Laughter of Dead Kings

THREE

D on’t just sit there, do something,” John gasped. His prisoner was squirming and writhing and directing ineffectual blows at John’s midriff.

“Hit him,” I suggested.

“That would be unkind and unnecessary,” said a fourth party.

He stood in the doorway, pretty nearly filling it. His mustache was even larger than the boy’s. His gun was bigger too.

“Idiota,” he remarked, addressing the boy.

“Scusi, Papa,” said the boy. He kept swinging at John, who had shifted his grip and was holding the kid out at arm’s length. The mustache hung by a thread, or rather, a hair, and the face now visible to my wondering eyes was spotted with pimples.

“Let him go, you big bully,” I said.

“Damn it,” said John.

“Let us compose ourselves,” said the newcomer, in a fruity baritone. “Sir John, I beg you will release my incompetent offspring. Giuseppe, sit down and behave yourself. Signorina, my compliments.”

John dropped Giuseppe and gestured pointedly at the gun the big man held. “The atmosphere of cordiality would be improved if you would put that away, Bernardo, old chap.”

“Certainly. It was only meant to get your attention.”

“It did that,” I said, watching Bernardo stow the gun away in one pocket. He scooped up the weapon his son had dropped, and shoved it into another pocket. They did not improve the hang of his coat.

Bernardo chuckled. “You haven’t taken to carrying a weapon, have you?” he inquired of John.

John took his empty hands out of his own pockets. “How much did you pay Enrico?” he asked.

“You do him a grave injustice. It was not necessary for me to bribe him. Your arrival was noted and reported. Signorina.” He bowed gracefully. “May I offer you a glass of wine?”

“Only if you’re paying for it.”

This sally produced a shout of laughter. “Ah, she is witty as well as beautiful! I get it, as you say in America! Then may I beg that you will offer me a glass?”

I was beginning to like Bernardo. He was about John’s height, and about twice his breadth, especially through the chest and shoulders. He had an outdoorsman’s finely lined skin, eyebrows almost as oversized as his mustache, and a head of black hair so impeccably smooth it looked like a designer toupee. He bared a set of expensively capped teeth, and took a chair opposite me.

At his father’s request, Giuseppe produced another glass and we all settled down round the table. Giuseppe kept rubbing his wrist and shooting malevolent glances at John.

“None for him,” said Bernardo, indicating his son. “He does not deserve any. How true it is, your English saying, that one should never send a boy to do the work of a man. The mustache, as I tried to tell him, was a mistake.”

“Why did you send him, then?” I asked curiously.

“He must learn sometime. To your health, signorina. And to yours, my dear old friend.”

John acknowledged the salute with a sour smile. “What do you want, Bernardo?”

“Simple.” The big man put his empty glass on the table and leaned forward. “I want in on the deal.”

A fter our uninvited guests had taken their leave, John made sure the door was locked. “If you had bothered to close the door while I was subduing the incompetent offspring, Bernardo wouldn’t have got in.”

“He’d have got in one way or another,” I said, lifting covers. “Anyhow, what was the harm? He was very nice. Veal scaloppini? Tomato-and-mozzarella salad? Osso buco?”

“Don’t overdo it, Vicky.”

He wasn’t talking about the food. Abandoning my attempt at positive reinforcement, I went to him and put my arms round his neck. “As Bernardo might say, I do get it, John. He’s heard about—er—Feisal’s bereavement, and if he knows, so do a lot of other people. But he doesn’t know who pulled it off.”

“He thinks I did. What he was offering, in case you missed it, was to act as middleman in helping me dispose of it.”

“It wasn’t so much an offer as a demand,” I mused. “At least we know he wasn’t the one who stole Tut.”

“Splendid,” John said sourly. “We can cross one name off the endless list. I didn’t suppose he was; he’s never been known to operate outside western Europe.”

I couldn’t think offhand of anything positive to say about that. I carried my filled plate to the table.

“Eat something. Your blood sugar is probably low. Good Lord, listen to me. I sound like Schmidt.”

“Don’t mention his name. You might conjure him up, like a helpful elf.”

I looked up. He was watching me, his mouth curved in a smile. “I don’t deserve you,” he said softly.

“I was under the impression that you did.”

“I didn’t do it, Vicky.”

“That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” I put my fork down. “That’s why you’re so nobly intent on tracking down the real thieves. Not for Feisal’s sake, but because you realized you’d be the prime suspect. No wonder! It’s precisely the sort of insane operation you once specialized in. Like the time you tried to build Camelot in the back pasture.”

John wandered over to the cart and busied himself removing covers and shifting plates around. “Jen would be deeply offended to hear you refer to the grounds of our stately manor as a pasture. You are, of course, correct.”

“And the time you tried to pose as an archaeologist so you could dig up a cache of buried treasure and—”

“Make off with the loot,” John said with a reminiscent smile. “You don’t know the half of it, darling. Did I ever tell you about—”

“I don’t want to hear about it. I want to hear about Bernardo. How did he find out?”

“He did rather avoid answering that question, didn’t he?” John joined me on the settee. Bending over, he inspected the underside of the table.

