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‘You aren’t buying me, Mr Harrison,’ Dulcie said coolly. ‘You’re hiring my skill as a private detective. There’s a big difference.’
‘Well your skill will do me just fine. Take a look at this.’
He thrust a photograph across the desk. It showed Roscoe’s daughter, Jenny Harrison, her dark hair streaming over her shoulders in the Venetian sunlight, listening ardently to a young gondolier playing a mandolin, while another gondolier, with curly hair and a baby face, looked on.
‘That’s the character who thinks he’s going to marry Jenny for her fortune,’ Roscoe snapped, jabbing at the mandolin player with his finger. ‘He’s told her he isn’t really a gondolier, but heir to a count—Calvani, or some such name—but I say it’s a big, fat lie.
‘I’m not an unreasonable man. If he really were a posh nob that would be different. His title, my money. Fair enough. But a posh nob rowing a gondola? I don’t think so. I want you to go to Venice, find out what’s going on. Then, when you’ve proved he’s no aristocrat—’
‘Perhaps he is,’ Dulcie murmured.
Roscoe snorted. ‘Your job is to prove he isn’t.’
Dulcie winced. ‘I can’t prove he isn’t if he is,’ she pointed out.
‘Well, you’ll be able to tell, ’cos you’re top drawer yourself. You’re Lady Dulcie Maddox, aren’t you?’
‘In my private life, yes. But when I’m working I’m simply, Dulcie Maddox, PI.’
She guessed that Roscoe didn’t like that. He was impressed by her titled connections, and when she brushed them aside he felt cheated.
Last night he’d invited her to dinner in order to meet his daughter, Jenny. Dulcie had been charmed by the young girl’s freshness and na?vety. It was easy to believe that she needed protection from a fortune hunter.
‘I want you because you’re the best,’ Roscoe returned to his theme. ‘You’re posh. You act posh. You look posh—not your clothes because they’re—’
‘Cheap,’ she supplied. The jeans and denim jacket had been the cheapest thing on the market stall. Luckily she had the kind of tall, slender figure that brought out the best in anything, and her mane of fair hair and strange green eyes drew admiration wherever she went.
‘Inexpensive,’ Roscoe said in one of his rare ventures into tact. ‘But you look posh, in yourself. You can tell aristocrats because they’re so tall and slim. Probably comes from eating proper food while the peasants had to make do with stodge.’
‘Maybe with the others,’ Dulcie said. ‘But with me it came from not having enough to eat because all the family money was blown on the horses. That’s why I’m working as a private investigator. I’m as poor as a church mouse.’
‘Then you’ll need a load of new gear to be convincing. I keep an account at Feltham’s for Jenny. I’ll call and tell them to do you proud at my expense. When you reach the Hotel Vittorio you’ve got to look the part.’
‘The Vittorio?’ She looked quickly out of the window, lest he guess that this particular hotel had a special meaning for her. It was only a few weeks ago that she had been planning her honeymoon in that very hotel, with a man who’d sworn eternal love.
But that was then. This was now. Love had vanished with brutal suddenness. She would have given anything to avoid the Vittorio, but there was no help for it.
‘Most expensive hotel in Venice,’ Roscoe said. ‘So buy the clothes, then get out there fast. Fly first class. No cheap economy flights in case he checks up on you.’
‘You mean he might employ a private detective too?’
‘No knowing. Some people are devious enough for anything.’
Dulcie maintained a diplomatic silence.
‘Here’s a cheque for expenses. It’s not enough to look rich. You’ve got to splash it around a bit.’
‘Splash it around a bit,’ Dulcie recited, glassy eyed at the size of the cheque.
‘Find this gondolier, make him think you’re rolling in money, so he’ll make up to you. When you’ve got him hooked let me know. I’ll send Jenny out there, and she’ll see the kind of man he really is. She won’t believe it, but the world is full of jerks on the look out for a rich girl.’
‘Yes,’ Dulcie murmured with feeling. ‘It is.’
On the night of Count Francesco’s return, supper at the palazzo was formal. The four men sat around an ornate table while a maid served dish after dish, under the eagle eyes of Liza. To the count this was normal, and Marco was comfortable with it. But the other two found it suffocating, and they were glad when the meal was over.
As they prepared for escape the count signalled for Guido to join him in his ornate study.
‘We’ll be at Luigi’s Bar,’ Marco called back from the front door.
‘Couldn’t this wait?’ Guido pleaded, following his uncle into the study.
