I sent off the email, then walked down Matchedash Street to Mississauga and over to the Half Moon Cafe. Nodding to Marco, I took a table near the bar. The mid-morning crowd was thin, the cafe fairly quiet, except for a table of women who were chirping away enthusiastically, coloured shopping bags at their feet and crumb-sprinkled plates next to their empty cups and mugs. Beside a trio of men in suits, their table strewn with pamphlets and papers, Evvie McFadden was reading a book, on her break, I guessed, from the Magus Bookstore a few doors down. I waved when she raised her head. I had known Evvie since grade one, when I had been in love with her for a week or so.
Marco appeared with my latte and two tiny pastries, each dusted with powdered sugar and topped with a dab of chocolate.
“How did you know what I was going to order?”
The parentheses appeared briefly at the corners of his smile. “I took a wild guess,” he said, wiping his hands on a rag.
“Thanks, Marco.” I nodded toward the back. “Who are the suits? I don’t recognize any of them.”
“Dunno. They’re with Geneva Park, they said. Some conference or other.”
“I think I heard about that. Raphaella mentioned her production might get to perform out there. By the way, thanks for connecting me with Mrs. Stoppini.”
Marco waved his hand as if swatting a fly. “Don’t mention it. Everything workin’ out okay?”
“Couldn’t be better. I have the shop set up and operational.” I kept in mind my promise to Mrs. Stoppini not to disclose any details about my contract and didn’t say anymore.
“Great,” he replied.
“Marco, you said the professor was a distant cousin. Can you tell me anything about him?”
Marco settled back in his chair and rested an ankle on the opposite knee. “When I asked around the clan for his phone number I ran into a few road blocks. Nobody had much to say about him, which is rare in our family, where everybody butts into everybody else’s business, and where a dinner party is like a football match with everybody talking at once. But my aunt Isabella, she was married to… well, never mind the details. Anyways, she seemed to know a lot about the prof and was happy to talk to me.”
I sipped my latte and waited. Marco’s pause was my cue to prompt him for details. He loved to gossip, and he passed on information with a storyteller’s gift for drama and a comedian’s sense of timing. I popped one of the pastries into my mouth, chewed, swallowed, and raised my eyebrows to encourage him.
“See,” he went on, “our family has two lines, the Bianchis and the Corbizzis. How they mingled up with each other I got no idea. Nobody seems to know when it happened. Prob’ly a love affair somewhere along the road. Who can say? The Bianchis were Calabrian farmers, dirt poor and rough around the edges. The Corbizzis were Florentine merchants, minor nobility-they think they still are-and naturally they’re snobs. Look down on the Bianchis like a queen looks at the maid who cleans her bathroom. During World War II the Corbizzis sided with the Fascists. But Aunt Isabella says Eduardo Corbizzi-that’s the prof-wasn’t like the rest of them. He broke from his clan. He also refused the family money, struck off on his own, got an education, and became a scholar. Then he left Italy-a mortal sin among the Corbizzis. He was a real radical. Quit the Church at fifteen, didn’t believe in marriage. That’s what Isabella said.”
I thought about what Marco had told me. Whatever embellishments he or his aunt might have added, it fit with the little I had learned from Mrs. Stoppini. It explained her relationship with the prof, for one thing. She and the prof had been a couple but had never married in a church or at city hall. The prof was estranged from his family, a recluse, a man who held unusual opinions. Mrs. Stoppini had hinted as much when she explained that he hadn’t fit in very well at the University of Toronto. She had also indicated that he had become obsessed with his work toward the end of his life.
“Interesting guy,” I commented.
Marco leaned forward, elbows on the table, and dropped his voice. “Aunt Isabella said the prof was into some pretty weird stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Something to do with religion. She wouldn’t go into detail. I don’t know-maybe she was exaggerating. She’s a Bianchi, after all. Thinks the Corbizzis haven’t noticed that the world has changed. Funny thing is, from what she said, the prof prob’ly would’ve agreed with her.”
“So, Marco,” I said mischievously, “you’re a Grenoble, not a Corbizzi or a Bianchi. How did that happen?”
He got up and waved his hand. “Don’t ask.”
III
WHEN I GOT TO WICKLOW POINT the estate gate was blocked by a panel van with BRADLEY SUMMERHILL & SON, AUCTIONEERS painted on the side. Brad Summerhill, the son, was heaving his bulk from the driver’s seat. I pulled my motorcycle around the van and activated the remote.
“Follow me,” I said, and steered through the opening gate.
Brad backed the van up to the coach house door. I helped him lug the table into the shop.
Brad handed me a clipboard. “Sign here,” he said in his usual barely civilized manner.
I initialled the hand-printed form and passed the clipboard back.
“Your father was lucky,” Brad remarked.
“Oh?”
“He should never have gotten the table so cheap.”
Brad always seemed as if he’d sucked half a dozen lemons before he began his day.
“He bought it at auction, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“Your auction.”
“So?”
“So how does an auction work? Remind me.”
“Forget it,” Brad growled. He squeezed himself behind the wheel and drove off.
“YOU’LL TAKE SOME refreshment before you begin your work,” Mrs. Stoppini informed me.
“Love to.”
“Tea?”
“I guess it’s too late for a cappuccino,” I said, “even for an uncivilized guy like me.”
Mrs. Stoppini checked the kitchen clock. “Most assuredly not.”
She went to the coffee machine and began to froth the milk. Over her shoulder and in a voice that suggested a major crime had occurred, she protested, “Your friend left without saying hello.”
“Brad was delivering a table my father bought. It needs to be refinished. Brad was in a hurry. He’s not a friend, really. More of a business, er…”
“Associate?”
“Right. More that than friend. He’s a little abrupt at times.”
“Then he has missed out on a homemade brioche.”
“Serves him right.”
Mrs. Stoppini made the espresso in a wide cup, then poured the foamy milk on top and set the cup on the table.
“May I enquire how your work is progressing?” she asked, sitting down and pushing the plate of pastries toward me.
“Well,” I said after swallowing a piece of bread roll as light as a fairy’s wing, “as you know, the repairs, the painting, and the mantel are finished. I’ve made an inventory of the furniture and everything else that isn’t a book, including the items in the, er… well, as I said, everything. Raphaella has worked out an efficient way of cataloguing the books. Which reminds me, I’ll need to know which ones you want noted in detail.”
“There are a number of volumes that he valued more than the others. They are all to be found in the alcove,” Mrs. Stoppini replied.
I should have known. “Okay” was all I said.
“Splendid progress, Mr. Havelock.”
“I have work to do in the shop this morning-the table I mentioned-then I’ll put in a few hours with the books.”