[Mark Twain Mysteries 05] - The Mysterious Strangler

by Peter J. Heck

  After a moment, the dealer nodded and said, “If the signore will leave his name and address. I will consult my sources. As I say, a Raphael does not become available every day. But if there is any to be bought in Tuscany, Arturo Nori can find it.” He puffed himself up as he said this, his thick glasses and beaky nose making him look remarkably like an owl.

  “Well, that’s fair enough,” said Mr. Clemens, reaching in his pocket and handing Nori a card. “The name is Cabot—W. W. Cabot. I’m staying in Villa Viviani out in Settignano, if you know where that is. But I’ll warn you—I'll be talking to a few other dealers, too, and the first one to come up with the goods is the one who gets the sale. I’m not about to argue about the price. So if I were you I wouldn’t drag my feet.”

  “I understand. Signore Cabot.” said Nori, with a bow. “I will send to you as soon as I have any information.”

  Mr. Clemens thanked him. in an offhand sort of way. then beckoned to me. and we swept out of the shop together. as imperiously as if we had enough money to buy the dealer’s entire stock.

  Outside, after we were out of sight of Nori’s shop, I said. “I understand your not wanting to give the fellow your own name, but what on earth possessed you to give him mine? And where did you get a card with my name on it?”

  “Well, I needed a name that'd turn up as real if he tried to verify it. and it made sense to give him the right address. Yours fit the bill on both particulars. As far as the card. I had some of my own printed up a few weeks ago. and decided to order some for you while I was at it. I’d forgotten about ’em until this morning, when I went looking for my own. I grabbed a handful of yours, and decided they might come in handy. I’ll give you the rest of ’em when we get back.” He smiled innocently and began to amble down the street. I could only shake my head and fall in behind him. It was hard to stay annoyed with Mr. Clemens—a good thing, since he so often did things to annoy me.

  “I appreciate the thought.” I said, pulling up beside him. “But next time, perhaps you’d better notify me in advance, or I may have difficulty concealing my surprise.” I kept my voice just above a whisper, as we strolled along the street, stopping to peer at the treasures on display in the shop windows.

  “Well, consider yourself notified,” said Mr. Clemens. “We’re going to perpetrate the same hoax on the other art dealers along the street. But I wasn’t worried about surprising you. You kept a straight face pretty well, there. If you get a little more practice, I reckon you’ll make a half-decent poker player.” He chuckled.

  “I'm not certain I ought to consider that a compliment.” I said.

  “Take it however you want.” said Mr. Clemens, grinning. “Now, let’s go see if the other art dealers think they can come up with a Raphael for me.” He set off briskly toward the next gallery.

  The next two art dealers also promised to look into the possibility of obtaining a Raphael for my employer, although they were similarly cautious about encouraging him to think they might be able to fill such an order. Again, he left my name and card, and gave them to understand that it was to their advantage to find something quickly. And without quite saying it in so many words, he left the distinct impression that he would not look closely into the piece's provenance. Whether anything would come of it, only time would tell.

  In the fourth shop on the street, we were greeted by Signore Luigi Battista, a slim man with a hawkish face and full head of bushy gray hair, whose personality was so charismatic that it was with a jolt that I realized that he stood no taller than five foot three. His name seemed familiar— had Stephens mentioned him, perhaps? The walls of his shop were covered with what to the layman's eye might look like authentic old masters. But I was quite certain that the Uffizi gallery had not decided to divest itself of Botticelli’s “Pallas and the Centaur” and Leonardo’s “Adoration of the Magi.” especially not through a small shop in Piazza Donatello. And while I did not recognize all the other paintings on display, it seemed to me that they were equally unlikely to be what they appeared to be at first glance.

  Luigi Battista made no bones about the nature of his wares. “You come look,” he said with obvious pride. “You no see what you like, you tell me. and I paint it for you. I paint Botticelli, I paint I Leonardo, I paint Signorelli—you tell me, I paint it.” His pride in his work was obvious, and—based on what I saw hanging on the walls of his shop—amply justified.

