“The Contessa makes you sound like Lady Chatterley, Mother,” Tonio Vico said in perfectly modulated English without the faintest trace of an accent.
Berenice Pillow blushed.
“Such a thing for a son to say to a mother, Tony! I was only a child at the time!”
“The heart never changes, my dear Berenice—and yours was always ardent.”
Mrs. Pillow turned back to the Veronese.
“Ah yes, my Veronese,” the Contessa said with less an air of possession than of the Pre-Raphaelite languidness she frequently liked to affect. “I’m thinking of importing a niece from London to do some of the social for me—at least to convey information about mes choses. It gets a bit tiresome, I must say, and when it isn’t it seems rather self-absorbed to run on and on about one’s own things.”
“But, Barbara, you don’t show your place like that old woman at the house we visited with the other girls!”
She had a shocked look on her long thin face. The Contessa’s face mirrored her friend’s.
“‘Show my place,’ Berenice dear! God forbid! I have never shown—except occasionally for magazines like Casa Vogue. What I meant was showing someone like yourself—a friend”—she emphasized the word. “Of course, that’s not the same thing, but even in such circumstances—and don’t hold it against me, Berenice dear—it can be tedious. That’s why I’m pleased to have Urbino here now.”
Urbino felt uncomfortable. When the Contessa asked Mrs. Pillow to tell him what she had been saying before he came in, he felt no better. It was as if the Contessa were forcing Mrs. Pillow to confide something in him.
She looked away from the painting at Urbino, at the Contessa, and then back at the Veronese. She seemed reluctant to repeat what she had said.
Before Urbino had any time to wonder what embarrassing question might have been posed, the Contessa said, with a quaver in her voice, “She was wondering why it was so small.”
“Small?” Urbino involuntarily echoed.
The Veronese, an allegory of love with a stout golden-haired barebacked Venus dividing her attention between two handsome bearded swains beneath a lush tree, was at least six feet square. It dominated the Contessa’s intimate salotto where she kept most of her favorite bibelots and books and where she entertained only her closest friends.
“Small for a Veronese, she meant,” Vico said. His tone was ameliorative as he moved closer to his stepmother. “She was comparing him with himself, not with anything American.”
He smiled at Urbino.
“Of course,” Urbino agreed, “compared to the ceiling paintings at the Ducal Palace or The Last Supper.”
“Whether they’re large or small, I don’t very much like his paintings. No offense to you, Barbara. It’s a perfectly lovely painting and looks very nice here in your little parlor. It’s just that I prefer Tintoretto.”
The Contessa laughed.
“And so does Urbino. Sometimes he attacks me mercilessly, but so far I’ve stood my ground.”
“You have to admit, Barbara, that I’ve always granted that a Tintoretto would be a bit out of place here.”
“True, but that’s not so much praise of my Veronese as, perhaps, criticism of the secular spirit of my little nest.”
Urbino began to describe the Veronese—not only the meaning of its somewhat obscure allegory but also its provenance. How it had hung in the Imperial Palace in Prague, in Rome in Queen Christina’s collection after her abdication, and then in the palazzo of a Roman duke from whose family Alvise da Capo-Zendrini had bought it for his wife on their marriage. When he reached this point, Berenice Pillow seemed about to say something. Urbino suspected it might be about the dubious appropriateness of such an allegory—a woman positioned seductively between two handsome men—as a wedding gift from husband to wife.
Urbino was prepared to give a few more details about the painting when Berenice Pillow said, “I don’t remember seeing it in that article in Casa Vogue, Barbara.”
“Oh, but it definitely was, Berenice dear. I would have insisted on it even if they hadn’t wanted it.”
“I’m sure you know what you’re talking about, but I just don’t remember.” She narrowed her eyes for a few seconds. “But of course! I don’t believe I saw the whole article.”
“The Veronese was on the very first page.”
