“Of course,” Grenville said, oblivious of my thoughts. “Note it on your sheet, and I will write him tonight.”
As he turned to depart, the knocker struck the front door. Brewster charged to it and pulled it open to reveal Signor Baldini. The slim man bowed, his eyes betraying his eagerness.
“Good morning, gentlemen. Forgive my tardiness—I slept poorly as always after a late night. I then did not wake until my landlord’s boy shook me hard. I apologize.”
“Not at all,” I said, gesturing him inside. “It is splendid of you to help. I take it Conte Trevisan had no objection?”
Baldini frowned, as though the name of the conte displeased him. “None.” The syllable was short. Baldini shed his greatcoat and hung it on a peg near the door. “I believe Conte de Luca has some fascinating pieces?”
“As you will see,” Grenville said. “Some excellent ones and some that might be rubbish. He was an indiscriminate collector.” He said this last with amusement, and Baldini unbent enough to smile as though Grenville had made a good joke.
Grenville led Baldini toward the back of the house, and Brewster jerked a thumb toward where they’d gone.
“You trust ’im not to nick anything?”
“He has had plenty of opportunity to do so in Herculaneum and Pompeii but his views on those who do take things was clear,” I said. “His knowledge of art history, at least with the ancients, is invaluable.” I gazed about at the furniture and objects we’d tidied in the foyer. “De Luca must have traveled the world, picking up bits here and there from German princes, Austrian emperors …”
“Stealing ’em, you mean,” Brewster rumbled. “A thief’s a thief, whether he’s from the gutter of South London or the highest of the high.”
“I wonderwhyhe stole them. And why some are carefully displayed in well-organized rooms while others are in a jumble in the attic.”
Brewster shrugged. “No accounting for eccentrics.”
“There is another possibility, you know. De Luca and his family might have purchased all these things legitimately. De Luca might have receipts hidden with these elusive lists Denis wants me to look for.”
“If that’s true, why stash all them bits upstairs? Why not bung them into a gallery and invite friends to see them? Or charge tuppence for the unwashed masses to parade through and have a look?”
“Discretion?” I suggested. “Sometimes a prince, emperor, or a pope doesn’t wish to admit he needs funds, and sells a few family heirlooms to men like de Luca for the price they agree on.” Proietti had done the same thing, on a smaller scale. “The transaction isn’t public, and de Luca keeps the painting or sculpture tucked away until such time the prince or emperor can purchase it back.”
Brewster’s brows went up. “Like a pawnbroker to royalty?”
“Exactly. These princes of the dying Holy Roman Empire needed money to fight Bonaparte. He swept through the Continent like a devastating fire—a man like de Luca might have been a boon to them. They could raise extra funds and no one would be the wiser.”
“Hmm.” Brewster was not convinced, but I knew he’d think it through.
I peered out the front door once more, hoping to see Proietti also hurrying in, apologizing for his tardiness, but the courtyard remained empty. Outside the gate, the people of Rome went about their business as a light rain began to fall.
I wondered if Proietti had returned tamely home last evening or decided to force his point with Trevisan. Or perhaps Trevisan had at last held the promised meeting where they could discuss things. Thinking of the stubborn set to Trevisan’s mouth and Donata’s story that the contessa thought of Gisela as her lost grandchild, I had my doubts that Trevisan would loosen his hold.
Brewster shut the door and we continued to work, my list growing longer as the morning went on. I’d have to ask Baldini about most of the contents in one room, which was full of ancient Greek pottery. Real, forged, stolen?
A few hours ticked by, but Proietti did not appear. At the end of the third hour, Baldini gave an excited shout.
I hastened down the stairs to where we’d set him to work in some of the back rooms on the ground floor. These were not showpieces like the front rooms and contained boxes and trunks we’d hastily but not thoroughly gone through. We’d found no lists in them, in any case.
I reached the dim chamber first, Grenville and Brewster thumping down the stairs from above. I could not see Baldini when I peered inside, only dusty piles of old furniture and crates with their lids askew.
“Baldini?” I called.
“Here.”
The muffled answer came from behind a pile of wooden boxes. I started around them, Brewster so close that his rough coat brushed my back.
A glimmer of light showed me where Baldini had got to. He’d lit a candle in the gloom, and a slit of light outlined a thin doorway where none had been before.
The paneling itself had pulled from the bricks to show an opening to another room. I had hunted for such hiding places as I’d searched, but we’d not yet examined this chamber carefully. It was in the very rear of the house, which backed onto the newer houses behind it, so the disparity in depth hadn’t been noticeable.
The hidden space was about ten feet wide and many more long, as it ran the entire length of the back of the building. My mouth hung open as Baldini flashed his candle around, and I heard Grenville’s audible intake of breath.
