A few moments later the individual responses began.
“Barbara, you poverina!” Oriana said as if it were the Contessa herself who had been disfigured.
The Contessa’s face was white. This wasn’t acting, but the real thing. It was as if she were seeing her slashed portrait for the first time.
“Gemma’s lovely work,” she said. “Oh, you can see how lovely it was.” Her voice, empty of all vanity and pride, communicated only regret. “Who could have done such a thing?”
“Maybe Gemma didn’t think it turned out well and took her palette knife to it,” Sebastian said.
“This is no time for joking!” Robert shouted, getting to his feet. “Not with my mother lying unconscious upstairs! This is an attack on her.”
“Looks more like an attack on Barbara,” Sebastian said.
“The person who did this,” Robert went on, “is the same one who pushed my mother down the stairs! Yes, I said pushed. I agree with Urbino now. She no more fell down the stairs than—than …”
He trailed off, apparently unable to come up with an appropriate analogy. It was supplied, however, by Urbino, who got up and went over to the Contessa.
“—no more than Molly was killed accidentally by the door of the loggia blowing open.”
The Contessa, who seemed to be experiencing each revelation for the first time, swayed on her feet. Urbino took her arm. Viola rushed up to help, and together they guided the Contessa onto the sofa. Then, with her Swinburnish eyes brimming with anger, Viola picked up the velvet draping and carefully covered the mutilated portrait as if she were covering the face of a dead woman.
“You have to put a stop to everything,” she said quietly but urgently to Urbino before joining the Contessa on the sofa. There she and the Contessa sat, staring at Urbino.
In fact, everyone in the library was staring at him as he stood in front of the reshrouded portrait. So silent was it that he could hear a candle spattering on the other side of the room.
“Do tell us what’s going on, Mr. Macintyre,” Angelica said in her gentle voice as she reached up to touch Robert’s sleeve. “It’s all right, dear. The only thing that matters is that your mother completely recovers.”
Robert reseated himself next to her on the sofa.
“We’re waiting with baited breath,” Sebastian said from the depths of his armchair. “You could say you’ve thrown down the gauntlet.”
And so he had, Urbino realized. The two Zenos, Vasco, and Oriana had no trouble understanding Sebastian’s idiom, which was identical in Italian. Yet, if there had been any confusion, Sebastian’s next words would have dispelled it: “Urbino is saying that one of us did in poor little Molly and tried to do the same to Gemma—and is now sitting here hoping she doesn’t pull through.”
“One of us a murderer?” Angelica said with a puzzled, ingenuous look.
“He’s not serious, my dear,” Vasco said. He gave Mamma Zeno, who was sitting bolt upright in her chair and still staring at Urbino, an apprehensive look.
“Oh, he is!” Oriana wailed. “It’s all because of the curse of the Ca’ da Capo!”
“We’ll have no more of that nonsense, Oriana!” the Contessa said in an effort to get some control. “We’re all going to sit here like sensible grown-ups and listen to what Urbino has to say. I—I insist!” she finished feebly and looked at Urbino with round, frightened eyes.
13
Before beginning to speak, Urbino briefly regarded each of the guests: Viola, who had one long arm cradled protectively around the Contessa; Oriana, her eyes frightened behind their Laura Biagiotti glasses; Angelica, pale, her fingers loosely intertwined in her lap; Robert, his olive skin shining with perspiration; Vasco, a truculent expression on his bone-thin face; Mamma Zeno, whose small dark eyes seemed to look at something far beyond the room and who was grasping her black cane more tightly than usual; Bambina on an ottoman in front of her mother, staring unblinkingly and guilelessly back at Urbino; and Sebastian, his long fingers lost in his thick auburn hair and wearing, as he so often did, an insinuating smile.
“No, Oriana,” Urbino began, “it’s not the curse of the Ca’ da Capo. And there’s no haunted room, although someone here would like us to believe there is. Yes, the Caravaggio Room has seen death several times, on two occasions very violent death, the second time as recent as the early hours of this morning. But if Molly had been staying in any other room, she would be just as dead.” He paused for a beat, then added: “And so would Renata Zeno if she had stayed in one of the other rooms.”
