The Titian Committee

7

She was sitting apathetically at the breakfast table when Argyll arrived once more. She waved him over and he plonked himself down heavily opposite. The dynamic art dealer of the night before was a little under the weather this morning.

‘How are you?’ he asked flatly. ‘You look a bit peaky.’

She grunted. ‘OK, I suppose. You don’t seem so great either. What’s up?’

Argyll eyed the breakfast with distaste. ‘Well, maybe nothing,’ he said reluctantly. ‘But I was due to go round to the Marchesa’s today to make the arrangements for picking up the pictures. Remember? So I rang up, just to say when I would arrive, and got a very frosty reception. I spoke to Pianta again, who seems to be trying to interpose her body, as it were. She said I was not to come. Can’t think why.’

‘Maybe they’re going shopping or something. Doesn’t really matter, does it? I mean, the Marchesa has agreed to sell.’

‘I hope so. But I haven’t got the contract yet. It just makes me a little uneasy. Instinct. You’re not eating much, I note. Always a bad sign.’

She poked a croissant miserably. ‘That’s because I’m not doing very well up here. I was sent to help clear up one death. And, blow me, now there’re two of them. And I can’t help feeling that it’s my fault.’

‘Why?’

‘Obvious, isn’t it? Something in the way I questioned them set things off. Then, splat.’

‘Well, I don’t know. It doesn’t sound as though any of them were unduly disturbed. You hardly approached them as though you were eyeing them up for a prison cell. But I must admit that to the outside world a second murder won’t be instantly applauded as rapid progress.’

Flavia grunted once more. She could see that without his pointing it out. ‘You reckon it was a murder, then, despite Bovolo? Have you had breakfast?’

‘Yes and no. And yes. That is, I think it was murder, I haven’t had breakfast and, in answer to your unspoken question, I would love some. My appetite increases when I’m worried.’

She ordered for him and, after a moment’s consideration, decided to abstain herself. Argyll looked at her with concern.

‘I suppose,’ he said after a brief pause, ‘that he could have tripped. But you must admit it seems a bit unlikely.’

One thing about Argyll – idiot though he often was – he did tend to take her point of view. She was about to answer when the waiter, that angel of mercy, that deliverer of good tidings, returned in a soft glide of polished shoes and glinting chromium. She studied the pile of fresh rolls and croissants and jam piled up in front of Argyll, and began to feel a mite peckish.

‘Perhaps. But it doesn’t sound as though Bovolo will agree,’ she said, reaching for a roll and covering it daintily with jam. Force yourself to eat something, she thought. Stop brooding.

‘An accident would, of course, be a simple solution.’

‘Nonsense,’ she replied brusquely, wiping her lips and eyeing a croissant.

‘So you keep on hunting.’

‘Can’t do that. The report goes to the local investigating magistrate’s office. If he decides the case is closed, that’s that.’

‘Except, of course, that it may be wrong.’

‘Apart from that little detail, yes. Why do you think it was murder?’ she asked, spearing a few cubes of melon.

‘Too much coincidence, that’s all. It seems more reasonable to assume that someone popped him one. You’ve eaten all of my breakfast, did you know that?’ he ended with a disappointed tone in his voice.

She had no chance to defend herself. She was about to recommend ordering some more when she noticed a large and portly figure heading towards them from the dining-room entrance.

‘Good God,’ she said.

‘Ah. I thought I might find you in the dining-room,’ said Bottando with an air of complacent satisfaction on his face as he approached. ‘Just a hunch, you know.’

‘What on earth are you doing here?’

He looked at her curiously. ‘Work, of course. What else would bring me to this awful place? I did try to ring, but you’ve always been a sound sleeper. Some more pictures have gone missing. Thought I’d come and have a poke around, and see how you were getting on. I hope you appreciate my presence as fully as you should. I’ve just suffered a whole miserable hour on one of those flying tin cans to get here and I feel very fragile. I gather,’ he added, glancing at the breakfast plates, ‘that there’s been another death.’

He paused, ordered some breakfast and added an extra order for Flavia to be sure of getting some himself.

‘Mr Argyll. What a surprise.’ He made it sound as though it was nothing of the sort. Argyll suddenly had the feeling that the General was deducing things from their joint breakfast.

‘We were discussing this case,’ he explained, trying to set the record straight as quickly as possible. ‘I seem to have got involved in it a little.’

Bottando shut his eyes and groaned quietly. ‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘And I was rather hoping this would be a day trip.’

‘Jonathan’s been extremely helpful,’ Flavia explained. She knew that Bottando had always considered Argyll to be a little accident-prone, the sort of person who could make simple things elaborately complicated. Admittedly, he had some reason for thinking this. But justice demanded she explain matters properly.

‘I’m sure he has,’ Bottando said grumpily. ‘The trouble is, that it’s largely because of him that I’m here.’

