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  So I let him put his arm around my shoulders in order to guide me, and I minced along in meek silence. It was surprising how much I was able to deduce about my surroundings even without my sight. The floor, for instance. It was smooth and slightly slippery – highly polished wood, probably. When the surface changed to carpeting, my feet knew the difference right away. I could even tell that the material wasn’t the thick synthetic wall-to-wall stuff that is so popular back home. This floor covering was thinner, and once I tripped over what must have been fringe. Oriental rugs?

  At any rate, before we had gone far, I was sure I was not in a cheap apartment or tenement. The smells of wax and polish, the general feeling of echoing spaciousness, suggested a large house – something rather grand, actually. We walked on marble for a while; at least it was hard and cool underfoot. And we walked for a long time, indoors. The place seemed as big as a museum.

  My companion didn’t speak. The arm around my shoulders was stiff with taut muscle; his fingers curved over my upper arm with a tension that was more effective than any verbal warning. Once I heard voices off in the distance; another time he stopped and pulled me into a small, closed-in space until footsteps passed and faded.

  As the flight proceeded I recovered some of my courage, and my curiosity revived. What sort of place was this? Could it be a museum after all?

  I got the chance I was waiting for when we reached the top of a flight of stairs. I didn’t know they were stairs at first, not until he picked me up and began to descend them. I suppose it was easier for him to carry me than guide each step I took, but I had a feeling he rather enjoyed it. I put my arms around his neck and rubbed my face against his shoulder.

  He laughed – if you could call it that – just a puff of air into my left ear. I tickled the back of his neck. It was all pretty corny. But he loved it – he can deny it all he wants to, but he did. When we reached the bottom of the stairs he didn’t put me down but continued to carry me along a marble-floored corridor lined with long mirrors. I knew the mirrors were there because I saw them. I had managed to shift the blindfold just enough to see out from under it with one eye.

  The corridor went on for a long way. From time to time the mirrors were interspersed with oil paintings in long, heavy frames. I had never had that precise view of great paintings before; all I could see were feet, the hems of flowing robes, and the grass and rocks of painted backgrounds.

  That gallery was long. Before we reached the end of it my gallant rescuer was pretty well out of breath. To do him justice, it wasn’t only exertion that made him gasp; my hands and mouth were free, and I was using them nicely. In the process I got the blindfold back in place. I had seen all I needed to see.

  We passed through a swinging door – I heard the sound as it swung back into place – and into a narrower corridor that smelled faintly of cooking. Then he put me down. My arms were still around his neck and my blind face was lifted, trustingly . . . The position was ideal for what he had in mind. His fist landed neatly on the point of my upturned chin.

  I woke up in the taxi, with my head on his shoulder. At first I didn’t know it was a taxi; all I could see were lights flashing by, like long streamers of fire.

  ‘Wake up, darling,’ said a voice. ‘Arise, fair moon, and dim the envious sun . . . That’s the girl.’

  I turned my head and saw the face I had expected to see grinning down at me. The end of his nose was about half an inch from mine, and as my senses came back to me and I remembered what had happened, I was so angry I snapped at him, like a mad dog. He just laughed and kissed me. I didn’t struggle. It would have been undignified.

  When he had finished, he held me out at arms’ length and looked at me critically.

  ‘Not too bad. A young lady who has been out on the town must expect to show some signs of wear and tear. I can’t tell you how I’ve enjoyed this.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t try, if I were you . . . Where are we?’

  ‘Almost at your hotel. Can you walk, do you think?’

  I flexed my legs. He shifted position hastily, and I smiled – or rather, I bared my teeth.

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t kick you. Although it would give me immense satisfaction to do so. Yes, I can walk. Demoralizing as your embraces are, they are not totally incapacitating.’

  ‘What a vocabulary,’ the Englishman said admiringly. ‘Brains and beauty . . . All right, love, you should do well enough tonight, but I advise you to get out of Rome first thing tomorrow morning.’

  The taxi stopped. He had the door open and was out before I could think of a suitable retort. Reaching into the car, he pulled me out onto the sidewalk.

