“Asdrubale Mattei.” The words jumped out of her mouth before she could stop them.
“Who?” he said, and his jaw dropped open.
“Um, you know,” she said hurriedly, “the guy who built this palace at the beginning of the 1600s? Come on, Dad, everyone knows that.”
“No, my little bookworm, I’d wager you’re the only person in this entire audience who knows that! So that’s what you’ve been doing locked up in your room every night: studying the history of the neighborhood?”
“Mm-hm,” she murmured innocently. The lights went down just in time to hide the blush spreading across her cheeks as the pianist strode toward the inky-black concert grand.
As the melancholy chords of the Chopin ballade filled the courtyard, Beatrice fidgeted in her seat. A glance at her watch showed it was after nine. Less than three hours until the moment of truth. She had to come up with a plan, fast.
Her eyes darted around, scoping out the landscape. Near the entrance of the courtyard, a wide marble staircase led up to the loggia on the floor above. If she could get up there, maybe she could find a way into the adjacent palace. But what about her dad? She couldn’t exactly ditch him.
Her thoughts began to swirl and soon she’d lost all track of time. A burst of applause jolted her back to the present and she clapped furiously.
“Would you do me the honor of accompanying me for a refreshment, signorina?” asked her father with exaggerated gallantry as the lights came up for intermission.
They wandered toward the refreshment table, Beatrice’s eyes taking in every detail of their surroundings. By the time they reached the table, there was already a cluster of people lined up for snacks.
This was it. Intermission was her only chance. If she was going to do something, she had to do it now. Her eyes shifted from left to right, trying to decide on the best plan of attack. Just as she and her dad reached the front of the line, her dad’s cell phone rang.
“Excuse me a moment, sweet pea. I’ve got to take this.”
Typical, Beatrice thought, rolling her eyes, as her dad stepped away from the crowd. Taking advantage of his momentary absence, she racked her brain for a scheme. What if she told him she had to use the ladies’ room, and sneaked upstairs instead? Then she could—
“Beatrice, I’m sorry, but we have to go,” he said brusquely, his face whiter than usual.
“What? But the concert’s not over yet!”
“I know, but this is an emergency. There’s been another break-in at the academy. This time a priceless artifact is missing—a nearly three-thousand-year-old bronze hand mirror! I have to go at once.”
Beatrice’s heart sank. So Cambriolage had gotten his hands on one of the academy’s ancient artifacts. Her dad would be fired before he’d even begun teaching and they’d be on the next plane out of there. This wasn’t just about the turtles anymore.
Her determination turned fierce. “Dad, we can’t go,” she stated, trying to temper the panic in her voice. “We’ll miss the Beethoven!”
“There’s no discussion. Get your things—we’re leaving now.” She knew that tone of voice. It was the same tone he’d used to order her back to bed the night the turtles were stolen. The one he’d used to tell her they were moving to Rome. It was his no-arguing voice.
“I’ll drop you off at home and head straight to the academy.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “With any luck I’ll be back before dawn.”
“Dad, you go. Let me stay, please? Beethoven is my favorite!” If only she could explain that this ancient mirror was only one of a long list of artworks that were destined to disappear, and how she alone had a chance to prevent it.
“By yourself? Out of the question!”
“Dad, we live right across the square,” she said slowly, keeping her voice as calm as possible. “When the concert’s over, I’ll be home in less than one minute. You’ve let me wander all over the neighborhood alone, and I’ve been fine so far, haven’t I?”
“Yes, during the day. By the time the concert ends it’ll be nearly eleven!”
“You said yourself everything happens later here. The piazza will be full of people, coming out of the concert, taking an evening stroll. It’s a Saturday night in summer!”
“I don’t know, Beatrice. You’re too young to be out alone at this hour.”
“I’m nearly fourteen years old. You’ve got to let me grow up sometime!”
She saw his determination falter and knew she had won.
