The Estruscan Chimera

…the Etruscans were vicious. We know it, because their enemies and exterminators said so.

—D. H. LAWRENCE

FOURTEEN. ROME

DOTTIE BEACH MADE HER WAY SLOWLY down the Via Condotti, stopping often to look into the shop windows, and from time to time entering one of the establishments, to emerge some time later with another parcel. After about an hour and a half of this, it was pretty clear to me that Dottie was merely shopping. Not just anywhere, mind you, but in some of the finest designer stores there are. I gave up on her, for the moment, and found myself a place where I could watch the door of the building where the Corelli Ponte agency did business.

While I waited, I called Clive. "Hi Clive," I said.

"Where are you?" he demanded.

"Rome."

"I hope you're calling to say you're on your way home. You've been away a long time, and it's tough running this place all by myself," he grumped.

"You're not all by yourself," I said. "Alex is with you, isn't he? Anyway, what was all that stuff about my having a nice holiday? You and Moira take several holidays a year."

"I suppose," he said. "Not as long as this, though."

"Guess who I've run into a couple of times?" I said, ignoring his ill humor.

"Who?"

"Dottie Beach. I've had dinner with her a couple of times in France, and I saw her again in Rome."

"What's she doing there?"

"Buying for her store, of course," I said.

"Boy, if you and I went bust, and then tried to turn right around and open another store right away, do you think they'd let us? Of course not. I don't know how some people do it!"

"What are you talking about Clive?"

"She went broke. Didn't I tell you?"

"No, Clive, you didn't."

"Sorry. I guess I forgot. It's not as if she's our best friend or anything."

"When did all this happen?"

"Just after the last New York winter antique fair," he said. "She was there, and pretty desperate, let me tell you. Looking for a partner for what she called her successful business, of course, but you know how gossipy it is in the trade. Everybody knew she was in trouble."

"I thought she was doing okay. What happened?"

"Her husband, Hugh what's his name, is divorcing her. I did tell you that, didn't I? Very messy divorce, too. Not civilized like ours. He's refusing to give her a dime. He says he set her up in that antique business, and paid for the whole thing for years, and if she couldn't make a go of it, now it's her problem, not his. Or words to that effect. She didn't last long after the show."

"She must be doing okay again, because she's out shopping in the designer stores on the Via Condotti," I said.

"Some people always land on their feet, don't they? Maybe they named the street after her. Dottie, Via Con-Dottie. Get it? Har har. Now, when are you coming home?"

"Soon," I said.

"Soon?" he wailed. "What does that mean?"

"I'm having trouble booking a flight," I lied. "Airline strike pending."

"Those Italians!" he said. "They're always striking about something."

"Does the name Pierre Leclerc mean anything to you, Clive?"

"Pierre Leclerc," he repeated slowly. "I don't think so. Should it? Who is he?"

"A rather sleazy art dealer in France," I said. "Would Pierre Le Conte ring a bell either?"

"Le Conte, Le Conte," he said. "No. But why don't you ask that Mondragon fellow we met at Burlington House? He seemed to know everybody. You're not dealing with this sleaze are you?"

"Trying not to. Mondragon is a good idea. See you soon."

"When's soon?" he said.

"Just soon," I said.

Around one, Eugenia Ponte left the building and strode purposefully along the Via Veneto. Unlike Dot-tie, she ignored the shop windows, but turned into one of the fancier hotels, crossing the lobby and entering the bar cum restaurant. A rather tall, slim, and handsome man rose from his seat as she arrived. I got a table behind a pillar.

After a few minutes of animated conversation, they ordered, and a bottle of champagne and two plates of raw oysters arrived, which should have given me a clue as to what was going to happen next. Their love food downed, the two of them walked out of the restaurant and headed directly for the elevators. I knew who the man was, given I'd met him already. But just in case he wasn't who he said he was, I waited until the maitre d' had left his post at the entranceway and checked the book to see if there was a name I recognized. There was: a table for two at 1:15 for a Signore Palladini. Circles within circles: the man who owned the apartment with the woman who'd supplied the actors. I felt as if I was closing in on something, even if I didn't know what it was.

At three, as previously arranged, I called Salvatore. "What have you got?" I said.

"I began with those I could identify personally, and looked, as you suggested, for a link to Crawford Lake," Salvatore said. "Cesar Rosati was first, because I already knew something about him, and he is very easy to research. Rosati used to be a banker, quite a successful one. He started to dabble in Internet banking, and he got run out of business by Marzocco Financial Online, which as you know, is Crawford Lake's company. Rosati survived it somehow. He seems to have recovered rather nicely, although not in banking."

"He has a gallery, I think," I said. "His wife's family's collection, or something."

"Yes, indeed. Together they own a lot of Etruscan objects. He seems to have gotten around all the restrictions on ownership of such things by opening his wife's family home to the public, as a museum and gallery, getting special dispensation, as it were. It's called the Rosati Gallery, as you probably already know. The gallery admission is rather steep, so maybe that's what keeps him in style. Maybe he just married well, although I have always thought his wife's family was more style than substance, if you see what I'm saying.

"He's made a real name for himself in a very short period of time. One of the reasons he is so well-known is that he has an exceptional track record in finding and repatriating Italian antiquities. He recently, perhaps a year ago, found a beautiful Etruscan stone sphinx, carved of nenfro, which had purportedly been stolen from a tomb in Tarquinia. It is now on display at his gallery. A couple of years ago, he announced with something of a flourish that he'd found an Etruscan kylix, a water cup, decorated by the Bearded Sphinx painter, who, as I am sure you know is, like Micali, an identifiable and rather spectacular Etruscan painter. It, too, had been stolen many years ago, this time from a museum.

"Now you should know there are those among us who are skeptical, who think that Rosati was already in possession of these antiquities; which is to say, that he dealt in stolen goods and was now trying to legitimize the objects by pretending to have found them elsewhere. But Rosati says he and a group of donors bought the sphinx from a collector in Switzerland, the kylix in England, and brought both back to Italy, to cheers all round. One of the donors, by the way, was Gianpiero Ponte, Eugenia's late husband. I found a photograph in the newspaper archives here showing Ponte, Rosati, and Vittorio Palladini at the unveiling of the kylix."

"Eugenia Ponte is having an affair with Palladini," I said.

"Is that so?" Salvatore said. "This is most interesting. I checked out Ponte and could find no relationship to Lake. Ponte did, of course, commit suicide. Some said his business was falling apart, so thinking of Lake's rather predatory practices, I looked into that. I could find nothing in it. The rumors, according to some colleagues of mine, are that the problem was a marital one, and that the marriage has been something of a matter of convenience for some time now. You know Italy and divorces. Just not done. It would appear the stories are true. She's wrapping up her husband's company, and it looks to me as if she'll do reasonably well out of it. And she's always been quite successful. She was a model first, then a television star, although I never saw her show, and her agency always seems to have done well enough. I can't find any indication of legal or financial problems of any sort. The only negative is what you and I know, but no one else really does, and that is that both Antonio and Mario were on that agency's roster.

"Now, before I get on to Palladini and the others, let me finish with Rosati."

"That kylix you mentioned," I said. "I think he told me it was stolen."

"Correct. About two years ago, there was a break-in at Rosati's museum. The alarm system went off, but the police were not as fast as they might have been getting there, and when they did, they found the security guard bound and gagged in a closet, and the Etruscan kylix missing. At the time this happened, the museum from which the kylix had been stolen many years ago was demanding its return. I mention the break-in for a number of reasons: one, the obvious resemblance between the story of the kylix and your hydria, both stolen and found outside Italy in the hands of collectors, but also because the insurance company that had to pay up when the kylix was stolen was the one at which Vittorio Palladini is employed as head of their legal and claims department. The kylix was insured for a great deal of money, even more perhaps than one would think it was worth, if one can put a price on such objects. He must have been more than a little disappointed when it went missing."

"Could you find a link between Palladini and Lake?"

"None."

"But the Pontes and Palladini and Rosati are all linked, and Rosati knew Lake, or at least knew what doing business in competition with Lake was like."

"Yes," he said.

"And Palladini told Yves Boucher to put me in touch with Godard."

"Apparently," Salvatore replied.

"Is there more?"

"Gino Mauro. He's an American, actually, although when he's over here, he's more Italian than the Italians. He maintains he's descended from royalty or some such thing, but in fact, his parents emigrated to America from a dirt-poor village in Sicily."

