Rendezvous in Rome

  “Those awful kids are pickpockets and thieves. They swarm around tourists all the time,” Sandro said angrily.

  “At least your necklace is safe,” Claudia commented, seeing the gold beads Bess was clasping tightly in her hand.

  Bess blinked as if she had just realized it was there. “Wow, that was intense,” she said. “All of a sudden these kids were all around me. They grabbed my knapsack, and the next thing I knew someone pulled at my necklace. They almost got it, too, but then they ran off.”

  “I guess they got scared,” Sandro said. Frowning, he took the necklace from Bess and examined it. “The clasp is broken.”

  While Bess spoke, Nancy scanned the area. She didn’t see any group of kids, but she did spot a splash of aqua next to a trash bin several yards away. “I think I see your knapsack,” she told Bess, striding toward the trash bin.

  It was the knapsack, she saw. As Nancy knelt to collect the scattered contents, Sandro appeared beside her.

  “The perfume bottle shattered, but at least everything else will smell good,” he said, handing Bess’s hotel key and some change to Nancy. “We’re in luck. Even her wallet is here.”

  “But no money,” Nancy said, checking it. “At least they didn’t take her credit cards.” She rummaged inside the knapsack and was relieved to see Bess’s passport and traveler’s checks, too. “I guess they were just after cash.”

  “Thanks, guys,” Bess said when Nancy and Sandro returned with her things. “To think I bought this knapsack because I thought it would be better than carrying around a purse. I feel so silly. Set upon by a gang of little kids!”

  “I’m just glad you’re not hurt,” Nancy said, handing Bess her knapsack. “All your ID is still there, but there’s no money in your wallet.”

  Bess shrugged. “I wasn’t carrying much anyway. The guidebooks tell you not to.” She stared ruefully at her necklace, which Sandro was still holding. “I feel bad about the broken clasp, though. I mean, Massimo just gave it to me, and I’ve already broken it.”

  “I can get it fixed for you,” Sandro offered. “My mother knows a good jeweler.”

  “It might be simpler to take it back to Massimo,” Claudia said. With a teasing look at Bess she added, “I bet that will . . . cheer you up—is that the expression?”

  Sandro reluctantly handed the necklace to Bess. “At least let me buy you some more perfume. I wasn’t very good at protecting you.”

  “No way,” Bess declared, dabbing at her forehead with a tissue she found in her knapsack. “But I will let you talk me into having lunch at a nice air-conditioned restaurant. I think I need to catch my breath!”

  • • •

  “Boy, it’s getting hotter by the minute,” Bess said an hour later as she, Nancy, George, and Claudia left a small restaurant named Piccolino. Sandro had left a few minutes earlier to return to his job. Now, in the heat of the midday sun, none of the girls felt like walking or getting on a crowded bus to get back to Piazza Navona.

  Claudia paused on the sidewalk and looked expectantly at the others. “I have an idea,” she said. “Have any of you ever ridden a Vespa?”

  “Sure,” Nancy replied. “Isn’t it like a moped?”

  Claudia nodded. “They are a way of life in Rome. Everyone I know has one. Come on, there is a place where we can rent them down the street. We can get you two for the time you are here. You can ride double on the bigger ones.”

  Under Claudia’s direction the girls chose two Vespas and doubled up for the ride. “Just keep your eyes open,” Claudia told Nancy and George as she buckled her safety helmet on. “Romans are the worst drivers in the world.”

  Claudia wasn’t kidding, Nancy realized as the fourth driver in a row cut her and George off. George’s grip tightened on Nancy as Nancy buzzed around the car in order to keep Claudia and Bess in sight. She was relieved when they reached the piazza and could park the Vespa.

  Massimo came bounding over to greet the girls as they approached his jewelry display. “Dancing tonight?” he asked, his dark eyes fixed on Bess.

  “Not tonight,” Bess said, looking apologetic. “Sandro invited us to dinner at his mother’s. But we are free tomorrow, right, you guys?” she said, giving Nancy, Claudia, and George a pleading look.