“What are you looking for?” I asked. “Oh my God. Did he put—”

“There was one under the shelf of the cart.” John took it out of his pocket, dropped it onto the floor, and stamped on it. “I was watching his hands, and I don’t think he managed to get another under the table.”

“What about the phone?”

“Bernardo didn’t know we were here until we were. Here, that is to say.”

“He seems like a civilized sort of guy,” I said, trying to look on the bright side. “No threats, no intimidation.”

“Aren’t you forgetting those large guns? Believe me, love, he will turn very uncivilized when he realizes I’m not going to cut him in, for the simple reason that I can’t. At the moment, thanks to my quick thinking and incessant talking, he thinks we are in the first stage of negotiation.”

“How long can you keep it up?” I asked, remembering those large guns.

“Not long enough, I fear.”

“Why don’t you try telling him the truth?”

“Good heavens,” said John, eyes widening. “What a novel idea. Because, you ingenuous young woman, he wouldn’t believe me. For some reason I have great difficulty convincing people of my veracity.”

The night passed without incident. John slept like a log, and as I tossed and turned I remembered another of the quotations he was fond of repeating: “The worse a man is, the more profound his slumber; for if he had a conscience he would not be a villain.” However, I felt a little easier in my mind now that I had (finally!) figured out what was driving him. If he were only going through the motions, pretending to be unwitting, he wouldn’t go to so much trouble.

Or would he? What if this trip had another motive? An excuse to get in touch with one of the other people involved in the theft, perhaps? In order to pass on instructions or receive a progress report? Communication by almost any other means could be intercepted. Hell, our government is listening in on half the world, and if they can do it, anybody can.

“Damn,” I said loudly. John grunted and turned over.

I finally got to sleep. Fifteen minutes later, or so it seemed, I was aroused by John, who was wearing one of his swishiest dressing gowns. “Didn’t you sleep well?” he asked solicitously, offering me a cup of coffee. Room service had come and gone, presumably without firearms.

I growled and snatched the cup. He stood watching me, tapping his foot, until I had finished the first cup and was halfway through the second. “Sorry to rush you,” he said, “but our appointment is at ten. Pop into the shower, why don’t you, and then we’ll have breakfast out.”

He followed me into the bathroom and helpfully adjusted the shower. Having reached a state of relative alertness by then, I expected he would join me. Instead he murmured softly, “We didn’t say anything last night that would put Bernardo on his guard, but from now on watch what you say. In fact, I would prefer that you say nothing except yes and no.”

“What—”

“Just keep quiet and listen. Cram all your vital belongings into that dreadful backpack of yours. Leave everything that is not absolutely essential. We won’t be returning to the hotel after our appointment.”

“Okay.”

Both of John’s eyebrows rose in a look of exaggerated surprise. “No argument? No questions?”

“I’m not exactly stupid, you know.”

“I do know. I’d kiss you if you weren’t so wet.” He handed me a towel and left the room.

We had brief but silent arguments over some of the items I considered essential. I lost most of them. He was right, damn him. Trust is not a conspicuous characteristic of evildoers. Bernardo would assume John had been lying through his teeth and that he would bolt if he got a chance. Finding our personal possessions still in situ might delay him temporarily.

I had hoped to scrounge another cup of coffee, but by the time we got through sorting things and gesticulating at each other, the hour of our appointment was upon us. Conspicuously sans luggage, we left the hotel and strolled to the corner, where John hailed a taxi.

He couldn’t have selected a more conspicuous spot for a rendezvous. The via della Conciliazione runs from Vatican Square to the bridge. It is lined with souvenir shops and cafés and it is always packed with people, tour buses, and taxis, and it echoes with the roaring of engines and the curses of drivers stuck in traffic. The soaring dome of Saint Peter’s rose pearly white against an azure sky, remote and eternal amid the hubbub.

The man we were to meet was waiting for us at a table outside one of the cafés. He wore a black cassock and a black biretta. Being on good terms with God (or his local representative) makes a man healthy and wise, if not wealthy; he had plump rosy cheeks, an expression of innocent amiability, and a pair of the shrewdest dark eyes I had ever beheld. He greeted John with a fond Italian embrace, hugs and kisses on both cheeks, and me with a bow and a smile. He didn’t look surprised to see me, and John did not introduce us.

I tucked into a hearty breakfast of pane and jam and butter and lots more coffee, while the other two conversed. My Italian is pretty good, but the Roman dialect isn’t easy to follow, especially when it is spoken at top speed and when the ambient noise level is high. As every spy and would-be spy knows, the safest place for a meeting is not on a lonely heath but in the middle of a crowd. Even if you are followed, the other guy can’t get close enough to overhear anything without practically sitting on your lap.

I still had a couple of chunks of bread to go when John tossed a suspiciously large roll of money onto the table and got to his feet. I’d been expecting him to move fast when he did move (as I kept telling him, I’m not stupid) so I crammed bread into my mouth with one hand, grabbed my backpack with the other, and let him tow me out into the middle of the via della Conciliazione. Brakes squealed and drivers waxed profane, and an alert taxi driver came to a shuddering stop. A final glance over my shoulder showed Monsignor Anonymous nodding and waving like a plump puppet, and a weedy youth shaking his fist at the air.

