Street of the Five Moons (14 page)

Helena woke up and started screaming again. The pounding on the door continued. Doors opened upstairs. I thought of slapping Helena — and a tempting thought it was, too — but decided I had better get some help first. So I went to the door. It took me a while to get it open, but finally I admitted a man in a chauffeur’s uniform — not the same man who had driven us out to the villa originally, someone else. He shied back when he saw me, rolling his eyes.

“
Avanti, avanti
,” I said, somewhat impatiently. I am not accustomed to having men recoil when they look at me. “The signorina has fainted — no, I guess she hasn’t, she’s just hysterical. Help me with her.”

Her screams had subsided into loud gulping sobs. I looked up. The stair railing was fringed with staring faces, most of them female. The maids, who slept on the top floor, had been awakened by the hubbub. Then two male figures pushed bravely through the throng and came down the stairs.

Luigi had pulled on a pair of jeans. His feet and his beautiful torso were bare. Smythe was still wearing evening trousers and white shirt.

The suitcases and Helena’s huddled form told their own story. It wasn’t until Luigi’s inimical eye fell on me that I realized my own position was somewhat ambiguous.

If those suitcases were filled with loot, as I suspected they were, then I was an accessory after the fact to grand theft. It behooved me to get them back upstairs unopened, and make sure Pietro’s possessions were restored to him.

“We met the ghost,” I said, in a lame effort to distract attention from the bulging bags.

“You don’t say so,” Smythe said. “Did it fit the description?”

“The description didn’t do it justice,” I said. “Let’s get Helena back to bed.”

“And what was she doing creeping out of the house in the middle of the night?” Luigi demanded. “No, don’t answer. It is only too obvious. Antonio, what do you mean, helping this woman to run away?”

The chauffeur burst into an animated
apologia
, his hands flying. His excuse was reasonable; he had never been told he was not to obey Helena’s orders. But Luigi’s frown seemed to intimidate him. He was practically groveling when the boy cut him off with a curt, “
Basta
. Go back to your house.”

“It must be nice to be one of the upper classes in a region where feudal loyalties still linger,” Smythe murmured. “Our peasants are too damn liberated.”

He smiled affably at me, and I smiled back. His attempt to divert my attention hadn’t worked. Even if Luigi had not used the man’s name, I would have recognized his voice. He was one of my kidnappers.

That wasn’t the only thing I learned from the evening’s adventure. The servants hauled Helena and her suitcases back to her room and Luigi stamped off, radiating aristocratic hauteur. I returned to my own room, leaving Smythe standing alone in the hall.

There was no lock on my door. I shoved a chair under the knob and then bolted the doors giving onto the balcony. It would be a little stuffy for sleeping, but I preferred it that way.

I didn’t know who had played the spectral monk. It could have been anybody. Smythe, Luigi, Pietro — if he was faking his drunken stupor — or the dowager — if she was pretending to be more crippled than she really was. The elderly masterminds in mystery stories often do that — pretend to be paralyzed so they will have an alibi. Or it could have been one of the servants. I was inclined toward Smythe, partly because he had that kind of sense of humor, and partly because it had taken him a little too long to get downstairs after Helena started screaming. Luigi had had to find his pants — he probably slept in the buff — but Smythe had been fully dressed, and therefore awake. However, Smythe was a cautious soul, not the sort of man to rush headlong into danger without reinforcements.

The important thing about the ghost was that I had recognized, not its animator, but its face. Those stylized bones and sculptured cheekbones were unmistakable.

I was reminded of something my father had said once, when in my younger and more supercilious days I had complained that my college courses weren’t relevant to modern life. “Relevant?” he had bellowed, with the snort he used when he was particularly exasperated. “How the hell do you know what is going to be relevant?” He was right — though I would probably never tell him so. An art history course should be just about as esoteric and unrelated to the stresses of modern life as anything could be, but it had already proved useful to me in several life-and-death situations. This evening it had helped again.

