The Bernini Bust

7

Jonathan Argyll woke up with a splitting headache and spent some fifteen minutes staring at the ceiling and wondering where he was. It took a long time to retrieve his thoughts, put them all in the correct order and reach a satisfactory conclusion to explain why he wasn’t tucked up in bed in his apartment in Rome.

He proceeded by association. First he remembered his Titian, then the imminent return to England that it implied. The search for the cause of this brought back the memory of the Moresby, which led straight on to di Souza, the theft and the murder.

His head punished him for the gruelling early morning exercise with a sudden stab of pain, and he groaned quietly.

‘You OK?’ asked a voice, out of his field of vision, somewhere to the right. He thought about it for a while, trying to place it. No, he decided, he didn’t recognise it.

So he grunted, vaguely, in response.

‘Nasty crash you had,’ the voice went on. ‘You must be pretty mad about it.’

He thought about that as well. A crash, eh? No, in fact, he wasn’t pretty mad about it. Or at least, he wouldn’t be if his headache went. So he murmured he was fine, thanks for asking.

The voice tut-tutted disapprovingly, and said that was the post traumatic shock syndrome talking. When he woke up a bit more, he really would be mad. Argyll, who rarely managed to get even slightly upset about anything, didn’t bother to contradict him.

‘And then,’ continued the voice, ‘I bet you’ll want to do something about it.’

‘No,’ he murmured. ‘Why should I?’

‘It’s your public duty,’ the voice explained.

‘Oh,’ he said.

‘Cars like that on the road. It shouldn’t be allowed. These people have to be stopped, or they’ll kill us all. It’s a disgrace, and you can help make California a safer place. I’d be happy to help.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ Argyll said, wondering where he could get coffee, aspirin and cigarettes.

‘It’ll be a privilege,’ said the voice.

‘Say, who are you?’ came another voice, from the left this time. It was slightly more familiar. Argyll considered opening his eyes and turning his head to see, but decided it was much too ambitious.

There was a restful muttering of voices, and he considered going back to sleep again. Splendid stuff, sleep, he thought as the voices began to increase in both pitch and volume.

One voice, he noted – voice two, so to speak – was protesting, and accusing voice one of being a vulture. Voice one identified itself as Josiah Ansty, attorney at law, specialist in auto damage claims, and said it was looking after the interests of injured citizens. If voice two hadn’t rented out badly maintained vehicles, it wouldn’t be sued. He was going to have to pay for this.

This gave Argyll a lot to think about. Voice two he identified as the man called Chuck who rented him his nice 1971 Cadillac, which, he now remembered, had gone through the window of that shop. The other point was the bit about suing. Whoever said anything about that?

The conversation was continuing, meanwhile, over his prostrate body. The voice of Josiah Ansty, attorney, was saying that the brake cable had been badly maintained.

Chuck interrupted here, and said that was a pile of crap. He himself had serviced the car only last week. That brake cable was screwed on tight with a double screw. No way could it have come loose. No way.

Ansty said that merely proved how culpably incompetent he was, and went on to request that he not be poked in the chest like that.

Chuck then called Ansty a little creep, and there drifted into Argyll’s slumbering consciousness the vague sound of grunts and scuffling followed by a shout from a long way away saying to stop that immediately and that this was a hospital not a place for a bar-room brawl.

Oh, he thought, as a loud cry of pain accompanied that tinkling sound that results when a shelf of surgical equipment crashes to the ground, that’s where I am. In hospital.

That’s all right, then, he thought, as he drifted off to sleep to the sound of people calling for the police. Now I know.

‘You OK?’ came a voice as Argyll surfaced again, hours later.

Oh, God, not again, he thought.

‘Hear you’ve been causing a bit of excitement.’

This time he placed the voice. Detective Morelli. For the first time his eyes opened, more or less focused, and turned his head without regretting it.

‘Me?’

‘People fighting over your body all morning. A lawyer and a car rental man; nearly wrecked the place. Didn’t you notice?’

