LITMIR.BIZ

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to examine it carefully, and concluded that it was exactly as it seemed. Nothing underneath the paint, and nothing behind the canvas and nothing hidden in the frame. Bottando sometimes had a vivid imagination in this regard. Many years ago he had caught some drug-smugglers shipping heroin hidden in holes drilled in a picture-frame, and he dearly wanted to catch someone at it again. Not in this case; despite all efforts it was resolutely still just a middling picture in an ordinary frame.

      He was still looking and shaking his head when Flavia and Argyll came in.

      ‘So? What is there to report?’

      ‘Quite a lot, really,’ she said as she sat down. ‘This man Ellman was probably shot with the same gun that killed Muller. And you already know that he had both Muller’s and Jonathan’s numbers and addresses in his book.’

      ‘What about this mysterious character with the scar? No chance he was seen wandering around the lobby?’

      ‘’Fraid not.’

      ‘Who was he? Ellman, I mean.’

      ‘According to the documentation he had on him, he was German, naturalized Swiss. Lived in Basle, born 1921, and a retired import – export consultant. What that is I don’t know. Fabriano is contacting the Swiss to find out more.’

      ‘So, we are in the position of having information without explanation.’

      ‘That’s about right. Still, we can play around with some ideas.’

      ‘If we must,’ Bottando said dubiously. He disliked playing around with ideas. He preferred ordering facts. More professional.

      ‘OK, then. Three events: an attempted theft and two murders, combined with the possibility that the picture was stolen. First thing we have to do is find out who the last owner was.’

      ‘Which Janet says he doesn’t know.’

      ‘Hmm. Anyway. All these events are linked. The picture and the man with the scar link the first two; the gun links the second and third. Muller is tortured, and unless his killer was mad, that can only have been to find something out. His pictures were cut up into pieces, and afterwards someone phones Jonathan asking about Socrates.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Bottando patiently. ‘So?’

      ‘So nothing, really,’ she said, a little crestfallen.

      ‘There is also another little question,’ Argyll said. If the whole business was going to be complicated he didn’t see why he shouldn’t put in his contribution as well.

      ‘And that is?’

      ‘How did this man know about Muller? And how did he know I was going to be at the railway station in Paris? I didn’t tell anyone. So the information must have come through Delorme.’

      ‘We will have to ask this colleague of yours,’ Bottando said. ‘And do quite a lot of other work as well. Muller’s sister arrives tomorrow, I gather. And someone will have to go to Basle.’

      ‘I can go after I’ve seen the sister,’ Flavia said.

      ‘I’m afraid not.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Ethics,’ he said ponderously. ‘That’s why.’

      ‘Just a second –’

      ‘No. You listen. You know as well as I do that you really ought to take a low profile in this matter. However unwittingly Mr Argyll here may have been handling stolen goods, none the less that is what he may well have been doing. He is also a major witness and you concealed that from the Carabinieri.’

      ‘That’s overdoing it a bit.’

      ‘I am merely stating what it would look like in the hands of someone like Fabriano. You cannot be seen to be involved in the investigation.’

      ‘But –’

      ‘Be seen to be involved, I said. There is also another problem, which is that, for the first time in our acquaintance, brother Janet is not being entirely frank with me – and until I know why, we will have to proceed with some caution.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘He said that it would be best if Mr Argyll brought the picture back.’

      ‘So?’

      ‘I never told him Mr Argyll had the picture. Which leads me to suspect that maybe there was a Frenchman working here without official notice. Which I don’t like. Now, Janet never does anything without a good reason; so we have to try and work out what that reason is. I could ask, but he’s already had the opportunity to tell me, if he was so minded.’

      ‘So,’ he continued, ‘we must plod along methodically. Mr Argyll, I must ask you to return that picture. I hope you won’t find that too much of a burden?’

      ‘I suppose I could manage,’ he said.

      ‘Good. While there, you might arrange a tactful meeting with your friend Delorme and see if he can shed any light on this. But do not, under any circumstances, do anything else. This is a murder case, and a nasty one. Don’t stick your neck out. Do your errand and come straight back. Is that understood?’

      Argyll nodded. He had not the slightest intention of doing anything else.

      ‘Good. In that case, I suggest you go and pack. Now, Flavia,’ he went on, as Argyll, realizing he was no longer wanted, got up to go, ‘you will go to Basle and see what you can find out. I will tell the Swiss you are coming. You will then come straight back here as well. Anything else you do will be unofficial. I don’t want your name on any report, interview or official document of any sort. Understood?’

      She nodded.

      ‘Excellent. I will tell you what Muller’s sister says when you get back. In the meantime, I suggest you go round to the Carabinieri to deliver Argyll’s statement, and see if you can persuade them to let you have a look at what they’ve accumulated so far. You don’t want to miss something in Basle because you don’t know what to look out for.’

      ‘It’s nearly eleven,’ she pointed out.

      ‘Put in an overtime claim,’ he replied unsympathetically. ‘I’ll have all the bits of paper you need in the morning. Come and get them before you go.’

       7

      Six o’clock in the morning. That is, seven hours and forty-five minutes since he got in, seven hours and fifteen minutes since he went to bed. Not a wink of sleep and, more to the point, no Flavia either. What the hell was she doing? She’d gone off with the Carabinieri. And that was the last he’d heard. Normally Argyll was a tranquil soul, but Fabriano had irritated him beyond measure. All this muscular masculinity in a confined space, the sneering and posturing. What, he wondered for the tenth time, had she ever seen in him? Something, evidently. He rolled over again, eyes wide open. Had she been there, Flavia would have informed him dourly that all he was suffering from was a bad case of over-excitement, dangerous in someone who liked a quiet life. Murders, robberies, interviews, too much in a short space of time. What he needed was a glass of whisky and a good night’s sleep.

      With which diagnosis he would have agreed, and indeed he had been agreeing with it all night, as he tossed and turned. Go to sleep, he told himself. Stop being ridiculous. But he couldn’t manage either and, when he could no longer endure listening to central Rome’s limited bird population saluting the morn, he admitted final defeat, got out of bed and wondered what to do next.

      Go to Paris, he’d been told, so maybe he should. If Flavia could absent herself in such an inconsiderate way, he could demonstrate this was no monopoly of hers. Besides, it would get an unprofitable task over and done with. He looked at his watch as the coffee boiled. Early enough to get the first plane to Paris. There by ten,

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