The skull face was Aztec — a mask like the ones worn by priests of that macabre theology, in which skulls, skeletons, and flayed human skins played a large part. The Aztecs made skulls out of all sorts of material; sometimes they covered real bone with shell and turquoise mosaic. In a museum in London there was a small crystal skull carved by a long-dead master. The one I had seen tonight had been modeled on that one, though it was much larger and I was willing to bet it wasn’t made of rock crystal. It was one of the little old goldsmith’s creations, and a super job. Somehow I felt sure that the workshop where that skull had been made wasn’t far away.

Seven

FIRST THING NEXT MORNING I WENT TO HELENA’S room. She had insisted that one of the maids sit up with her, and the poor girl was glad to be relieved. I started investigating the suitcases. Helena woke up while I was doing it.

“Shut up,” I said, when she complained. “Do you want the police after you? Pietro might let you get away with the brooch, but he won’t stand for this.” I held up a T’ang figurine of a horse, which she had lifted from the drawing room. I wondered how she had known its value.

“I was angry,” she muttered. “Do you blame me?”

“Not for being angry. I do blame you for being stupid. For God’s sake, no wonder this suitcase was so heavy!”

The weight had come from a solid silver candelabrum, almost three feet high.

I stood up, dusting my hands ostentatiously.

“You put this stuff back,” I ordered. “If you still want to leave, I’ll help you. But you can’t take all this along.”

She hadn’t removed her makeup the night before. It looked awful in the cold light of day, all smeared and streaked by the bedclothes. She blinked sticky lashes at me.

“I am staying. He cannot cast me off.”

“Aren’t you afraid of the ghost?” I inquired.

“You are not.”

“No, but I wish I knew who…” Helena had pulled the sheet up to her chin, but there was a gleam in those shallow dark eyes of hers that made me demand, “Helena, do you know who it was?”

“No.”

“And if you did, you wouldn’t tell me. That’s what I get for trying to be nice. Get up out of that bed and put your loot back, or I’ll tell Pietro myself.”

When I got down to the breakfast room I was surprised to see Pietro seated at the table gobbling eggs. He greeted me with a cry of pleasure.

“You’re up early,” I said.

Pietro handed his empty plate to the footman, who refilled it, and looked inquiringly at me.

“
Caffé
,” I said. “Just coffee, please.”

“I have much to do today,” Pietro explained. “We were so early to bed last night….”

He hesitated, looking warily at me.

“You weren’t feeling well,” I said. “I hope you are better this morning.”

“My old war wound,” Pietro said, sighing.

I wondered how much he remembered of what had happened the previous night. I didn’t wonder about the war wound; it was as apocryphal as a lot of other things about my charming host.

“Your wound must be a sore trial to you,” I said, watching with awe as Pietro devoured his ham and eggs and then accepted a bowl of cereal. He was international in his food tastes — Italian dinners, English breakfasts. In that way he got the absolute maximum of calories.

“Yes, I must keep up my strength,” said Pietro. “I have business today — business and pleasure. My old friend, the Principessa Concini, comes today. She will stay to dine, but first we have business to transact. A publication she is preparing, about my collections. Perhaps you will be able to advise us.”

“I will be honored.”

“Sir John will also help. That is why he is here, to assist in arranging the collections.”

“How long have you known Sir John?” I asked casually.

“Not long. But he comes most highly recommended. However…” Pietro put down the sausage he had been munching and looked at me soberly. “However, I do not completely trust him.”

“Why?” I asked, breathlessly.

“No, I do not trust him. You are a young lady guest in my house; I feel I must warn you.”

“Please do.”

Pietro leaned toward me and lowered his voice.

“I fear he is not altogether honorable in his dealings with women.”

“Oh,” I said, deflated.

“Yes,” Pietro nodded portentously. “Yes, I have reasons to suspect this. A man of my experience… Be on your guard, my dear Vicky. Not that you would be susceptible. I cannot imagine that any women would find him attractive, but my observation tells me otherwise.”

The door behind Pietro opened noiselessly. I caught a glimpse of blond hair, at a level that strongly suggested the owner was bending over with his ear to the door.

“Oh, Mr. Smythe has a certain crude charm,” I said. “Some unsophisticated women, with no taste and limited experience, might be temporarily attracted to him.”

The door closed rather sharply. Pietro turned his head.