‘Vaguely. I remember something. What was a lawyer doing here?’

‘Oh, them. Jackals. They turn up everywhere. How are you doing?’

‘Fine, I think. Let’s see.’ He quickly checked to see that everything was where it ought to be.

‘What’s wrong with my leg?’

‘You broke it. Clean snap, so they say. Nothing to worry about. You’ll have to give up jogging for a bit.’

‘That’s a pity.’

‘No permanent damage, anyway. I thought I’d come and see how you’re getting on. So I can tell your girlfriend.’

‘Who?’

‘That Italian woman? She’s been ringing up every few hours for the last couple of days, driving the entire department nuts. The whole homicide squad’s on first name terms with her now. She’s pretty gone on you, isn’t she?’

‘Is she?’ Argyll said with grave interest. Morelli didn’t bother to reply. Seemed pretty obvious to him.

‘So, now I see you’re OK, I’ll leave you in peace.’

‘Double screw,’ Argyll said, a vague memory coming into his mind.

Morelli looked surprised.

‘The brake cable couldn’t have come undone on its own. So I’m told.’

‘Yeah, well, I was going to mention that…’

‘Which means,’ he went on, thinking hard, ‘what does it mean?’

Morelli scratched his chin. Amazing. The man never seemed to shave. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it sort of struck us, down in the department, that maybe someone gave it a tug.’

‘Seems a bit silly to me. I might have been hurt. I can’t imagine who’d do something like that.’

‘How about the person who killed Hector di Souza? And Moresby? And stole that bust?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Di Souza’s body was found this morning. He’d been shot.’

Argyll stared at him. ‘You’re not serious.’

Morelli nodded.

A long pause followed. ‘You OK?’ he asked eventually.

‘Umm? Oh, yes,’ Argyll began, then stopped and reconsidered.

‘In fact, no. I’m not. It never occurred to me that something might have happened to the poor old sod. He’s not the sort who gets killed. Why on earth would anybody want to kill Hector? I didn’t like the man much, but he was part of the landscape, and pretty harmless. Unless you bought something from him, that is. Poor bugger.’

Morelli, of course, was scarcely upset at all. In his career he had seen the murdered remains of nice people, nasty people, old ones, young ones, rich and poor, saints and sinners. Di Souza was just one more, and he had never even met him.

Argyll stirred from his mournful reflection and asked for more information. Morelli kindly spared him most of the details. He’d been up early to go to the bit of woodland where the body had been found in a shallow grave, and could remember it all far too well to share with someone in Argyll’s delicate state of health.

‘It’s a bit difficult to tell, but the experts reckon he must have died less than twenty-four hours after he vanished. One bullet, in the back of the head. Never felt a thing.’

‘They always say that. I can’t say I’ve ever found it too convincing. Personally, I suspect being shot hurts. Do you know where the gun came from?’

‘No. A small pistol. We found it thrown into some scrub nearby. They don’t know any more yet, except that it’s almost certainly the gun that killed Moresby as well. We’ll find out something about it eventually.’

‘And I suppose it’ll be up to me to get him back to Rome,’ he said reflectively. ‘Typical.’

‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’ Morelli rubbed his gum with his finger again, in an exploratory fashion.

‘Still hurting?’

He nodded. ‘Hmm. It seems to be getting worse, damn the thing.’

‘You should go to a dentist.’

Morelli snorted. ‘When? I’m swamped with work because of this murder. Besides, do you know how far ahead you have to make an appointment with dentists? It’s easier to get an audience with the Pope. Why do you feel responsible for di Souza?’

Argyll shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But there it is; I do. Hector would never forgive me if I left him here. He was a professional Roman and an aesthete. I don’t think a graveyard in Los Angeles would please him at all.’

‘We have very good cemeteries.’

‘Oh, I’m sure. But he was very fussy. Besides, I don’t know of any relations or anything.’

Takes all sorts. Morelli was very much less sentimental. Argyll, on the other hand, reckoned that the least he could do was give the old man a decent send-off in the style to which he was accustomed. Full requiem with all the trimmings in a church of suitable magnificence, weeping friends at the grave, all that.

