The Estruscan Chimera

ONE. ROME

IT STRUCK ME, AS THE CELL DOOR clanged shut, that the road to hell is paved, not so much with good intentions, nor even a single violent, murderous act, although that, too, occurred. No, the road is a series of small choices, almost imperceptible rents in the moral fabric, that, taken together, over time, like drops of water on stone, erode our sense of right and wrong.

In my case, the journey began with a beast that could not possibly have lived, much less taken human form, and a man some still say didn't exist. The creature was a chimera, the kind of monster that lurks in your subconscious, rising up to haunt your sleep. The man was Crawford Lake.

Lake was one of those people who, like former presidents and Hollywood legends, are saddled with a two-word descriptor permanently attached to their names. In Lake's case, those words were reclusive billionaire.

I will leave the explanation of the latter word to the financial analysts, who have of late enjoyed something of a feeding frenzy over the carcass of Lake's once-powerful empire, a rather hydralike conglomerate with tentacles insinuating themselves throughout the so-called global economy. I can, however, speak with some authority on the first word, and I can assure anyone who wants to know that reclusive doesn't half cut it when it comes to describing the man.

Indeed, when I first met him in his apartment in Rome, Crawford Lake had not been seen in public in at least fifteen years. The media was reduced to using photos taken, I swear, by the same people who purport to have spotted Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster, grainy snaps of a shadowy figure disappearing in the distance, or, if not prepared to pay the price the paparazzi demanded for these pictures, suspect though they might be, to reproducing Lake's school yearbook portrait. Even in those youthful days, Lake exhibited a tendency to secrecy, but perhaps, being the sixties, the scraggly hair that pretty much hid his eyes was merely a fashion statement. Why he would want to live that way I didn't know at the time, but I suppose I assumed that anyone as rich as he was could be as antisocial as they pleased.

Still, from my perspective, he took it too far.

"Surely this isn't necessary," I told my escort, as he beckoned me to turn around so that he could tie a dark scarf across my eyes.

"No, I suppose not," he said, smiling not at me but at his own reflection in the car mirror. He was an attractive young man, and he knew it, with perfect teeth, dark skin and eyes, dressed in a rumpled linen suit and shirt, with a flash of gold chain at his chest, one of those young Italian men who find themselves rather fetching and think the women of the world should, too. "But then," he added, placing the cloth over my eyes, "if you knew where my employer lives, I'd have to kill you."

I wasn't entirely sure he was kidding. The scarf securely in place, he tapped the glass between us, and the limousine pulled away. My hotel was on a side street off the top of the Spanish Steps, and I tried to figure out—what else was there for me to do, sitting there blindfolded?—where we were going. I gave up, however, after several turns and stops and starts in the traffic. After about ten minutes or so by my estimation, the car stopped, and I felt myself being led up a couple of steps, then into an elevator that rumbled slowly upward, then just a few more steps and, as a door closed behind me, the blindfold was removed.

I was standing in a room that almost defied description, filled as it was with so much to look at. Heavy, dark green curtains were drawn across the large windows and securely fastened in a way that prevented me from seeing outside and thereby gaining some clue as to where I was but still allowed a bright shaft of sunshine into the room near the top of the window. There was a jumble of furniture, most of it ornate but rather worn, and almost every inch of the place, walls, tables, even the floor, was covered with objets d'art. The most striking feature was two large frescoes, faded in spots, probably nineteenth-century, depicting bucolic Italian scenes. There were gold cupids, dozens of them, all over the place, and piles of old books on the floor and on every table, lovely old ones with leather covers and gold titles embossed on the spines. On top of some of these piles rested small sculptures, most of them bronze. A coffee table was awash in vases—urns in black and red, possibly Greek, but also perhaps Etruscan, and several in a burnished black material called bucchero—and a couple of very nice marble busts of eminent Roman citizens.

It was almost as good as a museum. In just one glance I could see Greek, Roman, and Etruscan objects, Meissen porcelain figures, what looked to be a stone head from Cambodia, several oil paintings on the few inches of wall not covered with frescoes, baroque mirrors, a wooden horse, probably late eighteenth-century, and not one, not two, but three chandeliers, not in Murano glass, as one might expect in this part of the world, but rather crystal, probably eighteenth-century Bohemian.

Two things surprised me about the room. First was that there was just way too much of it. And I'm not a neatness freak. As anyone who has seen either my antique shop or my house can tell you, less is more is hardly my decorating credo. I like a certain amount of clutter, different objects and styles playing off each other. This, however, was just over the top, the marriage of a compulsive collector with a bottomless pot of cash.

Secondly, most of it was what people in my line of business rather condescendingly call stuff, which is to say that there were no really exceptional—by which we normally mean breathtakingly expensive pieces.

There was a painting over the mantelpiece that was clearly a copy—the original was well-known and in an art museum. The other pieces were good, but there were few that would have cost him much over $25,000, not one that would have cost him over $75,000. I'd have been happy to sell Lake just about anything in the room, but there was nothing there that would indicate the kind of financial resources a man like Lake would have, and not the collector that I knew Lake to be. He regularly made the news in collector's magazines and was clearly prepared to pay millions if he had to for something he wanted. None of it was in evidence here.

As I struggled to take it all in, a handsome man of about fifty, with a nice head of dark hair sprinkled with gray and the kind of perfect tan that makes you think tanning beds or extended holidays on a private yacht briskly entered the room. I searched in vain for vestiges of the rather retiring young man of the yearbook photo. Lake's self-confidence had evidently soared in the intervening thirty years or so. No doubt acquiring a net worth of six billion dollars will do that for you. He also looked young for a man who'd come of age in the sixties, but I put that down to the fact that he had the resources to take good care of himself.

"Lara McClintoch," he said, extending his hand. He was standing in the shaft of sunlight, which gave a kind of halolike quality to him, which I found amusing. "I'm Crawford Lake. Thank you for coming. I apologize for all the drama and for keeping you waiting. I hope you will forgive me. Unfortunately, I find such secrecy necessary. I was attending to some business when you arrived, and given I am so rarely here in Rome, I needed to get it done. Now, tea? Or perhaps something stronger?"

"Tea would be lovely," I replied, thinking that the fact that Lake used the apartment so infrequently explained both the art and the rather airless quality the place had. He rang a bell, and a maid appeared instantly, as if she'd been hovering in the hall, awaiting a summons.

"Tea, please, Anna," he said. "And some of that lovely lemon cake of yours."

"Right away, Mr. Lake," the woman said, inclining her head slightly, as if bowing to lesser royalty.

"Well, what do you think?" he said, waving his arm around the room. "Do you see anything you like?"

"The alabaster vases are exquisite," I said carefully.

"Fourteenth century," he said. "Not very old, but yes, lovely, aren't they? What do you think of the paintings?"

"The frescoes are superb," I said. "I have been admiring the oil over the mantelpiece," I added, choosing my words carefully. "I'm wondering where I've seen the original. The Louvre, perhaps?" It had surprised me, indeed, to see what was obviously a copy among all this exceptional art, and I wanted Lake to know I knew a copy when I saw it.

He frowned. "This is the original," he said. "But you are correct in one respect. The copy is in the Louvre."

"Oh," was the best I could muster. To my relief, tea arrived in a stunning silver tea service and, as promised, slices of lemon cake on a Sevres porcelain plate.

We engaged in small talk for awhile, he pointing out a number of objects in the room and telling me how he'd acquired them, while I made appreciative sounds.

I knew that Lake was South African originally, but his accent was what I think is called mid-Atlantic, a slightly British, slightly American sound that he must have worked hard to acquire. Everything about him was very polished, in fact, which came as something of a relief, given my sleepless hours of the night before when I'd imagined a cross between a Howard Hughes-type recluse, with long hair and toenails, and a pathologically shy computer nerd of some kind.

"Now to business," he said at last, struggling for a moment to find an empty place on which to set down his teacup. "No doubt you're wondering why I asked you here."

I nodded. I was delighted to be invited, to be sure, but perplexed as to why.

"I need you to purchase something for me," he said. "A work of art. Very old. From someone in France. You'll get a commission, of course, and I'll cover all your expenses. Will you do it?"

"I'm flattered to be asked," I said cautiously. "But if you will forgive me for being so blunt, why me? Why not send a member of your staff?"

"They don't know antiquities," he said with a dismissive wave. "I'm told you do."

"Mondragon, then," I said, referring to a well-known art dealer. "He often buys for you, does he not? And he knows antiquities rather well."

Lake looked impatient. "You will no doubt understand that when my name is associated with an important purchase, the price invariably rises," he said slowly. "Way beyond its true value."

"The Apollo," I said.

"The Apollo," he agreed. "Aplu or Apulu to the Etruscans. Regrettably, yes. I see you do your homework, Ms. McClintoch."

I did my homework, all right, mildly patronizing though his comment might be. Not that research on Lake was difficult to do. His financial escapades were regularly featured in just about any newspaper you'd care to mention, as were some rather aggressive art purchases. There was no question he was very rich. But he couldn't buy everything. He'd gone after a 2,300-year-old statue of Apollo, a gorgeous piece of work, Etruscan as he'd indicated, and he'd lost to a Texas collector who probably didn't have Lake's resources but who had proved adept at outflanking him on this particular acquisition. Before that, Lake had been on just about every art magazine's one hundred top collectors list on an annual basis. Post-Apollo,, however, he seemed to pretty much have abandoned the field to others.

"It wasn't worth half what Mariani paid for it," Lake said, referring to the proud owner of the Apollo. "I still have regrets. Having said that, you will understand, I think, that I did not reach this rather enviable financial position by paying more than anything is worth, even for something as wonderful as that. I need someone who will not be linked to me in any way to purchase the object I wish."

"Which is?"

"We'll discuss that in a moment."

"You've explained why you want to deal with someone new, but not, I think, why you chose me."

He shrugged ever so slightly. "I do my research. You've just demonstrated you do yours. I'm told you're honest, know your stuff, and that you're persistent, if not stubborn. I admire persistence. It is a quality we may share. Furthermore—I hope I do not offend you in saying this—your business is not well-known internationally. McClintoch Swain is not"— he hesitated—"the kind of firm with which I would normally do business."

I could hardly disagree, being reasonably certain that McClintoch Swain, the shop I co-own with my ex-husband Clive Swain, was pretty much unknown beyond a two-block radius of the store, let alone internationally.

"Do you know what a chimera is?" he asked abruptly.

"A mythological creature, isn't it? Part lion, part snake, part something else."

"Goat." He nodded.

"Goat," I agreed.

"You do not disappoint me, Ms. McClintoch," Lake said. "You could have said it was a term used by scientists for any hybrid, plant or animal, or you could have said it was a name for a creature that changes its appearance at will. But you picked the right one, as far as I'm concerned. Now, do you know the Chimera of Arezzo?"

"The bronze chimera in the archaeological museum in Florence, you mean? The one found in Arezzo in Tuscany?"

"Yes," he said, reaching for a large envelope on the table beside him and then placing a photograph in front of me. "Lovely, isn't it? Bronze, late fifth or early fourth century B.C. One of the truly great pieces of Etruscan art. We owe its discovery to Cosimo de Medici. He rather fancied himself as an archaeologist. It is said that he cleaned the finds himself, a painstaking bit of work. He found the chimera in 1553, and also the Arringatore, the Orator, in 1566, both Etruscan. I expect he undertook the work because he loved it. But it also suited his political aspirations. His successor was declared dux magnus Etruscus, great Etruscan leader, did you know that? Not enough that Cosimo was declared grand duke of Tuscany in 1569. Silly really, the dux magnus Etruscus business, given that the Etruscans had been defeated by the Romans more than two thousand years earlier, but I suppose it speaks to the power the glorious past has over us. Magnificent work of art, is it not? Look at the power in the head and haunches of the lion, the menace in the serpent tail, and the intractable nature of the goat, so evident."

No question about it, the Chimera of Arezzo was indeed a showpiece of Etruscan bronze work. It was a beast with the head and haunches of a lion, a second head of a goat, and a tail ending in a serpent's head that curved around and looked about to bite the goat.

Interesting, though, that Lake was going on about Cosimo de Medici. Like the Medici family, Lake had made his fortune in banking—conventional financial services at first, but then moving aggressively and early into Internet banking—and he shared with Cosimo both aspirations to empire and a rather ruthless way of dealing with his adversaries. Where Cosimo had expelled all his rivals from his city of Florence and had annexed the neighboring city of Siena, sending his enemies to be beheaded or imprisoned in terrible dungeons, Lake had initiated and successfully completed a couple of really hostile takeovers of rival companies. Lake, allegedly a fan of all things Italian, had called his company Marzocco, after the heraldic lion of Florence. It is said that the defeated enemies of that city were once required to kiss the rear end of a statue of the animal, and figuratively speaking, that was pretty much what anybody who came in conflict with Lake eventually had to do.

On a more positive note, both Lake and de Medici, although separated by almost five hundred years, were significant patrons of the arts. Still, it was difficult to see where this conversation about art and empire was going. There was no way the Arezzo Chimera was up for sale, and I sincerely hoped he wasn't thinking I'd break into the archaeological museum in Florence to get it for him.

"It's so lifelike, isn't it?" he mused. "Even if it could never really exist. I mean, look at it. Doesn't it seem to be about to strike at something, a fight to the death?"

"Something or someone," I agreed. "Bellerophon, wasn't it, the hero who killed the chimera?"

"Brava," he said. "Again, you do live up to your advance billing, Ms. McClintoch. Bellerophon, indeed. Homer's Iliad, book six. The creature, a horrifying beast that breathed fire, was said to live in Lycia in Asia Minor, and yes, she—have you noticed how many of the monsters of ancient mythology were female?—was killed at last by the hero, Bellerophon. A Persian Saint George in some respects. I suppose the chimera could be an early version of a dragon myth. Do you recall how Bellerophon managed this rather daunting task his enemies had set for him?

"Didn't he fly over the creature on a winged horse and shoot an arrow with a plug of some kind on it that was melted by the chimera's breath? Something like that, anyway."

"That's correct. I see you know your mythology as well as your antiquities. Bellerophon was given the winged horse Pegasus by his father Poseidon, god of the sea, and flew over the chimera. He put a plug of lead on the tip of his arrow and shot it down her throat. It melted and seared the entrails of the chimera, killing her. She would have died in agony. Rather ingenious, wouldn't you say?"

"No doubt," I replied. There was something about his tone that bothered me, the rather gleeful spirit in which he recounted the tale, and his emphasis on the fact that the chimera was a she. Could it be that the billionaire had a misogynistic streak? "Look, this is all very interesting, Mr. Lake, but I still don't know what you want from me."

"Why, Bellerophon, of course," he said to me, placing a second photo in front of me. It showed a rearing winged horse with a man astride it, about to shoot an arrow. The photo was not as clear as the first, more of the home rather than the professional variety, but I could see it was an impressive piece of sculpture. Lake moved the two photos together, and it did, indeed, look as if the Arezzo Chimera was snarling up at the rearing horse and rider.

"What about the dimensions?" I said. "I can't tell from these photographs."

"Perfect," he replied. "The Arezzo Chimera is only about thirty-two inches high, rather small for a monumental sculpture, really. The Bellerophon is about six and a half feet. Towers over her."

"I don't recall any indication that there was a Bellerophon statue with the Chimera," I said rather dubiously, but I could feel myself getting excited.

"Ah, now this is where it gets interesting," Lake said. "I searched the city archives of Arezzo for that time period, the 1550s," he said, then paused abruptly as if he'd misspoken himself. "Rather, to be more accurate, I should say I had the archives searched for me. There is a reference to a large bronze like the Chimera being discovered outside the city gates on November 15, 1553, along with several smaller bronzes. There's a later notation to the effect that the tail was missing.

