The Venetian Venture (14 page)

‘I told Rosy Gilchrist to come round for a lunchtime aperitif,’ Cedric announced. ‘She’s probably still upset about what happened the other night and might want some company. I take it you don’t object?’

‘Not unless she is beastly to Caruso I don’t. The last time she was here I thought she showed a marked indifference. Clearly didn’t appreciate his finer points.’

‘Does anybody?’ asked Cedric.

Felix pursed his lips and resumed his embroidery.

Rosy appreciated Cedric’s invitation. It had been a kindly gesture; and while she had recovered from the horror of Edward’s tragedy, an aperitif with the two friends would be a refreshing distraction.

At the palazzo Rosy had been about to ring the Hoffman bell but was forestalled by Guy Hope-Landers who was on his way out. ‘Any joy with the Horace yet?’ he asked.

She grimaced. ‘No not at all. I
thought
I had it and then
I didn’t. Wrong one apparently. My boss isn’t going to be too pleased, he had set his heart on it.’

‘Never give up, that’s my motto,’ Hope-Landers said genially. ‘Life is full of surprises.’

‘Yes but they never seem to be quite the right ones,’ she had laughed.

‘Hmm. You have something there … Ah well, I must go off to my boat. Who knows, I could get one of the better surprises for once – the engine might start first time!’

Rosy climbed the long staircase and found herself puffing. This won’t do, she thought. Too much pasta and delicious pastries. Perhaps she should lay off for a bit. Lay off? Nonsense, she told herself sternly, plenty of time for that when she returned to the Museum with its sombre fare! She thought of Dr Stanley and the rather functional canteen. Both seemed extraordinarily remote.

She sipped the Prosecco they had given her, and admiring its sprightly bubbles sank back gratefully against the sofa cushions. ‘Gosh! I’m quite worn out,’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s all those stairs. Don’t they tire you?’

‘Not really,’ Felix lied casually. ‘What you need is a dog; that would keep you fit.’

‘But you don’t keep a dog – well only here and that won’t be for much longer.’

‘Ah but you see,’ Cedric cut in, ‘dear Felix has plans: he is now thinking of getting such a creature. In fact I rather gather he is angling to buy Caruso from his cousin and take him back to London.’

Rosy took a contemplative sip of her wine. ‘Really? It strikes me there could be a number of snags there. First
there are the awful quarantine laws – six months if you please. Secondly, is Felix’s apartment really suitable for an animal? I mean his furnishings are so exquisite it would be awful to see them destroyed by canine rampage! And then of course there is the question of its current owner. From what you were saying Cousin Violet is devoted to the dog. I can’t see her parting with it easily.’

‘Exactly what I have been trying to tell him,’ said Cedric triumphantly; and turning to Felix he added, ‘You would do much better to have a cat like mine.’

‘
Not
like yours,’ was the acid retort.

Tactfully changing the subject Cedric asked Rosy if she had seen anything of Bill Hewson since the tragedy.

‘Yes I have. We had lunch together not long after. Actually as it happens I am going to his studio later to look at the paintings, they sound quite interesting.’

‘Alone?’ asked Cedric.

‘What? Oh no, I don’t think so. He said something about there being one or two others dropping in.’ She hesitated, and then proceeded to tell them about the note fallen from Edward’s pocket.

‘Have you got it with you?’ Cedric asked.

‘Well yes. I thought I could give it to him when I went there this afternoon.’ She took it from her bag and handed it to him.

He studied the envelope thoughtfully. ‘Feels pretty flimsy; no more than half a page I should think. Whatever it says I doubt if it will be of much use to Hewson now. We may as well open it.’

‘Oh but I really don’t think—’

But Rosy’s protest came too late. With a deft movement Cedric had picked up the paperknife from the
desk and slit opened the envelope. There were only a few lines scrawled and no salutation or signature. He read it aloud to them:

Annoyed by what she saw as Cedric’s high-handedness Rosy had not given her full attention to the words. ‘Obviously some transaction they were engaged in, probably to do with one of Hewson’s pictures,’ she said dismissively. ‘Oh well whatever it was it’s too late now. But really, Cedric, I think that was a bit of a liberty opening it like that. I can tell you I am a bit cross!’