‘No, it can’t wait,’ Francesco growled. ‘There are things to be said. I won’t bother to ask if the stories I’ve heard about you are true.’
‘They probably are,’ Guido agreed with a grin.
‘It’s time it stopped. After all the trouble I’ve taken, making sure you met every woman in society.’
‘I’m nervous with society women. They’re all after just one thing!’
‘What!’
‘My future title. Half of them never look at me properly. Their gaze is fixed on the Calvani honours.’
‘If you mean that they’re prepared to overlook your disgraceful way of life out of respect for your dignity—’
‘Dignity be blowed. Besides, maybe I don’t want a woman who’ll overlook my “disgraceful” life. It might be more fun if she was ready to join in.’
‘Marriage is not supposed to be fun!’ Francesco thundered.
‘I was afraid of that.’
‘It’s time you started acting like a man of distinction instead of spending your time with the Lucci family, fooling about in gondolas—’
‘I like rowing a gondola.’
‘The Luccis are fine hard-working people but their lives take one path and yours another—’
In a flash Guido’s face lost its good humour and hardened. ‘The Luccis are my friends, and you’ll oblige me by remembering that.’
‘You can be friends—but you can’t live Fede’s life. You’ve got to make your own way. Perhaps I shouldn’t have allowed you to see so much of them.’
‘You didn’t allow me,’ Guido said quietly. ‘I didn’t ask your permission. Nor would I. Ever. Uncle, I have the greatest respect for you, but I won’t allow you to run my life.’
When Guido spoke in that tone the merry charmer vanished, and there was something in his eyes that made even the count wary. He saw it now and fell silent. Guido was instantly contrite.
‘There’s no harm in it,’ he said gently. ‘I just like to row. It keeps me fit after my other “excesses”.’
‘If it were just rowing,’ Francesco snorted, recovering lost ground. ‘But I’ve heard you even sing “O sole mio” for tourists.’
‘They expect it. Especially the British. It’s something to do with ice cream cornets.’
‘And you pose with them for photographs.’ The count took out a snapshot showing Guido in gondoliering costume, serenading a pretty, dark-haired girl, while another gondolier, with curly hair and a baby face, sat just behind them.
‘My nephew,’ he growled, ‘the future Count Calvani, poses in a straw hat.’
‘It’s disgraceful,’ Guido agreed. ‘I’m a blot on the family name. You’ll just have to marry quickly, have a son, and cut me out. Rumour says you’re still as vigorous as ever, so it shouldn’t be—’
‘Get out of here if you know what’s good for you!’
Guido fled with relief, leaving the building and slipping away down tiny, darkened streets. As he reached the Grand Canal he saw a collection of seven gondolas, moving side by side. It was a ‘serenade’, a show put on to please the tourists. In the central boat the baby-faced young man from the photograph stood singing in a sweet tenor that drifted across the water. As the song came to an end there was applause, and the boats drifted in to their moorings.
Guido waited until his friend, Federico Lucci, had assisted his last passenger to disembark before hailing him.
‘Hey there, Fede! If the English signorina could hear you sing like that she would follow you to the ends of the earth,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter?’ for Fede had groaned. ‘Doesn’t she love you any more?’
‘Jenny loves me,’ Fede declared. ‘But her Poppa will kill me before he lets us marry. He thinks I’m only after her money, but it isn’t true. I love her. That time you met, didn’t you think she was wonderful?’
‘Wonderful,’ Guido said, diplomatically concealing his opinion that Jenny was a pretty doll who lacked spice in her character. His own taste was for a woman who could offer a challenge, lead him a merry dance and give as good as she got. But he was too kind a friend to say so.
‘You know I’ll help in any way I can,’ he said warmly.
‘You’ve already helped us so much,’ Fede said, ‘letting us meet in your apartment, covering for me on the gondola—’
‘That’s nothing. I enjoy it. Let me know when you want me to do it again.’
‘My Jenny has returned to England. She says she will reason with her Poppa, but I’m afraid she may never return.’
‘If it’s true love, she’ll come back,’ Guido insisted.
Fede gave a shout of laughter and thumped him on the shoulder. ‘What do you know about true love? With you it’s here-today-and-gone-tomorrow. If they mention marriage you dive for cover.’
‘Sssh!’ Guido looked hunted. ‘My uncle has ears everywhere. Now come on, let’s join Leo and Marco at Luigi’s, and we can all get drunk in peace.’