  Nancy could see that the others didn’t want to stand in the way of Bess’s romance, either. “Right,” she confirmed. “Dancing sounds great.”

  “Perfetto. Then it is a date,” Massimo said, his smiling eyes trained on Bess.

  “Massimo,” a low female voice called. Nancy turned and saw a stunning girl with deep green eyes and black hair. She wore a long simple dress splashed with red flowers. She was very petite, only about five feet tall.

  “Karine,” Massimo said, surprise in his voice. “Um, meet Nancy, Bess, and George. This is Karine Azar. You already know Claudia.”

  Karine smiled and waved at the girls. Casually she went over and sat on Massimo’s stool.

  “Azar?” George asked. “Is that Italian?”

  “It’s Turkish,” Karine replied, with a slight lilt in her voice. “But my mother is Italian.”

  “Karine is an artist, too,” Massimo explained. “We go to the same school. She makes chalk drawings in the piazza during the summer.” His eyes darted between Bess and Karine, and he looked very uncomfortable. Nancy wondered what the story was between him and Karine.

  “What kind of drawings?” Nancy asked Karine, trying to break the tension.

  Karine nodded. “Over there.” She waved in the direction of a brightly colored drawing on the stone floor of the piazza. It was a depiction of a robed figure.

  “That’s really great,” George commented. “What is it?”

  “I usually do one of Rome’s great works. Today it is one of the figures from a fresco called The School of Athens,” Karine said. “It’s supposed to be Aristotle.”

  After glancing at the drawing Bess took her necklace out of her knapsack and showed Massimo the broken clasp. “Can you fix it?” she asked.

  “Cèrto. Of course. Let me get a new clasp and some pliers.” Massimo reached for a canvas bag beneath his display table. “This is a beautiful piece,” he said as he dug around for supplies. “If I had known you had it, I might even have charged you for the one I gave you this morning.”

  “What an artist!” Bess teased. “You can’t even recognize your own art. This is the necklace you gave me this morning.”

  “No, it is not,” Massimo said, wrapping a clear piece of fishing line around the clasp. He tied a knot, pulled it tight, and snipped off the end.

  Bess glanced at Nancy and George in confusion. “Of course it’s the one you gave me. Why would I buy two necklaces like this?”

  Now Massimo was the one who looked confused. “You do not really think this is my necklace,” he said. “Did you lose the one I gave you?”

  “Massimo gave you a necklace?” Karine spoke up, looking suddenly interested. “And you lost it? If Massimo gave me a necklace, I would never, ever lose it,” she declared, catching Massimo’s gaze.

  Bess had competition, Nancy thought. And Karine was making sure she knew it.

  Ignoring Karine, George asked Massimo, “Why do you think that necklace isn’t yours?”

  “Look at this,” he said. He held out a piece of the broken clasp he had just removed. “It is very intricate. My clasps are much simpler. Also, the beads are strung differently. I use fishing line. These beads are knotted onto a braided string.”

  Massimo fingered the beads carefully. “I am almost certain that these beads are made of real gold.”

  Bess stared at the necklace in disbelief. “I don’t get it. How could this be real gold?”

  “It is heavier than my necklaces are, for one thing. And the workmanship is better,” Massimo explained. He unhooked one of his necklaces from the velvet board next to him. “See? The beads have seam marks from the mold I make them in. I try to smooth them down, but you can still see marks. These beads do not have tha
t.”

  Nancy thought back over their day, trying to figure out what could have happened. “Maybe you switched necklaces at Preziosi by accident,” she said to Bess. “The one there looked a lot like yours.”

  “I thought I picked up the right one,” Bess said, frowning. “But I guess I could have made a mistake. I was kind of distracted by all the great stuff there.”

  Claudia shook her head. “There are no real gold necklaces at Preziosi. The jewelry is not that precious.”

  “Are you sure it’s real gold?” Bess asked again.

  “If you do not believe me, ask someone else,” Massimo said, looking insulted.

  “It’s just that”—Bess hesitated briefly—“if it’s real gold, it must be worth a lot.”

  Massimo nodded. “A copy in gold would be worth maybe a few thousand American dollars.”