"Giorgio Vasari—Cosimo de Medici was his patron, and Vasari recorded many of his exploits—writing in 1568, says it was found in 1554, a year later than the archival records. He also mentions the missing tail. Some say Benvenuto Cellini replaced the tail—Cellini was an artist supported by de Medici—but I doubt that's true. In any event, the Chimera is not my interest. The Bellerophon is. I believe there are enough indications that there was more than one large bronze found in Arezzo, and given the legend and this photo, I think there's a good chance I've located it. I want this one, Ms. McClintoch, and I want you to get it for me. Are you up to the challenge?"

"Well, I. . . what would you want to do with it once you had it, Mr. Lake?" I asked.

"What would I do with it? Oh, I see what you mean. My intention is to turn it over to the museum in Florence. The Chimera, while magnificent, is not all that impressive by itself, I'm sure you'll agree. A question of scale, really. But with Bellerophon, the two pieces as they were meant to be will be truly astounding. They deserve to be together."

"That's a very generous gesture, Mr. Lake," I said. It was not unheard of, in Lake's case. I did recall he'd donated some very fine antiquities to various museums over the years, but still, I was on my guard.

"Yes and no," he said, with a rather disarming smile. "To be honest, I am launching a new high-tech fund here in Europe, and I want to make a positive impression, something that will make people sit up and notice, and then, of course, buy in. I think finding the Bellerophon and then donating it to the archaeological museum might do that for me. Wealthy philanthropist spends ten years tracking down missing Bellerophon, buys masterpiece for Italy, et cetera, et cetera. Then a couple of days later I launch the fund. Not entirely unselfish, of course, but still worth doing, I hope you agree." He spoke with the authority of someone who expects everyone to agree with him, and I found, somewhat to my surprise, that I did. Did it matter what motivated him? The important thing was that the Bellerophon be reunited with the Chimera and that everyone have an opportunity to appreciate them.

"I ask you again. Are you up to the challenge?" he said. "I'll pay you and pay you well. You'll get a commission on the purchase—we can discuss how much— and I will cover all your expenses. I have taken the liberty of opening a Swiss bank account for you, electronic, and my bank, of course, and if you agree, then ten thousand U.S. dollars will be deposited in it to defray expenses. Now," he said, naming a commission rate, "would that be worth your time?"

I've never actually figured out what my time is worth, believing that dividing the rather paltry profit McClintoch Swain turns from time to time by the number of hours I put into the business would just depress me. However, while I prefer not to discuss money in general, and my commission in particular, I will say that there was no question that the sum would be more than my time would normally fetch.

Still, I hesitated, and he, poor man, took that to mean the amount wasn't enough. "If you can keep the selling price under two million, I'll up your commission another percentage point. Under a million and a half, one more."

"I'm sure that will be satisfactory, Mr. Lake," I replied in as neutral a tone as I could muster. My heart soared like a hawk, actually. Even if no one ever knew that I had been Lake's purchaser, this would be my entree into a level of the art world I'd never thought I'd see. And for a good cause, too: uniting the Chimera with the missing hero.

"Good," he said, handing me a piece of paper. "Anything else?"

"What if I can't get the Bellerophon, for whatever reason?"

. "I reward success, not failure, Ms. McClintoch. However, I do try to be fair. The ten thousand I will deposit in your account should more than cover your out-of-pocket expenses, and I will consider it nonrefundable, no matter how much or how little of it you spend. Is that satisfactory?" I nodded.

"Then, here is the account number and password. I suggest you memorize both and throw away the paper."

I looked at it. The bank was Marzocco Financial Online, and the account number was 14M24S—one for the money and two for the show. The password was easy, too. It was Chimera. I tore up the piece of paper and handed the scraps back to Lake. "Got it," I said. "Now, who has the Bellerophon?"

"I believe, on fairly good authority," he said, "that it's in the hands of a collector in France by the name of Robert Godard. I've never met the man, but I think he's had it for a few years now. It may even have been in his family for a generation or two. I'm not sure Godard knows what he's got, the missing half of the Arezzo bronzes, I mean. I'm sure he knows it's good. He's a collector, after all, but he may not have put two and two together, as it were. Probably thinks he has a rather unusual equestrian statue. I'd like it to stay that way. It will keep the price down."

I nodded. "I'm not entirely sure myself that the two pieces go together," Lake went on, "but I believe they do, and when we see them side by side, I think it will be clear they do."

"You say Godard has had the bronze for a long time. What makes you think he'll sell it now?"

"My sources tell me he's ready to sell. Financial hardship, is, I think, the term that comes immediately to mind." He must have seen something in my face. "I've heard you have a somewhat suspicious nature," he said.

Who, I wondered, had he been talking to about me ? I wouldn't characterize myself as suspicious, just cautiously skeptical, that's all, what I'd call a healthy attitude in a business that occasionally appeals to people with baser motives and where the phrase caveat emptor, buyer beware, is a useful phrase to remember. What I'm trying to say is that fakes abound in the antique trade. I like to think I haven't been had very often.

"I had nothing to do with his current situation, I assure you," Lake said. "He brought it on himself. I merely hope to profit from it. Godard is a collector who doesn't know when to stop. I do." He looked about the room for a moment, at the jumble of art and artifacts, and then permitted himself a small laugh. "Although I'll grant you this may not be apparent at first glance." I laughed, too. I rather liked the man.

"Do you know where I can find him?"

"The best way to contact him is through a dealer, a freelance type—he doesn't have a retail operation—by the name of Yves Boucher. You can get in touch with Boucher in Paris. Antonio will give you his number," he added. I gathered Antonio was the rather pretty young man who'd accompanied me to the house. "I suggest you go to Paris right away, as early as tomorrow morning if possible. Antonio will give you some cash to cover your expenses until the money is transferred. It will be there this evening. You can check anytime tomorrow. Antonio will also give you a phone number where he can be reached. He'll be our go-between. When you've gotten in touch with Boucher and then Godard, and have some idea of the price range, you can call Antonio. Once we've agreed on the price, I'll transfer the money to your account. You understand I don't want my name associated with this in any way, do you not?"

"I do," I replied. "You have my word that your name will never be mentioned."

"Thank you," he said. "And you have mine in this matter." I'd heard that Lake was one of those people who closed multimillion-dollar deals on the strength of a handshake. I decided if it was good enough for him, it was good enough for me. Heaven knows I'd had occasion to discover from time to time how worthless signed contracts could be.

"You'll have to arrange the bank transfers," he went on. "It will all be in your name. But I'll ensure the money is there. Don't worry about that. You'll probably have to give them a deposit on it. Just let Antonio know. Now I must get back to work, although this is much more interesting, and I'm afraid you will have to submit to the rather theatrical device of the blindfold again. I do apologize for it," he said, extending his hand and smiling rather engagingly. "Anna will see you to the door."

"Do you mind if I use the facilities before I go?" I said, trying to look embarrassed. "All that tea ..."

"But of course," he said. "How thoughtless of me. Anna will show you the way."

He rang for the maid. "I will get it, by the way," he said, as we awaited Anna's arrival.

"The Bellerophon? Of course you will," I said.

"The Bellerophon, yes. But I meant the Apollo. Mar-iani finds himself in some financial difficulties. I confess this time I had a hand in some of them. He'll have to sell it any day now, at much less than he paid for it, and rather closer to what it's worth. It's a matter of time. I'll be there." The tone was mild, but there was no doubt in my mind that there was a ruthless mind behind it. I found myself feeling a little sorry for Mar-iani, and, for the first time, more than a little apprehensive about my own dealings with Lake. I didn't think he'd brook failure on my part. It also occurred to me that at least where Etruscan statuary was concerned, Lake, like Cosimo de Medici before him, rather aspired to the title of dux magnus Etruscus himself.

The feeling lasted for only a moment, however. "It's been a pleasure, Ms. McClintoch," he said. "I'm glad we'll be doing business together." He gave me another lovely smile, and despite my misgivings, for a fleeting second or two, I found myself hoping our relationship would be a long and mutually rewarding one. He nodded in my general direction, then disappeared down the hall.

Anna not only accompanied me along a rather gloomy hallway, the doors on either of it shut tight against prying eyes like mine, but also waited outside the door. The window was frosted glass on the bottom, but not on the top, and as quickly and quietly as I could, I stood on the toilet seat and peered out. I found myself looking out on to a rather spectacular rooftop garden, with cascading flowers and shrubs, a small table with two chairs, and off in one corner, the dominant feature, a statue of Michelangelo's David, life size. I smiled to myself. I was sure if I asked Lake about it— which I couldn't, of course, given my subterfuge— he'd tell me the David in the Accademia in Florence was the copy, the one on his roof the genuine article. Craning my neck, I could see down the street a little to some cafe umbrellas and the letters FECIT on the edge of a high building. I was almost certain I pretty much knew where I was.

I stepped down carefully, flushed the toilet and ran the water for Anna's benefit, then opened the door. It was time to check out of my hotel and get myself to Paris to pick up the trail of Bellerophon.

TWO. PARIS

I AM NOT A DISHONEST PERSON, NOR, IN spite of later events that might lead one to think otherwise, am I a fool. I've been in this business long enough to know that one has to be very careful when dealing in antiquities. Suspicious by nature of opportunities that look too good to be true, I put in a call to customs authorities in both France and Italy first thing the next morning, and then went on-line to check the various databases of stolen art. There were no reports of a missing bronze statue of Bellerophon nor anything remotely resembling it that I could find. I then did another on-line search of some of the major auction houses. Still nothing. Satisfied, I checked my new bank account, pretty much the best one I'd ever had. True to his word, Lake had seen to it that $10,000 was deposited in it.

I wasn't surprised. A great deal had been said about Lake's ruthlessness and drive, his obvious need to succeed at whatever he did. But I had never heard him described as disreputable in any way. If anything, even his rivals would grudgingly admit to his integrity.

Checks made to my satisfaction, I called Clive and told him I'd acquired the farm furniture and pottery from Tuscany we needed for the cottage we were doing north of Toronto, and that I was taking a short detour to Paris to do a sweep of the flea markets for old linens and such.

I toyed with the idea of telling Clive the truth, that we had an assignment from none other than Crawford Lake himself, but I'd given my word on it, and I was reasonably sure Lake would not entirely approve of taking Clive into my confidence. For all his faults, which I'm happy to tell anyone about any time they ask and sometimes even when they don't, it has to be said that Clive is a tireless promoter of our business. He also is a name-dropper of some distinction, believing as he does that the more famous our clients, the more famous we, too, will be. I didn't think he'd be able to contain himself if he knew that we now had a billionaire on our roster of customers.

"Some guy called," Clive said. "Antonio somebody or other. I think he works for D'Amato," he added, referring to our Italian shipper. "They seemed to have misplaced the name of your hotel in Rome, so I gave it to him."

So that was how Lake had tracked me down. I'd been wondering, although not that much. I figured anyone with the resources at his disposal that Lake had could do just about anything he put his mind to. I hadn't gone to Italy to see him; quite the contrary, in fact. I'd been on an annual buying trip in Europe to pick up some furniture for the store: Tuscany was particularly hot right then—you know, rather worn wood furniture, tile floors, roughly finished ocher-colored walls, diaphanous curtains blowing in the breeze, that sort of thing—and we'd been asked to furnish a couple of places, one in the country, one in town, in Tuscan style. It looks easy, but it's not. It requires attention to detail and some really good pieces to pull it all off. Clive is the designer, I'm the antiques expert. He comes up with the ideas, and I go and find whatever it takes to make it happen. In many ways, we make an odd—I'd say any divorced couple in business together is by definition odd—but reasonably effective team. In addition to the Tuscan houses, I also had a buyer who was always interested in whatever Italian antiques I could find. Like Lake, he was an avowed collector of almost anything Italian, most particularly eighteenth-century Venetian glass. So I'd gone to Venice, swung through Florence and Siena, and ended up in Rome.

"Did he get hold of you all right?" Clive asked.

"Yes," I replied. "Everything's taken care of."

"Good," he said. "Well, have some fun in Paris while you're there. Sit in the sun at some Left Bank cafe, watch the world go by for awhile. Take a week, why don't you? We can afford it."

"You haven't been rearranging the store again in my absence, have you?" I said suspiciously. Usually Clive wants me to hustle right back and help him with the shop.

"I have not," he said, sounding hurt. "You shouldn't always think the worst of me, Lara. I just noticed you've been looking tired lately. Alex and I can manage here for a few more days," he added, referring to Alex Stewart, my friend and neighbor who helps out in the shop. At least with Alex there, I could relax, knowing he wouldn't let Clive do anything too awful. And, as Clive pointed out, whether he knew it or not, we could afford it, all right. Lake's advance would more than cover my time in Paris, and if I could get the Bellerophon, I'd be coming home with a new Internet bank account and lots of cash.

"That's nice of you, Clive," I said in a conciliatory tone. "I think I'll take you up on it. I'll let you know where I'm staying in case you think of something else we might need from Paris while I'm there."

As Lake had pointed out, I like to do my homework. I consider myself first and foremost a furniture expert, although in the business I'm in, I need to know something about a lot of things. More than anything else, I rely on years of experience and the kind of sixth sense one acquires along the way about what's good and what's not. I couldn't say I was an expert in Etruscan antiquities, but I did know where and what to look for. First I went to the Villa Giulia in Rome, one of the premier Etruscan collections, and had a really good look at what was there. Along the way, I picked up a pile of recommended books on the subject, a couple on Etruscan art, another on the Etruscans themselves, an archaeological study, and then, just for fun, D. H. Lawrence's Etruscan Places, some essays on travel the author undertook in the 1920s to Etruscan sites.

What I found interesting was how much, yet how little, we know about the Etruscans, or the people we have come to know as Etruscans. It is unlikely they ever referred to themselves that way. That name came from the Romans, who referred to their neighbors, occasional allies, and in the end, intractable enemies, as Tusci or Etrusci. The Greeks called them Tyrrhenoi, after which the Tyrrhenian Sea is named. The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, or Rasna.

Their language, a rather unusual one that, unlike almost all other European languages, did not have Indo-European roots, has been deciphered to a large extent, but when it comes right down to it, there is very little to read, other than inscriptions on tombs and such. They may have had, indeed must surely have had, a rich body of literature, but it is lost to us, so what we know about them comes from archaeology or the writing of others: Greeks and Romans for example, whose own particular biases are reflected in their accounts. They also must have had a complex ritual and religious life, because we know that long after the Etruscan cities came under the domination of Rome, Roman citizens were still calling upon Etruscan haruspices, diviners, to aid them in important deliberations and decisions. The number and elaborate nature of their tombs indicate that there was a social structure, including a wealthy elite, but that also they believed in an afterlife. What exactly they believed, however, is, to a large extent, shrouded in the mists of time.

What we do know is that people who shared a common language, customs, and beliefs, dominated a large part of central Italy, what is now Tuscany—the word itself speaks to its Etruscan roots—part of Umbria and northern Lazio near Rome between about 700 B.C.E. until their defeat and assimilation by the Romans in the third century B.C.E. Their territory was essentially bounded by the Tiber River on the south and east, and the Arno to the north. To the west was the Tyrrhenian Sea. They lived in cities and used rich metal deposits along the Tyrrhenian shore to develop extensive trade by land and sea. In time, a loose federation of twelve cities, the Dodecapolis, grew up. The ruling elite of these cities, city states, really, met annually at a place called Volsinii to elect a leader.

During their heyday, before the birth of the Roman republic, there were Etruscan kings of Rome—the Tarquins—who, between 616 and 509 B.C.E., were instrumental in building the city that would ultimately defeat them. The last king of Rome was Tarquinius the Proud, who was expelled from Rome in 509 B.C.E. From that time on, Rome and the Etruscans were enemies, fighting over every inch of ground.

In the end, the Etruscan federation could not hold against the might of Rome. For whatever reason, the cities did not band together to protect themselves, and one by one, they fell. Their cities were abandoned, or fell into ruin, or were simply replaced by others, until they were reborn, in a different form, as medieval cities, some of the loveliest in Italy: Orvieto, Chiusi, Cor-tona, Volterra, Arezzo, and Perugia among them.

