"It is we! Is all well?" asked Atto in a loud voice.
From behind some archway enveloped in darkness, Ciacconio's unmistakeable grunt replied in the affirmative.
We therefore resumed our exploration and, as we walked, again began to converse.
It had, we both agreed, been inexcusably short-sighted on our part not to have collated the very clear clues which had come to our attention during the previous few days. Fortunately, it was still possible to catch the mad horse of truth by the mane. Atto tried once more to sum up the elements of which we were aware: "Dulcibeni worked for the Odescalchi, as an accountant or something of the kind. He had a daughter called Maria, by a Turkish slave. The maiden was abducted by the former slave-trader Feroni and by his right-hand man Huygens, surely in order to satisfy one of the latter's caprices. Maria was probably taken very far away, to somewhere in the north. In order to trace her, Dulcibeni then turned to the Odescalchi, but they did not help him. This is why Dulcibeni detests them, and will naturally feel special hatred for the powerful Cardinal Benedetto Odescalchi, who has in the meantime become Pope. Moreover, after the abduction, something strange happens. Dulcibeni is assaulted and thrown from a window, probably with the intention of killing him. Are we agreed?"
"Agreed."
"And here the first obscure point arises: why would someone, acting perhaps on the orders of Feroni or the Odescalchi, have wished to be rid of him?"
"Perhaps to prevent him from recovering his daughter."
"Perhaps," said Atto with scant conviction. "But you have heard that all his searches were in vain. I am more inclined to believe that Dulcibeni had become a danger for someone."
"But Signor Atto, why was Dulcibeni's daughter a slave?"
"Did you not hear Tiracorda? Because her mother was a Turkish slave whom Dulcibeni was unwilling to marry. I am not well informed on the trade in negroes and Infidels, but—according to Dulcibeni— the bastard child was also considered to be a slave of the Odescalchi. I only wonder: why did Huygens and Feroni not simply buy her?"
"Perhaps the Odescalchi did not wish to sell her."
"Yet they did sell her mother. No, I think it was rather Dulcibeni who opposed his daughter's being ceded; that would explain why she was abducted, perhaps with the support of the Odescalchi themselves."
"Do you mean to say that such an abominable action might have had the backing of the family?" I asked, horrified.
"Surely. And perhaps that of Cardinal Benedetto Odescalchi himself, who has since become Pope. Do not forget that Feroni was exceedingly wealthy and quite powerful. That would suffice to explain why the Odescalchi should not have wished to help Dulcibeni to find his daughter."
"But what means had Dulcibeni to oppose the sale, if the girl was the property of the Odescalchi?"
"You rightly ask: what means had he? That, I think, is the point. Dulcibeni must have unsheathed an arm that posed a real threat to the Odescalchi and left them no choice but to arrange the abduction with Feroni and to try to have Dulcibeni silenced forever."
Feroni: I was about to tell the abbot that the name did not sound new to me. However, being unable to recall where I had heard it, I held my peace.
"An arm against the Odescalchi. A secret perhaps... who knows," murmured the abbot, with a Iubricious gleam in his eyes.
An inadmissible secret in the past of the Pope: I understood that Atto Melani, secret agent of His Most Christian Majesty, would have given his life to know what that might have been.
"We must come to a conclusion, damn it!" he exclaimed at the end of his cogitations. "But first, let us recapitulate: Dulcibeni hatches the idea of assassinating no less a personage than the Pope. He can surely not hope to obtain an audience with the Pontiff and to stab him with a knife. How can one kill a man from a distance? One may attempt to poison him; but it is exceedingly difficult to introduce poison into the Pope's kitchens. Dulcibeni, however, works out a more refined solution. He remembers that he has an old friend who will serve his purpose: Giovanni Tiracorda, Physician in Chief to the Pope. Pope Odescalchi—and this Dulcibeni knows—has always suffered from delicate health. He is Tiracorda's patient, and Dulcibeni can take advantage of the situation. Just at this moment, moreover, tormented by the fear that the Christian armies might be defeated in Vienna, the condition of Pope Innocent XI has worsened. The Pope is treated by blood-letting, and this is effected by means of leeches which, of course, feed on blood. So, what does Dulcibeni do? Between one riddle and another, he gets Tiracorda drunk. This is not too difficult a task, because the physician's wife, Paradisa, is a bigot and half-crazed: she believes that alcohol leads to the damnation of the soul. So Tiracorda is compelled to drink in secret, and thus almost always to gulp down large quantities at speed. As soon as he is inebriated, his friend Dulcibeni infects the leeches intended for treating the Pope with the pestiferous humour which he has produced on his islet. The little creatures will sink their teeth into the Pontiff's holy flesh and he will be attacked by the infection."
"How horrible!"
"I would not say that. This is simply what a man thirsting for vengeance is capable of. Do you recall our first incursion into Tiracorda's house? Dulcibeni asked him: 'How are they?'", referring, as we now know, to the leeches which he planned to infect. Then, however, Tiracorda accidentally broke the bottle of liquor and Dulcibeni was compelled to postpone his operation. Last night, however, his plans progressed smoothly. While he was infecting the leeches, he pronounced the words, 'For her'": he was fulfilling his vendetta against the Odescalchi for the abduction of his daughter."
