The Bellini Card (26 page)

“‘Cos I got an idea, your worship, ‘aven’t I? Worth another florin, mebbe.”

“Go on,” Palewski snapped.

“I’ll show yer,” the beggar said in a thin whisper. He put up a grimy hand and beckoned Palewski closer.

Palewski stooped lower, with barely concealed mistrust. The man was probably half cracked, rummaging through his rags, feeling for a bit of old blanket. It occurred to Palewski that at any moment he might produce a knife.

Instead, the beggar lifted a corner of the blanket.

For a moment Palewski merely stared.

If the beggar had produced a vase of roses, or an African child, Palewski could not have been more surprised.

“You’ve
got it,” he croaked weakly. “You’ve got my bag!”

“Safe
and
sound, your honor. An’ what was inside, too.”

“I—you—did you look inside? I mean—”

“I ain’t on the razzle, your worship, if that’s what you’re finking. Not in my line, if you follow.”

Palewski’s mouth was hanging open in sheer amazement—and relief.

“Take it now if you like, your honor.” The beggar ran a dirt-seamed hand across the end of his nose.
“Anything to oblige an old friend.”

Palewski leaped back, as though he had been bitten.

He glanced around wildly, but there was nobody else on the bridge.

His face was ashen.

“I—I’ll take the bag,” he began. “How to repay you—I mean—I think you’ve saved my life!”

“And you’ve saved mine before now, too,” the beggar said. He picked up the bag in both hands and settled it on his knee.

Palewski ran his hands through his hair. His eyes were starting. He bent down and stared the beggar in the face.

“You’re—you can’t be! It’s not possible.” His voice was barely a whisper.

The beggar shrugged.

“I had started to think,” he said, “that you might need a hand.”

Palewski’s legs gave way and he sat down on the stone step with a bump.

“And it seems to me,” Yashim added, “that I am just in time.”

“T
HE
first thing we have to do,” Yashim went on imperturbably, “is find somewhere safe to put you.”

“The first thing I have to do,” Palewski countered, breathing heavily, “is find somewhere to drink a large glass of grappa.” He peered at the beggar again and looked away. “I just can’t believe it, Yash. I mean, your
own mother wouldn’t know you.” He paused. “You look horrible. What have you done to your face?”

“I dyed my eyebrows yellow to match the beard. The beard comes off.”

Palewski saw why the beggar had seemed so sensitive to light: with his eyes wide open, he looked—well, still hardly like his friend of so many years.

“I could guess that much. It’s your—your face that looks so different. Wrong shape.”

Yashim stuck a dirty finger into his mouth and began to work around his gums. Various damp little bundles came out; Yashim flexed his jaw.

“Wadding,” he said triumphantly. He reached behind his ears and removed some putty, so that they lay flat against his head. “Know me now?”

Palewski nodded. It was Yashim—but still a horrible, scabrous, sandy-bearded parody of his old friend. “Your teeth,” he objected weakly.

Yashim chuckled. “I forgot the teeth,” he said and picked off some flakes of wax.

“You look completely horrible.”

“I feel a lot better.”

“I suppose under all those rags you’re beautifully dressed, too?”

“As a matter of fact, I believe I am respectable.”

Yashim stood up and peeled away a few layers of grimy cloth.

“The beard stays,” he said. “It takes lye and water to get it off, I think.”

“I don’t know about respectable,” Palewski pointed out, as he surveyed his friend’s familiar brown robe. “You aren’t exactly going to blend in unobserved.”

“That may be part of the plan,” Yashim said. “Let’s go.”

Leaving his rags in a bundle by the bridge, Yashim led the way to the café where Palewski and Ruggerio had had breakfast several days before.

Palewski ordered grappa. The waiter glanced curiously at Yashim but seemed more interested in his ringworm than his costume.

“The worst of it, Yashim, is that …” He trailed off. “My God. Yashim. Yashim.” Palewski shook his head. “I still don’t believe it. But it’s all wasted. You’re too late.”

Yashim cocked his head. “On the contrary. I said I was just in time.”

“No, look. I’m sorry. I’ve found the Bellini—I’m taking it tomorrow. In fact, I’d better get back to the house. We have to catch my friend Alfredo before he meets the policeman.” He leaned across the table. “I’ve bought the painting, Yashim. Or nearly. The sultan’s Bellini! That’s why I needed the bag.”

“And that’s why I took it,” Yashim said.

Palewski nodded. “Thank God you did. Whole thing’s getting complicated—I’ll explain later. I’m getting out as quickly as I can. We must get you a passage on that ship tomorrow—it’s only going to Corfu, I’m afraid, but needs must, all that.”

He downed his grappa and sighed. “My God, Yashim. I almost died of shock.”

Yashim looked grave—or as grave as was possible for a man with a false beard with his eyebrows and lashes dyed a sickly yellow.

“I’m afraid the shock’s not quite over yet.” He paused. “You can’t hand over the money,” he said quietly. “Your Bellini’s a fake.”

Palewski was still.

“Oh,” he said coldly. “You know that, do you?”

Yashim nodded.

