Read Online Death of an Elgin Marble by David Dickinson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: David Dickinson
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his glass down and didn’t help himself to a refill. Lady Lucy looked meaningfully at her husband. ‘Ten years, wasn’t it? Should have taken him a couple of months or so at the most. I reckon it could take you as long to check out all those bloody islands. I’m not usually averse to a glass or two, even of Greek if you twist my arm, and a spot of sun and sea air and a few birds. Normally I’d volunteer like a shot but I’ve got rather a lot on at the moment so you’ll have to count me out of the expedition, I’m afraid.’
‘It looks to me as though the riddle has won the first round,’ said Powerscourt. ‘The way things look at the moment, it’s going to win the second and third rounds as well. Greeks with riddles are just as bad as the ones bearing gifts.’
The message from the Corfu telegram office down in the port was hand delivered by a barefooted ragamuffin who couldn’t have been more than ten years old. The stones of the harbour were still cold on his feet at half past nine in the morning. Captain Dimitri was on his second glass of ouzo since breakfast. He was not yet tired of waiting for news. The taverna was still producing its rather greasy moussaka, served by the pretty daughter, and his small crew was kept entertained by the bars and bordellos of the city centre some six hundred yards away. His ship was swaying slightly at her mooring on the harbour, the mangy lion fast asleep, the querulous monkeys staring sadly out to sea.
The message was very brief. Thirty or thirty-first October, it said. Half past four in the afternoon. Brindisi railway station. So, the Captain said to himself,
I have six days to get from the Greek to the Italian side of the Mediterranean. If I take on stores today and leave first thing tomorrow I should have plenty of time
. The Captain stared up at the sky with its wheeling gulls and decided that the weather would not trouble him on his journey. There was a widow he knew in Brindisi who ran a laundry in the town. Other services could be purchased for cash. Maybe she would be pleased to see him again.
Precisely what he was meant to pick up at the end of his journey, he did not know. All he knew was that it would be heavy and that he might have to hire a crane or a hoist of some kind to bring it aboard.
Over the next week Powerscourt and Lady Lucy opened relations with the upper layers of the Greek Establishment in London. They took morning coffee with the Greek Ambassador, Anastasias Papadikis, a former merchant who had made his fortune buying and selling new and second-hand boats of every description. Powerscourt’s cover story was that his publishers had asked him to write a short guide book on the glories of ancient Greece. He brought with him as a gift to the Ambassador a presentation copy of his own first volume on the cathedrals of England. What advice would the Ambassador give to one about to embark on such a venture in his native land? Sipping his sugary coffee very noisily through his great black beard, the Ambassador gave Powerscourt his blessing.
‘I don’t need to tell a man of your education about the principal sites, Lord Powerscourt, you will know them as well as I do. And Greece will always be grateful to this country for British assistance in money and diplomacy in the long battle for the independence we enjoy today. But I could perhaps make a few small suggestions of my own? The site in Anatolia believed to be the location of the ancient city of Troy, Homer’s Troy, is well worth a visit. But even you English know little of the key role played by an Englishman who advised the ghastly German Schliemann where to dig, and was a first-rate archaeologist in his own right. Calvert, Frank Calvert, is, or rather was, the man’s name, as he died a couple of years ago. The Greek government sent a cabinet minister to represent the Greek nation at his funeral. Your fellow countrymen should know more about the man. And, of course, there is Missolonghi at the
‘It looks to me as though the riddle has won the first round,’ said Powerscourt. ‘The way things look at the moment, it’s going to win the second and third rounds as well. Greeks with riddles are just as bad as the ones bearing gifts.’
The message from the Corfu telegram office down in the port was hand delivered by a barefooted ragamuffin who couldn’t have been more than ten years old. The stones of the harbour were still cold on his feet at half past nine in the morning. Captain Dimitri was on his second glass of ouzo since breakfast. He was not yet tired of waiting for news. The taverna was still producing its rather greasy moussaka, served by the pretty daughter, and his small crew was kept entertained by the bars and bordellos of the city centre some six hundred yards away. His ship was swaying slightly at her mooring on the harbour, the mangy lion fast asleep, the querulous monkeys staring sadly out to sea.
The message was very brief. Thirty or thirty-first October, it said. Half past four in the afternoon. Brindisi railway station. So, the Captain said to himself,
I have six days to get from the Greek to the Italian side of the Mediterranean. If I take on stores today and leave first thing tomorrow I should have plenty of time
. The Captain stared up at the sky with its wheeling gulls and decided that the weather would not trouble him on his journey. There was a widow he knew in Brindisi who ran a laundry in the town. Other services could be purchased for cash. Maybe she would be pleased to see him again.
Precisely what he was meant to pick up at the end of his journey, he did not know. All he knew was that it would be heavy and that he might have to hire a crane or a hoist of some kind to bring it aboard.
Over the next week Powerscourt and Lady Lucy opened relations with the upper layers of the Greek Establishment in London. They took morning coffee with the Greek Ambassador, Anastasias Papadikis, a former merchant who had made his fortune buying and selling new and second-hand boats of every description. Powerscourt’s cover story was that his publishers had asked him to write a short guide book on the glories of ancient Greece. He brought with him as a gift to the Ambassador a presentation copy of his own first volume on the cathedrals of England. What advice would the Ambassador give to one about to embark on such a venture in his native land? Sipping his sugary coffee very noisily through his great black beard, the Ambassador gave Powerscourt his blessing.
‘I don’t need to tell a man of your education about the principal sites, Lord Powerscourt, you will know them as well as I do. And Greece will always be grateful to this country for British assistance in money and diplomacy in the long battle for the independence we enjoy today. But I could perhaps make a few small suggestions of my own? The site in Anatolia believed to be the location of the ancient city of Troy, Homer’s Troy, is well worth a visit. But even you English know little of the key role played by an Englishman who advised the ghastly German Schliemann where to dig, and was a first-rate archaeologist in his own right. Calvert, Frank Calvert, is, or rather was, the man’s name, as he died a couple of years ago. The Greek government sent a cabinet minister to represent the Greek nation at his funeral. Your fellow countrymen should know more about the man. And, of course, there is Missolonghi at the
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