As mysterious as these people may have been, I noticed that many had opinions on them. Indeed, I would say that the Etruscans presented a blank slate, in a way, on which later people found a convenient resting place for their own hopes, beliefs, and desires. Cosimo de Medici was hardly the first to use people's rather vague notions about the Etruscans for his own purposes. A Dominican friar who went by the name of Annius of Viterbo, determined, in the fifteenth century, that the Etruscans, a noble and peace-loving people, according to him, had helped Noah repopulate the earth after the Flood. To prove his point, he argued that their language was a version of Aramaic. Despite his rather outlandish views, Annius's theories may have helped save some Etruscan antiquities from destruction by the church as pagan symbols. The Etruscans could have used Annius a century later, when something like six tons of Etruscan bronzes were melted down to adorn a church in Rome.

Lawrence, of Lady Chatterley's Lover fame, also thought the Etruscans were his kind of people, in touch with nature and their natural selves. He saw phallic symbols everywhere on his visits to Etruscan sites and wrote glowingly of what he saw to be their refreshingly natural philosophy. On the other hand, the philosopher Nietzsche, who arguably knew something about angst, called them gloomy—schwermutigen—although what made him think that was not clear. The art critic Ber-ensen dismissed all Etruscan art as being non-Greek and therefore unworthy, even though, if I'd interpreted what I'd read correctly, Greeks living in Italy had been responsible for some of it, and some of the art prized as Greek and Roman had later been revealed to be Etruscan. By the end of my reading, it was pretty clear to me that views expressed about the Etruscans said more about the holder of those opinions than about the Etruscans themselves.

My last stop in Italy was Florence, for a look at the famous Chimera of Arezzo itself, now housed in its own room in the archaeological museum. Lake was right. As public sculpture, it was not particularly impressive. At only about thirty inches or so in height, it needed the Bellerophon to make it into something you could picture sitting in front of a temple, for example, or in a public square. But it was a magnificent piece of art. Using the lost wax method of manufacturing, the artist had managed to show the muscles beneath the surface, the ribs through the skin. The animal had already been wounded, and you could even see the blood spurting from the wound in its haunches. But still it—she—fought on, ferocious in combat, the snake head swaying, the goat's head rearing up, and the lion, its mane erect, roaring in rage. The sculptor had cut an inscription into the wax model before the bronze one was formed. The inscription on one of the front legs read, according to the notes I had, tinscvil, making it a gift to Tinia, the Etruscan Zeus. I had seen what I needed to see. I called Boucher and arranged to meet him late the afternoon of my arrival, two days after my meeting with Lake, at the Cafe de Flore.

I booked myself into a lovely Left Bank hotel, rather nicer than the place I usually stay, but there was all that glorious expense money in the bank, and I did, after all, have to keep up appearances. They couldn't know Lake was my buyer, but they needed to know I could afford to move in these social circles. My check of the auction house catalogues told me I wasn't going to get the Bellerophon for less than a few million dollars, and that only if I got lucky. Still, Lake clearly knew he was going to have to pay big for it, and even if I couldn't get it for the lowest sum he mentioned and get the extra commission, I was going to do quite nicely, thank you.

Yves Boucher turned out to be a tall, thin man with short salt-and-pepper hair, nice cheekbones, and the requisite arty appearance: black jeans and boots, a collarless white and black striped shirt, and a black leather vest. He was seated at a table on the sidewalk, reading a newspaper, a glass of Pernod in front of him, when I arrived. I ordered a Kir Royale, for the equivalent of about twelve dollars, a ridiculous extravagance, but I was already enjoying being in Crawford Lake's employ.

I wasn't quite sure what to think of Boucher at first. Not that I could point to anything specific that bothered me. He was pleasant enough, rather courtly and old world, really. He had a habit of placing his right hand against his chest, palm flat, fingers splayed, when he spoke to you, as if expressing heartfelt sincerity and conviction with every word. He was soft spoken, and from time to time he'd have to lean forward to speak to me, as the roar of the traffic on Boulevard St. Germain threatened to drown out his words.

"Robert Godard," he said, reflectively. "Unusual man. Not easy to deal with, you'll understand. Rather anal, you know. Hates to part with anything. Despite the fact he needs the money, it will be difficult to get him to sell the equestrian bronze. I believe he will, but only if he likes you."

I had not realized this was a personality contest, although I understood the situation. Collectors tend to be rather possessive people, some obsessively so, and if they need to part with one of their treasures, they usually like to sell it to someone they feel appreciates what they have.

"Where can I find him?" I asked.

"Good question," he said. "He moves around quite a bit and can be a little cagey about where he is at any point in time. I have a cell phone number where I can contact him. I'll set up a meeting for you." By this, Boucher meant he wanted in on the deal. Well, there was money to spare.

"And your terms?" I asked.

"Oh," he said with a wave. "I don't charge very much for making contact. We'll talk about that later."

"I'd prefer to talk about that now," I said. "My client wants the bronze but doesn't have unlimited funds." A slight fib, but I suppose I could argue that even billionaires have their financial limitations.

"One percent of the selling price," he said. Assuming the Bellerophon sold for a couple of million, that was a $20,000 phone call he was going to make, but I didn't know how to get in touch with Godard any other way.

"And if the deal doesn't happen, despite the introduction?"

"A flat fee. Five thousand."

"Okay," I said reluctantly, hoping Lake wouldn't consider Boucher part of my expenses but would reimburse him directly. Boucher let his hand leave its apparently permanent position on his chest to briefly shake my hand.

"Canadian, is he?" Boucher went on, signaling the waiter to bring us another round.

"Who?" I said.

"Your client," he said.

"He moves around," I said.

"What business is he in?"

"E-commerce," I said. I figured that didn't narrow the field down much.

"Not one of those revolting sixteen-year-olds who've made millions setting up Internet companies in their parents' basements, I hope," he said. "So brash. So American, really. I suppose it fits though. The kid probably wants to put a bronze statue of a horse on the front lawn. I wonder if his mother will permit it." He looked at me closely to see my reaction.

I laughed noncommittally. Both of us were playing this pretty close to the vest. "So, when do you think I'll get to meet Godard?"

"I'll call him this evening," he said. "And get in touch with you at your hotel as soon as I've made contact. I assume you want to meet him as soon as possible?"

"I do," I said.

"Fine. I'll be in touch. Is your schedule relatively free?"

"Relatively," I said. "I have some other acquisitions I need to make when I'm here, but I'll do my best to accommodate M. Godard's schedule." I wasn't about to let Boucher think this was my only reason to be in Paris or the biggest transaction I'd ever made.

"Good. I'll set something up with him and let you know when and where," Boucher said. He signaled for the bill. I reached for my handbag. "Allow me," he said, as the bill arrived. "You're a guest in Paris."

He then made a big show of patting various pockets and looking embarrassed. "My wallet," he said at last. "I must have forgotten it. How embarrassing!"

"It's my pleasure," I said, reaching for the bill. I didn't believe him for a moment. The bill was about fifty dollars for four drinks. Thank heaven for Crawford Lake. Having said that, there was a bright side to it. If Boucher was broke, then he'd certainly want to see that I got to meet Robert Godard.

"I'll get the next one," he said, handing me his business card. I doubted that very much. The card was pretty simple, just his name and a phone number. Apparently he, Lake, and Godard all shared an aversion to having anyone know where they lived. I gave him my card, which is rather more fulsome, writing my hotel number on the back.

"I'll be in touch," he said. "If you're not at your hotel, I'll leave a message."

We shook hands again, and Boucher disappeared into the crowd.

I treated myself to a nice dinner at a tiny restaurant on the Isle St. Louis, compliments once again of Crawford Lake. I was back in my hotel room when the phone rang.

"Yves Boucher," the voice said. "I've been in touch with Godard. He's waffling, as I expected, on the bronze. Says he wants to think about it for a day or two. Don't worry, he'll come around. Just stay in town, and I'll be back in touch in the next day or so."

It was disappointing, to be sure, but not the worst thing that had happened to me, having to cool my heels for a day or two in Paris. I wondered if my partner, Rob Luczka, could get a decent last-minute fare and a few days off to meet me. But then, did it matter how much it cost? I needed to get used to having money for a change. Rob and I never had anything remotely like a romantic weekend in Paris. Maybe it was time we did. I dialed his number.

Rob Luczka is a sergeant in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We've been friends for a number of years now, and recently got a little closer. I don't know how to characterize our relationship, nor even what to call him. My partner? Sort of. My spouse? Not really. Would we ever get to the spouse stage? I have no idea. I value his friendship more than I can say. I also enjoy his company a very great deal. But move in together? I don't know about that, either. Sometimes I just like to curl up in an armchair in front of my fireplace all by myself, put on the kind of music I like and he hates—because of my travels I rather enjoy Andean flute and some obscure forms of gamelan music and the like that drive him bananas—or watch weepy videos like Stella Dallas, wear my rattiest bathrobe, and just bliss out. I expect Rob has his own equivalent of these things too. He likes cop movies—of course—the blacker the better, and football. Not that I think this makes us an unusual couple or anything, and so far, it's working fine.

If I'm a little ambivalent about the status of our relationship, there is one part of it about which I have no reservations whatsoever, and that is his daughter Jennifer. I adore her. I take her side almost all the time, the cause of some tension between us, and would happily have her around on a permanent basis. She's transferred to a university closer to home and is around most weekends now.

It was Jennifer who answered the telephone. I got caught up on all her news—new clothes, a new beau, and the professor she thought was an idiot—and then asked about her dad. "He's on an assignment," she said. My heart leapt into my throat. RCMP assignments, in my opinion, are almost always dangerous, if not downright life threatening, although Rob says I overdramatize everything. When I first met him, he had a desk job, having been hurt in a drug bust, but he now had a clean bill of health and was back "on assignment." It made him happy. It drove me nuts.

"I hate this part," I said.

"Me, too," she said. We both thought about this for a few seconds. "He said he'd be away a few days."

"Well, don't worry," I said.

"You neither," she said.

"Call me if you hear anything," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"Have him call me when he gets back," I said.

"Okay," she said.

"Don't worry," I said.

"You said that already," she said.

"Everything will be fine," I said.

"I know," she said. "Love you."

"You, too. Bye." So much for a romantic interlude. Now that I'd had this conversation, I sincerely hoped I'd get to meet Godard soon so I could go home and worry myself sick there instead of worrying myself sick in Paris. I mean maybe Rob's assignment was a stakeout somewhere, where all he had to do was record someone's comings and goings. Or maybe he was investigating some white-collar crime where the only possibility of violence would be someone throwing a pen at him. Or maybe not. Why, I wondered, had I taken up with a policeman, rather than, say, a banker or a civil servant?

Get to work, Lara, I told myself. It's the only thing to do. You told Clive you were going to do a sweep of the flea markets and the antique stores, so that's what you're going to do.

The next day, after a night primarily spent fretting over the two Roberts, Luczka and Godard, I started out on the Right Bank, with the Louvre des Antiquaires on the Place du Palais Royal, where I picked up a couple of very fine pieces of furniture, at fine furniture prices, regrettably, but my brush with wealth in the person of Crawford Lake seemed to have dulled my more parsimonious instincts. Then I headed for Le Marais, and some dealers in St. Paul near La Souris Verte, followed by a shop selling lovely old silver by weight on Rue des Francs Bourgeois, before collapsing into a chair in a cafe in Place des Vosges. Then it was across the Seine to the Champ de Mars, and the Village Suisse's collection of antiques dealers. After that, it was over to the Louvre to look at all things Etruscan, so I could be the expert Lake expected me to be, and then, for good measure, and thinking I still wouldn't be able to sleep, I took in a performance of Verdi's Requiem at the Eglise St. Roch on the Rue St. Honore. There was no message from Boucher when I got back, rather late, to my room.

The following day being Saturday, I headed for the flea markets—Clignancourt and Montreuil—zipping on and off the Metro and walking for miles. I didn't come up with much, just some nice old linens, but it kept me moving and not thinking, which was the real point of the exercise. At some point, as I was zipping about Paris, I realized that I was being followed. Crawford Lake may have done business on the strength of a handshake, but he was hedging his bets. Antonio the Beautiful was following me everywhere. As irritating as this might be, I resolved to make the best of it. Antonio believed at first, I think, that I didn't see him, but my cheerful wave disavowed him of that. He waved back but kept his distance, which was fine with me. After my wave, however, he made no pretense of hiding.

On Sunday, I went first to the flea market at Vanves to see an antiquarian book dealer I know, picking up a 1924 edition of Sir Richard Francis Burton's The Kasidah for a client who collects Burton. Then I went to check out the boquinistes on the banks of the Seine, finding two very fine maps that I was pretty sure my favorite map collector client, a man by the name of Matthew Wright, would be happy to see.

In between all these jaunts, I drank gallons of coffee and read piles of newspapers. As far as I could see, the news in Europe was pretty much the same as it had been last time I'd been over. According to the papers, the Italian government had once again declared war on organized crime, their last effort, presumably, having been as unsuccessful as all previous attempts. French truck drivers had declared war on their government, as had British farmers on theirs, and Irish fishermen, eager to join in the fray, had declared war on Spanish fishermen, who they claimed were fishing illegally. Some relief from all this bellicose behavior could be found in a story about an arts administrator in Germany who had denied that his comments about a rival's race had been anti-Semitism, but instead a glowing comment on the diversity of the new Germany, and another about an Italian businessman by the name of Gianpiero Ponte who had left his Milan office of a Friday afternoon, and rather than going straight home to his wife and children, had driven instead to his weekend home in Tuscany. There Signore Ponte had either fallen, jumped, or been pushed over the edge of a cliff. While death by misadventure had not been ruled put—there was some rather lurid speculation on that subject—an investigation into his business affairs had begun, and it appeared that he had suffered some rather serious financial setbacks in the days before his fatal plunge. Photos of his grieving widow, the rather lovely Eugenia Ponte, and his gorgeous children, were much in evidence.

The one moment of excitement, if not fear, in the midst of days of increasing boredom peppered with worry about Rob, occurred as I was window shopping on a little street off the Boulevard St. Germain. Before I knew what was happening, I was swarmed by a group of Gypsies, one of whom grabbed at my handbag. I backed up against the wall and held tight to my bag, but I couldn't figure out how to get away from them. I did the only thing I could think of: I started yelling. In a matter of seconds, help came in the person of Antonio, who waded into the crowd and pulled me free.

"Multo grazie, Antonio," I said.

"Very bad," he said in careful English. "You must watch more carefully."

"Can I buy you a drink?" I said. "Or a coffee or something? To say thank you?"

"I am not supposed to have intercourse with you," he said. "No speaking," he added, no doubt because of the startled expression on my face.

"But it is important for me to practice English," he said. "We speak English, okay?"

"Okay," I said.

"Then it is possible for us to have a drink together. Do you think there is Italian wine?"

"I'll ask," I said. The waiter looked horrified. "French wine only, Antonio," I said.

"Is okay," he said, but he didn't look any too happy. I ordered a nice Cotes du Rhone.

"How goes your work here?" he asked after a few tentative sips.

"Slowly."

"Yes," he said. "Do you think we will be many more days here?"

"I sure hope not."

"Me, also," he said. "I'm not certain about that man you had meeting with," he added, putting his hand over his heart in Boucher's favorite mannerism. "I think he wants to be success, but always, he fails. It is not good to be with men like him. They pull you down. You become like them."

"That's an interesting observation, Antonio," I said, and it was. Antonio was not only good-looking, he was also rather perceptive. He'd pretty well summed up Boucher, and he'd done it from a considerable distance. "But Mr. Lake wants me to deal with him, so what else can I do?"

"I know," he said. "You are not married?"

"No."

"You have a boyfriend, though."

"Yes, I do. He's a policeman."

"A policeman! That is dangerous work. It is a worry?"

"Yes. I'm worried right now."

"Too bad. I worry also, about my girlfriend. Her work is not dangerous, like your policeman. She is a bank teller. But still, I worry. Do you have photo of your policeman?"

"You know, I don't," I said. "Perhaps I should have."

"Too bad. I have a photo," he said, taking a rather dog-eared picture from his wallet. "Here."

