The Bernini Bust (9 page)

A couple of hours earlier and Flavia would have been capable of a most impressive speech, outlining the need for consideration in international endeavours and concluding with an impressive paean of praise to the continuing value of simple courtesy in human relations. But she was too tired to manage, so she simply said, not at all, not to worry, think nothing of it.

“I would have rung,” he went on. “Should have, in fact. Sorry. But you just can’t believe what’s going on here. Talk about a circus. I’ve never seen so many cameras and reporters. Not even at a super bowl. Then there was that English guy nearly killing himself…’

“What?” she said, suddenly alert. “What English guy?”

“Man called Jonathan Argyll. The one who put me on to your Bottando. Do you know him? He rented this ancient car, went out and crashed it. Comes of renting rubbish. They save money on the servicing costs, you know. That’s how they keep the prices down. I reckon…’

“What happened?”

“Eh? Oh, simple enough. Straight through a light and into a designer clothes shop. He made a real mess…’

“But how is he?” she cried, noticing that her heart was thumping wildly as she tried to interrupt his flow of inconsequentialities. “Is he all right?”

“Oh, sure. He’ll be fine. Cut up a bit. Bruised. Broken leg. I talked to the hospital. Doctor says he’s sleeping like a baby.”

“But what happened?”

“I’ve no idea. Nearly got run over last night as well. Seems a little accident-prone.”

Flavia agreed. He was just the sort of person who’d drive into a shop selling designer clothes, or get run over, or fall into a canal, or something similar. He did it all the time. She got the number of the hospital from Morelli and rang off. Then sat and looked at the phone for half an hour, contemplating the degree to which the news of his mishap had alarmed her, and the relief she’d felt when Morelli had said he’d survive.

And it was all his own fault, as well. That, at least, was predictable.

Chapter Five

Argyll’s car accident may not have come as a surprise to Flavia but it did to Argyll. Like most people, his vision of himself differed markedly from that of others. While Flavia, in a good mood, saw an amiable soul prone to tripping over his shoelaces, he preferred a slightly suaver, more sophisticated image in which the occasional mishap was the exception rather than the rule. He was always rather hurt and surprised when she had an attack of the giggles every time - on the rare occasions, that is - he walked into a traffic bollard.

Until the accident took place, he’d had a rather good day, even though his lack of sleep made him a little less alert than usual. But his insomnia did at least lead to his meeting Detective Morelli once more. When the American turned up early the next morning and banged on the door of the room next to his, Argyll was already awake and functioning.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, sticking his head round the door. “I thought it might have been Hector. I was meant to be having breakfast with him. I’m dying to find out what he’s been up to.”

“You don’t say. I reckon quite a lot of people feel the same way.” Morelli looked at the door of di Souza’s room rather like someone hoping it would suddenly open and reveal that the occupant had been there all along. Eventually he gave up, rubbed his eyes and yawned.

“You look awfully tired,” Argyll said sympathetically. “Why don’t you come and have a coffee? It might keep you going for an extra couple of hours.”

Morelli, who’d also missed most of his night’s sleep, although for different reasons, accepted gratefully, thankful for the prospect of sitting down for a while. He could also get some museum gossip, and as he was going to have to talk to Argyll sometime, he might as well combine the two tasks. You never knew when stuff like that would come in handy.

Argyll recounted his evening, up to and including the quality of his cheeseburger and his brush with the hereafter, and Morelli in return gave him a warning about the dangers of jaywalking. Then the Englishman passed on titbits of gossip he had picked up in the very short time he’d been around. Not much use; as far as Argyll had been able to find out, everybody in the museum disliked everybody else. “Are you all right? You look in pain,” he broke off and looked at Morelli with concern.

Morelli stopped rubbing his gum for a moment and looked up. “Gingivitis,” he explained.

“What?”

“Gum. Inflamed.”

“Ooh, nasty,” Argyll said sympathetically. He considered himself something of an expert in this field, having spent much of his life sitting in a chair having dentists peering into his mouth and shaking their heads in distress.

“Cloves,” he added.

“Eh?”

“Cloves. And brandy. You make a solution and rub it on the gum. Very effective. My mother’s recipe.”

“Does it work?”

“I’ve no idea. But the brandy tastes nice.”