"But," I observed, "he needed a quiet place in which to prepare his plan and to carry out his operations."
"Bravo. And above all to cultivate the pestiferous humour, using arts unknown to us. After capturing rats, he caged them on his island and inoculated them with the infection. Then he extracted their blood and so treated it as to produce the infected humour. It was surely he who lost the leaf from the Bible in the galleries."
"So could he also have stolen my little pearls?"
"Who else? But, do not interrupt me," said Atto, cutting me short, and adding: "After the beginning of the quarantine and your master's being taken ill, Dulcibeni, in order to continue to have access to the underground galleries and, thus, to the isle of the Mithraeum, had to filch a key from Pellegrino's ring and to have a copy made by a locksmith. He wrapped a copy of the key in Komarek's page from the Bible; but, what with all that trafficking with rats, leeches and alembics, it was inevitable that he should have accidentally stained it with blood."
"On the island, we also found a vase for leeches almost identical to Tiracorda's," I observed, "and then, there were all those instruments..."
"He used the vase, I imagine, to keep a few leeches in and perhaps to make certain that they could feed on infected blood without themselves being killed by it. When, however, he understood that he was not the only one to take walks in the underground galleries, and that someone might be on his trail, he got rid of the little creatures which might have provided evidence of his criminal designs. The apparatus and instruments on the islet, however, were used not only for his experiments on rats, but also for preparing the pestiferous humour. That is why everything called to mind the cabinet of an alchemist: alembics, unguents, crucibles..."
"And that sort of gallows?"
"Who knows? Perhaps to keep the rats still while he bled them, or to cut them up and collect their blood."
And that was why, we repeated once more, we had found dying rats in the galleries: they had either escaped from or survived Dulcibeni's experiments, and we had encountered them before they died. Finally, the glass phial full of blood which we had found in gallery D had certainly been lost by Dulcibeni, who had perhaps attempted unsuccessfully to infect his friend Tiracorda's leeches directly with the rats' blood.
"But in the underground galleries, we also found leaves of mamacoca," I observed.
"That, I am
unable to explain," admitted Abbot Melani. "Those had nothing to do with the pestilence or with Dulcibeni's plot. Another point: I cannot conceive how it was possible for Dulcibeni, day after day, and even at night, to run, to row, to climb and to escape our attempts to stalk him with the energy of a young boy. It seems almost as though someone must have helped him."
While we were engaged in such discussions, we came to the trapdoor at the intersection between conduits A and B. The left-hand branch of B was the last of the three passages which we had undertaken to explore a few days earlier, in order to complete our understanding of the galleries under the Donzello.
Contrary to our usual practice, therefore, we did not lower ourselves through the trapdoor leading from gallery B to A, as we would have done in order to return to the Donzello, but continued on our way. Thanks to the plan drawn up by Atto, it was clear to me that we were proceeding in the direction of the river, with the inn to our right and the Tiber to our left.
The gallery offered no surprises of any kind, until we came across a square stairwell not dissimilar to that all too familiar one which led down from the secret chamber in the Donzello to the galleries below.
"But if we take this, we shall emerge in the Via dell'Orso," said I, as we began to climb the stairs towards the surface.
"Not quite, perhaps a little more to the south, in the Via Tor di Nona."
The ascent led to a sort of vestibule with a floor of old bricks, again very like that which we had crossed so many times on our sorties from the hostelry.
On the ceiling of this vestibule, our eyes (and above all our probing hands) discovered a sort of heavy lid of iron or perhaps lead, which muffled all vibrations and resisted any attempts to open it. We needed to remove that last obstacle in order to discover to which point on the surface our path had led us. We put our backs to the heavy disc, and, with a great heave, pushing vigorously against the last step of the stone stairway, our combined efforts managed to shift it, with a loud clanging on the flagstones, just enough for us to squeeze out from under the ground. As we did so, we glimpsed and heard a violent struggle, which was taking place only a few yards from where we emerged.
We moved forward under the dim nocturnal light. In the semi- darkness, I could distinguish a carriage in the middle of the road, upon which two torches set on either side cast a sinister, oblique light. Suffocated cries came from the postillion, who was struggling to break free of the grip of several individuals. One of the attackers had taken the reins and stopped the horses, which were whinnying and snorting nervously. Just then, another individual slipped out of the carriage, holding a voluminous object in his arms (or so it seemed to me). There could be no question about it, the carriage was being robbed.
Although confused by my lengthy peregrinations under the ground, I instinctively recognised our surroundings as the Via Tor di Nona which, parallel to the Tiber, leads to the Via dell'Orso: Abbot Melani's estimate of where we would emerge had proved correct.
"Quick. Let us get closer," murmured Atto, pointing at the carriage.
The scene of violence which we were witnessing had almost paralysed me; I knew that, very nearby, at the end of the Sant'Angelo Bridge, a detachment of guards were usually stationed. The risk of being involved in so grave a crime did not dissuade me from following the abbot who, keeping prudently close to the wall, was approaching the scene of the robbery.