‘Have some more Prosecco,’ said Felix soothingly, ‘you’ll feel so much better.’ He leant over and filled her glass to the brim.

‘Yes it was,’ Cedric agreed. ‘Sorry.’ He didn’t sound the slightest bit sorry and began to study the note again while Rosy and Felix turned their attention to Caruso, the length of his ears, his military tail, and his insatiable greed for olives and titbits.

After a while Cedric looked up, and laying the note aside said: ‘You were right about a transaction but I doubt if it was to do with a painting. The style is too curt for that, too abrasive. If Edward was keen to buy one of the paintings and felt he hadn’t offered enough wouldn’t he sound more emollient? Admittedly he says he can be accommodating but the tone hardly suggests that. Besides what are these
circumstances
he mentions? And since he was always
bleating about a lack of funds I doubt that he was in a position to purchase fine art!’

‘And what about the vase bit? It sounds a funny sort of thing for Edward Jones to want,’ Felix added.

‘Not if it was the one belonging to Farinelli Berenstein it wouldn’t,’ Rosy said quietly.

They looked at her quizzically. ‘You mean that glass thing?’ asked Felix. ‘But why on earth should Hewson have that?’

‘Well he may not of course. But I did overhear Edward and his sister (at least that’s whom I assume she was) discussing a vase in Tonelli’s and Lucia saying that she knew where it was – on somebody’s mantelpiece apparently. Edward seemed very insistent she should get hold of it however inconvenient the means.’ Rosy took another sip of her drink recalling their words, and suddenly to her embarrassment began to giggle. ‘There seemed to be some question regarding the viability of the task … I mean,’ she spluttered, ‘Lucia seemed uncertain whether her efforts would be entirely eff, eff – effi
cacious!
’

‘For God’s sake,’ cried Felix, ‘let’s give her something to eat. It must have been that third glass!’

‘You should curb your generosity,’ Cedric admonished, ‘though it is always a tonic to witness such high spirits in the young … Now Miss Gilchrist, once you have sobered up let us give further thought to the meaning of this note while Felix prepares some antipasti. I think you will find we have a most choice variety.’

When Felix returned from the kitchen bearing a tray of assorted canapés certain assumptions had been made regarding both the significance of the note and
the conversation overheard by Rosy in Tonelli’s. The speculators looked thoughtful.

‘Cedric has decided that Edward’s note is hostile,’ Rosy said, ‘that there was some sort of deal involved in which he was the instigator or dominant partner.’

Felix passed her a plate of antipasti. ‘You mean like blackmail,’ he said.

‘Er … well yes, I suppose it could be that although we hadn’t quite—’

‘Defined it? But doubtless that is what Cedric thinks. You know he has the most suspicious mind – don’t you dear boy? In my experience most professors do.’ Felix winked and Cedric looked mildly pained.

‘It is as well to be alert to the latent duplicity of human nature,’ he replied, ‘there’s a lot of it about,’ and then looking at Rosy added, ‘Felix is right, that is indeed what I was thinking.’

‘But why should Edward have been blackmailing Bill Hewson? He doesn’t seem the shifty type, rather open really.’

‘Ah well now, that
is
a question. It could have been for anything: defrauding the Inland Revenue or its Italian equivalent; stealing another’s paintings and passing them off as his own; bigamy in Boston; espionage; dressing up in ladies’ clothes … anything you care to mention really.’

‘Bound to be that one,’ Felix tittered.

Cedric looked at him sternly. ‘
Do not
go down that path otherwise we shall have Miss Gilchrist doing the nose-trick with her coffee as she did with the Prosecco!’

Rosy contrived to look contrite and said, ‘Well at least we are certain about the vase. From what I saw of Edward and from what you have described of Lucia it seems
extremely unlikely that they were searching for a piece of glass simply for its aesthetic appeal. It must be of some financial interest, and with this Farinelli business it could well be that. Possibly Edward thought that if he could nose out the Horace he could pair it with the vase. Anyway somebody must be harbouring the thing, and given the reference in Edward’s note I bet it is Bill Hewson.’

Cedric beamed. ‘Well then, Rosy, since you are visiting his studio this afternoon you can test your bet can’t you? Cast an eye over his mantelpiece, assuming he has one. Who knows, perhaps he props his social invitations against the thing. Make a point of admiring it and watch his reaction.’

