Mrs. Polllifax and the Second Thief Read online

  "Oh-oh," Bishop said. "What are you going to tell him?"

  "As little as possible. That his wife is—well, where? One has to remember that he insisted she not go alone."

  "She scarcely appears to be alone," pointed out Bishop.

  Carstairs sighed and nodded. "All right, connect me, Jennie, I'll talk with him now."

  A moment later he was speaking in his smoothest voice to a concerned Cyrus, assuring him that Mrs. Pollifax and the agent she was traveling with had met Farrell safely, that all was well, and that he and Bishop expected word at any moment that Mrs. Pollifax would be returning to the United States.

  "I don't like your voice," growled Cyrus. "You've heard from her? From Farrell?"

  "Not personally," Carstairs told him, "but—uh—from others who are involved."

  "Still don't like your voice," Cyrus said. "Tactful. Silky. Hiding something."

  "Be patient," Carstairs told him. "No firm news yet, Cyrus. Be patient." He rang off and made a face at Bishop. "He's too clever."

  Bishop grinned. "Well, he's accompanied Emily often enough on these jaunts to know what trouble she gets into. At least she's been sighted. You couldn't tell him about Aristotle or he'd be on the next plane to Sicily."

  Carstairs sighed. "Very tricky, Bishop, let's keep our fingers crossed and hope Guise finds her before Aristotle does. Now where are those reports on the new government in Thailand? We need some plain dull facts for the next hour or two . . ."

  Thursday

  THE NEXT MORNING MRS. POLUFAX SOUGHT SO-lace by carrying her history of Sicily to the garden where she knew she would find the fragrances and the sun healing. She had not slept well, and at six o'clock had exchanged her bed for the floor, where she had practiced her yoga. After this she had heard Igeia mumbling to herself in the kitchen, and had accepted bread and cheese for breakfast, insisting that she needed nothing more. Farrell, she thought, had been considerably shaken at discovering Aristotle's wife in the wrong house, and her sudden appearance had deprived him of removing anything new from the safe as well. On the long drive back to the Villa Franca he'd said only that he had to do a great deal of thinking and sort things out; he'd repeated this dazedly a number of times.

  There did seem a number of things to sort out, decided Mrs. Pollifax, as she sat in the garden near the tarragon. She herself had only temporarily put aside her unspoken uneasiness about the Villa Franca but she thought that this needed sorting out, too; Farrell in his turn must be reassessing all of his previous scenarios—to use his word—and figuring out what to do next to put Aristotle out of action before a new assassination occurred. Obviously Farrell had backed the wrong horse, which was always upsetting. He'd met with unusual stresses, too: a witch, an infected ankle, implications that he was losing his mind over a disappearing pre-Hellenic vase, and of course through all this he'd been falling in love, which was strenuous, too. Now he was going to have to transfer his modus operandi from Ambrose Vica to Raphael—Raphael, with his taut poker face and the Caesar document hidden somewhere in his house, and apparently Aristotle and his wife hidden there too.

  A pair of wealthy and dangerous men, she thought; one had given Aristotle lunch, and the other had given him shelter.

  And my attention has to shift now, too, she reflected, if I'm to help Farrell as promised, and certainly of the two of us I know the better how dangerous Aristotle is, he would have killed me in Zambia if Cyrus—dear Cyrus—hadn't hurled himself at the man and thrown him to the ground.

  She sighed and opened her book to read, "Sicily, without loss of time, became the grand base for Roman attacks upon Carthaginian power in the Mediterranean. From it, in b.c. 205, Scipio set forth to subdue Carthage and Hannibal . . ."

  But this isn't B.C. 205, she reflected; Sicily is no longer a "grand base" but a neglected appendage of Italy, left to drowse in the sun with its great ruins, its violent history and its poverty, and if Franca is helping one small village into prosperity there must be dozens upon dozens—hundreds, no doubt—in despair.

  From the kitchen she heard voices; Farrell was greeting Igeia but she did not feel like joining him yet. At the moment she was more interested in die old man who had made his way up the hill from the village, carrying a stool and a basket. He vanished behind an olive tree and then reappeared, placing his stool on the ground and testing its stability before he sat down upon it, his basket beside him. She watched him draw out a slip of paper and roll a few fingers' full of tobacco in it, screw the ends and take a few puffs. He smiled and carefully stubbed out the cigarette, tucking it into a pocket of his shabby vest. Only then did he reach into his basket and—but what, she wondered, was he planning to do in the shade of the tree, bathed in a peacefulness that was lacking, perhaps, in the village?