‘Very clever of you to find him,’ Argyll said, not being able to think of anything else to keep the conversation going.

‘Hardly. We got a tip-off.’

‘Who from?’

‘Someone hunting out of season, I reckon. It often happens. They want to report a body, but don’t want the risk of being prosecuted.’ Morelli said it as though illegal hunters tripped over corpses every day.

‘Sort of lets Hector off your list of suspects, doesn’t it?’

‘Maybe. Maybe not. But we’re certainly short of at least one murderer at the moment. You were one of the last people to talk to him at that party, weren’t you?’

Argyll nodded.

‘Can you remember what he said?’

‘But I’ve told you, more or less.’

‘Exactly. Word for word.’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Because if someone at some stage loosened the brake cable of your car, then it stands to reason they wanted to kill you. With all due respect, why would anyone want to kill you? Unless you know something that you haven’t told us.’

Argyll thought hard, and could come up with nothing that might, somehow, solve the problem.

‘He said that he could sort everything out with Moresby,’ he said eventually.

‘Did he say how?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me, then.’

‘Well, you see, the trouble is, I didn’t listen. I was thinking of something else. And Hector does tend to go on. I asked him to repeat it but he wouldn’t.’

Morelli gave him a nasty look.

‘Sorry.’

‘And who may have overheard this?’

Argyll scratched his head as he thought. ‘Lots of people, I suppose,’ he said eventually. ‘Let’s see. Streeter, Thanet, Mrs Moresby, that lawyer man were all there. Young Jack had gone, Old Moresby hadn’t turned up…’

‘But who was close enough to hear?’

Argyll shrugged. No idea.

‘You’re not a dream witness, do you know that?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Yeah, well, if you remember…’

‘I’ll call. I don’t know that it would do much good though.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because we were speaking in Italian. Langton speaks Italian, but he wasn’t anywhere near. Hector was looking for him. I suspect that none of the others speak it.’

Morelli looked even more disappointed in him, so Argyll switched the subject.

‘Have you found the bust yet?’

The detective shook his head. ‘No. And I don’t imagine we will. It’s probably been thrown in the sea.’

‘That’s daft,’ Argyll said with conviction. ‘Why steal something and throw it away?’

Morelli snorted. ‘Don’t ask me.’

‘But somebody must have seen something.’

‘Why?’

‘Because marble is bloody heavy, that’s why. You can’t just stick it in your pocket and stroll off. If you stagger down the street with a Bernini in your arms, somebody should notice.’

Morelli smiled cynically. Just goes to show how little people know. ‘Just as somebody should notice a murderer trotting about the administrative block, or hear a shot. And no one did. Nobody ever sees anything in this city. Nobody’s ever around and if they are they’re too busy going somewhere. I sometimes think you could steal the city hall and there’d be no witnesses.

‘Anyway,’ he went on, getting up to leave. ‘This bust is not really my main concern. Your friends in Rome are taking that one on. They think it’s the genuine article and they’ve lodged an official complaint with the Moresby about illegal export. They’re going to harass the museum until they get it back. Don’t blame them, either. This friend of yours is coming over to try and recover it.’

‘Flavia?’ Argyll asked with surprise.

‘That’s the one. That Bottando told me. That’ll cheer you up, won’t it?’

Argyll thanked him for the news.

‘You OK, there?’

Oh, the limits of conversational gambits in this part of the world, Argyll thought, and turned to look at the new visitor.

‘Mr Thanet,’ he said, with real surprise. The director did not seem the sort to go running around hospital wards bearing bunches of grapes. But, there he was, standing by the bed looking anxiously at him. ‘How nice of you to come.’

‘Least I could do. I was most distressed to hear of your mishap. Most upsetting for you. And for us, of course.’

‘It’s not your week, is it?’