“I don’t have any cloves on me,” Morelli said regretfully, patting his pockets just to make sure.

“Don’t worry, leave it to me,” Argyll said brightly. “You just drink your coffee. I’ll be back in a minute.”

About ten minutes, in fact. He went down to the lobby and then realised that, no matter how devoted to the ideals of old-world service American hotels might be, the chances of them keeping a stock of cloves handy were small.

But then Argyll recalled that Hector di Souza was notorious throughout central Italy for being almost a professional-level hypochondriac. Argyll had never heard him complaining about gums before, but that proved nothing. On top of that, there was no one behind the desk, the key to Hector’s room was dangling invitingly on its little hook…

He returned to his room to find Morelli making free with his telephone. Did he have any idea how much extra hotels charged for calls?

“Did you search Hector di Souza’s room?” he asked in a tone which had a decidedly critical edge.

“I didn’t, no. But I sent some people over to pick him up, and I’m sure they had a look around. They wouldn’t have searched it, though. We’ll do that later. Why?”

“That room’s an awful mess. It looks as though a bomb has hit it.”

Morelli was not impressed. “How do you know?” he asked.

Argyll explained the reasoning which had led him to di Souza’s portable medicine cabinet.

Morelli went slightly pale. “You broke into a suspect’s room?” he said aghast, thinking of all manner of unpleasant consequences.

“Certainly not,” he said robustly. “I used a key. I took it from the desk. There was no one there, and I couldn’t think anybody would object. Anyway, the point is…’

Morelli held up his hands and shut his eyes. “Please,” he protested with real anguish in his tone. “Don’t say any more. That’s probably a felony. More importantly, if there is any useful evidence there, you’ve just compromised it. Can you imagine what a defence lawyer would make…’

Argyll looked gravely offended. “I was only trying to help,” he interrupted. “But judging by the mess your people made, I don’t imagine anyone will find anything. They disturbed it far more than I did.”

“What are you talking about? They barely touched it,” said Morelli firmly. “Whatever the state of di Souza’s room, it’s the way he left it. Now, give me that gum ointment.”

Argyll handed it over and watched as the detective gingerly applied it.

“I don’t think so, somehow,” Argyll ventured after Morelli had stopped grimacing at the foul taste. “The thing about Hector is that he is, shall we say, an aesthete.”

“Eh?”

“Fastidious. Punctiliously, even fanatically, neat, tidy and proper. Obsessed with appearances. The sight of a crooked tie or speck of dust makes him feel faint. I once had dinner with him in a restaurant and he was served coffee in a cracked cup. He had to retire to bed to recover, and spent an hour gargling with antiseptic in case he’d picked up any germs.”

“So?”

“So, Hector does not make his room untidy. He even makes h own bed in the morning because he doesn’t trust chambermaids
t
get the folds straight.”

Morelli turned pale as horrified realisation dawned. “You broke into the wrong room,” he stated flatly.

“Of course I didn’t. What I am trying to say is either that
y
people made a right mess, or someone else did. Or, I supp. Hector left so fast that he made the place untidy. If so, he must h been in a very great hurry indeed.”

“Personally, I’d go for the last option,” Morelli replied. “Seeing that I’ve just been told he was on the 2:00 a.m. flight back to Italy. That’s what they were telling me on the phone. Why else do you think I’m still sitting here rather than running around looking for him?”

An idea crossed his mind and he glanced at his watch and calculated furiously. “Damn,” he concluded. “Won’t be enough time to pick him up at the other end.”

Argyll was not impressed by this, having had recent and all too memorable experience of the length of time it takes to fly between Rome and Los Angeles. Weeks, as far as he could remember. He pointed out that there was at least six hours. All they had to do was get someone to trot down to the airport…

It was not, Morelli assured him, like that at all. There were procedures. Quite apart from the business of getting hold of extradition orders.

“But why do you want an extradition order, anyway? Obviously you want to talk to him, but this is going a bit far.”

Morelli gazed at him. “Why do you think we want one? I want to arrest him for murder, of course. I would have thought that was obvious.”

Argyll considered this carefully, then shook his head. “Hector wouldn’t kill anyone. Not by shooting them at close range, anyway. Might get blood on his jacket. I see him more of a poison man. Not that he’s the murdering sort, really; certainly not clients.”

