Street Of The Five Moons Part 9

FIRST THING NEXT MORNING I WENT TO HELENA'S room. She had insisted that one of the maids sit up with her, and the poor girl was glad to be relieved. I started investigating the suitcases. Helena woke up while I was doing it.

"Shut up," I said, when she complained. "Do you want the police after you? Pietro might let you get away with the brooch, but he won't stand for this." I held up a T'ang figurine of a horse, which she had lifted from the drawing room. I wondered how she had known its value.

"I was angry," she muttered. "Do you blame me?"

"Not for being angry. I do blame you for being stupid. For G.o.d's sake, no wonder this suitcase was so heavy!"

The weight had come from a solid silver candelabrum, almost three feet high.

I stood up, dusting my hands ostentatiously.

"You put this stuff back," I ordered. "If you still want to leave, I'll help you. But you can't take all this along."

She hadn't removed her makeup the night before. It looked awful in the cold light of day, all smeared and streaked by the bedclothes. She blinked sticky lashes at me.

"I am staying. He cannot cast me off."

"Aren't you afraid of the ghost?" I inquired.

"You are not."

"No, but I wish I knew who..." Helena had pulled the sheet up to her chin, but there was a gleam in those shallow dark eyes of hers that made me demand, "Helena, do you know who it was?"

"No."

"And if you did, you wouldn't tell me. That's what I get for trying to be nice. Get up out of that bed and put your loot back, or I'll tell Pietro myself."

When I got down to the breakfast room I was surprised to see Pietro seated at the table gobbling eggs. He greeted me with a cry of pleasure.

"You're up early," I said.

Pietro handed his empty plate to the footman, who refilled it, and looked inquiringly at me.

"Caffe," I said. "Just coffee, please."

"I have much to do today," Pietro explained. "We were so early to bed last night...."

He hesitated, looking warily at me.

"You weren't feeling well," I said. "I hope you are better this morning."

"My old war wound," Pietro said, sighing.

I wondered how much he remembered of what had happened the previous night. I didn't wonder about the war wound; it was as apocryphal as a lot of other things about my charming host.

"Your wound must be a sore trial to you," I said, watching with awe as Pietro devoured his ham and eggs and then accepted a bowl of cereal. He was international in his food tastes - Italian dinners, English breakfasts. In that way he got the absolute maximum of calories.

"Yes, I must keep up my strength," said Pietro. "I have business today - business and pleasure. My old friend, the Principessa Concini, comes today. She will stay to dine, but first we have business to transact. A publication she is preparing, about my collections. Perhaps you will be able to advise us."

"I will be honored."

"Sir John will also help. That is why he is here, to a.s.sist in arranging the collections."

"How long have you known Sir John?" I asked casually.

"Not long. But he comes most highly recommended. However..." Pietro put down the sausage he had been munching and looked at me soberly. "However, I do not completely trust him."

"Why?" I asked, breathlessly.

"No, I do not trust him. You are a young lady guest in my house; I feel I must warn you."

"Please do."

Pietro leaned toward me and lowered his voice.

"I fear he is not altogether honorable in his dealings with women."

"Oh," I said, deflated.

"Yes," Pietro nodded portentously. "Yes, I have reasons to suspect this. A man of my experience... Be on your guard, my dear Vicky. Not that you would be susceptible. I cannot imagine that any women would find him attractive, but my observation tells me otherwise."

The door behind Pietro opened noiselessly. I caught a glimpse of blond hair, at a level that strongly suggested the owner was bending over with his ear to the door.

"Oh, Mr. Smythe has a certain crude charm," I said. "Some unsophisticated women, with no taste and limited experience, might be temporarily attracted to him."

The door closed rather sharply. Pietro turned his head.

"What was that?"

"Nothing important," I said. I pushed my coffee cup away and stood up. "I think I'll go for a walk. Your gardens are so beautiful."

"You should see them at night, when they are illuminated. They are bright as day. We will have the illumination tonight, perhaps."

"That would be nice."

"Yes, we will stroll among the blossoms and the gentle fountains in the summer night," said Pietro, looking as soulful as a little fat man can look. "Wait for your walk until then, when I can accompany you and point out beauties in hidden corners that you might otherwise miss."

"I'll just take a short stroll now," I said. "It won't spoil the beauties you can point out to me, I'm sure."

I left him wheezing with amus.e.m.e.nt at my sly wit.

Smythe joined me as I walked across the terrace.

"Beautiful day," he said. "Mind if I join you?"

"Oh, are you my watchdog today?" I inquired. "Yes, I do mind. Lurking in the shrubbery suits you better."

Smythe fell into step with me.

"Of course you could could run," he said. "Then I would run after you. We'd look pretty silly, wouldn't we, pelting along the cypress avenues?" run," he said. "Then I would run after you. We'd look pretty silly, wouldn't we, pelting along the cypress avenues?"

We walked on in a silence that I hoped was repressive. It didn't repress Smythe for long.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Oh, everywhere... anywhere. I haven't explored half the grounds yet."

"You won't find it."

"What?"

"Whatever it is you are looking for."

"What do you want to bet?" I inquired.

We entered the courtyard next to the garage. The Rolls was out, being washed by two men with hoses and buckets. One of them was Bruno.

I hadn't realized how big he was. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, baring arms like muscled tree trunks. He looked up and saw me and his heavy brows drew together in a scowl. He went on rubbing the fender of the car with a sponge.

