“Your wife will be very glad to hear of your return,” I said. “Unless, of course, you were planning to move ahead quickly with annulling your marriage.”
Despite his dark complexion, his face paled. “You know about that?”
“Of course I know about that,” I said. “Did you expect to find me incompetent?”
“No,” he said, bowing his head. “I am ashamed. It was what my father wanted.”
“And now that he’s dead?” I asked.
“I will not leave her.”
I was pleased to hear that, but one could argue his statement gave Emma additional motive to murder her father-in-law. It gave Paolo motive as well, if it turned out he had opposed the annulment all along. “What were you doing in Padua?”
“I am in an exquisitely difficult situation,” he said. “I do not know if you appreciate that.”
“Make me appreciate it.”
“For some months before his death, my father had started spending much time outside the house. I did not know where he was going or what he was doing, but I was pleased to see him actively engaged in any pursuit. He had become very introverted after my mother’s death. He adored her, you see, and found life barely worthwhile without her. On occasion, I could persuade him to go to the theater or to a ball, but it always took considerable effort. Then, one night, I found him in the library with our precious manuscripts all around him on the table, his eyes burning with interest in a way I hadn’t seen in years. He was looking at them, one after another, through a magnifying glass. Ordinarily, he would not let them be removed from the case. Ever. No one was allowed to touch them.”
“Brother Giovanni told me you believe there’s something hidden in them.”
“Yes, I am convinced of it. When I confronted my father about what he was doing, he told me he was trying to find a way to reclaim our family’s lost fortune.”
“So what was that way?” I asked.
“Through an unclaimed inheritance. Sadly, though, I know nothing more about it than that. He would give me no details. Insisted it would be too dangerous. The afternoon before he was killed, my father had been out and came home in a state. He would not tell me what had happened but said he feared for his safety.”
“Yes, you told that to the police.”
“I did, but I did not give them this.” He held out to me a page cut from an illuminated book. “It is from Dante. The Inferno from The Divine Comedy. He had the ring in one hand, but this was in his jacket pocket when we found him that night.”
“Why did you keep it from the police?” I asked.
“I admit I had not taken my father’s fears seriously. He’d become agitated in the past few weeks, but I assumed that it had more to do with his age and his mental condition than anything else. He had shown signs of being less lucid than he used to be. Nothing alarming. Not until then.”
“Which doesn’t explain why you hid what could be a crucial piece of evidence,” I said.
“If he was right that this work he was doing could save the family and that it was this work that had placed him in danger, I thought this was a significant clue to whatever he’d found. If it was left to languish in the police station, we might never find out what it meant. Or, by the time we did, whoever killed him could have rendered it irrelevant.”
“Why didn’t you show it to the police and explain the situation?”
“I couldn’t take the chance that they wouldn’t believe me,” he said.
“Why did you flee Venice? You do realize that makes you look guilty?”
“Guilty?” He looked truly amazed. “No one could think I would harm my father. Had I stayed in Venice, his attackers would only have come for me.”
I studied the page closely, wishing I had a magnifying glass. It was gorgeously illuminated, with a blue border, intricately decorated with an ocean of tiny blue flowers around every page. The effect was stunning, but it seemed an odd choice for The Inferno. “Have you found anything on it that you think could be a clue?”
“No, nor has Brother Giovanni.”
“Is it from one of your family’s books?”
“No,” he said. “I only know it comes from a copy of The Inferno.”
“Where were you when your father was killed, Paolo?”
“I’m ashamed to say I was with another woman,” he said, hanging his head low.
“Emma said you weren’t at home with her.”
“She spoke the truth.”
“And no doubt wants to protect you,” I said. “Can your mistress confirm this?”
“Yes. I’ve already given your husband her name. It’s a bit embarrassing, and I’d prefer to say nothing further to a friend of my wife’s. I do hope you understand.”
“How do you feel about the fact that your father left the manuscript collection to the wife he was counseling you to leave?” I asked.
“I completely understand it,” he said. “He explained it all to me before he made the change in his will. I know I’m a profligate and would no doubt have been tempted somewhere down the line to sell the books. Emma would have never agreed to it. She’s much more levelheaded than I.”
He seemed a bit too ready to accept this. Of course, there was no way of having anyone confirm his reaction. In fact, I found it hard to believe that so many people involved in this case were so nonchalant about so many things. My wife was trying to have an affair? No problem! My father was leaving my wife the better inheritance? He was right to!
Caterina alone had not expressed a similar sentiment, and one could argue she had suffered the most at the conte’s hands. I couldn’t decide if this made her seem guiltier or not. Just because she had a better motive didn’t mean the others’ weren’t enough to prod them to murder. Then there was Emma. Had the conte lived and her marriage been annulled, she would have been in a disastrous situation, but unlike Caterina, she would face social rather than financial ruin.