Argyll just beat Flavia to raising his eyebrows in surprise. He did it faster; but she was able to raise them one at a time, an accomplishment he’d always envied. ‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ he observed.

‘I’m not surprised. Last night, at about eleven, a dozen or so pictures were pinched from a palazzo in Venice. Nothing exciting about that. Happens all the time. But as the owner said she thought the most likely person to have pinched them was Jonathan Argyll, I thought that –’

‘What!’ Argyll squeaked in horror. ‘Me? Why would anyone say that I –’

‘The pictures were – or are, I suppose, if you want to be technical – owned by the Marchesa di Mulino. It seems you were negotiating to buy them. You didn’t like the price being asked, so went ahead and obtained them much more cheaply. So she reckons. Or rather the person who lodged the complaint does, a Signora Pianta.’

Argyll was getting considerable practice at rocking backwards and forwards on his chair. He did it again now, opened his mouth several times with no sound coming out and wiped his hand over his forehead in what appeared to be a gesture of concern. Bottando, who had encountered the Englishman’s occasional moments of incoherence before, was not tempted to interpret the display as necessarily a sign of guilt.

‘Of course,’ he said, filling in the empty space until Argyll should recover himself enough to regain his speech, ‘it seems a little unlikely. But, what with one thing and another, I thought it best to take on the investigation myself.’ He smiled encouragingly. ‘I hope you appreciate this. I left the budget submissions behind at a very delicate stage.’

‘They’re gone?’ Argyll said, callously ignoring Bottando’s administrative problems. ‘How? It’s ridiculous. I’d agreed to buy them already. I was going round this morning to sign the contract. This is terrible,’ he babbled.

Bottando spread his stubby hands on the table. ‘I’m merely repeating the story as it came to me very early this morning. Very early, I repeat. Not that I expect thanks. I don’t suppose you have an alibi for the time in question, do you?’

‘Of course. I was with Flavia.’

Bottando, something of a romantic at heart, beamed at him in a way which indicated he had misunderstood the situation entirely. ‘Excellent. But I suppose that means you didn’t steal them.’

‘Of course not,’ Argyll said indignantly.

‘What a shame. Think how much easier it would be for me. You wouldn’t like to make a tiny little confession, just to make an old man’s declining years that bit easier, I suppose?’

‘No. I didn’t pinch the damn things. I wouldn’t know how to begin. Besides, where do you think I put them? In my hotel room? What was stolen anyway?’

Bottando produced a list and handed it over. ‘I knew you weren’t going to be helpful, somehow,’ he commented wistfully.

Argyll read and Flavia craned over to see. ‘All my pictures,’ he said miserably.

‘Including the Masterson portrait,’ Flavia added. Bottando asked her to explain.

‘Louise Masterson was interested in one of these very unimportant pictures Jonathan was negotiating to buy. At the moment we don’t know why.’

‘I knew it,’ her boss said heavily. ‘I think I shall get this friend of yours deported. Go on then. Tell me all.’

Bottando had almost finished eating by the time she stopped. True to his word, he had kept absolutely silent, apart from the odd grunt and nod as she spoke. He was a good listener, and always respectful. It was one of his better qualities. His mood also seemed to improve notably as he recovered from the epic of the morning flight from Rome. Flavia could never understand how someone like him could get into such a tizz over aircraft.

‘You see, I was right,’ he said benevolently when she finished. ‘The moment Mr Argyll here gets involved things become tortuous and thoroughly difficult. When I sent you up here it was a simple mugging. Now look at it. A complete mess.’ There was, however, a hint of a twinkle in his eye as he spoke. It seemed to refresh him that such an apparently dull affair might have something in it to justify his coming all this way after all. ‘What are your opinions?’

He addressed both of them, implicitly signalling to Argyll that his presence was forgiven and he could feel free to speak. Still, the latter, feeling a little bruised by the traumas of the morning, thought it better to keep a low profile.

‘I haven’t interviewed everyone yet,’ she began. ‘But if we assume Masterson was killed by someone who knew her, rather than by a mythical Sicilian, then there are five likely candidates – the other people on the committee. If you knock out Roberts – as someone else already has, so to speak – then we’re down to four.’

‘So,’ interrupted Bottando, ‘perhaps it would be best just to wait another forty-eight hours and narrow the field down a bit more?’

‘Ho, ho. As I was saying, all have decent alibis, so there is no way at the moment of eliminating them that way. Firstly, there is Miller. He was condescending about her. Implied she was all flash and ambition; not a real scholar at all. Certain amount of jealousy there; she was much more successful. On the other hand, no real motive and needed her for a reference. Equally, seems to have been Roberts’ little poodle.’

Bottando nodded. ‘Not very convincing,’ he said happily. ‘Try again.’

‘Secondly, there is Kollmar. I’m seeing him this morning but it is common knowledge he and Masterson had a spat about a picture he’d examined. The two did not get on, although he and Roberts were long-time colleagues. Also seems a bit under Roberts’ thumb. The point is, Roberts wanted Kollmar to deliver some papers to him yesterday evening, and the body was found floating down the canal near where he lived. Alibi for Masterson good.’

