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darn well liked, because he was not happy. Not happy at his failure to come up with the goods on the mystery couple, or that the chances of him ever finding out whether he’d been on to anything or not had vanished into thin air.
    The last time Trey had seen Signor Giovedi (and the woman who might, or might not be Signora Giovedi) was when he’d caught a glimpse of them on the platform after the Orient Express had
arrived in Venice at the Santa Lucia train station. In all the chaos which had accompanied their exit from the train, and the subsequent turmoil caused by their transfer to the vaporetto ,
Trey found it completely impossible to keep track of the dark grey fedora, and so the story of The Man With the Pencil Mustache stuttered to a somewhat disappointing conclusion. Unless, of course,
he saw them again...
    As Trey had disconsolately traipsed after his father, following him through the station hall, the chance sighting of a freshly stubbed-out yellow cigarette butt had given him a moment’s
hope that he was going to be able to pick up the trail, but it was not to be. The Giovedis had gone.
    Standing on the wooden deck of the small steamer, Trey held on to the brass rail, aware that his feelings of disappointment were fading as he stared around him...at least the latest stage in his
summer journey looked like it was getting off to a good start, if the view from the boat was anything to go by. Whatever bones he had to pick with his father about his definition of “not
working” (and there were so many of them they would make up an entire chicken’s carcass, in his opinion) Trey had to admit that, despite all the telegrams and such, he had
certainly seen some sights on the trip so far. And here he was staring at another one: the city of Venice.
    All the stuff he’d read in the guidebook that his father had handed over the moment he’d asked a question (“Look it up for yourself, son...it’s the best way to
learn”) hadn’t done anything to prepare him for the real thing – a whole city built on the water! Unfortunately, not on actual stilts, as he’d first imagined.
The place was incredibly old, and looked like something out of a storybook where pirates and swashbucklers were to be found – and it had canals for streets!
    Everywhere Trey looked there were people going this way and that in small boats the guidebook had said were called gondolas. The stories he was going to be able to spin when he got back to
Chicago! The gang at school were just not going to believe what he’d have to tell; he wished he’d tried that bit harder to get his father to buy him a camera so he could prove
what he’d seen as he knew that Morty, Will, Stan and Ronnie would be spending the summer at their families’ South Shore houses.
    It turned out that their hotel was not in the actual main part of Venice, but on a long, thin island some way off it, in a place which Trey’s father said was called the
    Lido (“...you get the best views and don’t have to deal with the hoi polloi, son...”) and it looked to Trey very much like he was going to be stuck away from whatever action
    there might be in yet another smart and stuffy joint. No doubt the kind of place where nothing less than the very best behaviour would be the order of the day. Every day.
    The hotel looked like a palace, with uniformed flunkies everywhere, and crystal glass candelabra, velvet curtains, fancy gold decorations, marble floors, walls, stairs and statues; it had
huge ornately framed mirrors and dark, impenetrable oil paintings on the walls, with acres of polished brass and wood as far as the eye could see. He was, Trey thought, staying in a museum with sea
views. Once again, not his personal idea of a holiday.
    Their accommodation turned out to be a very large suite, which certainly had the kind of scenery you might admire, if you liked palms and seascapes, like his dad. There might be more interesting
places around and about, but how to get