Dead?” I repeated in astonishment.
“Quite.” Grenville reached for his own cup, which Gautier had instantly refilled the moment he’d set it down. “Sadly, unlamented. He swindled many before his demise. I escaped his machinations, fortunately, because my man of business is astute.”
I listened in surprise. I was good at remembering faces, and I was certain I’d seen Broadhurst’s. His countenance was round and somewhat plump, his hair going to gray and close-cropped. Today he’d dressed in old-fashioned breeches and boots topped by a rich brown greatcoat, an ensemble for tramping through streets on a February morning. He’d been clapping on a hat as he’d emerged from the church, a broad back turning to me as he’d made for the lanes behind it.
“Was he a religious man?” I asked. “Catholic?”
Grenville blinked. “Good Lord, no. Did his churchgoing on occasion for the show of it, I believe, but I’d not say he was devout. And he was firmly C of E. He’d not have schemed so much money out of his friends if he hadn’t been.”
True, much of the haut ton regarded anyone not of the Church of England with grave suspicion. However, a person visiting a church in Rome did not mean he’d converted to that faith. He, like me, might be viewing paintings, friezes, ceilings, and tombs of notables long dead.
Grenville studied me, intrigued. “You are convinced you saw him. Was this the whole of your adventure?”
“Not at all, but now I am curious. Did Broadhurst have a brother?”
“He might have. He was not in my circle, and attended Oxford, while I’m a Cambridge man. Gautier?”
Grenville directed the question at the valet who had gone to the door to retrieve another coffee pot from a footman.
“Mr. Norris Broadhurst indeed had a younger brother,” Gautier informed us, setting the silver pot on its warmer. “I believe his Christian name is Alistair. Whether he resembles the late Mr. Broadhurst, I cannot say.”
“There you are.” Grenville opened his hand. “You saw the brother who has come to Rome to see the sights, perhaps to console himself for his loss.”
“That will be it.” I sipped more coffee, glad the minor mystery had been cleared up. I wondered, though, where the man had been hastening off to on the back streets of Rome so early, and if he’d had anything to do with his brother’s swindling.
I then turned to my meeting with Proietti and his troubles with his daughter, telling the story while it was fresh in my memory.
Grenville listened with flattering attention, but he frowned as I concluded. “Tricky to be drawn into another man’s affairs. I hope this Proietti does not call upon you to extricate him from prison when the conte objects to his home being stormed. And that you are not taken to prison with him.”
“I am certain it will not come to that.” I spoke confidently, but truth to tell, I was not certain. What I knew of Proietti was only that he’d been an officer under the Austrians and that he was concerned about his daughter.
“I will not ask you why you chose to help him,” Grenville said, eyes twinkling. “I know it is difficult for you to keep yourself to yourself.”
He meant that I was too curious by half and could not mind my own business. “I know how I’d feel if my daughter had run off with a questionable gentleman. I am happy Gabriella has fallen for a staid young Frenchman her stepfather and step-uncle approve of, but even then, I am uneasy.”
“From what I have heard, young Monsieur Devere is a good lad.” Grenville’s tone was meant to be soothing, I supposed.
“That remains to be seen,” I answered with caution.
I’d been told the young man’s name—Emile Devere—and that he worked for his family—I was vague on the nature of their business. He and Gabriella had been acquainted with each other from childhood, but I knew little more about him.
“We will meet him soon enough.” Grenville’s answer was breezy. Emile would be joining us at the villa after Grenville and I made our trip south to Napoli and Pompeii. “This aristocrat you met this morning interests me at bit. Who is he?”
“He’s called Trevisan and apparently is from Milan, which seemed to be a terrible thing in Proietti’s eyes.”
Grenville pondered this, then shook his head. “I have not heard of him, though I imagine my cronies here have. Gossip is rife among the British ex-patriates.”
“It is none of my affair, as you have pointed out.” I waited for Grenville to agree with me, to tell me to put the incident behind me and concentrate on our upcoming journey.
“This has never stopped you before,” Grenville concluded. “Or me. And if this daughter is in a dire place, I could not turn my back and leave her there.”
I relaxed in some relief, pleased he understood—but then Grenville had a daughter of his own. There had been something I hadn’t liked about Trevisan, though whether it was simply because he’d stubbornly refused to let Proietti leave with his daughter, or something more sinister I could not tell. Trevisan’s mother had been an enigma as well.