‘Still not convincing, but worth looking into,’ Bottando observed.

‘Thirdly Roberts. No motive at all for doing in Masterson, as far as I could see. And, of course, he is dead himself. He was a precious little toad but was Masterson’s patron.’

Bottando nodded.

‘Finally, leaving aside Lorenzo whom I also haven’t seen yet, there is Van Heteren, whose affair with Masterson may have blown a fuse. Bit of jealousy, perhaps. An impetuous man, I guess, possible candidate for a Crime of Passion, but the sort of person – I would have thought – who would be overcome with remorse and confess immediately afterwards. Besides, another good alibi and no reason that I can see for rubbing out Roberts.’

‘What was she doing in that garden?’

‘Don’t know. Bovolo reckons she was waiting for a taxi to get back to the island because of the transport strike, but it’s still a mystery. The theft of these pictures is a new one, assuming that there’s a connection.’

‘Why should there be?’

‘Search me. But when a woman is interested in an obscure picture, she gets murdered and the picture is stolen a few days later, then I begin to get a little itch.’

Bottando poured himself another coffee, added a minuscule amount of milk and a vast quantity of sugar, and stirred meditatively.

‘It’s very thin,’ he said carefully, not wishing to cause offence. ‘I know you’ve only been at it for a day or so, but there’s nothing solid here at all.’

She nodded sadly. ‘I know. But Bovolo is such a pain it’s amazing I’ve got that far. I’ll spend the day talking to them again. I also thought that maybe Jonathan here could go through all the papers and committee minutes and so on that Bovolo gave me. The carabinieri didn’t notice anything of interest, but you never know. That is, I thought it would be a good idea until you turned up and –’

‘And suggested I might be involved as well,’ Argyll added. ‘Touchy. Maybe I ought to bow out here and go back to Rome. Otherwise I might end up being accused of murder as well. Besides which, I don’t want to damage the department. Wouldn’t look good, you using a suspected felon as an unofficial assistant.’

‘Good heavens, young man, no. I’m sure there’s no need for that. I’ve no doubt your alibi is delightful for both murders. And, if you had nothing to do with those, then there is no reason to think you had anything to do with the theft,’ he said, although he did not succeed in reassuring the Englishman overmuch.

‘Anyway, this theft is under my authority, not that of the carabinieri. So I can authorise you to do as Flavia suggests. As long as my authority lasts, which may not be very long, the way things are going.’

‘Still the budgets?’

‘Afraid so. Getting very sticky. It’s not quite reached the stage of colleagues asking me what I shall do during my retirement, but it’s getting close. Oh, well,’ he went on, folding up his napkin with care. ‘Nothing to be done about that at the moment. Mr Argyll, you spend the morning reading. Flavia, you will have to stay on and go about your interviews, and I will trot off and see what I can do with your friend Commissario Bovolo. What’s he like, by the way?’

‘Not your sort,’ she told him. ‘Cold, unwelcoming and as thick as two short planks. You won’t get on, especially if you threaten to complicate a case he wants to gift wrap and hand over to the investigating magistrate as soon as possible. Besides, he views the impending end of the department with peculiar glee, although why it concerns him I don’t know. See you later.’ She got up, checked her bag, and marched off.

While Bottando and Flavia were dealing with the living and the only recently deceased, Argyll spent the morning engrossed in the study of the long-since dead. To wit, he went to the Biblioteca Marciana, the long and delightful hall of learning that occupies a good part of the southern side of the Piazza San Marco. His plan was simple and he was rather proud of it.

For a start, he was going to spend a few hours not worrying about the business of buying pictures, earning a living and other distressing things. He’d considered rushing straight round to the Marchesa and making sure he could, at least, acquire the few paintings that remained. But as he reckoned it might be better to let the General reassure everyone about his innocence first, he decided to wait until everybody calmed down.

He was meant to go through the committee’s business papers and so glanced through them fast without noticing anything of interest. Mainly a record of paintings examined, reports written, votes taken. He scribbled a few notes for the purpose of looking conscientious, then turned to other, more interesting questions.

He had planned to use his charm and persuasive powers to get the librarian to hand over the slips of paper Masterson would have used to order up her books. The task was much easier than he’d anticipated. He’d just launched into his explanation about Masterson to the somewhat forbidding lady in charge of the desk, when she leant over to poke around in a box on the floor and pulled out a large envelope.

If the American was dead, she asked irritably, who was going to pay for these? These, it turned out, being a pile of photocopies Masterson had ordered the evening she was killed. She managed to convey the impression that it was the height of discourtesy to get yourself murdered before paying your bills.

Argyll’s volunteering to take the packet off her hands cheered her up immensely, however, and, once he had gone over to the cash desk and handed out what seemed to him an outrageous sum in payment, he went back, took delivery, and settled down to read what she’d been up to.

