Europeans like privacy. They don’t put up cute little picket fences, they build walls. The principessa’s house was a fairly modest modern structure, but the walls were very high. The gate stood invitingly open, however, and I walked along the graveled path between beds of flowers up to the front door.
Before I could search for a bell or a knocker, the door was opened by the principessa herself.
The rays of the declining sun cut straight across the garden, so that she stood pilloried against the darkness of the hall as if by a searchlight. She was wearing a long silky robe of brilliant scarlet. It was belted tightly at the waist and clung to her hips and breasts like plastic wrap. The light was not flattering to her face. I saw sagging muscles and wrinkles I had not noticed before.
‘Oh,’ I said, startled. ‘Did – I guess your secretary must have told you I was commg.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry to bother you. I wouldn’t have come if it hadn’t been an emergency.’
‘That is quite all right. Do come in.’
She stepped back, with a welcoming gesture. The hall inside was dusky, all the shades drawn against the heat of the day. Suddenly I was so tired my knees buckled. I caught at the door frame.
‘Poor child,’ she said warmly. ‘Something has happened. Come in and tell me about it.’
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 salone was a long room with a fireplace on one wall and a series of windows looking out upon a green garden. I collapsed into the nearest chair, and Bianca went to a table. Ice tinkled.
‘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 did you come?’
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.
Chapter Twelve
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?’