The Seventh Sinner - Elizabeth Peters [2]
“Here.”
Jacqueline jammed them into her chignon, seemingly at random, but the heavy coil remained miraculously in place. Jean rose to her feet, holding the purse.
“You missed the box of Band-Aids,” Jacqueline said. “Behind the potted palm. And that’s my rock, under the bust of Aristotle.”
“Your rock,” Jean repeated stupidly. She gathered up that item, and the Band-Aids, and an eyebrow pencil which had previously eluded her, and resisted the temptation to inquire whether Jacqueline didn’t want Aristotle too. The cold green eyes fixed on her discouraged levity. But as she handed over the purse she couldn’t resist saying,
“I used to think men were unfair when they made jokes about women’s purses.”
“I like to have things available.” Jacqueline peered myopically into the purse. “I don’t think you got everything, Jean. I don’t see the flashlight, or that bottle of—”
“Maybe if you put your glasses on,” Jean said, offering them.
“Don’t I have them on? Oh. No, I don’t. Thank you.”
Jacqueline put the spectacles on, and Jean stared. The transformation was complete. Glasses, demure coiffure, modest dress—a well-bred middle-aged lady rooted through her overflowing handbag, muttering ladylike middle-aged epithets like “drat” and “blast.”
“Hey,” Michael said, grinning. “I think we’ve found a friend, Jean. Come on, Jacqueline. We’ll buy you a drink, to settle your nerves.”
“Why don’t you have a slug of that?” Jean suggested, as Jacqueline, with a murmur of satisfaction, produced the miniature green bottle from the depths of the purse.
Jacqueline stared at her.
“Drink this? It’s for my cat.”
“Naturally,” Michael said. “A feline aphrodisiac, no doubt. Or does it turn the cat into a woman, in the dark of the moon?”
“A little old lady in Trastevere makes it,” Jacqueline said. “But it isn’t really my cat. It—”
“It owns you. We know.” Michael took her firmly by the elbow. “Come along, Jacqueline. You need something. I’m not sure what, but you’ll have to settle for an espresso.”
“Gino’s?” Jean said uncertainly. “Michael, do you think the others will—”
“Don’t let me intrude,” Jacqueline said primly.
Tidy and bespectacled, she had the reserved dignity Jean associated with visiting maiden aunts and high-school Latin teachers. Jean found her formidable, quite a different person from the green-eyed witch sprawled across the Institute’s marble floor. Michael was not intimidated. He took a firmer grip on Jacqueline’s arm and said,
“The others will be fascinated.”
II
As always, Jean was fascinated by the contrast between the grounds of the Institute and the street beyond the high enclosing wall. The Institute was housed in one of the stately old trans-Tiber villas, and its gardens were famous. The somber pointed cypresses and the famous umbrella pines formed a dark background for colorful masses of azaleas, bougainvillea, and oleander, and gave shade to the white marble benches scattered about.
The aristocratic villa withdrew, fastidiously, from the plebeian buildings which had sprung up around it, and from the crowded, noisy street. The shop fronts bore garish advertisements of the products to be found within, and the crumbling brown plaster of the walls carried copies of those proclamations to the citizenry in which the city government rejoiced. They were unsightly notices, flapping long tatters of dirty paper in the air, but Jean had never gotten over her thrill at the sight of the black initial letters which had two thousand years of dignity behind them. S.P.Q.R.—Senatus Populusque Romanus. The Senate and the People of Rome. Corrupt and crippled as the symbol had become, it still recalled the first great republic.
Gino’s café was small and open-fronted, with a few rickety tables and chairs set out on the sidewalk. It had only one advantage over others in the area—the view. Located on top of a hill, it permitted its patrons to look out across a vista of trees and rooftops to where the dome of St. Peter’s hovered among the clouds. In