He looked aghast at the thought and immediately backed down, eyeing the water ahead as I resumed my gentle grilling. He talked happily, on all manner of topics from the Bridge of Sighs to the making of masks to his fears that the Fascisti would sooner or later clamp down on the freedoms of visitors, and that would be the end of the Lido set. He’d met Cole Porter, went to a few of the Porters’ affairs the summer before, but hadn’t seen him yet this season.
“Swell chap, you’d never know he’s from someplace like Iowa or Missouri. And his wife’s a sweetheart—a little older than him, but what a beauty she is. She gave her first husband the bum’s rush ’cause he used to beat her. Can you believe that? Even if you’re stinking blotto, you don’t hit a girl. Should have bumped the snake off, not divorced him. Still, the old gal hit on a prize with Porter. Clever devil, and tinkles a sweet keyboard. Pity about the socks, though.”
“Socks?” It was a challenge to follow his American-flavoured slang.
“White cotton things. Ugly as sin. Makes him look like some kind of health nut—Naturist or vegetarian or something. Still, at least he doesn’t wear ’em at night, or I’d have to write him off as a bounder.”
I laughed, causing him to protest that Venice was filling up with nuts, Americans in sackcloth and sandals, greasy hair and all.
“Terry, I haven’t seen a single greasy-haired, sackcloth-wearing American since I got here.”
“They’re about. Or they were. Come to think of it, they’re fewer on the ground than they were. You suppose that’s Mussolini’s doing? Points to him. Which reminds me, I wonder if that Mosley chap will be here this year? Bet he’ll be happy about things.”
“I don’t believe I know Mr Mosley.”
“Oh, you must know Tom—Harrow’s MP? Well, he was, I hear he’s gone over to Labour now.”
“You mean Oswald? Oswald Mosley?”
“That’s right, but they call him Tom. He and his wife, Cimmie—Lady Cynthia Curzon that was?—come here sometimes. Not a bad sort, but Lord, don’t get him started on economics! He and Duff Cooper don’t exactly see eye to eye, which makes it smashing fun to watch Cimmie and Diana—Cooper’s wife?—be polite at each other.”
As a long and involved story unspooled, it was driven home to me that August would not have made a good time to come here. I can’t say I moved in those circles (I can’t say I moved in any circle, really) but in a country as snug as England, I’d had dinner, drinks, a dance, or a class at Oxford with half the names he mentioned. In August, I would not get ten feet before someone recognised me.
He finished his story—“And the topper is, the scampi was bad, and the next day he was sick as a dog!”—just as we entered the San Marco Basin. The city’s lights gathered us in, the Riva degli Schiavoni looking oddly naked without its crowds. I pointed at a pier just along from the Beau Rivage. When he had brought our side up against it, I stepped ashore before he could switch off the motor or toss a mooring line.
“You don’t need to come,” I said firmly. “My hotel is just there.” I gave a vague flap of the hand in the direction of half a dozen doors.
He raised an invisible hat to me. “?‘And soon the Runabout convey’d her to her lodgings by the way.’?”
“Thank you for the ride. I enjoyed it, very much.”
“Any old time. Will we see you tomorrow?”
“If not tomorrow, then soon.”
“I look forward to it. Sleep well, Mrs Russell. My salutations to your husband.”
I let myself into a room that purred with the sound of gentle snores, and fell asleep with the dawn, surprisingly happy with my lot in life.
Chapter Twenty-nine
HOLMES AND I TOOK OUR breakfast at an hour closer to lunch-time, even here in Italy. My voice was hoarse from the previous night, despite some litres of scalding tea. Holmes, too, had been out late and was not yet dressed, his pyjama-ed legs propped on an empty chair, his cup and saucer balanced on his chest.
“What did you accomplish yesterday, Holmes?”
“I went shopping.”
“Really?”
“I bought three books, two very old musical scores, and a violin.”
“A violin.”
“Yes.”
“A nice one?”
He took a sip of his coffee. “Not particularly.”
Instead of playing his game, I decided to tell him about my own day. It took quite some time, even though I omitted a few things for later consideration, or in case I needed to tease out of him why he’d bought a violin.
We’d moved on to buttering rolls and ordering more coffee before I finished.
“Interesting collection of influential people at that table,” he commented at last.
“Yes, it’s a good thing you didn’t go—better to stick to the Americans, who might not recognise you. And I gather that Duff and Diana Cooper and your friend Churchill and his wife, and Diaghilev and Nijinsky and Coco Chanel and, well, half the names of the social pages come over in August. It is a sort of modern-day, round-the-clock Carnevale, with makeup instead of masks, and—with apologies to the Christian calendar—Miss Elsa Maxwell as the Lord of Misrule. Her forte is the organising of parties. Her art form, you might say—to bring together an unlikely group of people and give them something even more unlikely to do. Childish parlour games with a touch of sin. Tremendously popular with the rich and bored. Why a violin?”
“To attract Mr Cole Porter.”
“And did you do so?”
“I did. In fact, I am to audition today for a party he is holding on Saturday night in Ca’ Rezzonico.”
“That’s their palazzo?”
“This year it is. A Baroque pile even larger than it looks from the water.”
“Wait, isn’t that…”
“The one in which Robert Browning died? And John Singer Sargent worked? Indeed.”
“Good Lord. What must that cost?”
“Eighty or ninety thousand lira a month, give or take. Plus hiring a few dozen gondoliers on retainer, and the servants, and the parties. One year they created a floating dance-hall with a jazz band—although, lacking a lavatory, it was short-lived. I imagine the Porters’ summers here contribute a million or more lira to the local economy. To say nothing of what his guests leave behind.”
“I can see why the authorities put up with a little noise at night. Is it his money, or his wife’s?” Terry hadn’t said, not directly, but one suspected that a woman who dumped her abusive husband did so with a cushion.
“He had money, she had more. She may not support him financially, but she does so in every other way, from social to professional.”
“Well, our Saturday looks to be a busy one, Holmes.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“Elsa Maxwell, too, is having a ‘bash’ that night. In full costume.”
He returned his attention to the bread roll, concentrating on an even layer of apricot preserves. “I refuse to attend in deerstalker and calabash.”
“I believe it’s to be Carnevale themed. Somewhat more glittery than a houndstooth Inverness. Not that you’d find one of those in Venice.”
“One clear point in the favour of this city,” he grumbled.
“Holmes, why is it you so dislike Venice?”
“It is a place of masks over masks. Only in the subcontinent does one find a people so cavalier about facts, where a Yes is so apt to hide a No. It is…inefficient.”
“You prefer to keep the vaporetti running on time.” To my surprise, his face closed up. “Damn it, Holmes, what is it—what does Mycroft have you doing? It’s something I’m going to hate, I can tell.”
For a moment, I thought he would not answer, and I felt my anger stir. Perhaps he felt it, too, because he put down the untasted roll and took up his linen napkin, methodically rubbing nonexistent crumbs from his fingers. “My brother wishes me to break into the town’s Fascist headquarters.”
Frankly, I hadn’t thought he would reply, or I wouldn’t have taken an irritated bite of food. As it was, I nearly choked before I convinced it to go down. “What? Dear God, Holmes, has your brother gone insane? They’re a trained militia! Is he picturing the Blackshirts as some geriatric Volunteer Corps, marching along the cliffs with—”
“Russell.”
“—wooden rifles or something? What does he think, they’re going to let you waltz through their files-room?”
“Russell! I did not agree to do so.”