"And made their fortune?"

"They didn't, but he did. He is, or was, a pugilist."

"A what?"

"A pugilist. Actually, a wrestler, or a former one. WWF, I think you call it. He fought under the name of Gino the Supremo." Salvatore paused. "Does that name work in English?"

"Sort of," I said. "And I'd be willing to bet I've seen him, in the Piazza Navona with Dottie Beach. The person I'm thinking of threw her young friend out of the place faster than you can almost imagine."

"I see," he said. "That sounds about right. As a pugilist, Mauro was moderately successful, knew when to retire, and got into fiber optics."

"Here comes Lake," I said.

"You are quite right. Lake tried to buy the business. Mauro refused to sell. Lake stole most of Mauro's customers."

"And now the farmhouse is for sale. Does he have links to anyone else in this group?"

"None that I was able find."

"Anything more on Palladini?"

"Just what I've told you. He is a corporate lawyer and works for the insurance company."

"He owns a rather lavish apartment in Rome. Do you make enough money as head of the legal and claims department of an insurance company to own that kind of place?"

"I don't know. I can tell you he bought it a couple of years ago and is already selling it. Maybe he got in over his head."

"I don't think so. He's looking for a bigger place. I suppose he could be lying about that. Anything else?"

"Not so far. I can find nothing on Yves Boucher nor Pierre Leclerc. Anna, I have nothing to go on. Maire, either. And you, what have you found? Other than that Eugenia and Palladini are close?"

"I discovered that Dottie Beach is broke but is still shopping the Via Condotti," I said. "I've also discovered that she has not been exactly forthcoming about her store. I'm wondering if she was lying about having a store in New Orleans? Or has she found another partner to replace her husband as the money supply?"

"Did you say New Orleans?" Salvatore said.

"Yes."

"Just a minute, please." I heard paper rustling, and then he came back on the line. "Gino Mauro has a winter home in New Orleans," he said. "His headquarters is New York, but yes, he has a place in New Orleans. Perhaps you are quite right about the fellow with Dottie Beach in the Piazza. And he is usually in Italy this time of year."

"Yes, Silvia said he was coming here. But he wasn't in Italy when Antonio died. At least that's what the papers say. Maybe I'll see if I can track down the reporter who wrote the piece on Antonio's death. I can't recall who it was, but it can't be too difficult to find out."

"I have the clipping here," Salvatore said. "After our discussion last night, I went through all the last few days' papers. Please stay on the line, and I'll get you the name of at least one of the reporters. Gianni Veri," he said after a minute.

"The same fellow who wrote the article on the hydria and Lola's arrest," I said.

"I believe you are correct," Salvatore said. "Already I do not like him."

It took me awhile to track Veri down. I went to the offices of the newspaper I thought he worked for and was told he was a freelancer. I told them I was very interested in finding him in order to commission an article, and after a few minutes of my being absolutely charming, at least trying to be, someone took pity on me, or possibly on Gianni, given what I was to discover, and gave me his phone number. From that I found his address.

Veri had an office about the size of a broom closet on the third floor of a walk-up in a rather insalubrious part of town. His name was in peeling gold letters on the door, and when I went in, he had to close the door in order for me to get around the desk and sit down. I told him I was an antique dealer, and that I had a newsletter, which regularly contained articles written by experts on subjects of interest to collectors, and having seen his article on the businessman who was smuggling antiquities right from under the noses of the police, I'd wanted to find him to commission an article. He looked rather pleased.

"I'm sorry to drop in unannounced like this," I said to him. "But I was very interested in your article. I thought it showed you really knew what you were talking about. I tried to E-mail you," I added. "Veri at something or other."

"That explains it," he said. "It's Veii, nor Veri. Silly of me to choose something so close to my own name.

It confuses everybody. Veii is the name of one of the Etruscan city states."

"Like Cisra," I said, recalling Godard, "or Velathri."

He looked startled. "Exactly," he said. "I see you are a student of the Etruscans. What did you say your name is?"

I told him, putting my card in front of him.

"Signora," he said, his mood changing abruptly. "I'm afraid this visit of yours is in vain. I am a serious journalist, not a hack. I do not write articles for commercial newsletters. Thanks for dropping by."

He rose from his desk and opened the door, which he could do without moving his feet. I tramped back down the stairs, got out my cell phone, and called Salvatore.

"Add Gianni Veri to the list," I said.

"I already did," Salvatore said. "As soon as you noticed he'd written both articles, I phoned a journalist friend right away. Veri was a real up and comer only two years ago. He was well on his way to becoming editor, according to a friend of mine. Then he wrote a piece attacking Lake. He brought up the rumor about Brandy and her fiance. Lake's response was apparently immediate. Veri lost his job. Everyone thinks Lake had Veri silenced. Nobody else will touch Veri after that, they wouldn't dare, so now he's a freelancer. I'm not sure how well he's doing."

"Not well at all," I said. "Your mention of Brandy and Taso makes me think I should revisit all the files I looked at when I was looking at Lake to see if there's something I missed. I'll call you tomorrow morning as planned."

I had missed something. It was easy enough to do.

I'd been mesmerized by the pictures of Brandy and the dozens and dozens of white roses on Taso's coffin. There were three women around the coffin: Brandy, a woman wearing a veil who was described as Taso's mother, and a third, Taso's aunt. The aunt's name was Anna Karagiannis, and the last time I'd seen her in person, she was serving lemon cake in Crawford Lake's apartment.

I called England. "Is Alfred Mondragon there?" I asked.

"No, I'm sorry. Alfred is on vacation for a week. I'm his associate, Ryan Mcgillvray. Is there any chance I might help you?"

"I hope so, Ryan. I was talking to Alfred just the other day and was hoping to catch him again. Actually, I believe we met at an auction at Burlington House. I'm Lara McClintoch."

"Yes, I believe I remember you," he said.

"Ryan, I've been approached by an agent by the name of Pierre Le Conte or Leclerc. I may not have the name right. He has a painting I'm interested in. He gave Mr. Mondragon's name as a reference."

"Of all the cheek!" Ryan said. "Alfred will be furious. Don't deal with Leclerc or Le Conte or whatever he calls himself, please. It wouldn't surprise me if he had several names. He's a crook."

"I won't tell anyone, I promise," I said. "What do you mean by a crook?"

"I mean, he's absolutely horrible. He worked here, you know, for a few months. Alfred made a little mistake, and Le Conte ... I get so annoyed just thinking about this."

"What do you mean by a little mistake?" I said.

"Alfred purchased a lovely Greek wine jug, thinking the paperwork was in order. But it wasn't. It had been smuggled out of Italy by the owner for sale in Britain. Poor Alfred was exhausted after doing three antique shows in a row and didn't check the paperwork the way he should have. It's as simple as that. It could happen to anyone. Le Conte comes and tells him it was smuggled and tries to extort money from Alfred. Alfred is not one to be blackmailed. He called the authorities, told them he had bought this in error, and returned it to Italy. Then he told Le Conte to get lost, fired him on the spot.

"In revenge, Le Conte then tried to set himself up with Crawford Lake. You know who I'm talking about, right? The billionaire nobody has seen for years? He's a client of ours from time to time, and Le Conte tried to steal him away from us. Lake figured the fellow out right away, of course. You don't get to be a billionaire by being gullible. Blew Le Conte off pretty fast. But still, it was a terrible situation."

"Terrible," I agreed. "I expect Lake is not the kind of client you'd want to annoy," I added. "I've been reading about his financial exploits. People have rather unpleasant things to say about him."

"We've always found Lake to be an honorable person," Ryan said. "He's fair about commissions and certainly not difficult to deal with from a personality perspective. I haven't met him, of course, but Alfred has, once anyway, and says he rather likes the man. I mean, what can you expect from Lake's enemies? They're bound to say bad things about him. All I can say is that we are glad to have him as a client."

"Thanks for letting me know, Ryan. I'm sure you've saved me from making a dreadful mistake with Le Conte."

"I hope so," Ryan said. "The man is a pig."

I figured I had time for one more visit that day, to the Rosati Gallery, located in a huge old villa just off the Borghese Gardens. I paid a rather steep admission, as Salvatore had said I would, and went in. The museum was housed on the main floor of the house. It was small, as museums go, but the pieces in it were exceptional, particularly the Etruscan room. I found the nenfro sphinx that Salvatore had mentioned, and peered carefully at several displays of Etruscan ceramics. It was very quiet: I saw only a woman with a young child and a student sketching the sphinx. At the far end was a door marked Office of the Director. I went in. I was in a small reception area, with no receptionist, that led to only two offices. One said Director; the other had a temporary sign stuck on with tape.