"She's really lovely," I said, studying the photograph of a rather conventionally pretty young woman. "What's her name?"

"Teresa," he said. "And she is lovely. That is the problem. She is like the most beautiful flower, and there are many bees who admire her. I am afraid that while I'm away, another bee will take my place."

I tried not to smile. "Antonio, you are very good-looking yourself," I said. "I'm sure she will be glad to see you when you get home."

"Looks are not enough," he said. "Teresa is feminist." We both thought about that for a moment. "That is why I have taken this work, to watch for you," he said. "My employer pays very well. Teresa is very interested in money."

"You don't work for Mr. Lake on a permanent basis, then?"

"No," he said. "From time to time only. This time only until you have done what he wants."

"I'll try to do that just as quickly as possible," I said.

"That will be very good," he said.

"So what do you do when you're not working for Mr. Lake?"

"Many things. I am an actor, with the Corelli Ponte agency. It is very important agency in Rome," he added, having judged correctly by my vacant expression that I had no idea about Italian agencies. "But usually there is no work, so I do many things: cook, waiter. But I hope one day to be famous. Like Gian-carlo Giannini, you know. Work in Italy, but also Hollywood. That would make Teresa very happy. It is for this reason I must practice English, and why I have intercourse with you now."

"You know, Antonio," I said. "Given that this is an English lesson, I think that intercourse expression . . . perhaps you should say have a conversation, or speaking instead. Technically it is correct, but your meaning might be misconstrued." He looked slightly baffled. "Misunderstood, I mean. Someone might interpret it a different way."

"Like what?"

"I was afraid you'd ask me that question. Well, um, now it tends to mean having sex."

"Ohhh," he said, slapping his forehead with his palm. "That is very bad. I was taught that in school by my teacher of English, Signora Longo. She was very old, and we, the other boys and I, were certain she was a virgin. Perhaps she knew only the old expressions, or," he said, smiling suddenly, "she knew more about life than we thought."

We both laughed. "It is good you tell me this. I save you from Gypsies, and you save me from being mis-con-strued. Very excellent new word for me. Before, we are associates only. Now I think we are friends, no?"

"We are friends," I said.

"Being a friend is a responsibility, I think."

"Well, yes, I suppose, but it's also . . ."

"A joy?" he said.

"Yes, exactly," I said.

"I think so, too," he said.

We finished our wine. "And now," he said, "we will return to before. You work. I watch you."

"Okay," I said. "Thank you again for coming to my rescue."

"It was for me a pleasure. Also speaking with you in English. Thank you for French wine," he said. "Is not so bad."

"Prego, I said.

When I got back to the hotel, there was finally a message from Boucher saying that he'd been in touch with Godard again, and things were looking up. Go-dard was coming to Paris in the next day or two and would probably see me. Boucher would be back in touch with something more concrete as soon as he could.

By this time, I had done absolutely everything I could think of to do in Paris and was starting to get a little impatient, if not downright irritable, although there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I had no idea what the fellow looked like, where he lived, or anything else except that he apparently had an Etruscan horse that he might or might not be prepared to sell, and that he would probably speak to me sometime, somewhere.

Boucher called again that evening. "Look," he said in a whisper. "I'm in the Cafe de la Paix with a friend of Godard's. Why don't you wander over here and happen upon me, if you see what I mean. You know. Chance encounter. Here he comes. I've got to sign off." The phone went dead in my ear.

I hailed a cab and headed for the cafe. "Hello Yves,"

I said, coming up to the table. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Lara!" he said, rising from his seat. "Good to see you. Pierre, this is the woman I've been telling you about, the antique dealer from Toronto. Lara, this is Pierre Leclerc, a colleague of mine from Lyons. Pierre is an antique dealer as well. How fortunate we should run into each other." He placed his hand against his chest and just oozed surprise and pleasure. He was so good at it, I decided I would never be able to trust the man.

"Won't you join us?" Leclerc said, pulling out a chair rather gallantly. The two men were a study in contrasts. Where Boucher favored the casual turtleneck and black jeans look, Leclerc was the well-dressed dandy, in tan suit, cream shirt, and lovely gold and brown tie with matching puff, and some rather expensive-looking gold cufflinks. They were also quite different in style, Boucher favoring an air of sincerity, or at least he tried to, while Leclerc had a rather oily charm.

"Kir Royale, isn't it?" Boucher said, signaling the waiter and ordering both mine and another round for the two men. I wondered whether I'd now be buying drinks for three. We engaged in small talk for a few minutes—the weather, Paris traffic, that sort of thing— until finally we got around to the subject at hand.

"Do you have a shop in Lyons, Pierre?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "Not anymore."

"He's a broker," Boucher said.

This made me nervous. In fact, the antiquities market in general makes me nervous. There is always the question of authenticity, where antiquities are concerned. There are so many fakes, and it's not always easy to tell. There is also the rather tricky question of provenance, where the objects came from, and whether or not they were acquired legally. Collectors' appetites, and by collectors I mean both individual and institutional, museums and the like, are fed by a shadowy group of dealers and brokers who find the desired objects. From time to time, people of rather dubious reputation get into the field. I had the horrible feeling I was in the presence of one now.

"Are you in the market for anything in particular?" Leclerc asked, adjusting the French cuffs on his impeccable shirt and straightening his cufflinks, which were rather ostentatious, two rather large gold disks.

"My client is interested in a bronze Pegasus," I said. "He's the horsy type," I added. "Collects with that theme in mind." I had no reason to think this was true, but I wanted to steer clear of the word Etruscan, which I was reasonably sure would narrow the field of collectors and put the price up. "I've heard that a Robert Godard might have such a thing, and I'm trying to get in touch with him through Yves here."

"I know Godard," Leclerc exclaimed. "Rather well, in fact. I've supplied him with several pieces in the past." He paused for a moment and then gave me an impish smile. "Perhaps we could do business together." His knee pressed against mine. I could not help but wonder what kind of business he meant.

"Godard is playing a little hard to get," Boucher said.

"I thought you said he was on his way to Paris," I said. "Arriving tomorrow or the next day?"

"He's changed his mind," Boucher said. "He's like that."

"He does become difficult to deal with from time to time," Leclerc agreed. "Doesn't like to part with anything. But he is in a selling mood right now. Approached properly, I think you might be successful in convincing him to part with it. Now, will you please forgive me? I must make a telephone call."

As he left, his hand brushed the back of my neck.

"He wants a cut," Boucher said.

"How do you know?" I replied. "He didn't say anything."

"That's why he's gone to the telephone. He's giving us time to discuss it."

"I thought you were going to put me in touch with Godard," I said.

Boucher looked pained and pressed his hand harder against his chest. "That's what I'm doing," he said. "That's why I set up this meeting. Leclerc is someone close to Godard. You don't have to include him, of course, but he will certainly make everything move a lot faster. It's entirely up to you."

"How much?" I sighed.

"I don't know," he said. "He may want a percentage. If you're lucky, though, and he likes you—I think he does, by the way, I saw him looking rather admiringly at you when you came in—he might take a flat fee, say ten thousand. If you're really lucky," he added.

"I'm going to the ladies' room," I said. "Be right back."

What I really wanted was time to think. I went outside, pulled out my cell phone, held it to my ear, as if making a call, and then looked back through the windows to the table. Across the street, Antonio sat with a cup of coffee on the table in front of him. He flashed a grin, his beautiful teeth evident even from where I stood. I looked back to the cafe I'd just left. From the street, the interior was quite visible. Leclerc returned, and the two men sat, heads together in a conspiratorial way. Boucher said something, and they both laughed. I knew, somehow, that the joke was at my expense.

Suddenly, all the sleepless nights, and waiting, and worry caught up with me, to say nothing of the pressure of working for Lake. I went back to the table. "Sorry, gentlemen, but I have to go. I've had a call from an agent in Amsterdam," I said. "He has something I know my client will be very interested in: painting of a horse and rider, Flemish. I'll have to try to get a flight out first thing in the morning. Perhaps I'll swing by here on my way home, and we can talk again. Yves, I think you owe me a drink," I smiled. "So thanks for the Kir Royale." I stomped out of the place, hailed a cab, and went back to the hotel, leaving them, I hoped, in some disarray. With any luck, I'd forced the issue. Because I was sick and tired of waiting for Godard.

THREE. VICHY

WE REACHED THE OUTSKIRTS OF VICHY about four o'clock the next afternoon. It had taken most of the day to get there, partly because I was determined not to appear overeager, but also because Boucher had insisted on coming with me, a fact I found rather irritating, despite the fact I'd apparently won the war of nerves. My snit of the previous evening had had the desired effect: I'd had about ten minutes' sleep— at least that's the way it felt after a night spent alternately fuming and plotting how I'd find Godard myself and convincing myself that Boucher would come through now, if he believed my little subterfuge—before the telephone jarred me awake.

"I've located Godard," Boucher had said without so much as a hello. "He's back home now. He was difficult to persuade, but I explained the situation. We can see him today. We'll have to get a move on, though. It will take the better part of the day to get there."

"Really?" I said, squinting at the clock. It was only seven in the morning. "I'm not sure I can put off the Amsterdam people. They're expecting me this evening." Despite the fact that I'd emerged victorious, I wasn't giving him any satisfaction.

There was a pause. "It's up to you, of course," Boucher said. "But Godard is a difficult man to get an appointment with, as you already know, and he'll see us later today or tomorrow morning if we can't get there today."

"And there is?"

"Vichy. He has a chateau in Vichy. Didn't I mention that?" Of course he hadn't. He hadn't given me even the smallest clue as to Godard's location. "I've managed to get us an invitation to his chateau."

"Okay," I said. "I'll see what I can do. I can't get in touch with the agent in Amsterdam for an hour or two. His office won't be open yet. I'll call you back as soon as I make contact and let you know either way."

"We'll need a car," Boucher said. "Mine's unexpectedly in for repairs."

Just like your wallet, I was tempted to say, but didn't. This would have to be all sweetness and light until I'd actually met Godard. "Let's worry about that if I can reschedule Amsterdam," I said. "I can always rent one if necessary."

I left Boucher to cool his heels for a couple of hours, the same way he'd been making me wait, while I found a car to rent and checked out of the hotel.

"You should have joined forces with Leclerc," Boucher said as we headed down the highway. "He's got really good connections."

"So, did he get this appointment with Godard, or did you?" I asked through clenched teeth. Boucher was definitely getting on my nerves, chattering away as the miles rolled past.

"I did, of course," he replied, sounding wounded. I couldn't see, given I had my eyes glued on the road ahead but also on the rearview mirror, looking in vain for some sign that Antonio had picked up my trail, but I knew Boucher had his hand on his heart again. "But it's not a good idea to get on Leclerc's bad side. I wouldn't be surprised if he's already in Vichy. He knows Godard really well, you know, can get in to see him easily. I'll bet he's there right now negotiating the purchase of the horse."

"Why would he do that? Does he have a buyer for it?"

"He may do," Boucher said, after a pause.

"What are you trying to tell me, Yves?" I snapped, but I knew the answer before the words were out of my mouth.

"You," he said sadly. "I'm afraid he'll get it and resell it to you at a much higher price. Most unfortunate."

There was no sign of Leclerc, nor of Antonio, as I turned off onto a country road. It had been a long, hot summer in Europe, but it was coming to an end. The trees were yellow now, with only brief patches of green, and the fields had all been harvested. The sun was still' warm, but there was an edge to it, and dark clouds on the horizon signaled the arrival of autumn rains. It was beautiful, though, and I wished I was there with someone other than Boucher, and for a purpose other than business.

After several miles of driving through the countryside, we turned onto a long drive lined with tall poplars that, in the late afternoon sun, cast stunning shadows across the road and beyond. At the end of the drive, past two large stone sphinxes that stood guard, was a storybook castle, a gorgeous chateau, all turrets and crenellations. A silver Renault was pulling away as I parked and got out of the car. It stopped abruptly, the door opened, and I heard my name.

"What are you doing here, Dottie?" I said as soon as I saw the driver.

"Looking for treasure, of course," she said, air kissing me on both cheeks. I found myself enveloped in a cloud of expensive perfume.

"You haven't met Kyle, have you?" she said, gesturing to a rather attractive young man at least ten, maybe fifteen years her junior. He smiled prettily and shook my hand, saying nothing, and all the while gazing adoringly at Dottie, who did look rather smashing in a short, tight leather skirt over toned and tanned— Dottie knew how to look after herself, I thought enviously—legs and a leopard print scoop-neck top that showed a fair amount of cleavage. "The boy toy," she mouthed at me. "Isn't he gorgeous?" she said, sotto voce. "Lovely pecs," she added.

He was lovely, no doubt about it. He was built like a football player, or maybe a bouncer—very broad shoulders and slim waist—with heavily moussed blond hair that failed to control a rather adorable cowlick. Mind you, Rob had reasonably good pecs, too, and he had the advantage of being smart, well-read, a reasonably good conversationalist as guys go, and just about my age. I suddenly wished more than anything that he were there.

"Gorgeous," I murmured.

"I saw Clive a few months back," she said. "At the Winter Antiques Show in New York, if I remember correctly. I hear you're back in business together. How ..." She paused for a moment, searching for the right word.

"Risky?" I said. "Or maybe foolhardy?"

"No, darling," she said. "I was thinking something more like sophisticated, civilized, something like that. So unlike my awful divorce from Hughie. He's still being quite horrid about everything. But who cares? I'm having much more fun than he is, the old turnip." She linked her arm through Kyle's and smiled engagingly. Kyle gave me a lovely lopsided grin. My, he was cute.

"And this is?" she said turning in Boucher's direction.

"Oh, sorry," I said. For a pleasant second or two, I'd forgotten he was there. "Yves Boucher, a dealer from Paris. This is Dorothea Beach. She specializes in French antiques. She has a wonderful shop in New Orleans."

"Delighted, I'm sure," she said.

Boucher bowed and kissed her hand. "Enchante," he said. Dorothea had that effect on most men.

"Boyfriend?" she mouthed at me as Boucher bent over her hand. I shook my head vehemently. "That's good," she whispered.

"You're here to see Godard, obviously," she said aloud, inclining her head in the general direction of the chateau. "Regular parade through the place. Pierre Le-clerc was leaving just as I arrived. You know him, don't you? Paris dealer? I can't stand the man. He kept pressing himself against me in the most revolting way." The lovely Kyle looked vaguely peeved. I wondered if he could speak, and then decided it didn't matter. "Oh dear," she said. "I shouldn't have said that. I hope he isn't your best friend or anything." I indicated she would get no argument from me on the subject of Pierre Leclerc.

"Strange bird, that one," Dottie said. "Godard, I mean. It doesn't take a genius to see he has to sell, I offer him a fair price, but then he says he'll think about it. I don't think he likes me. Oh, I hope you're not after the same thing I am," she said suddenly. "Are you?"

"I doubt it," I said. "I'm not in the market for furniture right now."

"That's a relief, sweetie," she said. "I'd hate to have to fight you for it, but fight you for it I would. I'd rather lose to you than Leclerc, of course, but I just desperately want it. Gorgeous dining set. Solid wood. Not even a whiff of veneer. And sixteen—sixteen!— chairs. Late eighteenth-, early nineteenth-century. Stunning. I was just drooling over it, trying not to let on, of course. Maybe I should have been more effusive. Maybe he's one of those types who only sells to people he thinks love the stuff as much as he does. Although if he sells it to me," she said, pausing for breath, "he'll be eating dinner off a TV table, poor thing." She shrugged. "I'll come back tomorrow as he's suggested and try to be more ingratiating. I hope I don't have to kill him to get it. What did you say you were looking for?"

"Equestrian statue," I said. "Pegasus. Bronze."

"I saw that," she said. "It's ... well, big. Probably very good, too, but I don't know anything about bronze statues. If you want it, I hope you get it. If I were you, as a strategy, I'd gush all over that horse. The coy approach doesn't seem to work with Godard. If you're staying in town, perhaps we can get together for a bite. Right now, Kyle and I have to find something to do to pass the time, don't we, sweetheart?" She put her arm around his waist and grinned at me. "Hope to see you later, Lara. Clive told me you have a new boyfriend, and I want to hear all about him."

