The Thief Lord: Chapters 22-31

A few old men sat on the benches underneath the bare trees, looking dourly toward the blank gray sky overhead.

“I'm terribly sorry, Signora.” Riccio suddenly looked very downtrodden.

Riccio looked sincerely hurt and shook his head vigorously.

Ten minutes later the phone rang again, just as Prosper discovered a transparent cover with a photograph of him and his brother. Mesmerized, he stared at the picture.

“Well, that's all very interesting,” Esther's shrill voice replied, “but I would really rather receive that information from Mr. Getz himself. Please put me through.”

When the old man died, Scipio stole the best gondola from the Grand Canal and laid the old thief in it. Then he let him drift out on to the lagoon.

“It means,” Victor answered calmly, “that your Scipio may be a clever fellow and quite a crafty liar, but he's definitely not who you think he is.''

He picked the lock of the emergency exit and told us to barricade the front entrance.

“OK, I get it. Victor the spoilsport."

He could hear the bell resound through the whole house.

The others hid on either side of the entrance. So when a girl in a white apron opened the door, she saw only Prosper, with Bo smiling timidly at her from behind him.

His pants were definitely not as immaculate as her whiter-than-white apron and there were some pigeon droppings on his sweater.

Hornet looked over at the Casa Massimo, standing on the opposite bank, its grandeur reflected on the canal.

"Now, would you believe this?” Riccio shouted when they discovered the empty bathroom and Victor's scrawls on the wall. “We'll have to catch him again right away.”

There was nothing terribly special about Ida Spavento's kitchen. Pots and pans, spice jars, an espresso pot, a large table, a few chairs...

Mosca recoiled so quickly that he stumbled into the others.

That's what they had all been afraid of: having to go to the second floor, where the owner of the house might be sleeping in blissful ignorance of her nighttime visitors.

“The w-wing,” Riccio stammered, “and it's only m-made of wood." He was still holding up his hands even though the barrel of the gun was pointing down at his feet.

“Thief Lord?” Ida Spavento raised her eyebrows. She gave Scipio a glance full of mockery and gentle amusement.

When Bo stepped outside, the pigeon ruffled up its feathers and blinked, bewildered in the light.

“The Conte's not very likely to live in Paris,” Riccio said scornfully.

Prosper could see the old Scipio returning, the stubborn, arrogant Scipio who would fight to get his way.

"This city's already hard to bear in the summer, but the winter can bring even the healthiest man to the verge of his grave. But I forget who I'm talking to. You wouldn't understand. Children don't feel the chill. They skip around in the puddles and don't even get a cold."

Barbarossa slumped into his chair with the sigh of a mortally ill man.

“Perhaps," Prosper answered vaguely, before pulling the envelope from Barbarossa's fingers.

“Hey!" The redbeard slammed his fists on the desk and pushed himself up. “Aren't you a cocky one. Did nobody ever teach you to treat adults with respect?"

But before the redbeard could venture another guess Prosper had already pushed his brother through the curtain.

They only had eyes for the snow. The cold flakes settled on their faces and their hair. Bo gleefully licked one off his lip.

Prosper, Hornet, and Bo stopped on one of the bridges and bent over the stone parapet to watch how the gray water swallowed the snowflakes.

The snow gently covered the surrounding buildings, the red roofs, the black trellises on the balconies as well as the leaves of the autumn flowers in their pots.

Confused, the Hartliebs turned around and looked down at the quay, where a large flock of tourists was crowding onto an excursion boat.

Confused, the Hartliebs turned around and looked down at the quay, where a large flock of tourists was crowding onto an excursion boat.

We're offering quite a substantial reward.

I know you have already tried to dissuade us from using these means to search for the boys, and I do admit that a reward draws out the riffraff. But I will have those posters put up by every canal, every bar, every cafe, and every museum.

I will find Bo, before he dies of pneumonia or consumption in this infernal city.

“Children in general? No, not really. They're so fidgety and loud, and often quite dirty.”

He trudged through the wind. He walked past the Doge's Palace, which was already illuminated by its pink lamps, and then stomped through the twilight across the deserted St. Mark's Square.

Riccio climbed deftly back into the boat. Mosca wedged an oar against the wooden pier to stop the boat from rocking.

“Enough talk!” Mosca picked up the oars. “We've got to go.”
“Scipio's got to come in our boat,” Prosper interjected.

“The Conte negotiated with him. He'll be suspicious if he's not with us.”