“I can’t say I’ve ever been more disappointed in someone,” she said. “Apparently he’s an extremely gifted gardener. At least so my staff says. And of course he came highly recommended. I had extremely high hopes for him. Many say I am something of a visionary when it comes to landscape design, you know, and I had been told he would work miracles. I never spoke to the man myself, of course. There would have been no need for that. But he disappeared, just like that. Unreliable.”
“When?” I asked.
“Two or three days ago,” she said. “The head gardener can give you more precise information if you require it.”
The head gardener did have more precise information but could only offer what little he knew. Facio had worked hard, harder than most. He’d shown insight and a head for design. He wouldn’t talk much to the other servants. He was perpetually glum.
“He recently lost his infant son and his wife,” I said.
The head gardener shook his head. “That makes more sense of it. Poor soul just lost his will, I suppose. He dined with the rest of us three nights ago as usual and was gone in the morning. Shared a room with another undergardener who didn’t hear a sound.”
Donata and I interviewed the undergardener, who confirmed that he had not been disturbed by his roommate’s sudden departure. We searched the small, tidy chamber. Facio left nothing behind. Finally, we questioned the rest of the staff once again about the night of the vandalism to the painting, this time prodding to see if any of them might recognize Signor Polani. It was to no avail.
We boarded the boat back to Venice. Donata had been quiet all morning, hanging back more than usual while I was asking questions.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “My father has told me I should not help you anymore. He thinks I’m at the Danieli with you right now. I promised him I would go no further.”
“Why?” I asked. “Has something happened?”
“I do hope you’re not angry,” she said. “I’m afraid I ruined your gown. When I went home last night, I … I met with some trouble.”
“What happened?” I took her hand, worried.
“I’d got off the gondola and was walking to the shop. I could see Papà was still awake—the lights were on upstairs. You know what a short distance it is to go from the boat, but in that space a man stepped out from the shadows and in front of me. He tried to grab me, and I ran. I managed to get inside more or less unscathed, but he had got hold of the dress and ripped it terribly. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t care at all about the dress,” I said. “What about you? Were you hurt?”
“Not really. I twisted my ankle a bit, but it hardly hurt this morning. He came out the worst of it. I pushed him, hard, and he smashed right into the corner of a building. I’ve never been so thankful for the strong shoulders that come from rowing my father around.”
“Donata, I’m horrified. Did you contact the police? Was the man apprehended?”
“I didn’t think I should do anything without first speaking to you,” she said. “He was dressed in costume. I think you can guess as what.”
“Our plague doctor is back?”
She nodded, her eyes wide and scared.
“It will be fine, Donata,” I said, reassuring her. “Don’t worry. I’m so glad you’re safe, and I think your father is right to exercise caution. You’ve had no training in evasive maneuvers or anything like.”
“I want to keep helping you.” Her voice cracked, just a little.
“You can,” I said, “but from the safe confines of the shop and perhaps the archives or library, if your father will allow it. We’ve still lots of research to do about Besina, and we know almost nothing about the feud between the Barozzis and the Vendelinos. You could work on all that.”
“Really?” she asked. “I’m so afraid of disappointing you.”
“Don’t give it another thought,” I said. “This will be of great use to me, and there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to do everything I wish I could do. Colin and I always divide and conquer. You and I can do the same.”
“You’re very kind to make me feel not completely useless,” she said, “but it seems like I learn so very little. I found out nothing about Facio’s family no matter where I looked.”
“That’s not much of a surprise,” I said. “Unfortunately there are few records when it comes to those who are not wealthy.”
“A sad truth,” she said. “But what about you, Emily? Will you be safe working without me?”
“I will,” I said. “Colin has trained me carefully. You have nothing to fear on that count. I know my limitations extremely well and will take no undue risks.”
“You promise?” she asked.
“I do.”
“It feels wrong,” she said. “That I am stopped because of potential danger and you’re left to face it.”
“We have two very different sets of experience, Donata. At any rate, Colin will return from Padua soon. He’ll look after me.”
* * *
Of course I was disappointed to lose Donata. It is always preferable to have a like-minded individual as a companion in work. Even so, I didn’t regret it entirely. It would be a great help to have her doing research, and the wisdom of having her in this role became apparent in almost no time. She had discovered, in the famous memoirs of an eighteenth-century lady, reference to love letters found in a palazzo. Letters addressed to a man called Nicolò and signed by a lady called Besina. Furthermore, property records showed the palazzo in question had been owned, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, by the Vitturi family, who were wealthy merchants before they were wiped out by the great plague of 1630.
Vitturi with a V.
In the sixteenth century, the head of the family was a man called Nicolò. He must have been Besina’s N.V. That much was obvious.
I know now that I had fallen prey to the overconfidence of youth. It did not occur to me that there could very well be a different N.V. and that he, not Nicolò Vitturi, was the gentleman with whom Besina corresponded. At that moment, all I cared about was reading the letters.
It was an amateur mistake.