  He did not see her. She watched, fascinated, as he methodically unpacked his basket and when its contents surrounded him —jars of several sizes, brushes and knives—he slid from the stool to the earth and proceeded to move all these objects to the stool. There he sat, cross-legged on the ground. Selecting a brush and a jar from his cache he began to work, bent over what she thought from this distance might be a wood carving.

  "Now that I'd like to see," she murmured, and left her chair to stroll through the garden and across die drive to approach the man.

  "Signor," she said politely, and he glanced up, his face a network of fine lines in a dark face. He smiled broadly, exposing a deficiency of teeth but his smile was warm and welcoming. Vigorously nodding his head at her appearance he greeted her with a spate of incomprehensible words; she nodded back with enthusiasm, and feeling that communication had been established she turned her gaze to what work he was doing in the shade of the tree, and promptly froze in astonishment.

  In his lap he held a wonderful old pottery jug with a pair of handles, one of which was loose and which he was about to repair with a touch of glue. The background of the jug was black but it radiated with exquisite amber-colored figures that circled it: Greek dancers etched in flowing robes, men reclining on couches with beards and wreaths on their heads . . , she drew in her breath sharply at the sight of this, knowing suddenly what Farrell had meant when he claimed to have seen a museum piece of Greek pottery: she was gazing on one at this moment.

  She turned; Farrell had wandered out into the garden and was sniffing the air, a cup of coffee in one hand. "Farrell?" she called. When he didn't hear her she walked out into the driveway and called to him again. "There's something here you ought to see," she told him grimly, and led him back to the old man under the tree.

  "What is it?" he asked. "I've no—" He stopped, staring down at the man in astonishment. He said in a strangled voice, "But that's—"

  "Yes," she said.

  He knelt and touched what the man held; he ran a finger reverently over its surface, a look of incredulity on his face. "Pre-Hellenic," he said simply. "Very, very old. Not the one I saw, but another."

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded. "There's something else I'd like you to see, Farrell. In the house."

  "But I was blatantly and flagrantly lied to," he protested. "She implied I was hallucinating!"

  "So you told me," said Mrs. Pollifax, "and I've been lied to, also. It's absolutely none of our business but I long to know why, and perhaps you can help explain why. You picked a lock last night, I want you to pick one now. Grazie," she told the old man and led Farrell away.

  Once out in the sunshine he said worriedly, "You pointed out that it's none of our business, Duchess, and you're right, it isn’t.

  "I realize that," said Mrs. Pollifax, "but I don't like mysteries, and Franca's telling such untruths is completely out of character, and I don't like that either."

  He said, "It could be like opening Pandora's Box."

  She nodded. "Possibly, and yet—" She hesitated. "Once back in the States I will always wonder what's been going on here, and what they're concealing. You will, too, I think, because of Kate."

  He came to a full stop and stared at her. "How did
you know? I thought I hid my feelings about Kate very skillfully, I certainly worked hard enough at it."

  She laughed. "Oh you did, dear Farrell, but I couldn't help but overhear some of your conversation last night when we were on the hill overlooking Raphael's house."

  "And Franca is Kate's aunt," he pointed out.

  "Very true, but let me tell you now—there wasn't time before—that two nights ago I woke up, hearing the sound of a truck outside. Going to my window I watched three men return to the village, but not Peppino, who headed for Franca's studio, a rifle under his arm, and proceeded to knock on her door, speak to her, and then leave. This was at three o'clock in the morning. When I broached this subject the next day, mentioning a truck and voices waking me, both Franca and Peppino looked mystified and quite dramatically emphasized that there had been no truck and no people during the night."

  Seeing Farrell look startled, and then thoughtful, she added,

  "And yesterday I glanced into Franca's studio while you and Kate were playing poker, the door was ajar, and I don't think it's a studio at all."

  Farrell frowned. "All right, you win. What is it you want me to see?"

  "Her studio."

  "I'm not even awake yet," he grumbled as they passed through the kitchen, empty now. "Where's Franca?"

  "I don't know. Asleep, one hopes, but since it's past seven o'clock now it's probably not for long." She led him down the long flagstoned hallway, past his door and hers, and pointed to the door of Franca's studio.