Whatever her personal spikiness, Masterson was no slowcoach, that was clear. In a single evening, she appeared to have ploughed her way through more than a dozen books. Argyll, who could rarely get through a chapter in a library without falling sound asleep, was duly impressed. Such industry always made him feel inferior. Suppressing a sigh, he steeled himself for the arduous task of dogging her literary footsteps wherever they might lead.

Which was, as far as he could tell after the first hour, not very far. She seemed to have already adopted her resolution to forget about the committee and concentrate on Giorgione. There was Vasari’s and Ridolfi’s Lives of the Painters, both in rather handsome seventeenth-century editions. Leather covers, nice gold tooling on the spine, that sort of thing. As far as Giorgione was concerned, the only fact they seemed to agree on was that his mistress was called Violante di Modena. With proper Renaissance morality, they noted she dropped dead soon after leaving him, although they disagreed about whose arms she was in at the time. Still, both reckoned that it served her right for two-timing a genius, and were upset that Giorgione had seen fit to die of a broken heart as a result.

Next a brief biography of Pietro Luzzi, the pupil of Giorgione tipped as the more likely candidate for the post of red-hot lover who’d seduced and run off with Violante. Evidence seemed a bit thin here. Apart from the fact that he was killed in a battle in 1511, the writer seemed to know nothing about him. Nor, indeed, did he seem to care, hinting rather strongly that painters of Luzzi’s limited ability and dubious character were best forgotten.

The references to Titian were incidental, and unfortunately were strikingly lacking in any proof that he had painted the Marchesa’s portrait or, indeed, was connected with it in any way. There were extracts from old accounts of how he had gone to Padua to paint scenes from the life of the town’s patron saint. A book of Venice city records containing a petition from Alfonso di Modena – that surname again, Argyll thought – requesting that the artist be allowed to return because of the great services he had performed. This with a footnote that the authorities disliked artisans leaving town without permission, as Titian evidently had when he rushed off to Padua. Descriptions of the three Padua pictures themselves wrapped the reading up.

All very edifying, no doubt, but not what you might call full of significant hints that would lead inevitably to the door of a murderer.

He was beginning to get frustrated with all this nonsense. So, being a practical soul, he funnelled the photocopies back into the envelope, returned the books, then headed off to the nearest affordable café – he was too wise to be caught out going into one of the ferociously expensive places in the Piazza San Marco – and ordered a drink.

Flavia had arranged the night before with Franz Kollmar to meet at the house he was renting on the Giudecca, the long strip of a rather unfashionable island that runs along the south of Venice proper. On the boat over to the island she read the police notes to get some idea of what she was about to be meeting. It was not an impressive collection of facts. Job in Baden-Baden, specialist in sixteenth-century Italian painting, married with six children aged between one and fourteen. Six children? That seemed a little excessive. Aged forty-three, founder member of the committee, well thought of professionally.

The boat was drawing into the shore at San Eufemia. Fortunately for her already battered and humiliated sense of direction, the house that the German lived in was close to the quayside; a short walk down the rio di San Eufemia, and there was a small dwelling, beaten, neglected and sunless.

She was still breathless when she rang the bell, and was let in by an attractive but harassed woman – evidently Frau Kollmar – and shown into a small salon. Clearly, Kollmar was not a wealthy man. The house was not nearly big enough for such an evidently voluminous family, she thought as she removed a teddy bear from the sofa and sat down. It was probably not too expensive to rent either; the furniture was cheap, the paintwork peeling. All in all, it had a depressed air that not even the presence of a small army of little Kollmars did much to dispel.

In another room she could hear the high-pitched tones of a baby crying its head off. A lower pitched, man’s voice could also be distinguished, shushing the infant and assuring it – in German but the language used to calm crying babies is universally comprehensible – not to worry, everything was fine and just be a good girl.

Flavia sat with a doll on her knee and a patient expression on her face. Gradually the screaming faded and came to an abrupt stop with a throaty gurgle and congratulatory noises from the relieved parent. A few seconds later, the relieved parent himself appeared through the door. Kollmar was evidently a right-thinking father who tried to do his bit with the children but who found the experience a harrowing one. He did not look at all happy; movements nervous, voice abrupt, although whether that was due to anxiety over her presence or combat fatigue from battling with the feeding bottle was not immediately clear.

Certainly, she thought, the members of this committee were an ill-assorted lot. Roberts the cultured connoisseur, Masterson the dour businesswoman. And this besplattered apparition, all nerves and nappies. On appearance and personality alone it was not surprising they had disagreements.

They talked in Italian; Kollmar’s diction made him sound like something out of an old war movie, but he was fearfully accurate. His main fault was that he spoke far too well ever to pass for an Italian. If you can learn German you can learn anything, but the accomplishment does seem to breed a tendency to show off with linguistic fireworks. Flavia mentally ducked to avoid the barrage of imperfect subjunctives that flew through the air whenever he opened his mouth.

