At the third display of daytime pyjamas, I looked down at the frock I wore. Time for another set of shops.
* * *
—
I am not sure who was the more startled when I returned to the Beau Rivage that evening: the concierge as I came through the lobby, or Holmes, when I walked into the room.
Both, being gentlemen, hid their consternation behind one minutely lifted eyebrow, but only to Holmes did I explain myself.
“Adaptive plumage, Holmes.”
“Ah.”
“But also surprisingly practical as beach wear. The only sun-burn I have is along the tops of my feet.” I gazed admiringly down at the peacock hues of my voluminous and assertively expensive silk pyjamas, light and loose as a personal tent. “They say beach pyjamas will soon be all the fashion.”
“Russell, are you quite well?”
I laughed. “I know. But in fact, once I had these on, no one thought to question me. I spent the day flitting from one group of bright young things to the next—many of whom are hardly young, and most of whom are none too bright. Still, that made it all the easier to make an impression.”
“To what end?” Holmes asked, then added, “And by the way, I hope you do not plan on wearing…those down to the dining room?”
I spread the outer seams of the twin tents, which between them could have given shelter to a Bedouin and his flock of goats. “A tad informal for the Beau Rivage, I agree. Let me go scrub off the sun-oil. I’ll be right with you.”
I was working the sand from my toe-nails when the bath-room door opened and Holmes entered with a pair of slender glasses. He set one on a small table beside the marble tub. Tiny bubbles suggested the Italian sparkling wine called Prosecco, dry on the tongue and perfect after a day in the sun. I took a deep swallow, then submerged entirely to remove the salt from my hair.
When I broke the surface, Holmes spoke. “Do we cross to the Lido tonight, then?”
“Actually, Holmes, I don’t think so. Neither of us has the appropriate plumage to make an impression on the beau monde. You need at the very least a bright waistcoat, and I need…I don’t know what I need, but I know it’s not yet hanging in the wardrobe.”
He made no attempt at hiding his look of relief at the stay of punishment.
“What was your day like?” I asked him.
“I’d thought it was tedious, until you trumped it with yours. I did establish with some certainty that Lady Vivian has not pawned or sold the necklace here in Venice.” He had done so in a typically Holmesian fashion: by assembling a platoon of Venetian Irregulars. “The gondolieri are a proud and independent confederation. They go everywhere, see everything, and tell no one but each other—and their families. But if one makes them a proposition that appeals to their pride and their sense of humour, and particularly if one brings their sons and daughters into the matter, they can be an invaluable source of inside knowledge.”
“You offered a reward for information about the necklace?”
“I did. What’s more, I offered a reward for a lack of information as well.”
“Really? How much will that cost us?”
“In money? Very little. In pride and laundry costs? Potentially a great deal.”
I studied his downcast eyes. “You made a bet? With a gondolier?”
“I may have offered a small wager.”
“Do I want to know what it involves?”
“Probably best not to concern yourself yet.”
I sighed, and drained my glass.
When I was dressed, considerably more soberly than peacock silks, we made our way downstairs—but instead of heading for the dining room, we continued through the lobby, strolling arm in arm along the wide promenade to dine beneath the stars, where the pigeons had gone to bed and even a plague of tipsy tourists could not spoil the night.
We sat at a small table before the basilica, a scene that had not substantially changed since the day Marco Polo sailed off to meet Kublai Khan. Holmes shifted his chair beside mine so we could hear each other over the band’s fin de siècle tunes, and we began to review our invasion of Venice.
“If Vivian did come here,” I began, “then she brought enough money to live in adequate, if not Grand Canal–palazzo, comfort. If she came with her nurse, and if Nurse Trevisan does have family ties in Venice—and yes, there are far too many uncertainties here—then they would probably either stay with family or let a house, rather than go to an hotel.” I waited for Holmes to nod, then continued. “Once here, she could do the sensible thing and live anonymously in one of the working-class quarters, where no one would notice her for years. Or, she could decide that having made it this far, she was safe. After all, she’s broken no laws—the jewellery and money were hers to take, and the other small things could be debated. Now, I can’t claim to know the woman, but I suspect that someone in her state would be pulled between the two. She would want safety, but she’d want to taste her freedom as well.”
“Agreed.”
“The Lido is a logical place for us to look. It’s frenetic enough during the day, I dread to think what it’s going to be like when the sun goes down. And if she and Nurse Trevisan are lovers, it would be a lonely life indeed if they did not reach out to women like themselves. Some of whom, I imagine, would be drawn to the foreigners-on-holiday atmosphere on the Lido.”
“So you feel we may find her over there?”
“I was thinking we might take a room at the Excelsior for a few days. As you pointed out, the only things moving around Venice at night are bats and felines.”
“And Americans.”
Something in his voice caught my attention. “What have you found?”
“Less what than whom.”
“But someone who might be useful?”
“Possibly.”
“Holmes…”
“Do you know the name Cole Porter?”
“No. Short for Columbine? Is she a lesbian?”
