She put out her hand to help me. It closed over my arm with a strength I would not have suspected, and drew me in. The door closed, and we were in semi-darkness.
‘This way,’ she said, and preceded me along the hall, past several doors that were closed or slightly ajar. She opened a door at the end of the hall. Sunlight flooded into the dark.
The
‘You need a stimulant,’ she said, handing me a glass.
‘Thank you,’ I took the glass, but I was literally too bushed to raise it to my lips.
‘Now tell me.’
‘I don’t know where to start,’ I mumbled. ‘There’s so much to tell you . . . And I’ve got to tell it right, you have to believe me. They have him. They’ll kill him, if we don’t stop them.’
‘Him?’ Her arched brows lifted. ‘Ah, yes. Your lover.’
‘He’s not my lover,’ I said stupidly. ‘We never – I mean, there wasn’t time!’
‘No? What a pity. I assure you, you have missed a unique experience.’
Her lips tilted up at the corners . . . The Dragon Lady, the primitive goddess smiling her strange archaic smile.
All at once my exhaustion and confusion vanished. I was wide awake, enjoying a kind of mental second wind. It was a pity it hadn’t happened just a few minutes earlier.
She was a canny lady. She saw my face change, and her smile stiffened.
‘Ah, so you know. How, I wonder?’
‘I should have known a long time ago,’ I said disgustedly. ‘I kept telling myself to sit still, stop rushing around, think . . . I did figure most of it out. But I ignored one signal. I should have stopped to think it through all the way.’ I raised the glass to my lips, then did a silly double take and put it carefully down on the table. She found my caution amusing.
‘I haven’t tried to drug you.’ She smiled. ‘Tell me how you knew.’
‘It was the apartment,’ I explained. ‘John said he had never taken Helena there, and there was no reason for him to lie about it. He made no bones about the fact that . . . But somebody knew about the place. If he didn’t take Helena there, he might have taken some other – let’s say “lady,” shall we, just for laughs?’
‘But why me?’ she asked smiling. ‘I don’t imagine I am the only – do let us say “lady” – whom Sir John has distinguished with his attentions.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ I said irritably. ‘He may be the greatest lover since Casanova, but there are only twenty-four hours in a day. He’s been in Rome for less that a week, and he has had other things to do. You and Helena – how many others could he work into his schedule? Besides, you fill a great gap in my speculations, Bianca. I wondered who the mastermind could be; you are the only person I know who is smart enough and selfish enough to organize this swindle. It had to be someone in Rome, someone close enough to the Caravaggios to know about Luigi’s talent. Besides, it isn’t fair to have a villain whom the reader doesn’t meet till the very end. What have you done with John?’
‘He is here.’ The amusement had left her face. She studied me curiously. ‘We had thought of using him as a hostage to ensure your silence. Who would have supposed you would be foolish enough to come of your own free will? Why in God’s name
I thought I knew the answer to that one, but it was too complicated to explain. My good old useful unconscious mind had been working again, supplying the missing answers, but working as it was against a superstructure of solid stupidity, it had only succeeded in conveying a partial message. I had thought of Bianca, but didn’t realize why her name came to my mind. In the future I might do better to stop thinking altogether, and operate on sheer blind instinct. If I had a future . . .
‘You don’t suppose I came here like a lamb to the slaughter without taking precautions,’ I said, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt. ‘Ha, ha. Nobody would be that stupid, my dear principessa. If I don’t walk out of here in five minutes, with John, you will be in trouble.’
She didn’t seem to be listening to me. She was sitting straight and rigid in her chair, her head slightly tilted, as if she heard sounds I couldn’t hear.
‘I said, you had better let us go,’ I repeated. ‘We’ll give you time to make your escape. I bet you have a tidy sum stashed away. You can get halfway around the world in a few hours. You’re a sensible woman, Bianca; you must realize you can’t keep strewing the landscape with dead bodies.’
‘That is true,’ she murmured.
‘Then . . .’
‘I am sorry.’ She shook her head. ‘But I am afraid you don’t understand. You have committed one serious error, my dear.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that I am not the one who decides your fate.’ She leaned forwards, flinging out her thin hands in a gesture that was oddly convincing in spite of its theatrical quality. ‘Oh, yes, I began the scheme. It was mine from the start. Can you believe that a mind of such subtlety, such – forgive my immodesty – such intelligence could commit the unforgivable blunder of destroying that poor little fool of a prostitute? That was stupid, brutal, unnecessary. You must suspect – ’
‘That is enough, Bianca,’ said a voice.
The sea-green draperies near the fireplace billowed and parted. There was a door behind them. Out he stepped, beautiful as a Michelangelo sculpture, holding his little gun. Luigi.
HE LOOKED so young. The sulky frown on his face made him appear like an unhappy child, several years younger than his real age. I couldn’t believe what I had heard. If it hadn’t been for the gun, I wouldn’t have believed what I was seeing.
‘You had better stop calling me stupid,’ he said, glowering at Bianca. ‘That was how she spoke to me. Stupid child, infant, innocent . . . me, the most important of all! Without me you could not have done it. The rest of you can be replaced; but without me, there was no plan! It took me too long to realize that. But now I am in control, I take my rightful place. And none of you will laugh at me again, do you understand?’
She was no coward, I’ll say that for her. She was in greater danger than I was at that moment; he was as unstable as a two-legged table, his adolescent ego smarting and hurting. But she didn’t cower or cringe or try to apologize. She gave me a twisted smile.
‘Like other tyrants, I have been supplanted, you see. A palace coup. Behold the new ruler.’
‘He’s right, of course,’ I said smoothly. ‘Without him, you couldn’t have done it. He’s a genius. You know, Luigi, you could be the greatest jeweller the world has ever seen.’
He liked the first part of that disingenuous speech. His scowl smoothed out as he turned towards me. But at the last sentence he shook his head.
‘Jewellers are artisans, craftsmen. I am an artist. If my father had not tried to crush my talent, this would not have been necessary. I am no stupid craftsman!’
‘Cellini was a maker of jewellery,’ I said. ‘Holbein designed jewels for Henry the Eighth.’
‘That is true,’ he said thoughtfully.
It was like trying to cross rotten ice; a false move, a single wrong word could break through the flimsy rapport that lay between us. He was thinking, too. He wasn’t stupid, that boy, even if he was crazy.
‘What was it you said to her just now?’ he demanded. ‘About letting you go away from here? You have laid a trap. What is it?’
I hesitated. His eyes narrowed and his finger tightened on the trigger of the gun.
‘I didn’t understand,’ I said quickly. ‘I didn’t realize you were involved, Luigi – not like this. I don’t want to get you in trouble.’
‘Wait,’ he said, as if to himself. ‘Let me think a moment. You have some scheme . . . Ah! The telephone calls you made. My father told me, it was to some man in Munich. That is your plan, is it not? If you don’t telephone this
