A Terrible Beauty (32 page)

“He uncovered your plan?” I asked.

“No, nothing of the sort. He needed my help with his tent and in the course of trying to assist him, I tripped and fell. I went over the edge near our camp, and when he tried to help me, he fell, but further and with greater force. It was my fault. My fault.”

“We will have no more of that,” I said. “It does not matter now.”

“Will you ever be able to forgive me?” His voice was growing weaker.

“I already have,” I said, and kissed him on the forehead. He continued to give me the details of his subterfuge as long as he was physically able.

“He who dies in youth and vigor dies the best,”
he said, struggling to form the words as he quoted Homer's description of the death of the noble Hector. Tears smarted in my eyes.

They were his last words. He was not unconscious, and opened his eyes intermittently, but he could no longer speak. I sat with him, holding his hand as his breathing grew increasingly ragged, and I felt a deep sadness when at last it stopped. I choked back a sob, closed his eyes, and pulled myself to my feet. Colin, who had been no more than thirty feet away the entire time, came to me.

“It is over?” he asked. I nodded. He looked at Mr. Jones's body and sighed. “I am more sorry for him than I would have expected. I do hate to rush you, but—”

“Demir will be expecting me in Fira,” I said. “We can't just leave him here.”

Colin fetched blankets from the camp, wrapped Mr. Jones in them, and then carried him into the stoa of the ancient city. “We cannot bring him any further now,” he said. “I will ask the men in the village to send someone up for him and the injured Turk. They will be able to keep him secure until the authorities arrive. I am afraid we will have to rush to make it to Fira in time for your appointment. Would you like me to meet Demir in your place?”

“No,” I said. “I will need you there, of course, but I would not dream of missing the opportunity to bring that horrible man to justice.”

 

24

We rode hard and reached Fira in time to send a message to the others at the villa, telling them not to worry and to remain where they were. We gathered reinforcements in the form of a select handful of persons whom Colin had arranged to have present and took our places at the taverna, which was empty except for the members of our group, who were scattered casually amongst the tables. I chose a seat on the terrace, in a chair whose back was placed against the railing, and ordered mountain tea. Colin, next to me, consumed cup after cup of thick Greek coffee. I watched the others, whom my husband had coached to behave as if they did not know us, as we all waited. An hour later than our appointed time, a tall man approached, with the coloring of a Turk and the dapper elegance of an English gentleman. His pale linen suit, finely tailored, and his winning smile caught me off guard. There was no hint of menace in his appearance, and had I ever subscribed to the theories of physiognomy, I would have abandoned them on the spot.

He bowed to me as he approached and then took my hand and kissed it. “You are an unexpected Athena,” he said. “I thought the goddess would be Greek.”

“It is my nom de guerre,” I said. “Much as I imagine Demir is yours.”

“No, no,” he said. “May I sit?” I nodded and he took the chair across from me—I had deliberately left for him the one with the best view—and perpendicular to Colin. “Is this your henchman?”

“No, I am her husband,” Colin said. “I have a funny habit of not liking her to engage in transactions without me present. Your colleagues are not always polite. I do hope I can expect better from you.”

“I apologize on their behalf,” he said. “To answer your question, yes, Demir is my name. I have no reason to hide it. I am a man of honor who seeks only to connect people with objects they cannot find anywhere else.”

Colin betrayed not the slightest emotion through all this, and I greatly admired his skillful subterfuge. I was having a difficult time sitting calmly instead of rising to my feet and giving a very stern lecture on the evils of murder and antiquities trading.

“Yes, yes,” Colin said. “I see now there is no need for me to be here. Do you mind, darling? I might just go for a smoke and see if I can find a newspaper anywhere in this town.”

“Of course,” I said. We had discussed every contingency of our plan in advance. He would never be more than a few steps away, and we hoped Demir would speak more freely to me alone. Men, I have found, generally underestimate ladies.

“Your husband is a very trusting man,” Demir said.

