The Corpse with the Silver Tongue (10 page)

“Ummm . . . Pardon?” he asked, sharply.

“Did you go to the Townsends' before dinner last night?” I tried to not sound irritated.

“No. Ah, yes. No. Not really.”

I was confused.

“I'm confused,” I said, sensibly. “What does that mean?”

“I did go to the apartment. I delivered the bread we ate. Well, no, that is not true. I did not deliver the bread.” I looked at Beni as though he was mad.

He flapped his hands around, seemed to organize his thoughts, and continued. “There is an excellent
boulangerie
close to the museum, so I offered to Tamsin to get the bread for the party. You cannot be sure that there will be enough fresh bread for everyone at six o'clock on a Friday. It is a very busy time for people to buy bread. It was risky to say I would buy bread on the way. But this is Tamsin's favorite bakery, so I promised Tamsin I would collect the bread at four o'clock and bring it to the apartment. I buzzed at the gate, but there was no reply. I buzzed for Gerard, who lives in a small apartment at the rear of the Palais, and he let me into the building. He took the bread from me in the entrance hall and said he would bring it to Tamsin. I phoned Tamsin as I drove away and left a message telling her that Gerard had the bread. So I meant to be there, but I was not. Though I was at the building. You see how it was?”

I saw. Suddenly I saw that two people had the chance to somehow poison the bread. Though I was at a bit of a loss as to how someone might do that. I supposed many poisons could be made up in such a way as to be brushed onto a stick of bread. It would have to be a totally tasteless poison to go unnoticed when eaten with such a bland item. That would help me narrow it down. I remembered feeling the bread as I broke it in my hands. It had been dry and floury. Whatever it was would have to not interfere with that finish and texture. A bit of a tall order. Or it might not have been “floury bread”—the “flour” itself might have contained the poison. Hmm. Interesting.

“Here is the bakery now,” said Beni, rousing me from my thoughts. I looked up at where he was pointing and saw a tiny shop front, with dozens of cars triple-parked outside it. Yep, it
had
to be a good bakery! No sooner had I noted its name and location than we were turning into the car park adjacent to the huge, open-air site that comprises the greatest part of the Cimiez Museum of Roman Antiquities, and Beni started to shout parking instructions at the cab driver. There were several police cars littered about the place, and the cab driver seemed to become suddenly interested in our destination, and our links to the place. He feigned shock and dismay that the police should need to be at the museum at all, but Beni was out of the car too quickly to be able to answer any of the man's questions, and I decided to hotfoot it after him. I didn't want him getting away from me.

Sticking close to Beni, I was ushered into the museum buildings under cover of his credentials. As entered I watched Beni's movements minutely. If he'd set up this break-in himself, he was a very good actor; nothing about his posture suggested that he was afraid of being found out. Nothing indicated he was afraid, full stop. Instead, his body language suggested “indignance.” I thought that was very interesting, and that it gave a great insight into his personality.

The scene was one of chaos. Policemen in a variety of uniforms hung about, seemingly doing nothing; various people in civilian clothes were scurrying around, their reaction to Beni's arrival suggesting they were members of his staff. Beni himself went into full Italian Opera mode—throwing his hands in the air, booming his rich, deep voice around the echoing display areas, and I—well, I decided that, now I was in, I'd try to find out exactly what had happened.

I wandered up to a young man wearing a short, suede jacket, jeans, and cowboy boots. I introduced myself in a way that I hoped would encourage him to accept me.

“Hi! Beni and I just got here. What's happened?”

