Goodnight Sweet Prince lfp-1

by David Dickinson

  Pannone came back into the room. He was carrying an open bottle and a couple of glasses.

  ‘I think we must have a drink, Lord Powerscourt, after our long watch. To settle the stomach, we say. We were right. But we were also wrong. There is a priest staying in the monastery. And he does have a guest with him. And the priest is English. There the good news ends.’

  Pannone poured out two glasses of Chianti and carried them to the window.

  ‘There is no Father Gilbey. There is no Lord Gresham. The priest comes from Leeds, in Yorkshire, I think. Father Richards. He is very old, this Father Richards The guest is his brother, Leopold Richards.

  ‘Leopold Richards has some terrible disease. He has come to Venice to die. The priest has come to administer the last rites. And then to bury him.’

  21

  Mist. Mist was everywhere in an invisible Venice at six o’clock in the morning. Powerscourt slipped out of a side door of his hotel to wonder at it and found he could hardly move.

  The Lion of St Mark on its huge pillar, the gondolas, the gleaming domes of the Basilica of St Mark, had all vanished. Only the water was still there. You could hear it lapping monotonously against the quays. Venice has disappeared, thought Powerscourt. It’s not surprising really. The whole place was too fantastic to be real in the first place. Venice, its astounding beauty, the delicate tracery on the Doges’ Palace proclaiming its uniqueness down the centuries, Venice was only an illusion, a stage set. Now God has closed the production down and removed the scenery, plenty of angels waiting to take it into the wings.

  Day had turned into night, a night of mist, a white night. Italian oaths could be heard near and far as the early morning traffic stumbled through the gloom. Far off, out to sea, distant sirens sounded notes of alarm and danger.

  He reached out a hand and touched a reassuring pillar in the colonnade of the Doges’ Palace. Maybe it was lifting now. A dark black shape seemed to bob rhythmically up and down fifteen feet in front of him, a gondola, hovering into sight. The pigeons, huddling in the corners of the buildings, wings folded, began trying experimental flights over St Mark’s Square. As he turned on to the seafront, or what he thought was the seafront, the Bridge of Sighs loomed up, its sinister shape lording it over the waters of the invisible canal below.

  Powerscourt wished his brain would clear, like the fog. He felt drained, emotionally exhausted by the events of the previous two days. Should he simply turn round and go home? How long could he wait here for a man who might never come? Should he be in the Piazza Signoria in Florence, or starting a long vigil in the colonnades of St Peter’s in Rome?

  The Danieli cat, sleek and prosperous, was beginning a leisurely patrol along the boats by the quays. God seemed to have changed his mind. The Venetian stage set was being restored to life, angels flying extra missions, blocks of marble and stone being put back in their positions.

  But Powerscourt simply couldn’t decide what to do. He was lost.

  Salvation came at lunchtime. He had spent the morning drinking desultory cups of coffee in Florian’s, brushing up his Latin on the inscriptions of the dead Doges in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo. There had been so many battles, he thought, hundreds and hundreds of miles from home, sea battles against the Turks, the Cypriots, the Greeks, the Turks again, admirals returning in triumph to Venice to be interred in black marble in this Venetian necropolis, their proud and haughty epitaphs giving them a kind of eternal life on the walls.

  He wrote again to Lady Lucy. He said he hoped they could come to Venice together one day. He told her his abiding impression of the watery city, that it was a monument to the passing of a once great naval power. Maybe London will look like this when the Royal Navy’s days are over, he wrote, gazing out at the pigeons in St Mark’s Square, palazzos falling into the water, decay wrapped round the great monuments like a rotting glove.

  ‘Lord Powerscourt! Lord Powerscourt!’ Pannone found him in the entrance to his hotel. ‘Quick! Quick! You must come to my office at once! I have news!’

  The little man was beaming broadly, ushering Powerscourt into the room where they had waited for Signor Lippi’s gondola the night before.

  ‘I have seen him! The Gresham! He come! At last! At last!’

  ‘Where did you see him, Mr Pannone? You saw him in person? In the flesh?’

  ‘I tell you. This is the happy day. It is good, so? Now then, let me gather my thoughts.’ He collected another sheaf of papers on his desk. ‘This morning we get more reports. Oh, yes, the reports do not stop. They do not stop until I, Antonio Pannone, give the word. And we have this one, from half-past ten.’

  He waved a piece of paper from his collection at Powerscourt who saw that it was covered by a spidery Italian handwriting, with a lot of exclamation marks. Maybe they write like they talk, he said to himself, emphasis and gestures flying all over the place.

  ‘This report, he say that Gresham is in the city, staying at the Hotel Pellegrini near the railway station. Not a very good hotel, the Pellegrini, he should have come here to the Danieli. Much better, much more convenient.’ He shook his head sadly at the ingratitude of lost clients. ‘But this waiter at the Pellegrini, he is very clever, I think. He takes a look at the visitors’ book. There it is. Lord Edward Gresham, of Warwickshire, staying for three nights.