  Nancy could hardly believe her ears. How had Bess gotten hold of something so valuable?

  Bess, George, and Claudia looked just as shocked as Nancy was. “But it’s not from a museum or anything, is it?” Bess asked anxiously.

  Massimo shook his head. “If it was, Bess, you would be a very rich woman.”

  “Well, I’m curious, if nothing else,” Nancy said. “Claudia, do you know any jewelry experts who could take a look at this necklace? Unless you want it back, Massimo.”

  “It is not mine,” he said, shaking his head again.

  Claudia thought for a moment. “There is Fabio Andreotti,” she suggested.

  “He is an art dealer,” Massimo added.

  “He specializes in antiquities,” Claudia explained, “so he would probably know what a good copy is worth. I met him at Sandro’s house when he was trying to buy Signora Fiorello’s jewelry. He is a friend, at least, so he will probably look at it for free.”

  Massimo nodded. “You know where his office is?”

  “I think so,” Claudia told him.

  Karine had listened to most of the conversation about the necklace without commenting. As the girls got ready to leave she slipped off Massimo’s stool. “Come see my drawing the next time you’re here,” she said. There was a hint of challenge in her green eyes as she glanced at Bess. “When you are not so occupied with Massimo.”

  • • •

  The girls drove their Vespas several blocks through the narrow, winding streets behind the piazza, looking for Fabio Andreotti’s office. Claudia stopped twice to ask directions in rapid-fire Italian.

  Finally they arrived at the old stone building where the office was located. Claudia gave her name to the guard in the lobby, who directed them to the fourth floor. When they got there, a portly woman greeted the girls and asked them to wait. Nancy had been expecting a store or gallery, but they appeared to be in a small office. The receptionist was the only person in sight.

  A door on Nancy’s left opened, and a man in a double-breasted gray suit and a red-and-yellow tie stepped into the room. He was slender and tall, with a chiseled profile and iron gray hair.

  “Claudia Beluggi,” he said in Italian, kissing the air near Claudia’s cheeks. “Has Signora Fiorello finally decided to take my offer?”

  “Not exactly,” Claudia replied in English. She introduced Nancy, Bess, and George, then said, “We wondered if you could examine a necklace for us.”

  Signor Andreotti switched to flawless English. “I have a client coming in fifteen minutes, but I’ll see what I can do,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Please, come into my office. The light is better there.”

  The girls followed Signor Andreotti into an adjoining room. Bess and Claudia sat in two chairs in front of the desk, while Nancy and George settled into a small couch against the wall.

  Bess handed over her necklace, and Signor Andreotti turned on a desk lamp, then held the necklace up to the light. Absently he picked up a pair of half-glasses and put them on the bridge of his nose. He gave Claudia a puzzled look, then returned his attention to the necklace.

  Squinting, Signor Andreotti twirled one of the beads between his fingers. The girls waited in silence as the art dealer examined every bead.

  Finally he put the necklace down and took off his glasses. He turned to Claudia. “Well, my dear, how much do you want?”

  Claudia turned to Nancy. “I—” she began.

  “I don’t want to haggle over money,” Signor Andreotti said soothingly. “I’ll give you a fair price. How about, ah, twenty-five million lire?”

  “Twenty-five million lire!” Bess gasped. “How much is that?”

  “About five times as much as this whole trip is costing,” George whispered after closing her eyes to think.

  Signor Andreotti sighed. “Okay, twenty-six million. But that’s my final offer.”

  Claudia turned to Nancy, a stunned expression on her face. “You know what this means, don’t you?” she asked.

  “He is saying the necklace is real,” Nancy said, nodding slowly. “Bess, this necklace isn’t just real gold—it’s an authentic Etruscan antiquity!”

  Chapter

  Three

  OF COURSE IT’S REAL.” Signor Andreotti looked from Nancy to Claudia. “Why else would you bring it to me? May I ask whose collection it’s from?”

  “Well, actually—” Claudia began.

