Baldini’s lips had parted while I’d spoken. “You have the right of it, Captain.” His voice was quiet in the muffled room. “Conte Trevisan is now determined to return all the stolen art to their owners.”
“Why does this upset you?” I asked. “You have no love for Bonaparte and the manner in which he took over your world.”
Baldini shook his head. “The monasteries, churches, and kings robbed us all through the centuries,” he said with conviction. “They had the power, the wealth, and the art, hidden away for themselves to enjoy. Finally, we have a chance to make it ours. What Bonaparte stole and de Luca kept should beours. For scholars to study and others to view. And Trevisan, a man I thought was civilized, who promised me he wanted to do what is right—he wantsto give it all back to them.”
“And you must stop him,” I said as though in understanding.
“This is why you will give me the lists of the stolen artwork, Captain, and keep them from Conte Trevisan’s hands. If he lets me give those artworks to those who deserve them, then I will return the contessa to him.”
“How do you intend to find those who deserve them?” I asked. “Start your own museum for scholars and charge pennies for admission?”
“You mock me.” Baldini’s rage returned. “I thought you of all people, a poor man dependent on his wealthy friends, would see. They will be available to anyone who will treasure and study them.”
Any man down-at-heel given a miniature by Holbein would likely sell it quickly for food to fill his belly, not prop it on his mantelpiece and admire it. I supposed Baldini meant they’d go to scholars as he’d mentioned before, who would lock the things away to study them as earnestly as the despised popes and kings.
Baldini was a dreamer. The pieces had been stolen from men powerful enough to end his lofty ideas and simply take what they wanted, arresting Baldini for kidnapping the contessa into the bargain.
“Is this why you killed de Luca?” I asked. “Because he sought to profit from his luck?”
Baldini’s dark eyes widened. “You thinkIcommitted murder? I never laid a hand on Conte de Luca. I am not a man of violence.”
Yet he held us captive here with a hired tough ready to beat us down if we tried to flee. The guard was a mountain of muscle, rather like the man in Denis’s house, with a knife held in a competent hand.
“Perhaps de Luca’s refusal to see your side of things infuriated you so much that you struck out,” I suggested. “Not meaning to kill, but that was the consequence.”
I saw the contessa flinch, her hands tighten on her mantle. I wanted to reassure her I’d let no such thing happen to her, but I had to keep my gaze on Baldini and the man behind him.
“No.”Baldini’s adamance made me start to believe him. “I would never kill another.” He wet his lips. “Besides, I met you in Herculaneum two mornings after Conte de Luca meet his death. I could not have traveled from Rome to Herculaneum so quickly.”
I did not have to ask how he knew exactly which day de Luca had been killed—Trevisan would have told him if it had not already been common knowledge.
“It could be done,” I said.
“Not by me.” Baldini began to splutter. “I am not a skilled rider, nor do I have the stamina to ride so quickly.”
“Very well,” I said. “I will concede the point. But what will you, a man who does not like violence, do now? I have no intention of letting you steal that which was already stolen. Also, you are endangering the contessa’s life.” I adopted the tones of the stern commander I once was. “Let her go home.”
“I cannot.” Baldini sounded both sorrowful and desperate. “I must keep Trevisan from those lists.”
“Your idea is laudable,” I said. “I would like to see such beautiful things in a museum for all to admire and available for historians to study. But you have not planned well. Even if I do have Grenville hand you the lists, you will have to flee a long way from here, and the items themselves are locked into de Luca’s house, the keys with the police. You’ll have no way to carry out your scheme.”
“I will if great men help me.”
I was skeptical about what great men would come to Baldini’s aid. I thought about Grenville’s friends in Rome—well-connected, well-traveled, well-read, somewhat reformist minded if their conversation was anything to go by—as well as the Stanbridges, living in Napoli for its beauty, dependent on that country for allowing them to stay.
These ex-patriates would, I think, happily return the stolen items to their rightful owners, believing themselves honorable for thwarting Bonaparte’s plans to take the best art on the Continent for himself.
I did not tell Baldini my speculations. I had no intention of letting him coerce me into returning the lists, even if I partly agreed with him that the wealthy of Europe would simply shut the artworks away into their private homes, never to be seen again. James Denis had once told me that all art was in fact stolen—the artists themselves were often cheated of their fees.
In truth, I was conflicted in the matter, but as Baldini had locked the contessa and me into this cell, I wasn’t very sympathetic to him at the moment.
“The contessa is ill,” I stated. She was wan and shaking, and I had no wish to see her harmed by this encounter.
Baldini drew himself up. “She will return home when the artwork is safely dispersed, away from Count Trevisan—andyou.”
He stepped back into the corridor, and the tough slammed the door. I threw my weight against it, trying to shove it open, but the man outside was strong. I heard an iron bolt slide into a slot, and then the grating of a piece of stone moved to block the door.
The flickering lamps were feeble against the blackness. When the oil burned out, we would be in darkness itself.