  ‘Lord Powerscourt, I have to tell you. I was excited, so excited. Maybe the young man unpacks, I think. Maybe he rests from his journey. So I go on a journey of my own! To the Pellegrini! And there he is! Just coming out of the front door, in a tweed suit and a big coat!’

  A further batch of messages arrived, a young waiter backing deferentially from the doorway.

  ‘Ah ha! Ah ha! See how well the system works, Lord Powerscourt. Now he is in the bookshop, buying guides to Venice and a book of religion! Now he is in Florian’s! With Signor Lippi himself!’

  Powerscourt smiled at the memory of Venice’s fastest gondolier from the night before. How did they get the messages from one place to another, he wondered? Were junior waiters, as fleet on land as Signor Lippi by sea, sent hurrying across the city? Perhaps they used the pigeons. The birds might welcome a change from listening to all those bloody arias in St Mark’s Square. Better not to ask.

  ‘And he is just ordering lunch! Pasta, a bifsteak, some of Florian’s excellent saute potatoes. I can tell you this in confidence, Lord Powerscourt. The Florian saute potatoes are better than ours. Impossible, but it is so. Come, what have we here? It is a message from Signor Lippi himself! I can keep him here for one or two hours if you wish. Please advise.

  ‘I think you need to think about what you want to do, my lord. On my way back from the Pellegrini I think to myself, we have got this business the wrong way round. We were not too late, as we thought, for the coming of the Lord Gresham. We were too early! Maybe he is the serious traveller. Maybe he comes here by Verona with the lovers and Vicenza with all that Palladio town hall. Maybe he goes to see the Giottos in the Cappella degli Scrovegni at Padua. Maybe.’

  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.’

  The little man laughed.

  Powerscourt was looking closely at his meagre wardrobe. He should have thought of something suitable before he left London, something mild and reassuring. Not that dark suit, he’d look like a policeman. Not that grey, even if it was well cut, he’d look like a policeman off duty. The brown suit, that was all there was left. That didn’t look too threatening. A blue shirt. Anybody could wear a blue shirt. Now then, had he brought it with him? He had. Here was an Old Etonian tie, a currency still valid, even in Italy. Especially in St Mark’s Square where you hoped to meet another former pupil. Maybe the headmaster would feel proud of these old boys’ reunions happening all over the place.

  Six thirty. Soon it would be time to go. He didn’t have a plan. But he did have what he hoped would be the least threatening order of conversation. Your mother, Lady Blanche Gresham. I met her recently. She was looking well. Always good for a minute or two, people exchanging horror stories about their mothers. Religion. The road to Rome. I’ve often thought of it myself as a matter of fact. Louisa. My condolences to another who had lost a wife. God forgive me, Caroline.

  Six forty. There was a knock at the door.

  ‘He has not left the
hotel yet, the Lord Gresham. He is still at the Pellegrini.’ Pannone was looking nearly as anxious as Powerscourt. ‘The waiters are taking up their positions. The night is clear. So they will be able to see everything. Sometimes it is so gloomy the Lord Gresham could walk past and you would never know he had been there. I have inspected the room at Florian’s for the dinner. It is not as good as the one we have here, but it would do. You will try to persuade him to come here, Lord Powerscourt? I would feel that things were under the control then, you know?’

  Powerscourt assured the hotel manager that every effort would be made to return to the Danieli.

  Five to seven.

  ‘Is it time to go yet, Mr Pannone? What do you think?’

  ‘It is only two or three minutes to your position, Lord Powerscourt. But we don’t want to be late. Not tonight, I think.’

  Seven o’clock. The bells were very loud. Powerscourt jumped. Of course, he remembered. They’re only a hundred feet away, those bells, on the far side of the Basilica of St Mark.

  Behind him lay the Doges’ Palace, the Piazzetta linking St Mark’s Square with the waterfront, and the dark waters of the lagoon. To his left, the great square of San Marco was deserted now, save for a few visitors waiting for their evening meal. There was a cold breeze from the sea. Above, to his right, there was another lion, one of the studious lions, with the gospel between its paws. Pax Tibi Marce. Peace be with you, Mark. Amen to that, thought Powerscourt, shivering slightly with the wind and his nerves.

  Ten past seven. Mr Pannone appeared suddenly without warning. He must have come along the front of the church where the light was poorest.

  ‘Everything is ready. He do not leave the Hotel Pellegrini yet. Perhaps he is the fast walker. You see my man over there by the Campanile? With the gondolier’s hat? The hat is the key, my lord. When he knows the Lord Gresham is just about to enter the piazza, Sandro over there, he wave the hat. To the right means he is coming down the Mercerie. To the centre, the Lord Gresham come down the Calle dei Fabbri in the middle. To the left, and he come out at the bottom of the square. Good?’