“All right,” he relented. “But you’re to go home immediately after the concert.”
“Thank you, Dad!” She threw her arms around him.
He was all business. “Do you have your keys? Your phone?”
“Of course,” she said with a twang of guilt. She had one of the two, anyway.
“Make sure no one follows you into the building, and lock the door behind you.”
“Dad, I’ve been home alone at night before.”
“Not in Rome. You be careful, Beatrice.”
“I will.”
He kissed her on the top of the head and hurried out of the courtyard.
“It’s now or never,” she whispered to no one but herself.
The concertgoers were milling about, drinking prosecco, and chatting happily. It was a lazy Saturday night, the eve of August holidays, and no one was paying attention to the thirteen-year-old redhead slipping behind the wooden barricade and scurrying up the wide marble staircase.
Twenty-Six
INTRUDER
At the top of the staircase, an intricate iron gate was mercifully propped open. Beatrice squeezed through and stepped onto the loggia. She peered over the railing into the courtyard below, where intermission was still in full swing. No one had noticed her.
A set of open French doors led into a bright room with fancy furniture, a large gilt-framed mirror, and an elaborate chandelier. A gold-colored couch sat in the center of the room with a man’s jacket strewn across it. A stack of sheet music and a bottle of water sat on a nearby table and a pair of men’s shoes and a garment bag lay scattered on the floor.
Beatrice realized she was standing in the pianist’s makeshift dressing room. But it was still intermission; surely he was up here somewhere.
At that precise moment, she heard a toilet flush, followed by firm footsteps coming down the hallway. She had just enough time to duck behind an armchair in the corner of the room. She peeked around the side as the swarthy musician strode into the room. He took a swig from the water bottle, adjusted his bow tie, and checked his appearance in the mirror. After slipping on his shoes and his suit jacket, he stepped onto the loggia and disappeared down the stairs just as Beatrice’s heart was getting ready to burst. This was it. She now had the second half of the concert to find her way from this Mattei palace to the one next door.
She waited a few seconds to make sure she was alone, and then crawled out from behind the armchair. Despite the thumping in her chest, she forced herself to do things methodically. She pulled out the photocopy of the Isola Mattei floor plan. By tracing her finger from the palace entrance into the courtyard and up the staircase, she was able to determine her general location. She checked her compass and headed down the hallway in the direction of the neighboring palace.
As she tiptoed down the dark corridor, the plaintive notes of the Beethoven sonata spilled in from the courtyard like raindrops pattering on a rooftop. The palace was eerily empty and she shivered, despite the balmy temperature outside.
Everywhere she turned she met closed doors. The first three she tried were locked solid, with modern locks that would be impossible to pick, even if she knew how. Finally a door handle gave. Her excitement deflated as she stared into a tiny bathroom with no windows.
She soldiered on. Around a corner, the corridor opened onto a wide room with a gilded stucco ceiling and richly paneled walls. Had it once been a ballroom or a formal dining room? Not anymore. In the center sat a vast conference table surrounded by a dozen black
leather chairs.
She crossed the room and continued into another corridor. Walking its entire length, she found no sign of a passage to the neighboring palace, just a sweeping staircase up to the higher floor. Time was running out. Soon the concert would be over and they’d be locking up the palace. If she didn’t hurry, she’d be locked up in it.
Careful to keep track of her bearings, she ventured up the staircase. More closed doors. More locked doors. What now? She couldn’t keep going up and up.
Around a corner she came to a few windows. Peering out, she looked down at the roof of the adjacent building—the roof of Palazzo Giacomo Mattei! It was short and inconsequential compared to the palace she was in. Just past the roof was a dark courtyard, the one she’d passed through with Monsieur Cambriolage on her way to the auction viewing, she realized with a jolt.
She flipped the lock of one of the windows and it opened easily. She stuck her head out and tried to gauge how far down the rooftop was. Four feet? Maybe five? She’d always been afraid of heights, and now was no exception. Looking past the roof below at the steep drop into the courtyard beyond made her stomach lurch. No, thank you, she wasn’t that nuts.