“Renata!” Bambina said. “What does Renata have to do with this?”
“Everything,” Urbino said.
A little smile quivered at one corner of Bambina’s mouth.
“Mamma, what does he mean?”
Mamma Zeno, without even glancing at her daughter, pulled her gaze back from wherever it had been and directed it with startling clarity at Urbino. He held it steadily for a few moments before going on:
“I intend to explain everything. Before I ask some of you to help me out with your information, let me tell you a few things as I see them. No one came to the Ca’ da Capo with murder on the mind. Or perhaps I should clarify and say that the murderer had murder on the mind, but not the murder of Molly.”
“My mother!” Robert cried. “She was the real target.”
“No, Robert, she wasn’t on the murderer’s mind either, but as events quickly developed, she soon was.”
Everything wasn’t completely clear to Urbino. There was a small but crucial area within which he was still feeling his way. By articulating things he was better able to sort them out, but he was well aware of the risk of doing it in this way. There were still people in the room who were in danger from the murderer. He was one of them.
“Then what you’re saying is that Molly’s murder wasn’t premeditated,” Viola said with the air of trying to clarify things for herself and the others. “It was a crime passionnel.”
She held the Contessa closer and tighter and looked in her face with an uncharacteristically gentle smile, as if a crime of passion under her roof alleviated a great deal of her burden. The Contessa’s expression, which had proceeded to darken the more Urbino spoke, gave no indication that she was in any way consoled.
“Not a crime of passion either,” Urbino said, not looking at Viola. “Let’s consider various things,” he went on quickly. “In fact, there are a great many, and each plays a part in the tragic events. For example, there’s the story of the peacock brooch, which Bambina has just been kind enough to grace us with.” His nod in her direction was met by a self-satisfied smile. “This story, with its glimpse into history—”
“The fall of the Byzantine Empire from the point of view of a brooch,” interjected Sebastian. No one paid him any attention and Urbino continued without even glancing at him.
“Bambina told the Zeno version of the story, of course. What the Da Capo-Zendrini version is and which one is the true one”—the Contessa was about to protest but restrained herself—“is not really important for us right now. What is important is that the bad blood between the two families goes a long way back.”
Vasco took advantage of Urbino’s pause and said, “I believe you are trying to tell us that you believe little Molly was murdered because of this bad blood? Because of the brooch?”
There was a faint note of relief in Vasco’s voice.
“I didn’t say that,” Urbino responded, but he didn’t then add what he had meant. It would soon become clear and he needed to do it in the way he had planned.
“By the way,” he began casually, “none of you know that the brooch was stolen—none of you but Barbara and the thief, that is.” He studied them closely. “It was stolen some time between when Barbara came down for drinks before dinner last evening and when she returned to her room after her bridge game with Oriana, Filippo, and Dr. Vasco.”
Everyone but the Contessa looked surprised, and at least one of them was doing a very
good imitation.
“Stolen?” Bambina said. “But she’s wearing it right now! How silly of you, Urbino!”
She stared at the sparkling ornament with avidity.
“Maybe it’s paste,” Angelica said. “Or maybe the one that was stolen was paste, like in that French story.”
A look of dismay came over Bambina’s chubby face. She looked at her mother, who remained silent and impassive.
“That was a necklace,” Robert said, “and it was lost, not stolen. Maybe that’s what happened. Barbara mislaid her brooch and only thought she lost it.”
“Oh, it was gone, all right,” the Contessa jumped in, only to wonder the next moment why she hadn’t kept her mouth shut. “And it’s not paste. It’s the real thing.”
“Then where did you find it?” Viola asked.
“I didn’t find it.”
“What the hell is going on?” Sebastian said. “I thought last night was the time for playing games!”
“What Barbara means is that I found it,” Urbino said. “In the pocket of Gemma’s robe.”
