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By Root 3292 0

the circumstances of Trapnel’s life had not made Gwinnett’s behaviour less reserved. If anything, he was more farouche than before. Possibly he felt that to speak of the Commonplace Book had been indiscreet. Although he had emphasized that Trapnel’s ‘remains’ contained little of interest, many researchers in Gwinnett’s place might have kept the fact of its existence to themselves. In that respect he could not be called ‘cagey’, as Dr Brightman had characterized him at times. This lack of response was something less crude than ‘caginess’, almost suggesting terms like ‘alienation’ or ‘withdrawal.’ No doubt he was merely one of those persons, not so very uncommon, with whom every subsequent meeting after the first entails a fresh start from the beginning. The anxious air always remained. I should have liked to probe his views on the Ferrand-Sénéschal article, no more than skimmed, but something about Gwinnett’s manner made this not the moment.

‘Did you run across anyone you knew when you reconnoitred the Piazza last night?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘See anyone from the Conference?’

Gwinnett wriggled his neck.

‘No.’

He drawled out the negative, making it sound as if he thought the question in itself uncalled for, a trifle intrusive. I asked if he knew what the Palazzo would be like. Gwinnett was more responsive to that. He began to speak of Venetian architecture, of which he evidently knew something, going on to recommend the book written about Venice by William Dean Howells when American consul here. Then he abandoned porticos and pediments, and fell into a long silence, suggesting a mood to be left alone. We made our way through narrow calles towards an area beyond the Accademia. I wondered how best we could disembarrass ourselves of each other’s company without too blatantly seeming to do so. Suddenly Gwinnett came out of his dream with a sort of jerk, one of his characteristic nervous movements, which were not necessarily resentful. He spoke now as if referring to a matter he had been pondering for some little time, using that habitually low tone often hard to catch.

‘It seems Louis Glober is house-guest at the Palazzo.’

‘The publisher?’

‘Glober was that one time. He’s been a heap of other things too.’

‘When I met him years ago he was in publishing. That’s why I think of him as a publisher. I was in a firm that produced art books myself. He came to see us.’

‘Glober’s been more associated with pictures.’

‘Paintings, you mean, or films?’

‘Movies. I guess he owns some sort of a modern picture collection too.’

‘He was keen on paintings thirty years ago. He wanted my firm to do a series on the Cubists. That was when we met. It was quite a funny occasion. I wonder whether he remembers. Do you know him?’

Gwinnett shook his head.

‘I just saw a paragraph about him in the Continental Herald-Tribune. It said the well-known playboy-tycoon Louis Glober was here for the Film Festival, and was staying with Mr Jacky Bragadin.’

‘I thought Glober an amusing figure. Since then I’ve never done more than read about him in the paper in his playboy-tycoon capacity. I suppose he’s a typical Jacky Bragadin guest. Did the Herald-Tribune name any others?’

‘Just Glober. It seems he’s come on here from the German Grand Prix.’

‘Racing?’

‘Automobile racing. World Championship.’

‘He’s in that game too?’

‘Sure.’

To the eye of a fellow American I saw Glober must present a very different outline to that of my own remembrance. If not exactly the daily meat of the columnist, Louis Glober was a reasonably tasty snack, always available on the back shelf of the larder, where public personalities of a minor sort are stored in case of need. He was neither dished up too often to cause surfeit, nor left too long on ice to become stale. Contradictory features hampered his definition. The Herald-Tribune had termed him playboy-tycoon, this type-casting to cover publisher, film-producer, sportsman, ‘socialite’, a lot of other more or less news-valued labels, most with some basis in fact. The last photograph I had seen of Glober had been driving a vintage