We needed more evidence. Which was exactly why I wanted time to focus my attention on Paolo’s manuscript page. Colin and I consulted each other after he’d finished with the monk. He’d also spoken with Caterina and felt that she was unlikely to flee the city so long as she knew the police were keeping her under close watch. He told her she could leave, but this did not please her in the least. She said she’d prefer to stay in the Danieli.
Rid of one of the superfluous individuals in our suite, I wondered what we would do with the rest. No doubt Brother Giovanni would do whatever Paolo told him to, and Paolo was the real problem. Fearing the men who killed his father, he did not want his return to the city made public knowledge. After a brief, quiet discussion, Colin and I decided we could let the pair of them stay in our second bedroom. It was not an ideal arrangement but would allow us to keep an eye on them and seemed to appease Paolo’s fears for his own safety.
“I can bring Emma to you if you’d like,” I said.
“No.” He did not meet my eyes as he replied. “She cannot know I’m here. There are too many ways it could lead to unfortunate things.”
“Such as?” I asked.
“The killers could come after her,” he said. “Or what if she is the killer? You would be delivering her to the man who would have to be her next victim.”
* * *
“I’ve never dealt with a more melodramatic group of people,” Colin grumbled, after confirming with the man posted outside our door that he and his compatriots would be required for the unforeseeable future. “Paolo afraid of his wife? I don’t believe it for a second.”
“You don’t think Emma could be guilty?” I asked. “She’s plenty of motive for the crime.”
“That she does,” he said, “but can he really be so thick as to believe that she’d kill him after we’d let her into a secured room?”
“It wouldn’t suggest thickness if he had some firm evidence against her.”
“If that is the case, he ought to tell us.”
Much as I wanted to scrutinize the manuscript page, I knew we
had other things that required our attention first. I’d asked Donata and her father to investigate the genealogy of Nicolò Vitturi. We hoped to be able to find a connection between any surviving descendants and the Barozzi family. Signor Caravello began apologizing almost before Colin and I entered his shop.
“There is so little, I am afraid,” he said.
Signor Caravello had gone to the archives himself, taking Donata with him. Vitturi’s heirs, it turned out, were his five daughters and his wife, who received back the dowry she’d brought when she married. Two of the children died in an epidemic only a few weeks after their father. Donata had pored over marriage records to learn more about Nicolò’s daughters while Signor Caravello focused on their deaths. One entered a convent and had no children. At least no legitimate children. One married a duke from Milan. The other, Signor Caravello could find no record of beyond her father’s will.
“Not even of her death?” I asked.
“No.” The old man shook his head slowly. “It was so long ago, Signora Hargreaves, that things do go missing.”
“She must be buried somewhere,” I said.
“What good would finding her grave do us?” Colin asked.
“She might be interred near her children. There could be a family monument. We could find out her married name and follow the genealogy from there.”
“Alas, no,” Signor Caravello said. “Not in Venice. Bodies are buried on San Michele, near the main island, but there is not room to keep everyone there forever. So you stay a while and then your grave is exhumed and your remains taken to Sant’ Ariano to make room for new burials.”
“So we go to Sant’ Ariano,” I said.
“There are no graves there, signora,” he said. “Just piles of bones.”
“But surely someone from a noble family—”
“Their monuments remain longer, but not forever. What would be done with the newly dead if we kept them? There is no solid ground beneath us, signora. Venice floats on the foundations her people have built.”
“Is no one buried in the churches? In a stone crypt?”
“A few,” he said, “but I would not bother to look. A woman married to a minor nobleman would not have received such an honor. Her family may not even have wanted it. How long do we need reminders of the dead? Certainly not more than a few generations.”
“I know it sounds strange,” Donata said, “but there is truly no other way here.”
“I don’t like this,” I said. “Something doesn’t feel right. Maybe we’re on the wrong track entirely. Why would Nicolò have agreed to marry someone else when he was so in love with Besina?”
“You know well there would be plenty of reasons for him to marry, Emily.” Colin put his hand on my shoulder, his tender touch meant to be soothing. “The same reasons are in full force today.”
“Nicolò wouldn’t have married,” I said. “He loved Besina too much. He would have refused to take anyone else as his wife. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. He was the head of his family, was he not? He could have decided for himself.”
“Yes,” Signor Caravello said, “but the fact that he was the head of the family would have made it all the more important to ensure that he had a legitimate heir. Besina could not give him that.”
I felt tears smart in my eyes and was angry with myself. Why was this affecting me in such a fashion? I was embarrassed and needed to stop letting myself get distracted by romantic nonsense.
“All right,” Colin said. “Time to step back and start again. While I agree there is something to this notion of the past being significant to this case, we have very little else to consider in that regard at the moment—and we’ve plenty of work to do with people who are still alive.”
So it was decided. Colin did not leave me entirely disappointed, however. He insisted that I take the afternoon to examine Paolo’s manuscript page while he called on Signor Polani. A male perspective, he hoped, might shed a different light on the man’s situation.
