“Just give me the same treatment you’d accord any humble seeker after facts,” I said loftily. “After all, the public is the owner of the Institute; surely it should receive the fullest attention of the staff whose bread and vino are provided by the public’s largesse…”
That got to him. He made gobbling sounds, hurried away, came back wheezing under a volume that was the twin to the municipal register, slammed it down on the counter, blew a cloud of dust in my face, and lifted the cover.
“Maxoni, you said, sir. 1871… 1871…” he paused, popped his eyes at me. “That wouldn’t be the Maxoni?” His natural suspicious look was coming back.
“Ahhh…” a variety of sudden emotions were jostling each other for space on my face. “The Maxoni?” I prompted.
“Giulio Maxoni, the celebrated inventor,” he snapped. He turned and waved a hand at a framed deguerrotype, one of a long, sombre row lining the room. “Inventor of the Maxoni churn, the Maxoni telegraph key, the Maxoni Improved Galvanic Buggy Whip—it was that which made his fortune, of course—”
I smiled complacently, like an inspector who has failed to find an error in the voucher files. “Very good. I see you’re on your toes here at the Institute. I’ll just have a look at the record, and then…” I let it trail off as Smiley spun the book around, pointed out a line with a chewed fingernail.
“Here it is, right here. His original registration in the College of Electrics. He was just a lad from a poor farming community then. It was here at the Institute that he got his start. We were one of the first, of course, to offer lectures in electrics. The Institute was one of the sponsors of the Telegraphic Conference, later in that same year…” He rattled on with the sales pitch that had undoubtedly influenced many an old alumnus or would-be patron of the sciences to fork over that extra bundle, while I read the brief entry. The address in the Via Carlotti was given, the fact that Maxoni was twenty-four, a Catholic, and single. Not much help there…
“Is there any record,” I inquired, “as to where he lived—after he made his pile?”
The little man stiffened. “Made his pile, sir? I fear I do not understand…”
“Made his great contribution to human culture, I mean,” I amended. “Surely he didn’t stay on at the Via Carlotti very long.”
A sad smile twitched at one corner of the registrar’s tight mouth.
“Surely the gentleman jests? The location on the Museum is, I think, well known—even to tourists.”
“What museum?”
The gnome spread his hands in a gesture as Roman as grated cheese.
“What other than the museum housed in the former home and laboratory of Giulio Maxoni? The shrine wherein are housed the relics of his illustrious career.”
Beside me, Olivia was watching the man’s face, wondering what we were talking about. “Pay dirt,” I said to her. Then:
“You don’t have the address of this museum handy, by any chance?
This netted me a superior smile. A skinny finger pointed at the wall beside him.
“Number twenty-eight, Strada d’Allenzo. One square east. Any child could direct you.”
“We’re in business, girl,” I said to Olivia.
“Ah… what was the name of the paper you… ah… claim to represent?” the little man’s voice was a nice mixture of servility and veiled insolence. He was dying to be insulting, but wasn’t quite sure it was safe.
“We’re with the Temperance League,” I said, and sniffed loudly. “The Maxoni questions were just a dodge, of course. We’re doing a piece entitled: ‘Drinking on Duty, and What it Costs the Taxpayer.’ “
He was still standing in the same position, goggling after us, when we stepped out into the bright sunshine.
The Maxoni house was a conservative, stone-fronted building that would have done credit to any street in the East Seventies back home. There was a neglected-looking brass plate set above the inner rail beside the glass-paneled door, announcing that the Home and Laboratories of the Renowned Inventor Giulio Maxoni were maintained by voluntary contributions to the Society for the Preservation of Monuments to the Glory of Italy, and were open 9—4, Monday through Saturday, and on Sundays, 1—6 P.M. A card taped to the glass invited me to ring the bell. I did. Time passed. A dim shape moved beyond the glass, bolts rattled, the door creaked open, and a frowzy, sleep-blurred female blinked out.
“It’s closed. Go away,” said the voice like the last whinny of a dying plow horse. I got a foot into the narrowing space between the door and the jamb.
“The sign says—” I started brightly.
“Bugger the sign,” the blurry face wheezed. “Come back tomorrow—”
I put a shoulder against the door, bucked it open, sending the charming receptionist reeling back. She caught her balance, hitched up a sagging bra strap, and raised a hand, fingers spread, palm facing her, opened her mouth to demonstrate what was probably an adequate command of Roman idiom—
“Ah—ah, don’t say it,” I cautioned her. “The Contessa here is unaccustomed to the vigor of modern speech. She’s led a sheltered life, tucked away there in her immense palazzo at Lake Constance…”
“Contessa?” A hideous leer that was probably intended as a simper contorted the sagging face. “Oh, my, if I only would’ve known her Grace was honoring our little shrine with a visit—” She fled.
“A portal guarded by a dragon,” Olivia said. “And the fair knight puts her to rout with but a word.”
“I used a magic spell on her. You’re promoted to Contessa now. Just smile distantly and act aloof.” I looked around the room. It was a standard entry hall, high-ceilinged, cream-colored, with a stained-glass window shedding colored light across a threadbare, once-fine rug, picking up highlights on a marble-topped table in need of dusting, twinkling in the cut-glass pendants of a rather nice Victorian chandelier. A wide, carpeted stairway led up to a sunlit landing with another stained-glass panel. A wide, arched opening to the left gave a view of a heavy table with pots of wax flowers and an open book with a pen and inkpot beside it. There were rows of shelves sagging under rows of dusty books, uncomfortable looking horsehair chairs and sofas, a fireplace with tools under a mantel on which china gimcracks were arranged in an uneven row.
“Looks like Maxoni went in for bourgeois luxury in a large way, once he got onto the buggy-whip boom,” I commented. “I wonder where the lab is?”
Olivia and I wandered around the room, smelling the odor of age and dust and furniture polish. I glanced over a few of the titles on the shelves.
Experiments with Alternating Currents of High Potential and High Frequency by Nikola Tesla caught my eye, and a slim pamphlet by Marconi. Otherwise the collection seemed to consist of good, solid Victorian novels and bound volumes of sermons. No help here.
The dragon came back, looking grotesque in a housecoat of electric green—a tribute to Maxoni’s field of research, no doubt. A layer of caked-looking makeup had been hastily slapped across her face, and a rose-bud mouth drawn on by a shaky hand. She laced her fingers together, did a curtsey like a trained elephant, gushed at Olivia, who inclined her head an eighth of an inch and showed a frosty smile. This example of aristocratic snobbishness delighted the old girl; she beamed so hard I thought the makeup was going to crack like plaster in an earthquake. A wave of an economical perfume rolled over me like a dust storm.
“Her Grace wishes to see the laboratories where Maxoni did his great work,” I announced, fanning. “You may show us there at once.”
She shouldered in ahead of me to get a spot nearer the duchess and with much waving of ringed hands and trailing of fringes, conducted us along a narrow hall beside the staircase, through a door into a weedy garden, along a walk to a padlocked shed, chattering away the whole time.