Street of the Five Moons by Elizabeth Peters Page B

Popolo. The Galleria was open. Its handsome Renaissance facade was approached by a long flight of curving stairs. My calves, already suffering from the long climb up from the piazza, ached at the very sight of them, but I struggled up and plunged into the cool, dark cave of the entrance hall. The little old lady behind the barred cage told me the library was on the second floor, and extracted five hundred lire from me.
    I had to go through several of the exhibition halls to reach the elevator. Only my stern sense of duty kept me moving. The museum had a superb collection of Quattrocento paintings, including a Masaccio polyptych I had admired for years.
    The librarian’s frosty eye softened when I showed her my card. At Schmidt’s insistence I had had a batch of them printed up when I started work; they contained my full name and titles, which sound rather impressive in German. The mention of the National Museum gave me free access to the library shelves.
    The room was quite handsome. It had been a grand salone at one time, when the Palazzo Concini was still a private residence. There was only one other researcher, a little old man with no hair, and glasses so thick they looked opaque. He did not glance up when I tiptoed past him with the book I had selected. I took a seat at a neighboring table. It took me about a minute and a half to find what I wanted. I checked all three paintings, just to be sure, but the first one I looked up, the Murillo, provided the necessary information. It was in the private collection of the Conte del Caravaggio, Rome.
    In my exultation I slammed the book shut. It made more of a noise than that hallowed chamber had heard in years. The little old man at the next table wobbled feebly, like those bottom-heavy toys that sway when you nudge them. For a minute I thought he was going to topple over, flat on his face on the table, a la Hitchcock. You could die in that place and nobody would notice for hours. But finally he stopped swaying, and I made my way back to the desk with exaggerated care.
    When I asked if I could see the director, the librarian’s face looked shocked. I think I could have gotten in to see the Pope with far less argument. But finally she consented to telephone, and after a muttered conversation she turned back to me looking even more surprised.
    “You will be received,” she murmured, in the whisper demanded by that dim vault with its frescoed ceiling and statued niches. I felt as if I ought to genuflect.
    The director’s office was another flight up. I was allowed to take the private elevator, which opened directly into an anteroom presided over by a stately-looking man with a beard. I was about to greet him with the humility his exalted position demanded, and then I found out he wasn’t the director after all, only a secretary. He offered me a chair, and I cooled my heels for a good twenty minutes before a buzzer on his desk purred and he beckoned to me. The carved mahogany door behind him was an objet d’art in its own right. He opened it with a bow, and I went in. By then I was slightly annoyed at all the pomp and circumstance. I marched in with my chin in the air, prepared to be very cool and haughty, but the sight of the woman behind the desk took the starch right out of me.
    Yes, woman. This is a man’s world, and nowhere in the world is male chauvinism more rampant than in Italy, but I never thought for a moment that this female was a secretary. She would be the boss of any establishment she chose to honor with her presence.
    Being something of a female chauvinist myself, I should have warmed to her. Her male secretary was a particularly nice touch. Instead I took an instant dislike to the creature. I was about to say “unreasoning dislike,” but there was good reason for my reaction. She looked at me as if I were a bedbug.
    The room was arranged to provide a setting that would awe most visitors. Its high windows, draped in gold swags and festoons, opened onto a