"The winner and new champion," Smythe chanted. "A knockout in the first round."

Helena tugged her dress back into decency.

"He was trying to strangle me," she muttered. "I had to hit him. Do you think he is-"

"Out like a light," said Smythe, bending over his employer. "We had better carry him to bed. I wouldn't go near him tonight, Helena. He will have cooled off by morning, but..."

"I don't go near him again," snapped Helena. "He is a beast, a monster. I leave him."

She went puffing out of the room, her long skirts swinging. Her fingers were still clamped over the brooch.

Smythe and the footman carried Pietro upstairs. My room was beyond his, Helena's was on the other side. Her door was closed when I pa.s.sed it, but I thought I heard the sounds of agitated activity within. It sounded as if she were moving the furniture.

I got ready for bed, although I wasn't tired. When I had put on a robe and slippers, I went out onto the balcony.

No capering comedian waved at me from the terrace tonight. The grounds were dark and still, with only a few pinpoints of light visible from the cottages of the employees who lived on the estate. To the left the lights of the town of Tivoli made a bright splash on the dark horizon.

It looked very quiet and peaceful down there. I thought of getting dressed and doing some exploring, but somehow the idea didn't arouse my girlish enthusiasm. I tried to find rational reasons for my reluctance, and had no difficulty in doing so; it was early yet by Italian standards, many of the workers would still be awake, and I had no particular goal in mind, since nothing I had seen had suggested the need for further investigation. There was no sense in wandering around in the dark through unfamiliar terrain. But that wasn't the real reason why I hesitated. I didn't like the look of that dark garden.

I had been thinking of the Caravaggios as a comic family, something out of a TV serial, or one of those silly French farces. Now I realized that there were undercurrents of tragedy and unhappiness among them. A man may smile and smile and be a villain. He may make a d.a.m.n fool of himself and be a villain too.

However, I didn't think Pietro was the master criminal I was after. It was possible that he was a victim instead of a crook. Smythe was certainly one of the conspirators, he had admitted as much. He had only come to work for Pietro recently. I had suspected that from the fact that the tidbits I found in the antique shop had barely been touched. Pietro was one of the names in that new file in the shop. If these men, all wealthy collectors, were the potential prey of the swindlers, then Smythe was the means by which the gang gained entry to the houses they meant to rob. He probably had impeccable credentials. They are much easier to forge than antique jewelry. Using such references, he could gain entry to the villas of his victims as a secretary, or even as a guest. He could use one victim as a reference to the next sucker in line, since the subst.i.tutions would never be suspected.

Yet one thing didn't fit this theory. I had been kidnapped and imprisoned in the Caravaggio palace. Smythe had not been responsible for that job - or so he claimed. This implied some member of the family was involved in the plot.

The unknown I was looking for was the master criminal, the chief crook, and somehow I couldn't believe that any of the people I had met fit that role. They weren't smart enough. Luigi was a mixed-up, unhappy boy whose relations with his father were bad; he might explode and act in anger, but he didn't have the experience to invent a plot as complicated as this one. The dowager was a possibility. I had known several sweet white-haired old ladies who wouldn't balk at a spot of larceny, and although she was physically frail, there was an intelligent sparkle in her eyes.

I couldn't see Smythe as the mastermind either. He was smart enough, but he lacked something - energy, perhaps. Yet I couldn't eliminate him. The kidnapping might have been a trick to frighten me off. All that talk about a fate worse than death, all the implications of torture and mayhem - an act, to make me think I was in deadly danger, from which he had rescued me. A combination of grat.i.tude and fear might have persuaded some women to give up the case. And Smythe had never intended me to identify the palazzo; only luck and my own expertise had given me that bit of information.

A soft breeze from the garden lifted my hair. It was perfumed with a nameless flower scent, infinitely seductive. It was interfering with my thinking. I went back into my room and climbed into bed with a book.

The book was one of a selection that had been thoughtfully placed on my bedside table, along with a bottle of Perrier water and a few crackers. I had no doubt that Pietro had selected the books. I chose Tom Jones Tom Jones because it was the most innocent of the lot. I had never read it before. It was rather interesting, but there were long dull sections between the s.e.xy pa.s.sages. I was plowing through one of these parts, not paying much attention, when I heard a sound in the corridor. It was the sound of a door softly opening and closing. Then there was a m.u.f.fled thud. because it was the most innocent of the lot. I had never read it before. It was rather interesting, but there were long dull sections between the s.e.xy pa.s.sages. I was plowing through one of these parts, not paying much attention, when I heard a sound in the corridor. It was the sound of a door softly opening and closing. Then there was a m.u.f.fled thud.