That one said N. Marzolini.

Great, I said to myself. Add another name to the list.

I carefully tried Nicola's door. It was locked. I could hear voices in the director's office, however, and decided to wait to size up the situation before I barged right in. The conversation, in English and quiet at first, became progressively louder. I thought of leaving and coming back in a few minutes, until the words I heard began to make sense.

"Look, I'd like to help," the one voice said. I was pretty sure it was Rosati. "But the point is, you paid far too much for it, way over market. I hope you'll forgive me for saying so, but you let your wish to beat out Lake cloud your judgment. I told you what it was worth."

"So what would you pay for it?" the second voice, an American, said.

"I can't pay anything. I have no acquisitions budget to speak of, and frankly, this is not really a commercial venture. I get certain tax benefits out of it, which I could offer to help you with, if you have income in Italy and are prepared to donate it," the voice I took to be Rosati, said.

"Maybe the group would consider it."

"Perhaps. That's not up to me. You know, though, they couldn't come up with anything like what you paid for it."

"Okay," the second man said. "I'll think about the tax angle, and we'll talk some more."

Before I could duck out into the museum, the tiniest cowboy I have ever seen came out of the office. He was dressed in a gray suit that was perfectly tailored for him, with everything, even the buttons, scaled down in proportion to his height, a white shirt, and string tie. To complete the look, he wore rather elaborate black cowboy boots and a Stetson. Including the hat and boots, he wasn't as tall as I am. "Ma'am," he said, tipping his hat to me as he went out.

Rosati was a few steps behind him.

"Hi," I said.

"Well, hello again," he said, looking surprised. "Did you come to claim that dinner I promised you in Volterra? You stood me up."

"I'm sorry. I got called away on business. Did you not get my message?"

"No, I did not."

"I would have thought such a nice hotel would have better service. This is a wonderful place you have."

"Then you've come to take me up on my offer of a tour. I'm delighted."

"No. I came to talk to you about Crawford Lake," I said.

He looked mildly amused. "Why would you want to do that?"

"That's a very good question, and one for which frankly, I don't have a good answer, other than that I feel I've been duped by the man, and I wanted to talk to someone who knew him."

"I see. Sit down, please," he said. "We'll have that drink we missed the last time. Campari and soda, perhaps? It's late in the afternoon. I think I'll have one, if you will."

"Sure," I said. He poured the drinks, taking ice from a small refrigerator under the counter, and the soda and Campari from a credenza.

"Now," he said. "Crawford Lake. What do you want to know?"

"Just your involvement with him."

"He put me out of business, or rather he put the bank I worked for out of the Internet banking business for awhile, and me out of a job."

"So, did you ever meet him in person?"

"No. I think that was one of the most offensive parts of it. This person whose face I couldn't even picture made a mess of my life."

"Do you hate him?"

"I did for awhile. I got over it. I have a rather nice life now, as perhaps you can see. I love art and antiquities, and I have this wonderful place, as you put it. I have good people working for me now, so I don't even have to work that hard. I just get to come in here whenever I want and enjoy myself."

"By good people, you mean someone like Nicola Marzolini," I said. "I couldn't help noticing his name on the door."

"Yes, Nicola is one of the people I employ from time to time. Do you know him?"

I nodded.

"He's a consultant, not full time, but very good. He knows his stuff, and he pays attention to detail. Pleasant fellow as well, although if you've met him, you probably know he has a thing about neatness. He has a fit when one of the others doesn't keep the work area absolutely tidy. He's always making sure the books on the shelf here line up perfectly. As you can see," he said waving his hand toward the desk in the room behind, "I'm of the school that believes that a tidy desk is the sign of a diseased mind. I haven't seen the top of my desk in months. But to get to your point, I probably should thank Crawford Lake for what happened, although I don't think I've reached that stage quite yet. Does that answer your question?"

"It does," I said. I just really didn't know whether to believe him or not. "Would Hank Mariani feel the same way you do? That was Hank Mariani, was it not? The Texas oilman who outbid Crawford Lake for the Etruscan bronze Aplu?"

"How ever would you know that?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I saw his picture in the paper. Lake was making a hostile bid for Mariani's company, if I remember correctly. Has he reached the same Zen state you have on the subject of Lake?"

"He isn't too relaxed about it, no. To be fair, though, it was only a few days ago that he was asked to clear out of his large corner office, when Lake won the battle. It will take awhile for him to recover, I'm sure."

"Presumably he had shares to sell and doesn't have to worry," I said. "Financially, I mean."

"Oh, I think it was more than just his pride that was hurt," Rosati said. "He spends rather lavishly, I'm afraid, and he did some rather stupid things to try to stop Lake from getting the company. As a result, he wants me to buy the Aplu, but like all museums or galleries, I essentially have no budget for doing so. I'm sure he'll land on his feet, however, and I shouldn't be gossiping about him like this. Another Campari?" he asked.

"No, I better not. But thank you, both for the drink and your candor."

"I hope whatever Crawford Lake has done to you is not too serious. Whatever it is, my advice to you is just to get on with your life. There are always other opportunities."

"Thanks again," I said.

"You're welcome. Let me walk you to the door. I'm leaving, too. I'll show you a few of my favorite things as we go."

"Good-bye, signora," the security guard said. "Have a good holiday tomorrow, signore," he said to Rosati.

"I'm spending a day in the country," Rosati said as he shook my hand. "An annual get-together with friends. I'm rather looking forward to it."

Outside the museum, I tried to call Salvatore to get him to look into Nicola Marzolini, but there was no answer. I went back to the hotel.

"Signora McClintoch," the bell captain called to me. "A package was delivered for you. I have taken the liberty of having it sent up to your room."

"Thanks so much," I said. What package? I thought.

A reasonably large box well wrapped in brown kraft paper sat on the bureau in my room. I regarded it with deep suspicion. The sender's name and address were quite clear, however: Salvatore Vitali at his address in Cortona.

I opened the box. It contained a bubble-wrapped package protected by a rather large quantity of foam chips. Gathering that it must be something fragile, I unwrapped it carefully, and found myself staring, once again, at the chimera hydria.

At that very moment, the phone rang.

"Lara!" Salvatore exclaimed. "I'm so glad to have reached you. I have such good news. I can barely speak, I am so happy. We wanted to phone you right away."

I said nothing, just stared at the hydria.

"Are you there?" he said. "Lara?"

"Yes, I'm here," I said through clenched teeth. "What is your news?"

"My Lola is free!" he said. "She is right here with me."

"That's wonderful," I said. "Congratulations. How did you manage that?"

"But I did nothing," he said. "As much as I would like to claim credit, and so to win my Lola's heart, I cannot do so. The evidence, you see, has disappeared. Thieves broke into the police station three days ago and stole several articles, including the chimera hydria. Massimo Lucca, the policeman in charge of the investigation, called this morning. No vase, no case. Do you understand? Lucca said he could not hold Lola any longer under the circumstances. Isn't that wonderful news?"

"Wonderful," I said.

"We must celebrate before you return to America," he said. "A good meal at my favorite restaurant, a bottle or two of their best Barbaresco. Lola must eat. I'm going to make her some pasta right away."

"And the parcel you sent me?" I said.

"What parcel?" he said.

"You didn't send me a parcel?"

"No," he replied. "Now, can you come this evening to celebrate with us?"

"I don't think so," I said. "There are a couple of things I still have to take care of here." That was an understatement. His excitement sounded so genuine, I didn't know what to think.

"Then tomorrow," he said. "Promise you'll come."

I picked up the hydria carefully and just held it for a few minutes, feeling its heft, the balance, the smooth surface. I placed it on top of the bureau in my hotel room and just looked at it for a long, long time.

Then I picked up my list of possible suspects. Pick one, I told myself. They can't all be guilty. I made three columns, and tried to assign the people on the list to at least one of them.

The first group I called the charade, those people whom I knew or at least suspected to be part of the false Lake scenario: Romano, first and foremost, as the Lake impersonator; Antonio; Boucher; Palladini; Anna Karagiannis or Anna the maid; Eugenia Ponte, whose agency both Antonio and Romano had come from; and Dottie, because she knew Eugenia, or at least Eugenia's agency.