‘I’m sure you will excuse me if we keep this interview short,’ he said, somewhat to Flavia’s surprise. ‘I have a great deal of work to do and I think I have spent more than enough time talking to the police in the last few days already.’

‘I would have thought that the sudden death of two of your colleagues would merit some of your time,’ she replied sharply. That’s telling him, she thought.

Kollmar’s look of consternation was, at least, convincing. He paused, looked at her as though she was a little mad, frowned and shifted in his seat in the manner of someone who knows something fishy is going on.

‘Two?’ he said eventually, latching on to the important bit. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You haven’t been told?’

Kollmar’s bewilderment was impressive, and the way his face crumpled in horror when she told him about Roberts’ death even more so. She made it as gory as possible. Not because she was hard-hearted, although she hadn’t taken much of a liking to the man, just that she reckoned people watch their words less carefully if in a state of shock. She was inclined, on the basis of his horrified reaction alone, to lower the odds on his being responsible for the Englishman’s end. She noted that he did not appear nearly so upset about Masterson.

‘Dead?’ he asked, a little stupidly. ‘I don’t believe it. But why wasn’t I told? Good heavens, I am now the senior person on the committee. Surely I have a right to be informed of such matters?’

Flavia just managed to restrain her expression of surprise at such a bizarre statement. To stand on your dignity at such a moment struck her as being petty, if not downright callous. She imagined he hadn’t been informed probably because the police were being characteristically inefficient and just hadn’t got around to it. On the other hand, she thought, remembering Bralle’s nickname for the man, Kollmar was exactly the sort of person who you would forget to inform. Best to pass over the comment in silence.

‘You delivered some papers to Professor Roberts’ house last night, I believe,’ she said. ‘What time was that?’

‘About eight,’ he replied. ‘On my way home for dinner. He wasn’t in, so I just pushed them through the door with a note. Why?’

‘That was about the time he was killed.’

‘Oh, dear God,’ he said, considering the implications and not liking them. ‘And you think I…?’

‘Not necessarily. But I don’t know of anyone else in the area at the time. Were you alone?’

He nodded with an increasingly dismayed look on his face, the appearance of someone who has woken up from a bad dream and finds that it is all coming true.

‘But this is ridiculous,’ he resumed after shaking his head in disbelief for a bit. ‘I do not believe this tragedy could possibly be murder. I cannot accept that anyone would want to kill Roberts. Not an enemy in the world. Such a dynamic, productive and innovative man.’

Flavia snorted. ‘And Masterson?’ she asked.

‘Entirely diff…’ he began, then stopped.

‘Different? You mean she did have enemies? Like yourself, perhaps?’

‘That is also ridiculous,’ he said primly, beginning to fight back a little. ‘We had professional disagreements. Nothing more. I can’t say I liked the woman. In fact I found her most difficult. But if people went round assassinating all difficult colleagues, there’d be no one left.’

Point taken. Flavia herself could have supplied several hundred good candidates. ‘All right, then. Suppose you tell me why she was difficult?’

He considered this carefully. ‘How can I explain it?’ he began. ‘As I’m sure you know, the study of art is a very special discipline. With an enterprise like our committee, there had to be common feeling and understanding between all members for it to work properly. There had to be sympathy, and a mutual approach, if you see what I mean.’

He smiled in a way that suggested that he didn’t really expect her to understand such fine points. Flavia leant back in her armchair, crossed her arms and tried to suppress her feelings of pique.

‘For some considerable time, such a belief in our co-operative enterprise existed. Alas, of late, I’m afraid that the meetings have been more characterised by discord than the harmony which would be more appropriate and more productive.’

Here he stopped, unwilling to go into further and unseemly detail. Flavia reckoned the time had come to give him a helping hand.

‘You mean that the arrival of Dr Masterson disrupted your cosy little brotherhood and she was causing waves?’

That didn’t go down at all well. Kollmar took on more and more the air of an injured saint. If Louise Masterson was half as direct in her conversational style, there would have been no chance the two could have co-operated.

‘That was one element. Another was the constant pressure from Dr Lorenzo for us to hurry our work. He is a man with many qualities, but I fear he is prepared to accept methods which are perhaps unduly hasty in order to impress his patrons in Rome.’

‘But tell me more about Louise Masterson.’

‘Far be it from me to criticise her, especially in the circumstances, but she was an undoubtedly forceful woman in a field which above all calls for – how can I put it? – reflection, patience and a willingness to learn.’

‘You mean she disagreed with you?’

‘I mean she disagreed with everyone. I gather, for example, that she was writing a most unfavourable reference for Dr Miller, even though she knew it might cost him his job. I find that sort of behaviour quite unforgivable.’

‘What makes you think she was doing that?’

He looked defensive all of a sudden. ‘Um, I can’t remember. I believe Roberts told me. He was unconcerned about it, on the grounds that his own reference would more than make up for it. But he was upset, no doubt about that. Quite right too.