Thanet opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind and sat down instead. Argyll looked at him carefully. Clearly the man had come with good intentions, to cheer and console. But equally clearly it wasn’t going to work out like that. Thanet had a captive audience – with his leg sticking up in the air there was nowhere for Argyll to run – and it looked as though he wanted to unburden himself.

‘What’s up?’ Argyll asked, inviting the man to get on with it. ‘You look worried.’

This was something of an understatement. In fact, Thanet looked dreadful. His normally anxious-looking face had developed vast bags under the eyes indicating he had had little sleep in the past few days. Everything about him, from the tired and creaky way he moved, to the almost random gestures of exhaustion, indicated a man on the edge. Hadn’t lost weight, though.

‘We’re in an appalling situation. You wouldn’t believe what’s been going on.’

‘Sounds bad,’ Argyll said sympathetically, turning cautiously to rearrange his pillows and make himself comfortable. This could be a long haul.

Thanet sighed the sigh of the almost deranged. ‘I fear the museum might close. And we were so near to clinching the most exciting project. It’s terrible.’

It sounded a bit like exaggeration, and Argyll suggested Thanet might be overreacting. Whoever heard of museums closing, after all? They just got more expensive in his experience. By the time he died, he reckoned that the whole of Italy would have come under the aegis of the National Museum.

‘This is America, and this is a private museum. Whatever the owner decides happens. The new owner of the Moresby Museum is, it seems, Anne Moresby. And you have witnessed for yourself how high we rank in her regard.’

‘I thought that there was meant to be a trust fund or something set up to guarantee your future?’

‘So there was. But Mr Moresby hadn’t signed the papers yet. He was going to announce it at the party and sign at a little ceremony the following morning. He never signed. Never signed.’

Clearly, this omission was weighing on Thanet a little.

‘But the museum administrators have money anyway, don’t they?’

Thanet shook his head. ‘No.’

‘None?’

‘Not a cent. Not of our own. Everything was paid for by Moresby personally. It was awful – we never knew from one year to the next what our budget would be. We didn’t even know whether we would have one at all. We had to ask him personally every time we wanted to buy something. It was his way of making sure we knew our place.’

He sighed heavily as he contemplated what might have been. ‘Three billion dollars. That’s what we would have got if he’d lived another twenty-four hours and signed those papers.’

‘But he might have changed his mind anyway, mightn’t he? His son said he was always doing that.’

The very thought of Jack Moresby made Thanet look pained, but he conceded that it was accurate. ‘But not this time. That’s the good thing about trusts. Once it was set up, it couldn’t have been dismantled without the agreement of all the trustees. And I was going to be one of them.’

‘So what’s the situation now?’

‘Disastrous. Anne Moresby inherits everything.’

‘And what about his son?’

‘I can’t say I’ve thought about him much. There will be a monumental legal squabble, of course, but considering that he was legally and properly cut out of the will and has little money to pay lawyers, I doubt he’ll get much. If anything. At least his position hasn’t changed because of all this.’

‘And what about you?’

Thanet looked heavenwards for support. ‘What do you think?’ he said bitterly. ‘Mrs Moresby has made it clear over the years that she thinks this museum is a complete waste of time. It’s such a tragedy. After five years, I thought we could finally get on with building a great collection. And on top of that, the police in Italy are breathing down my neck about this bust. Do you realise, they’ve made a complaint about illegal export?’

‘What I’d like to know is where it came from.’

Thanet shook his head. Minor detail, to his way of thinking. ‘I don’t know anything about it. You know that. You’ll have to ask Langton. Of course, he’s made himself scarce.’

Argyll looked at him incredulously. ‘Do you really expect anyone to believe a director of a museum saying he doesn’t even know where his pieces come from?’

Thanet gazed at him sadly with a slight tinge of despair. ‘People don’t, but it’s true nonetheless. You must know the history of the museum?’

Argyll shook his head. Always willing to learn something new.

‘Mr Langton used to be in charge of Moresby’s private collection, before the old man had the idea of founding a museum. When the museum project came up, he naturally expected to be made director. I can’t say I blame him.