“Well done,” said John breathlessly. In response to the driver’s question, he said, “Cavalieri Hilton. Double fare if you make it in less than twenty minutes.”

“You have just signed our death warrant,” I said, remembering how Romans drive even when they lack monetary incentives.

“I am trying to avoid doing precisely that” was the reply. “Did you spot Giuseppe?”

“Uh-huh. He blended in nicely with the other slouching teenagers, but he really ought to do something about that acne. Bernardo must be short-handed. The kid isn’t up to this sort of thing.”

“Be fair. Few people would be.”

The walls of Vatican City passed in a jerky blur, and I stopped trying to carry on a conversation and concentrated on holding on. We made it in less than twenty minutes; it took less than thirty seconds to leave the first taxi and get into another. This time our destination was the airport.

“Where to now?” I inquired, getting a firm grip on the armrest. “Munich? London? Egypt? Kathmandu? What do I get if I guess right? A new wardrobe, maybe?”

John was staring out the back window, watching the taxis that had left the rank after us peel off or pass. He turned back to me with a sigh and brushed a lock of hair away from his forehead. “Vicky, in case it hasn’t dawned on you yet, I haven’t had time to think, much less explain. The truth is—well, the truth is I miscalculated. I didn’t expect the word would spread so quickly. All I’m trying to do at the moment is keep one step ahead of people like Bernardo.”

“Okay,” I said, recognizing the tone. “But I would appreciate hearing any ideas that may be floating around in your pretty head.”

John gave me a sour look, and then an equally sour laugh. “Our hoped-for destination is London. It is now imperative that I start working my contacts. I daren’t do it on anything but a secure line, and the only line I’m sure of is the one in my office.”

No new wardrobe, then. I kept clothes and other necessities in John’s London flat. “Makes sense. So what was the point of meeting Monsignor Anonymous?”

“He’s in charge of relics and other human remains, including mummies, at the Vatican museums. I wanted to know if they had suffered any losses recently.”

“Very ingenious,” I said. “Had they?”

John shook his head morosely. “It was a far-out theory, but I rather hoped it was accurate. An insane collector, who could be counted on to keep mum, would give us some breathing room.”

“So no missing saints’ skulls?”

“He says not.”

“Goodness gracious me, don’t you trust a holy man?”

“The Vatican administration, as distinct from the papacy, is a business organization, Vicky, with all the characteristics of any other such group. They are efficient, secretive and cynical—or, as they prefer to call it, realistic. Luis’s passion for dried-up bits of people has led him once or twice into dubious transactions. I can’t prove it—nor would I bother to do so—but he knows that I know, and that gives me a certain hold over him. I’m pretty sure he was telling the truth when he said nothing has gone missing, and that he’d inform me if anything of interest came on the market.”

“So he hasn’t heard about Tut.”

“Unfortunately,” said John, “the mere fact that I inquired about petrified people aroused his curiosity. It was inevitable but unavoidable. However, I’m hoping that of all the mummies in all the museums in the world he won’t think of that one unless he hears of it from another source. In which case he will get in touch with me, because he will assume, like everyone else, that I’m the thief.”

John claims he is not superstitious, but when you come right down to it, who isn’t? We tend to interpret good luck as a good omen. He cheered up when we managed to get the last two seats on a flight to London leaving in half an hour. They were first-class seats, and I thought I saw him hold his breath when he handed over his credit card.

“Must be nice to be rich,” I remarked.

“I wouldn’t know,” John said. “Setting up shop in London cost a bundle, and that damned white elephant in Cornwall is draining me dry. Oh, well, carpe diem.”

First class, I was sorry to learn, isn’t that classy anymore. The drinks were free, but the food consisted of soggy salad and tasteless sandwiches. By the time we got through customs and passport control at Heathrow, I found myself a bit peckish. Before I could mention this, John said, “I’m not taking you out to dinner. Don’t tell me there isn’t something edible in that backpack of yours. I’ve never known you to travel without a stash of food.”

“I want a regular meal,” I whined.

“Vicky,” said John, in the patient voice that makes me want to throw a temper tantrum, “it’s too late to get a reservation at an acceptable restaurant. Every hour that passes before I begin my inquiries is an hour lost.”

“If you are suggesting that one miserable hour may mean the difference between life and death—”

“It’s an uncertain world, my dear. There’s sure to be something in the fridge.”

We took the tube from Heathrow. John offered to carry my backpack. I haughtily refused. I do really dumb things sometimes. The damn thing weighed a ton. I wondered what I’d tossed into it during my last-minute frenzy. There were a few odds and ends of food—a chocolate bar, an apple—but pride forbade that I should search for them.

It wasn’t that late. When we came out of the Marylebone Station there were plenty of people around, and—I noticed—several perfectly acceptable restaurants open for business. John relieved me of my backpack, so the only alternative to trotting docilely after him was to throw a temper tantrum in front of one of the perfectly acceptable restaurants.

