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“An intruder, you say?”

“I saw him with my own eyes.”

“When?”

“As he was climbing over the gate.”

The dispatcher asked the contessa for a description of the suspect and dutifully jotted down her answer. It was hardly the portrait of a typical Tuscan criminal, but then the contessa was blind as a bat.

“Was there anyone with him?”

“A woman.”

“Where is she now?”

“Sitting in her car.”

None of which sounded to the dispatcher like the elements of a crime in progress.

Still, the purported incident warranted further investigation, if only because the property in question was the art-filled residence of Giorgio Montefiore, the world’s foremost expert on Leonardo da Vinci.

As it happened, a Carabinieri patrol car was in the vicinity and arrived on the scene less than two minutes later.

There the officers discovered an attractive woman sitting behind the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz Cabriolet convertible.

They found her companion in the entrance hall of the villa, crouched casually next to a man who had been shot three times at close range.

In short order the officers determined that the woman was the director of the Museo Nazionale Etrusco, that her companion was a prominent art conservator from Venice, and that the victim was the owner of the property, the aforementioned Giorgio Montefiore.

The condition of the blood suggested that he had been dead for approximately four hours, long before the prominent Venetian art conservator made entry into the villa.

“How did you get inside?” asked one of the officers.

“The front door. How else?”

“It was unlocked?”

“Not exactly.”

By one o’clock the villa was crawling with crime scene technicians, and the museum director and art conservator, having been relieved of their mobile devices and other personal effects, were seated in separate interview rooms at the Carabinieri stazione in the Piazza dei Giudici.

The questioning was polite in tone but thorough enough to reveal significant discrepancies in their explanations as to why they had traveled to Florence to meet with Giorgio Montefiore in the first place.

The museum director said the visit was personal in nature.

The art conservator, however, insisted it was professional.

“Can you be more specific?” asked his interrogator, a colonnello called Manzini.

“I required his assistance on a restoration.”

“That would explain the photographs in your attaché case.”

“It would indeed.”

“Perhaps there’s a connection between this painting of yours and Montefiore’s murder?”

“You’ve been reading too many thrillers, Colonel Manzini.”

The colonnello , knowing a little of the art conservator’s past, was certain there was more to the story.

He was likewise confident that a few hours in a holding cell might serve to loosen the conservator’s tongue.

The powers that be in Rome, however, had other ideas.

Manzini, after making his objections known, reluctantly destroyed his interview notes and escorted the two subjects downstairs.

The Mercedes convertible was parked in the piazza.

The conservator slid into the passenger seat, the museum director behind the wheel.

The engine roared, the tires chirped, and then they were gone.

***

They arrived at the Hassler shortly after seven o’clock.

Veronica left her car with the valet and accompanied Gabriel upstairs to the hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant.

General Ferrari, in a charcoal-gray business suit, sat at a table near the window.

He directed Gabriel to the chair at his right, where there was no hiding from the unforgiving gaze of his ocular prosthesis.

“We had an agreement,” he said without preamble.

“Did we?”

“Your mandate to look into this matter did not extend beyond the territory of the Holy See. The last time I checked, Florence is part of the Italian Republic.”

“My inquiry took an unexpected turn.”

“To put it mildly,” replied Ferrari with a frown.

“Imagine my surprise when the commander of the Carabinieri in Tuscany informed me that you had been detained for questioning in Giorgio Montefiore’s murder.

Fortunately you were accompanied by the director of the Museo Nazionale Etrusco, which allowed me to secure your release without too much difficulty. ”

Veronica opened the wine list, one of the finest in Rome. “And you shall be richly rewarded.”

“That would be unethical.”

“Red or white?”

“Perhaps we should start with white,” suggested the general.

“How about a lovely chardonnay from Alto Adige?”

“If you insist.”

Veronica gave their order to the sommelier, who went in search of the bottle. General Ferrari admired the view of Rome for a moment before turning once more to Gabriel.

“Perhaps you should start from the beginning.”

“An apprentice restorer at the Vatican Museums discovers a lost portrait by Leonardo da Vinci hidden beneath a worthless Madonna and Child. The head of the Vatican conservation lab asks the world’s leading Leonardist to have a look at the painting.

The world’s leading Leonardist assures him that it is not a Leonardo, though he suspects the opposite is true. ”

“Why would he do a thing like that?” asked General Ferrari.

“The most logical explanation is that he wanted the painting for himself. Or a piece of it, at least.”

“Are you suggesting he entered into a conspiracy?”

Gabriel gave a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders. “Let’s call it a partnership.”

“With whom?”

“An organization with the wherewithal to steal the painting from the storage rooms of the Vatican Picture Gallery.”

“The Camorra?”

“So it would appear.”

“But why did they kill him?”

“It’s possible that he had outlived his usefulness.”

“At what point?”

“The minute he told his partners that the painting was an autograph work by Leonardo da Vinci.”

General Ferrari considered this for a moment. “Forgive me, but I have a hard time picturing Giorgio Montefiore hammering out a deal to steal a lost Leonardo with some Camorra chieftain in Secondigliano or Scampia.”

“So do I,” replied Gabriel. “There has to be more to the story.”

“Such as?”

“A Vatican connection.”

“Beyond the museum guard?”

Gabriel nodded.

“I was afraid you were going to say that.” General Ferrari opened his attaché case and removed Gabriel’s composite sketch of Father Spada, the priest who was not a priest. “How on earth did he get past the Swiss Guards?”

“Someone arranged for him to have a private audience with His Holiness.”

“Surely you’re joking.”

“I wish I was. It was an unforgivable lapse in papal security.”

“Imagine for a moment that he had come to the Vatican for a different reason. You might well be investigating the assassination of a pope.”

“Not for the first time,” replied Gabriel. “But back to the matter at hand.”

“The Leonardo?”

Gabriel nodded.

“What do you suppose they intend to do with it?”

“Sell it to the highest bidder.”

“If that happens, it will disappear forever.”

“Which is why we need to recover it as quickly as possible.”

Ferrari held up the sketch. “I’d like to show this to some of my informants in Naples.”

“Why would you want to do a thing like that?”

“Find the thief, find the painting.”

“None of your informants will betray the Camorra, Cesare. Not unless they have a death wish.”

“What would you suggest?”

“We forget about the thief and patiently bide our time until the painting resurfaces.”

“And then what?”

Gabriel smiled. “We steal it back.”