  "You mean I've got to hurry?"

  "Definitely, yes."

  With a sigh he drew from his pocket the chain that held a Swiss knife but to which various other implements had been added. "For heaven's sake keep a watch on the kitchen end of the hall, will you?" He knelt by the door and began probing the lock while she stood guard over him. After what felt an interminable length of time he rose to his feet, turned the knob and the door opened. "If Franca wants to keep secrets," he murmured, "she ought to invest in a better— What the devil!"

  "Exactly," said Mrs. Pollifax.

  He stood looking around him in astonishment. "This is—but what?"

  "To me it looked like a laboratory."

  "Not quite," he murmured. Walking over to the row of gleaming counters he peered at the glass jars lined up on the shelves, removed one and opened it. Sniffing it he nodded, opened another and sniffed this, too. "She grinds her own paints," he said, and turned to eye the huge wooden easel covered with a sheet. Moving quickly to it he said, "This ought to explain what's happening here." He reached up and drew away the cloth, dropping it on the floor.

  Mrs. Pollifax gasped. Propped on the easel stood a canvas that glowed with brilliant clear colors: a café table, flowers, a man seated at the table, a background of busy wallpaper. "Matisse?" faltered Mrs. Pollifax, and then realized that it couldn't be a Matisse because the painting wasn't finished. The foreground was blank white canvas, the man at the table was only sketched in outline and lacked flesh tones, and—"For a moment I thought it was a Matisse," she said.

  Farrell was studying it thoughtfully. "I think it's going to be a Matisse," he said dryly. "It's just not finished yet."

  "No."

  Scowling, he turned and strode over to the machine in the center of the room, flicked a switch, and on the large white screen that had puzzled Mrs. Pollifax on her earlier glimpse into the room there appeared a magnified, blown-up detail of the café table and wallpaper.

  Farrell nodded. "She copies paintings! That has to be a detail of a Matisse painting on the screen, and she's copying it." He looked back to the easel and frowned. "And I have to admit it's a damn fine job. Those brush strokes are Matisse, those colors are Matisse, the technique is Matisse . . ."

  "People do this sort of thing?"

  He said scornfully, "Oh yes. Nouveau riche snobs who can't afford to bid millions for an original will pay a great deal for a really fine copy, rejecting reproductions as middle class and gauche, and heaven forbid they risk the work of a new artist!" A look of blinding revelation swept his face. "My God, Duchess —those pre-Hellenic vases! They're obviously copies, too. What Franca is running here is a—a virtual factory for turning out copies of whatever people will buy and she can sell."

  Startled, Mrs. Pollifax said, "But is that legal?"

  "It's legal so long as people know it's a copy they're buying." He stared at the painting, frowning and puzzled. "Or else," he began softly, "or else—"

  "But the paint's dry," said Mrs. Pollifax, touching the canvas with one finger. "Perhaps it isn't hers. Certainly she's not been working on it lately."

  Farrell said grimly, "No, she probably put it aside to finish the Correggio."

  "The Correggio!" gasped Mrs. Pollifax. "You can't mean the Correggio was hers! Farrell, you're making me very nervous, I don't like this, do let's get out of here, I'm sorry I ever—

  Behind them Franca said calmly, "So you saw the Correggio, too?"

  They turned to see that Franca had quietly entered the room behind them, barefooted as usual, wearing a bright red robe, no wig this morning as yet, but blond hair streaked with gray flowing to her shoulders.

  Mrs. Pollifax said quickly, "It would be ridiculous to apologize, it's too late, Franca, but we just saw a man in the olive grove mending a very old pottery jug, and I did hear a truck the other night, and—"

  She looked amused. "Yes, Peppino gave me quite a scolding for lying to you. So what are you going to do now that you know how I make my living—report me to the police?"

  Farrell looked at her thoughtfully. "It would really be the police, then? They're not copies?"

  She said with a shrug, "It began that way. Caterina tells me you're an artist yourself, with a gallery in Mexico. I've been eavesdropping long enough to know that you were about to reach the next very logical conclusion, am I not right?"

  Farrell said softly, "The Correggio was magnificent."

  She nodded. "It fooled you? That too is magnificent. Thank you."

  Mrs. Pollifax stammered, "You painted it—f-f-forged it?"

