The Bernini Bust

‘I think he was concerned not to let on too much to the newspaper men around. They always turn up. Can’t keep anything secret from them, you know.’

‘He found the body?’

‘Mr Moresby said he was going to use my office to talk to di Souza…’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘He could talk to him anywhere, couldn’t he?’

Thanet frowned disapprovingly at the Englishman’s concentration on irrelevancies. ‘Di Souza wanted to talk about that bust and it’s in my office. Anyway, later on…’

Argyll opened his mouth to ask how much later on. This concentration on detail was a habit he’d picked up from Flavia over the years. But he decided it might throw Thanet off his stride, so shut it again.

‘…later on, Mr Moresby used the internal phone to call Barclay and told him to come over. He went, and found…that. We called the police.’

Argyll had about two dozen questions he wanted to ask, but made the grave mistake of pausing briefly to arrange them in order of importance. What was the conversation with di Souza about? Where was di Souza? What time was this? And so on. Unfortunately, Thanet took advantage of the momentary silence to wander off in pursuit of his own thoughts.

These came across as almost entirely selfish, although this was perhaps forgivable under the circumstances. Samuel Thanet had never liked Moresby; no one had. While it was dreadful that the man should be shot, to Thanet’s way of thinking it was much more terrible that such an event should take place in his office and in his museum. The worst thing of all was that it should take place before Moresby had made his announcement about the Big Museum. Had all the relevant documents been signed? He’d be frantic with worry until he found out.

‘I assume that all the papers were drawn up and signed in advance,’ he said. ‘But it really couldn’t have come at a worse time.’

‘You mean to tell me that Moresby was topped just before he publicly committed himself to this project? Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’

Thanet stared at him blankly. Clearly, everything struck him as odd at the moment. But before he could reply, the door opened and Detective Morelli, hair ever more rumpled and rubbing his inflamed gums in a thoughtful fashion, walked in.

‘Case in your room,’ he said flatly. ‘What is it?’

Thanet paused a moment while he collected his thoughts. ‘Case?’ he asked.

‘Big wooden thing.’

‘Oh, that. That’s the Bernini. It hasn’t been opened yet.’

‘Yes, it has. It’s empty. What’s a Bernini, anyway?’

Thanet’s mouth flapped around uncertainly for a while before he stood up and rushed out of the room. The other two trailed after him, and reached his office just in time to see him bent over the large wooden box scrabbling around desperately among all the packing inside.

‘Told you,’ Morelli said.

Thanet re-emerged with little bits of plastic padding in his thinning hair, white with shock.

‘This is terrible, terrible,’ he said. ‘The bust has gone. Four million dollars, and it wasn’t insured.’

It occurred to Morelli and Argyll simultaneously that Thanet was more obviously upset about the Bernini than he was about Moresby.

Argyll suggested that it was a little careless not to insure it.

‘The insurance came into operation tomorrow morning, when we were going to move it into the museum. The company won’t cover stuff in the administration building. It’s not secure enough for them. Langton had it put here temporarily so Moresby could inspect it if he wanted. We didn’t feel he should have to go down to the storerooms.’

‘Where is Hector di Souza?’ Argyll asked, finally deciding that this was the central point that needed to be answered.

Thanet looked blank. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he replied, looking around as though he expected to see the Spaniard emerging from a cupboard.

There was a brief interlude as Morelli asked who di Souza was and Argyll explained.

‘Señor di Souza brought the bust over from Europe. He was upset about something and wanted to talk to Moresby. They came over here to discuss it in Thanet’s office. Some time later, Barclay discovers the body and presumably by then the bust had gone as well.’

Morelli nodded in a fashion which communicated understanding and profound irritation in equal parts. ‘And why didn’t you mention this di Souza before?’ he asked Thanet. It was clearly a rhetorical question as he didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he picked up a phone and gave instructions that di Souza was to be found as fast as possible.

‘If you ask me…’ Argyll began, thinking that Morelli would undoubtedly want the benefit of his experience.

‘I’m not,’ the detective pointed out kindly.

‘Yes, but…’

‘Out,’ he said, pointing helpfully to the door, lest there be any confusion about where the stairs were situated.

‘All I mean…’

‘Out,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll talk to you later to see if you have any relevant information. Now, go away.’

Argyll was displeased. He liked constructing theories, and generally found the Roman police receptive to them. Well, Flavia sometimes was. Evidently the Los Angeles police were less sophisticated in their approach. He glanced at Morelli, saw that he meant it, and reluctantly left.

Morelli breathed a deep sigh of relief, and scowled at the quiet snicker from a colleague who’d been listening to his attempts to restore control.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s start again. From the beginning. Can you identify this man?’ he asked formally.

Thanet swayed once more, but managed to stay perpendicular. This, he said, was Arthur M. Moresby II.

‘No doubts?’

None whatsoever.

Morelli was deeply impressed. Northern Los Angeles, while not the battle zone of other parts of the city, undoubtedly had more than its fair share of mayhem. Generally speaking, however, the victims were not enormously illustrious. Only rarely did a member of the social register get himself disembowelled. Hollywood directors, television magnates, noted authors, fashion models and all the other exemplars of local industry were usually remarkably adept at keeping themselves alive.

It also made him rather nervous. He could not remember the figures, but he was willing to bet that the percentage of homicides where he successfully fixed the handcuffs on the guilty party was pretty small. Ordinarily, this was distressing but had few other consequences. People – and that meant his superiors – understood that a conviction was unlikely and didn’t for a moment attach any blame to him. He arrested people often enough to have earned himself a respectable reputation for general professionalism. He did his best and that was that. Better luck next time.

But he already had a strong feeling that a very large number of people were going to be keeping their eyes on him over this one. This time, doing his best was not going to be good enough.

‘I was wondering,’ he went on, ‘about the alarm system. You do have alarms, don’t you?’

Thanet snorted. ‘Oh yes. This place is wired like Fort Knox.’

‘So can we check if any doors except the main entrance were used?’

‘Sure. In theory the murderer should have been caught on film in the corridor. Although personally, I’m dubious.’