Robert got to his feet, his mouth open, and for several moments no sound came from his lips. When it did, he was shouting.
“In the pocket of my mother’s robe? And what business did you have going through her pockets?”
He started across the room toward Urbino, but was stopped by Urbino’s next words: “I’m not saying that Gemma stole the brooch. I said that I found it in her pocket. I believe it was put there by the thief, so that we would assume she had stolen it.”
Robert looked around at the other guests, searching out the thief among them who had tried to cast suspicion on his mother, who might have pushed her down the stairs.
“Come back here, Robert,” Angelica said. “Let Urbino finish.”
Robert returned to the sofa, mumbling something indistinguishable under his breath.
“So we have the theft of the brooch, planted on Gemma by the thief,” Urbino continued, “and Barbara’s slashed portrait, which also in its way—as Robert pointed out earlier—involves Gemma since she painted it. All of you knew where to find the portrait and all of you knew about the existence of the brooch. Some of you from as long ago as the thirties and even earlier, others”—he looked first at Viola, then at Sebastian—“only since yesterday afternoon when you heard about it in the memoir left behind by the Conte.”
“Alvise left a memoir?” Vasco said with a gasp. “What do you mean?”
“A memoir he wrote for Barbara about the Caravaggio Room and about Renata’s death. He left instructions that it was to be given to Barbara upon his death. I shared it with the twins yesterday afternoon.”
“A questionable form of entertainment,” Robert said.
“What did Alvise say in it?” Vasco asked.
“Many things,” Urbino said, “and one of them was about the brooch, as I’ve said. He described how Bambina, so many, many years ago, was the person who told the story of the brooch to the dinner guests.”
“History repeats itself, they say,” Sebastian said. “And those who don’t know it are condemned—isn’t that the word?—condemned to repeat it, poor, benighted souls.”
He finished his brandy, got up, and replenished his glass.
“It’s more appropriate, given the events here at the palazzo in the past twenty-four hours,” Urbino rejoined, “to say that those who do know history are in a perfect position to see that it is repeated—or to create that impression.”
“I see what you mean,” Viola said. “Someone wants us to believe in the curse of the Ca’ da Capo, as you said before.”
“Yes, someone was very pleased to be able to take advantage of the superstition surrounding the room—a superstition which all of you were also fully aware of, just as you were about the brooch. And although I keep saying ‘you,’ let’s not forget to include our absent guests, too: Filippo, out in the storm somewhere, and Gemma, who even at this moment might be regaining consciousness”—his eye swept over them all as he said this last—“and, finally, also Molly.”
“Molly!” Vasco broke out.
“Were you entertaining her, too, with the story of my grandmother’s death?” Robert asked.
“I may be wrong,” Urbino said quietly, “but I believe it was your mother herself who told Molly about her mother’s death, the Caravaggio Room, and the brooch.”
Before Robert could jump up again, Angelica put a restraining hand on his arm and said, “Why would Gemma ever have done such a thing, Mr. Macintyre? Molly was a stranger to her. Gemma barely breathed a word about the past to me.”
“She didn’t have to tell you anything. You learned what you know from your great-uncle Andrew Lydgate and, of course, from Robert. Molly knew more than you although she understood less.”
“Riddles, again!” Robert said contemptuously.
“I suppose they are, but like all riddles they only seem to be confusing. Their answers are relatively simple. You see, Molly was writing a book. She was to call it The Blood of Venice. All about strange happenings, mysterious disappearances, bloody deaths—historical and otherwise—associated with Venice. In the course of her research she must have come across something about the Caravaggio Room. The Ca da’ Capo is famous enough—on the Grand Canal, designed by Cominelli, frescoes by Zugno and Cignaroli—to appear in many of the guidebooks. Although Barbara and I don’t know of any that specifically mentions the Caravaggio Room, one might exist—”
“It doesn’t say much for your research skills,” Sebastian said.
Urbino realized that, for the moment, it was best to ignore Sebastian, who had been downing his brandy as if it were water.
