The Bernini Bust Read Online Free PDF

came the sound of Samuel Thanet trying to get the attention of the assembled gathering. Silence gradually fell, and Thanet’s high-pitched, reedy voice eventually began to be heard. As everybody knew, he said, this party was in honour of Mr. Moresby’s visit to the museum.
    A respectful silence greeted this news, with the museum staff pondering their sins as though Thanet had suddenly upped and announced the second coming. It was a rather soupy speech, to Argyll’s way of thinking, a bit over-reverential in the almost hushed way in which he referred to the Great Man. Had the said Great Man been there, this would have been almost understandable. But Moresby hadn’t even arrived yet. Being nice to people behind their backs was going too far.
    Apart from dropping heavy hints about what Moresby was going to say when he arrived, the speech did little except satisfy one small item of curiosity, which was the contents of the box which di Souza had brought over with him for Langton. In fact Argyll had been too busy pondering the implications of the proposed move back to London to wonder very much about this, but he listened with due care and attention as Thanet said he had a preliminary announcement to make about the museum’s latest acquisition.
    As he was sure everybody knew, he said, the Moresby’s growth strategy - detestable term for a museum, thought Argyll, but let it pass - was to target specific areas of western art, and become world leaders in them. Impressionism, neo-classical, and baroque were high on the agenda, and much progress had been made to date.
    Argyll shifted from foot to foot and leant over to di Souza.
    “So what are they doing buying twelve priceless works of Roman sculpture?” he asked sarcastically. Di Souza gave him a nasty look.
    “And what are they doing buying a Titian?” he countered.
    Then the Spaniard held up his hand for silence. Thanet was at last getting to the interesting bit. Particularly, he was saying, they had decided to give new emphasis to baroque sculpture, and he was proud to announce that, in accordance with the Moresby’s tradition of excellence - di Souza snorted - their latest acquisition in this field was a piece of unsurpassed importance. Although it was still in a packing case in Thanet’s office, he was happy to announce that the museum would shortly be putting on display a masterpiece by that superlative artist of the Roman Baroque, Gianlorenzo Bernini. The museum now had in its possession the master’s long-lost portrait bust of Pope Pius V.
    Both Argyll and Jack were standing next to di Souza, glass in hand, when this announcement was made, and were thus in a position to hear the sharp intake of breath and gargling sound which erupted from the Spaniard’s throat as he choked in mid-martini. They also witnessed the rapid change of expression - from surprise, to alarm and on to anger - which flitted across his face as he digested this announcement.
    “Don’t worry,” said Jack, patting him on the back. “This place has that effect on everybody.”
    “What’s the matter?” Argyll asked. “Jealous?”
    Di Souza downed his drink in a gulp. “Not exactly,” he replied. “Just heart failure. Excuse me a moment.”
    And with that he shot off in the direction of Samuel Thanet. Argyll’s curiosity was piqued so, with as much subtlety as he could manage, he sidled over to see what was going on. Quite a lot, evidently, although most of the conversation seemed to be coming from di Souza. While clearly angry about something, he was at least in sufficient control to keep his voice down, otherwise the cheery atmosphere at the party might well have been severely damaged.
    Argyll didn’t catch it all, but the words ‘worrying’ and ‘alarming’ wafted in his general direction as he drew near. Di Souza seemed to be demanding to speak to Mr. Moresby.
    There was a lot — especially of Thanet’s attempts to pacify — that Argyll didn’t pick up. Also in earshot,