  "As you see, I am in your hands completely, but I must warn you," she added carefully, "that Sicilians are hot-blooded and if it becomes known in the village what you've learned, all of them—Peppino, Nito, everyone—might prefer that you never leave here."

  Mrs. Pollifax, offended, said, "You didn't have to say that, Franca, we're certainly aware that we might not be alive if you'd not given us refuge. I can't speak for Farrell, of course, but for myself—"

  Farrell said with a wry smile, "She's right, of course, Franca; I doubt very much if either of us would have survived if we'd gone to a Palermo hotel. I think you also know that I care too much for your niece to expose you."

  Franca sniffed. "Care? Always Americans avoid the word love!"

  "They are forgeries?" asked Mrs. Pollifax. "Deliberate forgeries?"

  She smiled faintly. "My grandfather left no money, it's true, only books, but—this will interest you, Farrell. Among them —but let me show you."

  She led them to the shelf of books, and from them drew a very old, tattered sheaf of pages bound together with hemp. "The text is in Greek, as you can see," she said tenderly. "I was curious, I was forced to learn rudimentary Greek to translate and read it. It's hundreds of years old and yet, old as it is, the monk who put down these words here writes that he copied from an even older manuscript. From it I learned how painters in medieval times sized their canvasses, mixed their egg-tem-

  pera and oil glazes. The rules and the formulas are all here, and when I found this," she said, turning suddenly fierce, "I knew how I was going to save both myself and the village."

  "But this is astounding," Farrell said, touching a page reverently. "What a discovery!"

  "Yes."

  He added curiously, "And you have copied many great paintings? Or should I say copied the techniques to make new ones?"

  Ignoring his question she said, "Probably neither of you would remember the Toa
sty-Cozy ad campaign of 1974 that featured the Mona Lisa . . , that was my Mona Lisa, a perfect copy, which is when I realized the talent I had in this area."

  "You began with copies," Farrell said doggedly. "And then?"

  She smiled. "Then I came here to Sicily, and continued doing quite well with them—little sketches by Picasso, Modigliani, Dufy, Derain—but not well enough for my purposes, you see. And here was this marvelous centuries-old book with all its secrets, and a cooperative dealer in Palermo with connections in Rome and New York, and the village needed so much more money."

  "So you—er—graduated?" suggested Farrell.

  She nodded cheerfully. "The Correggio is my finest work," she confided, "but it was really exhausting. Very intricate, consuming work! So I decided yesterday to resume work on this Matisse and have a little rest." She added modestly, "I always place a very tiny dot in one corner of each painting so that I'll recognize them in museums."

  "Museums," echoed Farrell, looking staggered, and then, as if struck by lightning he exclaimed, "That Dutch painting four years ago—a Frans Hals, wasn't it? An early Frans Hals, considered a precursor of his Women Regents of the Old Man's Home. The experts are still arguing over it, aren't they, some calling it fake, others insisting it's genuine? Dare I ask—" He stopped and said weakly, "But how tactless of me."

  "Yes, very," agreed Mrs. Pollifax with a smile.

  He rallied with dignity. "I hope you've noticed that I've not mentioned the pre-Hellenic pottery, although how you ever managed that, too, I can't imagine. I found it exquisite, and—"

  He was interrupted by the clanging, heart-stopping sound of a bell outside, so loud that it reverberated through the house and rattled the glass jars on the shelf in the studio. Mrs. Pollifax jumped at the shock of it; Franca cried, "It's the emergency bell—trouble!" Unlocking the door to the garden she raced out of the room, her robe floating behind her.

  Farrell and Mrs. Pollifax looked at each other and then rushed out to follow. Igeia had emerged from the kitchen end of the house, a dripping wooden spoon still in her hand; Kate pushed past her, still in pajamas with a rifle under her arm, and Mrs. Pollifax, seeing that neither Kate nor Franca headed for the main gate but down the hill, remembered the huge bell she'd seen attached to the raw new building. It was certainly ringing now, and as they reached the top of the hill she saw a very small and barefooted boy clinging to the rope and riding back and forth on it. A dozen women in black were circling a wagon of hay, shouting angrily and raising fists at something or someone; Peppino and another man were running in from the fields and Franca in her scarlet robe had just reached the angry women in black. As Mrs. Pollifax, Kate and Farrell joined the crowd the boy dropped the rope and the ringing ceased, replaced by excited voices shouting at Peppino and Franca, and all of them talking at once.