Donata pleaded with her father to let her search for them, but he refused. She was not, he said, to risk going into a house unknown to her and begging favors from a family about whom he knew nothing. In fact, there was no family from whom to beg anything. They’d died out centuries ago. A fashionable hotel now occupied the former Vitturi family seat. This information worked no influence on her father, whose inclination was to lock his indignant daughter in her room if that was what was necessary to keep her safe. I could not fault him for his concern, frustrating though it was for Donata.
The majordomo of the hotel was familiar with the memoir in question. Charles Morgandy, a handsome and capable man, didn’t recall references to Renaissance love letters but assured me his guests were captivated by the lurid descriptions of the authoress’s many indiscretions, most of them having taken place in the palazzo. It was scandalous fun, he assured me, and he pressed into my hands one of the copies of the book the owners of the hotel had printed so that they might put one in every room.
I showed him a list of names. “Would it be possible to determine if any of these individuals have recently stayed with you?”
“I will set a clerk to the task at once,” he said. “Do you know the dates?”
I frowned. “Sometime in the past year or so, I’d think.”
“It may take a while. Would you care for something to drink while you wait?” Signor Morgandy asked. “Or would you prefer I send word to you when we have an answer?”
“Would it be possible to see your attics instead?”
He balked at the request but agreed to it in the end, accustomed, I suppose, to the eccentric demands of English tourists. I spent a pleasant hour or so combing through the rambling rooms at the top of the hotel but discovered nothing of use. The space must have been cleared out during the pal
azzo’s conversion from house to hotel. I found nothing that dated from earlier.
The heat and lack of ventilation must have taken a toll on my appearance, as Signor Morgandy looked a bit unnerved when I returned. He rushed me into his office with the air of a man who knew how to keep undesirables from the view of his guests.
“Forgive me, Lady Emily,” he said. “I wouldn’t want anyone to think you’d become so … disheveled as the result of an uncomfortable suite.”
The dust that covered most of me would have been off-putting to the heartiest of travelers.
The majordomo handed me a card. “It appears our search was more fruitful than yours,” he said. “She stayed with us only a few months ago. I’ve written all the details here. Would you like me to have the clerk continue to search for the other names on your list?”
I replied in the affirmative. It was unlikely two of them would have been here, but one should never take such things on assumption. Unlikely is a far cry from impossible.
“I do have one more favor to beg of you,” I said.
Again he balked and again he acquiesced. The room in question was unoccupied at the moment. I was free to look around it. At initial glance, I found nothing out of place. Then I took a closer look at the chamber’s walls. In the wide space opposite the windows that looked over the Grand Canal was a trompe l’oeil painting of a garden, beautifully executed. It felt as if one could step into the scene. To the far left, near the bottom, was a small shed in front of which stood two extremely happy-looking gardeners. When I looked closer, I saw the door to the shed had a lock on it, and when I raised my hand to the wall and touched it, I felt metal. The lock was not part of the painting.
I took a lock pick out of my reticule, silently thanking Colin for having trained me to carry and use it, and soon heard the clicks that told me my deft maneuvers were successful. Using extreme care, I pulled open the door to the shed. The hinges were hidden from view and creaked as they moved. Behind the door was a perfect hidden compartment.
A perfect hidden compartment that, much to my disappointment, appeared to be empty. Until, that is, I looked in it a second time and went over every inch of it with my fingertips until I felt a scrap of paper stuck in a crevice in the back corner. I tugged at it until I had released it from the crack, making certain not to tear the delicate parchment in the process.
Both sides were covered with writing, but as it was only the tiny corner of a page, most of it was illegible, nothing more than fragments of letters. Except for a single word: Besina.
Satisfied with what I’d found and feeling a thrill of excitement, I raced back to the lobby, thanked Signor Morgandy—he’d been extremely helpful—and immediately hired a gondola. If the boatman found anything strange in my appearance, he was too well mannered to comment, and I directed him to take me in a direction opposite from my own hotel. A change of clothes could wait.
First, Caterina Brexiano had a great deal of explaining to do.
Un Libro d’Amore
xiv
When he was finished with her, Uberto left Besina, battered and bruised, blood still flowing from her split lip, without uttering another word. As she always did, Besina moved to lock the door behind him as soon as he was gone, but this time every step was difficult to take. Pain rocked her body as she made her way back toward the bed. The gold crucifix hanging on the wall glimmered, and she turned her gaze from the holy image to the candle flickering on the table below it.
Then the light was extinguished and the room fell into complete darkness. There had been no breeze, no movement that should have caused it.
Besina knew it was a sign.
Without pause and working in the dark as quickly as she could, she dressed herself, took the crucifix from the wall, and stole quietly to the steps, stopping only to listen at the door to Uberto’s bedchamber. He was already snoring.
She was safe from his brutal hands.
And she knew exactly where she was going.
Besina had never walked through the streets of Venice, and so the journey she took to Ca’ Vendelino was longer than necessary, convoluted and full of dead ends and wrong turns. She was not used to the maze of her city, did not know where any given calle would lead her. She meant to stay along the Grand Canal, but it was not so easy to do this. Three times she convinced herself she was hopelessly lost. Twice strangers spoke to her, mistaking her for a courtesan.
