The Venetian Venture

‘Tell me,’ said Cedric Dillworthy, ‘does your cousin really inhabit a palazzo on the Grand Canal? You have never mentioned it before.’ The professor’s thin voice held the merest hint of scepticism.

‘Well not
quite
on the Grand Canal,’ his friend Felix answered, ‘though as near as dammit – a little tributary you might say.’

‘You mean some backwater?’

‘No, I do not mean some backwater. I mean exactly what I say, a particularly charming canal in sight of the Grand one. The place is by a small bridge and has its own landing stage, thus one does not have to hike suitcases all over the place.
Were
we to go there you would find that a great blessing.’

‘Doubtless. But I still do not understand why you have never spoken of this cousin or indeed ever mentioned Venice. Rome yes, but never Venice.’ The scepticism had sharpened.

Felix gave a pained sigh. ‘I have never mentioned Cousin
Violet because she is ancient, testy, and I barely know her. Neither do I know Venice; a large lacuna in my education no doubt, but which I trust will be shortly filled.’

‘Yet you seem very familiar with the location of the palazzo.’

‘Because it was in the bloody photograph she sent! Now, do you want to come or not?’

Cedric took a reflective sip of a very dry martini and contemplated the cat sprawled at his feet. ‘Are you sure she won’t be there? I can’t say I relish being at the beck and call of an ancient irascible even if she does live in decaying splendour; bad enough having to play lackey to the basset hound.’

‘No of course she won’t be there! That’s the whole
point
of our being invited. I keep telling you – to guard the basset while she gads about in Chicago. The person she usually parks it with has had a fall or something and the backstop has bowed out at the last minute. Hence recourse to yours truly: any port in a storm I suppose … A bit of luck really. Just think, three weeks in the heart of Venice and all for free!’

‘You forget the penalty,’ Cedric observed mildly.

‘What penalty?’

‘The dog of course.’

‘Oh that won’t be any trouble. A daily stroll and the occasional bone should do the trick. Minimum of exercise, they have short legs that type.’

‘Supposing it doesn’t understand English?’

‘Bound to be bilingual. Just like the gondoliers I expect. Oh, and speaking of whom, I rather gather …’ Felix began to smirk.

Thus it was that Professor Cedric Dillworthy and his friend Felix Smythe of Smythe’s Bountiful Blooms, Knightsbridge,
embarked for Venice on 10th October 1954. Some months earlier they had been embroiled in an embarrassing fiasco in St John’s Wood concerning a murdered woman and a coal scuttle. Since then, however, with the help of good weather and the sustained afterglow of the young Queen’s coronation (not to mention Felix’s newly bestowed Royal Appointment warrant) London life had proceeded with an amiable smoothness and that particular period of their lives was mercifully entering the realm of myth and legend.

Yet courtesy of Felix’s cousin, the gadding Violet, here they were shortly to be entangled in a fresh legend: Venice, in all its beguiling charm and brazen beauty.

It was the autumn of 1954. And Rosy Gilchrist, now recovered from the painful turbulence wrought by her late and dubious aunt Marcia, walked briskly along Great Russell Street to the British Museum. She had worked there for three years, and despite the quirks and tantrums of her immediate boss, the notable Dr Stanley, had grown to love being a denizen of the place; and, in a masochistic way, to being academic handmaid to the capricious Stanley. Eight months previously the scandal of her aunt’s peculiar and sinister death with all its personal ramifications had seemed a threat to her job – or so she had feared at the time. But now, with everything ostensibly accounted for and the case sewn up (or at least indefinitely shelved) her life had returned to an even keel. Too even perhaps.

Too even? Yes, for excruciating though the events of that time had been, her now smooth and pleasant days had begun to feel just the merest bit bland. In late wartime, as a mere girl in the ATS manning the searchlights on the south coast and preparing the anti-aircraft guns, she had
certainly known excitement … and fear. (Dreadful griefs too, with loss of parents and of her pilot fiancé.) And in the war’s aftermath Cambridge had also been a challenge, albeit of a different sort. But neither of those periods had been quite so fraught as the six months she had spent enmeshed in the imbroglio of her aunt’s murder. To be out of it now was a blessed relief … And yet despite the lifting of personal fears, and peace (in every sense) restored, the ‘New Elizabethan Age’ with its heady hopes and burgeoning freedoms seemed to bring a flatness she couldn’t quite define.

‘Typical,’ she told herself impatiently, ‘there you were scared witless and desperate for calm and safety, and now that you’ve got it you begin to look about for something else to muddle your placid days. Perverse, that’s what you are!’ She grinned ruefully and started to run to the Museum to be at her desk before Stanley came rampaging in demanding tea and attention.