The street he graced with his presence was off the Edgware Road, in a residential area without a restaurant in sight, acceptable or otherwise. The lift was working, thank heaven. It doesn’t always. By the time we reached his door I was ready to sink my teeth into moldy cheese, stale bread, or anything else that might lurk in the depths of his pantry.

Old habits die hard; John still enters a room as if he expects an assassin to be lurking within. Standing well back, he gave the door a shove and reached around for the light switch before peering cautiously into the room.

“Oh my goodness,” I said, looking past him.

Drawers stood open, pillows had been tossed onto the floor, and several books toppled from shelves. Through the door that led to the bedroom I caught a shadowy glimpse of comparable chaos.

“Stay back,” John ordered, barring the door with an outflung arm.

“If anybody was here, he’d be pointing a gun at us by now.”

“I am in no mood for one of your arguments. Do as I say.”

He made sure I would by giving me a shove, and then slid into the room. I heard him moving around, heard the click of light switches, and finally he said, “You can come in. Close the door.”

One of the many reasons why John and I do not cohabit is that he is as neat as a finicky maiden lady and I am not. On closer inspection his living room didn’t look all that bad—no worse than mine on most days, after I have returned from work to find Clara and Caesar had been whiling away the lonely hours by knocking various objects off various surfaces. The sofa cushions had been pulled out and replaced, in a haphazard sort of way. I straightened them and plumped up one of the pillows, which was lying flat instead of being artistically propped up against the arm. (“You don’t sit on them,” John had once raged, “you look at them.”) Like everything John owns, it was beautiful—a fragment of Chinese embroidery in shimmering shades of gold and turquoise and scarlet. I replaced a few other items and made my way to the door of the room John used as an office. In addition to the desk and a few file cabinets, it contained a couple of straight chairs and a narrow sofa bed. Presumably this was where Jen slept when she visited. It had not been designed to inspire a prolonged stay.

John sat at the desk, pecking away at the keyboard of his computer. Images came and went on the screen.

“Did he get into your files?” I asked.

“No.” John closed the file he was inspecting before I could get a look at it. “Not that he could; everything of importance is protected. But it looks as if he didn’t even try. That’s odd.”

“Depends on what he was after.”

John followed me into the bedroom. The drawers of the bureau stood half open. The mattress was half off the bed, sheets and blankets tumbled around it. I studied one of the drawers, sacred to John’s meticulously folded handkerchiefs. They were now in a tumbled heap. I considered refolding them and decided I wouldn’t.

“What are you doing?” John demanded.

I closed the drawer. “I’m about to investigate the kitchen. Who knows what havoc has been wrought there?”

When John joined me I was sitting at the kitchen counter digging into a light repast of Brie and smoked oysters and crackers and a few other odds and ends.

“I threw out the grapes,” I informed him.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full. What was wrong with the grapes?”

I swallowed. “They looked tired. The apples are withery and the bananas have gone dark brown. You don’t eat enough fresh fruit and vegetables.”

“I have heard enough about healthy eating habits to last me, thank you.” He dug into the Brie, which was nice and runny. “Anything missing out here?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full. Not that I could see. He investigated all the cupboards, even the fridge. Spilled a bottle of milk.”

“I don’t suppose you mopped it up,” John said, without hope. “What could he have been looking for in the fridge?”

“The family jewels, maybe?”

“I told you, we don’t have any.” John smeared Brie on a cracker. Not many people can chew and look thoughtful at the same time, but he could. “He dug into every drawer and looked under the mattress and the sofa cushions.”

Not to be outdone in the deductive process, I chimed in. “He was looking for something relatively small and portable, something that would lie flat under a mattress or a pile of hankies.”

“I do not hide stolen antiquities under my sofa cushions or in my bureau drawers, if that’s what you are implying.”

“My, my, aren’t we sensitive.”

He had finished the Brie. I snatched the remains of the smoked oysters. “I agree, you wouldn’t be that stupid.”

“Even if I possessed stolen antiquities.”

“Even if you did. One thing for sure—he wasn’t looking for King Tut.”

John let out a choking sound. “Sorry. I had a sudden insane image. If this were a horror film, there’d have been a withered hand under the handkerchiefs, a leg or two among the sofa cushions and Tut’s head glaring out of the cupboard between tins of baked beans and tuna.”

“He couldn’t glare, his eyes have been poked out.”

John grimaced. “Did you have to say that? And how do you know?”

“I looked him up at the museum. There are dozens of photos and X-rays. Back in 1926, when Howard Carter put him back in his coffin, he still had eyelids and a little skullcap thingie on his head, and lots of beads and gold bits on his chest—part of an ornamental collar that was so stuck in hardened resin, Carter decided not to try to remove it. In 1968, when a specialist X-rayed him, the skullcap was missing, and so were the pieces of the collar, along with the ribs that had lain under it. And the eyes were just empty sockets.”

