The Etruscan Net by Michael Gilbert Page A

forward over the bowed backs of his slaves at the oars, Broke followed his guide. Each small chamber led, by a mousehole in its wall, to a further one.
    ‘There would be more logic in it,’ said Ferri apologetically, ‘if we could divine the plan of the central passages. As it is, we have had to make our way in ignorance, supplemented by force. This is where we are working now.’
    The innermost chamber was lit by a single electric light. Two youths were working quietly at the far end, chipping into the soft rock with steel chisels and mauls. The dust had blackened their faces and when they grinned their teeth showed white in the torch light.
    ‘This must have been the tomb of some lesser members of the household. Women, probably.’
    Set out on one of the low rock benches was a collection of terracotta jars, lamps, combs and brooches, and an incense burner with three goats’ feet.
    ‘If we go out this way,’ said Ferri, ‘we come back to the linked passageways.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Broke. He was trying to picture in his mind the ground plan of what he had seen. An acre of tumulus offered a lot of hidden space. A team of excavators, working systematically, could probably cover it in a year. Tackled piecemeal in this way it might take ten years. If the linked passages divided the mound roughly into two, all the work so far had been done on the left-hand, or northern side. Or most of it. He glimpsed one opening to the right, and peered in. Ferri, ahead of him, swung round.
    ‘I wouldn’t go in there,’ he said. ‘There’s been a lot of settlement on that side. We’ve had to shore up as we go.’
    The light from Broke’s torch cut a strong white swathe through the room. It rested for a moment on something which stood on the shelf of rock at the far end of the room.
    ‘I don’t want to hurry you,’ said Ferri, ‘but I myself have to be back in Florence by eight o’clock. And I think – in view of what happened – I had better see you back to your car, if you don’t mind.’
    ‘Of course,’ said Broke. He clicked off his torch and followed his guide out into the blinding sunlight of an Italian evening.
    ‘You will want more time to examine it all properly,’ said Ferri. ‘Why not have a word with the Professor. He could take you round himself. You would find much to talk about.’
    ‘I’d like to do that,’ said Broke.
    He spoke absently, because he was thinking of something else. He was thinking about it as Ferri drove him back to where he had left his own car, and later, as he drove himself back to Florence.
    What he had seen, for a few seconds, in the light of his torch, was a helmet, shaped like a dowager’s Ascot hat made in metal sections. In that one glance he had, he thought, seen the small reproduction of a lion’s head which formed the centre-piece in front. He wondered how it could have come there, and why Ferri had not commented on it. He wondered very much if it would still be there when the Professor eventually found time to show him round.
     
    Annunziata Zecchi put down the worn coat, in the elbow of which she was inserting a patch, and said, ‘Are you sure he will come?’
    She was a fine woman. At fifty still broad in the hips and full in the bust, her grey hair piled, pompadour-fashion, above a face beginning to wrinkle, but full of life and authority. Tina said, ‘Yes, Mother. If he said he will come, he will come.’
    ‘You have confidence?’
    ‘Yes. I have confidence.’
    ‘Where is your father?’
    ‘He went up to the workshop as soon as he had finished his supper.’
    ‘He eats so little,’ said Signora Zecchi. ‘Hardly enough to keep a sparrow singing. And he worries. All the time, he worries.’
    ‘Perhaps when he has spoken to Signor Roberto it will relieve his mind.’
    ‘ If he speaks. He has become so secretive. He goes to confession, but I know that he tells the priest nothing.’
    A door banged in the courtyard behind the house and steps approached. The two