I couldn't ignore that. Pietro was out cold, so the nocturnal wanderer had to be Helena or Smythe. Luigi's room was farther along the corridor, and the dowager's suite was in another wing. Each room had its own bath, so there was no reason for anyone to leave his room for that purpose.

I turned out the light before I opened my door. There were dim bulbs set in silver wall sconces along the hall, with long stretches of gloom between them. As I stood there peering out through the slit in the door, a figure came out of a dark area into the light, with an eerie effect of materializing out of thin air. It was Helena.

She had not gotten far from her room, because she was towing two enormous suitcases. It wasn't difficult to understand what she was doing. She must have realized that she and Pietro were just about through, so she was making her getaway, with the brooch. But she was so greedy she couldn't bear to abandon any of her clothes.

I watched her for a while. She couldn't carry both suitcases; she dragged one for a few feet and then went back for the other one. She was panting so hard I could hear her from where I stood, twenty feet away. I found the sight mildly amusing, till I saw her face.

I had never realized how strong an emotion greed can be. It was tough enough to overcome even the fear that distorted her face.

I stepped out into the hall. She would have screamed if she had had breath enough. She made a strained squawking sound and dropped to her knees - clutching the suitcases.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" I asked.

"Dio mio! Is it you? You have frightened me! I think I am having a heart attack."

"No wonder, carrying those heavy bags. Why sneak out in the middle of the night?"

I knew the answer, but I was curious to hear what she would say.

"I must leave here," she whispered, rolling her eyes. "I am afraid. There is something wrong, can't you feel it?"

"But why not wait till morning?"

She hesitated, trying to think of some convincing lie. The expression on her sly, stupid little face annoyed me, and I went on, deliberately cruel. "What about the ghost? I thought you were afraid to go out at night."

"You said it would not come in the house! I have called the garage, the chauffeur is waiting with the car...."

Her face was shining wet with perspiration. It was not a warm night. I still didn't like her much, but her unmasked terror and her plump little hands, clutching at my skirts made me feel guilty.

"I was joking," I muttered. "Would you like me to help you? You can't carry those suitcases alone."

"Would you? Would you help? I am so afraid, and yet it is worse to stay than to go.... If I wait, Pietro will convince me to stay. I am never so afraid in the daylight," she added naively.

I lifted one of the suitcases, and staggered. Helena giggled feebly. I gave her a hard stare. That suitcase was too heavy. I wondered if she had some silverware in there, as well as the brooch.

I started down the hall. Helena puffed after me, half dragging, half pushing the other suitcase. We reached the top of the grand staircase, and by a combination of muscle and persistence I managed to get one suitcase down to the hall. Then I went back to help Helena.

"Hurry, hurry," she muttered. "We are too slow."

It had had taken us a long time to traverse that long corridor. We had made a certain amount of noise, too, banging the suitcases around. But I couldn't understand why I felt so edgy, unless the girl's terror had infected me. The household was sound asleep. No one would bother us. She said she had called the garage, so presumably the car was waiting outside even now. taken us a long time to traverse that long corridor. We had made a certain amount of noise, too, banging the suitcases around. But I couldn't understand why I felt so edgy, unless the girl's terror had infected me. The household was sound asleep. No one would bother us. She said she had called the garage, so presumably the car was waiting outside even now.

The entrance hall was a ghostly place, lighted by a single lamp suspended on a long chain. It swayed slightly on an unseen, unfelt current of air, and shadows slid across the painted ceiling so that the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of Mount Olympus seemed to shift naked limbs and wink as they looked down on us struggling mortals.

The swaying of the lamp should have alerted me. Air doesn't move in an enclosed s.p.a.ce unless something displaces it. But my back was toward the library door, and it was not until I saw Helena's face freeze that I realized something was wrong. Her mouth was wide open, but she was too petrified to scream.

I whirled around. If I hadn't heard her description, I probably would not have made out details at first; it stood in the dark doorway, blending with the shadows. Yet I sensed its shape - the trailing folds of the long robe, the hands hidden in full sleeves, the cowled head. Then it glided out into the hall, under the light of the lamp.

Helena got her breath back and let out a scream that sounded like an air-raid siren. It hurt my ears, but it didn't faze the phantom, who took another step toward us. Helen's scream faded out. She collapsed into an ungainly heap, half over the suitcases.

The light fell on the austere bone within the cowl. The fleshless skull shone, not with the pale glimmer of ivory, but with a wild glitter. It had an odd, incredible beauty; but its immobility was more terrifying than any menacing gesture might have been. Then someone started pounding on the door. The cloaked figure turned. With the shining skull face hidden, it became a thing of darkness that seemed to melt into the shadows and disappear.