Un Libro d’Amore
xvii
The drudgery of Besina’s days did not change over the following weeks. She was isolated and alone, and her heart screamed in pain every hour of the day. She hardly slept, images of what Uberto had done to her haunting her dreams. She lost interest in the projects that had previously occupied her mind. She abandoned the renovations of her house. She refused to make lace. She could no longer even take pleasure in the works of the poets she loved.
Nicolò had sent no word.
She knew he was waiting until more time had passed, that he did not want to do anything that might draw further ire from her despised husband. Yet to live without the comfort of Nicolò’s words was like death itself, and Besina began to pray that God would take her from this miserable world.
Nicolò was not much better off. He cursed himself for not having left with Besina at once, though he knew such a thing would have led to certain disaster. They would have needed money, if nothing else. More than he kept on hand. Still, the knowledge that he’d come for his love only a quarter of an hour after her husband had arrived tormented him. His sadness was unbearable, and he would never be able to forgive himself.
So he immersed himself in the family business, which, though never overtly neglected, was not bringing in the money that it ought. Money was something Nicolò would make sure he always had enough of in the future. He would keep it near him, should Besina ever come to him again. He found he had a good head for the work and soon was turning considerable profit, significantly more than anything the family had seen before. So much, in fact, that before long he was one of the richest men in Venice.
His sisters pleaded with him to marry. That is, all of them but Lucia. She alone understood such a thing would never be possible for Nicolò. She alone knew that some things matter more than begetting heirs. He took Lucia’s son, his nephew, named in his honor, into his business, grooming him to take over someday. In this young man, Nicolò placed all his hopes, so far as he had any.
He did not dare leave a message for Besina at Santa Maria dei Miracoli. He did not even dare watch from afar as she entered the church. Nicolò’s heart broke, but nothing would be worse than bringing more harm to Besina. He could never risk that again.
Then, one day, more than a year after that terrible night, Nicolò received a slim package from a bookseller. Inside was a copy of The Divine Comedy. Hidden in the pages was a small slip of paper. And on it, three words:
Come to me.
18
After we left Signor Caravello’s bookshop, Colin dropped me at the Danieli, where I looked in on Paolo and Brother Giovanni. They were deep in a game of chess and hardly noticed when I opened the door. I sent down for a pot of tea and applied myself to the manuscript page in front of me. I’d borrowed a magnifying glass from Signor Caravello but didn’t start by using it. First, I read the page, as best as I could. It was from Canto V, when the narrator poet describes the Second Circle of Hell, where those guilty of the sin of lust are forced to spend eternity blown to and fro by vicious winds. The last line on the page was part of something the adulterous Francesca says to the poet:
No greater grief than to remember days
Of joy, when misery is at hand.
The words brought quick tears to my eyes. I brushed them away, refusing to succumb to emotion. Instead, I opened the copy of The Inferno I’d brought from Signor Caravello’s shop and began to compare the text of the same passages in each, checking for any variation. There was none, which meant it was unlikely something had been hidden in the words themselves.
Next, I studied the illuminated image at the top left-hand corner of the page. It showed a fierce minotaur guarding the souls in his charge, a frightening look of menace on his face. I held the magnifying glass to my eye and bent close to the vellum sheet, but I found nothing unusual in the picture and so turned my attention to the border. Never before had I seen such delicate work. The brush used to fashion each miniature gold flower
must have been tiny, and held with a hand steadier than one would think humanly possible. I started at the top, next to the box holding the great mythological beast, and followed the blue rectangle that enclosed the page, moving to the right, then down, then along the bottom to the left, and up again.
It was as if the world opened up for me. Hidden among the flowers were tiny letters, written with such flourish it was nearly impossible to discern them as different from the blossoms. Nearly impossible, but not. My heart racing with excitement, I started to copy them down, assuming I would reveal a code that I hoped would not be too difficult to break.
I began to suspect something different almost at once. The letters from the top and right side required no further analysis. I almost laughed as I looked at what I’d written in my notebook:
T I T I A N
It was almost too simple. I continued to work my way around the border.
M O G L I E D I M A N O A H
No code had been made from the letters. Titian Moglie di Manoah. I needed to find Titian’s painting of the biblical story of the same name. I rejoiced that my mother had insisted on so many years of Bible study when I was a girl. Bringing with me my notebook and the magnifying glass, I set off for the Accademia, whose galleries were an obvious place to begin a search for the great painter’s work. It was a short walk through busy places, so I felt safe going on foot. I cut through St. Mark’s Square and rushed along the wide pavements, lined by expensive shops, that took me out of the piazza and in the direction of the museum. As I walked, I recalled the details of the tale of Manoah’s nameless wife.
She was barren, unable to have a child. One day, the angel of the Lord appeared before her and told her this would change. She would bear a son. The angel’s words were true, and the woman later gave birth to Samson, he of supreme strength like that of the heroes of the great classical myths, fit for wrestling lions.
Death in the Floating City Page 17