Street of the Five Moons (21 page)

When we passed the basilica of San Andrea delle Valle, I began to get premonitions. I shook John. He opened one eye.

“Wake up, we’re almost there,” I said.

The narrow street where the truck finally stopped was only a couple of blocks from the Via delle Cinque Lune. With a discouraged feeling that I was right back where I started from, I climbed over the vegetables and jumped down.

It couldn’t have been later than 6 A.M., but the vendors had already set up their stalls. These booths ran along both sides of the street, which was one of the medieval alleyways with no sidewalks or yards, only tall dark fronts of stores and houses walling in the narrow pavement. The stalls were rickety affairs of rough wood; some were brightened by striped canopies, but artificial adornment was unnecessary. The wares on sale made marvelous compositions of shape and color, brighter than any bunting. Soft, crumpled chartreuse leaves of lettuce, symmetrical heaps of oranges and tangerines, tomatoes red as sunrise, bins of green beans, black-red cherries, peaches and strawberries in little wooden boxes. All these and more were being unloaded from the trucks that blocked the street. The noise was deafening — engines were roaring, crates and boxes clattering, people yelling. A good deal of argument seemed to be going on, most of it more or less good-natured bickering over the quality of the goods and the prices.

Our driver jumped down from the cab and came toward me, smiling pleasantly. He was young and rather good-looking, and he knew it; his shirt was open to the waist and a gold crucifix shone against his brown chest.

“
Va bene, signorina
?” he asked.

“
Molto bene, grazie
. Thanks for the ride.”

“
Niente, niente
.” He waved my thanks away. “
Dov’è vostro amico
?”

Yes, indeed, where was he? I looked up. All I could see of John was a foot sticking out from among the cabbages. I shook it gently, out of deference for his status as wounded hero. I was worried about him. He had kept up the pace without complaint or visible faltering, but I meant to find a doctor for him first thing.

“John, wake up. We’re here.”

The driver lowered the tailgate and began unloading, assisted by his sober-faced companion. The proprietress of the nearest stall, a short, fat woman with three gold teeth, came stumping over, ostensibly to ask the price of the carrots. She let out a howl of pretended outrage when my friend told her how much he was asking. I could see that her eyes were on me, though, and after the first feint she gave up all pretense of being interested in anything else.

“Who’s this?” she demanded, jerking a calloused thumb at me. “Another of the foreign tarts you pick up, Battista?”

Battista, who knew I spoke Italian, made deprecatory noises. I smiled sweetly at the old busybody and handed her the sack of carrots.

“They are very cheap, signora, good, sweet carrots. A bargain. My friend is there in the truck. He fell and hurt himself yesterday, when we were hiking in the hills. Signor Battista was kind enough to give us a ride.”

I thought I had better mention that John was hurt in case he had passed out again. It was just as well I had done so. He came crawling out from among the cabbages and he looked awful. He must have scraped the scab off the cut on his head, because there was blood running down his cheek.

The old lady gave a cry of distress and sympathy. Women of all ages and all nationalities are suckers for a boyish face and a little blood.

“Ah,
poverino
— poor child, how did you hurt yourself?”

Squatting on the tailgate, John gave her a long look out of his melting baby-blue eyes, and smiled wanly;

“I fell, signora. Thank you… you are very kind…”

She put out a plump arm to steady him as he slid down. He had gone a sickly gray under his tan, and he looked as if he would have fallen but for her support. If it had been anybody but John, I would have melted with sympathy too. Seeing as it was John, I reserved judgment.

“I will take him to a doctor,” I said.

“No, I’m all right. Just need to rest awhile.”

“Where?” I demanded. “We can’t go to a hotel looking the way we do. Especially when we haven’t any money.”

The old lady must have picked up some English from the tourists.

“My daughter has rooms for rent,” she said. “Just around the corner is her apartment.”

She didn’t finish the offer; it was clear from her expression that her native caution was at war with her maternal instinct.

John looked like Saint Sebastian minus the arrows — all noble suffering.

“We have money, signora,” he murmured. “Not much, but we could not accept charity. Take this, please — I think I can walk a little….”

He held out a handful of crumpled hundred-lira notes.