“That’s it! I’m afraid the copy I had—it was at my lawyer’s in New York—was a bit mutilated. Now that I think of it, the first part was missing. That’s why I didn’t recognize the Veronese.” She looked at the painting again for a few moments and then sat down on the sofa beside the Contessa. “You wouldn’t have a copy of the magazine, would you, Barbara? I would so love to see the whole thing.”
“I have hundreds! Urbino, would you be so kind as to go to the library? You know where they are.”
Tonio Vico got up.
“You’ll have to excuse me. I’m meeting someone at Harry’s Bar. I’m sure I’m leaving Mother in good hands. She’s been so anxious to see you again, Contessa. We couldn’t keep her down in Napoli when she knew you were up here. I hope you’ll be kind enough to share your memories of St. Brigid’s with me on another occasion, without Mother around to try to deny everything, however.”
After he left, Urbino went down the wide central hall to the library, a large room that overlooked the walled garden. The da Capo-Zendrini book collection, most of which dated back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, had some of the most important works about the Venetian Republic.
Urbino went to the glass-doored cabinet, noting that a copy of Lorenzetti’s Feste e Maschere Veneziane lay open on the table. Could his friend be more interested in Carnevale than she pretended to be? She was probably looking forward to her costume ball much more than she was willing to let on.
He searched through the magazines until he found a copy of Casa Vogue. Despite what the Contessa had said, there were only three copies.
When he returned to the salotto, the women had been joined by Sister Teresa. The sister, a tall, dark woman in her early fifties, was standing nervously in her gray coat. She turned to him with a worried expression.
“Signor Macintyre, you must help us!”
Sister Teresa, who had recently become tour guide at the Casa Crispina, had good English, but Urbino could tell that she was in danger of losing it. Usually calm and in control, she was now very nervous. Her bony hands were tightly clenched. Putting the magazine down on the table next to the tea service, he went over to her.
“What is it, Sister?” he asked in Italian.
“Santa Crispina is accused of murder, that’s what it is!”
2
A few minutes of gentle interrogation in her native Italian clarified the situation, but only slightly. Sister Teresa didn’t mean that the patron saint of her order was under suspicion—a rather difficult turn of events since Santa Crispina, though not her charity, had been dead since the fifteenth century—but that the convent and its pensione were.
“It’s the murder in the Calle Santa Scolastica. Don’t you know? It’s one of our guests! The English photographer! He was stabbed in the heart!”
The Contessa went over and took her hand.
“Signor Gibbon!” the Contessa said. “But it can’t be true! Murdered!”
“It is true, Contessa, God rest his soul. And now all of us at Santa Crispina are suffering as well.”
“A murder here?” Berenice Pillow said, putting down one of the miniature icons she had been examining. “How dreadful! But isn’t that a bit unusual for Venice?”
“And why not here in Venice?” the Contessa asked as if her friend’s comment had been meant as a criticism of the city. “Tell us what happened, Sister. You can speak Italian. My friend understands it.”
Sister Teresa gave Mrs. Pillow a thin smile of acknowledgment as the American woman drew closer so that she could hear better.
“He was found stabbed in the heart in the Calle Santa Scolastica last night or e
arly this morning. The police are asking questions at the Casa Crispina. You can be sure they are thinking the worst thoughts about us all! That’s why I’ve come for you, Signor Macintyre. You must do something! You know Commissario Gemelli. You have experience with murder!”
Berenice Pillow looked at Urbino in surprise.
“Experience with murder!” the Contessa said, allowing herself a little smile. “You make it sound as if he had been the perpetrator. He was involved in an investigation.” She directed this reassuring clarification to her school friend.
“A murder investigation, yes,” Sister Teresa said. “That’s why he can help us.”
“I still don’t understand what it is I can do, Sister.”
“A great deal, Signor Macintyre. And you can start right now. Come back to Santa Crispina with me.”
“A murder!” Mrs. Pillow said as if the reality was only now sinking in. “How terrible! And during Carnival.”
Sister Veronica nodded her head and said, “That’s right, signora. It could not be worse for us all. This would have to happen during Carnival.”