In fact she need not have hurried, as for nearly two hours she was able to work undisturbed by either her boss or the baleful pleasantries of Mrs Burkiss the office char. But no silence lasts and as the clock struck midday she heard the familiar voice of Dr Stanley booming along the corridor, and the next moment he was in the room.

‘Do you want a holiday?’ he asked abruptly.

She was startled. ‘Er, not especially, I had some leave not long ago.’

‘Yes but I think you should take some more,’ he replied, pacing the room and scattering ash.

Rosy cogitated, unimpressed by the apparent solicitude. In fact she was more than a little unsettled by it. To show
interest in his staff’s welfare was not Stanley’s style. Was this an attempt to ease her out, a subtle hint that her services were no longer required?

‘Ah … well,’ she said uneasily, and waited.

He swung round and fixed her with a stern gaze. ‘You see I want you go to Venice. Soon.’

‘
Venice!
Whatever for? I don’t know it.’

‘Well here’s your chance then. You could make yourself useful there.’

Make herself useful there? What did he think she had been doing all this time
here
in London fixing his lectures, editing catalogues, researching projects and mollifying his colleagues – making daisy chains? She returned his gaze with a mixture of wonder and irritation. ‘I see,’ she said slowly, ‘so why do you want me to go to Venice?’

‘To find something. A book: Bodger’s Horace.’

‘
Bodger’s
Horace,’ she exclaimed, ‘what on earth is that?’

He sighed. ‘Didn’t they teach you anything up at Cambridge? Doctor R. D. M. Bodger, an Oxford Fellow in the 1890s. His edition of Horace’s
Odes
plus translation is one of the most notable we have. Except that we don’t have it, that’s just the point. There are only three copies extant, two in America and one in Europe, i.e. Venice. The Venice one is especially important because it has his signature and a dedication in his own hand, and it’s imperative we include it in our spring exhibition of rare nineteenth-century texts.’ He paused and leered. ‘That’ll put a feather in our cap I can tell you – and more to the point, some shekels in the coffers!’

Rosy frowned. ‘Really? So what’s the financial advantage?’

‘Quite considerable. The nephew, Sir Fenton Bodger, is most keen to see that edition retrieved and deposited here at the Museum. If that can be done he is willing to make quite a sizeable donation to the department –
my
department.’ Dr Stanley beamed.

‘But apart from the signature what’s so special about the thing? I mean, is the translation very good?’

Stanley grimaced. ‘Pretty awful actually: exact enough but turgid – keeps to the letter but hardly to the spirit of the verse. To call it lumpen might be unfair but it’s hardly distinguished … No, its value lies in the notes and annotations – now those do show some insight and originality. Bodger was a scholar not a poet. In fact he would have done better to leave the translating altogether and confine himself to the textual exegesis. However, it still has an intrinsic worth, and because of the nephew’s interest
extrinsic
as well. Which is why I want it here with us.’ He rapped the desk and leered again.

Rosy hesitated, still unclear. ‘But,’ she asked, ‘wouldn’t it be simpler if you were to get it yourself – I mean why send me? And in any case where is it exactly?’

‘Ah, leading questions. Your revered superior is incommoded on two counts: first I have far too much on my plate wrestling with my new publication – you know the one,
Collections and Curios: Tips for Curators
.’ (Rosy knew it only too well. It was, she gathered, to be the definitive guide to the curating fraternity, a
vade mecum
without which no serious custodian could possibly survive.) ‘And secondly,’ he continued, ‘at long last my hip is to be dealt with or so they tell me.’

Without thinking she asked what was wrong with his hip, an unfortunate blunder which elicited a blast of indignation.

‘My
hip
!’ he exclaimed. ‘The one that has been giving me all this agony. Don’t tell me you haven’t seen my appalling limp!’ She had not, though now she came to think of it she did vaguely recall a few grumbling complaints.

‘Oh dear. Are they going to operate?’

‘They are thinking of it. Bound to be ghastly of course but one has to suffer to be whole.’ He assumed a martyred air and added, ‘Still, you can assuage the pain by bringing me brandy and chocolates and other essential palliatives.’

‘Not if I am in Venice I can’t.’

‘
Ah
…’ he replied with evident relief, ‘so you will go then?’

‘Well yes, in principle.’

‘And in practice?’

Rosy hesitated, slightly embarrassed, and then said firmly: ‘Well for one thing who will pay?’