‘All right. But what about the note? How can I give it to him now that you’ve so conveniently slit the envelope? With his name scrawled across the thing I can hardly say I thought it was for me.’

‘He doesn’t need to see it. You said yourself that it was too late to be relevant.’

‘Yes but—’

‘Miss Gilchrist, one can overdo the adherence to scruples: it’s all a case of nice judgement, and in this case showing him the note serves no useful purpose. There’s simply no point.’ Cedric folded the scrap of paper and slipped it into his breast pocket. ‘Now would you like to powder your nose before setting out on your reconnaissance? The palazzo has the most capacious guest bathroom. Felix will show you the way.’ He smiled graciously. It was clearly her cue to leave.

After she had gone, Cedric said, ‘That was quite interesting. I wonder if the vase really is with Hewson. Though if he does have it I very much doubt if it’s still on the mantelpiece.
Still, one never knows; he doesn’t strike me as having the brightest brain.’

‘Hmm. I notice that you refrained from mentioning your suspicion that he may have drowned Edward.’

‘Most certainly. No point in spreading unnecessary alarm; and besides it might have deterred Miss Gilchrist from going to his studio. After all, one doesn’t want to spoil her afternoon!’

‘It’s intriguing about the note though,’ Felix mused, ‘if it is really part of a blackmailing threat then that certainly supports your theory that he shoved him under.’

‘Yes, and if he did then we can assume that young Edward was dunning him for serious money, i.e. based on something fairly crucial.’

Felix winked. ‘Not like women’s clothes then.’

‘Not unless he had been wearing them when committing robbery or murder.’

After their siesta the two friends took Caruso for a ramble. Pausing to lean against the balustrade of the Accademia Bridge they gazed mesmerised at the vista of sepia and ochre and fusion of water and sky that stretched before them. The late afternoon light was particularly dulcet and gave the scene an air of magical theatre.

‘Pretty damn good,’ Felix murmured.

‘Hmm,’ agreed Cedric. ‘Extraordinary.’

They stood quietly enraptured. And then Felix felt around in his pocket and drew out a lira. ‘Do you think it’s like the Trevi Fountain in Rome: throw in a coin and you will be sure to return?’

‘Worth a try,’ Cedric smiled.

His friend lobbed the coin and it fell not into the water but into a passing gondola, narrowly missing the boatman.

‘Quick – look the other way,’ Cedric urged. ‘They won’t like that!’

But it was too late. The grey-haired occupants had seen
them and the next moment there were shrieks and wild gesticulations.

‘Oh dear, that’s torn it,’ Felix giggled, ‘we’ll probably be had up for endangering canal traffic.’

‘Yes but look – they’re not complaining, they’re beckoning.’

‘
Beckoning?
’ Felix peered down. ‘Oh lor, it’s those twins,’ he muttered.

He was right, for the next moment the ladies had risen as one and were clearly summoning them down to the towpath, the gondolier already punting in that direction.

‘I think they want us to join them,’ Felix said nervously. ‘What about the dog?’

‘He’ll have to take his chances with the rest of us. Come on. It would be rude to decline.’

They made a hasty descent to the quayside where the gondola was already waiting. Caruso leapt aboard with studied nonchalance; his minders landed in a heap.

The two ladies clapped their hands in delight. ‘What luck!’ exclaimed one. ‘
Absolutely!
’ chimed the other. She turned to Felix: ‘No young man has aimed a coin at me since VE Day!’

‘He wasn’t young,’ corrected her sister. ‘It was Brigadier Polegate, he doesn’t count.’

‘Er, wonderful to see you again,’ gasped Cedric from a semi-recumbent position. ‘But do you often take gondola rides? I thought it was a largely tourist thing.’

‘Ah,’ responded one of them, ‘but you see this is
our
gondola. Daddy left it to us and it’s been in the family for years. We rent it out of course for the most
enormous
fee, but every six weeks we have our own special turn.’ She turned to her sister. ‘Don’t we dear?’

The other nodded vigorously and gestured towards the boatman. ‘Yes, and Luigi is so charming and very handsome too!’ Handsome Luigi preened and executed a little bow. ‘Although,’ she added
sotto voce
, ‘between you and me I think he could do with a new straw hat and ribbon, that one’s beginning to look awfully mangy.’

