Free The Marshal Makes His Report by Magdalen Nabb Page B

the word you were looking for.’
    ‘Ah. Yes. I expect . . .’
    ‘Actually it’s not a mural. It’s detachable, since of course this is not my own flat. Still, I’m very dissatisfied with the figure of Spring. I wanted her to be spread out in a sort of limp—limp’s not the right word— abandoned, yes. Abandoned, giving attitude on this great soft heap of flowers. But I think—possibly because of the problem of the pose and wanting to keep the pudenda fully visible—I’ve made her right leg look too stiff. It really should be open and relaxed, not in tension like that. I don’t know if you understand what I mean.’
    This was terrible. Pornography, when he came across it in the course of duty as he sometimes did, left the Marshal feeling cold and disgusted. But this was something quite different and he was feeling anything but cold. He was hot and distressed and sweat was starting to trickle down the inside of his collar.
    ‘Would you mind showing me your passport?’
    ‘My passport?’ Fido looked puzzled. ‘Well, of course, if you need to see it. I’ve got a five-year police permit if you—’
    ‘No, no. Just your passport will do. A formality, that’s all.’
    And the minute he was out of the room the Marshal got up and looked for somewhere else to sit. It wasn’t easy. There were a good many attractive-looking armchairs but they were all occupied by papers and books. In the end he removed an ashtray and a glass from a bamboo stool and sat himself gingerly on that to wait.
    Fido came back with his passport, giving the Marshal an odd look as he handed it over.
    ‘I’m afraid you can’t be very, very comfortable there.’
    ‘That’s all right.’ He opened the passport. ‘British nationality.’
    ‘Yes. Ahem . . . I don’t want to appear fussy but I do think you’d be more comfortable on a chair.’
    ‘A stool’s fine.’
    ‘Yes, of course, but it isn’t. Isn’t a stool. I mean, it’s more of an occasional table, if you follow my meaning.’
    The unhappy Marshal got to his feet. He wasn’t going back to that sofa, though, not at any price. The effects were only just wearing off. Frames were removed. He was given a chair near a tall window.
    ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, it’s a funny sort of name, yours. Not English-sounding.’
    ‘Not as common as Smith, I agree. Actually it’s a corruption of Fitzdieu.’
    And he was forty-eight! Who would have thought it?
    ‘Thank you.’ He handed the passport back and got his notebook out. ‘I believe you’re painting a portrait of the Marchesa Ulderighi.’
    ‘Yes. Would you like to see it?’ He hurried from the room, cleary delighted to show off his work. There was something childlike about his anxious expression as he carried the canvas in and set it up on an easel for the Marshal to see.
    ‘It’s nowhere near finished, you understand, and with her being in mourning now . . .’
    ‘It’s very like her,’ the Marshal felt safe in saying.
    ‘Hm. I’m not satisfied. It’s the length and curve of her neck and the soft fall of hair that interest me—you know the Winterhalter portrait of Elisabeth of Austria? The pose is taken from that because there is a resemblance, but only a physical one. Bianca has a much stronger character.’
    The Marshal got up and came closer. The woman in the painting was looking back at the viewer as though inviting a glance at two heavily framed paintings hanging on the wall in the background.
    ‘Lucrezia Della Loggia and Francesco Ulderighi,’ Hugh Fido informed him. ‘Painted to celebrate their betrothal but they never married and the paintings are still hanging in Bianca’s drawing-room.’
    ‘If it weren’t for the clothes . . .’ the Marshal said, amazed.
    ‘They could be the same woman? Well, there’s nothing so surprising about that. That’s where Bianca inherited her looks from.’
    ‘And do you work on the painting in the Marchesa’s drawing-room . . . I mean, with these two other