“Not exactly. She is a he, and he is a young…song-writer, I suppose, rather than composer. I happened upon his work four years ago, in a musical comedy playing at the New Oxford Theatre. Dreadful rot, by and large, but the young man does have a knack for clever melodies and rhythms. The sort of thing audience members hum as they go out of the door.”
The sort of thing Sherlock Holmes generally turned up his long nose at. “He must be doing well if he can afford Venice in the summer.”
“No, he comes from money, and married a great deal more of it. The Porters have become regulars in Venice—they are among those wealthy Americans who hire palazzos on the Grand Canal and wear on the neighbours’ nerves. According to my Irregolari, their guests have a habit of spilling out noisily across the city in the wee hours.”
“And you think Vivian would go to those parties?”
“Perhaps not yet. But I hear that in Paris, most of Porter’s house-guests have titles to their names.”
“You propose that we’d have better luck there than with Elsa Maxwell and the Lido crowd?”
“I believe I would.”
“Coward.” He said nothing, merely taking another bite of his risotto nero, but I could see the crinkles beside his eyes. “Would you like to set this up as a wager? Since you seem to be playing the odds today. Your second of the day?”
“If you wish.”
“For what prize?’
He looked off into the plaza for a moment. “What about, the next tedious task that comes along?”
That covered a wide variety of undertakings, from the boring to the disgusting, although the word tedious at least ensured it would fall short of life-threatening.
“And what precisely defines a win?”
“Finding the door that leads to Lady Vivian Beaconsfield.”
“You’re on.”
He laid down his silver a
nd put out a hand, and we shook in agreement. For a moment, I considered asking him bluntly just what it was he was doing in Venice—but it was such a nice evening, I hated to spoil it. Particularly when it was no doubt something I did not want to know. So instead, I returned to my earlier point.
“Agreed. And if you believe there’s a chance we may find her over here, I won’t startle my accountant by bills for a week at the Excelsior. However, assuming we find that door, we have to be well prepared to walk through it. In style.”
He sighed. “You are suggesting that I submit to an eye-sore of a waistcoat.”
“It’ll be nothing compared to what I shall be forced into, Holmes.”
That wince, I noticed.
And so, safe in the anonymity of the middle-class tourists from Dubuque and Berlin, we finished our meal beneath the warm misty sky, and strolled back through the peaceful evening, to prepare ourselves for battle.
Chapter Twenty-five
ON OUR WAY BACK THROUGH the Beau Rivage, I had paused to consult with the manager about my sartorial needs. After breakfast the following morning, I presented myself downstairs for the attentions of his chosen expert, a trim and intense young woman with his same green-grey eyes and reddish hair, whose gaze undressed me the moment I appeared (in a clinical manner, that is: less admiration than measuring-tape).
I told Signorina Barbarigo that business matters (unspecified, but with hints that they were substantial) required me to dress in a way that would impress the chic set over on the Lido. I told her that cost was no barrier. Then I said I’d need it by nightfall.
Her kohl-painted eyes blinked rapidly half a dozen times as she made an abrupt reassessment of possibilities. I braced myself for protest, for the wringing of hands, for sighs and wheedling and a lack of enthusiasm—but instead, got merely a question. “So, how do you say, off-the-rack rather than bespoke?”
I liked her already. “I’m afraid so.”
“Bring your cheque-book, Signora.”
We dove into the labyrinth of streets, her quick-moving, child-sized Cuban heels leading me through passages too narrow to walk abreast, along green and stinking canals and among the tables of diners and, several times during the day, in and out through the ground floors of palazzos. We paused but three times, to restore our energies—and, that I might engage her in conversation. Over coffee and hard little biscuits, I heard about her family back to the Seventy-fourth Doge, Agostino, who had built the plaza’s ornately magnificent clock-tower (which she told me all about) and lost a number of key Venetian ports in a war with the Ottomans (which topic somehow did not come up). Over a lunch (fortunately taken at a table with a cloth long enough to conceal my feet as I slipped off my shoes) made up of risotto, meat, salad, fruit, and wine (which left me wanting a siesta with the rest of the city), I learned all she knew about the Lido crowd. This was not much, and mostly consisted of rumour and newspaper reports, since she was a good girl and disapproved of the foreigners’ wild parties out there.
Finally, late in the afternoon, we settled behind a small table in a tidy little campo and ordered restorative food and drink. Across the pavement, a group of boys in juvenile Blackshirt uniforms were enthusiastically drilling, make-believe rifles across their shoulders.
I glanced at my companion. Her face was closed as she watched the lads, the oldest of whom might have been fourteen, but I took her lack of smile—either approving or amused—as an indication of her leanings. “Boys too young to remember the War,” I murmured.
“Some of them will remember the fear. Venice took a lot of bombs.”
And in ten or thirty years, when the resentments and unresolved issues of the War built into another one, these lads would no doubt be the first to urge their fellows to punish those who had made them lose face. Their mock drill ended with them setting down the butts of their wooden guns with a chorus of cracks, then raising their hands in an odd, straight-armed salute and shouting some unintelligible chant. Guns up again, they marched off down one of the calli—only to come backing out in confusion, ejected from the narrow passage by two men carrying a large set of drawers.