As she got into the car, she turned back one more time. "Nobody answers the door, by the way. It's open. You just go right in. Hang a left at my dining set, and keep going straight on. He was in his study when I last saw him. You'll pass your horse on the way."

I turned back to Godard's place as the tires on Dorothea's car spun in her haste to get to whatever activity she and Kyle had in mind. The chateau was spectacular, but close up, it had an air of neglect. The hedges needed pruning rather badly, and the gardens were overrun with vines and weeds. Over to one side, a sheep and a couple of lambs were tethered to stakes, and a few chickens were scratching in the dirt. If it was a fairy tale castle, then perhaps it was Sleeping Beauty's, waiting for her prince, as the forest grew up around her.

Still, it was a chateau. While I had no idea what kind of fortune it took to keep a place like this up, no doubt it was a considerable sum. Perhaps that explained the troop of antique dealers through the place that day, one of whom, to my extreme annoyance, was Leclerc.

Despite Dottie's advice, I did try knocking. As predicted, this elicited no response, so after a minute or two, I pushed open the door. It creaked, just like in the movies. I would not have been surprised to see some aged retainer shuffling his way to the door, but there was no one. The door had been cut into one of the round turrets, and so I found myself in a quite pleasant circular vestibule tiled in white and black marble, with a very old brass chandelier. From there one went directly into the dining room, with rounded walls and leaded glass windows up very high. Dottie's table and chairs were, as she said, gorgeous. I found myself wishing I hadn't told her I wasn't interested in the furniture. This table and chairs would make quite a statement in the main showroom at McClintoch Swain, of that there was no doubt. At the far end of the table lay the remains of a meal, a half-drunk glass of red wine, some crusts of bread, and a plate. All the chairs, sixteen of them, were lined up against the walls rather than around the table, including the chair one would have expected at the set place. Presumably they'd been placed that way so that potential buyers could get a good look at the table, but it all seemed rather forlorn.

The next room was the living room, I suppose, although it could have been anything. Dottie had said Godard would be eating off a TV table if she bought the dining suite, and she was right about that. While the markings on two very large but threadbare carpets on the floor hinted that the room had once been well furnished, now there was only a small and rather homely settee under the window and across the room from it, in front of a magnificent stone fireplace, one chair and a little side table and lamp not beside the chair, as one would expect, but across from it. Marks on the wall over the mantel indicated that something, a mirror perhaps or a large painting, had once hung there. On top of the side table and piled up beside it were several books. It was a peculiar arrangement, with the chair to one side of the fireplace and the lamp and the books and the table on the other. All of a sudden I knew what the explanation was, and knew too, with certainty, that Boucher had been stringing me along with tales of Godard's travels.

Saying nothing to him but promising myself I would at the earliest opportunity, I stepped into the gloom of the next room. It was very dark and rather damp. It was undoubtedly the oldest part of the chateau, the fortified tower, several stories high, with slits for weapons rather than windows. Fourteenth century, I'd guess, although it took me a minute to take it all in. This was where Godard kept his treasures, or at least some of them. A number of glass shelving units were lined up in rows on one side, and in here rested a large number of terra-cotta pots.

A large sculptural piece had been clamped to one of the stone walls, and over to one side, in all its glory was Bellerophon. The winged horse was rearing up, and the rider, leaning forward, was aiming his weapon at something below. Far above me, a couple of birds were flitting about, and I realized that the slits in the walls had not been glassed in, and that the tower was very much in its original state. I started toward the horse but heard a voice from the next room speaking in a low murmur. "We'd better go and talk to Godard first," Boucher said.

A man much younger than I expected, about thirty or so, sat at a desk talking on the telephone. He had a thin face, its pallor accented by dark, long hair, pulled back in a ponytail. He wore a white, collarless shirt, open slightly at the neck, and a black, loose fitting jacket. In front of him on the desk were several large tomes, one of them open in front of him. Behind him was a computer turned on. I turned to Boucher. "Travels all over the world, does he?" I said, looking him right in the eyes.

"I didn't know. I've never actually met him," Boucher said, looking away. "I've only talked to him on the telephone."

The sound of our voices, however low, made Godard look up. "Not you again," he said rudely, looking right at Boucher. Boucher shifted nervously. "I thought I told you not to come back."

"Never met?" I said under my breath. "Perhaps he's mistaken you for someone else."

"Are you with him?" Godard said, looking at me with some hostility.

"No," I replied. I would have plenty of time later to count the lies I'd told the week or so since I'd met Lake, but at the time, I barely noticed what I'd done. "I believe I was here first," I said to Boucher, as if I'd just met him. "So perhaps you wouldn't mind waiting your turn outside." Boucher, slimy liar that he was, beat a hasty retreat.

"What do you want?" Godard said to me, his hand over the phone. He wasn't exactly welcoming, but the hostility in his tone dropped perceptibly as soon as Boucher left the room.

"I understand you may have some antiquities that you are willing to sell," I said. "I wondered if that is the case, if I might have a look at them. I'm an antique dealer from Toronto," I added, placing my card on the desk in front of him.

Godard stared at my card for a few seconds. "Give me a minute," he said at last, gesturing to a chair nearby. "I'll be finished this call in a minute. You were saying ... ?" he said into the phone. "No, there's nothing I want to sell right now."

That didn't sound too promising. I didn't take the proffered chair which, like the rest of the room, was piled high with books. The study was lined with shelves, each crammed with books, some new, some old, some very old and probably valuable. The world's great literature was represented here, from Shakespeare to Victor Hugo, in several languages. Judging from the volumes nearest me, however, Godard's primary interest was in the occult. Dolores Chapman's Conversations with Nostradamus sat next to Nostradamus' s own writings, Centuries and Prognostications. There were several tomes on astrology and foretelling the future, another one that, if I remembered correctly, promised to explain all the mysteries of Revelations. Over by the window was a telescope, which tied in rather nicely with the astrology books. I didn't care what he read nor what he believed in, but with the dark gloom of the tower behind me and this pale and rather sickly young man and all these books around me, I was beginning to wish I was outside catching the last few rays of the late afternoon sun, even if it meant dealing with Boucher. Still, I was going to have to establish some rapport with him if I hoped to get the Bellerophon.

The call went on for only a minute or two longer, but Godard was not yet ready to talk about the collection. "I need another minute here. Alone. Go and have a look, why don't you? Pull the cord by the door."

The cord by the door turned out to be a long string that, when pulled, turned on a few lightbulbs that had been strung about the room. It felt a little bit like being in a dungeon, with the poor light and the cold stone of the walls. But while you might take issue with the ambiance, the collection was well worth a closer look. There was terra-cotta in abundance: kraters, bowls, jugs, amphorae. There was plenty of the black bucchero and painted pottery of different styles: red figures on black, white figures on red, and black figures on red, just about every permutation and combination in Greek- or Etruscan-style pottery one could ever hope to see. There were also bronze hand mirrors, incised on the back with scenes of gods and animals. All were top notch, as far as I could see, and a few definitely museum quality.

The very large sculptural piece on the wall I decided was a temple frieze, in terra-cotta. On closer examination, it showed a man on a winged horse, spearing a creature with two heads and the tail of a snake.

Lake had said he thought that perhaps Godard didn't know what he had in the Bellerophon, but seeing this collection, I was convinced that wasn't so. The clincher was a small case toward the back of the room, which held a single object only. It was a black figure hydria, a ceramic water jug, beautifully painted. It was smaller than average, maybe fifteen inches high, round on the bottom and tapering to a slim neck and the flaring out again, with three handles, one on each side for carrying it, and a third for pouring. Almost every inch of the neck and lip was covered in decoration, swirls, and so on, and on the rounded part was a scene showing a man on a winged horse battling a creature that was part lion, part goat, and part snake. Godard collected Bel-lerophon and the chimera.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," Godard said, maneuvering his wheelchair between the glass cases carefully. "Have you seen anything here that interests you?" He looked different, but I couldn't put my finger on why.

"Everything is quite exceptional," I said. "Can you tell me what you want to sell?"

"I don't want to sell any of it," Godard said.

"Then perhaps I am wasting your time," I said. And he mine, of course.

"I said I didn't want to sell any of it," Godard said. "I didn't say I wouldn't sell it. No doubt you noticed my somewhat constrained circumstances. Most of the furniture and paintings are gone. There is nothing else. Have a look. If you see something you like, and it's something I'm prepared to part with at this very moment, then perhaps we can do business."

I supposed that was something, but, being cautious, I did not go right up to Bellerophon. Instead, I stopped at the chimera hydria. "This is obviously special," I said.

"It's not for sale," he said.

"How about this?" I said, pointing to a bronze mirror.

"It's not for sale, either." This was sounding pretty hopeless, but I couldn't see myself going back to Lake and telling him I couldn't get what he wanted, so I soldiered on.

"I can certainly understand your feelings about these objects," I said, doggedly trying to win the man over. "This is a very fine collection, and it would be difficult to part with any of it. How did you come to acquire it?" A touchy subject that one. Provenance is a really important concept in antiquities and essential in proving that objects have been legally acquired, or at least acquired long enough ago that you won't be in any trouble with various authorities.

He looked as if he wouldn't answer, but then he said, "My father did most of the collecting. He spent summers in Italy—Tuscany—and made the acquaintance of some fellows who helped him collect. Probably tombaroli," he said with a slight smile. "I assume you know what that is."

"Tomb robbers," I said.

"Correct. In any event, no matter how he acquired it, it was a long time ago, and so all seems to be above-board now. There was an expert out here two maybe three years ago, before my father died, anyway. He took detailed photos and everything. If there'd been any problems, I'm sure he would have said something. My father also collected, purchased pieces at auctions and so on. I have all the receipts."

"And you?"

"I pretty much just sell it," he said.

By this time, I'd managed to reach the horse. Taking a small pocket flashlight out of my bag, I began to study it carefully, as Godard watched. It was bronze, certainly, and the right size. I checked out the front legs, then the back. Carved into a back leg was Etruscan writing. "Tinscvil," I said, muttering aloud. Just like the Chimera of Arezzo. I'd looked at it carefully enough and had even tried to copy the writing on the chimera's paw.

"What did you say?" Godard said, wheeling up to me.

"Tinscvil," I said. "Dedicated to Tinia, or Zeus, isn't it?"

"You read Etruscan," he said.

It is a measure of how far gone I was, enthralled by the prospect of all that lovely money from Lake, and determined to convince Godard to sell, that I did what I did then. I didn't lie, exactly. I just said nothing. Or rather I just murmured something that Godard took to be assent, something like hmmm.

He looked at me for a moment, and then pointed to a rather peculiar-looking object in one of the cases. "Do you know what that is?"

Strangely enough, I did. Several of the books on the Etruscans I'd consulted had shown pictures of something similar, and I'd noticed it because it was so odd. "It's a bronze model of a sheep's liver, isn't it?" I said. "Etruscan haruspices, diviners, used them to foretell the future."

"That's right," he said. "You can see the sixteen sections of the sky around the outside, and there are fifty-two names of divinities on it." He opened the case and took the object out, stroking it with one hand as he held it with the other. "People scoff at divination," he said. "But they shouldn't. The Romans believed in it. They left nothing to chance. Nothing. Before every battle, before every important decision, they called on Etruscan haruspices. They knew."

"Well, the Romans were certainly successful," I said.

"Exactly," he said, failing to notice the tinge of sarcasm in my voice. He put the bronze liver back in the case.

"Are you by any chance a member of the Societa?" he asked.

This one I couldn't fake, but still I wasn't entirely straightforward. "No, I'm afraid not," I said. I assumed he meant an academic organization of some kind, or an archaeological society.

"But you know about it, of course. The chimera hydria."

"Hmmm," I said again.

"I don't know if there are any women in it, but that does seem a little old-fashioned, even by Italian standards, and come to think of it, the Etruscans themselves wouldn't have objected, would they? The Greeks may not have allowed women at their symposia, but the Etruscans rather welcomed them. Would you like me to put your name forward? You read Etruscan, and you certainly know Etruscan antiquities. You picked all the best stuff in the room in a matter of minutes. It's early days for me, of course, given that I've only been a member for a few months, but you never know. I'd give anything to go to the meeting," he said. "But I am a trifle constrained in what I am able to do," he said, gesturing to his legs, wrapped carefully in a blanket.

"That's most unfortunate," I said. I meant whatever had happened to his legs, but he took it differently.

"It is," he said. "I have waited so long to become a member. My father died a couple of years ago. I'm Cisra, by the way."

"How do you do," I said.

"Not too well, as you can see," he replied. "I have two weeks to raise the money and to figure out how to get there. If I could afford some help and perhaps a van equipped with hand controls, I might make it. I hope so."

"That's too bad about your father," I said.

"Yes," he said. "Left me in something of a financial pickle, as you can see. But at least I got to be Cisra. It's not automatic, you know."

"What isn't?" This was the most baffling exchange, and I needed to get him off the subject, whatever it was, and back to the sale of the Bellerophon.

"The name. It's not hereditary or anything. Someone has to die before you can get in. The numbers in the Societa are limited, as I'm sure you know, to twelve plus one. But there's bound to be a spot now that Velathri's gone."

"Velathri?" I said.

"You know," he said. "Velathri. Volterra. I'm surprised you don't recognize the Etruscan name for it."

Volterra I knew. It was a town in the northwest part of Tuscany. Etruscan city, too, if I remembered correctly. As far as I could recall, though, it was still there. "Oh, right," I said. "Of course. Sorry."

"Gianpiero Ponte," Godard said, as if I was being really dense. "Surely you read about it. It was in all the papers."

"You mean the businessman who went over the edge of a cliff somewhere or other?"

"Volterra!" he said. "That's my point. Velathri is now vacant, and you might get it."

"Oh," was all I could muster.

"I could consult the liver to see if you stand a chance. I've studied the sheep's liver for four years now, ever since this happened," he said, pointing to his legs again. "I think I'm ready to use a real one now."

I thought of the sheep and the adorable little lambs outside and cringed. There was now no question in my mind that Godard was what Clive would call a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Not in terms of his intelligence, perhaps. If he'd read only a few books in his library, he was smart enough. But his grasp on reality seemed a little tenuous. I could see now that I looked at him more carefully that his pupils were dilated. Drugs, I thought, either for severe pain, quite possible, given his circumstances, or others of the more recreational kind.

"Have you ever tried using a medium, by the way? I tried reaching my parents and grandfather that way, but it didn't work. I have a good feeling about this, though. As far as I'm concerned, that is," he went on. "All the signs are positive. Maybe that's why you're here. Yes, that is almost certainly it. The signs told me someone would come to help me get to Velzna, you know, Volsinii. I suppose you use the Roman names. They told me you were coming. Of course it would be somebody who reads Etruscan. I wouldn't sell to anyone else. It must be you. I'm building my tomb. Would you like to see it?"

"Sure," I said. Good grief, I thought.

"Come along," he said, leading me back to his study.

"I'm interested in the horse," I said, determined to stay the course no matter how bizarre it got.

"Bellerophon, you mean?"

"Yes. Bellerophon." There seemed no reason to be coy on that subject anymore. "Did you sell it to Leclerc already?"

"Who's he?"

"Pierre Leclerc. He was here earlier this afternoon. Fancy suit. Cufflinks, that sort of thing."

"The cufflinks!" he said. "Yes. Fantastic! I wonder where he got those. That name's not right, though, is it? Leclerc? Close though. Le-something. Le Conte, isn't it? The horse, though. Did he ask about it? I can't remember. I didn't sell him anything. I don't like him. I'm quite sure he isn't the one. Here we are." He leaned over and pulled aside a carpet to reveal a trapdoor. "Get ready to be amazed, shocked, dazzled, whatever."