“The beggar business was inspired, Yashim. I’m still finding it hard to believe you’re here, like this. But if I’m wrong about the Bellini, my name’s not Palewski.”

Yashim smiled, a trifle sadly. “Well, it’s not, is it, Signor Brett?”

“Being a beggar is all very well,” Palewski replied facetiously, “but I don’t suppose you were lurking under the table when we looked at the painting? The chap selling it—his brother almost died as a result. Came in waving a gun and took the bullet himself. It was dark,” he added. “Very nearly shot me first.”

Yashim looked interested. “Ah, so that was how it was done,” he murmured. “I wondered.”

“Oh, come on, Yashim. A family heirloom. Probably the best thing they’d turned up since the fall of Athens.”

“They?”

“The family that’s selling their painting, on the quiet.” It sounded
thin. “You can’t go around bawling your prices on the Rialto these days. The friends—the Austrians—would get to hear about it.”

“How convenient.”

“Convenient? Nonsense. We’ll meet them tomorrow. The vendor
and
his brother—they fixed up some sort of pact, thank God. I thought the brother had died. As soon as I’ve got the painting, I’ll ask Alfredo who they were.”

Yashim gazed at his old friend. Palewski didn’t like it and looked away.

“Did you go to the theater while you were here?”

Palewski looked surprised. “The theater? I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Yash. I’ve been ill, I’ve been busy, I’ve been—God, I found Compston here and had to fix up a couple of courtesans to see him off, along with his Habsburg chum.” He leaned back, and now that he had found his theme he discovered it was warm. “I’ve had policemen dunning me over two chaps who got murdered—nothing to do with me. I’ve had a fellow shot under my nose—I thought he’d died. I’ve been threatened with guns, with hanging, with cholera. I’ve swum the Grand Canal. Not along it, like Byron, but Byron didn’t have his shoes hanging around his neck. I was even poisoned. Nasty stuff, prosecco. So no, sorry. I somehow missed the theater.”

He stood up.

“Venice
is
a theater, Yashim. You fit right in, too, with your beard and eyebrows. No wonder the waiter didn’t look twice. At the end of the day they probably lay him down in a box marked ‘Café Characters.’ I’ve had enough.”

Yashim hadn’t moved.

Palewski stared at him for a while.

He gripped the chair and sat down.

He put his head in his hands.

He said a word in Polish that Yashim didn’t understand.

“Go on, then, Yash,” he said at last. “What makes you believe the Bellini is a fake?”

S
ERGEANT
Vosper was not only a methodical man, and a slow one; the aspect of police work he liked best was standing in a doorway across the street, waiting for a suspect to appear.

At the Procuratie he had to weave his way between the stadtmeister’s interminable lectures and men like Brunelli, who bantered with him. When Brunelli laughed he never knew whether to be pleased or offended. Now Brunelli would be out for his scalp.

Waiting for Brett was not, on the whole, a bad way to spend an afternoon.

He came at a quarter to six, by Vosper’s watch: an ugly fellow who rolled up to the front door of the palazzo and pushed it and went inside. Vosper followed.

“Signor Brett?” he called, when he heard the man’s tread on the stone staircase overhead.

The man stopped.

“Who’s that?”

Vosper stuck his head over the banister and looked up.

“Police.”

“Who are you looking for?”

Vosper’s rule was never to answer a direct question directly. “Are you Signor Brett?”

Overhead he heard a voice muttering to itself. “Brett?” It called down, “Please—is this the Ca’ d’Aspi?”

“It’s the Casa Manin. D’Aspi is next door.”

The ugly man came down the stairs, chuckling ruefully. “Casa this,
Casa that. You’d think they’d give us better street numbers in the nineteenth century.”

Vosper nodded: it was a good point. Numbers would help police work.

“We’re waiting for a Signor Brett,” he said.

“Never heard of him,” Alfredo said. “I’m due at the Ca’ d’Aspi. Next door, you said?”

“That’s right.” Man was lost He wasn’t the American, at any rate. “Turn left, first on the left.”

“Thank you, Commissario.” As he passed, the ugly man turned and lowered his voice. “What’s this Brett done, then?”

“I’m not at liberty to reveal, I’m afraid, sir.” Which was, when all was said and done, a shame. Vosper took precious little glory from his work, and here was a man who didn’t seem to hold it against him. He inclined a little. “It could be a hanging charge,” he said.

The ugly man pulled a face. “Murder?”

Vosper compressed his lips. “That’s about the short and long of it, sir. Between ourselves.”

Alfredo ducked his head in an admiring gesture. “Good luck to you, Commissario.”

“And good luck to you, too, sir. It’s left outside, and left again.”

I
N
the café Yashim was beginning to explain. “Your friend Maria,” he said.

Palewski raised his head. “How do you know Maria?”

“Your Alfredo—a fat, ugly man.”

Palewski squirmed in his chair. “That doesn’t make him a crook.”

“No. But it means that he was in charge when those two thugs searched your apartment. He sent them in. They took Maria.”

“Maria? What happened?”

Yashim told him. “They had her in the Fondaco dei Turchi. The old hammam.”

“You found her?”

“Eventually.”

“And she is—?”