‘In my own case, she did dispute some of my conclusions about a painting owned by a collector in Milan. Initially I was inclined to let it pass, until I discovered she was waging a campaign against me behind my back.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was warned by Professor Roberts that she was saying most unfortunate things about me. Poor man, he was clearly distressed. I do so hate that sort of thing. At the meeting, to my face, all she said was that she wanted to examine the picture a little herself. Next thing I find that she is calling my judgement and scholarship into question and saying the whole thing will have to be redone. I fear that she found a ready ear in Dr Lorenzo.’

‘But you didn’t want a fight?’

‘Certainly not. I was confident I was being appropriately cautious. It is an important business, attributing paintings. Better safe than sorry. I was undecided until Roberts himself concluded the thing was probably a dud.’

That wasn’t quite what Roberts had said, she remembered, but she let it pass. ‘And what conclusions had Dr Masterson come to?’

Kollmar pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘How should I know? I cannot say we discussed the matter. The only time we mentioned the subject I found her attitude rather offensive.’

‘Why?’

‘This was Friday afternoon, while we were leaving after the session and attempting to get off the island. It was the last time I spoke to her. I was trying to effect some reconciliation, so I suggested a drink. She refused. I must say, I thought it was a bit rude, considering that I made the approach. I had no need to, after all. Roberts and Miller heard her. I could tell they were a bit taken aback as well.

‘But that was what she was like, I’m afraid. You see,’ he said earnestly, ‘she always wanted to win. She wasn’t really into the exchange of ideas; she wanted to beat anyone who disagreed with her. That I have always found insupportable. Especially in a woman.’

She let that one pass as well and congratulated herself on her remarkable forbearance that morning. So you slipped out of the opera, lured her into the gardens and knifed her seven times, she thought in a speculative sort of fashion. Still didn’t sound right somehow, however desirable a solution it was.

‘And do you have any theories about these deaths?’

‘For poor Roberts I can only assume it was a most tragic accident. As for Masterson, I understand she was robbed and then murdered in the struggle. She was a very forceful woman who would always have fought back. No robber would have taken her briefcase without having to fight for it. She was always combative. I’m sorry it turned out to be a quality that cost her her life.’

‘And at the time Dr Masterson was murdered you were at the theatre with your wife and Professor Roberts?’

‘Indeed. It was our first night out together for months. We got a babysitter from next door and went out around eight and came back well after midnight.’

‘And you went by taxi?’

‘Oh, yes. We had to. No choice. We were lucky. Because of the strike we nearly didn’t get there at all. It took hours to get back as well. I’m afraid that took some of the pleasure out of an otherwise splendidly generous gesture on Roberts’ part. He got some late returns and rang to invite us. Most kind, especially as he is no great fan of Donizetti. He even bought champagne for us to drink during the interval. As I say, a most generous man.’

There then followed a long silence; Flavia had run out of things to ask and already had quite enough to think about. There seemed little point in asking more about Roberts: no enemies, no one who could possibly want to kill such a good, distinguished man, etc. His answers were obvious. So she ran through the usual parting patter about how he mustn’t be disturbed, very distressing but all routine and necessary, she said with her most winning smile. He seemed scarcely reassured.

The three of them met, as arranged, in a restaurant near Santa Maria Formosa for lunch. It was one of those delightful lunches that happen only on rare occasions, when the food is perfect and all the company in a harmonious mood. Only the weather was being unco-operative, but it was at least still restraining itself in the matter of rain.

Considering that there were two murders, one theft, a threatened coup against the department and the likely displeasure of Edward Byrnes to deal with, it occurred to Argyll that the jolly mood was a little carefree, if not irresponsible. But Bottando was too much of a professional to let such matters disturb his enjoyment of a good feed and he, by virtue of his seniority and the fact that he was paying, set the tone. His good humour was even more remarkable as he had spent most of the morning in the company of Roberts and Bovolo, the one dead, the other a little pale and colourless.

‘Smug, he was,’ he said, referring to the latter. ‘Reckons he’ll get a good deal of praise for wrapping this one up so fast. So much so that he didn’t even object when I said you’d be staying on to help me with this theft. As long as you keep your nose out of matters which are none of your business, so he said with what I gather is his normal charm.

‘Anyway, his report will be finished by this evening, all squared with the investigating magistrate by tomorrow. Sicilian and Roberts’ own carelessness. Apparently they’re on an efficiency drive to cut costs. He kept on talking about throughput and case solution ratios. Accompanied by a subtle warning about how interference from Rome makes for inefficiency. I’m sure he couldn’t have meant us. All this taking place in the mortuary in the presence of a somewhat ominous and hostile magistrate. I have, by the way, found out why Bovolo is so opposed to us.’

‘Why?’ Flavia asked curiously.