I looked down into pitch darkness below. "I don't think I want—"

"Of course you do," he said. "Give me a minute. I'll go first." He wheeled his chair back and grabbed a rope attached to a pulley on the wall behind him, pulled the rope and himself over near the edge, then slipped out of his wheelchair and, after lowering the chair down, pulled himself into a makeshift harness and eased himself down as well. "Come on," he said. "Take the ladder. We'll talk about Bellerophon down here. And you'd better bring that flashlight of yours. The light seems to have blown out."

What I do, I thought, to serve a customer. Reluctantly, I climbed down the ladder. When I reached the bottom, I panned the flashlight around the space and gasped as the face of a man, one who looked exactly like Godard, stared back at me.

"Fabulous, isn't it?" he said.

"Fabulous," I agreed, catching my breath. And it was, in a way. I was in a room about twenty feet long and ten wide. There were two stone benches to either side of me, and an archway straight ahead. The ceiling was decorated in red and green and cream squares. Beyond the arch, the walls had been painted with scenes of a party, at least that was what I thought it was. A man, the one who looked like Godard draped in a dark red toga, lay stretched out on a couch of some kind, while various women, bearing platters of fruit and jugs of wine, lined up to serve him. Other men—I counted twelve in addition to Godard—also reclined on couches, some with women beside them. To one side of them, a door had been painted on the wall.

In the background was the chateau—I recognized it immediately—surrounded by fields where little lambs gamboled. Beyond that stretched a forest. Other men dressed in tunics were hunting with bows and arrows. Another was playing a stringed instrument of some kind. The predominant color was red, but there were swirls and leafy vines that snaked their way around the picture, birds, painted in blue and white and green, flew through the trees and around the people, caught in the sweep of my flashlight. Above the archway, two leopards faced each other, fangs bared.

Over to the right in the outer room where I was standing, three people were shown sitting in three chairs, staring straight ahead. The perspective wasn't perfect, but the faces were very lifelike.

"My mother and father," he said, following my glance. "And my grandfather. Do you like it?" he said.

"It's . . . extraordinary," I said.

"It is, isn't it?" he said. "It's modeled on Etruscan hypogeum tombs like the ones at Tarquinia," he said. "The frescoes are contemporary, of course, although I tried to give them an authentic feel."

"You painted this?"

"I did," he said. "It's my project."

"But a tomb!" I said.

"Well, why not?" he said. "I'm not going to last long anyway. It helps me while away my final hours. I started it while I could still stand, but as you can see," he said gesturing to one wall where the top was bare, "I need help to finish it. Can you paint, by the way?"

"I have absolutely no talent that way at all," I said. It may have been the first truly honest statement I'd made since I got there.

"Too bad," he said. "I'll go up first, and if you don't mind, you could attach the wheelchair to the rope when I send it back down."

"About Bellerophon," I said, as I climbed out of the basement.

"I can't sell it to you," he said. "I know I should, but I just can't do it. Not to you. Not to the one who's going to get me to Velzna and the Fanum Voltumnae."

"How much would it take to make you change your mind?" I asked.

"I won't change my mind, but I need a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's all. I could get a van for that and cover the cost of finishing my tomb and putting me in it. Do you see anything else you'd like here that you'd be prepared to pay that much for?"

"The chimera hydria," I said.

"No, no!" he exclaimed. "Anything but the hydria, please. It's the last thing I would part with. What about the temple frieze? It's pretty spectacular, don't you think? Would you pay one fifty for that? It's worth it, you know. A good price."

"Yes, it is. I'd have to consult my client, though."

"Okay, but do it soon. I need it to get to Velzna. Do you think he'll want it?"

The telephone ringing in his office saved me from having to answer.

"I'd better get that," he said. "It may be about the arrangements. You can use my name as a reference, by the way, if you want to replace Velathri. Hold on a second," he said, grabbing the telephone.

"Why don't I come back tomorrow?" I said.

"A hundred and fifty thousand," he said grabbing my arm, and pressing the receiver to his chest. "It's a very good price. You must buy it. I know I have very little time left. That is what the portents tell me. I must go to Velzna and the gathering of the twelve before I die. Promise you'll come back."

I fled the room just as fast as I could. It was dark outside, and Boucher was dozing in the car. The chateau now looked rather sinister, with very little light flickering in its windows, a massive black hulk against the night sky. I drove quickly into town, dumped Boucher as soon as I got there, and then found myself a hotel room. After a long, hot shower, an attempt to wash away that awful day and place, I went downstairs for a drink. The hotel was situated on a nice little square, and the bar/cafe spilled out of the lobby onto the street. I bought the local papers, and, over a glass of wine, combed through them. It took me about three minutes to find what I wanted. I was ready to head out to find Boucher.

"Yoo-hoo! Over here," a voice called out, and I spied Dottie and Kyle having a drink in a cafe. At a table nearby, Boucher sat with Leclerc, or was it Le Conte? It wouldn't surprise me in the least if he used more than one name, given my impression of his insalubrious dealings. Both men looked grumpy. I wondered if Boucher had been able to find himself a cheap place to stay, and whether Leclerc really was intent on outwitting me. A couple of tables farther on was my friend Antonio the Beautiful, who smiled and waved as Dottie did. Funny how they all turned up in the same place, especially Antonio, whom I'd not caught sight of at any point during the several hours' drive from Paris to Vichy, but who obviously had managed to follow me, just the same. I went over to Antonio first. "I need to speak to your boss," I said. "Right away."

"It will take me awhile," Antonio said. "But I will arrange it. He'll call you either very late this evening or first thing tomorrow at your hotel," he said, checking his watch. "I hope this means I will be seeing my beautiful Teresa soon."

"I think so," I said. He brightened visibly and gave me his very best smile.

"I think our relationship is at an end," I said next to Boucher, setting the newspaper on the table in front of him. I ignored Leclerc, who didn't acknowledge me, either.

"But you promised me at least five thousand dollars," Boucher said.

"Your presence could well have cost me this deal," I said. "Five thousand is rather more than your contribution is worth."

"I don't understand your attitude toward me," he said, placing his hand over his heart.

"Oh, I think you do," I said, tapping the newspaper. He didn't even have to look at it. He knew exactly what I was referring to: a classified ad inviting anyone who cared to come, to a sale of contents at a certain chateau just outside Vichy.

"I wouldn't be quite so sure the horse is yours," Leclerc said, dropping all pretense at charm. "Godard is quite unhinged, as I'm sure you noticed. He's invited me back for a chat tomorrow. We'll see who prevails here, won't we."

"Yes, we will," I said.

"That's more like it," Dottie grinned as I sat down. I had a couple of hours to kill, and Dottie was almost certainly going to be way more entertaining than Boucher.

"What is more like it?" I said. I was exhausted, and a little depressed by my day.

"That one over there," she said, gesturing toward Antonio, who was paying his bill. "Clive told me you have a new boyfriend."

"No, Dottie, he's not my boyfriend, either." I sighed.

"Too bad," she said. "He's one of the most gorgeous young men I have ever seen." Kyle thought about that for a minute or two and then frowned.

FOUR.

"GODARD WON'T SELL," I SAID TO LAKE. "Then offer him more," he said. "I want that horse."

"It's possible I could talk him into selling it for one hundred fifty thousand, if you insist," I said.

"A hundred fifty thousand what?" he said.

"Dollars."

"You're joking. Is that all? I thought I'd have to pay millions. So what's the problem?"

"It's a fake."

There was a pause on the line. "Are you sure?" he said.

"Yes."

"What makes you think so?"

"Workmanship, primarily. The quality of the work is not even close to that of the Chimera of Arezzo. I'm making the assumption that the same artist, or at least the same atelier, would have made both pieces, so you should see some similarities between the two, and the workmanship would be equally competent. It's not. Then there's the Etruscan inscription on the leg. It looks the same as the one on the Chimera, and indeed says the same thing. However, the Chimera was made using the lost wax method."

"What?" he interrupted.

"Lost wax," I said. "An exact image was carved in wax, then the hot metal poured into the mold containing the wax chimera. The wax melts, the metal cools, and presto, a bronze statue."

"Yes, yes," he interrupted. "I know. Get to the point."

"The point is that the inscription on the Chimera, the dedication to Tinia, was carved into the wax before the statue was made. The inscription on the horse, on the other hand, was etched into the leg after the bronze was cast. I think the statue may well be a hundred years old or so, but someone, an enterprising sort, carved the inscription on the horse's leg rather recently, hoping to make it appear rather older than that.

"I see," he said. "Disappointing."

"Yes," I said. "I think Godard knows it's a fake, too, and has decided to do me a favor and not sell it to me, despite the fact he really needs the money."

"I see," he said again. "Well, did he have anything else you think I might be interested in? There must have been something. My new fund launches in two weeks. I need a big splash here."

"There's one particularly interesting terra-cotta. It's a hydria, a water jug, black figures. Strangely enough, it actually shows Bellerophon killing the chimera. You could get that for one hundred fifty thousand, too, and it would be worth it."

"I don't collect chimeras, you know," he said.

"I understand that. But you would probably be interested in a piece by the Micali painter."

There was a pause. "I don't think so," he said. I was a bit surprised at that. He didn't seem to even recognize the name. Sometimes, through careful study, it's possible to identify the work of a single artist, even hundreds of years after the fact. The painter, or sculptor, or whatever, uses a particular technique or the same symbol over and over. There are at least three such artists from Etruscan times, one called the Bearded Sphinx painter because of the use of that image, another the Swallow painter, and the most famous of them all, the Micali painter, named for the man who identified the work. The chimera hydria showed all the signs of the Micali painter, a rather energetic style, not particularly refined, and some very nice swirls around the top of the vase. It would take an expert to be sure, but it was certainly worth a gamble.

"Anything else?" he said.

"If you're interested in big, there's a terra-cotta temple frieze. It also depicts the chimera myth. I think it's probably authentic."

"Get it," he said.

"Godard may not want to sell it."

"Get it anyway. A hundred fifty is what I'll pay."

"I'll try," I said.

"Don't try," Lake said as he hung up. "Do it."

It was still relatively early when I headed downstairs to find myself some coffee. Dottie, dressed in a very smart red leather suit and surrounded by expensive luggage, was at the front desk.

"Hi," she called. "Hoped I'd see you before I left. We've decided to check out. Heading farther south: Provence. Bound to be some fabulous finds there, although overpriced, no doubt. Still, people pay just about anything for something old from Provence, even if it is farmhouse furniture that's seen better days. I can't understand it, when they could have Louis XVI. I'm going to stop by the chateau first to see if Godard will reconsider. If not, then I'm on my way. I decided in the middle of the night that I can't waste time fretting over the ones that got away, no matter how fantastic. Now where is that Kyle?" she asked, looking out on to the street. "I sent him on an errand this morning, and he's taking rather longer than he should. Oh, there he is," she said, as the Renault pulled up in front of the hotel. "Gotta go, sweetie. Come to New Orleans anytime. You can stay with me."

"Bye, Dottie," I said, as she hugged me. "Maybe I'll see you in New York this winter. It's my turn to go to the antique fair."

"Bring the new boyfriend," she said. "I'm dying to meet him. I'll bring whomever I happen to be with, and we'll make it a foursome." Kyle, who obviously had missed this last remark, waved prettily.

There was no sign of Antonio the Beautiful nor of any of the others, to my general relief, so I sat in the cafe and ordered a croissant, apricot jam, and coffee. The air was crisp but the sun pleasant, and I tried to get myself into a more positive frame of mind by refusing to think too much about what I was doing there, and what unpleasantness might await me out at the chateau when I went back to try to buy the temple frieze.

Several unbidden thoughts kept presenting themselves, however much I might try to ignore them. One was Lake himself. I'd thought Lake was a significant collector, knew him to be, in fact, from all the reports of his purchases, and the fact that he was on all the biggest collector lists worldwide that there were. For a man who spent a lot of money at it, he didn't seem to know that much about what he was collecting. The collectors I knew took some pride in knowing as much as they possibly could about their passion. It bothered me that someone like Lake wouldn't know the Micali painter, and even more so that he hadn't seemed to know about the lost wax method of manufacture, although he'd recovered quickly when I had explained it. It wasn't something I'd expect everyone to know, of course, but Lake collected bronzes, at least a few of them, notably the Apollo he'd missed, and now the Bellerophon. I couldn't help remembering the collection at his apartment in Rome: all that stuff, expensive but not exceptional, and all over the map, literally and figuratively speaking. This said to me that either he did it for the show, not because he was truly interested in what he was collecting, or he was pathologically inclined to acquire things, regardless of taste. Both of these possibilities diminished him in my eyes.

My reverie was interrupted by the unwanted arrival of Yves Boucher. "Leclerc has gone to the chateau," he said as he pulled out a chair and sat down without asking. "I saw him leave about forty-five minutes ago. He's really annoyed with you. I'm sure he's going to get that horse."

"Perhaps," I said.

"He'll be in touch soon," he said. "To gloat, and also to sell it to you at a much higher price."

"I can hardly wait to hear from him," I said.

"I was always on your side, you know," Boucher said. "I know you think I wasn't, but I was. I still am. In fact, I could try to negotiate a very small increase on his part. He and I are still on pretty good terms."

"I don't think so, thank you," I said.

"Why not?" he said. "If I could get him down to say, five percent, that, together with my flat fee of five thousand, wouldn't be too bad. I'm sure Leclerc will get it for a good price, maybe better than you could do, and so you wouldn't in the end be paying any more for it."

"No, thank you," I said again.

"But why?" he repeated.

"I'm no longer interested in the horse," I said.

"I feel you're not being completely open with me," he said, hand over heart. "There's something you're not telling me."

"Well, that's certainly the pot calling the kettle black," I said. "You have been stringing me a line ever since we met. Godard was jet-setting about the world, was he? He'd changed his mind, he was being difficult. Leclerc is the only person who can get me an appointment with Godard. Wasn't that it? The man is in a wheelchair, and he's holding a contents sale! How stupid do you think I am?"

"I brought you here. You wouldn't have found Godard if I hadn't."

"Actually, I've been thinking about that. If I hadn't been given your name as a starting point, I could have tracked Godard down. It would have taken me a day or two, but I have contacts, and collections like his tend to be known in the circles I travel in. I could probably have done it in less time than it took you to bring me down here. What were you making me wait for? The first day of the sale?"

"I really was having trouble getting you an appointment with Godard. He's not quite well, mentally I mean, as anyone can see, but I thought he'd come around eventually, and I didn't want you to lose heart. I didn't know about the contents sale, either. I really believed Leclerc could help you. I'll grant you he's not the most pleasant person to deal with, but he has purchased objects from Godard, paintings and so on, over the past several months. I was as much the dupe as you were in all of this. Maybe more. But I was told to see to it that you got to meet Godard, and that was what I was trying to do."

"Who told you?"

"Told me what?"

"To see to it I got to see Godard?" I said, impatiently.

"I can't reveal that."

"Well then, this conversation is at an end."

"Look," he said. "I need the money. You promised me a flat fee of five thousand dollars if the deal didn't go through."

"No," I said.

"I will try to get you the horse," he said.

"It's a fake," I said.

"What?" he said.

"F-A-K-E, fake," I said. "You probably knew that, too."

"No," he said, swallowing. "I didn't. Really and truly." For once he didn't put his hand on his heart. He was probably telling the truth.

"Then you're not much of an antique expert, are you?"

"Perhaps not," he said. "But the man who asked me to set this up . . ."

"And who might that be?"

"I can't tell you," he said. "I already said that. But he knows his stuff. I cannot believe ..." He sat staring at the table.

"Will you give me a lift back to Paris?" he said at last.

"No, I'm not going back to Paris," I lied. "You'll have to take the train."

"I don't have enough money," he said. "Look, is there anything I can do here to earn my commission."

"You could tell me who got you into this."

"I assume it was your client," he said.

"No, I don't think so. I doubt very much my client contacted you directly."

"Then I'll tell you who my contact is, if you tell me the name of your client."

"Do you want to be paid something, or don't you?"

"Five thousand?"

"Twenty-five hundred."

"Four," he said.

"Twenty-five hundred," I said. "Final offer. Considering all that's happened, I really have no obligation to give you anything at all. You can give me a blank check of yours, canceled of course, and I'll see to it that the money is transferred today."