The photographs had struck me not as horrible but as pathetic. The shriveled skin was stretched tight over his bones and his teeth were exposed by shrunken lips, not in the menacing grin of filmdom mummies but in a smile that looked almost shy. He had only been eighteen years old when he died.

Damn it, I thought, I refuse to feel sorry for a three-thousand-year-old corpse. And damn Feisal for infecting me with his sentimental nonsense.

John was thinking along more practical lines. “That eliminates one motive for stealing the mummy. There was nothing of value left on it.”

“No. His penis was missing too.”

“Enough about bloody Tutankhamon!” John sprang to his feet.

Men are so touchy about that particular part of their anatomy. Tactfully I changed the subject. “Are you going to call the cops and report a break-in?”

“What would be the point? Nothing seems to be missing, no bodily assault occurred. I hate to trouble the overworked Metropolitan Police with such a petty crime.”

“They could look for fingerprints.”

“Nobody leaves fingerprints these days,” John said gloomily. “Thanks to television and films, even the dullest miscreant knows enough to wear gloves. The hell with it. I’m too tired to think straight. I’ll make the bed if you clear up the remains of the food.”

He did look tired. “I’ll even mop up the spilled milk,” I offered. “Unless your daily is due tomorrow.”

“I don’t have a daily, or even a fortnightly.”

“Are you economizing or just suspicious-minded?”

“Both.”

I had to use a brush to loosen some of the dried-on milk. It had been there for at least twenty-four hours, if I was any judge. I don’t have many long-lasting spills. Caesar takes care of them immediately if they are edible, and sometimes if they aren’t.

T he sound of low voices woke me from a dream that featured the head of Tutankhamon gibbering at me and demanding to know what I had done with his penis. John was already up and dressed; I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower.

John was alone when I joined him in the kitchen. Accepting a cup of coffee, I asked, “Who was here?”

“The super, as you would call him. He denies having seen any suspicious characters, or of having lent someone a key.”

“Well, he wouldn’t admit it, would he? Someone must have had a key. The lock wasn’t forced.”

“An expert could have picked it,” said John, in the tone of one who knows whereof he speaks.

We breakfasted on coffee and stale bread and headed out. The Closed sign hung at the shop door, but it wasn’t locked, and the lights inside were on. John’s assistant manager was sitting at the desk at the back of the showroom, his head bent over an object in his hands.

“Hi, Alan,” I said.

Alan let out a little shriek and dropped the object he was holding. “Must you creep up on a person like that?” he complained. “I didn’t hear you coming.”

“Too absorbed in your artistry?” John inquired. “I told you not to bring your sewing to work.”

“Hi, Alan,” I said.

“Vicky!” He sprang to his feet. “Do forgive me. John so dominates his surroundings, one fails to notice more attractive objects.”

Superficially he resembled John—fair hair, slim build, and that indefinable air of superiority produced by a public school education. At close range one couldn’t have mistaken one for the other. To put it as nicely as possible, Alan was a watered-down version of John, paler, slighter, less well defined, as if he was trying to imitate his boss and not doing it very successfully.

“What are you making?” I asked.

It was obviously a hat—large, broad-brimmed, with a white plume drooping dispiritedly over one side. Alan was polite enough to avoid making a sarcastic remark about my dumb question. He picked up the hat and pushed the plume up. It fell over again. “It’s for the reenactment,” he explained. “I’m a Cavalier.”

“Of course,” I said. “It’s the Roundheads and the Cavaliers this time? Cromwell and the head of King Charles?”

“Don’t show off,” John snapped. “Or encourage him. Of all the childish occupations in the world, reenacting old battles is the silliest.”

“I’d offer to help,” I said, as Alan pushed the plume up again and watched it slowly subside. “But I can’t sew either. May I suggest superglue?”

Alan pursed his lips. “It isn’t authentic, but it’s a very bright idea. Thanks.”

“I hate to interrupt,” John said, raising both eyebrows, “but might I venture to inquire whether anything of interest has transpired in my absence? Anything in the way of vulgar business, that is?”

“A couple of messages about the Egyptian piece. They’re on your computer.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.” John stalked into the office. Alan made a face at his back. “What’s new in dear old München?”

“Not much.” I followed John into the office. He was already at the computer and into his e-mail.

“Anything from…him?” I asked.

“Mmmm,” said John, staring at the screen.

I leaned over his shoulder. Feisal had written a nice chatty letter, full of irrelevant gossip about what was going on in Luxor. It ended with fondest regards and the hope that we’d be able to pay him a visit in the not too distant future.

“So we can assume that everything is okay so far?” I asked.

“Mmmm,” said John.

“Do you want me to go away?”

“Mmmm.”

He shifted position so that I couldn’t read the screen. I took the hint. The bells over the door jangled as I entered the showroom. Alan looked up. “Would you mind demonstrating an inordinate interest in the amber necklace?” he hissed.

A woman of what is known as “a certain age” had sidled in. What I could see of her hair, under her enormous hat, was an odd shade of grayish blue. The hat was eye-catching: bright scarlet, with a floppy brim that drooped down over her brow, leaving only nose and mouth exposed. Seeing me, she stopped just inside the door.