‘Because he will head the carabinieri’s art department in Venice if it is all devolved to the provinces. Very worrying for us, but a pleasant prospect for the art thieves. I didn’t realise the carabinieri had got that far in their planning. They must be more confident than I thought.

‘Anyway, old Bovolo’s promotion rather depends on us getting it in the neck, so he will help that process along as much as possible. That’s also why he is so anxious to get this case tidied up in record time.’

‘So why did you want to see him?’

‘Oh, I don’t know really. Thought I should; know your enemy. I was glad I did. I had a brief chat with the pathologist. His report mentions a mark on Roberts’ neck.’

‘Where did that come from?’

‘Where indeed? The pathologist muttered something about tight collars, but it seems equally possible that someone grabbed him by the neck. I’m no expert of course, but the pathologist rather reluctantly agreed that it could be. He confessed that he wanted to lay out all the options in his report, but was told by the magistrate to make up his mind and stick to it. His contract is coming up for renewal. I advised him to play safe.’

‘Why did you do that?’ Flavia asked in surprise. ‘There’s every reason to believe that Roberts was killed, probably by the person who killed Masterson. A murderer is going to get off…’

Bottando held up his hands to stop the flow of indignation. ‘Your conscience does you credit, my dear, but your brains are letting the side down a bit. Think. If the murder investigation is left open, Bovolo is in charge and will do his best to keep us out of it. And remember his track record. So far he’s taken aim at a probably non-existent Sicilian and is now entranced by the prospect of Roberts’ drowning by accident. Disabuse him of that notion and he may well end up arresting Argyll here.

‘After all, it’s not my fault the man is an idiot. This way he is content and we have a free hand to do what we will. As I suspect we won’t find the pictures without finding ourselves a murderer, we can now go ahead unhindered. All we have to do is make sure we get a result before next Monday.’

‘Why next…? Oh, of course. That’s when the budget goes in, isn’t it?’

Bottando nodded conspiratorially.

‘Is that why you came up here? To see if you could grab a bit of credit and impress the minister?’

He looked a bit sheepish. ‘Well,’ he said reluctantly, ‘I was also concerned that Mr Argyll shouldn’t be unfairly suspected of any crime, you know. Especially because you are such good friends. That connection might not be too healthy in the wrong hands. Still,’ he said airily, ‘if we manage this one as well, I would not be loath to draw it to the attention of the appropriate authorities.’

‘I’m ashamed of you.’

‘Why? What would you do in my position? We have little time at our disposal. So, please, tell me how you’ve been spending it, my dear.’

He was the only person in the world who could ‘my dear’ Flavia and get away with it. It was so obviously devoid of any lack of respect – and so much his style – that Flavia would have been worried now if he’d stopped. She wiped her mouth on her napkin and recited.

Lorenzo, she said, having disposed of Kollmar, was not at all what she expected. He was evidently from an old Venetian family and combined all the airs and graces with a surprisingly sharp mind. He had received her in his apartment which faced on to one of the more crumbly parts of the rio Nuovo. The building was run down, with the sort of tattiness that only the very secure could manage. For all that, he was no decadent. In his mid-forties and very suave.

‘A very handsome man, I must say,’ she added parenthetically. ‘Fair hair, deep set, hazel eyes, finely chiselled features…’

‘All right, all right,’ said Argyll a little impatiently. Bottando smiled gently at him. ‘Get on with it.’

Flavia frowned at him. ‘It’s important,’ she said. ‘I was trying to give you an idea of what he’s like. No matter,’ she continued, getting back to her narrative flow. ‘He was very courteous. A bit of an entrepreneur. Power-broker type, you know. On lots of committees, editorial boards, advisory councils. Constantly whizzing around, fixing things. Levered himself on to the Titian committee by being a second cousin twice removed of the Arts Minister’s wife. Also happens to be the nephew of your Marchesa. Clearly knows his stuff, but sees himself as more of an administrator. Leaves the scholarly end to everyone else.

‘For all that, I must say I rather liked him. He’s awfully enthusiastic, has a good sense of humour – which seems singularly lacking in most of the others – and was suitably upset about all these deaths. Although in the case of Roberts I think he was much more concerned about the effects on the committee and his own career. Not much love lost between them, I think.’

‘Do you know why he and Roberts didn’t get on?’ Argyll interrupted.

‘Essentially it was what the others hinted at: a good old-fashioned power struggle. This man Bralle founded the thing, and leaves when Roberts organises the state grant. Bralle didn’t like the idea much but the others supported it as they were all short of cash. Roberts expects to be the king pin, but shortly after the money arrives, along comes Lorenzo as well. They’ve been at loggerheads ever since.’

‘Any solid reason behind it? Apart from power, that is?’

‘According to Lorenzo – and there’s only his word for it – he wants two things. Firstly, speedier results, because otherwise they might take the subsidy away. More importantly, he wants to go methodically, starting on pictures in Italian museums, then working out. He casts himself as a bit of a patriot. You know, defender of the national heritage.’

