Page 5 of The Venice Murders

‘Would she leave without telling the priest?’ If the housekeeper was such a loyal and devoted employee, it seemed the obvious question.

‘Of course she would not!’ In frustration, the count gave a small tug to his otherwise smooth hair. ‘And Stephano is beside himself with worry. But it is easier for the police to think so. As for the painting, they have passed the matter to Rome, as you suggested, Jack.’

‘It’s distressing, I can see, but how canwebe of any help?’ Jack was echoing Flora’s own conclusions.

‘Sybil thought, I thought, that maybe if you asked a few of those questions you are so good at, you might discover a clue, maybe more, to who is behind this bad business. Clues we can pass to the police.’

‘We’re foreigners here, Count. If we start asking questions, I don’t think we’ll be too well received. And I’ve no idea, even, who we would speak to.’

Jack was trying to let down his new stepfather gently, Flora could see, but his refusal should have been more definite.

‘I know I know.’ Count Falconi was agitated. ‘It is a desperate request, I realise, but Father Renzi has come to me for help and I must do something. I am the big landowner in the district – people look to me when they are in trouble. Stephano was a good priest, a dedicated man, and does not deserve this in his older years. Not after all the problems he has suffered.’

‘What were they?’ Flora was alert. Maybe there was more to this mystery than a stolen painting and a missing housekeeper.

Fidgeting in his seat, Massimo crossed his legs. Then uncrossed them. ‘Two, three years ago,’ he began, ‘Stephano was forced to move to Venice from the church he had served for most of his priesthood.’

‘In what way forced?’ Now, Jack was alert.

Falconi sighed. ‘I know only a small part of the story.’

‘Then you must tell us what you know. But can we stroll through the garden as we talk? My legs have gradually fallen asleep.’

The count rose to his feet and with Flora on one side and Jack on the other began a slow saunter around the grassed space, circling the duck pond, the rabbit hutches, and onto the paths that criss-crossed the vegetable garden.

‘There is a family in his old parish,’ the count began again, ‘who made trouble for Stephano. It had to do with a son that the priest had in some way harmed. Or, at least, they believed he had.’

‘What type of trouble?’ Jack asked.

‘Vicious gossip, wicked lies. That kind of thing. It made Stephano’s life unbearable, so bad that he had no option but to ask the church authorities for a change of post. And they were happy to agree. Over the months, they had become alarmed at the bad feeling in the village and they found him a position as priest at the church in San Polo. His housekeeper, Filomena, went with him.’

Jack stopped walking. ‘This trouble, do you think it has anything to do with the painting that’s missing from the Venice church?’

The count spread his hands. ‘It seems unlikely, but really I have no idea.’

‘The village that you mention,’ Flora intervened. ‘Where is it actually?’

‘It is more like a small town than a village, but beautiful. Quite beautiful. My estate is only a few miles distant. It takes me no more than ten minutes to drive there. Asolo, that’s the name.’

Back in their room, Jack strode to the long windows and opened them wide to the warmth of the lagoon. After their conversation in the garden, the count had drunk a glass of wine with them, asked them again for any help they could give, then taken the hotel launch to the Piazzale Roma where his saloon car and chauffeur were waiting to drive him to Casa Elena, his estate in the Veneto.

Joining her husband on the balcony, Flora looked across the water at the Renaissance magnificence of San Giorgio Maggiore, the angel atop the campanile a tiny figure against a sky of deepest blue. Below them, a constant stream of every kind of vessel: several small boats – sandalos they were called, Jack had told her; a single gondola, its oarsman facing forwards, on the lookout for a passenger; amotoscafopowering past fruit barges loaded high with oranges and bananas.

They turned to look at each other, their faces mirror images, both nonplussed by the count’s request.

‘What do we do?’ Jack asked.

‘What can we do? It’s impossible.’

Putting his arm around her, he hugged her tightly. ‘You’re right. It is impossible and my mother had no right to involve us. But that’s Sybil all over, impervious to anyone’s comfort but her own.’

‘The count is very worried, you can see. I imagine she was hoping to take some of the worry off his shoulders.’

‘And put it on ours! She’s not going to do that.’

Flora pulled away slightly. ‘Your last words to the count were that we’d see what we could do.’

‘Which is precisely nothing. They were words, Flora, just words. We have to forget it. Hopefully, the housekeeper will turn up safe and well, and the art theft chaps from Rome will soon be on the hunt for the painting, if they aren’t already. In a few weeks, there’ll be no problem, but in a few days our honeymoon will be over.’

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