  We were dead smack in front of the hotel, one of those high-class establishments which looks like, and perhaps was, a Renaissance palace. The doormen have more gold on their uniforms than any other doormen in Rome. One of them – the same man who had seen me come in at 3 a.m. the night before – was a few feet away, staring.

  I had been drugged, tied up for who knows how many hours, and then punched on the jaw. I knew what I looked like – not a poor, defenceless, abused heroine – just another drunk.

  ‘Buona notte, carissima,’ caroled my blonde bête noire in dulcet tones. ‘Grazie – per tutto . . . ’ He put out his arms.

  I sidestepped the embrace, wobbled, staggered, and fell back against a convenient lamppost. The taxi driver chuckled. The Englishman grinned more broadly. I turned on my heel and, with what dignity I could muster, went reeling up the magnificent marble stairs of the Hotel Belvedere, under the concentrated stares of the doorman, two bellboys, a concierge, three taxi drivers, and a few dozen assorted tourists.

  I should have felt humiliated and defeated. But I was hiding a grin of my own – a lopsided grin; my jaw hurt. The hectic hours had been worth it. I had a clue. The first genuine honest-to-God clue I had found yet.

  Chapter Four

  THERE WAS A DIFFERENT staff on duty next morning, but they had clearly heard about me. The precocious lad who brought my breakfast lingered until I gave him the evilest look I could manage. He retreated hastily, and I hung out the ‘Do not disturb’ sign.

  I drank about a pint of coffee to begin with, and then tackled the food. By the time I got through I felt my old self again, except for a slight tenderness around the chin. I didn’t need that to remind me of what I owed a certain smart-aleck Englishman.

  I should have been grateful to him, and I was – the way I was grateful to my dentist after he had filled a big cavity without anesthesia. The man had saved me from an undefined but unpleasant fate. And yet that grinning devil had somehow turned the whole affair into a farce. I simply couldn’t take seriously any plot that involved a weirdo like . . . I didn’t even know his name. He had reduced my case into a personal duel. My greatest desire now was not to catch the crooks, but to get even with . . . I didn’t even know his name!

  But I would find out. I needn’t say, I am sure, that I had no intention of taking his advice and clearing out. If he had planned it deliberately, he couldn’t have chosen a better way of making me stay on. And thanks to his male vanity, I now had the clue I needed.

  My knowledge of antique jewellery is not that of an expert. I had recognized the Charlemagne talisman because the original was in my own museum, and the Egyptian princess’s crown was an art object, rare and unforgettable. But I do know paintings. I had seen only the bottom half, sometimes less than that, of the paintings in the long gallery, but that was enough. I had recognized not one, but three of them. Murillo’s ‘Madonna of the Hills’ is barefoot, like any pretty, dark-eyed peasant girl. I would have known those dainty arched feet anywhere, just as I would have recognized the landscape that forms the setting for Raphael’s ‘Saint Cecilia.’ The third painting particularly was a giveaway. According to the legend, St Peter was crucified upside down. Solano had painted him in traditional position, and I had gotten an excellent view of the poor saint’s trailing white hair and beard. He looked a lot more peacef
ul than I would have looked in that position.

  The only question remaining was: Who owned these pictures? It’s impossible to remember the location of every great work of art in the world; the ‘Pietà’ in St Peter’s, the ‘Mona Lisa’ in the Louvre, yes; but Raphael painted a lot of pictures, most of them saints or madonnas. It was no problem. All I needed was a library or a museum. I was feeling disgustingly pleased with myself as I leaped out of bed and headed for the shower.

  The sun was high when I emerged from the hotel. I knew I had to get moving, because many of the museums are closed in the afternoon. But I lingered to admire the view, a rugged landscape of tiled roofs and twisted towers, with the dome of St Peter’s off in the distance floating like a giant balloon against the blue sky.