“Oh,” she said.

Alan advanced, smiling winsomely. “Come to have another look at the necklace?” he asked. “I put it aside for you, but I’m afraid you’ll have to come to a decision shortly. This lady is also interested.”

“Oh,” said the hat. “No. I, um…Thank you.”

The door closed after her. Alan shook his head. “One does meet the most peculiar people in this business.”

“What’s so exciting about the necklace?” I asked, leaning over the case of jewelry. “It’s just rough chunks of amber.”

“According to our esteemed chief, it came from a fifth-century Viking hoard. He’s got the papers to prove it.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“Some people,” Alan rattled on, “buy not for the intrinsic value or the artistry of the piece concerned; they focus on specific periods or areas.”

I stopped listening, since he was telling me stuff I already knew or didn’t care about. “This is nice,” I said, moving along the length of the case.

“Which?” Alan leaned over the case. “Oh, that. I’d forgot you were an authority on antique jewelry. Would you like to have a closer look?”

He fished out a bunch of keys, unlocked the case, and placed the pendant carefully on my outstretched palm. It was silver filigree set with roughly cut turquoise, with loops at the top so that it could be hung on a chain or cord.

“Turkoman,” I said. “It’s not that old; late nineteenth century, probably.”

“Show-off,” Alan said agreeably. He replaced the piece and locked the case again. “Darling, since you and the boss are here, would you mind if I popped out for a coffee?”

“Not if you bring one back for me.”

He waved his way out. The office door remained uncompromisingly closed.

I amused myself by wandering around the showroom. Some of the objects on display had been there as long as I could remember: a study in black chalk of an elephant, purportedly by Rembrandt (I had my doubts), a stunning Entombment of Christ in walnut polished to satiny smoothness (fifteenth-century German), and a bronze Chinese ceremonial vessel of some sort (not my field). One new object occupied a pedestal in the center of the room. I was gaping at it when John emerged from the office.

“Where on earth did you get this?” I asked.

“Do I detect a note of accusation in your voice?” After a quick but comprehensive survey of the showroom, he came to stand beside me. “It’s been in the family for years. I am reduced, tragically, to selling off our treasures.”

It was a treasure—a small alabaster head, with the distinctive elongated cranium of an Amarna princess. Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt is not my period either, but artifacts of that quality are memorable; they don’t come on the market often. The lips were delicately tinted and the musculature of the face sketched in by an expert hand.

“How many years has it been in the family? Four?”

“Your skepticism cuts me to the quick. It was purchased in Egypt quite legitimately in 1892. I have the original bill of sale, and several dated documents describing it.”

I turned to meet his placid blue gaze. “So you do have family jewels.”

“A few. Where—”

“And they aren’t in the attic or your hankie drawer.”

“No. Do stop asking irrelevant questions. I want to talk to you before Alan comes back. Where is he, by the way?”

“Gone for coffee.”

“That usually takes quite a while. Still, I will be brief. Amid the plethora of trivia that constitutes my correspondence, there were a few interesting items.”

“From your former business associates?”

“One or two. Indicating, in the most tactful fashion, that they were presently at loose ends and would be pleased to act as middlemen in any transactions that might be pending.”

“Competitors of Bernardo? Or Monsignor Anonymous?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t try that icy stare on me. You didn’t go all the way to Rome to ask about thefts from a place like the Vatican, and you didn’t hand over that wad of money for information about relics. Why can’t you tell me the truth?”

“I paid you the compliment of assuming you would prefer to work it out for yourself.” He put a long arm round my shoulders and leaned toward me.

“Don’t try that either.” I turned my head away. John planted a kiss on my cheek and removed his arm.

“Assuming that you are on the level, which I am prepared to do for the time being,” I began.

“How can you doubt me?” John asked in hurt tones.

“Easily. Assuming that, I presume you are attempting to work out which organizations are capable of pulling off a job like the one in question. In the process you are weeding out people like Bernardo, who wouldn’t have tried to cut themselves in if they were already in, so to speak. May I add that your method of eliminating such individuals strikes me as somewhat hazardous?”

John shrugged. “Not really. Persons of that ilk don’t take drastic action until they have tried and failed to achieve their ends through simpler methods. You don’t suppose I would have taken you to Rome if I had anticipated danger?”

The door opened. Alan edged in, juggling several paper cups. “Thoughtful little me, I brought one for each of you. I expect to be reimbursed, naturally. My salary isn’t large enough to promote generosity.”

“Take it out of petty cash,” John said. “Plus a generous tip, of course.”

They sneered genteelly at each other; John gestured, and I followed him back into the office.

“Why are you so nasty to him?” I asked, easing the cap off my coffee.

“He’s a nasty little man,” John said, his lip curling. “I doubt he has a moral scruple in his head.”

“So why did you hire him?”

“Vicky, you have the greatest gift for idle curiosity of anyone I’ve ever met. He’s some sort of cousin—I have hundreds of them. He wormed his way into Jen’s good graces and asked her help in finding a nice gentlemanly job. He’s good with computers and he knows something about art and antiques. I need someone to look after the shop when I’m away, which is a great deal of the time: attending auctions, running down leads, responding to would-be sellers and so on. I know he’s untrustworthy, so I keep a close eye on him.”