“—and this guidebook, with perhaps only a brief reference to the Caravaggio Room, could have been enough to cause Molly to add the Ca’ da Capo to her list of subjects. I found some papers among Molly’s things—a book contract, the name of the Ca’ da Capo along with other buildings in Venice with mysterious or violent pasts. At some point and in some way Molly and Gemma managed to get together and Gemma told her what she knew.”
“But why would my mother do such a thing? As Angelica said, she’s close-mouthed, especially about the family and most especially about the death of her mother.”
“But what about other things that Molly said?” the Contessa stepped in, perhaps sensing that Urbino wasn’t ready to answer Robert’s question yet. “Things that had nothing to do with the family or the Caravaggio Room—personal things about Urbino, for example. The death of his parents. I never told Gemma.”
The Contessa’s eyes, almost involuntarily, moved in Oriana’s direction.
“Why don’t you and Urbino just say it, Barbara? It’s my fault! That’s what he’s working up to, isn’t it? My fault that Molly is dead! My fault that Gemma might die! Everything’s my fault! Even this storm and poor Filippo lying senseless somewhere! Yes, I admit it! I told Gemma some things about you and Urbino. She might have been close-mouthed, Robert, but she was very curious just the same. Does this make me an—an accomplice before the fact?”
“No one’s blaming you for anything,” Urbino said. “What you told Gemma and what she then passed on to Molly didn’t result, even indirectly, in her death.”
“You’re off the hook, Oriana,” Sebastian said.
“You must listen to Urbino closely, my dear brother, although in your condition it’s a wonder you can hear anything. He didn’t say that Oriana wasn’t a murderer—but of course we all know that already,” she added quickly when Oriana made an exclamation. “What he said was that what she told Gemma didn’t lead to Molly’s murder. Urbino is keeping all options open, you see. To keep us all guessing, especially the murderer, who is bound to wonder if he really has it all figured out.”
“Ah, yes,” Sebastian said, “the rules of the game. I know a bit about them myself. Isn’t this where Urbino is about to stun us with his knowledge of the Bhagavad-Gita or the sumptuary laws of old Constantinople as he answers the burning question: Who un
der the humble roof of the Ca’ da Capo did Molly in? Years ago, maybe around the time of the first fatal fete here, it would have been Mauro, the old family retainer and that sort of thing. Then I believe there was a distinct preference for the professional authority figure, the man—always was a man, wasn’t it?—everyone’s depending on. Guess that would be old Vasco here. And then there’s the straightforward chap who wants to get to the bottom of things and no nonsense about it. That’s obviously me. And what about the languishing heroine, whom we have in the pale flesh of Angelica?”
Urbino wasn’t inclined to interrupt Sebastian and in fact wished he would go on, for it was a good opportunity to observe the guests as he named them. But Sebastian had tired of his exercise and returned his attentions to his brandy glass.
“So let me get this right,” Robert began with an edge of sarcasm. “The twins meet Molly on the Orient Express and invite her to a palazzo that she’s writing a book about. Then my mother, for some unknown reason or a reason you aren’t prepared to share with us quite yet, drags Molly into a dark corner of the Ca’ da Capo and makes her the repository of our family history and some anecdotes from your own life. Then the brooch is stolen. Then Molly is murdered. Then my poor mother is pushed down the stairs. And at some point someone slashes her portrait of Barbara. Have I missed anything?”
Bambina tried to suppress a giggle. One chubby hand was clapped over her mouth and she stared at Urbino, then at her mother, with almost merry eyes.
“For one thing,” Urbino said, “Gemma didn’t inform Molly yesterday, but some time before she ever got on the Orient Express.”
“But it was the twins who invited Molly,” Angelica said in a cool, calm voice.
“Yes, they did. The circumstances of that invitation have a bearing on what happened to Molly. Sebastian?”
Sebastian straightened up in exaggerated fashion, in the process spilling brandy on himself.
Death in the Palazzo Page 20