Your insistence that once we had met I should on no account leave her side until speaking to you on the telephone made me extremely nervous. It was not clear to me whether I was there to prevent her escape or to guard her against attack. But having come to Venice of her own free will, I could not imagine why she should suddenly run away. I concluded that my function was protective. All the way to the Piazza, I kept looking over my shoulder for some lurking assailant: the narrowness of the crowded streets seemed dangerously restrictive of movement in any emergency. I was a little, but not much, comforted by our retinue of policemen.
We reached the Piazza at about ten to twelve. I found it at first a relief to be in an open space; but half way across I began to think that the centre of the Piazza was a singularly exposed and vulnerable place, and to wish that I had kept Marylou in the shelter, however illusory, of one of the colonnades at the side. Still, we arrived without misadventure at the entrance to the Basilica. We stood there, among the tourists and the pigeons, wondering what was going to happen, Marylou looking round for a face she might recognize, I still apprehensive of some attack on her.
The mechanically operated bronze figures at the top of the Orologio, which mark the hour by striking on the bell, began to emerge from their places, raising their hammers. The other tourists in the Piazza looked up to watch the little spectacle; the street photographers and sellers of souvenirs continued about their business; Marylou and I went on searching for a familiar face or a threatening gesture, but counted, as we did so, the alternate strokes of the hammers against the bell. The last stroke sounded and was lost in the blue sky above the Piazza; and nothing happened.
“What do we do now?” asked Marylou.
“According to our instructions,” I said, “we go straight home — that is to say, to the Palazzo Artemisio, where I am staying — and telephone Professor Tamar to report progress. We control as best we can our irritation at being involved in this fiasco.”
I had been, as you very well know, reluctant to make any telephone calls from the Palazzo, not wishing Richard Tiverton to be aware that I had been concerned, while in Venice, with other affairs than his own. 1 felt, however, a residual unwillingness to depart from your instructions; besides, it was easier to telephone from there than to trail back to the Consulate. I hoped, in any case, that I would be able to make the telephone call without attracting Richard’s attention, since he was still not feeling well enough to leave his room much. I would, I thought, express as succinctly as possible my opinion of the little pantomime you had organized; I would then tell the policemen, with grovelling apologies, that I no longer required their attendance; I would then take Marylou to lunch at Montin’s.
I was a little embarrassed, therefore, on entering the Palazzo, to find my client already in the entrance hall, himself engaged in a telephone conversation. The more so since it seemed to be acrimonious — he was saying, irritably, “But you must have done — who else would have sent it?” As we came in, however, he looked up and broke off the conversation.
“I’m so sorry, Richard,” I said, “please don’t let us disturb you.”
He did not, however, resume his conversation. I saw, as my eyes adjusted to the comparative darkness of the interior, that he was paying no attention to me, but was staring at the girl beside me.
Looking again at her, I saw that she was staring back at him, with an expression of great amazement.
“Why, Ned,” said Marylou, “I thought you were—” for reasons of euphony or otherwise, she did not complete the sentence, but began to scream.
“I’m sorry,” said the young man, speaking calmly into the telephone receiver. “It’s the American girl. She’s recognized me. And there are some policemen.” The Vice-Quaestor’s subordinates, drawn by the scream, had come to the door, still open, of the Palazzo. “I’m afraid that’s the end of it. Goodbye.”
He left the receiver hanging and ran for the marble staircase. The two policemen ran in and after him. I followed, with some notion, I think, that he was still my client and I should be on hand to protect him.
In spite of his delicate appearance, he must have been quite athletic. With only a few yards’ start he reached the fourth floor, the top floor of the Palazzo, a flight and a half ahead of the policemen.
There is a window on the landing: he leapt for the sill and pushed the shutters open. He stood there, suddenly golden in the sunlight: I saw for a moment what Julia meant about Praxiteles and Michelangelo; and the two policemen — sensible, solid men, no doubt, with wives and families — the two policemen were checked in their pursuit.
“Oh no,” he said, smiling down at us, “no, I don’t think so, thank you.” And turned and jumped.
“The canal,” said one of the policemen, turning to run back. “He’s escaping by the canal.”
“No,” said his colleague, “not the canal.” Getting his bearings more quickly than the other, he had realized that that window did not face on to a canal, but on to a stone-flagged campiello: it is thus a surer escape than by water from the hands of any police force.
When I eventually managed to give the Vice-Quaestor some kind of explanation, he got in touch, of course, with the police in London, to ask them to go and talk to Kenneth Dunfermline. By the time they got there, though, it was too late — he had stabbed himself through the heart.
I remain, in spite of all this,
Your affectionate pupil, Timothy.
PS. The Vice-Quaestor has received by telex from London copies of three letters found beside Dunfermline’s body, the last in his own handwriting, and never posted. These he has kindly made available to me, and I enclose them. Also a copy of a telegram found here at the Palazzo, lying on the table beside the telephone.
CHAPTER 19
Villa Niobe Paphos.
Republic of Cyprus.
20th August.
Dear Kenneth,
I can’t tell you how pleased I am you can come to Venice. Not just because of having you to cast an expert eye over Aunt Prissie’s antiques, you know — though it’s marvellous of you to do that for me and I feel a bit guilty about taking you away from more important things — but far more just because I’m looking forward so much to you being there. I don’t know anyone at all in Venice — and even if I did, there couldn’t be anyone like you to go and look at things with.
You’ll be getting there a week before me, so you’ll have all that time to rummage round the Palazzo Artemisio — if it really is something you’ll enjoy doing — and see if there’s a lost Titian in the broom cupboard or anything like that. You’d rather stay in a hotel, I expect, until I arrive — you’d be a bit miserable staying on your own in the Palazzo with no one but the housekeeper — you must let me pay the bill, of course, and all your other expenses. I hope you’re not going to be difficult about it — I want to set up as a patron of the arts, you know, and earn myself a footnote in your biography, so please don’t go all Scots and uppity on me.
My boat docks in Venice on the morning of the 9th — that’s a Friday — and that’ll be the end of your peaceful rummaging. You must come and stay with me at the Palazzo, and I’ll drag you all round Venice, making you tell me about painting and architecture.
The only boring thing I have to do is to talk to all these lawyers — well, two of them. I knew I’d have to talk to the Italian one, who looked after things for Aunt Prissie — but my trustee in London is insisting on sending an English one as well. My trustee thinks that I “don’t appreciate the adverse fiscal consequences of the present situation.” So he wants to instruct Counsel — that’s another sort of lawyer, it seems, who uses even longer words than a solicitor — to come and explain them to me. He’s making such a fuss, I’m going to have to let him — and I’ll have to invite the poor man to stay at the Palazzo — it would be a bit mean not to, wouldn’t it? So I’m afraid he’ll be popping up all over the place, talking about fiscal consequences. It’s all a complete waste of time, because what they want me to do is leave Cyprus, if you please — seriously, just sell the Villa and the farm and clear out. Leave Cyprus indeed — as if I would! Aren’t lawyers ridiculous?
Anyway, I shall tell them that my friend Kenneth Dunfermline, the distinguished sculptor, is personally designing a most beautiful fountain especially for the Villa Niobe, so I can’t possibly leave. And they’ll be so impressed, they’ll go away and leave us in peace.