“That he is,” I said, smiling. “He knows I prefer tending to business on my own, yet insists on accompanying me until, as he likes to say, he gets a handle on things. You are interested in my offer?”

“If you truly have the Achilles bronze—”

“Do you doubt me?” I asked.

“I understood it to have been in the possession of another of your countrymen.”

“Yes, Chapman. Do you know him well?” I asked.

“Well enough to know better than to trust him,” Demir said.

“It is irrelevant now. He is dead,” I said, shrugging. “As is the unsavory individual you sent to deal with him. I do not like messes, Demir. They trouble me. I do not like to do business with someone who causes them.”

“That is not my usual manner, I assure you.” His English was very good. “Unfortunately, in my line of work, there are times when my suppliers begin to make unreasonable demands and I must discourage them, but you need not worry about that.”

“I am willing to sell you the bronze, for the price I sent you, but only if you agree to offer me your best pieces before they go to anyone else.”

“The price you ask is already too high,” he said. “Why should I agree to further terms as well?”

“So you are agreeing to my price?” I asked.

“I am confident we will agree on a price,” he said, “but these things take time. You have the item in question with you?”

“What sort of amateur do you take me for?” I asked. “I will invite you to see it only after we have reached an agreement.” I waved for service. “I assume you would like a libation?” I asked the waiter to bring him tea without allowing Demir to answer. “I understand the customs of your country, so you shall have your tea, and we shall sit and talk, but I warn you I will not change my terms.”

“I do not object to your terms, only your price,” he said. “I will sell nothing before first giving you the chance to buy it.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Now tell me what I can expect you to have on offer soon.”

He leaned forward. “I do not like to discuss such things. It is bad luck.”

“Then tell me what you have now.”

“I have much coming out of Cyprus, from a site where no Westerners are currently digging. I have a new connection at Ephesus who sends me enough for you to feel it is like your Christmas, and my men in Delos and Macedonia are most reliable. What do you like? Pots? Jewelry? Statues? Friezes? I have them all.”

“It sounds like quite an inventory,” I said. “Where is your gallery? I should like to visit.”

He laughed, but did not answer until the waiter, who had just brought his tea, was gone. “You know I cannot have a gallery. You will have to come to my home, in Constantinople.”

“You keep everything there?” I asked. “How cunning. No one suspects you are running what is, if I may state my own opinion on the matter, the greatest illegal antiquities operation in the western hemisphere?”

“No one ever has,” he said. “But I do not like the word
illegal
.”

“Quite. It sounds so harsh,” I said. “The Achilles bronze is extremely valuable. It would be a worthy addition to your collection. I am certain any houseguests you entertain would admire it.”

“I agree, if we can settle on a mutually acceptable price.”

“When can I visit your home? I plan to be in Constantinople next month. May I call on you?”

“I will look forward to it with pleasure. Only tell me where you are staying, and I shall send my driver to fetch you.”

“Very good,” I said. “How can I reach you once I am there?”

“Go to my brother's shop. He sells spices in the Grand Bazaar. Give him this statue”—he pulled out of his jacket a small bronze Hermes identical to the ones I had already seen—“and he will take care of everything. The messenger god will tell him you are someone I trust.”

“And the location of the shop? I know the bazaar can prove more daunting than Minos' labyrinth,” I said. He passed me a card with the information, including a small map, printed on it. “I am grateful. Grateful enough to lower my price for you by twenty percent.”

“Thirty?” he asked.

“Twenty-five. I must, after all, keep my husband in cigars.”

He laughed. “You are a delight. Twenty-five it is. I will have to verify the authenticity of the piece, of course.”

“I don't think that will be necessary,” Colin said, taking advantage of my having left Demir the chair facing the caldera, and coming upon him from behind. “We already have everything we need.”

“It is nothing but a formality, I assure you,” Demir said. He stopped talking and rose from his seat as the men at the tables surrounding ours gathered close around.

