Read Online The Girl With the Botticelli Eyes by Herbert Lieberman - Free Book Online

villa, trying to analyze what had happened. He couldn’t escape the thought that he’d committed some awful gaffe—brandished money, treated her cheaply. He knew he’d gone there with the hope that the woman would decline the offer he’d been ordered to propose. Now his greatest fear was that it seemed she might.

Eight
    “T HE MOMENT WE HAD your wire we knew something was amiss.”
    “It was only intended as a warning. I didn’t want to alarm you.”
    “Surely,” said Signor Torelli. “We understand. As for the Pallavicini Transfiguration, we can handle it.”
    “You can?” Manship felt hope leap in his heart.
    “Surely. When I first saw it, I tell you, my heart sank. When we examined it, we saw that the slashes are not as bad as they look at first. The cuts run with the grain. We can sew them. They will be hardly noticeable;” Signor Torelli looked at him uneasily. “Unfortunately, I wish I could say as much for the Centurion. ”
    “When did it get here?”
    “They had the Pallavicini Virgin here that same day. With the St. Stephen’s canvas, the Lloyd’s people carried the Centurion by hand from Istanbul the day after.” Torelli wiped his brow with an immense handkerchief. “Tragico,” he grieved.
    Signor Torelli was a small man with elaborately curled mustaches and droopy dark eyes that had the look of overripe muscat grapes. He had a disconcerting habit of starting most of his sentences with the word surety.
    “Can I see them now?” Manship asked.
    “Of course. We’ll drive over to the shop together.”
    “ Is it far from here?”
    “Oh no. Fifteen, maybe twenty kilometers. We’re there in twenty minutes, or a half hour.” Torelli skipped spryly round the office, picking up papers, struggling into his jacket.
    Manship had been standing near a pair of French doors, staring out into the courtyard. Now he turned and gazed at the hyperkinetic little Tuscan.
    “When do you think I can have the paintings?” Manship asked.
    It was then the Friday morning of what promised to be a very warm day. Signor Torelli had already melted visibly through his seersucker suit. His tongue flicked out serpentlike over white parched lips. He tilted his head and studied Manship warily.
    “As you know, Mr. Manship, restorers are pathological liars. Lateness is a matter of principle with them.”
    “I understand,” said Manship.
    Torelli raided on, “I’ve been on the phone to them a dozen times in the past two days. One day they tell me one thing; the next day it’s another.”
    “I must have them at least one week before the show, Mr. Torelli.”
    For some odd reason, Torelli glanced at his wristwatch. “One week.” He swallowed hard. “Surely. I promise it, Mr. Manship. Believe me,” he muttered. “Surely, you shall have them. This time no ifs or buts.”
    Manship feigned satisfaction, but years of dealing with restorers, as well as gallery owners, had made him skeptical. “That gives us ample time to fetch the drawings and paintings and have them on the plane with me by noon to New York.”
    Manship rose abruptly and stretched his legs. “Then everything’s settled. I should like now to go out to the shop to look at the paintings for myself.”
    “Surely—with great pleasure,” said Torelli.
    The old gentleman, visibly relieved to have done with the ticklish part of the meeting with the “Metropolitan fellow,” dialed three numbers on a private telephone. Then, leading Manship out through the shadowy high-ceilinged gallery and locking the doors behind him, he opened the door of a gleaming white vintage Daimler parked just outside on the graveled drive and invited Manship to enter. That done, the old man scurried around to the driver’s side and, with much huffing and puffing, maneuvered his paunch in behind the wheel. “Don’t worry, Mr. Manship,” Torelli said, expanding his chest. “Monday morning. Bright and early. Surely, it’s a promise. And when Torelli promises …”
    They set