Altogether, Rosy felt, it had been a congenial event; and despite her earlier reluctance she was glad to have gone. Admittedly there had been nothing on the mantelpiece remotely like a vase or goblet. Doubtless it had been discarded or put in another place. But it certainly hadn’t been her purpose to go snooping around in her host’s kitchen or bedroom. So a fruitless reconnaissance after all, but the visit itself had been pleasant.
However, the thing at the end had unsettled her. It had been so unexpected! She had been leaving at the same time as Daphne Blanchett and Dr Burgess, and as they opened the door into the street they almost collided with a man coming in. He had stood back, muttered apologies and then continued up the staircase.
‘Wasn’t that the man who came to hang the pictures?’ Daphne asked Burgess, ‘the one who made all that dust for you to clear up?’
‘Yes I think perhaps it was,’ Burgess agreed. ‘Not the most professional of workers – made an awful mess and then left the frames crooked.’ He laughed. ‘If Hewson uses him with other clients there’s bound to be complaints.’
Rosy had said nothing, too surprised to comment. She had recognised the man instantly: it had been the same one who had approached the painter in the square after they had lunched together and who had given her that quizzical look. And as she had thought then – and on closer scrutiny now knew – it was also the same man who had been with Pacelli on the night she had gone to Florian’s. If Daphne Blanchett was right, it was somehow disquieting to think it was also he who had been hanging the pictures on the landing outside her room.
She started to walk back to the pensione puzzled by her own unease. Just because she found the man rather distasteful was no reason to feel bothered by his link with William Hewson. After all it was no concern of hers whom he chose to deal with or employ. And yet foolishly she did feel bothered and kept imagining the man alone on the landing busily measuring, hammering, leaving his dusty mess; and then with job done gathering his tools and walking back down the stairs again … But more insistently she was nagged by another scenario, i.e. with job done the man cautiously trying the handle of her bedroom door, and finding it unlocked slipping inside.
She paused, exploring the possibility. It wasn’t entirely out of the question. After all she had been out when the paintings arrived, and it was when she returned that she had discovered the Horace gone. Could he really have been the culprit? Was it so absurd? To steady her thoughts she stopped at a café and ordered a double espresso: perhaps the caffeine would focus her mind. Not bothering with a table she stood at the counter as the locals did, sipping slowly and thinking.
Yet why him? Certainly he had had the opportunity but was it likely? Well he obviously knew about the Horace (unlike presumably the chambermaid) as it had been he who with Pacelli had brazenly told her to go home and not bother with ‘silly poems’. Motive? Obviously to match it with the Murano vase in the hope of getting Berenstein’s vaunted prize money … But what on earth made him think she had found the book, and how in any case would he know which was her room?
She turned from the mirrored bar and leant against the counter watching the street outside with its fading sun and strolling pedestrians. A man stopped, bent his head and lit a cigarette. The tip glowed as he took his first puff, and then he walked on. The commonplace action triggered something in Rosy’s memory and in a trice her mind had darted back to the night at the pensione when looking out from her window she had been so startled by that watching presence – the movement in the shadows, the flashing of a lighter and glint of a cigarette tip.
That was it! The watcher had been no Peeping Tom at all but someone who, like herself only an hour ago, had been set on a mission of reconnaissance … Yes it was obvious. She had been deliberately followed that night, and, as revealed by her own form at the lighted window, the position of her room duly noted. Rosy swallowed the last dregs of the espresso and shivered. It was horrible – the idea of him watching and waiting, and then later creeping into the empty bedroom and quietly ransacking the place. No wonder he had left the landing in such a mess: couldn’t get down the stairs quick enough!
Leaving the café she continued her walk home, the twisting alleys seeming to mimic the twistings of her mind. There was of course the other question, a question crucial to the whole thing. What made the man think she had the book in the first place? Who else knew other than the donors Cedric and Felix, and Carlo who had spurned it? And, she recalled, Guy Hope-Landers and Bill Hewson. Yes of course! They had been having drinks at the palazzo when Cedric had presented her with the thing and had toasted the lucky find. She thought of Hewson and Cedric’s distrust of him and his suspicion that Edward Jones had been blackmailing the painter. Was there really something not quite straight about the man, something a bit skewed?
Again she thought of Lucia’s apparent assertion that he possessed the vase. If she was right – and it would seem so judging from Edward’s allusion in his note – then Hewson might also be seeking the Bodger Horace. And if that were the case perhaps it had been he who had directed the picture hanger to steal it, had even had the pictures delivered there for the express purpose!
She pondered. Could that really be so? Far-fetched surely. And yet just as she was about to dismiss the thought, with a sudden jolt she remembered Edward’s hostility in the restaurant and his snide confidential warning: ‘Don’t trust that one, my dear, he’d cut your throat given half a chance.’ A common enough cliché and typical of the young man’s taste for drama but the point had been clear enough: Hewson was dubious, dangerous even. She frowned trying to think what else the boy had said … ah that was it: ‘I’ve got your number,’ he had shouted. What number? What was it that Edward knew or thought he knew about Hewson? But the taunt could have been meaningless, merely the product of drunken pique. Yet it had been hurled with such force; he must have meant something! And if so what? That Hewson was capable of organising petty larceny? … Or something more sinister?
‘If, if, if,’ she muttered to herself and recalled her Cambridge history tutor’s scathing comment on over-speculation: ‘Conjecture without facts is the death of truth,’ he had hammered home. But he had said something else as well: ‘In pursuing fact do not discount the value of theory; it has opened innumerable doors.’ Yes well, she had enough theory to open doors galore but whether they would reveal anything was another matter.
By this time Rosy had reached the pensione and despite her scepticism was both intrigued and unsettled. What she needed was reassurance, or at least to be able to decant her concern on to someone else. Who to confide in? Obviously Cedric and Felix. But were they ‘in residence’? And in any case having entertained her earlier in the day would they want a repeat dose of her company that evening? Ignoring such consideration she decided to telephone the palazzo and find out.
The line was frustratingly poor; full of squeaks and crackles. But she managed to make out from Felix that she would be welcome to go round there later but that it would be only himself as Cedric was otherwise engaged – with what she couldn’t hear. The line faltered and then she heard Felix say, ‘anyway, I have just bought some marvellous cheese and salami, so we might try a little of that. The only thing is that I am not exactly sure when I shall be back – Paolo is keen to show me some of the Jewish quarter and its synagogues and I’m just about to go. But about half past eight should be all right. Tell you what though …’ The line faded but then grew loud again and she heard Felix say, ‘so the key is under the stone gryphon on the left.’ The sound broke up and then collapsed altogether.
Admittedly she would have preferred Cedric to be there as well; he had a sobriety not always discernible in his friend. However, better one than none at all; and even if Felix shed no light at least he would be a diversion and someone to talk to. She couldn’t recall a stone gryphon but presumably one was there standing sentinel and acting as guardian of the spare key should one be required.