“All right. As plain as I can be. Sir Julian knows his address, and – as you know – they found the painting of you, but without any document in the back. From the cure where he lives they got a forwarding address in Switzerland. It was that of some woman who still, as they say, carries a torch for him, and acts as a postbox for him. Seems he likes to hop about from place to place. He has a poste restante address in Italy – Bologna to be exact.”

  “You got all this from Sir Julian?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s got the bit between his teeth and needs no help from us. Maurice Crillon, painter and picture-restorer, height, age, description – photo enclosed – possibly Bologna area, but almost certainly living in Italy. Shouldn’t be difficult to find – if you go to the right enquiry agency.”

  “Mafia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, bad cess to them. Anyway, why are you telling me all this?”

  “I thought you’d be interested. You took, as they say, quite a shine to the chap. Why?”

  “Because he knew his stuff about art.”

  “And pinched a portrait of you. Odd – and no offence meant, but why not pinch something of real value . . . something he could sell easily on the black market?”

  “Good question. But the answer rests with him. Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “It would help if we could take it out of the realms of guesswork. Confidentially, the matter has escalated somewhat.”

  “You intrigue me. What are you silly buggers up to now?” Warboys was silent for a while. Then with a shrug of his shoulders said, “Well, why not? Above and beyond Birdcage – you know – there sit the curators and custodians, the recorders and collectors of historical documents. The hoarders of State secrets. The Public Record Office. Probably there’s a hell of a lot they hold going back to the Norman Conquest which still hasn’t been made public. What can’t be told now can be turned into weighty tomes of scholarship in a hundred or more years and then with a few more years the literary hawks and sparrows take their pickings and possibly some lady romancer turns Sir Julian – surprise, surprise – into the hero of the piece. Today’s arcana become next century’s torrid best sellers. You’d be surprised how jealously the State regards its family papers, its record of political squabbles and royal scandals. How else would we have known which of Henry the Eighth’s queens suffered, not just from the pox, but from a delight in the pleasures of Lesbos? Do you or did any of your ancestors ever throw away the Abbey rent rolls, the details of new buildings and – more piquant – the letters or diaries of ancestors? So with the State. The historians of tomorrow must not be disappointed. So, although Sir Julian is off the hook, all forgiven, it has now been decided that the State should keep the original document. Birdcage has been overridden by the Master of some Oxford college. Sir Julian must be content solely with his absolution.”

  “All this has come a bit late, hasn’t it?”

  “Well, perhaps that is how the best things come. Though often the feast is disappointing. Sero venientibus ossa. But then historians are well used to licking over the old bones of long dead scandals.”

  “Sir Julian will be livid when he finds out.”

  “He will learn to live with it. The thing is that we now want the documents back. And your help to get them.”

  “How can I?”

  “Perhaps by telling us why with such insouciance you accepted the theft of your portrait by an itinerant French artist whom you knew for only a handful of days? Is there some skeleton in the Starr family?”

  “Dozens. And they all rest in the Crusaders’ chapel.”

  “For an old friend you can say no more than that?”

  “As an old friend I can only tell you that I took a fancy to the chap. If you want him, find him. You know where he lives, clearly. Send someone down to look in the outside loo. He probably tore the document into neat squares and hung them there. My father, bless his parsimonious soul, always had that done with his old newspapers here at the Abbey. Sometimes an odd scrap – from the News of the World – made interesting reading and it was fun searching for the missing pieces . . .”

  “Well, well. . . then there’s an end to it. And now would you like to bet me that I can’t catch that trout within four casts?”

  “A fiver. And you can change your fly.”

  “I will.”

  Warboys walked up the bank a little, changed the fly on his cast, and began to fish. At the third cast the trout took and was quickly netted.

  Sir Andrew pulled out his wallet and handed over a five-pound note, saying, “What fly did you put on?”

  Warboys grinned. “Who said anything about a fly? I said I would catch the trout. I put on a maggot – always carry a few to avoid disappointment on a bad day. What the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve over. Nice fish. I shall call on old Quint on the way back and present it to him. He’ll probably fancy it up into truite aux amandes for one of his lady friends.”

  * * * *

  Two days later Trudi Keller received in her post a letter from France. The handwriting on the envelope was familiar to her, though she could put no name to it, for she had seen it often on the envelopes forwarding Maurice’s mail from Cragnac. It was in fact that of monsieur le curé at Cragnac. She opened it to find a single letter enclosed, a letter bearing English postage stamps. Embossed on the back was a little coat of arms with a motto underneath it reading – Sic itur ad astra.

  She had no interest or curiosity about it. She had passed too many letters to Maurice now to find temptation in herself to open them. Everything was now finished between them. This was the moment when she had to begin to make her vow a material fact. She marked the envelope – Unknown at this address – in German and put it in a post box on her way to school in the morning.

  With this act she felt herself at last finally breaking with Maurice. But, though his visits had always been brief and widely spaced since the day he had left her, she knew that it would take a long time for the memory of him to rest undisturbingly in her mind. Maybe, she thought, it would be a good idea to give up her work here and go back to Zurich. And the thought, she knew, sprang from her own weakness. If she stayed here and Maurice came to see her she doubted that she could long resist him. The one thing he would never do, she knew, was to search her out at Zurich.

