Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [99]
On the other hand, Signorina Donati had ended by turning against Gabriel, and might be willing to help, even if her relative were not. Philippa had not been able to find out whether there were any womenfolk in Marino Donati’s household, but she was going to. She said to Archie, ‘I don’t think we should mention Mr Crawford at all. We’ve come to sell Sheemy’s pearls, and I’m there to persuade the Donati ladies to buy them. Leave the rest all to me. You know. O boo de la thing.’
‘What?’ said Archie, in his turn.
‘You know. The thing they say about camels. At the end of the trau …’
‘You mean the thing Mr Crawford says,’ said Archie with ungenerous malice. ‘Au bout de la trace on trouve toujours ou le chameau ou le propriétaire du chameau.’
‘That’s it!’ said Philippa. ‘That’s it exactly. Only of course,’ she said cheerfully, ‘Mr Crawford says it in French.’
The first thing that was immediately plain about Marino Donati was that he was unmarried, and that this was not in any way a surprise. A big, stocky man with indigo jowls and a soapy brown dome blotched with pigment, he wore an embroidered silk robe, certainly not for comfort, over his sweaty, creased tunic, and an intaglio-cut ruby fastened his belt.
He showed no interest in the black pearl Sheemy offered him: rolled it irritably to and fro on his thick palm while referring, trenchantly, to the bad state of trade; and when Archie, unruffled, in passable Italian pointed out the ladies’ pleasure in trinkets, Signor Donati answered, shortly, that there were no women in his house but kitchenmaids, and he wouldn’t have those if the footmen could be induced to stay on without. Sheemy, genteel but casual, held out his hand for the black pearl, received it, and, untying a quantity of thin chamois, laid it prosaically among the three or four score perfect pearls thus revealed and began carefully to retie them.
Marino Donati let him actually put them away in his pouch before he said, with equal detachment, ‘I wouldn’t touch them myself, with the demand for coloured jewels this year. But if you have a few top quality matched pearls, I might know of a buyer. He would expect some concessions on price.’
‘Would he?’ said Sheemy. ‘Ah, he’s a man after my own heart. But what’s to be done; and the worms that proud that it takes a shower of golden zecchinis to open one little sneck? An oyster’s a hard man to cross.’
‘A Venetian,’ said Signor Donati bluntly, ‘is also strongly resistant to force. I am conversant with current prices.’
‘No more nor ye should be,’ said Sheemy with equal treachery. ‘But the latest prices of pearls, you’ll allow, is something I’m more likely to know. For example’—he flipped open the chamois—‘there is a pearl that a Queen could put in her ring. In Florence it would fetch forty ducats, and I’d take more than that at Anet.’
Lying on the table, the pearl shone sulkily and then, unaided, began to trundle slowly down the polished wood. The chamois shivered. Somewhere in the house something fell with a crash, and a child cried. As if at a signal, all the pearls in the chamois stirred, eyed one another and, jumping a little, ran out on to the wood and filled the table with a small and myriad droning.
They began to drop off. Sheemy, his hands all-embracing, his eyeballs glimmering white, began to sweep them towards him: Archie, fists cupped, tried to salve those that fell; Donati, ignoring them both, had half risen to his feet and, holding on to his chair, started to speak.
A chest slid past him. Another crash, lightly porous, told of fallen pottery, and was followed by other sounds of heavy objects falling, both indoors and out. Shouting started, and the barking of dogs, both drowned out almost immediately by the loud and irregular clanging of a