“Oh,” he said coldly. “You know that, do you?”
Yashim nodded.
“The beggar business was inspired, Yashim. I’m still finding it hard to believe you’re here, like this. But if I’m wrong about the Bellini, my name’s not Palewski.”
Yashim smiled, a trifle sadly. “Well, it’s not, is it, Signor Brett?”
“Being a beggar is all very well,” Palewski replied facetiously, “but I don’t suppose you were lurking under the table when we looked at the painting? The chap selling it-his brother almost died as a result. Came in waving a gun and took the bullet himself. It was dark,” he added. “Very nearly shot me first.”
Yashim looked interested. “Ah, so that was how it was done,” he murmured. “I wondered.”
“Oh, come on, Yashim. A family heirloom. Probably the best thing they’d turned up since the fall of Athens.”
“They?”
“The family that’s selling their painting, on the quiet.” It sounded thin. “You can’t go around bawling your prices on the Rialto these days. The friends-the Austrians-would get to hear about it.”
“How convenient.”
“Convenient? Nonsense. We’ll meet them tomorrow. The vendor and his brother-they fixed up some sort of pact, thank God. I thought the brother had died. As soon as I’ve got the painting, I’ll ask Alfredo who they were.”
Yashim gazed at his old friend. Palewski didn’t like it and looked away.
“Did you go to the theater while you were here?”
Palewski looked surprised. “The theater? I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Yash. I’ve been ill, I’ve been busy, I’ve been-God, I found Compston here and had to fix up a couple of courtesans to see him off, along with his Habsburg chum.” He leaned back, and now that he had found his theme he discovered it was warm. “I’ve had policemen dunning me over two chaps who got murdered-nothing to do with me. I’ve had a fellow shot under my nose-I thought he’d died. I’ve been threatened with guns, with hanging, with cholera. I’ve swum the Grand Canal. Not along it, like Byron, but Byron didn’t have his shoes hanging around his neck. I was even poisoned. Nasty stuff, prosecco. So no, sorry. I somehow missed the theater.”
He stood up.
“Venice is a theater, Yashim. You fit right in, too, with your beard and eyebrows. No wonder the waiter didn’t look twice. At the end of the day they probably lay him down in a box marked ‘Cafe Characters.’ I’ve had enough.”
Yashim hadn’t moved.
Palewski stared at him for a while.
He gripped the chair and sat down.
He put his head in his hands.
He said a word in Polish that Yashim didn’t understand.
“Go on, then, Yash,” he said at last. “What makes you believe the Bellini is a fake?”
67
Sergeant Vosper was not only a methodical man, and a slow one; the aspect of police work he liked best was standing in a doorway across the street, waiting for a suspect to appear.
At the Procuratie he had to weave his way between the stadtmeister’s interminable lectures and men like Brunelli, who bantered with him. When Brunelli laughed he never knew whether to be pleased or offended. Now Brunelli would be out for his scalp.
Waiting for Brett was not, on the whole, a bad way to spend an afternoon.
He came at a quarter to six, by Vosper’s watch: an ugly fellow who rolled up to the front door of the palazzo and pushed it and went inside. Vosper followed.
“Signor Brett?” he called, when he heard the man’s tread on the stone staircase overhead.
The man stopped.
“Who’s that?”
Vosper stuck his head over the banister and looked up.
“Police.”
“Who are you looking for?”
Vosper’s rule was never to answer a direct question directly. “Are you Signor Brett?”
Overhead he heard a voice muttering to itself. “Brett?” It called down, “Please-is this the Ca’ d’Aspi?”
“It’s the Casa Manin. D’Aspi is next door.”
The ugly man came down the stairs, chuckling ruefully. “Casa this, Casa that. You’d think they’d give us better street numbers in the nineteenth century.”
Vosper nodded: it was a good point. Numbers would help police work.
“We’re waiting for a Signor Brett,” he said.
“Never heard of him,” Alfredo said. “I’m due at the Ca’ d’Aspi. Next door, you said?”
“That’s right.” Man was lost He wasn’t the American, at any rate. “Turn left, first on the left.”
“Thank you, Commissario.” As he passed, the ugly man turned and lowered his voice. “What’s this Brett done, then?”
“I’m not at liberty to reveal, I’m afraid, sir.” Which was, when all was said and done, a shame. Vosper took precious little glory from his work, and here was a man who didn’t seem to hold it against him. He inclined a little. “It could be a hanging charge,” he said.
The ugly man pulled a face. “Murder?”
Vosper compressed his lips. “That’s about the short and long of it, sir. Between ourselves.”
Alfredo ducked his head in an admiring gesture. “Good luck to you, Commissario.”
“And good luck to you, too, sir. It’s left outside, and left again.”
68
In the cafe Yashim was beginning to explain. “Your friend Maria,” he said.
Palewski raised his head. “How do you know Maria?”
“Your Alfredo-a fat, ugly man.”
Palewski squirmed in his chair. “That doesn’t make him a crook.”
“No. But it means that he was in charge when those two thugs searched your apartment. He sent them in. They took Maria.”
“Maria? What happened?”
Yashim told him. “They had her in the Fondaco dei Turchi. The old hammam.”
“You found her?”
“Eventually.”
“And she is-?”
“Oh, she’s all right. You can see her in a moment.”
“But what did they want with her?”
“They wanted to know who you were.” Yashim’s glance searched Palewski’s face. “How good was your cover?”
Palewski chewed his lip. “I don’t think I let it slip, Yashim. And it was good enough-the American collector. Why not? Apart from that meeting with Compston and his pals, no one could challenge Signor Brett.”
“Brunelli?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Yashim looked thoughtful. “Someone guessed. It doesn’t matter now. Your Alfredo was just covering all the