‘
Pay?
’ He sounded startled. ‘Oh well … uhm, us of course, the Museum. Er, yes that’s it, we’ll sub your travel
and
accommodation.’ He managed to sound at once both vague and magnanimous.

‘The Danieli?’ she enquired brightly.

‘Like hell. You’ll be lucky! As it happens I have an old school pal whose sister runs a small
pensione
in the Dorsoduro quarter, plain but decent as they say. It looks out over the water to the Giudecca, you would like that.’

‘Would I?’

He nodded confidently. ‘Sure to.’

‘So where is this book then? Will it be easy to get hold of?’

Stanley paused, frowning slightly. ‘Ah, well there could be a small problem. Not major of course,’ he added hastily, ‘but there may be a couple of little hiccups, though nothing you can’t cope with.’

‘Hmm. Do I really want to have hiccups in Venice? It doesn’t sound terribly romantic.’

‘Romance is not the object of your venture,’ he said sternly. ‘You are there to retrieve the Bodger Horace and bring it back to the Museum amidst joy and plaudits. This is a serious task, Rosy, and I am relying on you. Much is at stake: the honour of the department, i.e. brass and kudos. Now listen carefully …’

Rosy listened, making notes. And then watched as, briefing complete, he extinguished his cigarette in her pencil tray, stood up and strode briskly to the door.

‘Poor fellow, frightful limp,’ she murmured.

Cooking supper in her flat that night she reflected on the terms of her mission. She was to embark for Venice (i.e. catch the Calais steamer for the Simplon-Orient) in three days’ time, arriving in the St Lucia railway terminal at the crack of dawn. On the train there would be a reserved couchette; but on arrival in Venice she would be expected to make her own way to the
pensione
via a vaporetto, and then after alighting, negotiate two small bridges ‘
a piedi
’ (as Stanley had carefully enunciated). ‘Quite simple,’ he had said airily, ‘just make sure you are properly shod and don’t take too much luggage. Personally I always use a rucksack.’ (She had immediately resolved to avoid rucksacks at all costs, and decided instead to blow the expense and buy a smart leather suitcase from Marshall & Snelgrove. She might not be staying at the Danieli but was damned if she was going to turn up in Venice looking like some hobo!)

Travel practicalities dealt with, her instructor had turned to the quest itself. ‘It’s quite straightforward
really
,’ he had told her earnestly, ‘it’s just that the book’s location
is a trifle problematic, you may have to do a bit of nosing around first.’

‘Nosing around?’ she had asked warily. ‘What sort of nosing around, and where exactly?’

‘Ah, yes … well that is the slight difficulty I alluded to. You see it could be in a number of possible places. My informant, Sir Fenton, is rather imprecise on that score. At one stage it was definitely in a small second-hand bookshop on or near the Rialto called ‘Pacelli e Figlio’. Fenton’s cousin saw it there by chance and told him. But soon after the sighting, old Pacelli died and his son offloaded much of the stock elsewhere.’

‘Where?’

‘I gather there is a shop in the Castello district, in Calle di Fiori or some such place; if the book is no longer in the Rialto place there’s a good chance of its being there. Apparently they keep a large classical section. Have a good rootle in the stacks, offer a derisory sum and Bob’s your uncle.’

‘Supposing they don’t want a derisory sum?’ Rosy had asked.

‘In that case you can go up to twenty guineas and tell them the venerable British Museum will advertise the bookshop on a large hoarding in its vestibule. That should do the trick; they like a lot of show the Italians.’

‘Are you sure the Museum would sanction that?’ she had asked.

‘Not for one moment but he’s not to know that.’

‘I see. But supposing after all this rootling I discover that the book isn’t there at all or that somebody has bought it. What then?’

‘Then my dear Rosy you ask him where the bloody hell
it’s likely to be. Come on dear girl, use some initiative. If you could put a searchlight on the Hun in the war then you can surely put a beam on Venice for that damn book. It’s not much to ask.’ He gave her a look of wounded reproach.

She had flashed a cooperative smile but refrained from questioning the analogy. Training a searchlight on enemy aircraft was undoubtedly the more hazardous, but it was child’s play compared with sifting through the whole of Venice for a book of ill-translated Latin poems. Still, if Dr Stanley was determined to send her on a wild goose chase to a beautiful and fabled city then that was his choice; hers meanwhile was to select the new suitcase and some appropriate clothing to go in it. She finished her supper while pondering the prospect, and recalled the smart silk jacket glimpsed in Debenham & Freebody’s window only that morning. Yes, a trip to Wigmore Street was definitely indicated …