The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs by Alexander McCall Smith Page A

lightweight linen suit, but in place of a tie there was a red bandana tied loosely about his neck.
    They engaged in light talk about the view from the terrace. The Duke was not staying at the hotel, he explained. He had a house of his own several streets away, but unfortunately it had no terrace. So he sometimes came down to the hotel in the evenings to take an aperitif and look out over the hills.
    ‘So that’s why I’m here,’ he said simply.
    They discussed Siena. The Duke explained that he had been spending several months a year there for some time, pursuing his researches. Then, when von Igelfeld mentioned Professor Guerini, they discovered a mutual acquaintance. The Duke, it transpired, had also known Guerini for years and had visited his estate several times. This information broke the ice further, and by the time that the Duke had finished his Martini von Igelfeld had been invited back to join the Duke for dinner.
    ‘Not a large party,’ said the Duke. ‘Just one or two people who are passing through and, of course, my research assistant.’
    Von Igelfeld was delighted to accept. He was pleased to hear about the research assistant, too, as this confirmed that the Duke himself was a serious scholar. All in all, it seemed a most agreeable prospect and, after the Duke had gone, he rushed off to inform the Prinzels that he would not be joining them for dinner in the hotel that night. As it happened, this suited his companions well. Ophelia Prinzel had a slight headache and was proposing to have an early night and the heat had destroyed Prinzel’s appetite. It was agreed that they would meet for breakfast and then spend the earlier part of the morning in the Cathedral Library, admiring the illuminated manuscripts, before hordes of schoolchildren and parties of chattering Japanese tourists began to flock in. Von Igelfeld found Japanese tourists particularly trying. They were often fascinated by tall Germans, and he found it most disconcerting to be photographed by them. It was sobering to contemplate how many photograph albums in Tokyo or Kyoto contained his image, frozen in time, quite out of context, pored over and pointed out to interested relatives of the travellers. Why should they want to photograph him? Had they not seen a German professor before? It was another vexing thought, and so he put it out of his mind in favour of the contemplation of dinner at the Duke’s house and the warm prospect of edifying conversation and a good table. The Duke’s nose was a good portent. Its colour at the end suggested that a considerable quantity of fine Chianti had suffused upwards, by some process of osmosis. This implied the existence of a good cellar, and a generous hand. Let the Prinzels call room service and gnaw at some inedible little morsel; finer things were in store for him.
    The Duke’s house was in a narrow street off the Piazza del Risorgimento. An inconspicuous door led off the street into a courtyard dominated by a small fountain. Stunted fig trees grew in terracotta pots against the walls and a large black cat sat on a stone bench, grooming its fur. The cat looked up and stared at von Igelfeld for a moment or two before returning to its task.
    The main door of the house, on the other side of the courtyard, was ajar and von Igelfeld found no bell to ring. He entered somewhat cautiously, finding himself in a large, well-lit entrance hall. The floor, of black and white marble, was clearly an architectural reference to the famous striped cathedral tower which dominated the skyline a few winding streets away. On the walls, framed on either side by gilt sconces, were paintings of Tuscan scenes, one of a cypress-crossed hillside, another of a young man in the Renaissance style, a notary perhaps, seated at his desk before an open window. The window framed a hillside on which deer grazed and improbable birds strutted.
    A door opened at the other end of the hall and a young woman – of nineteen at the most, little