‘Well it’s his birthday soon,’ the other replied, ‘we’ll buy him a brand new one and then won’t he look the little Turk!’ She beamed joyfully. ‘Wouldn’t you agree, Felix?’

Felix studied the half-shaven rapscallion and agreed that he most surely would.

Actually it was rather pleasant gliding around in the gondola (a rather superior one with a half-canopy), and Cedric and Felix relaxed against the cushions listening with amusement to the prattling of their companions. In fact much of the twins’ commentary was extremely interesting as they clearly knew the city well and were a lively source of information and anecdote. The dog, indifferent to such talk, sat sternly upright at the prow like some canine mermaid.

After a while Luigi had turned off the Grand Canal and was weaving the craft through the network of minor waterways. At one point he broke into song, something that was met with avid applause from the sisters but which made Cedric and Felix feel embarrassed. Doubtless it was typically Venetian but English reserve made them glad when it finally finished. They passed under numerous small bridges and stared up at ancient gargoyles and flaking balconies decked with pots of flowers. Now and again they would pass
a corner and glimpse a crumbling monument or tiny shrine. Cats dozed, washing fluttered and pigeons dawdled undisturbed by eager feeders.

It was a soothing itinerary, until they reached a place suddenly familiar to them: the bridge from which Edward Jones had made his fatal dive. It was higher than the other ones they had passed and the stretch of water flowing beneath fairly wide. Cedric recognised the two workshops flanking the bridge and the flight of steps leading up from the quay.

‘Oh dear,’ he muttered, ‘I fear this is where it happened, where the Jones boy lost his life.’ The scene looked benevolently placid in the afternoon sun.

The twins were clearly moved and one of them gestured to the boatman to change direction. As he punted back towards the Grand Canal, she said, ‘It must have been dreadful for you all … Oh dear that poor silly boy, what a waste.’

‘Yes,’ agreed her sister, ‘and of course we had seen him only a few nights earlier. You remember: the night before Guy gave that party in Harry’s. Considering the state he was in when we saw him I am surprised he was able to get to it. I was quite impressed by the speed of his recovery. He was out well after midnight.’

‘Ah but the young are so resilient,’ replied the other.

‘Not when we saw him he wasn’t, being sick all over the place! Just at the end of the Calle Piccolo. We should have stopped really but we did have Matilda to consider.’

‘The Calle Piccolo?’ Cedric asked in surprise. ‘But that’s miles from the Castello area – well some way at any rate. It’s close to the Rialto, near that bookshop.’

She looked a little puzzled. ‘Yes that’s right.’

‘But I gather that Edward had told Lucia he had gone to walk off his hangover in the other direction: to the Giardini Pubblici.’

She sighed. ‘Edward was a mercurial creature, and to put it politely he often said things that were not strictly accurate.’

Felix cleared his throat. ‘If you don’t mind my asking, who is Matilda and where were you going with her at that time of night?’

‘Matilda? Our cat of course. She’s fearfully old and fearfully difficult. She sleeps all day and will only deign to go out after midnight, and then we have to put her in a collar and lead otherwise she wanders off and we have to call the fire brigade or the police. We can’t stand her. But you can’t sling people out of the way just because they are tiresome. So we are stuck with her until she decides otherwise.’

‘I see,’ Cedric said slowly. ‘So you were exercising Matilda when you nearly bumped into Edward looking rather the worse for wear.’

She nodded. ‘Reeling, bilious and wretched. He didn’t see us of course, far too preoccupied. And, as said, we didn’t approach as the sight might have upset the cat’s nerves.’

‘Exactly,’ added Duffy (or Dilly), ‘and after all, she had had a nasty scare from that other encounter!’

‘What encounter?’

‘Bill Hewson. Pounding along like a bat out of hell.’

‘Rather a fat bat,’ the other tittered. ‘But yes he was lumbering along at quite a pace. Sweating too one couldn’t help noticing.’

‘How curious,’ Cedric remarked. ‘I wonder where he was going at that time of night and in such a hurry.’

