The Modigliani Scandal - Ken Follett [54]
″Where are you staying?″
″In Rimini. What about you—are you wanderers too?″
The girl started to say something, but the man interrupted her. ″We′re on a kind of treasure hunt,″ he said.
Lipsey thanked his stars for the boyfriend′s naivete. ″How fascinating,″ he said. ″What′s at the end of it?″
″A valuable painting, we hope.″
″Is it here, in Poglio?″
″Almost. There′s a chateau five miles up the road.″ He pointed south. ″We think it′s there. We′re going there in a while.″
Lipsey made his smile condescending. ″Well, it makes a holiday exciting—a bit out of the ordinary—even if you never find the treasure.″
″You bet.″
Lipsey drained his beer. ″Personally, I′ve seen enough of Poglio. I′m moving on.″
″Let me buy you another beer.″
″No, thanks. I′m in a car, and there′s a long, thirsty day ahead.″ He stood up. ″A pleasure to meet you. Goodbye.″
The Fiat was terribly hot inside, and Lipsey regretted not having the foresight to park it in the shade. He wound his window down and pulled away, letting the breeze cool him. He felt pleased: the couple had given him a lead, and let him get ahead of them. For the first time since he had started work on the case, he was on top of it.
He drove out on the southward road, in the direction the American had pointed. The road became dusty. He wound up his window and turned on the car′s air conditioning at full blast When it was cool again, he stopped to look at his maps.
The large-scale chart revealed that there was, indeed, a château to the south. It seemed more than five miles away—perhaps ten—but it was still quite conceivable that its postal address would be Poglio. It was slightly off the main road—if main road it could be called—and Lipsey memorized the directions.
The journey took him half an hour, because of the poorness of the roads and the absence of signposts. But when he arrived there was no mistaking the place. It was a big house, built about the same time as the church in Poglio. It had three stories, and there were fairy-tale towers at the corners of the facade. Bits of the stonework were crumbling, and the windows were not clean. A separate stables building had apparently been converted into a garage, and its doors stood open, revealing a gas-driven lawn mower and a very old Citröen station wagon.
Lipsey parked outside the gates and walked up the short drive. Weeds grew in the gravel, and as he got closer to the house it looked more and more dilapidated.
As he stood looking up at the house, a door opened and an elderly woman walked toward him. He wondered what approach to take.
″Good morning,″ she said in Italian.
Her gray hair was neat, she was elegantly dressed, and the bones of her face indicated that she had once been beautiful. Lipsey gave a small bow.
″I beg your pardon for this intrusion,″ he said.
″Don′t apologize.″ She had switched to English. ″How can I help you?″
Lipsey had learned enough about her to decide on his approach. ″I wonder whether one is permitted to look around the outside of this beautiful house.″
″Of course,″ the woman smiled. ″It is pleasant to find someone interested. I am the Contessa di Lanza.″ She extended her hand, and Lipsey shook it, mentally revising his estimate of his chances of success to around 90 percent.
″Dunsford Lipsey, Contessa.″
She led him around to the side of the house. ″It was built in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, when all the land around here was given to the family as a reward for service in some war or other. That was the time Renaissance architecture finally filtered through to the countryside.″
″Ah. Then it was built about the same time as the church in Poglio.″
She nodded in agreement. ″Are you interested in architecture, Mr. Lipsey?″
″I am interested in beauty, Contessa.″
He could see that she was suppressing a smile, and thinking that this stiffly formal Englishman had a certain eccentric