  “Well. I’m looking for a Raphael.” said Mr. Clemens, taken aback by the little man’s extravagant display of counterfeits. “But I was looking for one where the paint’s dry, if you know what I mean.” He sniffed.

  “Ah. Raphael.” said Battista, nodding vigorously. “I don’ do Raphael myself, but I can get you some. I know some artists do very good Raphael—best materials, very careful work. You tell me what painting you want. I get it for you.”

  “I don’t think you understand Mr. Cl… Cabot,” I said, correcting myself at the last moment. “He’s not looking for a copy, no matter how good it is. He’s willing to pay for the real thing.”

  “Maybe he pay for the real thing, but that don’t mean he get the real thing,” said Battista, spreading his hands apart, palms up. The gesture somehow made him seem bigger. “Raphael, he paint for maybe twenty year. But people been making the Raphael pasticcios almost four hundred year, now—some so good. Raphael can’t tell the difference if he come back to see. You buy from me. you know what you get. You buy from somebody else, maybe you get the real thing, maybe not. Your money—you decide.”

  “By God, an honest art dealer.” Mr. Clemens exclaimed, only half-ironically, I thought. He leaned forward and peered down at Battista as if to record the sight in his memory. then added. “I didn't know there was such a thing in Florence. Tell me this, then—your friends who do the very, very good Raphaels; are they as honest as you. or do they ever paint one and try to sell it as the real thing?”

  “Maybe, but they don’t tell me if they do,” said Battista, with a wink. “Some things, a smart man don’ tell his friends. But sometimes—this happen to me. not so many years ago—I sell a nice Botticelli pasticcio to a man. he give me a good price for it. Then a few years later. I go to a gallery I know, and I see my pasticcio there, with a much bigger price on it, a lot more than that man pay me. I feel proud to see my work with such a big price, even if I don’t get any more money. But I feel bad to see people think they buy the autentico, when I know I made it just a few years ago. I don’t paint it to cheat people.”

  “Why do you paint something like that, then?” said Mr. Clemens. “You must know that, if it’s good enough, some people are going to think it’s real. And other people are going to sell it to them for too much money.”

  Battista shrugged. “Because I like to make beautiful things.” he said. “Life is better with beautiful things, no?”

  “Sure, but if you’re good enough to paint like this”— my employer’s gesture took in the entire wall of paintings— “why not paint something of your own? Why copy Botticelli?”

  “Is good question,” said Battista, walking over and leaning on the counter at the back of his shop. “I got a good answer, though. Suppose you know a violinist, plays Mozart and Schubert very, very well. Do you complain because he don’t make up his own melodies, or are you glad he chooses something good to play? If everybody has to make up his own music, maybe not so many people want to listen.”

  “Hmm—I guess I see your point.” said Mr. Clemens. “Let me ask you another question. You say you know some artists who do Raphael very well. Have you heard that a dealer in town just got hold of a bunch of Raphaels nobody’s ever seen before?”

  “Sure, I heard about that.” said the artist, raising an eyebrow. “Giuseppe Volponi saw them, and he calls them autentico. Me, I didn’t see them, but Volponi has a good eye. Maybe not as good as he thinks, but good enough for most people. You go ask Volponi, he tell you what he thinks. He tell you about painting, music, poetry, politics— he talk all day long, you don't wa
tch out.” Battista grinned broadly, and slapped a hand on the counter as if to make sure we understood his joke, knocking a few papers to the floor.

  “I take it you don’t agree with him.” I said. I remembered seeing Volponi in Cafe Diabelli, holding forth to a circle of admirers. My rudimentary understanding of Italian had prevented me from judging the quality of his opinions, but it was clear enough that he had plenty of them.

  “I don’t agree or disagree.” said Battista, stooping to pick up the papers. “I don’t judge paintings I don’t see, is all. But I tell you again—you want a good Raphael pasticcio, you come ask me. You buy from me, you get what you pay for.”

  “That’s about as fair a proposition as we’re going to get,” said Mr. Clemens. “I need to think about it a little, but I reckon we’ll be back in touch with you. Many thanks for your help. Signore Battista.”

  “My pleasure. Signore Mark Twain,” said the little artist, with a broad smile and a deep bow. “You come back to see me, I take good care of you.”

