Street of the Five Moons Read Free Page B

and decoration take some getting used to; they look frivolous and overdone to modern tastes. But I like them. It seems to me a church ought to express the joy of religion as well as its majesty. The Zimmerman stuccowork at old St. Peter’s always cheers me up. But I didn’t go in. I walked through the neighboring streets for a while. It was a waste of time, actually. I didn’t know which of the alleys in the vicinity had harbored my dead man, and if I had known, there was nothing to be gained from staring at the vacated space. The police would have searched the area thoroughly.
    I passed through the Viktualenmarkt, with its booths of fresh fruits and vegetables and its glorious flower stalls. They were masses of flaming color that morning, all the spring flowers — yellow bunches of daffodils, great armfuls of lilac, fat blue and pink hyacinths perfuming the air. I ended up on Kaufinger-strasse, which was a favorite haunt of mine, because I adore window-shopping. It was just about the only kind of shopping I could afford. Some of the most delectable windows were those of the shops that sold the lovely peasant costumes of southern Germany and Austria. People still wear them, even in sophisticated Munich — loden cloaks of green or creamy-white wool, banded in red, with big silver buttons; blouses and aprons trimmed with handmade lace; and, of course, dirndls. They differ in style according to the area where they originated: the sexy Salzburger dirndl, with its lowcut bodice, artfully designed to make the most of a girl’s secondary sex characteristics; the Tegernsee type, which has a separate skirt and jacket, the latter lengthened behind into a stiff, pleated peplum. I love those brilliant costumes, of bright cotton print or embroidered velvet; but I am not the dirndl type. However, I had my eye on an ivory wool cape with buttons made out of old silver coins, so I stopped by the shop to see if by any chance they were having a sale. They weren’t. I turned away, and then something across the street caught my eye.
    It was only an advertising sign for Lufthansa airlines. “Rome!” it exclaimed, above a huge photograph of the Spanish Steps lined with baskets of pink and white azaleas. “See Rome and live! Six flights daily.”
    All the pieces came together then, the way they do sometimes when you leave them alone and let them simmer. The swarthy skin and Latin look of the dead man; Herr Feder’s joking suggestion that the cryptogram represented an address; the atmosphere of antiquities, treasure, and jewels that colored the whole affair.
    I had been thinking vaguely of going to Rome on my holiday, and wondering where I was going to get the money. There was one particular area I longed to explore at leisure — a region near the Tiber, where Bernini’s windblown angels guard the bridge that leads to the Castel Sant’ Angelo. A region of narrow twisted streets and tall frowning houses. The Via dei Coronari is the antique lovers’ paradise. And not far from the Via dei Coronari is a street called the Via delle Cinque Lune — the Street of the Five Moons.
    It was only a hunch. I couldn’t even call it a theory. But the five curved signs might represent crescent moons; and surely it was more than a coincidence that that particular part of Rome specialized in antiques of a very expensive nature.
    At any rate, it wouldn’t do any harm to investigate number 37, Via delle Cinque Lune. I turned and walked toward the museum, planning some mild larceny.
    I can be reasonably glib when I try. Tony, one of my former colleagues at the University, refers to me as Old Slippery Tongue. But I couldn’t have put this deal across with anyone except Professor Schmidt. Goodness, but that man is gullible! I worry about him sometimes. Fortunately he is not quite as gullible about other swindlers as he is about me. He has a slightly exaggerated idea of my intelligence. I didn’t even have to lie to him. He thought my interpretation of the