"How do I know you'll do that, once I've told you?"

"Because where I come from, a person's word is good. I realize that is a foreign concept to people like you and Leclerc, but there it is," I snapped.

"Vittorio Palladini," he said.

"Who's he?" I said.

"Italian lawyer. Big collector. Not particularly discriminating. Rather nouveau riche, if you know what I mean. Don't tell him I said so. He just started collecting about three years ago. I sometimes help him find stuff. You really don't know him, do you? He's not your client?"

"Did he pay you a commission?" I asked, ignoring his question.

"No, he said you would."

"Well you've been screwed all round, haven't you?"

"Yes," he said. "That is certainly true. I was offended, you know, that Palladini wasn't using me. But this is a tough and unforgiving business, I'm sure you'll agree. He, the secretary, asked me if I knew Godard. I did, even if he doesn't like me, so I said yes. I called Godard, but he hung up on me, told me not to call again. I kept at it because I was afraid I'd lose Palladini as a client. He buys a lot of stuff, most of it from other people, but every now and then I get lucky. That's when I had the idea of bringing in Leclerc. Will you really pay me?"

"Yes," I said. The fellow was so inadequate, I found myself feeling sorry for him. But I had no intention of paying for nothing. "But first, tell me more. Did this Palladini person contact you directly?"

"Of course not," he said. "He's too big a personage for that. His secretary did. But I have found a few things for him in the past, so I did what I was asked. Also, I needed the money, as I've already admitted. Business hasn't been so hot lately. I'm out of my league here, I know."

"So this Palladini's secretary just said that you were to see that I meet Godard. Nothing more?" I said.

"Yes," he said.

"Okay," I said. "The money will be in your account later today. You can check it this afternoon. I'll say good-bye now," I said, picking up the bill. I wasn't going to leave money on the table with Boucher around.

"Au revoir," he said. "And thank you."

I went back to my room, got out the laptop, and reluctantly transferred twenty-five hundred dollars to Boucher's account, sent a few E-mails of my own to the store and to Jennifer Luczka, checking on her and asking if she'd heard from her dad. At this point, I just wanted to go home. I wished I'd never heard of Lake, never been dazzled by all his money, never had to deal with pathetic people like Godard and Boucher, nor miscreants like Leclerc.

It was in this rather melancholy frame of mind that I headed back to the chateau. It was late morning, and I was reasonably sure that Leclerc would be long gone. Indeed, I waited an extra hour to make sure of it. I didn't think I could stand another encounter with the man. Dottie would have come and gone by then as well. I hoped she got the furniture, but I thought if she hadn't, and given that the sheep's liver had said I was the one, I might have a go at Godard about that. If I got it, then the trip might have been worthwhile. I'd let Dottie know, of course. I wasn't that mean-spirited.

She might pay me a small commission if she still wanted it. If not, it would make a rather fine display at McClintoch Swain.

By the time I arrived, the sun had gone behind the clouds, and a rain shower was passing through. The autumn colors that had seemed so beautiful in the sun were now a rather dreary and sere yellow. The sheep and the little lambs were gone, and my heart sank. It was all so unspeakably dismal, I could hardly get out of the car.

I knocked rather perfunctorily, not really expecting anyone to answer. Once again, the door creaked unpleasantly as I pushed it open.

"Monsieur Godard," I called into the gloom. "It's Lara McClintoch. I'm back, as promised." There was no reply.

I stepped into the dining room and gasped as a mouse scampered across the room. There was no sold sign on the dining room table. Dottie had apparently been unsuccessful in convincing Godard to part with it.

I went into the living room. There had been a fire in the fireplace, but it was now merely smoldering, giving off a rather unpleasant odor, as if someone had doused it.

"Monsieur Godard," I called out again. The place was absolutely silent. I crossed the threshold of the tower. The horse was still there. I walked up to it and saw a sold sign. Leclerc, I thought with some satisfaction. / hope he paid a bundle for it.

My enjoyment was short-lived however, because the very next thing I saw was a sold sign on the floor beneath the temple frieze. "Oh no," I groaned. "What will I do now?" I didn't think Lake would be too impressed with me when I called him back to tell him I'd lost the temple frieze, too.

The Micali painter: Lake hadn't been very interested, but perhaps that was because he didn't know what it was and could be persuaded. I turned to the glass case. The case was open, and the chimera hydria, the object that Godard had said was the very last thing he would part with, was gone. I suddenly had a very bad feeling about the place, a sense that something awful had happened. Perhaps it was just too quiet, I don't really know, but my feet felt like lead as I stepped into the study. The trapdoor was open, and Godard's wheelchair lay on its side nearby. I knew there was something wrong with that, but it took a second or two for me to remember that he had let the chair down on the rope before he descended himself.

I looked down into the basement but could see nothing. "Halloo," I called down, but all I could hear was my own voice sounding rather tinny in the space. With absolute dread, I grabbed my pocket flashlight and aimed its weak beam down into the darkness of the tomb. Godard lay sprawled, his body contorted in an awkward position, with his useless legs partly under him, his eyes still open, mouth contorted in a hideous grimace of fear or perhaps rage, as blood seeped from a wound at the back of his head.

FIVE. VOLTERRA

"GODARD IS DEAD," I TOLD LAKE.

"Dead!" he exclaimed. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

"No," I said. That was a ridiculous thing for him to say, but still, it was a shock.

"You didn't give him any money did you, before he passed on?"

"No."

"Well, that's something, anyway. At least I won't lose that. Hold on for a minute, will you?" He put his hand over the receiver, and I could hear muffled voices, but none of the conversation.

"Sorry," he said, coming back on the line. "I was attending to some other business. That Etruscan hydria you spoke of: I don't suppose you could just go back and get it? I don't mean steal it or anything. But you could leave a check for, say, five thousand dollars, payable to the fellow, and it would look as if we'd bought it."

"Mr. Lake!" I said. "The man has died in a dreadful accident! And anyway, the hydria was gone."

"Gone, did you say?"

"Yes."

There was another pause and again the sound of muffled voices.

"Okay then," he said, coming back on the line. "We're going to have to regroup here. I've got less than two weeks now. Where are you?"

"My hotel room in Vichy. I've been talking to the police. I think they'll let me leave soon."

"Good. Have you got a car?"

"Yes."

"All right then. As soon as they let you get on your way, head south. I'll meet you at my villa in northern Tuscany."

"Wouldn't it be faster to drive back to Paris and fly to Milan or Rome?"

"You'll take the rest of the day getting the car back to Paris, and you'd have to rent a car in Milan or Rome, anyway. Why don't you just get in your car and drive."

"Okay," I said.

"What happened to him, by the way?" Lake said, rather late, in my opinion.

"He fell into his basement. He was in a wheelchair. .. ."

"I didn't know that," Lake said.

"No. He had rigged up a method for getting down into the basement, lowering his wheelchair down and then himself. I guess that was what he was trying to do when he fell."

"What did he need to go into the basement for. Wine, or something?"

"He was painting his tomb."

"Oh," Lake said after a pause. "So he ended up dead in it, did he?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Unfortunate timing," he said.

I decided right then I didn't like Lake, not one bit. He was insensitive, didn't know a thing about antiquities, and was all round, a jerk. But by now I had spent rather a lot of the expense money: Boucher's twenty-five hundred, the airfare, the lovely hotel in Vichy, and the even lovelier one in Paris, the car rental, well it was shrinking rapidly, and the only way to recoup was to find something, anything, for Lake. If I told anyone, most particularly Clive, what had happened, they'd think I was an idiot. There seemed nothing for it but to carry on.

"I'll drive as far as I can today, then come the rest of the way tomorrow."

"Good," he said. "I'll see you there. I'll hand you over to my assistant now, to make the arrangements."

I drove as far as Nice that day, staying at a little inn just north of the city that Lake's assistant, an anonymous woman, had recommended. There would be a room reserved there for me, she'd assured me, which was just as well, because it was about ten at night when I pulled into the parking area. It appeared I was the last to arrive, because I had to sandwich my car into a very tight spot between a red Lamborghini with Italian plates and a bright yellow umbrella tossed in the back window, and a dark green Passat with a scratch on the back fender and a broken taillight. For a minute I debated whether or not to park out on the street, thinking that I might be accused of scratching the Passat or worse yet, putting even the smallest of nicks in the Lamborghini, but I decided I was just being paranoid after a particularly bad day. I could tell by the parking lot that this was going to be another of those expensive places Lake favored. There wasn't, with the exception of the Passat and my rented Opel, and perhaps the silver Renault a little farther along, a car there you could buy for under eighty thousand.

And in fact, the hotel was really lovely but also very expensive, as anything Lake had anything to do with seemed to be. It occurred to me that while I had enjoyed staying in rather nicer than usual hotels when I first came into Lake's employ, I now just resented the expense. I disliked it even more when, as I crossed the lobby, I heard my name being called out, and once again saw Dottie and Kyle. It shouldn't have been a surprise, given the Renault in the parking lot, but I was surprised, nonetheless, and not particularly happily. I liked Dottie, but I was in no mood for socializing.

"I can't believe the way we keep running into each other, Lara," she said. "What a nice surprise. Won't you join us for a drink?"

"I don't think so, Dottie. But thanks. I'm really tired, and—"

"I'll bet you are," she said. "That's rather a long drive, isn't it? Have you had dinner? No? Well, you must eat something. The food here is fabulous. The dining room's closed, but we can order you something in the bar."

I was too tired to argue and allowed myself to be led to a chair in the bar.

"Did you get the horse?" she said.

"No," I said.

"I didn't get the furniture, either," she said. "That's why we came down here, to do some more shopping. Did he just refuse to sell it to you?"

"I didn't get a chance to ask him," I said. "He was dead when I got there."

Dottie was so startled, she knocked over a glass of water, sending ice cubes across the table. None of us said anything as a waiter rushed over to repair the damage. "What happened?" she said when we were left to ourselves again. "He was perfectly all right when I saw him. Quite chatty and friendly, in fact."

"He fell into the basement."

"My goodness," she said. "Oh dear," she added, frowning. "How would that happen?"

"There was a trapdoor arrangement under the carpet in his study. He had a system for getting down, but I guess it didn't work."

"Oh dear," she said again. "You didn't find him, did you?"

"I'm afraid so," I said.

"You poor thing," she said. "No wonder you look so pale. I'm so sorry. Waiter, a single malt scotch for my friend." She paused for a moment. "You know what he said to me yesterday when I asked if he'd consider selling me the dining room furniture? He said he wouldn't because he had no more need of it. What do you make of that?"

"I don't know, Dottie," I said. I just didn't want to talk about this, and it seemed it was the only thing Dottie did. She was so entranced by the subject she wasn't touching the food in front of her.

"And you know what else? He said he was going to someplace ... V, something or other."

"Velzna," I said.

"That's it. What do you think that is?"

"I have no idea," I said.

"I'll bet it's someplace like Valhalla," she said. "He was hinting he was going to commit suicide, and I didn't even notice. I feel just terrible."

"He just fell, Dorothea," Kyle said, reaching over and patting her knee. "He couldn't walk. You shouldn't be worrying like this." These were the first words I'd heard him utter, other than hello, and much to my surprise, the man made a lot of sense.

"I expect Kyle's right," I said. "We should just try to forget it."

"I suppose," she said. "Are you planning to stay here for a couple of days? It would be a good idea, after what you've been through."

"I don't think so," I said. "I think I'll head for Italy. Tuscany."

"Tuscany!" she said. "That sounds nice. Maybe we'll go there, too."

Kyle shrugged.

"Where in Tuscany are you going?"

"Volterra," I said. I didn't really want to tell her, but she was so persistent. "To start, anyway."

"Volterra," she said. "I don't know it. Is it nice? Would you recommend it?"

"I haven't been there before," I said, "so I'm not sure. I just thought I'd go and see if I could find a nice place to stay and take a bit of a break, just like you."

"Volterra," she said. "Maybe we'll head for Tuscany, too."

The next morning, I was on my way early, having persuaded the inn to give me a decent breakfast and pack me a lunch. The bellhop placed my luggage in the trunk and a box lunch and a couple of bottles of water in the backseat, and then I headed down the highway for the border between France and Italy. It was a decidedly dreary day, with rain off and on, making the drive difficult and tiring. Shortly after I got under way, the water bottles started rolling around in a most irritating way, and the smell of the lunch was making me slightly nauseated, so I pulled over at a rest stop. I had a coffee, then opened the trunk to put the water and lunch box in.

The trunk, which until that moment I'd assumed contained nothing more than my suitcase and a spare tire, now held a cardboard box. I thought that I must have opened the wrong car, somehow, or worse still, driven away with somebody else's in Nice, but after a moment of some disorientation, I realized the key fit and it was clearly mine. Had I left the trunk unlocked, and the hotel made a mistake and given me someone else's belongings? I pulled open the box to find something wrapped in a hideous bubblegum pink blanket, which I removed, looking for clues as to the owner. I tugged on the edge of the blanket, and the Micali chimera hydria rolled out.

My heart almost stopped. I stood in the rain, staring at that thing for the longest time, until a family returned to the car next to mine, and I closed the trunk quickly and got into the car.

After the family pulled away, I got out again and opened the trunk, hoping rather irrationally that in the interim the hydria had disappeared. It hadn't. I wrapped it up carefully, got back in the car once again, and sat thinking about my current circumstances. In a nutshell, I was approaching the border with an antiquity for which I had no papers. I could call the police from the gas station, but what would I say? That I'd found an Etruscan hydria in my trunk but had no idea how it got there? I could take the hydria back to Vichy and try to stick it back in the glass case in the chateau, but, even in the unlikely event I could get back in the chateau, that option would take many hours of driving, and Lake was expecting me in Tuscany that night. That some person or persons unknown had put this hydria in my car for a reason that could not have been positive did not occur to me at the time, which speaks to the state I was in.

The only thing I could think to do was to keep on going, hope I wasn't caught with it, and get to Lake's place, where surely between the two of us, we could work something out.

With the European Union, border crossings in Europe are rather more perfunctory than they used to be, with most people simply being waved through. Holders of foreign passports are treated somewhat more stringently and are occasionally pulled over and their vehicles searched, but relatively rarely. I thought the chances of making it through were reasonably good. I considered trying to hide the hydria under the floor of the trunk or the passenger seat, but if caught like that, I'd look guilty. It was too large to put in my suitcase, but I put my luggage back in the trunk, along with the lunch and the water to provide cover. Then, in a state of high anxiety, I started for the frontier.

I always think when I have to clear customs and immigration anywhere, that the line I'm in is inevitably the slowest, with either the surliest or the most suspicious agent, and there was no doubt this was the case on this occasion. As my car inched forward, and several cars ahead of me were pulled over, I got more and more frightened. I thought of changing lanes but decided this might call attention to myself. I started making up stories about how the wretched thing had managed to get itself into my trunk. Would my name now be in police computers, given that I'd called for help when I found Godard's body? Worse yet, would they somehow know this hydria had belonged to Go-dard and think I'd stolen it or, heaven forbid, that I'd pushed him into the basement when he'd interrupted me during the robbery?

My hands were shaking as I handed over my passport, and I suppose noticing this, the guard ordered me to pull over to one side. A rather severe-looking woman came out of the building and demanded I open the trunk. I pushed the button in the glove compartment, and then stood beside her, trying to look as if I hadn't a care in the world as she peered into the car. Miraculously, after a few seconds, and a couple of prods at my suitcase, and even a tug at the blanket, she slammed down the trunk lid and waved me on my way. Perhaps she thought anyone with sufficiently poor taste to have a blanket that color could not possibly recognize anything worth smuggling. A mile or two down the highway, I pulled over and threw up on the side of the road.

I was still feeling absolutely ghastly by the time I reached Volterra, the town close to where Lake had his villa. Lake had told me to check into another inn, lovely, I'm sure, not that I was in any frame of mind to appreciate it, and, as usual, expensive. It had taken me all day and well into the evening to get there, but despite my fatigue, as soon as I got to the room, I unpacked the chimera hydria, removed the lampshade to give me more light, and had a good, close look.