  For once, my employer was speechless.

  14

  There is no law against copying pictures.” explained Agente Maggio. patiently. “It is how the students learn, as long as there have been painters. The only wrong thing is to sell the false pictures as if they were the authentic ones. Then the polizia pay very serious attention.” My employer took the cigar out of his mouth and knocked the ash over the side of the carriage. “So this fellow Battista can paint all the fake Botticellis and Leonardos he wants, and nobody cares?”

  “Little Luigi can paint them, and as long as he tells the truth about them he can even sell them. There is no crime in that,” said the policeman. Mr. Clemens had given him a cigar, and he was puffing away on it with obvious appreciation as he guided the horses through the streets of old Florence.

  “I noticed that none of the paintings in Battista's shop bore the artist’s signature.” I said. “If he sells them to someone who then adds a forged signature, presumably that person would be guilty of fraud, rather than Battista?”

  ‘That is true in theory,” said Agente Maggio. “It can be hard to prove who did what. Luigi says he sells his pasticcios only to those who know what they are. But that does not answer if he knows whether those buyers plan to sell them again, to someone who thinks they are authentic. It is not easy to prove this in a court, capisce?”

  “I capisce enough that I’m starting to wonder about Stephens’s so-called Raphaels,” said Mr. Clemens. “Everybody at the party took his word that they were the real thing, but what’s his word worth?”

  “It is worth much.” said Maggio, with a sweeping gesture that sent ashes flying from his own cigar. “In fact, an art dealer who is known to sell forgeries, people will not trust him. His business rests on his word that what he sells is genuine. In fact, Signore Stephens has often worked with Capitano Rosalia to stop thieves, and to expose forgeries. So he has the reputation for being honest.”

  “I think I’ll ask him about those Raphaels, anyway,” said Mr. Clemens. Having inspected the place where Virginia’s body had been found, and having interviewed the nearby art dealers, we were on our way to Stephens’s residence to offer our condolences on the death of his sister-in-law. This visit would also give us an opportunity to ask a few questions in furtherance of our murder investigation—or so we hoped. I dreaded it, and yet I was anxious to begin.

  Agente Maggio turned the carriage across Ponte Vecchio, with its rows of ancient goldsmiths' shops along the sides, and took us into the Oltramo. The day had brightened up. and the temperature at midday was comfortable enough that we had left our coats unbuttoned, and put our gloves in our pockets. Our route took us by Palazzo Pitti and its lovely Boboli Gardens, which I had explored with Virginia in what now seemed like the remote past. It was a perfect reminder that, even in its northern provinces, Italy had a far more benign climate than England—or New England. I would have been tempted to relax and enjoy the fine, springlike weather, but with a murder to solve, my mind had no room for enjoyment. There was work to be done, and until it was finished. I was all business.

  At last we reached the district where Frank Stephens lived, a residential street off Via Pisano, a short distance from the river. Again. Agente Maggio went off to await us somewhere nearby. A funeral wreath was on the door, and when the butler opened it to our knock, his livery seemed darker and more formal—although my imagination may have provided that detail. “We’ve come to pay our respects,” said Mr. Clemens, and the butler nodded and showed us in, his face as dark and mournful as his garments. I wondered if the household staff felt Virginia's death as keenly as I did. As everyone who knew her must feel…

  Except, of course, the monster who’d strangled her.

  That monster might be here even now, feigning grief among the genuinely bereaved. I wondered if a discerning eye would be able to pick out the guilt behind the mask of sorrow. Or was the killer someone practiced at deceit, showing a benign face to the world while cherishing the secret of his evil? I promised myself that it would do him no good; eventually, inevitably. I would find him and bring him to justice.

  The butler took our coats, then led us upstairs to the main room, where Mrs. Stephens sat on the sofa next to the fireplace. There was a clergyman sitting beside her and holding her hand—a Protestant minister, perhaps even an American, to judge from his clothing. Opposite her were two women I did not recognize, both dressed all in black. Mrs. Stephens looked up as we entered the room and said, “Mr. Clemens! How kind of you to come.” Though her features were concealed behind a heavy veil, the quaver in her voice made it evident that she had been weeping.