The second list I called Lake's enemies: Rosati, despite what he said; Gino Mauro; Gianni Veri; and perhaps most of all, Brandy Lake; and Anna again, because of Brandy's fiance and Anna's nephew, Taso; and Maire, Brandy's helper. Because Dottie could well have known Mauro—I was almost certain he was the mystery man in the Piazza Navona—she made the list, too. Leclerc, assuming Ryan's story about Leclerc getting fired by Mondragon after trying to deal direct with Lake was true, I also placed in that column.

The third list I called the hydria, those who could be associated in any way with the object, either through their work or simply because they had seen it: Dottie; Leclerc, despite the fact he was no longer with us; Godard, of course; Antonio and Romano, both of whom had known I had it; and Nicola Marzolini and Rosati, both on the list because of their occupations. I also put Alfred Mondragon on the list for that reason, and because he knew Lake.

I eliminated dead people, and others like Maire, who just seemed unlikely suspects. There was only one person on all three lists: Dottie Beach. I looked back at the hydria. Three groups, like the three heads of the chimera. All by itself, the hydria had changed everything.

FIFTEEN. ORVIETO

DOTTIE BEACH STOOD OUTSIDE THE Hassler, her arm through that of her mystery man, who I had decided, based on nothing more than his performance in the Piazza Navona, was Gino the Supremo, Gino Mauro. I'd thought Dottie was lying about staying at the Hassler, but she hadn't been. She had neglected to mention that she was staying in a room reserved in Gino Mauro's name, that's all. A few minutes after they came outside, a Jaguar pulled up beside them, Eugenia Ponte at the wheel and Vittorio Palladini in the passenger seat. Gino and Dottie got in, and they took off. I pulled in behind them.

Eugenia took the Autostrada del Sole at a leisurely pace before turning off at the exit for Orvieto. Rather than taking the road to the town, she skirted the hill on which Orvieto is perched, crossed the valley, and started up the slope on the other side. Cypress trees, caught in the late afternoon sun, cast long, shadowy fingers across the fields. The road climbed progressively higher through a series of switchbacks, with several side roads leading off the main one, and I was afraid I might lose them, but about five miles out of town, she turned off the road and through large, wrought-iron gates.

I waited a few minutes, then drove through the gates and up a long driveway, finding myself at a rather attractive stone home set in a grove of cypress trees and handsomely landscaped. There was a large parking area, where the Jaguar, now empty, sat, along with a Mercedes or two, a Jetta, a couple of Opels, a rented Fiat, and a red Lamborghini with a bright yellow umbrella visible through the back window, the sight of which took me back to Nice and Volterra.

I took the box out of the trunk of my car and walked up to the main door. I rang, then knocked, but there was no answer. I walked around the house and up a slight slope and found myself in a lovely back garden. To one side, at the top of a slight incline, there was a swimming pool, and across the valley, Orvieto sat on its lofty plateau, sunlight shimmering on the cathedral dome. There was absolutely no one there, despite all the cars in the parking area. Dottie and Gino, Eugenia and Vittorio had vanished into thin air.

I knocked on a back door. There was no answer there, either, but a long buffet table had been set up in the loggia. It was covered with a linen tablecloth; plates, napkins, and cutlery were artfully laid out at one end; there was a lovely flower arrangement in the middle; and several candles, unlit.

I peered in the windows: again, no sign of life. I scanned the back garden and saw a piece of red cloth tied to the branch of a tree at the far end of the property. It marked the start of a path into the woods that angled down at first, then back up through the trees. At the end of it was a long, stone-lined passageway, open to the air, cut into the side of a hill, which ended in a wooden door, propped open, which appeared to lead straight into the hill.

It was rather dark inside, and there was an acrid smell like rotting leaves and mold. I was at the top of a very old and broken stone staircase that led into the gloom. There was a dim glow at the bottom. I picked my way slowly and carefully down the steps, trying not to dislodge any pieces of stone that would reveal my presence. I reached the last step, took a deep breath, and stepped into the light.

I don't know what they saw in me, other than a woman in black loafers and pants and a white shirt, holding a large cardboard box. A nuisance that had to be disposed of? A teacher who'd found them doing something naughty in the schoolyard? Or even an avenging angel of some kind?

I know what I saw: twelve people, all of whom I recognized, some wary, some embarrassed and frightened, still others merely curious. But I saw something else, too. Perhaps because I was so frightened, the urge to flee almost unbearable, I had a sense of being able to penetrate the civilized veneer to the monster that lay beneath. It was a writhing mass of evil, created partly by a carelessness caused by oblivion to consequences and partly through calculated malice.

"I believe this is yours," I said, extending my arms with the box in them toward the group.

Dottie Beach burst into tears. "I didn't kill Robert Godard," she sobbed. "No matter what you've been told."

As she spoke, Nicola Marzolini stepped forward, took the box, lifted its precious contents, and set the hydria on a stone bench. We all stared at it for a moment. It looked perfectly at home, which it should have, given that most of these ceramics were made for the dead. We were in an Etruscan tomb, something I could thank Robert Godard for knowing.

I was in the entranceway to a chamber about twenty feet long and almost as wide, with a gabled roof painted red. Stone benches, on which pillows had been heaped, lined all four walls, breaking only at the entranceway where I stood, and at another door, to my right, that led to some darkness beyond. The wall paintings were almost gone, faded to the point where only a few details could be made out, pale blue and yellow swallows flitting across one wall, the shadow of a feast of some kind on another. There was a false door painted into the far wall, and over the door, faint but still distinguishable, was a chimera, drawn and painted by some ancient hand.

A table had been set up in front of the false door, covered in a cloth that matched the ceiling, and on it was set up a bar. Wine chilled in a large bucket of ice, a blue glass bottle of grappa stood open, there were bowls of olives and a cheese platter, and several candles on the table and scattered about the room provided the light, casting large shadows against the walls.

"There is an explanation for this," Cesar Rosati said.

"One I'm sure we'd all like to hear," a voice behind me said. My heart leapt into my mouth. If I'd thought I could stay in the doorway and make a fast exit if necessary, I'd obviously been wrong.

"What are you doing here?" a tall woman with long, gray hair, pulled loosely back into a chignon, said. She looked rather more patrician than she had when I first saw her, dressed as she had been in a maid's outfit.

I looked over my shoulder. A tall man dressed in a white suit, white hat, and dark sunglasses stood in the doorway. His tie was not the right width to be fashionable, nor were his lapels, but I suppose if you don't get out much, there isn't much point in buying a new suit every season.

"Hello, Mr. Lake," I said. What I didn't know was whether his arrival improved my odds, which had been twelve to one before he got there, or made them worse.

"Ms. McClintoch, Anna," he said nodding politely in our direction. "And you, Mondragon." Alfred Mon-dragon nodded curtly.

"Lake!" Gino said. "Are you serious? Is this really Crawford Lake?"

"How did you find us?" Hank demanded.

"I followed Ms. McClintoch. Just about everyone here was following somebody, so I thought I'd join in," he said dryly.

"This is by invitation only," Hank said.

"I've been musing what the invitation, had I received one, would say," Lake said. "Buffet supper at six. Cocktails at four in the tomb?"

"If this place is not to your liking, then you know what you can do," Hank said.

"On the contrary, this is exactly my kind of place," he said, carefully replacing his glasses with a pair of a lighter tint. "Now, I believe Ms. McClintoch was about to get an explanation. Perhaps we could start off with some introductions. I'd prefer not to shake hands, if you don't mind. I'm Crawford Lake, and this is Ms. Lara McClintoch. And you are?"

Anna Karagiannis, the aunt of Brandy Lake's dead fiance, declined to introduce herself, but the rest of them did. Besides Anna; Dottie and Gino; Eugenia and Vittorio; there was Cesar Rosati, the man I'd stood up for dinner; Mario Romano, the fake Lake; the art dealer Mondragon; the journalist Gianni Veri; Hank Mariani, the tiny cowboy; Nicola Marzolini, my date a few evenings back; and the one person I hadn't been expecting, Massimo Lucca, the policeman from the carabinieri station in Arezzo. Hank Mariani was the last to introduce himself. He came up to me with his hand out.

"How do you do," he said. "I'm Pupluna."

"Pupluna?" Lake snorted.