The tallest—and broadest—who served as a policeman of sorts on the island, gripped Demir's hands and twisted them behind his back. “You can talk more in prison,” he said. “For now, as you have already been told, we have everything we need.”

“I have been tricked,” Demir said. “This woman is a charlatan. I have not even taken possession of the item we were discussing.”

“I am the mayor of this town,” said the man who had shared a table with the policeman. “We heard enough, and I can promise you my testimony will be held in high regard. No more will you steal our cultural treasures.”

Demir made one attempt to break away, but was quickly—and thoroughly—subdued. Along with the mayor, police officials from Athens, the Keeper of the Ministry of Religion and Education, who oversaw the Acropolis and other archaeological sites in Greece, and several people from the Antiquities Department witnessed our conversation. My husband had summoned them all via telegram the night before when he had gone to Fira, believing at the time he would need them to deal with Philip, and had chartered a ship to bring them to Santorini overnight.

“A good day's work,” Colin said, once Demir was in custody and on the vessel that would transport him to Athens. We walked along the cliff path, hand in hand, back to the villa. “You are very persuasive, my dear, and by encouraging Demir to reveal what he did, have no doubt made a significant contribution to preserving the cultural heritage of the Greeks.”

“Now if I could only persuade my own countrymen to return the Parthenon Marbles to their rightful owners,” I said.

“You know full well Elgin obtained them legally,” Colin said. “He should not be held accountable for the decisions of the Turks, whom I need not remind you ruled Greece at the time.”

“So if occupying forces take over Britain, you would not object to them selling off the contents of the National Gallery?”

“The Elgin Marbles were not in a museum, Emily,” he said. “They were crumbling on the Acropolis. No one was looking after them, no one objected to their removal—”

“Ah, I see. You consider it a crime only when priceless treasures are removed from museums? And you assume the Greeks, who as you already pointed out were not in charge of the country, did not value the marbles? I can assure you that is not true. First, there is continuous evidence of people—Greeks included—visiting the Acropolis—”

“Not now, Emily,” he said, and stopped me from continuing with a kiss, taking advantage of our arrival on a stretch of the cliff path devoid of all buildings and, hence, people. “I do love your passion, and if you want Elgin's marbles returned to the Greeks, I would gladly bring them here myself were it possible. For now, though, I fear you must content yourself with what you have already accomplished today.”

“It is not simply a matter of what I want,” I said. “The marbles should be returned because they belong to the Greeks. We would not have even the beginnings of our civilization without them. We—”

He kissed me again, this time with an intensity fierce enough to drive all thoughts of the marbles out of my head. I did, however, make him promise we would continue the discussion later. After a pleasant interlude, we continued, hand in hand, along the path toward Imerovigli.

“Why didn't you tell me you knew Jones wasn't Ashton?” Colin asked.

“I would have last night if we had been together.”

“We were together all morning, alone, on the ride to Thera,” he said. “You even asked me if I believed him.”

“I suppose I hated the thought of being the person who caused you, once again, to lose your friend. I overheard a certain amount of the conversation between the two of you the night you sat outside talking.”

“A certain amount?” he asked.

“I am not proud of my actions, but you must try to imagine what it is like, believing your two husbands are discussing you.”

“I assure you we did nothing of the sort,” he said, “but I should have been more cautious with him.”

“As should I. He made it awfully easy for us both to believe what we wanted to. He really did look like Philip, at least as far as I remember, broken nose notwithstanding.”

“Can anyone remember details clearly after a decade?” Colin asked.

“I was primed almost to expect him,” I said. “First, there was the picture of the Parthenon addressed to
The Viscountess Ashton
. The next day, when we came home from the zoo, I found Philip's journal open on my desk in the library. I knew I hadn't left it there. I suspected Margaret, but Mr. Jones confessed that over the winter he had bribed one of the housemaids to bring it to him to read—easily enough done, as we weren't in residence—and then he studied it carefully. He paid even more for her to place it in the library, on my desk, shortly before we were to make our annual trip to Greece this spring.”