“Milo will take you in the boat,” the Contessa said. She hurried from the salotto.
3
Ten minutes later, when Urbino and Sister Teresa stepped into the reception area of the Casa Crispina, Urbino was surprised to see Hazel Reeve, the woman he had met at Porfirio’s last night. She gave him a blank look.
The reason for her presence became evident when Commissario Francesco Gemelli of the Venice Questura came down the staircase and went up to her.
“Would you mind coming this way, Miss Reeve?” he said in his heavily accented English, indicating a room behind the reception desk. “I have a few more questions.”
As the Commissario turned, he saw Urbino. Annoyance crossed his ruggedly good-looking face and he was about to say something but decided against it. He went into the room and closed the door firmly behind himself and Hazel Reeve.
Urbino took off his cape and followed Sister Teresa up the main staircase and along one of the corridors to a small room where Mother Mariangela was sitting behind a mahogany desk. She was a heavy woman in her early seventies who had little angelic about her but her name and her round face. Her dominant feature was her eyes—sharp and piercing—which Urbino was sure saw everything that should be seen among her charges and quite a few that they might try to conceal.
“Let me tell you why we’ve asked you to come, Signor Macintyre.” As did Sister Teresa, she spoke good English. “Commissario Gemelli has been creating a lot of confusion here today.” With a little smile, she added, “Of course, the murder of Signor Gibbon is the real cause of the confusion. It’s the consequences of that terrible event that we now have to deal with, however. Such things always bring consequences.”
Urbino nodded, taking the chair to the left of the desk.
“Yes, consequences,” she repeated. “You see, Signor Macintyre, it is not only that Signor Gibbon was associated with the Casa Crispina. That would be bad enough. But you must not forget that we have other guests, and these guests knew Signor Gibbon.”
Urbino, not exactly sure of what she meant, remained silent.
“The problem, you see,” she said a bit impatiently, “is Commissario Gemelli.”
“How is he a problem?”
He asked the question even though his own previous experiences with the Commissario had shown just how much of a problem the Sicilian could be.
“He’s been asking questions of the guests all day—and he isn’t finished yet! He’s disturbing them.”
“But it’s the police’s job to ask questions.”
Mother Mariangela looked at Sister Teresa, who was sitting in a high-backed chair beneath a lithograph of Saint Catherine of Siena. Sister Teresa must have understood the import of the look, for she said, “Yes, of course, it is their job to ask questions, Signor Macintyre, but Commissario Gemelli is not the most delicate of men. He treats everyone like a criminal.”
Ah, yes, Urbino thought, he had noted this in Gemelli before: guilty until proven innocent.
“Pardon me, Sisters, but the Commissario has to begin somewhere. What better place to begin—what only place to begin—but with the people Gibbon was lodging with?”
“He’s stirring them up!” Mother Mariangela said impatiently. “Can you imagine what can happen? The reputation of our lovely Casa Crispina would suffer! We need the money we get from it. If the shadow of a murder hangs over the Casa Crispina, we will be ruined! Not one guest must leave with a question in his mind. It will be like feathers in the wind. Do you think they will find out what really happened when they go home? No! They will have doubts, suspicions! Maybe one of the sisters was the murderer, maybe one of the other guests! No, Signor Macintyre, we cannot permit such speculation.”
She pointed to a large, worn black book open on the desk.
“This is our ledger. Our guests will not stay forever. Signora Campi and Signor Lubonski—who, by the way, was rushed to the hospital last night—will remain, of course. The first of our guests will start to leave on Ash Wednesday, and soon all of them will be replaced by new guests. You see what the problem is.”
“I understand, Mother Mariangela, but it doesn’t explain why you’re upset about Commissario Gemelli. It’s his job to find out the truth. And one of the things he must do is to meet with each of the Casa Crispina’s guests and—”
“I have no faith in Commissario Gemelli.”
“What Mother Mariangela is saying, if she will excuse me for interrupting, is that she has more faith in you, Signor Macintyre.”
“In me? To do what?”
