The Bernini Bust

fund the museum with Langton as director. Or maybe it's just a cash deal.

'And just to be on the safe side, Langton heads back to Italy as quickly as possible in case Moresby decides to dispose of another possible witness. As long as he is immune from attack, Moresby will have to keep to his side of the bargain.

'Perfect and delightful. But it all slowly comes unpicked. How? Firstly because the attempt to kill Jonathan fails and my arrival means that he hangs around rather than taking the first plane back to Italy as any sensible accident victim threatened with being sued should.'

Moresby had kept calm throughout this narrative, and seemed barely perturbed. 'Entrapment,' he said. 'Won't get very far on that without anything else. And you don't have much else, to my way of thinking. I may have stolen the gun, but you have to prove it. I may have nearly run Argyll over, but again you have to prove it. I may have imitated my father, but so might someone else. There are lots of trucks painted all sorts of colours in Los Angeles. I may have tried to kill Argyll, but the cable might have come loose on its own. I may have killed my father, but I may not. A bit flimsy.'

'And this evening?'

'I was invited, got here early. Walked through the door and was kicked in the stomach.'

'Carrying a gun?'

'Lots of people in Los Angeles carry a gun.'

Morelli's frown by this stage was clearly caused by more than his tooth. His anxious glance at Flavia indicated that he was seriously concerned that his case was falling to pieces. He was sure that Moresby had tried to kill Argyll; and that Argyll had little choice but to hit him first; but it undoubtedly weakened the case. A serious provable attempted murder would have been so much more satisfactory, however distressing Argyll might personally have found it.

'And now, I think, I'll go home,' Moresby continued with quiet confidence. 'If you'll undo my handcuffs. And I wouldn't take the risk of harassing me any more. There are laws about that, and I reckon my lawyer will be telling you about them tomorrow morning.'

If it hadn't been so risky, Morelli might have ground his teeth in frustration. Moresby was right; they'd have to let him go, sooner or later. He even started, reluctantly, to fumble in his pocket to get out the keys.

'What the hell have you done to my house?' came an outraged voice from the door. They looked up and saw a red-faced Streeter standing, open-mouthed and surveying the devastation. It was, indeed, a bit of a mess; the lawn had been churned up by cars driving over it and policemen marching up and down; much of the crockery had been broken in Argyll's self-defence exercise; the doors were not on nearly as securely as previously; the furniture had been disarranged, books and furnishings all over the place.

Even before he'd parked his car, a neighbour had marched up and protested.

'Mr. Streeter,' said Morelli, glad of the distraction. 'You're late.'

'Of course I'm late. You could work that out for yourself, couldn't you? Obviously, I couldn't come before Thanet.'

Morelli squinted in the attempt to understand what he meant.

'What are you talking about?'

'I had to wait until he left his office. I couldn't just walk in and take it with him there.'

'Take what?'

'The tape.'

'What tape?'

'The one you asked me to bring. From Thanet's office.'

A long silence, as Morelli, Flavia and Argyll all shook their heads in disbelief.

'You mean to tell us that you were tapping his office?'

'Of course; I don't know how you found out. I put it in several months ago; I have grave concerns about some financial matters . . .'

'But why the hell didn't you say this before?'

'Well, it was illegal,' he said, lamely and unconvincingly.

'I don't believe this,' Morelli said thickly through the painkiller. 'Are you really such a . . . Oh, what's it matter? What's on this tape, then?'

Streeter, with some considerable air of self-importance, handed it over.

'I should say . . .'he began, but Morelli waved him to silence.

'Shut up, Streeter,' he said as he borrowed a Walkman from a patrolman, stuck the earphones in his ears and listened. The silence was interminable, and Morelli didn't help alleviate the tension by the way he occasionally snickered, grinned, frowned, and looked at members of the museum with suspicion, disapproval and a hint of scornful malice. Evidently it was an interesting tape. Eventually he switched it off, pulled out the earphones, and looked around with an air of profound satisfaction.

'Right,' he said cheerfully to two policemen standing in the corner. 'Take him off and charge him with the murder of his father. That'll do for the time being. We can add di Souza later. And him' - here he pointed at Langton - 'you can book for attempted fraud and conspiracy to commit murder.'

Getting Moresby out of the house and into a police car took longer than it should. He didn't want to go, and he was a big man. Overcoming his reluctance took an awful lot of pushing and shoving from the police, but it was clearly work they enjoyed. Eventually Moresby exited, pursued by a television crew.

'Why are you charging me with murder?' Langton asked with understandable alarm when attention finally turned to him. 'I didn't do anything to anybody.'

'That's the law. That's the way it is.'

'This is ridiculous. You can't prove anything.'

'If you were defrauding Moresby about the bust then all the rest follows naturally.'

'If,' he replied. 'But I stand by my story. I bought it from di Souza, and di Souza stole it, as far as I'm concerned. You can't prove that case was empty.'

Flavia smiled sweetly. 'Oh, yes we can.'

'How?' he said scornfully.

'Because we know where the bust is.'

'Do you?'

'Yes.'

'Where?'

'Still in Italy. And, of course, we've arrested Collins.'

'But in return for a co-operative attitude . . .' said Morelli, striking while the iron was hot.

Langton thought it over. 'Do you think I can have a talk with you for a moment, Detective?'

He and Morelli went into the kitchen to discuss matters. Despite the rather strained circumstances, Langton clearly entered into the spirit of the occasion. Once a dealer, always a dealer; it gets into the bloodstream. And he evidently believed that, once you had reached a decision, you should go ahead with it as quickly as possible. As the bargaining went on, voices were raised, both of them flounced about, positions were stated, withdrawals were made.

And the upshot was that Langton would testify about seeing Jack Moresby leave the administrative block, that he would give full details of the phone call that led to the death of di Souza and would refund the two million dollars that he had absentmindedly transferred into a bank account in Switzerland.

In return Morelli would do his best to arrange matters so that the court looked sympathetically on his genuine sense of remorse and contrition and would not overstress the argument that Langton had incited Moresby to murder di Souza. Jail was likely, but not for very long. All very satisfactory.

While this was going on, Thanet and Barclay were in another corner, staring out of the window and also doing a certain amount of hard bargaining. They suddenly had a lot to talk about.

'I'm glad to hear about the Bernini,' Thanet said, crossing the room with a satisfied look on his face. 'Now we won't have the embarrassment of having to send it back.'

'No. But you can send di Souza back if you want,' Argyll said. 'It is the very least you can do, in the circumstances.'

'I suppose we should. I'm sure Barclay will oblige with the money. We don't have a penny at the moment. Not until this is all settled.'