Morelli didn’t find this line of argument at all convincing. “I’m sorry, and I know he’s your friend, or colleague, or something, but we want him. The evidence so far is pretty convincing.”

“And that is?” Argyll asked.

“One, he was angry during the party about that bust; two, the bust was later stolen; three, he went off with Moresby moments before the murder; four, he was the only person with Moresby at the time; five, he immediately tried to leave the country. To me — and remember I’m only a homicide man with fifteen years’ experience - it looks suspicious. Not that it’s any of your business.”

It wasn’t, of course, except indirectly, and Argyll was beginning to get the glimmerings of an idea. On the whole he disliked crime: but occasional brushes with it always seemed to involve, at some age, police mentally measuring his wrists and wondering how a nice pair of handcuffs would look dangling around them. Similarly, as long as he got his cheque for the Titian, he didn’t really care two hoots about Moresby, or Hector di Souza, or stolen Berninis.

His main aim, in fact, was to sort out his fragmenting friendship with Flavia, whose hostile tone in the middle of the night had upset him enormously.

And perhaps this overworked and frowzy homicide man sitting in front of him provided an opportunity. Flavia was avoiding him like the plague. She was going to have to be forced into contact, whereupon she could be made to see the error of her ways, or at least he could find out what was upsetting her so much.

Simple. So he made the suggestion that led to Flavia wasting her evening at Fiumicino and recommended an informal approach to the Roman art squad, which would be much faster and more cooperative if Morelli promised to pass on any information about the odd Bernini that might come into view. Phone General Bottando and say that he, Jonathan Argyll, had suggested it.

Morelli considered the suggestion. There would, certainly, be advantages, like the possibility of actually catching di Souza. Going by officially prescribed procedures would be hopeless.

“What’s his name?” he asked.

“Bottando,” Argyll said, looking up the phone number in his book. “It would be a good idea to play up the importance of this bust. If it was smuggled out of Italy - and it probably was - he’ll love to help.”

“We don’t know it was.”

“All the more reason for him to find out.”

Morelli nodded. It was quite a good idea.

“Somebody else other than di Souza could have stolen it, of course,” Argyll went on. “After all, there are other reasons for stealing busts. It would be a pity to neglect them.”

Morelli, who was in essence a simple soul and certainly prepared for the extremes of deviousness that come as second’-nature to the true scholar, could think of no others. Argyll listed them one by one.

“First, for the insurance, although Thanet reckons it wasn’t insured. Second, for ransom. Wait for the demands. If a large hunk of marble ear comes through the post, with a promise that a no-will follow in due course, you know where you are. Third possibility, to stop people looking at it too carefully.”

“Why?”

“Fakes.”

Morelli snorted. He was a man with little time for idle speculation, and pointed out that this was all it was.

“It’s not idle. It’s scene setting. The product of years of experience in the nether world of art connoisseurship. Just trying to help.”

“Gives no practical help, though. Phoning this Bottando character might, and for that idea, my thanks. Then I suppose I’d better go and get on with my work. Have to talk to the press, as well. Like flies round a honey pot already.”

“Good idea,” Argyll said. “And I shall go off and visit people as well.”

Morelli looked uncertain again. “Don’t you do anything of the sort,” he said. “You’ve made your contribution. Now keep out of it.”

“Surely I don’t need authorisation from you to pay a visit of condolence to a grieving son who invited me to stop by for a drink? Do I need police permission to see Thanet to finalise details about the sale of his picture?”

Morelli agreed, with great reluctance, that such bureaucracy was unnecessary. But repeated that he thought Argyll would be better occupied trading pictures, or whatever he did for a living.

Being naive in such matters, Argyll had imagined that he would get around Los Angeles by public transport. For him trains were the height of civilisation, and by far his preferred means of transport. Failing that, a bus would do. Both, however, were notable for their absence. Buses were in almost as short supply as pedestrians. Trains seemed to be as extinct as the brontosaurus. So, after an enquiry, nervous indecision and much research to find something inexpensive, he had hired a car. The rental place was full of old, rusting machines that looked as though merely in one piece was as much as they could manage.The selection was not great, but, as the salesman - he shook Argyll warmly by the hand and introduced himself as Chuck, by which name Johnny was to call him on all occasions - pointed out, the services weren’t so big either. Argyll hated being called Johnny.