He couldn't wait to tell me. He spoke hurriedly and quietly, and the gist of it was that the break-in had been discovered just before lunch, but that it likely took place the night before. It was clear that the place had been abuzz with discussions about what had happened, and how it might have happened. The agreed theory among museum staff was that the theft must have taken place at night, otherwise the point of entry would have been clearly visible from the car park, which was used all day from about eight in the morning onward. The break-in hadn't been discovered until late morning because it affected only the office area of the museum, rather than any of the display areas and, because it was Saturday, no one had been using the offices, until one of the researchers had arrived to take advantage of some “quiet time” to work on some artifacts. The other fact I gleaned from the young man was that the thief had, somehow, managed to pick the one window in the whole museum that wasn't hooked up to the alarm system. When I asked why it wasn't connected, he answered matter-of-factly that the window had just been replaced the day before, but that the window fitter had been delayed because he had arrived without one of the parts he needed for the installation.
Oh good
, I thought,
so that happens all over the world then!
The window hadn't been fitted in time for the alarm company workman to hook up the new window.

“The alarm company guy just left the window un-alarmed?” I found it hard to believe.

“Yes. He had finished his hours. For work. It was the weekend. Besides, it was a very small window that only gave access to a little corridor that leads to the offices. All the doors to the display areas are alarmed, so the thief could only take what we might have left at our desks,” replied the young man casually. It all seemed quite natural to him. I mean, I know that the French have a really short work-week, but this whole thing was screaming “law suit” to me. Maybe the French just aren't as litigious as we North Americans, though.

“I will sue you!” Beni screamed in French at the end of the room. He stood about half an inch from the nose of a short, fat man in a badly cut suit, who I suspected might represent the alarm company. “This is all
your
fault.
You
are to blame. Why did you not instruct your workman to fit the alarm? Why not send someone else to do it if he could not?” I was quite impressed with how my French translation abilities were coming along.

“It was the window fitter at fault,” replied the rotund little man. He, too, was angry, but his anger smacked of desperation. Oh dear. Poor thing. And poor Beni. He looked very flushed, and in fact I was surprised his feet weren't beginning to leave the floor, given the way he was flapping his arms about.

“You will wait. I will deal with you later. Now I must find out what has been taken.” Beni motored toward a door at the far end of the display hall. I thanked the young man who'd been so informative and rushed after Beni. I wanted to know if the archive had been stolen—that was my only interest. I knew I had to stick close to be sure I could see what had happened.

As we left the large open area filled with display cabinets and artifacts, we walked through a small door into a long, dark corridor. Ahead of us was a tiny window, set about five feet high in the end wall of the building. It couldn't have been more than eighteen inches square. The broken glass that had fallen to the floor in the corridor surrounded a rock about the size of a fist, and the frame of the window had been opened inward and now swung on one broken hinge. The police had taped off the end of the corridor, so we peered into the offices that had their doors open. Each room we could see into was in some sort of disarray. In one a computer screen lay on its side; in another papers had been scattered around the room; and in yet another, an earthenware pot lay broken on the floor; the greatest amount of damage was in the largest office at the end of the hall.

Beni wailed as he looked into the room. “Oh, my office!”

“Can you tell us what is missing, Doctor Brunetti?” asked the policeman who'd been leading our sad little guided tour of destruction.

“May I enter?” asked Beni, sounding unhappy.

“Yes, but do not touch anything, and please be careful where you tread,” replied the policeman. I had to content myself with craning my neck around the door jamb to see what Beni could see, but it was only a moment or two before he emerged, looking crestfallen.

“A small alabaster vase that I kept in that niche is missing,” he said, pointing to a little space above his desk, “two stone tablets with inscriptions that came from the wall of the baths outside have disappeared, and some papers that I was working on at my desk yesterday have gone.” He looked at me as he mentioned this last item, and I knew he meant that the archive was missing.

“Are the missing items very valuable?” asked the policeman.

“Not in themselves,” answered Beni. “It is surprising that such ancient and rare objects as the vase and the tablets often bring only small amounts of money. The papers were the archives of a family that used to live in the area. They are rare in that they were domestic writings and were on papyrus, rather than on wooden or wax tablets. But, when I say ‘papers' I do not mean it in the sense we would use the term today: what is missing is a wooden box filled with rolls of papyrus.”

“The box would have been heavy, and bulky to remove?” asked the policeman.

Beni shook his head.

“And how big?”

“About so big,” Beni answered, holding his hands about a foot or so apart. He looked distraught and asked the officer, “What else is missing?”