‘That’s perfectly sound, isn’t it?’ said Bottando, who rather liked to see himself in a similar fashion.

‘Yes. But it is not the way they were used to doing it. Previously it was more random, going after easily accessible stuff all over the place and mainly in private hands. Nothing wrong with that either. But that, ostensibly at least, is what the struggle is about. If you study pictures in Italy, you need people to work in Italy. Which the rest of the committee can’t do. So you get new people, who will be buddies of Lorenzo…’

‘Ah. I see. How’s his alibi stand up?’ Bottando asked.

‘Very nicely.’

‘Oh. Pity.’

‘He was with his mistress, girlfriend, call her what you will, at the time. I spoke to her alone and she gave more than sufficiently graphic details of his every move to convince me Lorenzo was being straight on this one.’

Argyll, who brightened up quite considerably when he heard of Lorenzo’s emotional entanglements, now began taking a more constructive part in the conversation.

‘If Masterson was a protégée of Roberts, why was she about to sink her fangs into Kollmar, another Roberts groupie?’

‘Maybe she was interested in scholarship and just wanted to find out the truth?’ Bottando commented drily, in a way which suggested he thought this the least likely explanation.

‘Maybe,’ Flavia replied, equally unconvinced despite her willingness to give the dead woman the benefit of the doubt. ‘If so, she was prepared to become very unpopular. Roberts wasn’t pleased, nor was Kollmar. Miller disapproved and Van Heteren thought she was being silly. On top of that, even old Bralle had told her to lay off, according to one of the letters that Bovolo found in her papers.’

She got it out of her folder and flattened it on the table. ‘It’s in French,’ she said. ‘Thanking her for her letter, with a lot of scholarly guff to start off with. But the basic line is that Bralle reckons she is probably wrong in assuming Kollmar has made a mistake about this picture and will explain why when they next meet in Europe.

‘In fact,’ she concluded, ‘the only person pleased was Lorenzo, who seems to be eyeing Kollmar up for the old heave-ho, although he basically confessed that he would much rather have got rid of Roberts.’

Bottando eyed his empty plate nostalgically. ‘Which, of course, he now has. Or someone else has for him. Charming or not, your Dr Lorenzo seems to be marching up towards the top of the likelies’ list. He now has two vacant slots ready to be filled with his supporters.’

‘But,’ Argyll objected, ‘you would have thought he would have waited until after Masterson delivered her promised knock-out blow to Kollmar. Then he would have had three slots free. Besides, it’s rather an extreme way of winning votes, isn’t it?’

Bottando sighed heavily at the ways of the world. ‘Ah, dear me. It always amazes me that people can use up so much energy fighting over so little. It sounds very much like the polizia.

‘Now,’ he said, turning towards Argyll with a pleasant smile. ‘Mr Argyll. I trust you occupied yourself profitably this morning rather than brooding?’

Argyll gave a lengthy account of his activities in the library which produced a sort of glazed expression on Bottando’s face.

‘But what exactly have you found out?’ he asked with a little impatience as Argyll clearly began to flounder.

‘Well, firstly, the lovely Violante did leave Giorgione, probably for Pietro Luzzi, although not for long. She was buried the same year. And Titian and her brother Alfonso were clearly on very good terms. What I don’t know is why Masterson was so concerned.’

‘Yes. Yes. Most interesting,’ Bottando said uncertainly when the recitation came to a halt. ‘No great leap forward there, I see. So tell me about this committee instead. Does anybody pay much attention to these people? Is it worth all the sound and fury?’

‘Of course it is,’ he replied in some surprise. ‘It’s a high prestige project. As you know very well, most pictures are accepted as being by Raphael, or Titian, or Rembrandt because experts say they are. Very few pictures have solid documentary evidence behind them. So, if some reputable bunch weighs in with an opinion, then it’s taken seriously. Especially if it’s got the official stamp of approval from a government and vast amounts of money to prove their accuracy. You know how easily impressed some people are. So, museums eventually relabel their pictures. Happily if a work is upgraded, with much gnashing of the teeth and foaming at the mouth if it’s downgraded. I believe the catchword in America these days is de-attribution.’

Bottando winced. He was something of a purist over language, even other people’s.

‘And, of course, what these people say can make an enormous difference to the price of the pictures if they come up for sale,’ Argyll concluded.

‘So, a proud owner who heard that his picture was being de-attributed, if one must use that word, might react with some considerable anger. Even violence, one might guess?’ Bottando asked, jumping at the chance of a simple, straightforward motive.

‘I suppose so,’ Flavia said reluctantly, rather regretting she had not thought of this. ‘Better go and see the owner of Kollmar’s picture. Although in that case it should have been Kollmar found with the knife in his back, yet again. He was the one calling the picture a fake.’

‘We shall see,’ said Bottando with an air of finality. ‘Time to go. I have to visit the Marchesa. It’s what I’m here for, after all.’