"We call this group the Societa della Chimera," Mario Romano said defensively. "We meet every year around this time. We call it our annual meeting, and we have it here because, as I'm sure you know, the Etruscan kings met in this area—at a place they called Velzna—to discuss matters of state, trade, defense, those kinds of things. Anna has this wonderful home here, complete with Etruscan tomb, so she has graciously offered to be our host every year.

"We limit our membership to thirteen, after the Etruscan city states, and we all take the name of one of those cities. That's what Harold here meant when he said he was Pupluna. I'm Velc, Anna is Velzna, Dottie here is Clevsi, Cesar, Rusellae, and so on." He paused for a moment. "It sounds rather foolish when you tell a stranger, I'm afraid." He suddenly seemed at a loss for words.

"Perhaps I should carry on, then, shall I?" Nicola said. "This group has been meeting for what? Almost ten years now?" Several of them nodded. "We're rather fanatical about all things Etruscan. We have a little Internet chat group, to share information and just talk about our passion. At some point—I think maybe four or five meetings ago, wasn't it?—we decided we needed a project. We were beginning to feel we couldn't always be a social club.

"Someone, I think it was Cesar," he said, "suggested repatriating an Etruscan antiquity every year. We initiated an annual assessment for membership and built up a nest egg to help with expenses, and purchase, where necessary. I searched the records for missing artifacts and came up with a list. Alfred Mondragon here, with his inestimable knowledge and connections in the art world, has been able to track down four of them so far, a lovely small bronze of a warrior, a very nice stone sphinx, both of which now rest in Cesar Rosati's collection, a kylix by the Bearded Sphinx painter, which unfortunately we no longer have, and now, the piece de resistance, the chimera hydria, which like the others would be donated to the Rosati Gallery. It's very probably by the Micali painter, did you know that?" I nodded. "Perhaps you could take it from here, Alfred."

"The hydria resided with Robert Godard, Senior, in Vichy," Mondragon said, glancing carefully at Lake. "We found out that Godard was an Etruscophile like the rest of us, and so we offered him a position in the Societa. Godard died shortly after, which put a crimp in our plans, but we persevered and extended the same invitation to his son, also Robert. We thought we had convinced him to bring the hydria as a condition of his membership. Unfortunately, we didn't know that Robert Junior was disabled and would have real difficulty coming to Italy.

"For awhile we were still hopeful that Godard would bring it himself. He kept saying he would. But Nicola here, who went to see it and photographed it for us, thought it was pretty clear Godard was broke, ill, and wouldn't make it," Mondragon said. "At least not without help.

"And so," he said, pausing for a moment, "we had to come up with a different plan. Cesar, I think I'll turn it over to you at this point, as you were the one who came up with the idea."

Rosati cleared his throat. "A few of us got together, a committee I suppose you could call it, to figure out how to make this work. The simplest thing would have been to buy the hydria from Godard. However, we'd already told him not to sell the hydria, that it was his ticket into the Societa. The alternative seemed to be to help him get here. That's when we looked around for someone who could get money to him in a way he would find acceptable, that is to buy something from him. It couldn't be one of us, because if he came here and saw us all, he'd know something was up, and he mightn't be too inclined to donate the hydria then. And maybe he couldn't afford to. That's when we came up with the, um, plan," Rosati said.

"This plan being the one in which you used my name to trick Ms. McClintoch into assisting you with this," Lake said.

"I hope you will understand that our intentions were good," Eugenia said. "Once you've heard the story."

"Ah, intentions," Lake said. "We know all about those, don't we?"

"What I understand is that you thought ends justified means and were prepared to use someone unwitting, like me, to carry out your plans," I said.

"I take it you counted on the fact that no one would know what I looked like," Lake said. "Why did you choose Ms. McClintoch here?"

Dottie looked as if she was going to cry again. "I thought you'd be perfect for it," she said to me. "You have such an honest face, and of course you were here. I found that out easily enough. Now I feel really awful about it. I'm thinking you may never forgive me."

"I arranged for a fellow by the name of Yves Boucher to get Lara to Godard in Vichy," Vittorio Palladini said. "Actually, we'd already asked Boucher to try to buy it for us, or anything else Godard was prepared to sell, but he'd been singularly unsuccessful. Godard didn't take to him at all. We didn't think you knew much about Etruscan bronzes, Lara, so we concocted the idea of the Bellerophon, knowing—Nicola had checked the place out—that there was a large brom that might pass as a Bellerophon."

"Unfortunately," Nicola said. "You seemed to know rather more than we thought you did—I hope you'll take this as a compliment—and you ascertained correctly, and immediately, that it was a fake."

"Then Godard had his unfortunate accident," Palladini said. "Dottie told us." I looked over at Dottie. She was biting her lip and wouldn't meet my gaze.

"There's this little ray of sunshine. Lara has the hydria. We don't know how she managed it, but she does," Hank said. "Not only that, but she gets it across the border. We figure all we have to do is get it from her, and we keep on trying, but it doesn't work out."

"But there's the final catastrophe," Palladini said, looking accusingly at Massimo Lucca. "The carabinieri got it."

"It wasn't my fault," Lucca said. "I didn't make the anonymous calls, and I didn't arrest that woman."

"And then, of course," Gino said. "It disappeared again."

"Unbelievable," Lucca said, "that it could be stolen right out of the carabinieri station. Heads will roll on this one, I can assure you. I just hope one of them isn't mine. And by the way, I'm not sure I can overlook the fact that you stole it, Ms. McClintoch."

"Oh, come now," Eugenia said. "After all, there was another good thing about its disappearance. We felt badly your friend was in prison," she said, turning to me. "We knew it wasn't her fault. So while we were very disappointed not to get the hydria, we were glad she was released."

"We'd pretty much given up on the whole idea," Hank said. "We figured we'd just get together for the social event this year, and decide what, if anything, we wanted to try to do next year. And then who shows up but you, little lady, with the hydria!"

"So there you have it," Mario said. "We are in your hands really, all of us. I hope you'll understand our intentions were good, if we were occasionally a little heavy-handed."

"Yes, you could lose several of us our jobs," Lucca said.

"She won't," Dottie said. "Will you, sweetie, please? We were planning to donate it. You have to believe us." They all looked at me.

I had felt myself getting more and more furious as these waves of self-serving rationalizations and downright lies washed over me. "Is that it?" I said. I was almost gritting my teeth as I spoke.

"What do you mean?" Eugenia said.

"I believe Ms. McClintoch is referring to the fact that there are lacunae, holes, in this story that even I, as a relative outsider, can see," Lake said.

"I suppose there are one or two details missing," Mauro said.

"We're not talking about one or two minor details," I said.

"We don't know how you got the hydria out of the carabinieri station, if that's what you mean," Lucca said. "As I believe I've already mentioned."

"That's not what I mean," I said. "Your version mentions only one of the three people involved in this farce who are dead, omitting the two that were almost certainly murdered."

"Murdered? What is she talking about?" Hank said. "Nobody was murdered."

"Antonio Balducci was," I said. "So was Pierre Leclerc. Robert Godard may have been."

"Oh no, not Robert Godard! He wasn't!" Dottie said.

"Balducci? He killed himself," Mauro said. "At my farmhouse. Why he would choose that moment and that place I will never know. But he did kill himself."

"No, he didn't," I said.

"He was my best friend," Romano said. "I'd never do anything to hurt him. This is outrageous."

"The papers didn't say anything about him being murdered," Eugenia said. "He killed himself. I must object to this as well. He was one of my actors."

"Please," Lake said. "Enough of these protestations. If, in fact, some of you think that this is impossible, then I'm afraid that makes you the goat. You may object to this term, you may prefer to use Cesar's word committee, but the analogy is yours. You are the ones who have adopted the chimera as your symbol, and quite frankly, you fit it better than you know."

Lucca, I saw, was looking at me with some interest. "I'd like to know who Pierre Leclerc is or was," he said.

"A sleazy art dealer," Mondragon said. "Lake knows him, too. But I didn't know he was dead of any cause, let alone murder."

"He's the man found out by the Tanella," I said to Lucca. "The one you haven't been able to identify yet."

"I've never heard of him," Eugenia said. "What has he got to do with any of this?"

"Perhaps we should begin again, and hear Ms. McClintoch's version of events," Lake said.