“Proietti showed remarkable restraint,” I observed. “I’d have throttled the man and dragged Gabriella away. Or even better, have Brewster escort Gabriella out while I let Conte Trevisan know what I thought of him absconding with respectable young ladies.”
“And been arrested for your pains,” Grenville pointed out. “We are strangers here. I do not know the exact penalties for attacking such a man, or even for challenging him to a duel, but I imagine they are dire. Perhaps Proietti decided it prudent to live to fight another day.”
“Yes, he might be more level-headed than I am.” I drained the rest of the rich brew and set the cup back into its saucer. “Or there could be more to this situation than I comprehend.”
“If we are wrong, and it is a family squabble the two men and the daughter will work out, then …” Grenville shrugged his well-clad shoulders. “So be it.”
We each gave the other a nod, in agreement.
“Also do not forget I must at some time locate the man from whom Mr. Denis wishes to purchase a piece of artwork,” I said. “He assures me it is a perfectly legal transaction, a simple matter of negotiating a price and carrying the statue to him.”
Grenville’s brows rose. “Are you certain there is nothing important concealed in this statue? It does not convey a secret message? It is not being pursued by the crowned heads of Europe?”
Denis had sent me on such errands before. However, after our last adventure that had nearly ended in disaster, Denis had declared he was in my debt. His rivalry with another man had put my family in grave danger, and he’d acknowledged his regret they’d been dragged into it.
I sat back in my chair, observing a sunbeam that had escaped the clouds and filtered through the window. Even the drabbest days here could brighten unexpectedly. “Denis gave me his word there is nothing to it. Before you argue, I am inclined to believe him. I am to give the owner the sum he asks, provided to me by Denis’s man of business in Rome, and then take the statue to him.”
“Why cannot the man of business make the transaction?” Grenville asked. “Bundle it up and send it to Denis himself?”
I had considered this. “I rather think Denis doesn’t trust anyone to keep their hands off it, and I must say, I don’t blame him. Possible for a man of business to switch it for a fake, or for a lad sent to deliver it to keep it and pretend it is lost. Denis knows I will do everything in my power to transport it safely from the seller’s house to his.”
“I concede the point.” Grenville signaled to Matthias, his head footman, that he could begin clearing the table. “I will keep my objections to myself, as long as you take me with you for this transaction.”
“I would welcome the company, of course. As well as your expertise in antiquities.”
“Done,” Grenville said, and raised his empty coffee cup in salute. “We will do all and regale our ladies with the tale.”
I lifted my cup in return and agreed.
We had already decided to explore Rome a bit more before we left it behind. Not long after we finished breakfast, I took up my hat and walking stick and followed Grenville out. Brewster came with us, as usual, and as usual grumbled about looking after us both, but I did not miss the glint of interest in his eye as we walked. He was as intrigued by antiquities as we were.
We began by traversing a narrow street around the corner from our house that quickly widened into the piazza surrounding the great Pantheon. A fountain with another obelisk, one of many looted from Egypt over the centuries, rested in the piazza’s center. Beyond the fountain rose the massive edifice of the Pantheon, once a temple to the old gods and now a church.
I admired the facade with its huge granite columns, triangular pediment, and inscription. When I’d traveled to Egypt, I’d been frustrated by the hieroglyphs, whose meaning I’d longed to decipher. At least here in Rome, I could read the Latin, beaten into me as a boy by a tutor too afraid of my father to risk me not learning my lessons.
“M. Agrippa L F Cos Tertium Fecit,” Grenville pronounced, skimming his walking stick through the air as though underlining the words. “Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, during his third term as consul, made this. Except he didn’t, you know.”
I had read the guidebooks Grenville had pressed on me before our journey. “Because the first temple Agrippa erected on this spot was destroyed,” I continued dutifully. “Rebuilt by the emperor Hadrian, inscribed to honor Agrippa, the close friend of Augustus Caesar.”
“Kind of Hadrian,” Grenville said. “But likely also done to forge a connection between himself and the great Augustus. An emperor ever had to remind lesser men of his grandeur.”
I’d also re-read my Gibbon before we’d come and knew that most emperors had spent so much effort on their grandeur that they’d fallen from power, usually violently, before they’d had time to grow comfortable in their purple robes.
