Read 1954 - Mission to Venice for Free Online

shop-window gazing, feeding the pigeons or clustered in groups before the magnificent facade of the basilica with its four gilded bronze horses and its rich mosaics.
    Don cut through the Calledei Fabbri. Manrico Rossi’s glass shop was down a narrow alley, near the Rialto Bridge. It took Don a little time to make his way there. The shop was at that moment recovering from an invasion of a group of tourists. They came out of the shop, sweating and tired, but determined to see everything there was to see, and Don stood aside until the last of them had gone.
    He entered the long, narrow shop, and it seemed to him he had stepped into a softly lit cave with sparkling chandeliers roofing the ceiling and the walls furnished with miracles of glittering crystal.
    At the far end of the shop was a long bench at which three girls were sitting. Before each girl was a powerful gas burner that threw a three-inch flame. The girls were holding long slender
    rods of coloured glass in the heat of the flame. Working with fascinating speed, they fashioned little animals by softening the tubes and bending them to shape.
    Don paused to watch them work. One of the girls, a dark, thin-faced little creature, glanced up and her big eyes met his for a moment before she continued to turn the strip of white glass into a miniature, prancing horse.
    He watched her set the horse aside to cool, and again she looked up at him, and he half imagined she gave him a signal; the quick lift of her eyebrows and the sudden flash that came into her eyes held his attention. Her eyes shifted back to the row of various coloured glass rods that lay before her. She took one, ran it quickly up and down in the flame, then with amazingly expert fingers she bent the rod, twisted it, bent it again and to Don’s astonishment she laid before him a queer little pattern of bent glass. Looking down at it, he saw it was an intertwined monogram she had devised, and he saw the initials that stood out against the pattern she had designed were J.T.
    He had scarcely time to read these initials before she had whisked up the design and had passed it through the flame, and in a moment, it had become the hind legs of yet another prancing horse.
    Had he imagined it? he wondered, looking down at the sleek dark hair of the girl as she bent over her work. J.T. - John Tregarth?
    Had he imagined it?
    “Ah, signore, I see you are interested in our work,” a voice said, and turning sharply he found a tall, fat man in a grey lounge suit standing by him. The big, fat, sleepy-eyed face was typically Italian, and the smile, revealing some gold-capped teeth, was as professional as it was insincere.
    “That’s right,” Don returned.
    “It is a great honour to have you here, Signor Micklem. Four years now you have been coming to Venice, and this is the first time you have honoured my shop.”
    “Well, I’m here now,” Don said, smiling. He had become used to the Venetians recognizing him as soon as they saw him. You can’t remain an American millionaire with a palazzo on the Grand Canal without every trader in Venice becoming aware of the fact.
    “May I show you some of my treasures, signore?”
    “A friend of mine wants a chandelier. I promised to look at some.”
    “Ah, a chandelier! Please come to my office. I can show you many beautiful designs. Your friend would be more satisfied if he selected a special design and we made it for him. If he cares, he would be most welcome to see some of it made at our factory in Murano.”
    Don followed the fat man down a passage and into a small, well-furnished office. He sat down while the fat man began to look through a large portfolio full of various drawings.
    “You are Manrico Rossi?” Don asked quietly.
    “Yes, signore. You have been recommended to me perhaps?”
    “A good friend of mine told me to come to you. A friend of yours, too, I believe.”
    Rossi smiled. He faced Don, a sheaf of designs in his hand.
    “And his name, signore?”
    “John