“Always expect the worst, then you are never disappointed?”

“Or deceived. I trust that satisfies your curiosity. I haven’t opened the post yet. Why don’t you check your messages while I do so?”

“I didn’t think anybody wrote letters these days,” I said, fishing in my backpack.

“Jen does,” John said morosely. He waved an envelope at me—I noticed it had a coat of arms emblazoned on the backside—and ripped it open with the air of a man who knows he is going to be hanged and decides he may as well get it over with. “She wants me to pay her a visit.”

“Fat chance,” I said. I picked up Jen’s envelope and examined the coat of arms. It was divided into four sections—quartered, I think is the term. One contained a shapeless blob, roughly square in shape and gray in color, another a dagger or sword; the third had several fleurs-de-lis and the fourth a couple of leopards or lions standing up on their hind feet. The royal arms of England and/or France? I wouldn’t have put it past Jen to claim a relationship with either and/or both.

While I tried to figure out the Latin motto, John went methodically through the rest of the post. It appeared to be the usual sort of thing—brochures, catalogs, and, of course, bills.

“Well?” he inquired.

“Well what? Oh, Schmidt.” I returned to my backpack and located my cell phone.

“Put it on speaker,” John suggested, leaning back in his chair and picking up his cup. “I can hardly wait to hear whether Clara has attacked Suzi again.”

She had. Schmidt rambled on about that for a while; the message ended with a reproachful “Where are you? You have not returned my calls. Why do you not return them? You know I worry.”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t figured out how to track you,” John remarked.

“Shh.” The second message was more of the same. The third…I clutched the phone with a suddenly sweaty hand and John sat up straight.

“Where are you?” Schmidt’s voice was so choked I barely recognized it. “Vicky, I need you. Something terrible has happened. You must call me at once. The number—”

“I know the number,” I groaned. “And that one, and that one…Schmidt, for God’s sake tell me what’s wrong.”

“He can’t hear you,” John pointed out.

The other numbers he had given me were those of his office at the museum, his home, and my house. At least he wasn’t in a hospital—or in jail. Neither one of which, knowing Schmidt as I knew him, would have surprised me.

I tried his cell phone first. It rang and went on ringing. I was about to try the office when Schmidt’s voice fell like music on my ears. “Vicky! At last! Why have you not—”

“You sound all choked up. Where are you?”

“In a café. You remember it; we were here together, one rainy day, when you wept on my shoulder and bared your heart to me.”

“You’re eating,” I said, watching John’s eyebrow go up. I remembered that café well. There wasn’t a thing on the menu that wasn’t covered in whipped cream. “Schmidt, what’s the matter? Have you gone off your diet?”

A sound of Schmidt being throttled would have alarmed me had I not known he was swallowing a large bite of something. Something with schlag all over it, I did not doubt. “I have gone off my diet, yes. Why should I torture myself? I am too old, too fat, too disgusting—” Another gulp.

“She’s ditched him,” John mouthed.

“Oh, no,” I mouthed back. Aloud I said, “Schmidt, darling, you are not disgusting. Nor any of those other things. Tell Vicky.”

He proceeded to do so, at some length. Chocolate and whipped cream perked him up; indignation replaced his woe. “She did not even have the courage to tell me to my face. She wrote a note. I will read it to you.”

“You don’t have to—”

“But I will. Noch einmal, bitte.” The last addressed, I assumed, to the waiter. “She says I am a wonderful man and she does not deserve me. It is the past and the future, not the present, that separates us.”

“Uh-oh,” said John.

“What?” Schmidt yelled. “Who is that? What did he say?”

“It’s just me, Schmidt,” John said, taking the phone. “Sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing.”

Schmidt assured him, between mouthfuls, that there was no need to apologize, and proceeded to repeat the whole sad story. “So,” he concluded, “in such a case as this, a man needs to be distracted and to have his friends by his side. I am coming to see you. I have already my ticket. You will not be put out by me, I will stay at the Savoy. Until tonight, my dear friends.”

I grabbed the phone from John, who appeared to be temporarily paralyzed; but it was too late. Schmidt had hung up.

“I’ll call him back,” I said, fumbling. “Tell him we aren’t here.”

“But we are. And he knows we are. How does he know?”

“I didn’t tell him. Really. Maybe he just assumed we were going to London.”

“Maybe. I’d suggest we run for it, but that would be cruel, even for me.”

“Yeah,” I said, visualizing Schmidt’s round pink face slowly sagging as the phone in the flat rang and rang and rang and nobody answered.

“Let us try, for once, to stick to the point. Why did Suzi decide to jilt Schmidt, and why now?” John raised an admonitory finger and declaimed, “Is there a clue, perchance, in that cryptic reference to yesterday and tomorrow?”

“Hmm. What you want me to say is that Suzi may have got wind of the—er—of Feisal’s deprivation. That would fit the clue; it happened in the past and if she’s on the case she’s warning him that the future may be unpleasant for him or somebody close to him.”