Just as she was about to slam the window shut, the sound of heavy steps rang out from around the corner. Someone—no, two someones by the sound of it—were climbing up the stairs in her direction. Were they just closing the palace for the night, or had someone seen her sneaking in? She decided not to wait and find out.
Before she had time to change her mind, she tossed her bag out the window. It landed with a plop on the rooftop below. She lifted one leg over the sill, then the other, said a silent prayer, and hopped down.
Smack!
The rooftop was farther down than it had looked. It wasn’t completely flat either. It tilted downward slightly toward the courtyard, but not so much that she couldn’t stand upright. The terra-cotta tiles shifted under her as she struggled to keep her balance.
She stood with her arms akimbo, her heart pounding like a warning drum. She tried not to panic, plotting her next move, when suddenly the roof tiles slipped from beneath her feet. Before she had time to blink, she was lying flat on her face. To her relief, the roof wasn’t steep at all, perhaps a twenty-degree angle at most. Figuring the damage had already been done, she grabbed the straps of her bag and squirmed down the roof until her feet hit the gutter.
Lying facedown on the rooftop didn’t exactly afford her a helpful view. She craned her head over her left shoulder and could just make out a staircase leading from the courtyard up to the piano nobile, the palace’s luxurious second floor. Her stomach careened and her head spun, but she forced herself to ignore it.
From what she could tell, the staircase led to directly below the section of roof she was lying on. She closed her eyes and tried to picture the courtyard from the ground, as she’d seen it just a few days before. Did it have a loggia like the one next door? She thought so, but couldn’t be sure. She’d have to risk it.
To her right, a drainpipe was attached to the wall at the corner of the courtyard. She inched toward it, and with courage she didn’t know she had, she slid her lower body over the edge of the roof. She reached for the copper pipe with her right hand and foot, praying it wouldn’t detach and fall straight to the ground. The pipe held and her feet scrabbled for a resting place on top of a nearby window. From there she scampered onto the balustrade of the loggia that was—just as she’d hoped—directly under the roof she’d been clutching on to moments ago.
She hopped onto the floor of the loggia, and raced down the stairs until she was safely on the ground. She would’ve knelt down and kissed the cobblestones had she not been in such a hurry.
Bong!
Beatrice froze.
Bong!
A nearby church bell was tolling ten o’clock.
Bong!
Only two hours left.
The courtyard was dark and empty. The ground-floor windows were barred and the main door of the palace was—not surprisingly—sealed tight. She had no choice but to head back up the stairs. The French doors opening onto the loggia were soundly locked as well, and Beatrice was running out of options. She tried each window in turn, until at last, one yielded.
Just as she was about to climb inside, a new thought struck her: what if someone was home? According to Monsieur Cambriolage, the Mattei family still lived in the palace—at least until the auction tomorrow. What would they do if they found her sneaking around? Her stomach flip-flopped at the thought.
She peeked in hesitantly, but all was darkness. She slipped through the window as quietly as she could and, once inside, eased it shut. Crouched on the floor, she strained to hear if anyone was about.
Silence.
Stealthy as a cat, Beatrice crept down the hallway, straining to see in the dark. After turning a few blind corners, she reached the grand hall, spooky and still as a deserted train station. She wandered from room to shadowy room, eventually stepping into the picture gallery where the light of a streetlamp filtered through half-shaded windows, casting a hazy glow on the paintings.
Pulled as if by a magnet, she found herself face-to-face with the duchess’s portrait. The grimy painting was almost indiscernible in the gloom. And yet, as if lit from within, Caterina’s eyes shone out. Having read her most intimate thoughts, Beatrice saw the duchess as more real than ever, as if she could have pulled back the frame to find her standing there behind the wall. A chill like a drop from an icicle ran down her spine as an impalpable communication passed between them. Go on, said Caterina’s eyes. Stop them . . . Only you can.
