The Lying Tongue by Andrew Wilson

started to clean the chest by the door I noticed that its wood was fissured, dry and scarred. I fetched a tub of wax polish from the kitchen and carefully started to apply the sticky dark substance to the chest, massaging the mixture, which was the color of burnt sienna, deep into the wood. The polish stained the ends of my fingers a gangrenous black-brown, and for a moment it was as though my hands were those of a dead man.
    I picked up the figure of the satyr, with its horns, pointed ears, beard, hairy legs and cloven hoofs, and examined it closely. The shell, which the creature held in its right hand, would, I guessed, most likely have functioned as an ink well, and although it was grotesque, there was something quite intriguing about it. I placed it back on the chest and reached for the urn, which I thought was most probably funereal, when I heard Crace’s voice.
    “Don’t touch that. Leave it.”
    “Sorry…so sorry,” I said, moving away, but not quite sure what I was supposed to have done.
    Crace shuffled toward me, his head shaking with fury.
    “Oh, I suppose it was my fault. I should have told you,” he said, trying to compose himself.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Oh, very well. I’d better tell you. There’s a gun—there—loaded—in that urn.”
    “What?”
    “It’s just for my own protection. Tiny little thing, so small you’d think it wouldn’t kill a fly. Never used it, of course.”
    “I see.”
    “So, I’m telling you just so you know it’s there.”
    “Don’t you think it might be better if you kept it somewhere else, somewhere a little more secure?”
    “What? Like a safe, you mean? I’m not going to wait around messing with a fucking combination lock while a team of burglars work their way through the palazzo and steal everything I’ve got.”
    Crace sensed my anxiety and smiled.
    “Look, don’t worry. It’s nothing.”
    He lifted the lid of the run and reached into the vessel. His fingers had molded themselves around the gun, its surface decorated with mother-of-pearl.
    “See? It’s nothing,” he said. “But if you want me to move it, I will.”
    “It’s probably fine where it is.”
    “Why don’t you go and make of us both a nice drink?” he said, sighing. “Look, it’s nearly six o’clock, and I think we both deserve a little tonic, don’t you?”
    “What would you like?” I asked.
    “Let’s see…what about a Campari soda or even…a Negroni. Do you know how to make a Negroni?”
    I told him I did.
    “Well, that’s what it will be then,” he said, putting the gun back into the urn and ushering me out of the room. “Cocktail hour approaches.”
    I poured equal measures of Campari, gin and sweet vermouth into the cocktail shaker, mixed them together, strained the alcohol into glasses filled with cracked ice and a slice of orange and passed one of the tumblers to him. As I drank down a draft of the bitter-tasting pink liquid, I noticed Crace staring at me with a curious expression on his face.
    “Salute!” he said, looking away.
    “Salute!” I repeated.

    Despite my employer’s eccentricities, we settled into our respective roles quite easily. Although Crace loathed the idea of venturing over his little bridge that linked his house to the alleys, streets and squares, I could tell that he enjoyed my company. Perhaps I was a little flattered that he took such a keen interest in me and felt relaxed in my presence. He was, or at least had been, a famous writer, and I was on the very lowest rung of the literary ladder looking up at him. He was genuinely grateful that I was helping him and he cheered up a good deal after he realized it was much more pleasant to live in clean rather than dirty surroundings.
    After I had done everything I could to make the place look superficially respectable and had taken an inventory of his art collection, I asked him if there was anything else that needed to be done. I was finding it difficult to get down to writing the novel and