It was six o’clock and Felix had just returned from his shopping spree in the Mercerie: three Fortuny silk shirts, a cravat, a pair of braces with embroidered gondolas (vulgar but irresistible!), some monogrammed lawn handkerchiefs for Cedric, a Commedia dell’Arte carnival mask and an enormous treasure trove of handmade chocolates. Eager to dazzle his friend with his purchases he went straight into the salon, where the wares were exhibited, discussed, gloated over and four of the chocolates consumed.
‘Well you’ve certainly been busy,’ Cedric remarked, ‘but what you propose doing with that mask I cannot for the life of me imagine – hang it in the spare loo to frighten the clients?’
Felix pouted and then winked. ‘Actually I thought I could wear it on Walpurgis Night – it might give Sloane Street a stir.’
Cedric smiled and then said, ‘As a matter of fact while you’ve been buying up half of Venice I’ve had quite an eventful time myself; made a discovery in fact. Odd really.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Felix pouring the drinks, ‘why odd?’
‘It’s something I found wedged behind Alice in Wonderland on one of your cousin’s shelves. She keeps her books in such disarray and it seemed to have slipped down.’ He took the proffered martini. ‘Somewhat curious.’
‘What, like Alice?’
‘No. Like Rosy Gilchrist – or rather her researches. You see it appears to be the Horace thing she’s after.’
‘Here? How odd!’
‘Precisely, just as I’ve said. Take a look, if you can tear yourself away from those shirts.’ He passed a small leather-bound volume to Felix, its dark cover worn and shabby.
The latter flipped through the pages and then scrutinising the outside, observed, ‘Well it may be a first edition but it’s hardly pristine. I doubt if the dealers will be impressed.’
‘Immaterial. It’s not for the dealers but for that Stanley man at the British Museum. Rosy implied he was mad keen to get it. And so is she – angling for promotion I daresay. She was terribly cut up when the Rialto bookseller tried to fob her off with the wrong one; whereas this seems definitely the right one – a first edition and with the required signature and inscription.’
Felix bent over the title page examining Dr Bodger’s sepia flourish and the faded words underneath. ‘Like all academics,’ he said pointedly, ‘handwriting totally indecipherable; it could be anything.’
Ignoring the jibe, the professor replied, ‘It could be something were you to wear your glasses. Perhaps you would like me to be your amanuensis?’
‘Be anything you like old stick, I’m for another drink.’
‘No doubt, but listen to this first. It says: “To Bella B. Ah what joyful days!”’
‘How very original,’ observed Felix dryly. ‘And who was Bella B – the wife?’
‘From what little I’ve read the good doctor was unmarried, led a bachelor existence in Christchurch.’
‘Presumably somebody else’s wife then.’
‘Presumably … unless of course it was that chorus girl Bella Biloxi. She was all the rage in the 1890s. Men would go up to London in trainloads to see her, young and old alike, mad keen to get a glimpse of a swelling bosom or gartered knee: you could say she was the Marilyn Monroe of her day.’
‘So you think Bodger was one of the smitten and thus dedicated a set of ancient Latin poems to her? It seems a trifle unlikely.’
‘Ah but you never know with academics. Not only is their handwriting indecipherable but their minds too are hard to fathom.’
Felix raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘You can say that again! Now what will it be, with or without an olive?’
They dined in that evening. And after a light supper of antipasti, cold roast mullet and late strawberries in kirsch and cream (all fastidiously prepared by Felix) they settled to coffee and the topic of Cedric’s find.
‘It seems very likely that it is the one Rosy Gilchrist has been making all the fuss about,’ the professor remarked, ‘but what a singular coincidence it should turn up here in your cousin’s palazzo. You didn’t mention she had classical tastes.’
Felix shrugged. ‘Don’t know what her tastes are except dogs and music; haven’t clapped eyes on the old trout since I was an adolescent. But presumably if she likes Latin poetry there would be similar stuff somewhere. Have you looked?’
‘Nothing on the shelves that I can see. Mainly books on Venice, its history and architecture and so on. The rest is a hotchpotch – Bulldog Drummond cuddling up to Proust, but nothing that might be termed classical.’
‘In that case we might as well hand the thing over to Rosy … perhaps her gratitude will rise to a bottle of bubbly.’
‘It might,’ Cedric agreed. ‘But don’t you think you should square it with your cousin in Chicago first? After all we don’t want her to think we had pilfered the thing, might not get asked back again. Besides I am quite intrigued to know its provenance – how did it get here and why?’
Felix lit a cigarette and consulted his pocketbook. ‘Really,’ he muttered, ‘the things one does for Rosy Gilchrist … Ah here’s the number. But, from what I recall my mother saying of Violet, she is as likely to be on the town with a group of Negro blues players as resting quietly in her hotel suite; but worth a try I suppose.’ He stood up and left the room. Ten minutes later he returned grinning broadly.
‘So you got her?’ Cedric asked.
‘You bet. Having her nails done in readiness for a date with Louis Armstrong. So I wasn’t so wide off the mark was I?’ He proceeded to give a detailed account of his elderly cousin’s projected evening, which apparently was to commence with cocktails at the La Salle, followed by dinner at the Drake and culminating in some exclusive jazz dive where her companion would serenade her with one of his own compositions.
‘Not bad,’ conceded Cedric, ‘not bad at all … And amidst all this jollity did you by any chance get on to the subject of the book?’
‘Briefly. She remembers it vaguely and thinks someone called Carlo may have left it here by mistake but can’t be sure. Anyway she didn’t sound very interested, more concerned with Caruso; wanted to speak with him.’
Cedric was startled. ‘Speak with him?’
‘Yes, it’s a ritual they have whenever she is away apparently. The dog is hauled to the telephone and she coos down the line and he grunts. Touching really.’
‘Good God! … So did you facilitate this, er, conversation?’
‘No. The dog’s out with Hope-Landers. I bumped into him downstairs and said I was too fatigued after my shopping expedition to walk the hound and would he mind doing it instead. Quite an obliging fellow really, wouldn’t you say?’
But Cedric’s thoughts were elsewhere. ‘Carlo,’ he murmured, ‘wasn’t that the name of the chap who Lucia Borgino thought might have the Horace?’
‘Well if it’s the same one then he’s obviously lost it; though I daresay there is more than one Carlo in Venice. Still, now that we’ve got the book and Violet doesn’t seem concerned it really doesn’t matter. We can give it to Rosy and cancel the meeting with this Carlo, whoever he is. Can’t say I have any yearnings to see the Borgia woman again.’ Felix’s features puckered into an expression of pained distaste.
‘Hmm we may have to. I meant to tell you, Hope-Landers has invited us to a small gathering at Harry’s Bar tomorrow lunchtime. She’s likely to be there but it might be mildly amusing all the same.’
‘If he’s paying – yes.’
‘Oh he’s paying all right. It’s to celebrate some windfall from shares. Not a large sum but enough to keep him in fags and booze for a while and presumably to keep paying rent to your esteemed cousin.’
They turned to other matters, i.e. where they might go for a postprandial digestif. ‘How about that bar where we met Paolo and Pucci?’ Felix suggested.
‘Couldn’t be nicer,’ beamed Cedric.