EXTRACTS: The Modesty Blaise Companion Expanded Edition © 2018 The Book Palace (425 PAGES in Full edition)

E X P A N D E D E D I T I O N T H E M O D E S T Y B L A I S E C O M P A N I STORY No. 15 DRAWN BY JIM HOLDAWAY START DATE OF STORY 18th November 1968 (Monday) END DATE OF STORY 22nd March 1969 (Saturday) While visiting her architect friend Max Aquino in Venice, Modesty helps a child thief Angelo to evade the police. She takes him to a restaurant and is joined there by Max and later Francesca, Angelo’s sister. The children prefer to live together as itinerants rather than be forced to live apart in separate orphanages. Max is restoring a palazzo on one of the islands for a rich client who has bought it from Count Alborini with “all things contained therein and thereon”. This includes a huge statue, the Red Gryphon. Max has found an old letter telling of treasure hidden under the statue. After lunch, Max discovers that Angelo has stolen his briefcase with the letter. That night Max and Modesty attend a party given by Alborini who offers to buy back the statue. Max refuses. Later, Alborini telephones Max, asking him to call on him urgently. Max sets out to see him and is later found drowned. Modesty realises that Alborini must know about the treasure, has murdered Max and that the children are in great danger. She calls Willie Garvin in London and they agree a plan for him to come to Venice. She then goes to look for the children, finding them just in time to prevent them being murdered and hides them. Secretely visiting the palazzo that night she finds men trying to remove the statue. By creating a series of “accidents”, she discourages them. Willie, now in Venice posing as a demolition expert, offers his services to Alborini and is hired to remove the statue. In order to get to the island Modesty allows herself to be captured but Alborini has recognised them. Willie is shot and falls into the lagoon. Modesty breaks free and in a fight in the palazzo, kills Alborini by dropping him down the well his ancestors used to dispose of unwanted bodies. Luckily Willie’s wound is not serious, they complete the job of removing the statue, have it taken aboard Freddie Lampson’s yacht and recover the treasure. Modesty goes to Rome and calls on Max’s client, now the rightful owner of the treasure. Telling him briefly how she came by it, she names her price – half its value to pay for an orphanage that will allow Angelo and Francesca to stay together. He is very rich and offers the entire treasure if she will tell him the whole story. She agrees. As a former orphanage resident Willie reveals that he once sang second soprano in the choir. He wonders if he might have missed his vocation. 221