Once we’d boasted of our knowledge of the ancients, we wandered through the porch and its breathtaking columns and onto the marble floor of the interior.
The dome was the marvel of the place, made of concrete, arching overhead to its oculus, open to the gray sky above. Largest of its kind in the world, the dome was worth the long journey from England to stand beneath and admire.
After we’d gaped upward for a while, we wandered to the tomb of Raphael. A Madonna with child, her face serene, the child’s very adult, stood in a shielded niche adorned with columns of purple stone. Epitaphs praising the artist rested below them. Grenville and I read the Latin inscriptions, which stated that Nature herself feared she would die once Raphael was gone.
As I turned from this effusion of praise, I again caught sight of the gentleman I’d pursued this morning. Broadhurst—or if Grenville was correct, his brother.
The man lingered near a chapel on the other side of the rotunda, on the edge of a small group who had entered, as had Grenville and I, to observe the Pantheon’s magnificence. The moment I set my eyes on the fellow he vanished behind a clump of gentlemen in greatcoats, leaving me to doubt myself once more.
“Did you see?” I gestured with my walking stick, pulling Grenville’s attention from the tomb of the great artist. “Broadhurst. I vow to you.”
“Mmm?” Grenville peered at where I pointed, straining a bit, as he did not have my height. “Beg pardon, my dear chap, I did not. Where?”
I could only wave my hand in the direction, but Broadhurst, or whoever he was, did not reappear.
Brewster, however, made a sharp gesture to me from the other side of the Pantheon. He’d halted inside the doorway, studying a side altar that sported beautiful gilded candlesticks and a gold crucifix. He’d had his hands stiffly at his sides, as though keeping himself from temptation. He’d not seen Broadhurst this morning, but he’d noted my interest in the man now and had fixed his sharp eyes on him.
He pointed to the entrance with an inquiring look. Want me to nab him? I surmised he was asking.
I shook my head—the gentleman had done nothing to deserve Brewster laying hold of him—but I moved quickly that way and out the door.
The clouds had thickened again while we’d been inside, and rain began to patter down. I caught sight of a brown-coated back that I believed belonged to my quarry and followed him as rapidly as I could around the Pantheon to the narrow street beside it.
The thick walls of the round building squeezed out the space, making me slow my steps. Other tourists lingered in the narrow passageway, gaping at the architecture, and I was obliged to push my way through them.
I’d feared I’d lost the man again, but when I reached the rear of the Pantheon, the rotunda giving way to a squarer wall behind it, I found him waiting for me. He stepped out from a niche behind the building and faced me squarely.
If Grenville had not suggested that the gentleman I’d glimpsed this morning had been his brother, I’d swear he was Norris Broadhurst himself. Same round face, same short graying hair, same broad build.
“Captain Lacey?” he inquired.
“Indeed.” I halted, out of breath, and tipped my hat. “You are Mr. Broadhurst?”
“No.” The word was abrupt. “My name is Mr. Cockburn.” He spoke loudly and carefully, gazing behind me as though making certain that if anyone overheard, they’d overhear correctly.
He needn’t have worried, because we were quite alone in this place. The crumbling bricks behind the Pantheon were of no interest to those who wished to gaze upon its remarkable facade and interior. Grenville and Brewster, if they had followed, had either lost me or not yet caught up.
The man leaned closer, lowering his voice to a near whisper. “Truth to tell, you have the right of it.” He drew a long breath. “I have heard of your reputation, Captain Lacey, and I spied you this morning in the piazza. I apologize for fleeing—your presence startled me, but I made up my mind later to speak to you, and hence followed you here.”
“And dashed out again the moment I saw you?” I asked in irritation. “You could have called on me or written, to save my injured leg while I chased you about.”
“I do beg your pardon.” Mr. Broadhurst wore an expression of chagrin, but also one of fear. “I could not risk approaching you where others could see.”
“Well, here I am before you,” I stated.
“Indeed.” Broadhurst passed a pale tongue over his lips. “I wish to ask you to look into a murder, sir. I have been told you do such things for the Runners.”
What I mostly did was inquire into problems I’d found myself in the middle of. I had in the past given several criminals to Mr. Pomeroy, my former sergeant turned Bow Street Runner, but gossip likely amplified my deeds.
“A murder?” I echoed. “That is dire. Who has been killed?”
The man flung out his arms dramatically. “I have.”