The Monster of Florence Read Online Free Page A

you’ve certainly got it all worked out, this nice big space you can keep cool to suit your clay, nobody around to disturb you.” The Marshal shivered at the thought of such an existence. How odd a man he was. Such a fierce intelligence, incisive, aggressive even, and yet so easy to distract. Was that because so many things made him angry so that he attacked anything that caught his attention like a tormented bull? Or was he just so unused to social intercourse that he had no experience of controlling conversation? If that were the case then the Marshal had the advantage over him. He was very used to controlling the conversation, chiefly by power of inertia. How very different from Benozzetti, who was on his feet again now, perhaps anxious for his visitor to leave. So be it. The Marshal stood up and waited in silence to be sent away. But Benozzetti strode to the back of the long room.
    “Come here.”
    The Marshal was only too pleased to obey the summons which took him past the two great safes. There was no sense risking a question about those at this stage …
    He pulled himself up mentally. What was he thinking about? This wasn’t a case he was on! He had to remind himself that the lineabout being a friend of the family and so on was actually the truth as well. There was no reason why he should ever set foot into this place again; once he’d convinced Benozzetti to go round to Marco’s studio and see the painting, his part was finished.
    “Over here!”
    Well, there wasn’t time to work out whether he’d convinced him or not … where the devil had the man got to?
    “Here, Marshal.”
    He was behind a huge easel and was carefully lifting a cloth that shrouded the painting standing on it. The Marshal’s heart sank. There was little doubt that he was about to be shown a painting and even less doubt that if he opened his mouth about it he’d make a fool of himself. Every time he was obliged to attend the opening of some exhibition in the Palatine Gallery at the Palazzo Pitti where his station was, his wife would remind him, “Just keep quiet, Salva, and listen to what Dr. Biondini says. You might learn something.” And he did his best, but though what Dr. Biondini, the director of the gallery, said was very clear and sensible when he was saying it, the Marshal couldn’t remember anything of it for more than a few minutes. Then when Biondini was kind enough, as he always was, to come and welcome him and ask him what he thought of the exhibition he always seemed to say the wrong thing. Sometimes he just looked puzzled and kind and quickly spotted someone he was obliged to go and speak to. The thing about Biondini was that, though he knew such a lot, he never gave himself airs or made you feel badly about not knowing, so it wasn’t that much of an ordeal. The Marshal, rounding the easel, had a feeling that Benozzetti was a very different kettle of fish and that he’d do best to take his wife’s advice and keep his mouth shut.
    “Ah …” The Marshal’s sigh of relief escaped him before he knew it.
    “Yes, I’m glad you appreciate it. I’m showing it to you to demonstrate something. Of course it’s a beautiful painting.”
    “Beautiful,” said the Marshal contentedly. He could manage thisone all right. What was beautiful about the painting, as far as he was concerned, was that he was as familiar with it as he was with his own face in the mirror. It was the one that hung on the wall of the second room in the Palatine Gallery and next to it stood a commodious chair in which reposed, for a large part of the day, his good friend and fellow Sicilian Mario Di Luciano, a custodian. Mario came from the same little town in the province of Siracusa and he liked to chat about old times down home. The Marshal reckoned he’d probably spent as much time standing in front of that picture as Titian had. What a stroke of luck.
    Benozzetti was roaring on, working himself into a lather about the quality of modern