Outside the bar, parked near the steps where the old man still sat in the shade, was a bright blue Mercedes coupe with an open sunroof.
Lipsey stood looking at it, wondering what to do about it. It was almost certainly Miss Sleign or her boyfriend, or both—nobody in the village would own such a car, and there was little reason for anyone else to come here. On the other hand, his impression was that neither she nor her boyfriend had a great deal of money—the Paris flat had indicated that much. Still, they might have been slumming.
The only way to find out was to go into the bar. Lipsey could not hang around outside looking casuaclass="underline" in his suit and polished shoes he made an unconvincing village loafer. He mounted the steps and pushed open the door.
The couple were sitting at one of the two tables, drinking what looked like long, iced apéritifs. They wore identical clothes: baggy, faded-blue trousers, and bright red vests. The girl was attractive, but the man was extremely handsome, Lipsey noted. He was a lot older than Lipsey had expected—late thirties, perhaps.
They looked at Lipsey intently, as if they had been expecting him. He gave them a casual nod and walked up to the bar.
″Another beer, sir?″ the young barman asked.
″Please.″
The barman spoke to Miss Sleign. ″This is the gentleman I was telling you about,″ he said.
Lipsey looked around, raising his eyebrows in an expression of amused curiosity.
The girl said: ″Have you got a picture of me in your wallet?″
Lipsey laughed easily. He spoke in English: ″This man thinks all English girls look alike. Actually, you do look a little like my daughter. But it is only a superficial resemblance.″
The boyfriend said: ″May we see the picture?″ He had a deep voice with a North American accent.
″Surely.″ Lipsey took out his wallet and searched through it. ″Ah! It must be in the car.″ He paid the barman for his beer, and said: ″Let me buy you two a drink.″
″Thank you,″ Miss Sleign said. ″Campari, for both of us.″
Lipsey waited for the barman to make the drinks and take them to the table. Then he said: ″It′s odd, meeting another English tourist out here in the wilds. Are you from London?″
″We live in Paris,″ the girl said. She seemed to be the talkative one of the pair.
The boyfriend said: ″It is odd. What are you doing here?″
Lipsey smiled. ″I′m a bit of a loner,″ he said with the air of one who makes something of a confession. ″When I′m on holiday, I like to get right off the beaten track. I just get in the car and follow my nose until I feel like stopping.″
″Where are you staying?″
″In Rimini. What about you—are you wanderers too?″
The girl started to say something, but the man interrupted her. ″We′re on a kind of treasure hunt,″ he said.
Lipsey thanked his stars for the boyfriend′s naivete. ″How fascinating,″ he said. ″What′s at the end of it?″
″A valuable painting, we hope.″
″Is it here, in Poglio?″
″Almost. There′s a chateau five miles up the road.″ He pointed south. ″We think it′s there. We′re going there in a while.″
Lipsey made his smile condescending. ″Well, it makes a holiday exciting—a bit out of the ordinary—even if you never find the treasure.″
″You bet.″
Lipsey drained his beer. ″Personally, I′ve seen enough of Poglio. I′m moving on.″
″Let me buy you another beer.″
″No, thanks. I′m in a car, and there′s a long, thirsty day ahead.″ He stood up. ″A pleasure to meet you. Goodbye.″
The Fiat was terribly hot inside, and Lipsey regretted not having the foresight to park it in the shade. He wound his window down and pulled away, letting the breeze cool him. He felt pleased: the couple had given him a lead, and let him get ahead of them. For the first time since he had started work on the case, he was on top of it.
He drove out on the southward road, in the direction the American had pointed. The road became dusty. He wound up his window and turned on the car′s air conditioning at full blast When it was cool again, he stopped to look at his maps.
The large-scale chart revealed that there was, indeed, a château to the south. It seemed more than five miles away—perhaps ten—but it was still quite conceivable that its postal address would be Poglio. It was slightly off the main road—if main road it could be called—and Lipsey memorized the directions.
The journey took him half an hour, because of the poorness of the roads and the absence of signposts. But when he arrived there was no mistaking the place. It was a big house, built about the same time as the church in Poglio. It had three stories, and there were fairy-tale towers at the corners of the facade. Bits of the stonework were crumbling, and the windows were not clean. A separate stables building had apparently been converted into a garage, and its doors stood open, revealing a gas-driven lawn mower and a very old Citröen station wagon.
Lipsey parked outside the gates and walked up the short drive. Weeds grew in the gravel, and as he got closer to the house it looked more and more dilapidated.
As he stood looking up at the house, a door opened and an elderly woman walked toward him. He wondered what approach to take.
″Good morning,″ she said in Italian.
Her gray hair was neat, she was elegantly dressed, and the bones of her face indicated that she had once been beautiful. Lipsey gave a small bow.
″I beg your pardon for this intrusion,″ he said.
″Don′t apologize.″ She had switched to English. ″How can I help you?″
Lipsey had learned enough about her to decide on his approach. ″I wonder whether one is permitted to look around the outside of this beautiful house.″
″Of course,″ the woman smiled. ″It is pleasant to find someone interested. I am the Contessa di Lanza.″ She extended her hand, and Lipsey shook it, mentally revising his estimate of his chances of success to around 90 percent.
″Dunsford Lipsey, Contessa.″
She led him around to the side of the house. ″It was built in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, when all the land around here was given to the family as a reward for service in some war or other. That was the time Renaissance architecture finally filtered through to the countryside.″
″Ah. Then it was built about the same time as the church in Poglio.″
She nodded in agreement. ″Are you interested in architecture, Mr. Lipsey?″
″I am interested in beauty, Contessa.″
He could see that she was suppressing a smile, and thinking that this stiffly formal Englishman had a certain eccentric charm. That was what he wanted her to think.
She talked to him about the house as if she were retelling a familiar tale, pointing out the place where the masons had run out of the right sort of stone and been forced to change, the new windows added in the eighteenth century, the small nineteenth-century west wing.
″Of course, we no longer own the district, and what land we have retained is rather poor. As you can see, too many repairs have been postponed.″ She turned to face him and gave him a self-deprecating smile. ″Contessas are two-a-penny in Italy, Mr. Lipsey.″
″But not all have a family as old as yours.″
″No. The newer aristocrats are businessmen and industrialists. Their families have not had time to grow soft with living on inherited wealth.″
They had completed the circuit of the house, and now stood in its shadow at the foot of one of the towers. Lipsey said: ″It is possible to grow soft on earned wealth, Contessa. I′m afraid I do not work very hard for my living.″
″May I ask what you do?″
″I have an antique shop in London. It′s on the Cromwell Road—you must visit next time you are in England. I′m rarely there myself.″