  At this moment in Florence in Aldo’s apartment the telephone rang. Aldo sitting over his breakfast coffee and rolls called to Carla to answer it. She came from the kitchen and went through into the little study off the big sitting room which Aldo used as an office. After a moment or two she came back and said, “There is a Signor Andretti wishes to speak to you.”

  Aldo looked up, his fat face suddenly creased and set with surprise. He gaped a little and then said, “You are sure of that name, car a?”

  “Signor Andretti. That is the name. Personally.”

  Without a word – though his consternation was clear to Carla – he got up, wiping his mouth on his napkin and then, giving the lapels of his jacket a mechanical tug, went by her and through into his study, closing the door behind him.

  Carla, knowing her brother, went back into the kitchen where her sister-in-law was kneading the dough to make fresh pasta for the evening meal. She said, “Who is Signor Andretti?”

  “That was the telephone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Probably some customer.”

  “When was there ever a customer of Aldo’s whose name could make him jump like a cat off a hot brick?”

  “You ask too many questions.”

  Carla laughed. “I see.” Then, her face suddenly taking on a serious cast, she went on, “You do not get worried sometimes?”

  “I am in his house and in his bed – but more often in his kitchen. Also, I think, I am a little bit in his heart. Not so much as once. But I am content – because I do not let myself get curious. With men that only leads to trouble.”

  “And one day . . . say, something goes wrong? What will you do then?”

  “It is arranged. I shall be patient until he comes back. But he is no fool. He has good friends in the right places. One day it will all happen to you with your Maurice. But you need not worry. Aldo’s friends will be his friends.” She began to roll out the pasta mixture, readying it to be cut into ravioli shapes for the evening meal.

  “And you are content?”

  “I am content. Is it any comfort to be anything else?”

  “And love – does that not die a little with absence?”

  “Love –” she laughed, “– that is the bait put in the trap at the beginning. Once you are in the trap you must learn to live there. It has its comforts.”

  Carla shook her head. “Sometimes I think that I shall never marry Maurice. Never be in the trap.”

  “So? What does it matter? You know our saying – One nail drives out another. By the way, have you reminded him that it is little Marco’s birthday in three days’ time? Since Maurice is soon to be his uncle “There is no need to remind him. With children he forgets nothing. Only with his women he is careless.”

  At this moment Aldo came into the kitchen. He was smiling and seemed to stand a little taller than he usually did.

  He said pompously, “That was Signor Andretti at Fiesole. Mamma mia – you should see that villa, and the stuff he has there. Also —” his face momentarily was stern, “— he is a man with whom I could only ever do straight business. His eye is that of a hawk. In all the years, sadly, I have never done business with him. He is an eagle that flies high over sparrows like me . . . but not now. You know what he wants?”

  To tease him Carla said, “A copy of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus to sell for authentic in . . . well, say, South America. And you would have Maurice do a copy for him.”

  Unperturbed Aldo said good-humouredly, “You do not touch me. And you should be pleased. He wants Maurice to go to him and advise him about his pictures. For cleaning. There is nothing wrong with this business. It is of Signor Andretti that we speak.”

  “Mafia?”

  Aldo looked shocked. “Carla, to speak so is an insult to a fine gentleman. Not in my house do you ever say anything like that again. Where is Maurice?”

  “How do I know – since I am forbidden to sleep overnight with him?”

  “Go find him and tell him I want to see him. And say nothing of Signor Andretti. To please him with this surprise must be my pleasure.” He drew in a deep breath and then let it go from him, saying, “Such a day . . . to be called by Signor Andretti. I know now how my beloved father felt the day he was called to see the great Bernard Berenson. Now go – go find Maurice. Tell him I want to see him. At once.”

  Carla smiled. “Never say – At once – to Maurice. There is a devil in him which will make him take an hour to put his shirt on.”

  Aldo snorted. “Maurice . . . Maurice! One day he is going to learn to be a man like other men. To marry and to be a good husband. To stop wondering what is over the horizon because there is only more of the same. In the end all men come, sooner or later, to learn that foolish dreams are of no comfort in old age. To learn that what I have here with Mamma and my family, and with my good business, is paradise.” He rubbed his hands together. “Ah, when the world knows that Aldo works for Signor Andretti – then you shall see how my enemies and those who have tried to cheat me will come crawling.”

  “And what will you do?” asked his wife.

  It was no surprise to either woman that Aldo took the question seriously.

  He said judicially, “Some, because of my Christian heart, I shall forgive. But for a few – the door closes in the face. Like this – Piaaf!” He clapped his hands together and blew a great breath.

  * * * *

  That morning, while Aldo was basking in his pride at the call from Signor Andretti, Warboys – wearing a red rosebud in the lapel of his black jacket, purchased in Shepherd Market on his walk to the office, and placed there by a charming girl assistant who, had it happened for him to be twenty, possibly ten years younger, would have soon found that with time this slight familiarity would have led to greater ones – called Kerslake into his office. In a little while now, he thought, he would be gone and Kerslake would be beyond calling for he would sit here as Supremo, though not – he allowed himself a mild touch of vanity – with such distinction of appearance as himself. But, dammit, give the man his due, probably rather more competent, if not so imaginative as himself. Life was full of ironies, and he personally relished them. Kerslake had no such predilection for them.