The policeman referred to his notes and replied, “Apart from your box, tablets, and vase, a statue of Aphrodite has gone from this office,” he turned and pointed behind him, “and a pair of . . . ummm . . .” He struggled a bit as he said, “. . . millefiori pyxis?”

Beni nodded. “The ink-wells. I know them. Small and, again, not very valuable. Is that it?”

“Yes,” replied the policeman. “It seems that the thieves did not gain access to any of the other areas. The alarm was not tripped, and there appear to be no attempts to reach anywhere other than this part of the complex. They took small items that could be easily removed. It looks like a crime of opportunity. Your colleagues have all told me that the offices with the disturbances were not locked. Did you lock your own office when you left here yesterday?”

“I thought that I did,” answered Beni slowly, “but I had a lot on my mind, so maybe I did not.”

“It does not look as though the door was broken,” added the policemen significantly.

“Then maybe I did not,” replied Beni quietly.

“Sir—outside, they have found something,” came a shout from a young policeman at the other end of the corridor.

“What is it?” asked the more senior officer.

“Some sort of wooden box, sir. It looks as though it has been discarded in the parking area.”

Immediately I saw a brighter look appear on Beni's face and he mouthed “The archives,” at me. I, too, wondered if that might be what they'd found.

“We will come,” replied the policeman, and we all retraced our steps back toward the display hall, then out through the fire exit to the parking area. Beni was clearly excited, and trotted ahead of the policeman, to where a little knot of uniformed officers were gathered around a large recycling bin. “In here, sir,” said one of the men to his superior, nodding toward the bin, then opening its lid with latex-gloved hands.

We all arrived at much the same time and peered into the receptacle. Sure enough, inside was a large wooden box, bound with metal strips, with the lid levered off and discarded at its side. The box was empty.

“The scrolls . . . has anyone found the scrolls?” asked Beni sharply.

“We haven't examined the other contents of the bin yet, sir,” the young officer replied.

Beni's voice was commanding. “When you do, please be very careful. If the scrolls are in there they are delicate and could break apart easily.”

The young officer looked at his superior who nodded back, obviously signifying that the search should begin.

“We will let you know what we find, Doctor Brunetti,” said the superior officer. “But now, could I ask you to come back inside with me so I can get some more details from you about the items that are missing?”

“Yes, yes of course,” replied Beni, “but maybe we could sit in the sun and smoke while we do that?”

The policeman smiled and nodded. Having moved to a low wall that surrounded the parking area, both sat and smoked as Beni spoke and the policemen took notes. When Beni had turned to leave, I'd gestured to him to show that I was going to make a phone call. I was of half a mind to call Captain Moreau to tell him about the theft of the archive, but, since it might be sitting in a big plastic bin just yards away from me, I thought that I should wait until we were sure. I decided to call Bud instead. It would be about seven in the morning in Vancouver, still early for a Saturday morning phone call. I knew for a fact that he and Jan were always up at six with Marty because dogs don't know it's a weekend. Besides, he called me at all hours when there was a case he needed my help with. I wandered off to another part of the little wall and turned my face to the afternoon sun. I pulled my phone and my cigarettes out of my purse, which I dumped on the floor at my feet, lit up, and punched in Bud's number. To hell with the roaming charges—I needed to talk to someone about all this, and Bud Anderson was just the man.

I IMAGINED THE PHONE RINGING
in the Anderson household. Bud and Jan's two-bedroom apartment on Quayside Drive in New Westminster wasn't small, but it struggled to accommodate two busy adults and a very rambunctious Labrador. It always felt as though it was ready to burst at the seams. Funny, that. Bud was known as a stickler for neatness, accurate record keeping, and meticulous attention to detail in his work as a police officer. Jan, on the other hand, seemed to have lots of hobbies that required large quantities of “stuff.” She belonged to groups that did scrapbooking, weaving, quilting, candle-making, soap-making, knitting and photography, and probably a lot more. It made for a snug home.