  “I think it’s fascinating that you can tell so much about a necklace so quickly,” Nancy broke in smoothly. “I’d love to know how you do it.” She wasn’t sure why, but her instincts told her not to mention how they’d gotten the necklace.

  Flattered, Signor Andreotti turned to Nancy. “Etruscan jewelry is easier to spot than most—for a professional, that is. Look at the detail of the design. The filigree around the stones is quite fine,” he said, touching the center bead. He shifted the necklace, showing Nancy the smaller beads. “See the granulation on these? The Etruscans had a special way of working with gold. It’s a lost art.”

  “Wow,” Bess said, her blue eyes wide.

  Signor Andreotti gave her a brief smile and turned back to the necklace. “The gold beads aren’t perfect. When you roll them slightly you can tell they aren’t absolutely round. That means they were made by hand, not machine.”

  He handed Bess the necklace. “There’s no doubt in my mind that this necklace is authentic.”

  “Thank you,” Claudia said. “I am sorry we took so much of your time. I promise we will bring the necklace back if we decide to sell it.”

  As the girls headed for the door, Signor Andreotti stopped them. “Claudia, this may be presumptuous, but since you won’t tell me who the necklace belongs to, you and your friends might want to know one thing. You would have a very hard time taking it out of the country. It’s an antiquity, after all.”

  “I don’t understand,” George said. “Does it belong to the government?”

  “That depends,” the art dealer replied. “There are some pieces in the hands of wealthy families and certain dealers. But for the most part, it is illegal to remove ancient artifacts from the country.”

  The four girls thanked Signor Andreotti again and left. A wave of heat hit them when they got out to the street.

  “I don’t get it. A real Etruscan necklace doesn’t just show up out of nowhere,” Nancy finally said. “Claudia, are you sure it couldn’t have come from Preziosi?”

  “Positive.” Claudia nodded. “All the necklaces at the store are fakes. Massimo makes them. And I know the package I opened was from him because Sandro dropped it off and gave it directly to me. It was still sealed shut today when I found it in the back.”

  “If the necklace didn’t come from Preziosi, that brings us back to Massimo,” George put in.

  Bess gave Claudia a questioning look. “Why would Sandro drop off a package for Massimo?”

  “The computer store where he works is not far from Piazza Navona,” Claudia explained. “Massimo cannot always come to the store when he is busy. Since Sandro is my boyfriend, he brings necklaces here from Massimo when he visits me.”

  Nancy sighed. None of th
is was making any sense. Unless . . .

  “I hate to say it, but we may have stumbled onto a theft,” she said soberly. “After what Signor Andreotti just told us, it seems pretty obvious that these necklaces are very valuable and difficult to come by.”

  “Something tells me that Massimo is the key to figuring out where this necklace came from,” George added. “On the other hand, he didn’t seem to be familiar with it, either.”

  “Do you think someone would hide a real necklace with Massimo’s fakes?” Bess asked. “That seems awfully risky.”

  Nancy gave her friends a meaningful look. “It’s less risky if Massimo knows about it.”

  “But if he knew, he would have taken the necklace back,” Bess protested. “We offered it to him.”

  She was right, Nancy realized. “Well, it had to come from him or the store,” she said. “Claudia, do you think Preziosi’s owner might know anything about the necklace?”

  Claudia made an empty-handed gesture. “Perhaps. Paola Rinzini owns the store, but she is visiting a supplier today. And Preziosi is closed tomorrow. She should be around on Monday, though. Can you wait until then?”

  “I guess we’ll have to,” Nancy said. “In the meantime, let’s see if the necklace has been reported stolen. If it has, we can return it. Then we won’t have to worry about having something so expensive on our hands.”

  • • •

  “Let me see if I can find someone who can help us,” Claudia said as the girls headed up the broad stairs of the police station and entered a quiet lobby. “We need someone simpatico.”

  Looking around, Nancy noticed that several officers in dark blue uniforms with flat hats were milling around. Others escorted nonuniformed people down a long hall.

  “A11 these officers look pretty sympathetic to me,” Bess commented, noticing several male heads turn their way.

  “Simpatico means nice or helpful,” George said, rolling her eyes.