“To do what the Commissario must do but to do it better.”
“You are gentler than the Commissario,” Mother Mariangela said. “He stirs people up, as I said before. You do the opposite. You can calm everyone down while finding out the truth before Ash Wednesday. I want this settled by then.”
When he pointed out that he had none of the authority or any of the resources of the police, she reminded him that being a policeman here in Italy could also be a limitation.
“A private person like yourself, with your excellent Italian and your commitment to Venice, is the best one to get at the truth. We believe that you have the best chance of doing just that by Ash Wednesday.”
“And if the truth is that one of the guests himself is the murderer?”
Mother Mariangela shrugged her shoulders.
“The truth, Signor Macintyre, we need the truth by Ash Wednesday—yes, even if one of our guests remains behind in the custody of the police. But I have no doubt that the murderer has absolutely nothing to do with Santa Crispina. I will prepare the guests for your visit. Here is a list of their names.” She handed Urbino a sheet of paper. “You can return later in the evening after Commissario Gemelli has left.”
Before going out into the Campo San Gabriele, Urbino stopped by the reception desk, hoping he would see Hazel Reeve. Had Gemelli finished his business with her or were they still behind the closed door? He was staring at the door when he heard footsteps behind him.
“If you’re waiting for the attractive young lady, I’m afraid that she has already left.”
Urbino turned around to confront Gemelli’s characteristically supercilious smile.
“I suppose you’d like to begin your little investigation with her. Oh, don’t look so surprised. I know why you’re here, and I know it without Mother Mariangela telling me. I’m sure she’s prepared to give some elaborate excuse that goes back to the Dark Ages and involves her order’s rules. No, I don’t need her to tell me, I knew it the minute I saw you come in with Sister Teresa.”
“With such uncanny detecting skills, Commissario, you should be able to have this case wrapped up in record time.”
“Or else you will do it for me? Oh, you don’t have to commit yourself in any way. Just remember that there’s a thin line between well-intentioned help and reckless interference. Good evening, Macintyre.”
>
4
Urbino struck out across the Campo San Gabriele. He would try to be back at the Casa Crispina by eight-thirty.
It was a clear cold night. Tourists seldom ventured into the San Gabriele parish. Only during the recent notoriety over what came to be known as the Relic Murders had there been anything like tourist traffic in this relatively remote area.
What activity there was in the square—mainly residents hurrying home from shopping, work, or their passeggiate—was undisturbed by the frenzy of Carnevale.
When Urbino reached the other side of the square, he heard someone behind him calling his name. The voice—a woman’s—was vaguely familiar. He turned. It was Hazel Reeve muffled in a dark hooded coat. She was shivering.
“Miss Reeve. You look cold.”
“I am. I’ve been waiting for you to come out. I didn’t want to wait inside. I’ve had enough of that policeman.” She looked dispirited and her mouth was slack.
“I was on my way home. Why don’t you come with me and have a drink to warm you up. It isn’t far.”
Hazel Reeve didn’t object and he took her arm. As they walked, Urbino described some of the buildings and canals, all the while wondering what her relationship was to Val Gibbon’s murder and why she had waited for him in the Campo San Gabriele. Did she think Commissario Gemelli had told Urbino all about her?
When they were approaching the Palazzo Uccello, Urbino pointed to a bridge in the distance and, without thinking, said, “That’s where the monk Paolo Sarpi was stabbed in the seventeenth century.”
Hazel Reeve stiffened but there was no break in her stride. Urbino quickly explained that Sarpi’s wounds weren’t fatal, and they went the rest of the way in silence.
When they reached the Palazzo Uccello, at first Hazel Reeve acted as if she were paying a simple social visit. Underneath her casual manner, however, was an urgency kept in check by what Urbino suspected must be a powerful self-mastery.
When they were settled with brandies in the cramped parlor next to the library, she said, “You used to live in the attic story, too, didn’t you? Porfirio told me last night. The maid and her husband live there now.”
Farewell to the Flesh Page 6