Powerscourt doubted very much if he would have gone to Verona. Romeo and Juliet were not likely to have much appeal to Lord Edward Gresham.
‘Mr Pannone, this is wonderful! How can I thank you?’
Powerscourt found himself rising from his chair and embracing the little Italian. He drew the line at the kisses on either cheek.
‘Now then. This is the difficult bit. Difficult for me, I think.’ Powerscourt had walked to the window again. San Giorgio was now very clear, bright sunlight on the water. Just round the corner, not visible from his vantage point, Lord Edward Gresham should be on the bifsteak by now, accompanied by Florian’s excellent saute potatoes. Should he go and approach him? ‘Mr Pannone, I think I need some more advice.’
‘Lord Powerscourt, my dear Lord Powerscourt, I do not want to know your business. But I see how troubled you are in the mind. This interview, I think, it is very important for you. Tell me, does this young man want to see you as much as you want to see him?’
‘I very much doubt it. I feel sure that he does not want to see me at all.’
‘I thought so. So, you think, you do not want to go and meet him now. In Florian’s.’
‘I don’t think so. There are too many people there.’
‘And you do not want to invite him for dinner this evening. Not now, I mean. You fear that he may smell the rat and disappear.’
‘Exactly. He may smell a rat and disappear.’
‘I shall write a note to Signor Lippi and tell him so. So, Lord Powerscourt, you come all this way. We find the man. Now we must work out a way of bringing you together. We could seize him in Florian’s and bring him here so he has to talk to you. But that would make him very hostile. Perhaps he does not speak at all.’
Pannone departed briefly to send his message to Signor Lippi. ‘I shall be back in a moment. And the reports will continue. We have three days while he is in Venice unless he decides that the Pellegrini is so terrible that he has to leave before. So, we have three days to make the plan.’
Powerscourt was pacing restlessly up and down the room. Outside Venice gleamed in the winter sunlight, the visitors queuing up to visit the Doges’ Palace or setting off on the boat trips across the blue water to the distant islands of Burano and Torcello. He had just one chance, Powerscourt felt. Just one. If that didn’t work, then his chances of solving the mystery were almost gone. He might be able to make a very good guess as to who killed Prince Eddy, but it would only be a guess.
‘Lord Powerscourt! We have the good luck today, I think! See, another report from Signor Lippi himself! They make the great fuss of this Lord Gresham in Florian’s. They find the senior waiter, their best English speaker, to come and chat to him at the end. This senior waiter, he work in New York for a time. So he talks American. No matter. The senior waiter here at the Danieli, he work in London and Paris. Much better, I think.
‘Anyway, this senior waiter, he ask the Lord if he wish to reserve a table for dinner tonight. He does! He comes back at 7.30! Just two hundred yards from here!’
Powerscourt did not share in the little man’s enthusiasm. He felt reluctance coming over him like a sleeping sickness.
‘Do you not see, my lord? I think for some time that what we need is the private room. The dinner for two, the candles, the good wines, the fine food, everybody happy in the warmth of the fire. People are happy to talk then, I think. I hope that we can do it here at the Danieli. We have many fine private rooms for the gentlemen who come with the ladies who are not the wives.’ Pannone shrugged dismissively. ‘But they have rooms also at Florian’s on the upper floors. So, you meet the Lord Gresham, as if by chance, in the piazza. You have the chat. What about the dinner together? Why, I have booked a table for one at Florian’s. We make it two. What could be simpler? No?’
Powerscourt looked blank. He didn’t want to commit himself. Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
‘Or, my lord, we also book the private room here. So you too can ask him to dinner with you. It is the good plan?’
Still Powerscourt looked reluctant. He smiled helplessly at Pannone. The little Italian smiled back.
‘What you need, my lord, is the time for the thinking. I shall leave you for a little while. I make the arrangements in Florian’s. I make the arrangements here. I have a little hotel business to attend to. I shall return, my lord. Good thinking.’
It’s not that he is frightened, Pannone said to himself. But he has thought about this for so long that it has now come on him in a great rush. He’s surprised. He’s overwhelmed.
Powerscourt made up his mind. Two memories forced him into it. His own promise to the dead Lancaster that he would be Semper Fidelis to his memory. And the voice of Johnny Fitzgerald in his ear. Never give up, Francis, never give up. That’s what you always said. Even at the bottom of that bloody great mountain in India.
All through the afternoon Pannone brought further reports of Lord Edward Gresham’s progress around his city.
He was in San Marco itself, staring up at the ceilings. He’s gone to the Frari. He’s looking at Titian’s Assumption of the Virgin. He’s walking around the Zattere, the seafront between the district of Dorsodouro and the island of Giudecca. He’s walking back to the Rialto Bridge.
‘Good. Good,’ said Pannone at half-past four. ‘I think that means that he is going back to the hotel. Perhaps he takes the little rest before he come for the dinner down here. Now, Lord Powerscourt. You are sure you want to go ahead with the plan? Yes?’
‘I am certain of it,’ said Powerscourt. ‘It is our best chance.’
‘You are going to be like the gamblers in our casino here, I think. You put everything on the red.’
A golden sun was setting over the Grand Canal, bathing the dome of the Salute with colour. Behind it the rest of Venice glowed with the last of the light. In front, it turned once more into a black and white city, an etching before the coming of oils.
‘Let us see if we can help you, Lord Powerscourt. Tonight we put some of our waiters on the streets for a little while. The watchers will be out in the open air. Service in some places will be a little slow tonight, I think. Come, come.’ He drew Powerscourt to a map of Venice on the wall.
‘Here we have the Piazza San Marco, this great empty space at the bottom of our map. On the south side, in the middle, we have Florian’s. Round the corner, down here by the water is the Danieli. Up here to the north, way beyond the piazza, we have the Hotel Pellegrini. We hope that the Lord Gresham will come down from there. Now, Lord Powerscourt. Anybody who knows Venice and is coming from the Pellegrini to Florian’s will walk past the Rialto and down the Mercerie here,’ his finger traced the route of an imaginary Gresham, ‘and come out here, at the top of the north end of the square. But the people are always losing themselves. So, he might come down the Calle Specchieri and end up even higher up the square. Or he could come down the Calle dei Fabbri here,’ Pannone stabbed the map again, ‘and finish almost opposite Florian’s. Or he could go even further west and end up at the other corner of the square from the Mercerie.
‘But, consider, Lord Powerscourt. Almost whichever way he come, he come out on the opposite side to Florian’s. So he have to walk across the piazza. So we put our waiters at every entrance to the square on this north side. They send a signal to another waiter man in front of the Campanile here. He is wearing the hat of the gondolier so you know him, yes? The gondolier’s hat, he send the signal to you. You, my lord, are at the side of St Mark’s, by the door into the Doges’ Palace. You can see all the square. It is unlikely that a man coming in from the north, through any of these entrances with the waiters, will see you. You get the sign, you walk into the piazza. There you meet the Lord Gresham. We all pray for you, yes? We hope we pray all night.’