Everything I owned was in my purse and my suitcases back at the villa. Fool that I was, I had forgotten men carry their junk in their pockets. Not that I had planned to go to a hotel anyway. I intended to head straight for the police station. When I had mentioned this during our wanderings the night before, John had not been overly enthusiastic, but he hadn’t objected. Now I began to suspect he had something else in mind.

There was nothing I could do about it. We had attracted quite a crowd by this time. Romans are cynical, big-city types, but in any city — yes, even in New York — you will collect a certain number of willing helpers if you are young and beautiful and in trouble. Helpful arms gathered John up and propelled his tottering footsteps in the direction the old lady had indicated. I could only trail along, thinking nasty suspicious thoughts.

The apartment was old and poorly furnished, but it was reasonably clean. The room had an iron bed, a pine dresser, two straight chairs, a washbasin, and a picture of Saint Catherine accepting a ring from the baby Jesus. Once again I mentioned a doctor, and was shouted down by my assistants, who now felt that we were all one big happy family. They wouldn’t call the doctor until the patient was just about ready for the last rites. A little wine, a little soup, a little pasta, and the poor young man would be just fine. The bump on the head had hurt him, but there was nothing seriously wrong. A little wine, a little soup, a little pasta…

Finally I got rid of them and closed the door. Then I turned to John, who was lying on the bed staring blandly at the cracked ceiling.

“I’ll send a doctor,” I said. “On my way to the prefecture.”

“Wait.” He sat up with an alacrity that confirmed my worst suspicions, and caught at my arm. “Let’s discuss this first.”

“There is nothing to discuss. I told you what I meant to do. The longer we wait, the more opportunity Pietro will have to clear out that workshop.”

“Sit down.” He gave my arm a shrewd twist. I sat down.

“Did I hurt you?”

“Didn’t you mean to?”

“No. I’m sorry. But you are so damned impetuous….” He swung his legs off the bed, so that we were sitting side by side. The sudden movement made him go a shade grayer. He might have been putting on some of his weakness, but not all of it was pretense.

“Are you really going to turn me in?” he asked, with a faint sideways smile. “After all we’ve been through together?”

“You stuck with me,” I said grudgingly. “You would have had a better chance of escape alone, I suppose. Damn it, John, I don’t like to be a fink, but what choice do I have? I refuse to let that gang of swindlers get away with this. Why are you so considerate of them? They tried to kill you.”

“I don’t think there was anything personal in that,” John said.

“Personal, impersonal, who cares? How can I agree to let you off when I don’t even know what you’ve done?” I demanded, my mounting anger compounded with a certain degree of shame. “If you would tell me about the plot — give me some alternative…”

“That does seem reasonable.”

“I mean, if you won’t even… Oh. You will tell me?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Lie down,” I added. “You look like hell.”

He obeyed. I turned so that I could see him. It was amazing how innocent that man could look when he wanted to. His eyes were very blue. The shadows under them were like bruises. Then he grinned, and his fine-boned face was transformed — from Saint Sebastian to Mercutio.

“I was born of poor but honest parents,” he began.

“Be serious.”

“I am. My parents were extremely poor. They were also of the gentry — not the landed gentry, unfortunately. Only a few paltry acres around the family mansion, which has approximately five years more to go before the termites devour it. Do you have any idea what a handicap that combination is — poverty and gentility? I couldn’t get a position—”

“Horsefeathers,” I said rudely, fighting the melting effect of those cornflower-blue eyes. “The class barriers went down with a crash in World War Two, even in England. When the Duke of Bedford is selling souvenirs to tourists who visit his stately mansion, anybody can work.”

“Ah, well, it was worth a try,” John said, without rancor. “You sense the truth, of course; I am personally disinclined to engage in vulgar labor. It’s a psychological handicap. If you knew my mother—”

“Scratch excuse number two,” I said. “I don’t buy the theory that perverts and criminals are the guiltless products of a corrupt society. And as a woman I’m sick and tired of the attempts to blame Mom for every crime that has been committed since Cain and Abel.”

“Eve was probably overprotective,” John said speculatively. “She always liked Abel best. Naturally this upset his brother… My mother’s name is Guinevere.”

I stared at him for a minute and then started to laugh.

“You are hopeless,” I said. “Is that really her name?”

“Yes.”

