I sighed, and drained my glass.
When I was dressed, considerably more soberly than peacock silks, we made our way downstairs—but instead of heading for the dining room, we continued through the lobby, strolling arm in arm along the wide promenade to dine beneath the stars, where the pigeons had gone to bed and even a plague of tipsy tourists could not spoil the night.
We sat at a small table before the basilica, a scene that had not substantially changed since the day Marco Polo sailed off to meet Kublai Khan. Holmes shifted his chair beside mine so we could hear each other over the band’s fin de siècle tunes, and we began to review our invasion of Venice.
“If Vivian did come here,” I began, “then she brought enough money to live in adequate, if not Grand Canal–palazzo, comfort. If she came with her nurse, and if Nurse Trevisan does have family ties in Venice—and yes, there are far too many uncertainties here—then they would probably either stay with family or let a house, rather than go to an hotel.” I waited for Holmes to nod, then continued. “Once here, she could do the sensible thing and live anonymously in one of the working-class quarters, where no one would notice her for years. Or, she could decide that having made it this far, she was safe. After all, she’s broken no laws—the jewellery and money were hers to take, and the other small things could be debated. Now, I can’t claim to know the woman, but I suspect that someone in her state would be pulled between the two. She would want safety, but she’d want to taste her freedom as well.”
“Agreed.”
“The Lido is a logical place for us to look. It’s frenetic enough during the day, I dread to think what it’s going to be like when the sun goes down. And if she and Nurse Trevisan are lovers, it would be a lonely life indeed if they did not reach out to women like themselves. Some of whom, I imagine, would be drawn to the foreigners-on-holiday atmosphere on the Lido.”
“So you feel we may find her over there?”
“I was thinking we might take a room at the Excelsior for a few days. As you pointed out, the only things moving around Venice at night are bats and felines.”
“And Americans.”
Something in his voice caught my attention. “What have you found?”
“Less what than whom.”
“But someone who might be useful?”
“Possibly.”
“Holmes…”
“Do you know the name Cole Porter?”
“No. Short for Columbine? Is she a lesbian?”
“Not exactly. She is a he, and he is a young…song-writer, I suppose, rather than composer. I happened upon his work four years ago, in a musical comedy playing at the New Oxford Theatre. Dreadful rot, by and large, but the young man does have a knack for clever melodies and rhythms. The sort of thing audience members hum as they go out of the door.”
The sort of thing Sherlock Holmes generally turned up his long nose at. “He must be doing well if he can afford Venice in the summer.”
“No, he comes from money, and married a great deal more of it. The Porters have become regulars in Venice—they are among those wealthy Americans who hire palazzos on the Grand Canal and wear on the neighbours’ nerves. According to my Irregolari, their guests have a habit of spilling out noisily across the city in the wee hours.”
“And you think Vivian would go to those parties?”
“Perhaps not yet. But I hear that in Paris, most of Porter’s house-guests have titles to their names.”
“You propose that we’d have better luck there than with Elsa Maxwell and the Lido crowd?”
“I believe I would.”
“Coward.” He said nothing, merely taking another bite of his risotto nero, but I could see the crinkles beside his eyes. “Would you like to set this up as a wager? Since you seem to be playing the odds today. Your second of the day?”
“If you wish.”
“For what prize?’
He looked off into the plaza for a moment. “What about, the next tedious task that comes along?”
That covered a wide variety of undertakings, from the boring to the disgusting, although the word tedious at least ensured it would fall short of life-threatening.
“And what precisely defines a win?”
“Finding the door that leads to Lady Vivian Beaconsfield.”
“You’re on.”
He laid down his silver and put out a hand, and we shook in agreement. For a moment, I considered asking him bluntly just what it was he was doing in Venice—but it was such a nice evening, I hated to spoil it. Particularly when it was no doubt something I did not want to know. So instead, I returned to my earlier point.
“Agreed. And if you believe there’s a chance we may find her over here, I won’t startle my accountant by bills for a week at the Excelsior. However, assuming we find that door, we have to be well prepared to walk through it. In style.”
He sighed. “You are suggesting that I submit to an eye-sore of a waistcoat.”
“It’ll be nothing compared to what I shall be forced into, Holmes.”
That wince, I noticed.
And so, safe in the anonymity of the middle-class tourists from Dubuque and Berlin, we finished our meal beneath the warm misty sky, and strolled back through the peaceful evening, to prepare ourselves for battle.
Chapter Twenty-five
ON OUR WAY BACK THROUGH the Beau Rivage, I had paused to consult with the manager about my sartorial needs. After breakfast the following morning, I presented myself downstairs for the attentions of his chosen expert, a trim and intense young woman with his same green-grey eyes and reddish hair, whose gaze undressed me the moment I appeared (in a clinical manner, that is: less admiration than measuring-tape).
I told Signorina Barbarigo that business matters (unspecified, but with hints that they were substantial) required me to dress in a way that would impress the chic set over on the Lido. I told her that cost was no barrier. Then I said I’d need it by nightfall.
Her kohl-painted eyes blinked rapidly half a dozen times as she made an abrupt reassessment of possibilities. I braced myself for protest, for the wringing of hands, for sighs and wheedling and a lack of enthusiasm—but instead, got merely a question. “So, how do you say, off-the-rack rather than bespoke?”
I liked her already. “I’m afraid so.”
“Bring your cheque-book, Signora.”
We dove into the labyrinth of streets, her quick-moving, child-sized Cuban heels leading me through passages too narrow to walk abreast, along green and stinking canals and among the tables of diners and, several times during the day, in and out through the ground floors of palazzos. We paused but three times, to restore our energies—and, that I might engage her in conversation. Over coffee and hard little biscuits, I heard about her family back to the Seventy-fourth Doge, Agostino, who had built the plaza’s ornately magnificent clock-tower (which she told me all about) and lost a number of key Venetian ports in a war with the Ottomans (which topic somehow did not come up). Over a lunch (fortunately taken at a table with a cloth long enough to conceal my feet as I slipped off my shoes) made up of risotto, meat, salad, fruit, and wine (which left me wanting a siesta with the rest of the city), I learned all she knew about the Lido crowd. This was not much, and mostly consisted of rumour and newspaper reports, since she was a good girl and disapproved of the foreigners’ wild parties out there.
Finally, late in the afternoon, we settled behind a small table in a tidy little campo and ordered restorative food and drink. Across the pavement, a group of boys in juvenile Blackshirt uniforms were enthusiastically drilling, make-believe rifles across their shoulders.
I glanced at my companion. Her face was closed as she watched the lads, the oldest of whom might have been fourteen, but I took her lack of smile—either approving or amused—as an indication of her leanings. “Boys too young to remember the War,” I murmured.