“What was that?”

“Nothing important,” I said. I pushed my coffee cup away and stood up. “I think I’ll go for a walk. Your gardens are so beautiful.”

“You should see them at night, when they are illuminated. They are bright as day. We will have the illumination tonight, perhaps.”

“That would be nice.”

“Yes, we will stroll among the blossoms and the gentle fountains in the summer night,” said Pietro, looking as soulful as a little fat man can look. “Wait for your walk until then, when I can accompany you and point out beauties in hidden corners that you might otherwise miss.”

“I’ll just take a short stroll now,” I said. “It won’t spoil the beauties you can point out to me, I’m sure.”

I left him wheezing with amusement at my sly wit.

Smythe joined me as I walked across the terrace.

“Beautiful day,” he said. “Mind if I join you?”

“Oh, are you my watchdog today?” I inquired. “Yes, I do mind. Lurking in the shrubbery suits you better.”

Smythe fell into step with me.

“Of course you
could
run,” he said. “Then I would run after you. We’d look pretty silly, wouldn’t we, pelting along the cypress avenues?”

We walked on in a silence that I hoped was repressive. It didn’t repress Smythe for long.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Oh, everywhere… anywhere. I haven’t explored half the grounds yet.”

“You won’t find it.”

“What?”

“Whatever it is you are looking for.”

“What do you want to bet?” I inquired.

We entered the courtyard next to the garage. The Rolls was out, being washed by two men with hoses and buckets. One of them was Bruno.

I hadn’t realized how big he was. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, baring arms like muscled tree trunks. He looked up and saw me and his heavy brows drew together in a scowl. He went on rubbing the fender of the car with a sponge.

“If Bruno was what you were looking for, I don’t admire your taste,” said Smythe, taking my arm and turning me away.

“I was just confirming a theory.”

“It can’t be much of a theory. The count has a financial interest in the antique shop, as you may have surmised. When I had the good fortune to meet you, I was checking the books.”

“And Bruno was helping you. I suppose he has a degree in accounting.”

“He was in charge of the dog,” Smythe said.

We had entered a kitchen garden, with neat rows of cabbages and feathery sprouts of carrots.

“That reminds me of a bone I have to pick with you,” I said. “What have you done with Caesar?”

“I haven’t done anything with him. I assure you, he is living off the fat of the land. We had to give up using him at the antique shop. He turned out to be rather a poor watchdog.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. He’s quite a remarkable animal, though. He has learned to open tins, not with his teeth, but with a tin opener. He developed a regrettable passion for foie gras, and sulked when we offered him ordinary dog food.”

“I’d like to see him.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“Yes, I—” I stopped, before the discussion could degenerate into one of those childish exchanges Smythe seemed to enjoy. We were still in the service area, so, obeying a wild impulse of the sort that often seized me when I was with Smythe, I threw back my head and shouted, “Caesar? Caesar, where are you, old dog?
Cave canem
, Caesar.”

There was a moment of silence, then a furious outburst of barking. Giving Smythe a triumphant glance, I followed the sound through the kitchen garden, into a courtyard filled with trash cans and empty crates, under an archway. Caesar never let up barking, and I encouraged him with an occasional hail. When he saw me he reared up on his haunches and his barks rose to a pitch of ecstasy. His lunges dragged the dog house to which he was tied a good six feet.

I squatted down beside him. He looked better than he had when I first saw him. His ribs weren’t so prominent. The dog house was not elegant, but it was adequate, and his chain gave him ample room to roam. His water dish was full.

“What a touching sight,” said Smythe, looking down his nose at the pair of us.

“I always say you can’t trust a man who doesn’t like dogs,” I remarked, pulling Caesar’s ears.

“I prefer cats myself.”

“You’re trying to mislead me. Cat people have a lot of good qualities, usually.”

Caesar settled down with his head on my lap and his mouth hanging open in canine rapture. I scratched his neck and looked around.

Caesar’s yard was a grassy plot, roughly mowed and enclosed by high brick walls. Against the far wall was a small building. It hadn’t been painted in fifty years, but I observed that the structure was quite solid. The door was heavy and the windows were tightly shuttered.