John shook his head. “Too many assumptions. Besides, your theory gives her credit for an extraordinary degree of altruism. If she’s after it—him—and I am the principal suspect, sticking close to Schmidt would be her best lead.”

“Too many assumptions,” I said meanly.

“Isn’t that what you would do?”

“Not if I really cared about him. Using the man you love to trap his friend would be a lousy thing to do. Sure, I’d use any means possible to trap a child abuser or serial killer, but this is just a miserable missing mummy.”

“What a hopeless sentimentalist you are. She’s a professional, Vicky, and a damn good one. People in her business don’t allow personal feelings to interfere with their chance of promotion.”

“Well, then, it doesn’t make sense. Unless you have some bright ideas.”

“At the moment my mind is a black hole. Why don’t you go for a walk, or help Alan dust? I do have a business to run.”

“Something interesting?” I asked, as he picked up one of the letters he had discarded.

“Might be. It’s from a Miss Eleanor Fitz-Rogers, who claims to have a collection of pre-Columbian artifacts inherited from her father that she’s considering selling. Elderly spinster ladies,” said John with a faraway look, “are my favorite source.”

“Because they are easily swindled?”

“You are obviously not well acquainted with elderly spinster ladies. The important thing is that the collection probably dates from a period when exporting antiquities was perfectly legal.” His eyes went back to the letter. “Definitely worth following up. I think I’ll give her a ring.”

“Not my field,” I said, and left.

Alan was sitting behind the desk at the back of the room reading a magazine. Seeing me, he whipped it into a drawer, but not before I had got a look at the cover, which featured a trio of Star Wars storm troopers. Evidently Alan was into fantasy as well as historical reenactment.

“Business isn’t what I’d call brisk,” I observed.

“This isn’t Marks and Sparks, duckie. We aren’t trying to attract the sort of people who shop at Alfie’s.”

There was that sneer again. Personally, I am very fond of Alfie’s, which is an antiques market just up (or down, depending on which way you are going) the street. However, many of the dealers focus on twentieth-century stuff and what is known in the trade as collectibles. Known to John as junk.

“It takes time to build the kind of clientele we want,” Alan went on. “Museums, serious collectors, specialists. We notify them when we acquire a piece we believe will be of interest to them, and if the object is valuable enough, we’ll deliver it for inspection.”

I was familiar with the process, since I am sometimes called in to evaluate and authenticate an object that’s being considered for the museum. I nodded. “Are you still accepting bank transfers and checks?”

Alan gave me a wry smile. “Oh, you heard about that little scam.”

“I’ve heard of several.” The most outrageous, which had happened only a few years earlier, involved a gang that had rented a chic apartment near the Grand Canal in Venice. Dealers from London, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam had delivered paintings worth more than a million pounds to a charming, elegantly dressed gentleman in exchange for a receipt and the promise of a bank transfer next day. The bank transfer never arrived, and (I like this touch) the check for the apartment bounced.

“It served the suckers right,” I said.

“That sort of transaction used to be standard practice, Vicky. In part it’s because people in this business like to think of themselves as gentlemen, dealing with gentlemen.” Alan shook his head. “Unbelievably naive. Fine art and rare antiquities have become big business. Paintings are selling for incredible sums at auction galleries, and the black market is flourishing. I might accept a wire transfer from the Metropolitan Museum, but not from anyone or anything less well known.”

“Interesting. Well, thanks for the lecture.”

“I didn’t mean to sound patronizing.”

“That’s okay. Art scams aren’t my field.”

Which was not strictly true. My long association with John in his Mr. Hyde (i.e., Sir John Smythe) persona had taught me more than I really wanted to know about the illegal aspects of the trade. Take forgeries, for instance. Laymen innocently assume that any museum curator knows how to spot a fake, but I wouldn’t swear to anything unless it was in my own limited field, and sometimes not even then. So-called critics talk learnedly about brushstrokes and technique, but the only sure way of detecting a fraud is through scientific analysis—such as the use of pigments which weren’t known before the twentieth century in a purportedly sixteenth-century painting. As for flat-out theft, the security systems in many museums can be circumvented by anybody with a pair of pliers or a nail file—or enough money to bribe a guard. As John had once remarked, the fancier a gadget, the greater the likelihood it will break down at the wrong time. He preferred to deal directly with venal human beings.

It was all very depressing.

I said, “I’m going out for a breath of air.”

I wandered slowly along the street, looking in windows and thinking vaguely about lunch. There was an open-air market not far away; I decided to check it out and maybe pick up a few healthful fruits and vegetables for the flat. I hadn’t gone far when a car pulled to the curb and a voice called, “Miss? Excuse me, miss?” At the window I made out a large piece of paper that appeared to be a map, with the top of a bald head visible over it. Some poor lost soul wanting directions, I assumed.

The sun was bright, the pavement (as they call it in England) was busy with pedestrians. Helpful little me, I was within a few feet of the car when an arm went round me and pulled me back. The car took off with a screech of rubber, barely missing a taxi.