"Last night I made three lists, although I think I now prefer Mr. Lake's analogy," I said. "Three lists, three groups, three heads of the chimera. I called the first of mine the charade. This roughly corresponds to the plan you had to get me to Vichy with money for Godard, and yes, Mr. Lake is quite right. Those of you, assuming there are some, who believed this version of events, are indeed the goat. So let's start the story again. Dot-tie?"

"Oh," she said, putting her hand up to her mouth. "I don't think.. ." She took a deep breath, and straightened up. "Okay," she said.

"Don't!" Gino said.

"I've got to," she said. "I can't live with myself otherwise."

"We're all waiting, rather breathlessly, I must say," Lake said.

Dottie opened her mouth a couple of times, but no sound came out. "You went to the chateau in Vichy the morning Robert Godard died," I prompted her.

"That's right," she said at last. "My job was to keep an eye on things in Vichy, but I also wanted to buy a dining suite," she said. "I'm opening a new store in New Orleans soon, and I need inventory. Godard said he'd think about it, and that I should come back the next day. I went into the chateau without knocking. He didn't answer, you see. It would take him too long to get to the door. It was open, though, so I just went in. When I got to that room with all the antiquities, you know that awful one with the bare light bulbs and the birds flying around," she said to me.

I nodded encouragingly.

"The cabinet with the hydria in it was open. I went over and decided I'd just try and buy the thing, or tell him I was a member of the Societa and I'd take it to the group on his behalf or something. All this pretend stuff about Lake seemed silly once I was there.

"I took the hydria out of the case and carried it to Robert Godard's study," she said. "I didn't mean to frighten him. He was just attaching some ropes to a harness and there was a trapdoor open. He saw me standing there with the hydria and he must have thought I was planning to steal it from him, because he started yelling at me and then sort of lunged at it. He fell right into the hole. It was the most horrible sound when he hit the floor down there. There was this crack..."

"His skull, I expect," Lucca said. "Hitting stone."

"Don't, please," Dottie said. "I can't bear to think about it. He looked so horrible lying down there, with the blood oozing out of his head like that. I panicked."

"So where was the hydria then?" I asked her.

"I had it," she said. "I was halfway to town before I realized I was still holding onto it. I swear I didn't mean to take it. And I didn't kill Robert Godard. It was an accident. I didn't touch him. But I know it was my fault." She started to sob.

"If you had it, why didn't you just bring it?" Hank said. "I mean how did Lara get it?"

"When I got back to town, I tried to decide what to do," she said. "I knew I had to report Godard's death. I thought I'd do it anonymously, from a phone booth or something. But then that odious man found me."

"What odious man?" Eugenia said.

"Pierre Leclerc," she said. "He must have been at Godard's, he must have seen what happened, and followed me. He pretended he was being helpful, but I knew he wasn't. He was horrible. He said the police would think I'd pushed Godard into the basement and stolen the hydria, but he, of course, was sure I hadn't. I told him how we were a group of people trying to get the hydria back to Italy for the Rosati Collection. He pretended to be sympathetic. All I had to do was give him the hydria and twenty thousand dollars, and he'd take care of everything."

"Good lord," Hank said. "That's extortion!"

"You think?" Gino said.

"I didn't have twenty thousand dollars, so I called Gino for help," Dottie said. "He's wonderful. We're getting married."

I thought I heard a soft harumph from Lake.

"He told me I should just head for Italy."

"That's all there is," she said. "Gino said he'd look after it. I'm sorry to bring you into this, honey," she added, turning to him. "But neither of us did anything wrong, so I think we should just tell everybody what happened."

"What's to tell? I arranged to have the guy paid what he wanted, and that's the last I've heard of him, Mauro said.

"Gino!" Dottie said.

"Okay, okay. The deal was that Leclerc would get the twenty thousand bucks only if he delivered the hydria to Italy. I figured we might as well try to get something out of this fiasco. I arranged to have him paid ten thousand in France, with the second ten to be given to him once the hydria was safe in Italy and turn over to one of us."

"And was it?" Lucca said.

"Yes," he said. "Leclerc told me that Lara had it."

"And did you?" Lucca said.

"Yes," I said. "For awhile, anyway. Leclerc put it in my car in Nice."

"He gave it to you? Why would he want to do something like that?" Hank said.

"So Lara would get it across the border, of course," Lake said. "Leclerc may have been a bottom feeder, but he wasn't stupid. He wasn't going to risk getting stopped at the border with it. If Lara got caught, then he still had his ten thousand."

"I expect that's essentially correct," I said. "I did get it into Italy, so he called Gino and told him I had it, and once that was confirmed, Leclerc had twenty thousand. Not bad for a day's work."

"That man is a disgrace to our profession," Mondragon said. "An absolute brigand."

"I guess we know what happened after that," Hank said. "We tried to retrieve it, failed, and then it ended up in the carabinieri station."

"There were a few more 'incidents,' shall we say, in between," I said.

"The thing I can't figure out," Palladini said, interrupting me, "is why all those phone calls to the carabinieri? Was that Leclerc being cute?"

"I think, given the reports I've read, and if that body at the Tanella really is Leclerc, that he was dead at the time some of the calls were made," Lucca said.

"I believe that brings us to my second list," I said. "The lion, or what I called the anti-Lake group."

"I can hardly wait," Lake said. "Sorry to interrupt," he added.

"The lion head of the chimera wasn't nearly as keen on seeing that the hydria was returned to an Italian museum as some of the rest of you were."

"What were they keen on?" Palladini said.

"Discrediting Crawford Lake."

"I'm thinking of suing," Lake said.

"Be careful what you say, all of you," Palladini warned. "Remember, I'm a lawyer."

"I'm not afraid of saying what I think," Mariani said. "I don't intimidate that easily. You put me out of business, Lake, and not in an ethical way, either. Your business practices stink."

"I couldn't agree more," Gino Mauro said.

"Nonsense," Lake said. "Both of you. To carry the chimera metaphor a step further, your roar is a toothless one. You, Mariani, are a blowhard who knows what everything costs but the value of nothing. You paid too much for the Etruscan Aplu, and you paid too much for everything else. If I hadn't come along to take over your company, someone else would have.

"As for you Mr. Mauro, you've been too busy enjoying the trappings of wealth, or at least what you see to be the trappings. While you were spending time with your countless girlfriends, making promises you had no intention of keeping, your customers were leaving in droves."

"Did he say countless girlfriends?" Dottie said, looking at Gino.

"I regret to tell you, madame," Lake said, looking at Dottie, "That your boyfriend is still with his wife. And you, Rosati? Are you going to join in?"

"I'm not wild about you, Lake," Rosati said. "But when it comes right down to it, I don't much care, and I have absolutely no knowledge of what you call this lion plot."

"I think we are forgetting there are more important issues at stake here," Gianni Veri said. "Like freedom of the press. I am not afraid to speak out against censorship. I lost my job because I dared to print something negative about you, Lake. You had me fired. I was on the fast track to editor, and you ruined my career. As far as I'm concerned, your continued success is a slap in the face to freedom of speech everywhere."

"You lost your job at the newspaper," Lake responded, "not because you wrote about me. I have something written about me almost every day, and I assure you, I take little, if any, notice. No, you lost your job because, as you have just irrefutably demonstrated by being a part of this group, you have complete contempt for the truth. I had nothing to do with your dismissal, but I heartily endorsed it when it happened."

"And what are you going to say to me, Crawford?" Anna said.

"Careful, Anna," Eugenia said.

"I will not be careful," she said. "I accuse Crawford Lake of killing—murdering—my nephew, Anastasios Karagiannis. Taso was supposed to marry Crawford's sister, Brandy, but he died in a terrible car crash just before the wedding. Some people think Lake tampered with the brakes on Taso's car. I'm one of them. So sue me. I would relish the chance to have my say publicly."

Lake sighed deeply. "Of all those here, Anna, you are the only one with a legitimate reason for hating me. But I have to tell you, whether you believe me or not, that I did not kill your nephew Taso, at least not in the way you think. I rather liked the young man. What I did do was tell him something I believed he needed to know about the woman he was about to marry and her family. If he chose to drink himself into oblivion when he heard it, and then either accidentally or willfully drive his car off the road, then that is something I have to live with."

"I don't believe you," Anna said.

Lake turned to me. "I think you know what it is I felt I had to tell Taso. Was I right to tell him when my sister absolutely refused to do so?"