Besina never entertained the thought of returning either to her marital home or to that of her parents. Nor would it have occurred to her to seek asylum elsewhere, because she did not want asylum.
She wanted Nicolò.
The palazzo was unrecognizable to her from the back. She made her way to the closest place she could on the canal and counted how many buildings down from it she stood. She found her way there. She banged on the gate, rattling the iron bars. She screamed for help.
She was loud enough to raise a houseboy. Who woke the steward. Who cautiously tapped on his master’s door after he had sent someone to investigate the fray outside the courtyard below.
When Nicolò saw Besina he wept. He took her in his arms and carried her to the most beautiful bedroom in the palazzo. He called for water and wine and, most of all, privacy. He washed the blood from her face, almost afraid to touch her for fear of causing her more pain. He held the goblet to her lips, tilting it so that she might drink. He brushed her hair.
He removed her heavy brocaded overdress and the softer one beneath it and her underclothes. He lowered her into the tub of steaming water the servants had left him, and he washed her body. Washed Uberto off of her. Besina hadn’t opened her eyes since he took her in his arms outside, but she was awake, awake and lost in the love she felt for Nicolò. He rubbed her dry with the most tender touch, massaged fine oil into her skin, and wrapped her in a soft linen cloth.
When he lowered her onto the bed, she opened her eyes.
“My love.”
It was all she could say. He brushed her damp hair from her forehead and told her to sleep. He kissed her gently and pulled a chair close to the side of the bed. “I will sit with you all night,” he said. “You will not be alone.”
Besina pulled him to her, unable to bear the thought of him even that far away, and she kissed him. Deeply and with a fire she had never before felt.
Nicolò did not retire to the chair.
15
I did not go directly to confront Caterina Brexiano. First, I made a brief stop at the city archives to request all documents pertaining to Nicolò Vitturi. Then I continued on to the bordello, caught somewhere between amusement and chagrin that I had to visit such a place again. My arrival this time was not quite so welcome as it had been before. I mark this down to my appearance after crawling around the dusty hotel attic. I’d got funny looks at the archives as well but was not about to take the time to change my gown. Vanity has no place in a murder investigation. My dust-covered person (I realized later there was a shockingly long spiderweb hanging down the back of my hair), combined with the later hour of the day—and, therefore, the presence of, shall we say, clients on the premises—made my hostesses (if they could be called that) a bit agitated. I could not blame them. I met the eyes of every client I saw with a stony, disapproving glare.
I do not apologize for my actions. How often does a lady find herself in a position to show her pointed disapproval of such arrangements? If it was bad for business, so much the better.
Caterina met me in the large main room of the house and took me up a series of stairs until we reached her room, the place where she slept. It had none of the glamour of the lavish chambers on the lower floors. It was cramped, with a low ceiling and walls painted a dingy ecru. The single window was so small as to go practically unnoticed.
“Need to keep me out of view, do you?” I asked.
“Among other things,” she said. “I wanted to meet with you privately, Lady Emily.”
“Signora Brexiano, do not pretend that you have asked to see
me. I am the one with questions.”
“You think I do not already know that?” she asked. “Any more than I don’t already know about the troubles you have had with—”
I was not about to get roped into this nonsense again. “That is quite enough. I am not here to discuss myself.”
“Another time, perhaps.”
“I was hoping you could tell me about the time you spent at the Hotel Vitturi. You seem to have forgot to mention it when we last spoke.”
“Is it significant?” she asked. “I had lost my home, but at the time I still had some money. I lived in the hotel until I could no longer afford it. How does it matter?”
“I find it an unusual coincidence that the rooms in that particular hotel each contain a copy of this book.” I held up the volume Signor Morgandy had given me. “Do you recognize it?”
“I have some vague recollection of seeing it before.”
“Did you read it?”
“No. I didn’t have much of a head for literature at the time.”
“It refers to letters written from Besina—I presume Barozzi—to someone called Nicolò. Nicolò Vitturi lived in the house at the time.”
“Fascinating, I am sure, if you’re interested in such things. How does this pertain to me?”
“That’s what I want you to tell me. When I was here before, you were full of warnings about Besina’s ring. I feel like I’ve been played, like you were trying to send me off on a fruitless chase. Which makes me wonder what it is you have to hide.”
“I have nothing to hide—and this, Lady Emily, I must say is a rather disappointing meeting. This paltry information has sent you careening in here in your current … state?” She looked with disgust at my dusty dress.
“I came here to give you the opportunity to tell me what you’ve been hiding. Not, I suppose, that a woman of your moral standing is much concerned with her reputation.”
“I will not be insulted.”
“And I will not be lied to.” I stepped closer to her. “I, too, found the hiding place behind the mural, and I recognized the signs of it having been recently opened. There were small flecks of paint newly missing from around the door. You were careful, mostly—but you made two mistakes.”
Death in the Floating City Page 14