The Corfu Affair - Phillifent John T.. Страница 10

"Who's he?"

"You'll see." There was a chill silence for a while, then she said, reverting to her former theme: "Just don't laugh when she starts on about the body beautiful. She takes that kind of thing very seriously."

Despite the desperate situation, Solo had to grin. "I can't wait to see her sale's pitch. I'll bet it's something terrific, with the assets she has. She might even sell me on a nose retread."

Miss Winter sniffed. "I'd always thought French women were—well––subtle. You know? But she is downright crude at times. She doesn't hint at all. She comes right out with it."

"I had noticed."

"You know, she once said to me, 'Marie Antoinette achieved her fame because she was a beautiful woman and was not ashamed of it. She had a bigger bust than Jayne Mansfield. And mine is bigger still!' Imagine anyone bothering to point out a thing like that. As if it mattered!"

Solo grinned again, but without much mirth. The picture he saw for himself was bleak in the extreme. She halted the car for the gate, got out and inserted her long arm through the bars to operate the button, and then they drove in and up to the courtyard of the palace, under a low-pitched arch way that faced a short flight of marble steps up to the main door. As they climbed the steps yellow light spilled out into the dusk from the open doors. Once inside, a mosaic floor repeated his footsteps loudly. The distant walls on either side were painted and pillared, the pillars set at intervals of one yard. Between each pillar was a pedestal, and each pedestal was occupied by a white stone statue. Solo tried to take it all in with one comprehensive glance, but then he had to halt and look again. He lifted his brows.

"You'll get used to it," Miss Winter told him. "They shook me at first, but after a while you have to admit they are extremely good."

She was quite right. He cast his eye again over the array of nudes, and nodded. Seen all at once, they were overpowering, but when he devoted time to studying each one, he had to admit that the sculptor had created something very close to perfection. The idealized human form in either sex and in many different attitudes, could hardly be bettered as inspiration for someone so fanatically devoted to making people beautiful. And there she was herself, standing in the far doorway, awaiting him.

Solo strode boldly forward with a smile. For the occasion, she had put on a billowing froth of white stuff that began low on her bosom and drifted to the floor in delicate folds. As she moved towards him the garment swirled like white mist. She gave him her hand, with a dazzling smile.

"You are welcome, M. Summers. How do you like my figures? Do you think they have better ones in the Achilleion?"

"I doubt," he said, "that anyone can improve on perfection. Miss Winter tells me your work is to improve the appearance, but if this is the standard you're aiming at you must be pretty frustrated. Ordinary humans can't hope to look like that."

"Perhaps not. They are ideal. I had them specially made for me. I have others, as you shall see. But now you must come and meet my guests."

She led him through the door into a room that would have made him breathless by itself, but he had very little time to waste on it. One fast glance was all he could spare for the precious carpet on the floor, the magnificent tapes tries that clothed the walls, the carved and brocaded furnishings, and the glowingly painted ceiling. In the next breath he was staring at the company and realizing his worst fears.

"Senor Salvador Morales," she said. "M. Summers." And Solo met the dark eyes of the grey-haired and leonine old conquistador, watching for a glimmer of recognition.

But none came, to his relief, for Solo knew him well enough as the controlling brain behind Thrush-Madrid. He bowed, moved on, and confronted a thick-set, almost bald man with a bristle moustache and glass-cold grey eyes. The Countess told him, although he hardly needed telling, that this was "Herr Doktor Heinrich Klasser." Solo knew his nickname as 'Killer Klasser', and that he had his own unspeakable ways with experimental surgery, on subjects who were never asked to volunteer.

Next was a hulking, black-browed, black-haired bull of a man whom she introduced as Ricco Vassi, known to Solo as covering vast areas of Italy, his job being to superintend and expedite any operations commanded by his Thrush seniors. Fourth and last was a lean and patrician elder, who rested one gracious elbow on a carved mantelpiece and wore his dignity like a cloak. When his hostess called this man Dr. Andre Cabari, of Uruguay, Solo had to think hard for a moment. Then he had it. Social scientist, crowd manipulator, revolutionary, the man who made things happen in quiet but devastating ways, merely by talking carefully to the right people at the right time.

What a bunch! Solo carefully drew a deep breath and realized he was perspiring. He used his handkerchief.

"It's a warm night," he pointed out, and the Countess shook a finger at him in criticism.

"You are out of condition. You Americans! All the time you worry about plumbing, but you never seem to realize that there are other ways of keeping the body clean. You neglect the largest organ of the body."

Before he could protest, the sound of a brazen gong shivered on the air and a pair of massive double-doors swung back. She took his arm and led him into a dining room that would have put Hollywood's most lavish movie set to shame. The marble floor gleamed. A long refectory table stood in the middle of a priceless carpet. Tapestries and shawls glowed on the walls and a fountain chattered happily to itself within a recess that might once have been a stately fireplace but was now an indoor garden. Light from four glorious chandeliers reflected the gleaming polished wood of the table and the glittering glass and silver which were arranged on it.

But what caught Solo's eye and held it for a breathless second was yet another member of the gathering. This man stood erect like a footman just inside the door and at first glance would have passed for another of the statues, except that he was flesh-colored. It cost Solo a second look and a near-stumble to be sure, then the Countess laughed gently in his ear.

"That is Adam, who will wait on us. You still think ordinary humans cannot be perfect?"

He was still trying to think of a good reply as they settled in their seats. These were huge carved chairs that had obviously come from some cathedral, and he would have wondered at them and all the other magnificent pieces that filled the room, if there had not been so much on his mind that he could only dredge up folly.

"There's nothing wrong with my liver, Countess!" he protested, and it took her a moment or two to hark back to their previous gambit. Then she laughed again.

"Your liver? Oh no, M. Summers. I meant your skin. It is a doctor's joke, you see. The skin is the largest organ of the body. You did not know that? It is true. And it is much more important than you think. How much of your skin can breathe? Only your face and hands. That is bad. Look, my garment allows all my skin to breathe. You see?" She struck a pose that made her point strikingly obvious, then gestured to the living statue she had called Adam. The six-foot-three herculean figure was now in cat-like motion, bringing dishes and a salver. Solo looked. The man wore only a loin-cloth in stark white, and his face was absolutely expressionless. "You see my Adam, also, see how perfect he is?" She spoke quite loudly but the servile giant showed not a sign of having heard. The Countess swept the rest of the company with an arrogant eye and proceeded to elaborate.