The Etruscan Net by Michael Gilbert Page A

piece of presumption on my father’s part,’ said Tina.
    ‘It’s such a curious way of doing things. Why doesn’t he just come up here? That was an excellent glass of wine he gave me. I’d like to return his hospitality.’
    ‘He cannot come here.’
    ‘Why not?’
    Tina sighed. ‘He says he is being followed. If he tried to see you here, the men who are following him would prevent him.’
    Broke laid down his knife and fork and stared at her. ‘If he is being followed or interfered with, tell the Police.’
    ‘The Police could not arrest the men who are following him.’
    ‘Why on earth not?’
    ‘Because they exist only in his imagination.’
    During this, Broke had kept his eyes fixed on Tina. In fact, he was not thinking about her at all. He was glimpsing the terrifying bogies of loneliness and old age. But she shifted awkwardly under the stare of his grey eyes. She said, ‘It was an impertinence. Take no notice of it. He is getting very old, and shaky. He is a craftsman, you understand. And when a craftsman loses his cunning, and his occupation is gone, it throws him back upon himself, and he begins to imagine things. As his hand becomes less steady, his brain becomes less steady too.’
    ‘ Is he losing his skill? The last work he did for me was some of his best.’
    ‘He can still work well, but he breaks things. Mercurio said–’ She stopped suddenly as she remembered what Mercurio had said, and the blood rushed into her cheeks.
    ‘Well,’ Broke teased her, ‘what did Mercurio say to you?’
    She told him. Broke did not laugh with her, when she had finished her account of the very half-hearted effort of seduction. He said, ‘I have met the young man. Speaking for myself, I neither like him, nor trust him.’
    ‘ É un finocchio ,’ said Tina, as if this concluded the matter once and for all, and stalked out of the room with the dirty plates.
    Broke had never heard the word before. Clearly Tina could not be asked about it. It was plain from her demeanour, when she came back with the next course, that she had reverted to her role of hand-maiden and regarded the topic as closed. He put the point to Commander Comber, who blew into the shop that afternoon to borrow a book on type-faces. The Commander roared with laughter.
    He said, ‘“ Finocchio ” means fennel. It’s a sort of herb. I trust no one’s been using the term about you.’
    ‘What’s so funny about it?’
    ‘It also means pansy. Don’t ask me why. Come to think of it, why do we call pansies pansies?’
    ‘Tina used it when she was describing Mercurio.’
    ‘A very perceptive description, I should say. What’s he been up to?’
    ‘As far as I could understand it, he proposed a platonic arrangement. If she would decorate his evenings out, he would put in a good word for her father.’
    ‘She’s a damned attractive girl,’ said the Commander. ‘I wonder her mother allows her alone in the house with you.’
    Broke said, ‘Don’t talk nonsense. Are you going to buy that book?’
    ‘Certainly not. It’s much too expensive. I just wanted to look up a word in it.’
    Some evenings a cold colazione was left for Broke at home; on other evenings, such as this, he ate out, at one of the many little family restaurants in or around the Piazza della Signoria.
    He had finished his meal, and was crossing the Square, when a man on the pavement ahead of him stopped so suddenly that he ran into him.
    Broke apologized, the man swung round, and he saw that it was Labro, the overseer from the Bronzini farm, and that he was drunk. He was not too drunk, however to recognize Broke.
    ‘Well met, signore,’ he said. ‘I had been hoping that I should encounter your Lordship before long.’
    Broke side-stepped, and walked on.
    ‘So now you turn tail, and run, my brave Englishman.’
    Broke continued on his way. Labro broke into a shuffling run, caught him up, and grabbed him by the arm. Broke swung round, breaking his hold, and said, ‘Go