busy for several weeks. No cases and no clients at all, at this precise moment in time.
'Good,' said Argyll. 'I want you to stay here with me. Just hang around for a few hours, will you? We can have lunch sent up, if you want.'
Ansty settled himself down again. 'That's very hospitable of you,' he said. 'I'd be delighted.'
'I've never seen anyone eat so much in my life,' he complained four hours later when Flavia finally returned in the company of Morelli. 'The man was a walking food processor. Even you don't eat that much.'
Argyll's temper was a little frayed. Putting up with the lawyer had been a sore trial, and the fact that it had been necessary didn't ease the pain at all. Had he known that Flavia was going to be such a long time, or that Ansty had such an appetite, he might have simply taken the risk.
Still, he couldn't really grumble, as he had not told the man why he so suddenly desired his company. And the latter part hadn't been so bad; sitting on the bed, drinking beer and having the rules of baseball explained was not such a bad way of passing the time. He'd never realised it was so complicated. Fascinating, really. He just couldn't understand why the players dressed in their underclothes, and Ansty was unable to enlighten him.
So when Flavia and Morelli arrived, they found Argyll and this middle-aged man in a grey suit sitting on the bed, laughing uproariously at a badly timed spitball (when tackled about this, Argyll had to confess he could not for the life of him remember what a spitball was, nor could he differentiate between a well-timed and a badly timed one) the room littered with empty cans of beer and plates, the curtains tightly drawn.
'No joke,' he said as he finished explaining. 'I've had the most awful day. The trouble was, I couldn't decide whether it was simple paranoia or not. But with murderers wandering around at will, it struck me that I was an easy target, if anyone had thoughts in that direction. I still don't know why they might, but the evidence seems to point that way. Of course, had I known you were with Barclay all the time, I would have been less concerned about the possibility of him leaping through the door, gun in hand.'
'Well, it's best to be certain about these things.'
'And we'll look after everything from now on,' Morelli said, with a little frown of anxiety. 'The trouble is, it doesn't really take our case any further. Evidence is evidence, and we still don't have it.'
'So you'll have to pin your hopes on this meeting, won't you? Have you seen everybody?'
Morelli nodded. 'They've all been told, as subtly as we could manage. Streeter will be working late, so he won't get back home till just before nine. We've been saying the tape is stored in his house. Very tempting.'
Argyll grinned. 'Good,' he said. 'I suppose you ought to have something to eat before we go. More sandwiches? Then we can go and lay the phantom bust.'
Morelli looked puzzled. 'What do you mean?' he asked.
'Didn't you tell him?'
Flavia looked sheepish. 'Sorry. I forgot. We've worked it all out, you see. I hope you don't mind.'
Morelli had the air of someone who did mind very much, and suggested that, seeing that this was Los Angeles and he was in the Los Angeles police and they were little more than tourists here on suffranee, perhaps they would try to keep him better informed.
'I did mean to tell you. But I only put the last few pieces together when I saw Barclay . . .'
'And?' Morelli prompted.
'Langton,' she said firmly. 'It's obvious. That's because of the case, you see. It was empty.'
'Empty?' Morelli said, thinking he was spending much too much time uttering one-word questions.
'Empty. It's in the basement of the museum. Weighs 120 pounds. Which is what the shipment label said it weighed when it contained the Bernini. Conclusion, it was always empty. There was no theft from Thanet's office. No bust was smuggled out of the country and, whatever was stolen from Alberghi's place in Bracciano, the haul did not include a bust of Pope Pius V by Bernini. In fact, I'm beginning to doubt Alberghi ever had it.'
'So what in God's name was all this about? Just a way of confusing us? If it was, it worked very well.'
'For that we'll have to ask Langton. All I know is that the whole thing was a fraud, and Langton was the only possible person who could have done it. D'you want to hear the reasoning?'
Another tray of sandwiches and beer arrived, which delayed her satisfying their curiosity for a few moments. Then, when the delivery boy had vanished and she had downed a pastrami sandwich, she recommenced.