There was a collective shrug and the twins exchanged sly looks. One of them cleared her throat and said, ‘One doesn’t wish to be indelicate but there is a notorious house of ill-repute in that quarter and now and again the police raid it: a formality of course but they have to do it and names are taken.
We
think he was trying to race home before the raid started, or had slipped out in the middle. One gathers the police are fairly obliging and generally telephone ahead but sometimes they pounce unannounced especially if there’s someone new in charge.’

‘Did he see you?’ Cedric asked, slightly startled by their fund of local knowledge.

‘Oh no, we were under an awning arguing with Matilda. She was being so difficult!’

By this time Luigi had tied up the gondola and with much bowing and boater-doffing bid
arrivederci
to his passengers.

One of the twins gestured towards a sprawling corner house with flaking blue shutters and high filigree iron gates. ‘That’s our funny old place,’ she said, ‘we have lived there since we were in the nursery, haven’t we Duffy?’

‘Oh yes Dilly, and long may it last!’ And turning to Cedric and Felix, Duffy executed a broad wink and in a fair imitation of a Bronx accent, said, ‘Say, why don’t you come up and see us sometime?’

Giggling happily the two sisters turned and walked towards the high gates.

Their companions also turned; and when Felix glanced back at the house, squashed against one of its windowpanes he saw the lowering face of Matilda.

Later, over a pot of China tea in a corner of Florian’s, they reflected upon their experiences with the two ladies.

Cedric lit a cigarette and leant back against the velvet upholstery. ‘A most instructive afternoon,’ he declared.

‘Yes they certainly know their Venice all right,’ Felix agreed. ‘I suppose it comes with having lived here since children. Fancy being in the same house all those years, you would think they’d get bored.’

‘Which would you prefer, fifty years in an old waterside house in Venice or five years in a new bungalow in Penge? I know which I would find the more boring … But as a matter of fact I wasn’t simply thinking about our instruction from the boat trip, absorbing though it was, but more specifically about Jones and Hewson. You do realise that from what the two Ds said both were very close to Pacelli’s shop during the night of his murder. The body wasn’t found till about eight in the morning but the press report said the attack was judged to have occurred sometime between midnight and two. According to the ladies that was roughly when both Jones and Hewson were in the vicinity and yet neither said anything about it – or at least apparently not.’

Felix smiled. ‘But also according to the ladies Hewson was in a somewhat compromising position and was haring home to avoid embarrassing questions. And if he knew he hadn’t seen anything shady en route why should he go to the trouble of revealing what he was doing at that hour? I certainly wouldn’t!’

‘Perhaps. But Edward had nothing to hide – except the ignominy of being drunk and sick in the gutter, though I doubt if that would have bothered him unduly. Why did he persist in his tale to Lucia of being in the opposite direction clearing his head wandering around in the Public Gardens?’

‘Covering his rear: terrified of being called in for questioning simply because he was in the area. Who knows, short of anyone else the police might have marked him as a suspect. It’s not unknown … perfectly innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time finding a murder charge pinned on them.’

‘Possible. But it occurs to me that there may have been something else. Supposing he saw something?’

‘Ah light dawns!
You
think that Edward’s blackmailing note to Hewson was to do with his having seen him rushing hell-for-leather from the knocking shop and that that is why Hewson shoved him under the water!’ Felix chuckled and winked at the dog. ‘With all due respect that strikes me as a rather inadequate reason for such drastic action. It’s also a pretty ropey reason for blackmail; I mean it’s not even as if the chap has a wife and children to protect. He’s on his own here in Venice. And while patronising a certain type of establishment may not be the most couth of pastimes, unless the target happens to be the headmistress of Roedean I doubt if it carries much blackmailing profit.’ Felix gave a dismissive laugh and Cedric watched irritably as his friend spooned large doses of sugar into his lapsang. It was a filthy habit; quite ruined the flavour!

He sighed and tapped an impatient finger on the table. ‘No,’ he retorted, ‘I am not such a fool as to suggest that.
His visit to the knocking shop, as you so charmingly put it, is very likely no more than a product of the twins’ florid imagination.’ Cedric slid the sugar bowl away from Felix’s cup; and then bending forward said quietly: ‘
I
think that what Edward Jones may have seen was not Hewson fleeing a police raid but fleeing from the bookshop where he had just bludgeoned Pacelli.’

‘I never did like him,’ said Felix, retrieving the sugar.