  “The news was a shock to us, ma’am.” said Mr. Clemens, in a quiet voice. “I know this is a difficult time for you. If there’s anything I or my secretary can do, I hope you won’t hesitate to ask it.”

  “I thank you for the offer, Mr. Clemens.” said Mrs. Stephens. “Alas, the one thing I most want, no mortal power can bestow.”

  “I understand.” said my employer, nodding.

  “I am also at your disposal,” I said, stepping up next to Mr. Clemens. “I cannot begin to tell you how much this loss affects me, but I hope you understand that my lack of words doesn’t mean any lack of feeling.”

  Mrs. Stephens turned her head toward me. Her veil made it difficult to see her expression, but her tone was measured as she said, “I hope that is true, Mr. Cabot. I would have thought your last two visits here would have made you hesitate to return so soon, but still I suppose I owe you thanks for your kind words.”

  “I… I… I stammered, unprepared for such a reception.

  Mrs. Stephens raised a hand to stop me. “Say no more, Mr. Cabot.” she said. “I have no desire to dwell on unpleasantness. I hope that Virginia is in a better place.”

  “She surely is.” said the minister, in a voice that managed to be silky despite a very distinct Bostonian accent. “We all trust that she is among the saints today.”

  “I would rather that she was still here with us.” said Mrs. Stephens, turning away from me and leaning her head on the minister's shoulder. “But I cannot have that, and I do not know what to do.” Her voice, previously under control, broke into sobbing.

  “Poor Isabella,” said one woman. “Trust in the Lord, and he will soothe your pain.”

  Mr. Clemens touched my elbow, and—aware of our intrusion at a painful moment—we turned to leave Mrs. Stephens to compose herself without our scrutiny.

  Now I realized that there were several others present besides those sitting with Mrs. Stephens. In the center of the room were Bob Danvers and Eddie Freeman; behind them, near the long wall with the paintings, were Jonathan Wilson, the art collector. Sarah Woods, and Penelope Atwater. All were staring at me with unconcealed animosity. Suddenly I was sorry I had come.

  There was an uncomfortable moment of silence, and then Bob Danvers came over and stood in front of me. hands on hips, He said in a low voice, “I don't suppose you have my mone
y.”

  “As a matter of fact. I do,” I said, meeting his glare as coolly as I could, and keeping my voice level. “I was going to come by the cafe later and give it to you. If you want, we'll go downstairs and I'll give it to you—this isn’t the place to be haggling over ten lira.”

  “I’m surprised you have the brass to show your face at all.” Danvers replied, still keeping his voice low—although anyone who wanted to could have heard every syllable we'd said. I could smell liquor on his breath. “But yes,” he said. “I want my money now. Let's go downstairs and you can pay me.”

  I responded to this by gesturing toward the stairs, and the two of us walked down, saying nothing. I was uncomfortably aware of several pairs of eyes on my back as I descended. I had made a mistake coming here.

  We reached the bottom of the stairs, and turned to face one another. “It’s ten lira I owe you, right?” I said, reaching into my pocket. It seemed an absurdly small amount to be arguing over—a couple of dollars in American money, enough to pay his rent for a week or so.

  ‘To hell with you and your money.” he snarled, and threw a right-hand punch that landed square on my jaw. “That's for Ginny.” he said, and drew his arm back to hit me again.

  Caught by surprise, I reeled back, and Danvers followed me, aiming more punches at my face. Stunned. I grappled with him, trying to get hold of his arms to prevent him from putting any strength into his punches.

  “What do you mean by that?” I said, ducking. His aim was erratic—the drink, no doubt—but there was enough power in the assault to make him dangerous.

  “You know what I mean.” he said, his voice rising. “If it weren’t for you, Ginny would still be alive.” And then he was sobbing uncontrollably, even as he continued to throw punches.

  I suddenly understood his anger. He must have been in love with Virginia himself, and resented her attentions to me. Had he been her favorite before my arrival? That, more than the stolen bike, would explain his animosity to me: I even felt a twinge of sympathy, seeing the tears roll down his cheeks.