“You may have an excuse after all.”

“We’re an old Cornish family,” John explained. “Old and decadent. However, I cannot honestly blame my sins on Mum. She’s a good old girl, even if she does look like Judith Anderson playing a demented housekeeper. No, my sins are my own. I simply cannot settle down to an honest spot of work. It’s so boring.”

“And swindling isn’t boring?”

“Well, this particular scheme isn’t as ingenious as some I have engaged in. There was one stunt…. But perhaps we had better not recall that. It was brilliant, though. Almost worked, too. It failed only because I was too innocent to understand the depravity that lurks in the hearts of men. One man in particular — my partner.”

“It appears to me that you haven’t overcome that weakness,” I suggested politely.

“Too true. I simply must become more cynical. At any rate, this plan seemed quite foolproof. I was approached by an acquaintance of mine in London — and, pardon me. I simply will not mention names. I don’t mind about some of the others, but he’s a good chap, and a friend.”

“Never mind the noblesse oblige. What was the plan?”

“Don’t rush me,” John said, savoring the syllables. “I must think how to explain it convincingly.”

“I think I see another of your troubles,” I said maliciously. “You talk too much. You are so enamored of the sound of your own voice that you babble on and on when you ought to be doing something.”

“That is unkind, but probably correct. Very well, I’ll get on with it.

“My friend, whom I shall refer to as ‘Jones’ — to go with ‘Smythe,’ you know — is the sole heir of a wealthy old aunt. At least she was wealthy; at the rate she is using up her resources there won’t be much left for poor old Jones — which is one of the reasons why she is living so well, since she doesn’t care much for Jones. She thinks he is a lazy ne’er-do-well, and she is absolutely right. The only asset she possesses that she won’t pawn or sell is her antique-jewelry collection. She plans to leave that to the British Museum, in order to spite Jones.

“So, when Jones was contacted by a strange little man who proposed a deal, he listened. The deal was simple enough. The old lady doesn’t trust banks. She keeps her jewels in a safe in her flat. (The family mansion went on the block years ago.) The jewels are amply protected, not only by the safe, but by a dozen nervous dogs. The old witch adores the creatures.

“Now Jones admits that he had thought of — er — borrowing a few small diamonds, but he gave up the idea because he would be the first one to be suspected. His newfound friend’s scheme disposed of this difficulty. He would supply Jones with imitations good enough to deceive even the old lady’s sharp eye.

“Jones jeered at this — until he was shown a sample. It was the Charlemagne talisman, which I gather you’ve already seen. Good, isn’t it?”

“Superb,” I said honestly. “It ought to have relieved Jones’s scruples — though he doesn’t appear to have had many.”

“I must confess he was ready to be persuaded,” John said demurely. “The deal went off quite neatly. Jones supplied photographs and measurements, and the switch was made one night while Auntie was at the opera. Wagner.

“The gang split the proceeds with Jones, who is now living comfortably on the Riviera. When they asked him to recommend a friend who might assist them in finding other — er—”

“Victims,” I suggested.

“Victims,” John agreed, without batting an eye. “He thought of me. I was happy to oblige. I have a fairly wide acquaintance among the undeserving rich.”

“But how do they sell the things?” I demanded. “If the jewels are so well known, no fence—”

“That’s the beauty of the scheme. There are no middlemen. The gems are sold directly to collectors. There is a lot of money floating around the world these days, my dear. In the Near East, South America, the States…. People are buying jewels as investments, and antique jewelry is increasingly popular with collectors. The buyer knows, of course, that there is something shady about the transactions. He doesn’t care. He is willing to keep quiet about his acquisitions.”

“That’s crazy.”

“I quite agree. But there are a lot of crazy people in the world too. It happens all the time, Vicky. There is a large underground movement in forgeries of all kinds. Antique furniture, Chinese ceramics, famous paintings. Read some of the literature. The list of detected forgeries is enormous. And the objects on the list are the
unsuccessful
fakes. God knows how many imitation Rembrandts and Vermeers there are still in the museums. Where have the genuine pieces gone? Into private collections. The only thing that makes this scheme better than others is that the imitations are virtually undetectable. I doubt that even the great British Museum will notice the difference when Auntie finally passes her jewels on to them.”