“Friends! When you have stolen the love of my life!” She rolled hereyes again and made a few more gestures of high drama whilst the rest of us looked on. “I am a woman bereft!” she cried before launching into a vaguely unintelligible soliloquy.
“Do you think she is winding down?” I asked Stoker in a loud whisper. “Only I am feeling rather peckish, and if she means to go on much longer, I might have to ask Tilly for a cream cake.”
Something of what I said must have penetrated Salome’s fugue of despair, for she picked herself up from the carpet where she had flung herself and dusted off her hands.
“What do you think?” She rose smiling, her accent dropping once more into plain Bedfordshire. “I’m trying for a part in the proper theatre. I fancy being a tragedienne.”
“So you are not pining for love of me?” Stoker asked in a bewildered tone.
Her laugh was raucous. “A likely thing,” she scoffed, “when I’ve a husband now.” She waggled her left hand in front of his nose, the ring on her finger glowing softly gold in the lamplight.
“Hearty congratulations to him and best wishes for your happiness,” I told her.
“Thank you, Veronica.” She gave me a narrow look, then assessed Stoker before turning back to me. “Made an honest woman of you yet?”
“No, thank god,” I replied fervently.
“If we have concluded the preliminaries,” the professor put in smoothly, “I think we might move to the business of why you have come.”
Stoker and I exchanged glances. We had discussed our approach on the journey, and we were in agreement. The professor was a clever fellow who had been born without advantages. In his experience of the world, it was necessary to hide one’s motives, to cloak one’s goals in mystery. Every movement was that of a chess piece, shrouded in stratagems and secrecy. He trusted no one, not even his own twin, and the only possible approach in this situation was one of obliquity.
“I spent some years travelling with this show,” Stoker pointed out quietly. “Can a man not indulge in a bit of nostalgia?”
“Nostalgia?” The professor’s slender white brows rose. “My dear Stoker, you possess as many soft emotions as a cart horse. Fewer, I should think. A cart horse may demonstrate loyalty.”
Beside me I felt Stoker bristle, and I hurried to take the reins of the conversation before matters galloped wildly out of control.
“I am afraid the intrusion is entirely my fault,” I said, offering a winsome smile. “I have become quite interested in the subject of anatomical models, and Stoker informed me one used to travel with your entourage.”
The professor’s lips thinned in an expression of mild reproof. “Entourage? Family, my dear! We are a family.”
Tilly snorted into her cream cake. “That’s a laugh, that is. Turn any one of us out on our pretty arses if we didn’t bring in the brass, and that’s the truth.”
The professor gave her a sour look by which she seemed blithely unbothered before turning back to me. “You were saying, my dear?”
“The Anatomical Venus,” I reminded him.
“Ah, yes! Signore Branzino. How could one forget? Well, if you meant to visit him, he is long gone from here. He grew too old for the traveller’s life,” he said, spreading his hands. They were elegant, long-fingered and graceful, and he used them to excellent effect.
“Where might we find him now?” Stoker inquired.
The professor shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. He left us with little fanfare and less notice.”
“Is his name really Branzino or is that anom de cirque?” I asked.
He shrugged again as a tiny smile played about his malicious mouth. He was enjoying this entirely too much. Whatever his reasons for disliking Stoker—and I had no interest in rummaging through the doubtlessly unholy chaos of the professor’s mind—he relished theopportunity to toy with him. Of course, one might just as unwisely poke at a bear with a sharp stick, but the professor would have his amusement.
I could sense Stoker’s irritation rising. I had no fear he would harm the professor—Stoker would never strike a man older or smaller than himself—but the resulting ruffled temper would be tedious to endure. He could often be soothed back into good humour with sweets or a rousing bout of physical congress, but this was hardly the place for amorous couplings and Tilly kept a close grasp upon her cream cakes.
“Come now,” I said firmly to Stoker. “The professor has no wish to help us, and I am not surprised. He has not improved with age.”
The professor gave a sharp bark of a laugh, like a fox, and his eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “Come again whenever you like,” he said with a broad smile as he threw his arms wide. “It is always so amusing to see you.”
I tugged Stoker out of the tent before he gave vent to the worst of his spleen. As it was, I had to endure several minutes of fluent profanity before I rummaged in his pocket and extracted an old rock cake wrapped in a scrap of greaseproof paper. I stuffed it into his mouth. “Eat that, and do stop raging. I shall have a headache soon if you carry on.”
He chewed and swallowed before speaking, and when he did, his tone was somewhat mollified. “Sorry. I forgot what a thoroughgoingbastardhe is—”
I held up a hand and followed the cake with the tin of honeycomb from my own emergency stores. “If you do not hush, I will be forced to feed you something much less tasty. Like my cold cream.”