Free The Bernini Bust by Iain Pears Page A

increased his chances of recovering his family possessions. Mind you, now she thought about it, he did not look much like a museum curator to her.
    “I thought you worked for a museum,” she said.
    “Certainly not,” he said. “That was my uncle, Enrico. He died last year. I’m Alberto. Army man,” he said, chin jutting up and chest popping out at the very mention.
    “Isn’t there a list or inventory or something? Anything would be better than this.”
    “Fraid not. Uncle had it all in his mind.” He tapped the side of his head as he spoke, in case Flavia was uncertain where his uncle’s mind might have been located. “Never got around to writing it down. Pity, but there it was. Would have done.” He lowered his voice as though revealing a family scandal. “A bit - you know - in his last years,” he said confidingly.
    “What?”
    “Ga-ga. The old brain box. Not what it was. You know.” He tapped his head again, a bit mournfully this time. Then he cheered up a little. “Still,” he went on. “Eighty-nine. A good run. Can’t complain. Hope I last so long, eh? eh?”
    Flavia agreed, although privately thinking that the sooner the old fool dropped dead the better, then wondered if there were any insurance documents that might provide a bit of help.
    Colonel Alberghi shook his head again. “None,” he said. “I know that, because I went through his papers when he died and looked again after that fella came.”
    “What fella?”
    “Chap turned up, wondering if I wanted to sell anything. Damned impertinence. Sent him away with a flea in his ear, I can tell you.”
    “Hold on a second. You didn’t mention this to the carabinieri.”
    “Didn’t ask.”
    “What man was this?”
    “I told you. He turned up and knocked on the door. I sent him away.”
    “Did he look around the house?”
    “Damned silly maid let him in here to wait for me.”
    “And what did he look like?”
    “Didn’t see him. Maid phoned me, and I told her to chuck him out. Didn’t give up, though.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “He rang a couple of days later. I told him I hadn’t the faintest idea what my uncle had owned, but I did know I didn’t want to - didn’t need to - sell any of it.”
    “I suppose it’s too much to hope that you got his name?”
    “Sorry.”
    Flavia had thought so, somehow. “And what was stolen from here?”
    “Ah, now. Let me see.”
    “A painting,” she hinted, pointing at the patch on the woodwork that had evidently been covered by something.
    “Yes, yes. Perhaps. A portrait? Great grandfather? Or may be his father. Perhaps it was my great grandmother? Do you know, I never paid much attention to it.”
    Evidently. “And what about that empty pedestal there?”
    “Ah, yes. A bust. Big damn ugly thing, it was. I was going to grow a pot plant over it.”
    “Too much to hope for a description, I suppose?”
    “Just given you one,” he said. “I’d recognise it if I saw it.”
    Not much chance of that, she thought. “I’ll put out a search request for a big, damn ugly bust, sex indeterminate, then,” she said sarcastically. “Can I see this maid of yours?”
    “Why?”
    “It’s quite usual for thieves to case a place before they burgle. Posing as an art dealer is a good way of going about it.”
    “You mean he was looking the place over? The cheek of it!” Alberghi said, puffing up with righteous indignation. “I shall call that maid immediately. Who knows? She may well have been part of the gang.”
    Flavia did her best to turn him away from the idea of international conspiracies of burglars that was clearly forming in his mind, and pointed out that the robbery — a simple brick through the window when the house was empty - hardly required an inside hand to succeed.
    Nor was the maid, a woman of at least eighty years and almost bent double with arthritis, the archetypal gangster’s moll. The moment she saw the old biddy, Flavia had the feeling she was going to be as blind as