  Kerslake gave him a good-morning and took the chair he was nodded to and Warboys, knowing that the man had no time for obliquities of approach, chose deliberately to start with one, and said, “A few days ago – coming back from an afternoon’s fishing on the Avoncourt Abbey water – I called in on your old mentor Quint – he who chose to quit early instead of soldiering on in the hope of occupying – and I may say certain hope – the chair in which I am now sitting and which will be yours when ‘the book of Nature Getteth short of leaves’. Did I catch the breath of a sigh? Such confusing allusions so early in the morning?”

  To Warboys’ surprise, and he had to smile good-humouredly, Kerslake said, “The not unpleasant disease which Quint has always suffered from is catching. After he left it took me a while to rid myself of the milder form I had begun to adopt in self-defence. But I was hampered because I had little Latin and less Greek. I presume, sir–” the last word was faintly emphasized, “I that you discussed Sir Andrew with him? The odd fancy he took to Crillon. The odd fancy Crillon took to his Augustus John portrait, and the odder fact that the document it contained was not found in it after Crillon cleaned it.”

  “To some extent all those. He said that the important one probably was not the odd fancy he took to Crillon, but the odd fancy that Crillon – with so many far more valuable paintings to chose from – took to the Augustus John.”

  “Just that? No more?”

  “Well, yes. I’d taken with me the photograph of Crillon you got rather belatedly from the French authorities and he had a good look at it, front and back with the details on it. He really made a meal of it. And then he said, like Sherlock Holmes rather, ‘The odd thing, you know, is that I’ve never really fathomed the meaning of – Plain as a pikestaff. Penny plain and tuppence coloured, yes.’ And then rambled on . . . he’d finished nearly a bottle of Petit Chablis before I arrived . . . talking about Chesterton and The Man Who Was Nobody. But I had a distinct feeling he had his nose up into the wind and some scent was coming down it to him. But I couldn’t get more from him. Why is it that when men leave this place they become so unco-operative?”

  “Well, sir.”

  Smiling, noting the rare sir, Warboys said, “Ah, yes, of course. If the reason is to be known, I shall know it soon. Only a few more weeks, my dear Kerslake, and you will sit in my place. And I can think of none better. However, all this by way of easing my irritation with Quint. The real point is that there is other game afoot. You know that Sir Julian handed over the search for Crillon to the Mafia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, just to complicate things, and very delightful I find it, I had a visitor call at my flat last evening late. Would it surprise you if I said that hagiologically speaking he made clear that he stands on the right-hand side of Signor Andretti’s throne?”

  “Nothing surprises me with them. And I don’t care for them much . . . at all.”

  “Ah, there speaks the Barnstaple boy. But well you know that here we subdue . . . better, forget. . . our prejudices. He that sups with the Devil must have a long spoon. But this particular Devil has his uses. Signor Andretti, I am told, has found and will shortly be picking up our Maurice Crillon and hopefully the document also so ardently desired by Sir Julian – and those same papers also now so ardently desired by our State archivists. . . so, to be vulgar, I was offered a deal.”

  Kerslake smiled. “Instead of going to Sir Julian they come to us – and what do we have to do . . . or give?”

  “It seems that Signor Andretti has a nephew or a cousin – or probably someone of no relation at all – who cares? – and this gentleman is on the verge of deep trouble, his arrest is imminent.”

  “Gaming casinos? Vincente Paraccini?”

  “Ah, you read your papers. Yes. We arrange that all charges likely to be made be withheld. The police won’t like it – they’ve been trying to get him for a long time. But they’re used to disappointments. Would you have any objection?”

  “Do I have any choice?”

  “No. But if you had?”

  “I would have none. My father lost the use of one hand at Dunkirk – and my uncle was killed there. But what of Sir Julian?”

  “You are concerned?”

  “No. Curious.”

  “He will learn to live with it. Does he deserve more?”

  “If things had gone his way – do you think that the flag would be flying over Buckingham Palace to show that the Queen is in residence?”

  “Ah, a nice touch. Rugged sentiment. ‘Take ’old o’ the Wings of the Mornin’, An’ flop round the earth till you’re dead: But you won’t get away from the tune that they play – To the bloomin’ old rag over head.’ Splendid stuff. So we consign Sir Julian to the wolves?”

  “Why not? And what happens to Maurice Crillon?”

  Warboys was silent for a moment or two and them said with heavy banality, “Do you think anyone really cares? But, of course, yes. Someone must. No man can be so forlorn. It is a state Nature abhors.”

  * * * *

  Aldo – sitting sideways at his desk in his little room overlooking the Piazza Santo Spirito, part of the facade of Brunelleschi’s church just visible, Brunelleschi one of the first men of the fifteenth century to establish the laws of perspective – as Aldo well knew, but who was now much more interested in the new and long reaching perspectives pointing to the future – gave Maurice Crillon the benefit of his warmest smile.