I thought of life above the tomb, the sun shimmering on Orvieto, the clouds scuttling across the sky, the feel of the warm air on my face. And then I thought of Brandy Lake trapped in her upstairs room in the big old house in the Aran Islands, Maire's fears of the prejudice Brandy would encounter if anyone knew of her disease, of Crawford Lake unable to enjoy the fruits of his obviously brilliant mind and business acumen.

"Yes, you were," I said.

"What did he tell him?" Anna demanded.

"I believe I threatened you last time we met," Lake said before I could reply. "I regret that very much. I suppose so far from much human contact, I have become rather eccentric and suspicious of everyone. This is not something about myself that I like. I hope that you will hold what you know about me and my family confidential, but if you do not, if you have some reason, perhaps to help your friend, that you feel you must reveal it, then nothing will happen to you, I promise."

"So far no one here has done anything that would make me feel I wanted to share secrets with them," I said.

A slight smile crept across his face. "No, perhaps not. But you seem to be up to the challenge. Now, how was the toothless lion proposing to hurt me?"

"I was supposed to be caught red-handed with the hydria," I said. "Once the word got back here that I had the hydria, someone had what they thought was a brilliant idea. Getting the hydria for the Societa would be nice. Getting you, Mr. Lake, would be even better. I was supposed to be apprehended with the hydria, at which point I was expected to tell the police that Crawford Lake had asked me to get it for him. That would be all it would take."

"I expect it was Gianni here who came up with the idea," I said. "Although the others probably encouraged him. He wrote the articles. He'd even had the first couple of them published already, hinting that he knew who was responsible for the smuggling of Etruscan antiquities out of Italy. A successful foreign businessman, wasn't it?"

"I remember them well," Lucca said. "Something, too, about the carabinieri condoning such activities. I've been meaning to discuss this with you, Gianni."

"So why didn't you tell the carabinieri that Lake had sent you for the hydria?" Gianni said belligerently, turning to me.

"Because I had given my word that I wouldn't tell anyone, and, as foreign a concept as some of you may find it, I believe in keeping my word. My plan was to find Lake and get him to step forward," I said. "If he'd refused, then I would. I found him. Or rather he found me. Then I knew there was no point in telling the carabinieri that Mr. Lake had sent me, because it was patently obvious he hadn't. So I had to look for another explanation, didn't I?"

"Let me make sure I understand this," Lake said. "While one group, the goat, was rather ineptly trying to get the hydria into Italy, the other, the lion, was plotting to stop it, by telephoning the carabinieri and reporting a stolen antiquity. Is that about right?"

I nodded.

"This is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard, Gino," Dottie said.

"Why would I bother to sue?" Lake said. "No one would believe such bungling."

"So, it didn't happen," Mauro said. "You can't arrest us for evil thoughts. It was a bad idea, okay, but there's no harm done. Now let's just enjoy the party, and we'll give Nicola the hydria to take back with him at the end of the day."

"Not so fast," Lake said. "I believe, if I have followed you so far, Lara, that now we come to the snake."

"The snake," I agreed.

"This is preposterous," Nicola said. "You make it sound as if all of us are under suspicion."

"You are," Lake said. "Now what is this snake about?"

"It's about this," I said, walking over to the hydria. I picked it up, raised it straight in front of me at about shoulder height, and as they all watched me, I let it go. The chimera hydria dropped like a stone and smashed into hundreds of pieces on the stone floor.

It was bedlam. People were yelling, shaking their fists. Anna fell to her hands and knees and started grabbing at the pieces, pathetically trying to fit them together. Several others rushed to help her, then stopped, realizing it was hopeless.

"What have you done?" Dottie said.

"She's destroyed a priceless antiquity," Lucca said. "I cannot believe you have done this. I am placing you under arrest."

"Relax," I said, picking up a shard and looking at it closely, relieved to find I'd been right. "It's a fake."

"How can you be sure?" Anna said.

"The weight, the balance," I said. "The feel of the surface. It didn't feel like the real one."

"We went to all this trouble for a fake?" Romano said incredulously. "Didn't you say it was authentic?" he said, turning to Nicola.

"Well, yes," Nicola replied. "But of course I didn't have a chance to have a really close look at it. I would have needed my lab equipment..."

"What do you mean when you said it didn't feel like the real one?" Lucca said. "Was this theoretical or . . ."

"There have been two chimera hydrias being passed around," I said. "One genuine, the other, this fake. The balance in the real one was absolutely perfect. Despite its shape and size, it would pour like a dream. I know, because I held it. You cannot say the same thing for this one here.

"Until this was delivered to my hotel yesterday," I said, picking up a shard, "I thought that the deaths of Antonio and Leclerc were linked to the plot to discredit Lake. It seemed obvious at first, at least to me, that all of this had to have something to do with Lake. I just couldn't figure out what. I knew some of you were linked to Lake in a way that would make you suspect. Had it not been for the reappearance of the hydria last night, I would have stuck with that theory. But I would have been wrong." They all stood, silent for a change, watching me.

"What seeing this hydria told me is that this is not about revenge for wrongs, real or imagined, any more than it has to do with saving priceless antiquities. It's about greed, about people who are addicted to collecting, who have to possess things whether they are legal or not, and who have the financial wherewithal to do so. And it's about the shadowy dealers who feed their habit.

"The key to the murder was not Mr. Lake but the chimera hydria. At first, I could not figure out why it had been stolen from the police station and then sent to me. The only reason I could think of, at the end of the day, was that somebody wanted it to arrive at its destination, and for whatever reason, I was the one who had to get it there. So that's what I did.

"The piece of the puzzle that was missing, the one that would help make everything come together in my mind, was what Dottie told us about Leclerc. Leclerc got the hydria from Dottie—"

"Just a minute," Lucca said. "Was that the real one?"

"Yes," I said.

"And he put a fake one in your car, right?"

"No, he put the genuine hydria in my car, and I carried it across the border. Then I gave it back to him."

"Why on earth would you do that?" Hank said.

"Perhaps it was because she didn't know what the plan was," Lake said. "Given you never bothered to tell her."

"Yes. Given I was not party to the discussions about how all this was supposed to work, I did something, inadvertently, that led to Leclerc's death, and possibly, much as it gives me great pain to say so, Antonio's as well. I put the hydria into Leclerc's car in the parking lot at the hotel in Volterra. The carabinieri were searching cars, I saw him arrive, and, on the assumption, a correct one, I think, that he had put the hydria in my car in the first place, I put it back in his."

"Are you sure you put it in the right car?" Dottie said to me.

"Yes, but I left immediately after that. It is possible, indeed probable, that someone else got their hands on it in the meantime. Regardless, a day or two later, it reappeared in my hotel room in Arezzo. I've thought a lot about who sent it to my hotel. For awhile, my choice was Antonio, who, I thought, was doing it in an effort to help me. But he denied it vehemently, and I believed him. Given that, I was then quite sure it was Leclerc, but now I'm not so certain."

"Surely the real question is whether or not the hydria delivered to your hotel was the real one or a fake," Lake said.

"I had the hydria for only a short time before Lola took it from me. In fact, I never got a good look at it, nor did I really have a chance to hold it, except for a second or two. I'm going to hypothesize, however, that it was a fake, and that at some point between the time I put the real hydria in Leclerc's car and the time a hydria turned up in my hotel room, someone had switched them."

"So the hydria in my carabinieri station was also a fake, in this hypothesis anyway," Lucca said.

"Almost certainly," I said. "That, in fact, was the problem for the snake. I'm using the singular, but I believe there were four people involved. The fake was never meant to end up in a police station. Someone— and it had to be someone who knew nothing of the lion's intent to intercept the hydria before it could be delivered—substituted the fake and probably killed Leclerc, who by this time had figured out way more than these people wanted him to, and given his propensity to blackmail, had let them know he knew. Then this same person put the fake hydria back on track to be delivered as usual to the Societa."

"This snake group, then, wants a hydria—I emphasize a, rather than the—to arrive here today," Lucca said. "But why?"

"Good grief," Lake said. "Does everything have to be spelled out for you? Because, as Lara said, this is all about trafficking in antiquities. The snake's plan is to steal the real hydria, is that not correct?" I nodded. "No one is to know because the fake will be put in the Rosati Collection. Also correct?"

"Yes," I said.

"Poor Cesar," Dottie said. "Isn't that awful!"

"Could you hold your comments until the end, please, madame," Lake said irritably. "So the snake gets, probably buys, the real hydria back from Leclerc, and does what with it?"

