twisted towers, with the dome of St Peter’s off in the distance floating like a giant balloon against the blue sky.
There are a lot of museums in Rome, but I had no problem deciding which one to visit. The Galleria Concini has a particularly fine collection of jewellery. I had meant to check it out in case my other lead didn’t work, because it struck me as being the sort of place a gang of thieves would find enticing. The Vatican has a more valuable collection of treasures, but a small, private museum like the Concini would be considerably more vulnerable.
I trotted down the Spanish Steps, between the great tubs of flowering azaleas and the gawking tourists. The younger ones were sprawled all over the steps, drinking Cokes and soda. People were hawking cheap jewellery and leather goods, and offering their services as guides. Down at the bottom the charming little fountain was almost hidden by loungers, some of whom, in defiance of authority, were surreptitiously soaking their hot feet. It was all very cheerful and noisy, and it was only by chance that I spotted a face that looked familiar.
After a near stumble, I decided the man wasn’t Bruno, the dog handler. He looked enough like him to be his brother, but so did a lot of other men in the crowd. Bruno was a typical southern Italian – swarthy, stocky, dark haired. The man wasn’t paying any attention to me, and by the time I turned into the Via del Babuino I had lost sight of him. My euphoria had received a slight check, however. The incident had reminded me that I was all the more vulnerable to attack because I knew only a couple of the members of the gang by sight. It was silly to assume that they were all sinister, dark men; a pursuer could be disguised as a housewife, a nun, or a tourist. Just then a tourist did approach me. The poor guy only wanted to know how to find the Colosseum, but I shied like a nervous mare when he thrust his map at me.
The Galleria Concini is near the Pincian Hill. I prefer not to be any more specific about its location, and that isn’t its right name, either. The reason for my reticence will become apparent as I proceed.
I reached it without further incident, as a novelist might say, except for a narrow escape from a Volkswagen as I circumnavigated the Piazza del Popolo. The Galleria was open. Its handsome Renaissance facade was approached by a long flight of curving stairs. My calves, already suffering from the long climb up from the piazza, ached at the very sight of them, but I struggled up and plunged into the cool, dark cave of the entrance hall. The little old lady behind the barred cage told me the library was on the second floor, and extracted five hundred lire from me.
I had to go through several of the exhibition halls to reach the elevator. Only my stern sense of duty kept me moving. The museum had a superb collection of Quattrocento paintings, including a Masaccio polyptych I had admired for years.
The librarian’s frosty eye softened when I showed her my card. At Schmidt’s insistence I had had a batch of them printed up when I started work; they contained my full name and titles, which sound rather impressive in German. The mention of the National Museum gave me free access to the library shelves.
The room was quite handsome. It had been a grand
In my exultation I slammed the book shut. It made more of a noise than that hallowed chamber had heard in years. The little old man at the next table wobbled feebly, like those bottom-heavy toys that sway when you nudge them. For a minute I thought he was going to topple over, flat on his face on the table, a la Hitchcock. You could die in that place and nobody would notice for hours. But finally he stopped swaying, and I made my way back to the desk with exaggerated care.
When I asked if I could see the director, the librarian’s face looked shocked. I think I could have gotten in to see the Pope with far less argument. But finally she consented to telephone, and after a muttered conversation she turned back to me looking even more surprised.
‘You will be received,’ she murmured, in the whisper demanded by that dim vault with its frescoed ceiling and statued niches. I felt as if I ought to genuflect.
The director’s office was another flight up. I was allowed to take the private elevator, which opened directly into an anteroom presided over by a stately-looking man with a beard. I was about to greet him with the humility his exalted position demanded, and then I found out he wasn’t the director after all, only a secretary. He offered me a chair, and I cooled my heels for a good twenty minutes before a buzzer on his desk purred and he beckoned to me. The carved mahogany door behind him was an objet d’art in its own right. He opened it with a bow, and I went in. By then I was slightly annoyed at all the pomp and circumstance: I marched in with my chin in the air, prepared to be very cool and haughty, but the sight of the woman behind the desk took the starch right out of me.
Yes, woman. This is a man’s world, and nowhere in the world is male chauvinism more rampant than in Italy, but I never thought for a moment that this female was a secretary. She would be the boss of any establishment she chose to honour with her presence.
Being something of a female chauvinist myself, I should have warmed to her. Her male secretary was a particularly nice touch. Instead I took an instant dislike to the creature. I was about to say ‘unreasoning dislike,’ but there was good reason for my reaction. She looked at me as if I were a bedbug.
The room was arranged to provide a setting that would awe most visitors. Its high windows, draped in gold swags and festoons, opened onto a terrace so thickly planted with shrubs and flowers that it looked like a descendant of one of the Hanging Gardens. The Persian carpet on the floor was fifty feet long by twenty-five wide – a glorious, time-faded blend of cream and salmon, aquamarine and topaz. The desk should have been in the museum downstairs, and the paintings on the walls were the greatest of the great masters.
But the woman didn’t need that setting. She would have been impressive in a soup kitchen. Her black hair surely owed something to art, for the lines in her face betrayed the decades – at least four of them, if I was any judge. She had one of those splendid profiles you see on Roman coins, and I got a good look at it, because her head was turned sideways when I came in. She was looking out the window.
The secretary’s discreet murmur made several things clearer. It was loaded with long, hissing feminine endings. ‘Principessa, Direttoressa . . .’ and then the name. What else? The last of the Concinis was still hanging on in the family mansion.
She meant to make me feel like a great overgrown clod from some barbarian country, and she succeeded. I went clumping across the floor – my feet looked and sounded like size fourteens – hating that Roman profile more every second. I reached the desk and looked in vain for a chair. She gave me thirty seconds – I counted them to myself – and then turned, very slowly. A faint smile curved her full lips. It was a closed smile, with no teeth showing, and I was reminded of the enigmatic smiles of early Greek and Etruscan statues – an expression that some critics find more sinister than gracious.
‘Doctor Bliss? It is a pleasure to welcome a young colleague. Your superior, Herr Professor Schmidt, is an old acquaintance. I hope he is well?’
‘Crazy as ever,’ I said.
I hate being tall. I had a feeling she knew that, and was deliberately forcing me to stand and tower over her. So I looked around for a chair. I spotted a delicate eighteenth-century example, with priceless needlepoint on the seat, yanked it into position beside the desk, and sat down.
She stared at me for a moment. Then her lips parted and she laughed. It was a charming laugh, low pitched like her speaking voice, but vibrant with genuine amusement.
‘It
I was disarmed, I admit. She had accepted my response to her challenge like a lady.
‘I wouldn’t take up your time with a purely social call, pleasant though it is,’ I said. ‘I have a rather peculiar story to tell you, Principessa – ’
‘But we are colleagues – you must call me Bianca. And you are . . . ?’
‘Vicky. Thank you . . . This is going to sound as crazy as Professor Schmidt, Prin–– Bianca. But it’s the honest truth.’
I told her the whole story – almost the whole story. She listened intently, her chin propped on one slender ringed hand, her black eyes never leaving my face. The eyes began to sparkle before I had gotten well under way, and when I had finished, her lips were twitching with amusement.