Helena woke up and started screaming again. The pounding on the door continued. Doors opened upstairs. I thought of slapping Helena - and a tempting thought it was, too - but decided I had better get some help first. So I went to the door. It took me a while to get it open, but finally I admitted a man in a chauffeur's uniform - not the same man who had driven us out to the villa originally, someone else. He shied back when he saw me, rolling his eyes.

"Avanti, avanti," I said, somewhat impatiently. I am not accustomed to having men recoil when they look at me. "The signorina has fainted - no, I guess she hasn't, she's just hysterical. Help me with her."

Her screams had subsided into loud gulping sobs. I looked up. The stair railing was fringed with staring faces, most of them female. The maids, who slept on the top floor, had been awakened by the hubbub. Then two male figures pushed bravely through the throng and came down the stairs.

Luigi had pulled on a pair of jeans. His feet and his beautiful torso were bare. Smythe was still wearing evening trousers and white shirt.

The suitcases and Helena's huddled form told their own story. It wasn't until Luigi's inimical eye fell on me that I realized my own position was somewhat ambiguous.

If those suitcases were filled with loot, as I suspected they were, then I was an accessory after the fact to grand theft. It behooved me to get them back upstairs unopened, and make sure Pietro's possessions were restored to him.

"We met the ghost," I said, in a lame effort to distract attention from the bulging bags.

"You don't say so," Smythe said. "Did it fit the description?"

"The description didn't do it justice," I said. "Let's get Helena back to bed."

"And what was she doing creeping out of the house in the middle of the night?" Luigi demanded. "No, don't answer. It is only too obvious. Antonio, what do you mean, helping this woman to run away?"

The chauffeur burst into an animated apologia apologia, his hands flying. His excuse was reasonable; he had never been told he was not to obey Helena's orders. But Luigi's frown seemed to intimidate him. He was practically groveling when the boy cut him off with a curt, "Basta. Go back to your house."

"It must be nice to be one of the upper cla.s.ses in a region where feudal loyalties still linger," Smythe murmured. "Our peasants are too d.a.m.n liberated."

He smiled affably at me, and I smiled back. His attempt to divert my attention hadn't worked. Even if Luigi had not used the man's name, I would have recognized his voice. He was one of my kidnappers.

That wasn't the only thing I learned from the evening's adventure. The servants hauled Helena and her suitcases back to her room and Luigi stamped off, radiating aristocratic hauteur. I returned to my own room, leaving Smythe standing alone in the hall.

There was no lock on my door. I shoved a chair under the k.n.o.b and then bolted the doors giving onto the balcony. It would be a little stuffy for sleeping, but I preferred it that way.

I didn't know who had played the spectral monk. It could have been anybody. Smythe, Luigi, Pietro - if he was faking his drunken stupor - or the dowager - if she was pretending to be more crippled than she really was. The elderly masterminds in mystery stories often do that - pretend to be paralyzed so they will have an alibi. Or it could have been one of the servants. I was inclined toward Smythe, partly because he had that kind of sense of humor, and partly because it had taken him a little too long to get downstairs after Helena started screaming. Luigi had had to find his pants - he probably slept in the buff - but Smythe had been fully dressed, and therefore awake. However, Smythe was a cautious soul, not the sort of man to rush headlong into danger without reinforcements.

The important thing about the ghost was that I had recognized, not its animator, but its face. Those stylized bones and sculptured cheekbones were unmistakable.

I was reminded of something my father had said once, when in my younger and more supercilious days I had complained that my college courses weren't relevant to modern life. "Relevant?" he had bellowed, with the snort he used when he was particularly exasperated. "How the h.e.l.l do you know what is going to be relevant?" He was right - though I would probably never tell him so. An art history course should be just about as esoteric and unrelated to the stresses of modern life as anything could be, but it had already proved useful to me in several life-and-death situations. This evening it had helped again.

The skull face was Aztec - a mask like the ones worn by priests of that macabre theology, in which skulls, skeletons, and flayed human skins played a large part. The Aztecs made skulls out of all sorts of material; sometimes they covered real bone with sh.e.l.l and turquoise mosaic. In a museum in London there was a small crystal skull carved by a long-dead master. The one I had seen tonight had been modeled on that one, though it was much larger and I was willing to bet it wasn't made of rock crystal. It was one of the little old goldsmith's creations, and a super job. Somehow I felt sure that the workshop where that skull had been made wasn't far away.

Seven.