Our Camparis arrived, followed by a platter of fried objects. I took a grateful swallow, chose something from the plate that did not have too many appendages, and turned my mind from a dark future to a matter closer to hand: to see what my informant could tell me about Venice’s lesbian demimonde.
“I had a cousin who adored Campari!” (Need I say that I had no such cousin?) “She used to bring a bottle of it when she came to visit, although I was too young to be permitted more than a sip. I wonder what happened to good old Sylvia? Last I knew, she was living somewhere in Italy. And she did adore Venice, I remember that.”
“You should try to find her,” la signorina suggested in her charming and perfect English.
“I really should. The problem is, she’s…shall we say, she’s rather the dark sheep of the family. Do you know that phrase—dark sheep? She developed a…a sort of friendship. With another woman. Sylvia always was a bit too easily influenced. I never thought she was particularly fond of that woman, and I figured that sooner or later, she’d come to her senses. But when the family wrote her off, it meant—well, where could she go? Poor thing! I wonder if the time has come to, I don’t know. Make contact again?”
Signorina Barbarigo, though disapproving, was clearly taken with the prospect of rescuing this fictional Campari-loving cousin from the clutches of a wicked lesbian.
I looked up from my glass of blood-red liquid, eyes going wide. “Say, I don’t suppose you have such a thing as a…a bar or cabaret that caters to that kind of person, here in Venice? Not that you’d have been there personally,” I hastened to add, “but you seem to know the city so well, you might have heard of such a place…?”
She had not. But the way I presented the question saved her from taking offence—and me from appearing to have a personal interest in lesbian cabarets. She told me she would ask her friends—and now, we had an hour before the shops began to close, what did I think about shoes?
When my stern taskmistress deposited me back at the Beau Rivage, she was every bit as energetic as she had been that morning, while I longed only to soak my sore feet and sleep.
And when I attempted to pull out my cheque-book, she would not let me.
“It was my pleasure, Signora,” she said. “I will return in a day or two and see if the things meet your approval. And,” she lowered her voice, “to tell you if I have any information about…the other.”
And with a click-click-click of the precarious heels that she had not slipped off all day, she was gone.
Surveying the garments in the privacy of our rooms, I honestly had no idea what to make of them. That they were expensive, I had no doubt. That they fit me, I could see in the mirror. But were they what the Lido set would consider fashionable?
Not a clue.
Fortunately, the Signorina had provided me with a written list of what dress, or perhaps garment, was to be worn with which shoes, bag, hat, or scarf. As I puzzled over it, I wondered if she had got them mixed up—but no, she had taken scrupulous care over noting the precise details of each item before permitting the shop-keeper to bundle it up for delivery. Her instructions were such that even I could not mistake them, no matter how much I might wish to.
So yes: that long, silken orange-and-umber scarf was to be worn with the grey-and-umber dress—not as a scarf, but as a belt, so low upon the hips as to feel near to falling off. And the scarlet frock with the fringe hem? In the shop I had not realised that it was essentially a tunic with tassels, and that the moment I walked (or bent down, or sat—or breathed, really) my legs would be extremely…visible.
There was one I rather liked. What was more, I thought I could wear it without being overly self-conscious or uncomfortable. The fabric was a blue and silver lamé, the same blue as my eyes, and it was deceptive
ly generous in its coverage, permitting mere glimpses of skin to slip in and out of view in slits along the half-sleeves and hem, but with sufficient fabric on the top that my various scars were out of sight. With it, she had assigned me an intricately beaded bandeau with a pert sprig of feathers, in various shades of the same tone.
Low black heels for the feet, a small black beaded bag for the wrist, and a silky wrap that she’d assured me would be warm enough even on the boat back—plus a touch of powder, kohl, and lipstick—and I was set.
An unattached woman in a Lido hotel would be a conundrum, no matter how I played it. My goal here was to play it to the mysterious hilt, with the object of establishing myself as the sort of puzzle one longed to solve.
As for the spectacles, well, those could just be another idiosyncrasy.
* * *
—
Holmes had not appeared, which might mean he was having trouble ingratiating himself with the Cole Porters. Cheered at his failure, I tripped through the hotel and across the promenade to the vaporetto stop, piling on board with an assortment of tired workers headed home and excited partygoers headed for the bright lights. Night was fast approaching, and we grabbed for hand-holds as the waves of another boat jostled us up and down. I smiled at the girl standing almost on my toes, who looked fourteen beneath the paint of a thirty-year-old. I firmed up my grasp, checked that the bag was still swinging from my wrist, and looked out at the busy water. A similar vessel approached, headed towards the city proper, this one filled with comprehensively burnt beach-goers, tired workers headed home to supper, a trio of brightly-dressed girls, and by way of grim contrast, two men in the unrelieved black of the Milizia Nazionale, their wide faces betraying how overheated they—
I lunged forward so hard I nearly sent the painted child overboard, elbowing people aside, forcing my way to the vaporetto’s railing to lean out over the passing waves, trying to see…
Island of the Mad Page 15
