A heavy-set man in his fifties stood at the centre of a wooden-floored room filled with Plexiglas cases on velvet-covered stands that raised them to about eye level. Spot-lighting hidden in the heavy beams of the ceiling picked out the cases, some of which were empty. Several niches in the white walls were similarly lit, but all of those seemed to contain objects of one sort or another.
The man came forward, smiling. ‘Dottoressa Lynch, this is indeed an honour. I never dreamed I’d have the pleasure of meeting you.’ He stopped in front of her, hand still extended, and continued, ‘I’d like to tell you, first, that I’ve read your books and found them illuminating, especially the one on ceramics.’
She made no effort to take his hand, so he lowered his but didn’t move away from her. ‘I’m so glad you agreed to come and see me.’
‘Did I have a choice?’ Brett asked.
The man smiled. ‘Of course you had a choice, Dottoressa. We always have choices. It’s only when they are difficult ones that we say we don’t have them. But there is always a choice. You could have refused to come, and you could have called the police. But you didn’t, did you?’ He smiled again, eyes actually growing warm, either with humour or something so sinister Brett didn’t want to contemplate it.
‘Where’s Flavia?’
‘Oh, Signora Petrelli is quite all right, I assure you. When I last had word of her, she was heading away from the Riva degli Schiavoni, walking back in the general direction of your apartment.’
‘Then you don’t have her?’
He laughed outright. ‘Of course I don’t have her, Dottoressa. I never did. There’s no need to involve Signora Petrelli in this matter. Besides, I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her voice. Mind you, I don’t like some of the music she sings,’ he said with the tolerance of those who have more elevated tastes, ‘but I have nothing but the healthiest respect for her talent.’
Brett turned abruptly and walked towards the door. She took the handle and pressed it down, but the door didn’t open. She tried again, harder, but it still wouldn’t move. While she was doing this, the man had moved back across the room until he stood in front of one of the lighted cases. When she turned from the door, she saw him standing there, looking at the small pieces that stood inside the case, almost unaware of her presence.
‘Will you let me out of here?’ she asked.
‘Would you like to see my collection, Dottoressa?’ he asked, as if she hadn’t spoken or he hadn’t heard her.
‘I want to get out of here.’
Again, it was as if she hadn’t spoken.
He continued to gaze at the two small figurines in the case. ‘These little jade pieces are from the Shang Dynasty, wouldn’t you say? Probably the An-yang period.’ He turned away from the case and smiled at her. ‘I realize that’s well before your period of expertise, Dottoressa, about a thousand years, but I’m sure you’re familiar with them.’ He moved off to the next case and paused in front of it to study its contents. ‘Just look at this dancer. Most of the paint is still there; rare with anything from the Western Hah. There are a few little chips on the bottom of her sleeve, but if I place her with her face a bit to the side, well, you don’t see them, do you?’ He reached up and lifted the Plexiglas cover from the stand and set it on the floor at his feet. Carefully, he picked up the statue, which was about a third of a metre high, and carried it across the room.
He stopped in front of her and upended the statue so that Brett could see the tiny chips on the bottom of one of the long sleeves. The paint that covered the top part of her gown was still red, after all these centuries, and the black of the skirt still glistened. ‘I suppose she just recently came out of a tomb. I can’t think of anything else that would have preserved her so perfectly.’
He turned the statue upright and gave Brett one last look at it, then moved back across the room and replaced it carefully on the pedestal. ‘What a fine idea that was, to put beautiful things, beautiful women, in with the dead.’ He paused to consider this, then added, as he replaced the cover, ‘I suppose it was wrong to sacrifice servants and slaves to go along with them on the voyage to the other world. But still, it’s such a lovely idea, gives so much honour to the dead.’ He turned towards her again. ‘Don’t you think so, Dottoressa Lynch?’
She wondered if this was some sort of elaborate show meant to frighten her into doing whatever he wanted her to do. Was he pretending to be so interested in these objects, or was she meant to believe he was mad and thus capable of harming her if she refused to do what he wanted? But what was that? Did he merely want her to admire his collection?
She began to look around the room, really seeing the objects in it for the first time. He was standing now by a Neolithic pot decorated with the frog motif, two small handles protruding from the lower part. It was in such perfect condition that she moved closer in order to see it more clearly. ‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ he asked conversationally. ‘If you’d step over here, Professoressa, I’ll show you something I’m especially proud of.’ He moved to another case inside which an elaborately carved circle of white jade lay on a panel of black velvet. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ he asked, looking down upon it. ‘I think it comes from the Warring States period, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘It looks it, especially with that animal motif.’
He smiled with real delight. ‘That was exactly what convinced me, Dottoressa.’ He looked down at the pendant again and then up at Brett. ‘You can’t imagine how gratifying it is for an amateur to have his judgement confirmed by an expert.’
She was hardly an expert on artifacts that went back to the Neolithic age, but she thought it best not to protest. ‘You could have had your opinion confirmed. All you’d have to do is take it to a dealer or to the Oriental department in any museum.’
‘Yes, certainly,’ he said absently. ‘But I’d prefer not to have to do that.’
He moved away from her, down towards the other end of the room, where he stopped in front of one of the niches in the wall. From it he took a long inlaid piece of metal, intricately worked in gold and silver. ‘I usually don’t have much interest in metals,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t resist this piece when I saw it.’ He held it out for her and smiled when she took it and turned it over to study both sides.
‘Is it a belt hook?’ she asked when she saw the pea-sized catch at one end. The rest was as long as her hand, flat and thin as a blade. A blade.
He smiled in real delight. ‘Oh, very good. Yes, I’m sure that’s what it is. There’s one at the Metropolitan in