‘That, of course, was not Moresby’s way of doing things. He decided it was going to be a prestige project and so he wanted a prestigious person to head it.’

‘You?’ Argyll asked, trying hard to keep a tone of slight incredulity from seeping in at the edges.

Thanet nodded. ‘That’s right. Yale, Metropolitan, National Gallery. A glittering career. Langton had never worked in a major museum; so, in short, he was shunted aside. Naturally I wanted the job, but I thought it was unfair, the treatment he got. So I created a post for him in Europe.’

‘Nicely out of the way,’ Argyll commented. Thanet gave him a disappointed look.

‘I could have got him a lot further out of the way, you know, had I put my mind to it. But despite that, I’m afraid he’s never really forgiven me for occupying his chair.’

‘Did Moresby like him?’

‘Did Moresby like anyone? I don’t know. But they went back a long time, the pair of them, and the old man realised that Langton was a useful person to have around. Langton stayed in the hope of easing me out one day, and he took great pleasure in organising acquisitions direct with Moresby, not telling me what was going on. Hence this bust turning up – and your Titian.’

‘So was this thing paid for?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘What do you mean, why? Why do you think?’

‘Well, it’s just that you haven’t paid for my Titian. And when I even raised the possibility, everybody was very sniffy at the idea.’

Thanet looked at him pityingly. ‘And you gave way. What do you expect? The owner of this bust was evidently better at bargaining than you were.’

‘You mean that song and dance about museum policy was just guff?’

‘Obviously we prefer to delay payment as long as possible. But if we can’t get a piece otherwise…’

‘And what about Hector? Has his stuff been paid for?’

‘Certainly not. Nor is it going to be. I had our sculpture people go over the contents of those cases. Utter garbage, the lot of it. Langton must have taken leave of his senses. This is why I get annoyed about him flouting acquisitions procedure…’

‘Yes. Indeed. But what I’m trying to get at, is who was the legal owner of the bust when it was stolen?’

‘Oh. We were. A guard met the case at the airport and signed for it and Barclay authorised transfer of the money. From that moment it became the property of the museum.’

‘As I see it, then, Hector was persuaded – knowingly or not – into smuggling it out of Italy. And when you announced what it was, he saw a prosecution looming up before him. No wonder he was angry.’

Thanet continued to look discomforted.

Argyll closed his eyes and thought. ‘He complained to Moresby, went back to the hotel, received a phone call and booked himself on a flight to Rome immediately. Why did he do that, I wonder? But someone got to him first. Did he see something, or was it important to make sure he didn’t get back to Italy? How strange. Do you happen to know where Mr Langton was between eleven and, say, one in the morning?’

Thanet looked startled, not so much at the question but at the implication behind it. He also seemed vaguely disappointed at the answer he felt morally obliged to give. Langton, he said, had not left the museum from the moment that the body of Moresby was discovered. He was certainly in the museum until three in the morning, and may well have been there until he left to catch a plane back to Italy. There was not the slightest possibility that he could have been responsible for either death. Had Samuel Thanet bowed his head in sorrow, he could not have made his feelings more plain. He would have been delighted to have had Langton locked in a cell.

Argyll digested this and looked at Thanet. ‘What about this infernal Bernini, then? What did you think of it? Did it seem the real thing to you? None of this makes sense unless it all centres on the bust.’

Thanet shrugged again. ‘I couldn’t even begin to hazard a guess,’ he said. Helpful today.

‘Oh, go on. Educated amateur. If you had to put five dollars on it, which way would you bet? True or false?’

‘Honestly, I don’t know. After all, I never saw it.’

‘What?’

‘I never saw it. I was going to have a look, but it was an appallingly busy day preparing for Moresby’s visit. If we ever get it back, I’ll happily venture an opinion. Judging by the noise the Italian police are making, they clearly think it’s genuine.’

‘Odd way to run a museum.’

Thanet didn’t even bother to reply; simply gave Argyll a look to indicate that he didn’t know the half of it.