Two days later Dulcie flew to Venice, landing at Marco Polo Airport and waiting, with an air of aloof grandeur, while her luggage was loaded onto the Vittorio’s private motor launch.
It was early June, and as the boatman started the trip across the lagoon the sun was high in the sky and the light glinted on the water. Surrounded by so much bright beauty Dulcie briefly forgot her sadness.
To her right she could see the causeway linking Venice to the mainland. A train was making its way across. On the other side the lagoon stretched far away to the horizon.
‘There, signorina,’ the boatman said, speaking with the pride all Venetians feel in their city.
What she saw at first were shining orbs, gradually resolving themselves into golden cupolas, gleaming in the sun. The city itself, delicate and perfect, came gradually into view, taking her breath away with its beauty. She stayed motionless, not wanting to miss anything, as the motor boat slowed down.
‘We have to enter Venice gently,’ the driver explained, ‘so that we do not cause any large waves. This is the Cannaregio Canal, which will take us to the Grand Canal, and the Vittorio.’
Suddenly the brightness of the lagoon was blotted out and they were drifting in shadow between high buildings. Dulcie resumed her seat and leaned back, looking up to the narrow strip of sky overhead. After a few minutes they were in sunlight again, heading down the Grand Canal to a magnificent seventeenth-century palace. The Hotel Vittorio.
At the landing-stage hands reached down to help her up the steps and guide her into the hotel. She made a stately entrance, followed by porters bearing her luggage in procession.
‘The Empress Suite,’ declared a lofty individual on the desk.
‘The Emp—?’ she echoed, dismayed. ‘Are you sure there hasn’t been a mistake?’
But she was already being swept away to the third floor where gilded double doors opened before her and she walked into the palatial apartment. Everything about it was designed to look like the abode of an empress, including the eighteenth-century furniture. On one wall hung a portrait of the beautiful, young Empress Elisabeth of Austria, painted in the nineteenth century when Venice had been an Austrian province.
To one side was another pair of double doors, through which Dulcie found her bedroom, with a bed large enough to sleep four. She gasped, overwhelmed by such opulence. A maid appeared, ready to unpack her luggage. Just in time she remembered Roscoe’s orders to ‘splash it about a bit’ and distributed tips large enough to get herself talked about even in this place.
When everyone had gone she sat in silence, trying to come to terms with the shock of being here, alone, when she should have been here as a blissful bride.
She forced herself to confront the memory of Simon, painful though it was. He’d assumed that Lady Dulcie Maddox, daughter of Lord Maddox, must have a potful of family money hidden somewhere. He’d courted her ardently, using practised words to sweep her away in a magic balloon, to a place where everything was love and gratification.
But the balloon had fallen to earth, with her in it.
Simon had lived lavishly—all on credit, as she’d later discovered. She hadn’t cared about his money, only about his love. But the one was as illusory as the other.
He’d shown her the Hotel Vittorio’s brochure one evening when they were dining at the Ritz. ‘I’ve already made our honeymoon booking,’ he’d said, ‘in the Empress Suite.’
‘But darling, the cost—’
‘So what? Money is for spending.’
She’d spoken with passionate tenderness. ‘You don’t have to spend a lot on me. Money isn’t what it’s about.’
His quizzical frown should have warned her. ‘No, sweetie, but it helps.’
Then she’d said—and the memory tormented her still— ‘You don’t think I’m marrying you for your money do you? I love you, you. I wouldn’t care if you were as poor as I am.’
She could still see the wary look that came into his eyes, and sense the chill that settled over him. ‘This is a wind up, right? As poor as Lady Dulcie Maddox.’
‘You can’t eat a title. I haven’t a penny.’
‘I heard your grandfather blew twenty grand at the races in one day.’
‘That’s right. And my father was the same. That’s why I haven’t a penny.’
‘But you lot have all got trust funds, everyone knows that.’
The truth had got through to her now, but she fought not to face it. ‘Do I live like someone with a trust fund?’
‘Go on, you’re just slumming.’
She’d finally convinced him that she wasn’t, and that was the last time she saw him. Her final memory was of him snatching a credit card statement from his pocket and tossing it at her with the bitter words, ‘Do you know how much money I’ve spent on you? And for what? Well, no more.’
Then he stormed out of the Ritz, leaving her to pay for the meal.
And that had been that.
Sitting in the quiet of the Empress Suite Dulcie knew that it was time to pull herself together. Now there was another fortune hunter, but this time he was the prey and she the pursuer, seeking him out for retribution, the avenger of all women.