"Sells it," Lucca said. "Probably someone with an order in for it already. It's in another country by now, I'm certain. Leclerc figures that out and tries to blackmail them. As we've already heard, he did have a tendency in that direction. The snake agrees to meet him at the Tanella di Pitagora. Leclerc is murdered on the spot. The fake has already been substituted and sent on its way. But unbeknownst to the snake, the lion enters the picture, and the fake hydria ends up in the police station."

"But why steal it from the station?" Eugenia said. "It's a fake."

"So no one will know the original has been stolen, of course," Lucca said. "It's a disaster that it's in the police station because someone, another expert, is going to take a good look at it during Signora Lola's trial, and they're going to figure out it's a fake. Correct, no?"

"Correct, yes," I said. "They have to get it out of the station before it is tested by someone else."

"Then you're saying one of us stole the fake from the carabinieri station," Hank said.

"I have this picture in my mind of Nicola," Lucca said. "Now that I think about it. In my carabinieri station, holding a large sports bag. Big enough to hold an Etruscan hydria, is what I'm thinking."

"That's ridiculous," Nicola said.

"Was this a one-off?" Lake said to me. "Or something more organized?"

"My guess is it's organized," I said.

"Then they got a little ahead of themselves this time," Lucca said. "Probably an impatient buyer, or merely an opportunity that presented itself, thanks to that fellow Leclerc. Normally, the fake would be substituted after it got to the Rosati Collection, would it not?"

"I think so. There's one way to find out."

"Have another look at our previous finds, the nenfro sphinx and that bronze warrior, you mean," Lucca said.

"What would be wrong with them?" Dottie said.

"Fakes, too," Lucca said.

"But the Bearded Sphinx kylix was stolen. Did someone steal a fake?"

"I'd say the snake stole it for the same reason the hydria was taken from the police station," I said. "The kylix was destined to go to another museum, where it would have been subjected to the same authentication procedures as the chimera hydria would in court."

"So the logical people to be involved in this are Rosati and Mondragon," Lake said. "They are the dealers in the group."

"That is balderdash," Mondragon said.

"I know nothing about this!" Cesar exclaimed. "I just have an art collection, that's all. I wanted to show the world beautiful things."

"How did you manage to make your money, Cesar, after Lake ran you out of business?" Hank said. "That's what I want to know. By selling the stuff we went to a lot of trouble and expense to bring back to Italy? Good deal, isn't it? You pay a one-thirteenth portion of the buying price and sell it for the full price, maybe even a higher one."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Cesar said. "I am as much a dupe in all of this as the rest of you. Nicola has betrayed my trust."

"Just a minute here," Nicola said.

"Did you say the hydria was in another country?" Gianni said. "We bring it back into the country, and then they send it out again? How is that done?"

"I believe Alfred Mondragon is the expert in that," I said. "Indeed, Pierre Leclerc already caught him at it once before. According to Alfred's partner Ryan, Leclerc tried to blackmail him for it."

"I made a mistake, that's all," Mondragon said.

"And what about the insurance?" Gino said. "I'll wager you did even better than Hank thinks you did. Did you sell the kylix and collect insurance on the fake?"

"Didn't you insure that kylix?" Eugenia said to Palladini. "You said you had to pay out a fortune on it."

Palladini swallowed. "Yes, I did. That's terrible. I had no idea."

"Did you not say you thought there were four members of this committee?" Eugenia said to me.

I nodded.

"And didn't you say you'd inherited money from your mother, Vittorio?" Eugenia said. "Didn't you tell me the apartment in Rome was hers?"

"It wasn't," I said. "He bought it a couple of years ago, just about the time the kylix went missing."

"Oh, dear," Dottie said. "Poor Eugenia. Us girls are learning more than we ever wanted to know. Where'd they get the fakes?"

"That would require an accomplished artist. Almost as good as the Micali painter, wouldn't you say, Nicola?"

Nicola started to say something but stopped.

"I brought your painting to show everyone," I said. "It's in my bag. I'm sure if an expert took a look at both the hydria and the painting, we'd know one way or the other."

"Hey, I'm thinking here," Gino said. "Didn't Nicola authenticate the hydria in the police station?"

"He did," Lucca said. "Quite definitely."

"Naturally, I wouldn't take the kinds of risks that Lara here did, breaking the hydria," Nicola said.

"Oh, right," Gino said.

"But you were talking about murder," Anna said. "Not forgery, and not insurance fraud."

"Antonio and I were friends," I said. "We looked out for each other. He saved me from robbers. I saved him from being misconstrued. I think he was much smarter than people gave him credit for. He followed me everywhere. He saw everything. I think he saw me put the hydria back in Leclerc's trunk, saw Leclerc meet with the person who would later be his killer, maybe even tripped over Leclerc's body the way I did, and put two and two together. Almost certainly he saw the fake hydria delivered to my hotel room."

"He phoned me, you know," Mario said. "I was supposed to go to the Melone to pick up the hydria from Lara. He called and told me not to come. He said something very strange was going on. He liked you very much, Lara. He didn't want anything bad to happen to you. He said he would go to make sure you were all right."

"So which one of these four miscreants killed Antonio?" Lake asked.

"Whichever one drives the red Lamborghini with a bright yellow umbrella in the back," I said. "Whoever drives that car was in both Nice and Volterra, dealing, I suspect, with Leclerc. There's a distinct possibility it was the car I almost ran into in the fog near Cortona the day I found Leclerc."

Perhaps we hadn't noticed, in the chaos, who was moving where, but as I said this, the miscreants, as Lake called them, made a run for it, dashing toward, and then up, the steps, roughly shoving several people aside as they went. In the turmoil, the bottle of grappa on the table was knocked over, and the liquid oozed across the red cloth.

"Stop them!" Lucca cried, and everyone went after them. Lake, remarkably agile, was already on his way up the steps.

"You creeps," Dottie yelled, taking off her shoes and hurtling up the steps. I stepped aside to let the thundering hordes go by.

I was starting to follow them, when I thought, How many of them did I see leave? I turned back and looked about the tomb. It was empty. I walked toward the table at the back of it but saw nothing.

I heard something, though, when it was too late. Cesar Rosati stepped out of the darkness of the side room and grabbed me from behind, a blade, the cheese knife, at my throat.

"Now," he said. "We are going to walk very slowly out of here. You will be ahead of me. We will go to the parking lot and get into my car and drive away. If you do everything I say, absolutely everything, then I will consider letting you go when I get to my destination. Is that clear?"

"Yes," I said. I was looking at the table for some reason, the large dark stain on the cloth and little pools of liquid around the cheese. Grappa, I thought, and then I knew what I had to do. I slid my hand slowly to one side, and then, in one swift move, knocked the two nearest candlesticks over.

It was a long shot. The first one spluttered and died. There must have been someone looking out for me, because the second, after a moment's hesitation, ignited the liqueur. It flared like a torch. We both, I think, screamed. I ducked and knocked the knife from his hand.

It may not have been the worst fire in the world, but it was astonishing how fast that tomb filled up with smoke. It was dark, hot, and the air was so bad my lungs hurt. Rosati grabbed me, put his hands around my throat, and squeezed. I fought back, scratching and clawing. His jacket sleeve caught fire, and we both went down. I think I hit my head, I know I saw stars, and for a moment, I may have blacked out. I couldn't breathe, I could hardly move, and for a moment I just lay on the floor. I didn't know where Rosati was, and I knew I would die if I stayed there. I just couldn't seem to summon the energy to do anything.

Then I felt strong arms pulling at me, and Lake's voice in my ear. "You've come this far," he said. "It would be rather silly to give up now." Somehow I stumbled to my feet and followed him up the stairs.

Outside, I lay in the grass, gasping. Dottie and Eugenia sat beside me. "Hold on," Dottie said, patting my hand. "The doctor is coming. I'd like to say in my defense, though, that I thought maybe there were overriding principles, something more important than friendship. Like saving a nation's heritage." I just looked at her. "Maybe not," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I suppose we each made tiny compromises," Eugenia said. "But taken together. . ." Her voice trailed off.

"I've got Rosati," Lucca shouted, pulling a limp body out of the hole in the earth. "Where are the others?"

We looked around and then back toward the house. Nicola Marzolini, Vittorio Palladini, and Alfred Mon-dragon were trussed like chickens to the columns that stood to each side of the loggia. Crawford Lake was gone.