  There are a lot of museums in Rome, but I had no problem deciding which one to visit. The Galleria Concini has a particularly fine collection of jewellery. I had meant to check it out in case my other lead didn’t work, because it struck me as being the sort of place a gang of thieves would find enticing. The Vatican has a more valuable collection of treasures, but a small, private museum like the Concini would be considerably more vulnerable.

  I trotted down the Spanish Steps, between the great tubs of flowering azaleas and the gawking tourists. The younger ones were sprawled all over the steps, drinking Cokes and soda. People were hawking cheap jewellery and leather goods, and offering their services as guides. Down at the bottom the charming little fountain was almost hidden by loungers, some of whom, in defiance of authority, were surreptitiously soaking their hot feet. It was all very cheerful and noisy, and it was only by chance that I spotted a face that looked familiar.

  After a near stumble, I decided the man wasn’t Bruno, the dog handler. He looked enough like him to be his brother, but so did a lot of other men in the crowd. Bruno was a typical southern Italian – swarthy, stocky, dark haired. The man wasn’t paying any attention to me, and by the time I turned into the Via del Babuino I had lost sight of him. My euphoria had received a slight check, however. The incident had reminded me that I was all the more vulnerable to attack because I knew only a couple of the members of the gang by sight. It was silly to assume that they were all sinister, dark men; a pursuer could be disguised as a housewife, a nun, or a tourist. Just then a tourist did approach me. The poor guy only wanted to know how to find the Colosseum, but I shied like a nervous mare when he thrust his map at me.

  The Galleria Concini is near the Pincian Hill. I prefer not to be any more specific about its location, and that isn’t its right name, either. The reason for my reticence will become apparent as I proceed.

  I reached it without further incident, as a novelist might say, except for a narrow escape from a Volkswagen as I circumnavigated the Piazza del Popolo. The Galleria was open. Its handsome Renaissance facade was approached by a long flight of curving stairs. My calves, already suffering from the long climb up from the piazza, ached at the very sight of them, but I struggled up and plunged into the cool, dark cave of the entrance hall. The little old lady behind the barred cage told me the library was on the second floor, and extracted five hundred lire from me.

  I had to go through several of the exhibition halls to reach the elevator. Only my stern sense of duty kept me moving. The museum had a superb collection of Quattrocento paintings, including a Masaccio polyptych I had admired for years.

  The librarian’s frosty eye softened when I showed her my card. At Schmidt’s insistence I had had a batch of them printed up when I started work; they contained my full name and titles, which sound rather impressive in German. The mention of the National Museum gave me free access to the library shelves.

  The room was quite handsome. It had been a grand salone at one time, when the Palazzo Concini was still a private residence. There was only one other researcher, a little old man with no hair, and glasses so thick they looked opaque. He did not glance up when I tiptoed past him with the book I had selected. I took a seat at a neighbouring table. It took me about a minute and a half to find what I wanted. I checked all three paintings, just to be sure, but the first one I looked up, the Murillo, provided the necessary information. It was in the private collection of the Conte del Caravaggio, Rome.

  In my exultation I slammed the book shut. It made more of a noise than that hallowed chamber had heard in years. The little old man at the next table wobbled feebly, like those bottom-heavy toys that sway when you nudge them. For a minute I thought he was going to topple over, flat on his face on the table, a la Hitchcock. You could die in that place and nobody would notice for hours. But finally he stopped swaying, and I made my way back to the desk with exaggerated care.

  When I asked if I could see the director, the librarian’s face looked shocked. I think I could have gotten in to see the Pope with far less argument. But finally she consented to telephone, and after a muttered conversation she turned back to me looking even more surprised.

  ‘You will be received,’ she murmured, in the whisper demanded by that dim vault with its frescoed ceiling and statued niches. I felt as if I ought to genuflect.

  The director’s office was another flight up. I was allowed to take the private elevator, which opened directly into an anteroom presided over by a stately-looking man with a beard. I was about to greet him with the humility his exalted position demanded, and then I found out he wasn’t the director after all, only a secretary. He offered me a chair, and I cooled my heels for a good twenty minutes before a buzzer on his desk purred and he beckoned to me. The carved mahogany door behind him was an objet d’art in its own right. He opened it with a bow, and I went in. By then I was slightly annoyed at all the pomp and circumstance: I marched in with my chin in the air, prepared to be very cool and haughty, but the sight of the woman behind the desk took the starch right out of me.