"Pompeo, help! Guards, help!" a voice whined from within the carriage.
The weak, stifled voice of the passenger belonged without the shadow of a doubt to Giovanni Tiracorda.
In a flash, I understood: the man in the driver's box, who uttered hoarse little cries as he vainly struggled against overwhelming forces, was certainly Pompeo Dulcibeni. Against our every expectation, Tiracorda had asked him to accompany him on his errand to serve the
Pope at the palace of Monte Cavallo. The physician, being too old and weak to drive his own carriage, had preferred to be accompanied by his friend, rather than by some anonymous coachman, on his delicate and secret mission. The corpisantari, however, had lain in wait nearby and had intercepted the carriage.
It was all over in a few moments. Hardly had the bag been extracted from within the coach than the four or five corpisantari who were immobilising Dulcibeni released their prey and took to their legs; they passed very close and disappeared behind us in the direction of the trap from which we had just emerged.
"The leeches, they must have taken the leeches," said I, excitedly
"Shhh!" warned Atto, and I understood that he had no intention of participating in what was taking place. Some of the inhabitants of the surrounding houses, hearing the noise of the brawl, had meanwhile come to their windows. The guards might arrive at any moment.
From within the carriage came Tiracorda's feeble complaints, while Dulcibeni descended from his box, probably in order to succour his friend.
It was then that something incredible occurred. A fast-moving shadow, turning back from the trap into which the corpisantari had disappeared, approached in a zigzag and slipped back into the carriage. He still seemed to be carrying under his arm the voluminous object which we had seen him snatch from poor Tiracorda.
"No, you wretch, no—not the crucifix! There is a relic..."
The physician's imploring voice echoed piteously in the night as, after a brief struggle, the shadow emerged from the opposite side of the carriage. A fatal error: here, Pompeo Dulcibeni awaited him. We heard the cruel, sharp crack of the whip which he had recovered and which he now used to hobble the marauder's legs, causing him to fall to the ground. As he struggled uselessly to rise from the dust, by the light of one of the torches, I recognised the clumsy hunchbacked figure of Ciacconio.
We drew a little closer, thus risking being seen. With our view partly obscured by the still open door of the carriage, we heard the whip crack once again, and then a third time, accompanied by Ciacconio's inimitable grunt, this time carrying a clear note of protest.
"Filthy dogs," said Dulcibeni, as he placed something back in the carriage, closed the door and jumped back into the box, urging on the horses.
Once again, the sheer speed of the sequence of events prevented me from considering the motives of prudence and of the intellect, and even the righteous fear of God, which should have persuaded me to escape from the perilous influence of Abbot Melani and not to involve myself in rash, criminal and violent deeds.
That was why, still set on our bold plan to save the life of Our Lord Innocent XI, I did not dare draw back when Abbot Melani, dragging me from the shadows, guided me towards the carriage just as it was moving away.
"Now or never," said he when, after a brief chase, we leapt onto the footmen's platform behind the body of the carriage.
Hardly had we grasped the great handles behind the coach when there was another thud on the platform and rapacious hands gripped me, almost causing me to fall into the road. Almost overcome by this last shock, I turned and found myself facing the horribly deformed and toothless grin of Ciacconio, who held in his hands a crucifix to which was tied a pendant.
Thus weighted down by a third unasked-for passenger, the carriage meanwhile tilted sharply to one side.
"Filthy dogs, I shall kill you all," said Dulcibeni, while his whip cracked again and again.
The carriage turned left, along the Via del Panico, while on the far side the disorderly band of corpisantari watched impotently as our vehicle made off. Clearly they had all returned to the surface when Ciacconio failed to rejoin them. Three or four of them set out to follow us on foot, while we again veered to the right at the Piazza di Monte Giordano in the direction of the Santa Lucia sewer. Because of the ambush, Dulcibeni had been unable to take the road to Monte Cavallo and seemed now to be proceeding haphazardly.
"You've played another of your tricks, is that not so, you ugly beast!" cried Abbot Melani to Ciacconio as the carriage gathered speed.
"Gfrrrlubh," grunted Ciacconio in self-justificatio
n.
"Do you see what he has done?" replied Atto, turning to me. "As though winning were not enough, he had to turn back to rob the carriage of the crucifix with the relic, which Ugonio already tried to filch the first time we entered Tiracorda's stables. And thus, Dulcibeni has recovered the leeches."
Behind us, the corpisantari did not abandon their chase, even if they were already losing ground. Just then (we had again turned left) we heard the tremulous, terrorised voice of Tiracorda, who was leaning out from the window: "Pompeo, Pompeo, they are following us, and there is someone here behind..."
Dulcibeni did not reply. An unexpected and exceedingly violent explosion deafened us, while a cloud of smoke momentarily deprived us of our sight and our ears were pierced by a cruel, lacerating whistle.
"Down! He has a pistol," Atto exhorted us, crouching on the platform.
While I followed his example, the carriage again accelerated. Already sorely tried by the assault of the corpisantari, the horses' nerves had been unable to withstand the sudden detonation.
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