It was absolutely beautiful, even more so than I'd thought when I'd seen it in the gloom of Godard's chateau. The scene, Bellerophon killing the chimera, was painted with real elan, embellished with swirls around the neck and base. I loved the feel of it, the smooth surface, so perfectly burnished, the weight and the balance, things most of us don't get to enjoy, given our only opportunity to experience such antiquities is behind glass in a museum. The hydria was in perfect condition, without so much as a crack, let alone a repair, so good, in fact, that I wondered if it were a fake. I was disabused of this notion, however, after I placed a call to the shop.

"Hi Lara," Clive said. "Enjoying your little holiday?"

"It's lovely, Clive," I said. "Would you happen to have the Interpol CD handy?"

"It's here somewhere," he said. "Why?"

"There's something I want to check," I said, "so do me a favor and load it up, will you?"

"Okay," he said a minute or two later. "What am I looking for?"

"A hydria," I said. "Etruscan. Depicting Bellerophon and the chimera."

"Who or what is a Bellerophon?" he said.

"Hero on winged Pegasus who killed the chimera, which is . . ."

"I know," he said. "That thing with way too many heads."

It took several minutes of combing through the list of stolen antiquities before Clive said, "Give me a little more of a description of the hydria, Lara."

I did. "I think it's here," he said. "That was a pretty detailed description you just gave me. It's supposed to be painted by some guy called Micali—actually I think Micali is the name of the person who identified him, not the painter him- or herself—or one of this guy Micali's followers. Done around 500 B.C. You wouldn't by any chance have this thing in your possession, would you?"

"No, Clive," I said. "A vision of it came to me in a dream."

"I can never tell when you're being facetious, Lara," he said. "But if you do have it, it's stolen, from a museum in the archaeological zone of Vulci, wherever that is."

"Mmm," I said. This situation just kept getting worse.

"If you do have it," he said, "you'd better call the French authorities."

"Italian," I said.

"I thought you were in Paris," he said.

"I was," I replied. "Now I'm in Italy."

"Well, wherever you are, you'd better turn it in. According to the UNESCO resolutions on the subject, if you acquired this chimera thing in good faith, you're entitled to compensation for it. You did acquire it in good faith, did you not? You didn't say, steal it, or anything, did you?"

"No, I did not steal it, Clive." I sighed. "Thanks so much for that vote of confidence."

"Sorry," he said. "I just worry about you sometimes, Lara. Rob called, by the way. He says to tell you to stay out of trouble."

Right. Leaving aside the fact that it was way too late for that, what would have been wrong with "Tell Lara I love her," or "Tell her I miss her terribly every minute she's away"?

"He also said to tell you he misses you," Clive said. "I suppose I should have mentioned that first."

"Good-bye, Clive," I said. "If Rob calls again, tell him I miss him, too."

It was at this point that I hatched what I thought of as Plan A. I would get the hydria to Lake. He would then have one of his minions call a news conference on his behalf, or whatever it was he'd been planning to do with the bronze horse, and announce with a flourish that he'd managed to track down an Etruscan antiquity, probably by the Micali painter or one of his followers, that he believed to have been stolen. There'd be a nice speech about returning it to the museum where it belonged, where all could enjoy it and appreciate the rich heritage of the Etruscans and so on.

The plan wasn't perfect. There'd be questions about where he found it, and I needed to come out of this with a clean reputation and a nice commission, even if I hadn't paid anything for the hydria, and we'd both have to count on the fact that no one would recognize it as the hydria in Godard's place. I might be able to say that I bought it from Godard, at Lake's request.

Now that Godard was dead, who was going to argue with me? With a bit more refinement, I hoped Plan A would work. It had to. There was no Plan B.

I put the carton with its precious contents back in the trunk of the car to keep it out of sight of the prying eyes and possibly clumsy hands of the housekeeping staff and settled in to wait for Lake to contact me.

I didn't hear from him that first evening. I tried calling the number he'd originally given me, Antonio's cell phone, but there was no answer. I left a voice mail message to say I'd arrived. The next morning, I sat in the lounge of the inn drinking tea with lemon and slowly eating toast, hoping my stomach would settle down, waiting for Antonio to show up. After a couple of hours of this, I couldn't sit still anymore and headed out.

Volterra is a really spectacular place, a medieval town set high up, maybe 1,800 feet on high cliffs, the baize as they're called, over two huge valleys, with views in every direction. It's about thirty miles from the sea, which you can occasionally see, and it can be a pretty wild and windy place. It has narrow cobblestone streets that have a claustrophobic feel to them as the buildings on either side hang over the street. It has gorgeous public buildings, the Duomo and several churches, and here and there you can find reminders of a much earlier Volterra, the Velathri of the Etruscans and the Volterrae of the Romans.

D. H. Lawrence, visiting during a cold and rainy April, found Volterra to be a gloomy place, cold and damp, the people rather sullen. On that day, however, the sun was shining, and although, because of the steep and narrow streets and the buildings that shielded them, sunlight rarely reached street level, hovering instead over the red tile rooftops and the crenellations of the grander buildings, I found it all rather beautiful.

Realizing that I was hungry at last, I sought out a trattoria on a steeply sloped street near the center of the medieval part of the city, the Piazza dei Priori. It was late, the place was empty except for a couple of men at the back, and the server, a rather robust woman who obviously loved to talk, hovered after she brought my insalata mista, a lovely green salad with carrots and radicchio.

"Just here for the day?" she asked.

"A couple of days," I said. "I arrived yesterday and may stay a day or two longer."

"Most people just come for an hour or two, on their way to or from San Gimignano," she said. "There are nicer places to stay in Tuscany than Volterra."

"I think it's beautiful here," I said.

"You wouldn't think so if it was raining or really windy."

"Perhaps not," I said. Why argue? I just wanted to eat.

"You're not with the media, are you?" she asked a few minutes later as she brought a steaming bowl of pasta al funghi, mushroom pasta.

"No," I said, tucking into the food. "Why would you think that?"

"That Ponte business," she said. "The reporters, the police. What an affair!"

"Ponte," I said. "Is that the fellow who—"

"Jumped off the baize," she nodded. "You should have some wine with this," she said. "I'll bring you a nice glass of Vernaccia de San Gimignano."

"Okay," I said. I wasn't going anywhere.

"I saw him that very day," she, said, placing the glass in front of me. Vernaccia is one of my favorite whites, so I took a sip and smiled. "Good?" she said. I nodded.

"He walked right past here," she said. "I was outside sweeping the street in front of the place. He walked down the hill and through the gate, the Porta all Arco. Have you seen it yet? No? You should. It's Etruscan, the bottom part, anyway, and the heads. They're supposed to be Etruscan divinities of some kind. Tinia, I think, plus a couple of others. They're guarding the town. Anyway, Ponte—we all know him here—he has a splendid villa, vineyards, everything, very fancy, on the road between here and San Gimignano. Later on, when I was going home, I saw him just standing there, outside the gate, looking over the wall. He'd been there for at least an hour. They found him the next morning at the foot of the baize. I say he killed himself. Why else would he just stand there looking out from the gate? I suppose he decided it wasn't high enough there to kill him, so he went over to the high cliffs, waited until dark so no one would see him, and then threw himself over the side. Lots of people jump off the cliffs there. They say suicidal people are drawn to that spot. Perhaps it's the sound of the wind calling out to them. Although why Ponte would want to, with that beautiful wife and children. You never know about a marriage, though, do you?" She turned to a call from one of the men at the back. "I'd better go. Enjoy your meal."

"I believe you've just been introduced to the Volterrans' love/hate relationship with their city," a man seated a couple of tables away said to me, as the woman retreated. I turned to look at him. He was very nicely dressed, a business suit with exquisite Italian tailoring, not terribly attractive, perhaps, but one of those Italian men who seem quite comfortable with themselves. He'd arrived a few minutes after I had. "Don't let her put you off your food," he added. "It is a lovely place, and all that nonsense about the baize is just that. Nonsense."

"Are you from here, then?" I said.

"No. Rome. I'd like to live here," he said. "But my wife is Roman, through and through. She'd much rather breathe pollution and gas fumes than be out in the country. We do have some property here, though, a vineyard and some olive trees, so I get to come here from time to time to check on them."

"I've always dreamed of having some property here," I said. "One of those wonderful old Tuscan farmhouses, a few acres of vines."

"Well then," he said. "My card. I know people in real estate I'd be happy to put you in touch with."

"I'd like to be serious about it, but no, I fear it's a dream only." I looked at his card. His name was Cesar Rosati. "Here's my card as well," I added.

"Antique dealer. How interesting," he said. "Are you by yourself, by the way?"

"Right now I am," I said. "But I'm meeting friends shortly." Not true, but I usually find it pays to be cautious in these kinds of situations. It was nice to have somebody to talk to, though. I'd been on the road for a long time, now, and I'd spent way too many evenings by myself in a hotel room watching CNN and eating room service food, which even in Italy isn't so hot.

"Do you mind if I join you? Talking across two tables seems rather unfriendly," he asked.

Why not? I thought as I gestured toward the seat opposite. "The Rosati Gallery," I said, looking again at the card he'd given me. "No doubt I should have heard of it, but I haven't."

He smiled. "There is no reason you should have. It's more a hobby than a business, and we can't compare ourselves with the fabulous collections in Rome. Like the Vatican, for example. It would be foolhardy, if not downright tempting fate, to try to compete with an organization with God on its side." We both laughed. "I'm semi-retired really. I used to be a banker. Now I just dabble in a few things. The gallery I do for the pleasure of it. My wife's family has some wonderful art, and we've opened a part of our home to the public."

"I must come and see it," I said. "What kinds of art do you have?"

"My wife prefers sixteenth-century sculpture, but her family has collected for well over a hundred years, so there's something for everyone: Etruscan right through to some twentieth-century paintings. It's small by museum standards, of course, but a very nice private collection. If you're in Rome, I hope you'll call me. I'll show you around personally."

"So, a gallery in your home," I said. "That must present some challenges. Security, and so on. With Etruscan artifacts, for example. There's probably a big market for those." I found myself asking the question, even though I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer right at that moment.

"There is, indeed. It's a disgrace, really, how many Etruscan antiquities have been stolen or bought and sold illegally. We have very good security, of course, but we did have one break-in. Funny you should mention Etruscan artifacts. Only one object was stolen, a really gorgeous Etruscan kylix, nothing else. You know what I mean by kylix, do you? A two-handled drinking cup? Probably the Bearded Sphinx painter. I'm sure it was stolen on demand. Someone wanted that piece, and only that one, and hired someone to get it."

The woman returned with Rosati's order, raised her eyebrows slightly when she saw he'd moved, and asked if we'd like some more wine. We said we did.

"It bothers me," Rosati said, as she left us. "The way she talks about Gianpiero Ponte. I couldn't help overhear her talking to you about him. I knew Ponte. I wouldn't call him a friend, exactly, but he was a close acquaintance, and I dislike hearing people gossiping about him. Who knows what makes a person do what he did? Not the sounds of the baize, certainly. He had a lovely wife and family, and it's a terrible tragedy."

"I'm sure it is," I said.

Despite that gloomy subject matter, I spent a reasonably pleasant hour of conversation with Rosati over a second glass of wine, a tartuffo, and an espresso, all of which improved my sense of well-being no end. He made a few suggestions about sights in the area he thought I'd be interested in seeing and was obviously pretty knowledgeable about Tuscany as a whole. I learned some more about the market for Etruscan antiquities, although nothing, really, I didn't know by now. My one complaint was that he left his cell phone on and took three calls while he was sitting with me. I may be old-fashioned, but I really dislike listening to people talk on the phone while they're sitting in a restaurant, particularly if they're at my table. He made an appointment with one caller, had a mild disagreement with the second, and brushed off the third. Then he placed a brief call to someone to tell them where he was.

At some point in the conversation I mentioned where I was staying. "Lovely place," he said. "If your friends haven't arrived, perhaps we could have dinner together at the hotel this evening. I promise I won't bring my cell phone," he added. "I can tell you don't approve."

I hesitated for just a second too long.

"No pressure. I'm sure you're busy," he said. "Why don't we leave it that I'll be in the dining room at eight. If you're there, wonderful. If not, it's no problem. I have no other plans."

"I expect I'll see you then," I said. Why not, really. It was better than room service again.

I checked for messages at the hotel. There were none, so I decided I might as well do some sightseeing. Plan A would work, I told myself. I just had to be patient and wait until I saw Lake again. By late afternoon, quite by accident, I found myself by the baize. The cliffs have something quite primordial about them, sheer drops and yawning crevices, where the wind whistles and groans far below. I knew what had created them. Soft yellow sandstone on top, they are a gray clay lower down. The water that falls on Volterra seeps through the surface stone, pooling in the clay below and destabilizing the ground. From time to time, great masses of the cliffs simply collapse into the depths below. The baize are, in many ways, starkly beautiful, but I could see that they'd be a place people would feel drawn to if they were desperate, or depressed, or just tired of life. I thought of Ponte, a man I'd never known, and Godard, one with whom I'd spent only the better part of an hour, both gone, perhaps both of them by choice.

Precariously near the edge of the cliffs stood the remains of an old building. Its walls were cracked and broken, and it looked forlorn, abandoned to its fate, as the edge of the baize crept nearer. Soon it would follow the Pontes of this world, the ancient walls and necropolises of the Etruscan city, and other much more recent buildings that had crashed into the dark chasms when the earth gave way beneath them. As I looked at it, I began to feel as if that abbey and I were alike somehow, that I, too, was standing helpless, unable to move, waiting to be pulled into the abyss. I wished I'd never met Crawford Lake nor been dazzled by his money and my own ambition. Annoyed with myself for being so deeply affected by the place, I pulled myself away to head back to the hotel, which seemed to me, with its bright lights and people, to offer a sort of sanctuary.

As I entered the grounds, though, I was fast disabused of that notion. The hotel had two small parking areas, one to the side of the hotel, the other around the back. I parked on the side, beside a red Lamborghini, the same one I'd parked next to in Nice, given the yellow umbrella in the back window, and entered the hotel by a side door. As I did so, through a hole in the hedge, I was startled to catch a glimpse of carabinieri in the back lot. To my horror, they were opening the backs of cars and peering in, shining flashlights against the dim light. I pulled back a little into the shadow of the hedge and thought what to do. The police were searching trunks. When they got to mine, unless I got it out of there, they'd find a stolen Etruscan hydria. I'd have to make a dash back to my car, drive off before they got to it, and find somewhere else to hide the hydria until I could contact Lake. I turned back toward the car.

At that moment, a dark green Passat with a broken taillight and a badly scratched fender pulled up to the unloading spot near the front door, about three or four cars from mine. The driver got out and signaled for a bellhop. As he did so, he turned slightly, and by the lamp at the entranceway, I saw who he was: Pierre Leclerc, or perhaps it was, as Godard had thought, Le Conte. This seemed just a little too much of a coincidence for me. Whatever his name was, he'd been in Vichy, and while I hadn't seen him, the damage to the car also placed him in Nice at the same hotel as I was. At some point between the time I'd seen the hydria in the glass case in Godard's chateau that first afternoon and the rest stop on the highway between Nice and the Italian border, the hydria, stolen not once, but twice, presumably, had turned up in my car.

Leclerc reached into the car, popped the trunk, and signaled to the bellhop to bring his bags in, as he went up the steps to reception. The boy took out two large suitcases and used his elbow to push down the trunk lid. Perhaps because of the damage to the back, it didn't catch, and the trunk bounced open a few inches as the two men disappeared through the hotel's front door. I really didn't think about what I did next, moving almost on automatic pilot. I looked about me quickly, saw no one watching, then in quick succession strode the few steps to my car, got the carton out of the trunk, placed it in Leclerc's, and got into my car and drove away. There was a Plan B after all.

I was several miles away before I remembered that I was standing up that nice man, Cesar Rosati.