“You must remember, signora, that anything which can help might be of enormous importance here.”
But she shook her head. She’d come into the church, collected her bucket of water and cleaning equipment, and walked down the aisle to close the main door when she saw …
“To close the what?”
The main door, she said, which was slightly ajar. Surely they must have noticed that it was unlocked? She’d closed it and locked it just before she noticed …
“Jesus,” Flavia swore under her breath.
“Fine, great,” she said hurriedly. “I think that will do. Thank you so much, signora.”
“Is there anything else?” asked Alberto, speaking for almost the first time. “I believe there is. What is it, signora? Do you know who attacked him or something?”
She nodded again. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”
There was a slight clunk as the front two legs of his chair came back to earth, and he leant forward on the table.
“Well?”
“She did,” Signora Graziani said. Alberto, who thought for a moment the woman was referring to Flavia, looked surprised.
“What?”
“My Lady. She did.”
“Ah …”
“She is as harsh in her punishments of sin as she is gracious and forgiving with those who make amends. The Father was wicked, and turned from her. So he was punished.”
“Well …”
“He stopped her receiving supplicants, and took her away from the people who loved her. And he was going to hurt her.”
“Just a minute,” Flavia said, suddenly realizing what the woman was talking about. “Do you mean that painting?”
Signora Graziani looked puzzled for a moment. “Of course,” she said simply.
“And you think Father Xavier was attacked by a painting?”
“My Lady,” she corrected gravely, “punished him. A priest without belief is no man of God.”
“Yes. Right. Thank you very much,” Alberto said. “That’s very illuminating. So kind of you to spare the time to talk to us.”
“Will you want a statement?” she asked placidly.
“Not just yet, I think. Maybe in a day or so,” he replied, holding open the door.
Signora Graziani bowed slightly as she left. “You don’t believe me,” she said. “But you’ll see I’m right.”
“Damnation,” he said when he’d shut the door on her. “I thought for a moment …”
Flavia laughed. “You should have seen the look on your face when you realized what she was talking about.”
He snorted. “I suppose we’d better check that door. Quite a big thing to have missed, don’t you think?”
She nodded. “I imagine she will have wiped any fingerprints off, mind you.”
“Probably. But we do have the problem of finding out who unlocked it in the first place.”
Argyll’s lecture, a moronically simple canter through the more ostentatious church commissions of the seventeenth century, had gone tolerably well, so he thought. That is to say, there had been forty people in the room when he started, and still more than twenty when he’d ended. Such wastage would have alarmed him, but his head of department assured him that it was pretty good, considering. Considering what? he’d asked. Considering that it was a morning lecture, was the reply. Not early risers, these people. As they, or their parents, were paying a fortune, they generally imagined that lectures should be scheduled for their convenience. Just as they seemed to think that the level of grade should vary in direct proportion to the size of the fees.
“And,” this wiseacre continued. “You didn’t show many pictures. Risky. They like looking at pictures. You don’t show pictures, they’ve not got anything to do. Except listen, and think. And lectures. Dear me. A bit authoritarian, you know? Don’t you think a group interaction module might be better?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s where you break down hierarchy. They teach themselves.”
“But they don’t know anything,” Argyll protested. “How can you teach yourself if you don’t know anything to start off with?”
“Ah. You’ve spotted the snag. However, that one is easily solved. You are confusing knowledge with creativity. You are meant to be encouraging their self-expression. Not stifling it by the imposition of factualities over which you deny them control.”
“Factualities?”
The other man sighed. “I’m afraid so. Don’t look at me like that. It’s not my fault.”
“I don’t have to do that, do I?” asked a newly anxious Argyll.
“I exaggerate greatly. Just for the pleasure of watching the blood drain from your head. But you do have to watch it. Do you want to have lunch?” he asked. Amazing how a bit of idle chat can make some people friendly. The man had scarcely talked to him before, although as almost no one in the entire department had acknowledged his existence as yet this hardly marked him out.
“No. That’s kind. But I have to get back to San Giovanni.”
“Oh-ho. That’s courageous of you. Did you know Menzies is working there?”
“I did.”
“The Also Capone of restoration? I’d be careful. There was a terribly funny article about him in the paper this morning …”
“I saw it.”
“Did you? Goodness, how I laughed. I wonder who wrote it. You saw it was anonymous, I suppose.”
“Yes.”
“I’d steer clear if I were you. I wouldn’t like to be the person who supplied all that information to the press, either. He has a violent streak, has Menzies. Did you hear of the time he was addressing the art restorers’ annual bash in Toronto? About four years ago?”
“Can’t say I did,” Argyll replied cautiously.
“Burckhardt had the temerity to question a fluid he was using. Very polite, merely in the spirit of enquiry. They came to blows, in fact, Menzies threw a glass at him.”
“During the conference?”
“Not in the actual hall, no. That would have been entertaining. But in the bar afterwards. Very dramatic. I’m sorry I missed it, really; probably the high point of the evening. Vicious bunch, art restorers. Cut-throat, you know. They had a return match the other day. Didn’t actually hit each other, alas.”
“Oh?”
“He was gawping at his restoring, and Menzies all but threw him out. Amazing. He told me about it at dinner. That’s why I thought of it.”
“Who did?”
“Burckhardt.”
“Who is this Burckhardt?”
“Burckhardt? The Burckhardt.”
Argyll shook his head.
“And I thought you were once an art dealer. Peter Burckhardt. Of Galeries Burckhardt.”
“Oh,” said Argyll humbly. “That Burckhardt.”
He told Flavia about it over the minestrone.
“Who?”
Argyll looked at her scornfully. “And I thought you were meant to keep your finger on the pulse. The Peter Burckhardt. Only the oldest and canniest icon man in the business. He virtually sets prices. Icons are worth what he says they’re worth.”
“You know this man?”
He shook his head. “Only by reputation. Which is very good. He’s an Alsatian, I think. French, really.”
“Where does he hang out?”
“Paris. He operates in the Faubourg St-Honore. Has done for decades, I think.”
“And he’s in Rome.”
“Apparently. So this man I was talking to said. And had a run-in with Menzies. They had a spat a year or so ago and it still rankles. Something about fluids.”
Flavia ate a spoonful of soup and thought it over. “So we have a dealer who specializes in icons in the church a day or so ago. The order decides not to sell any of its possessions and the icon gets stolen. What does that indicate to you?”
“That you should forget Caravaggio and think Orthodox. And ask Menzies why he didn’t mention this. And examine Peter Burckhardt’s luggage. On the other hand, he is terribly respectable. I mean seriously. It’s possible he might turn a blind eye to an icon with a dubious past; he’d have to. It’s almost impossible to get hold of any which aren’t a bit shady. But actually stealing things himself …”