  Yes, woman. This is a man’s world, and nowhere in the world is male chauvinism more rampant than in Italy, but I never thought for a moment that this female was a secretary. She would be the boss of any establishment she chose to honour with her presence.

  Being something of a female chauvinist myself, I should have warmed to her. Her male secretary was a particularly nice touch. Instead I took an instant dislike to the creature. I was about to say ‘unreasoning dislike,’ but there was good reason for my reaction. She looked at me as if I were a bedbug.

  The room was arranged to provide a setting that would awe most visitors. Its high windows, draped in gold swags and festoons, opened onto a terrace so thickly planted with shrubs and flowers that it looked like a descendant of one of the Hanging Gardens. The Persian carpet on the floor was fifty feet long by twenty-five wide – a glorious, time-faded blend of cream and salmon, aquamarine and topaz. The desk should have been in the museum downstairs, and the paintings on the walls were the greatest of the great masters.

  But the woman didn’t need that setting. She would have been impressive in a soup kitchen. Her black hair surely owed something to art, for the lines in her face betrayed the decades – at least four of them, if I was any judge. She had one of those splendid profiles you see on Roman coins, and I got a good look at it, because her head was turned sideways when I came in. She was looking out the window.

  The secretary’s discreet murmur made several things clearer. It was loaded with long, hissing feminine endings. ‘Principessa, Direttoressa . . .’ and then the name. What else? The last of the Concinis was still hanging on in the family mansion.

  She meant to make me feel like a great overgrown clod from some barbarian country, and she succeeded. I went clumping across the floor – my feet looked and sounded like size fourteens – hating that Roman profile more every second. I reached the desk and looked in vain for a chair. She gave me thirty seconds – I counted them to myself – and then turned, very slowly. A faint smile curved her full lips. It was a closed smile, with no teeth showing, and I was reminded of the enigmatic smiles of early Greek and Etruscan statues – an expression that some critics find more sinister th
an gracious.

  ‘Doctor Bliss? It is a pleasure to welcome a young colleague. Your superior, Herr Professor Schmidt, is an old acquaintance. I hope he is well?’

  ‘Crazy as ever,’ I said.

  I hate being tall. I had a feeling she knew that, and was deliberately forcing me to stand and tower over her. So I looked around for a chair. I spotted a delicate eighteenth-century example, with priceless needlepoint on the seat, yanked it into position beside the desk, and sat down.

  She stared at me for a moment. Then her lips parted and she laughed. It was a charming laugh, low pitched like her speaking voice, but vibrant with genuine amusement.

  ‘It is a pleasure,’ she repeated. ‘You are correct; Professor Schmidt is crazy, that is why he endears himself to his friends. May I serve you in any way, my dear, or is this purely a social call?’

  I was disarmed, I admit. She had accepted my response to her challenge like a lady.

  ‘I wouldn’t take up your time with a purely social call, pleasant though it is,’ I said. ‘I have a rather peculiar story to tell you, Principessa – ’

  ‘But we are colleagues – you must call me Bianca. And you are . . . ?’

  ‘Vicky. Thank you . . . This is going to sound as crazy as Professor Schmidt, Prin–– Bianca. But it’s the honest truth.’

  I told her the whole story – almost the whole story. She listened intently, her chin propped on one slender ringed hand, her black eyes never leaving my face. The eyes began to sparkle before I had gotten well under way, and when I had finished, her lips were twitching with amusement.

  ‘My dear,’ she began.

  ‘I said it would sound crazy.’

  ‘It does. If your credentials were not so excellent . . . But I know Professor Schmidt; I know his weakness. Confess, Vicky, is this not a story that is just to his taste?’

  I laughed ruefully. ‘Yes, it is. But – ’