"If Bruno was what you were looking for, I don't admire your taste," said Smythe, taking my arm and turning me away.

"I was just confirming a theory."

"It can't be much of a theory. The count has a financial interest in the antique shop, as you may have surmised. When I had the good fortune to meet you, I was checking the books."

"And Bruno was helping you. I suppose he has a degree in accounting."

"He was in charge of the dog," Smythe said.

We had entered a kitchen garden, with neat rows of cabbages and feathery sprouts of carrots.

"That reminds me of a bone I have to pick with you," I said. "What have you done with Caesar?"

"I haven't done anything with him. I a.s.sure you, he is living off the fat of the land. We had to give up using him at the antique shop. He turned out to be rather a poor watchdog."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes. He's quite a remarkable animal, though. He has learned to open tins, not with his teeth, but with a tin opener. He developed a regrettable pa.s.sion for foie gras, and sulked when we offered him ordinary dog food."

"I'd like to see him."

"No, you wouldn't."

"Yes, I-" I stopped, before the discussion could degenerate into one of those childish exchanges Smythe seemed to enjoy. We were still in the service area, so, obeying a wild impulse of the sort that often seized me when I was with Smythe, I threw back my head and shouted, "Caesar? Caesar, where are you, old dog? Cave canem Cave canem, Caesar."

There was a moment of silence, then a furious outburst of barking. Giving Smythe a triumphant glance, I followed the sound through the kitchen garden, into a courtyard filled with trash cans and empty crates, under an archway. Caesar never let up barking, and I encouraged him with an occasional hail. When he saw me he reared up on his haunches and his barks rose to a pitch of ecstasy. His lunges dragged the dog house to which he was tied a good six feet.

I squatted down beside him. He looked better than he had when I first saw him. His ribs weren't so prominent. The dog house was not elegant, but it was adequate, and his chain gave him ample room to roam. His water dish was full.

"What a touching sight," said Smythe, looking down his nose at the pair of us.

"I always say you can't trust a man who doesn't like dogs," I remarked, pulling Caesar's ears.

"I prefer cats myself."

"You're trying to mislead me. Cat people have a lot of good qualities, usually."

Caesar settled down with his head on my lap and his mouth hanging open in canine rapture. I scratched his neck and looked around.

Caesar's yard was a gra.s.sy plot, roughly mowed and enclosed by high brick walls. Against the far wall was a small building. It hadn't been painted in fifty years, but I observed that the structure was quite solid. The door was heavy and the windows were tightly shuttered.

Was this one of Smythe's tricks? To anchor Caesar in front of a mysterious-looking building might suggest that that building held something he didn't want me to see. Or it might be that he wanted me to waste a lot of time investigating a red herring. Or it might be that he would want me to think it was a red herring because it really did contain something....

I decided I would investigate the building. Obviously I couldn't do it then. So I stood up - not an easy job, since neither Caesar nor Smythe a.s.sisted me. Caesar started to howl when I walked away. After I had closed the gate, I could hear the dog house being dragged along the ground, inch by sc.r.a.ping inch.

"He's bored," I said indignantly. "He needs exercise. Why don't you let him run? The field is fenced."

"You can come round twice a day and exercise him," Smythe said. "Good for both of you."

"Go away," I said.

"I shall. You'd better come along and have a bath. You smell like Caesar."

"If I thought the smell would keep you away, I'd bottle it," I said rudely.

Smythe grinned and walked off.

I might have gone back to the house to shower if Smythe hadn't suggested it. Instead I went toward the garage. Two men were polishing the Rolls, but Bruno was no longer one of them.

I sought the rose garden next, thinking that scent might overpower the smell of Caesar - an a.s.sumption which proved to be erroneous. I wondered why Smythe had chosen to leave when he did. And where was Bruno? What did it all mean? I threw up my hands, figuratively speaking.

The roses weren't doing me any good, so I proceeded into a part of the gardens I hadn't seen before. It contained one of the larger fountains, a spray of shining crystal water that dampened the marble contours of a complex sculptural group of nymphs and water G.o.ds. Beyond an oleander hedge I could make out the walls of a building. Once I got a good look at the place I knew what it was. I had found Luigi's studio.

It was a singularly unimpressive establishment for the heir to all the grandeur I had beheld - a low brick building that had once been a shed. Part of the roof had been knocked out and replaced by the skylight that is indispensable to a painter, but that was the only improvement that had been made.

The door was open. It had to be. With the Sun beating down through that gla.s.s roof, the interior of the room had the approximate temperature of a pizza oven. Luigi was stripped to the waist. His paint-stained jeans hung low on his lean hips, giving me a view of a tanned back as smoothly muscled as that of Lysippus' athlete. I couldn't imagine how he kept his paints from running in the heat. Then I caught a glimpse of the canvas he was working on, and I realized that it didn't matter. No one would have known the difference.

I coughed and shuffled my feet. Luigi turned. He had a brush between his teeth and his face was stippled with red and aquamarine dots. Those, I regret to say, were the major colors of his canvas. I don't know what else I can say about it. It conveyed nothing in particular to me except "red, aquamarine." And particularly horrible shades of both, I might add.

Luigi was a lot nicer to look at. He was beautifully tanned, every exposed inch of him; the sheen of perspiration made his skin glow like bronze. He took the brush out of his mouth and looked at me soberly.

"You came. I thought you had forgotten your promise."

"I didn't know whether I should come without being invited," I said. "It can be annoying to have one's creative process disturbed."