Beatrice tore her eyes away from the portrait and propelled her body toward the library. When she finally located it, the door was firmly shut. She placed her hand on the big brass knob. Just as she was about to turn it, she heard muffled voices within.
Her heart stopped.
Her first instinct was to run. Instead, she took a deep breath and placed her ear against the door. It was a slab of solid wood, but the voices on the other side were so loud and angry, she could hear them anyway.
A cacophony of words seeped through, although, as usual, she couldn’t understand a single one. As she pressed her ear closer, the door moved ever so slightly, making a faint click as it pressed against its frame.
Suddenly the arguing inside ceased and rapid footsteps thundered toward the door. Beatrice flung herself around the corner, slipping behind a tapestry that hung on the wall.
The door opened with an angry clack. Beatrice held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut.
Twenty-Seven
INTO THE BELLY OF THE PALACE
“Non ti preoccupare. Era solo il vento!”1 came a male voice from inside the library.
“Sì, va be’,”2 said another gruffly, mere inches from Beatrice’s face.
The door slammed and Beatrice exhaled, reeling at the close call. So much for the secret passageway through the library. So much for her entire plan.
She slipped off her sandals and retraced her steps on tiptoe until she deemed it safe to put them back on. She’d just have to find another way down into the ruins under the palace. Easier said than done.
She turned a few more corners and walked into a rectangular room dominated by a large dining table with twenty high-backed chairs. Noticing a peculiarity on the wall, she decided to investigate. Four wooden beams formed a square, a bit like the frame of a window, except there was no window. Just wall.
Suddenly everything she’d been talking and thinking about over the past week became vividly real. She was standing in the selfsame room where Muzio Mattei and his father-in-law had dined that fateful night, over four hundred years ago. It was from this very window—which was a window no longer—that the Turtle Fountain had been seen for the first time.
Thanks to that fountain, a young woman’s happiness had been destroyed. It didn’t matter that she’d lived four centuries ago. To Beatrice, Caterina had become as real and intimate as if she were her own big sister.
She wrenched her gaze from the walled-up window and saw another curiosity, this time on the opposite wall. She walked over to inspect it.
A tiny wooden door was embedded in the wall. It looked like some sort of built-in cabinet. She tugged it open, unable to resist her curiosity. If it was a cabinet, it was an odd one. There was nothing inside, not even shelves—just an empty hole in the wall, a wooden cube.
As if a voice were telling her she’d missed something in the dark, she impulsively reached inside, feeling along the cabinet’s smooth interior. Her hand pressed the bottom and the cabinet quivered with a strident creak.
Beatrice jumped back. Warily, she reached into the cabinet again, and this time she pressed harder. Sure enough, the entire box sank a few inches. Could it be a dumbwaiter? She’d read about them in novels set in Victorian times: mini-elevators that brought hot dishes from the kitchen up to the dining room and took the dirty plates back down. They were usually operated by handheld cranks in the kitchens below.
Suddenly she got a crazy idea. Ignoring every rational bone in her (thankfully) petite body, she impulsively climbed into the dark, cramped box, pulling her bag in with her. Under the force of her weight, the dumbwaiter instantly began its rickety descent. She had just enough time to pull the little door closed.
All was blackness. The creaking rang out in the dark, and Beatrice prayed the men in the library couldn’t hear it. It seemed like an impossibly long way down. Seated with her legs crossed and her head ducked, her upper back pressed against the top of the box, she tried not to imagine what would happen if the dumbwaiter never reached its destination. Or if the lower door was locked, or blocked in some way.
She hadn’t stopped to think about these possibilities before recklessly hopping inside. But in the tiny black space, she couldn’t help visualizing what would happen if she got trapped. The slow, agonizing death from suffocation, her father’s panic when he returned home to find his only daughter missing, her contorted skeleton found decades later . . .
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