'There were three characteristics to Moresby which made him a target in this. One, he was a collectomaniac, if that's the right word. Two, he did not like anyone getting the better of him, and three, he disliked paying taxes.'
'Everybody dislikes paying taxes,' Morelli put in, speaking from the heart.
'Anyway, in 1951 he bought a bust on the Italian black market from Hector di Souza. Paid a deposit, and that was that. It was never delivered. We know it was confiscated, maybe di Souza even told him that as well, but I doubt very much he believed it. After all, it was never heard of again; had it been taken into the Borghese collection it would have been easy to find out. He couldn't do anything about it without letting everyone know he was conspiring to smuggle works out of the country, so he had to forget about it.
'After that, Moresby was a little cautious about dealers, which is only sensible. Anyway, the next stage was the Frans Hals affair.'
Morelli frowned. Must have missed that; at least, he couldn't remember interviewing this Hals man.
'Everybody knew there was something wrong with the painting, but only one person, a junior curator called Collins, had the temerity to say so. He suggested it be investigated with more care, and implied that the price had been far too high. Uproar. The curator is out on his ear.
'If you think about it, this was very curious. On the whole - the Moresby may be an exception but I don't think so - museums don't like owning fakes. If anyone can prove an acquisition is a bit dicey, they should get a pat on the back. The curator in question was an expert on seventeenth-century Dutch painting. And, of course, he was a protege of Langton's.
'That the picture is a dud I don't doubt for a minute. That the whole business was an early attempt to nobble Thanet seems equally likely.'
Morelli, who'd been staring at the ceiling, nodding to himself and wondering whether she was ever going to produce any evidence, stirred into activity. 'How do you reach that conclusion?' he said as he leant forward, surveyed the sandwiches and selected another beer.
'It was not bought by Langton, so exposing it wouldn't hurt him. It would hurt Thanet, who OKed it, Barclay who paid out the money, and in turn could well lead to an investigation of Moresby himself. A full investigation would have revealed that, while the picture only cost 200,000 dollars, Moresby claimed on his tax form that he paid 3.2 million. Barclay gave me the figures. Further investigation would undoubtedly have shown up that over the years millions of dollars had been saved in taxes by the process. Moresby would have been in deep trouble and could only have got out of it by blaming Thanet and Barclay. Over zealous servants. You know the routine.'
'Didn't work, though,' Morelli pointed out.
'No. Thanet acted with more determination than anyone thought possible and booted the curator out fast. So Langton tries again.
Collins ends up as an intern at the Borghese and uncovers this document about the Bernini. Cogs click over. Langton has heard the story many times about Moresby being defrauded of a Bernini. It can't be hard for him to work out that Moresby might be very pleased indeed if he got hold of it.
'There are difficulties, not least the problem of getting hold of it and getting it out of the country. They decide on di Souza as the poor unfortunate who will have to take any blame for smuggling, so that the museum will be in the clear. That will satisfy Moresby's desire for vengeance and add to his temptation to get hold of the bust.
'So Langton goes to Bracciano to enquire but is thrown out. Collins tells him that old Alberghi has recently died, he phones Colonel Alberghi and finds out that no one has the faintest idea what is in the house. So Langton knows that if there is a Bernini there, he is the only person who is aware of the fact. So there is a robbery to get hold of it, and this comes up with nothing. No Bernini. A bit of a snag.
'But Langton isn't the sort of person to let a minor detail like this get in his way. He realises that if he came to the conclusion that there was a Bernini there, then so would anybody else. Langton hooks di Souza by buying some of his antiquities and then paying him to transport the case across the Atlantic; money is transferred under the normal scheme, with two million dollars, I suspect, making an unscheduled stop in Collins' bank account until it can be made to disappear properly.
'Langton is close not only to defrauding Moresby of a large amount of money, but also to gaining his thanks into the bargain and to ousting Thanet. The snag is to make sure that no one looks into the case. Having brought
