“But we know what they want.” It wasn’t a question.
“That blasted painting! I didn’t believe Maria when she told me her suspicions about it long ago—I thought it some fanciful Indiana Jones imaginings—” He paused to cough, recovered, and went on. “But the dear woman was apparently right all along.”
“But you knew it was valuable.” It came out like an accusation. Tea had arrived. With my one good hand, I took the mug Sloane proffered and sipped gratefully.
“Of course I knew it was valuable,” Rupert croaked, waving the hovering Sloane away. “It was by Domenico di Bartolo so how could it not be valuable? But to murder and burn to obtain it? It was not that valuable, Phoebe, not Raphael or da Vinci valuable. No, it’s not, and yet somebody behaves as if it is worth millions of pounds, which must mean that Maria may have been correct all along—” he stopped to steady his breath “—when she told me that the painting held…some kind of secret.”
“But she was going to give both paintings to you as a wedding present once—”
“More to keep them with her when she left the family bosom than to give them to me specifically. We were eloping, after all.”
“You were eloping?”
“Well, yes, old Father Contini—a male supremest if I ever met one and an anti-Semitic nasty piece of work besides—would never allow his daughter to marry a penniless Jew—not that I was penniless exactly but I was still a little young to have yet amassed my own fortune at twenty-five, wasn’t I?”
“I didn’t know you were Jewish until recently.”
“Yes, I am Jewish, Phoebe—not a practicing Jew but Jewish nonetheless. Does it matter?”
“Of course not but I didn’t know.”
“Why should you? But that’s rather beside the point, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t, considering that the Bartolo commemorates an extraordinary marriage between a Christian and a Jewish family at a time when such high-profile unions could be deadly.”
“Well, yes, of course. Maria was very proud of her family’s Jewish roots, as thin as the bloodline was after all these centuries. Her papa, however, preferred to keep it under wraps. It was her desire for me to have the Bartolo for that very reason as well as to assuage her guilt, I suppose. I was very bitter following the broken engagement, I admit. She was my first love, you see.” More coughing chased down by deep sips of tea. “Ah, yes, what was I saying?”
“You were very bitter and Maria was going to give you the paintings, anyway.”
“Yes, until her mother suffered a massive heart attack and died in protest, which ended that idea rather dramatically, don’t you think? Her mama wasn’t…against our marriage so much as she was against Maria taking those paintings with her. They have been…oh, dear. Give me a minute, please.” He breathed quietly for a moment before continuing. “They have been traditionally willed to the female heir of the family, you see…but should a generation pass without progeny, their fate hung in limbo. Maria didn’t have children—” he sighed “—so it’s all rather tragic, really. Though she assured me…that she would will me the paintings, it didn’t matter to me by then. I wanted nothing more to do with them or her…and told her as much after which…I proceeded to leave Venice. I thought—I thought—”
Another coughing fit consumed him, this one bad enough to send Sloane scurrying in with admonishments to stop talking immediately. Rupert was ordered to his bed and me upstairs.
“Evan has rigged up a shower in the master bathroom, Sir Rupert. I will lead her there now.”
“That place?” Rupert wheezed from the camp bed. “You cannot allow her to go in unattended, Sloane, not after what happened. It’s ghastly.”
“That was a long time ago, sir. Besides which, the plumbing is far more ghastly than any sordid tale. The room itself is perfectly usable despite the intolerable cold, which I believe we have somewhat remediated. Regardless, we really must get her out of those wet clothes.”
So, I was to be spoken about in the third person. I shrugged off the blanket and got to my feet. “And the book she rescued from the fire, where is that?”
“In the kitchen, madam, and it is quite unharmed after tonight’s adventure, I must say.”
“That’s because Evan is such a good catch,” I pointed out.
“So he says, though no woman has managed to catch him yet.” Sloane chuckled at his own joke but suddenly sobered at the sight of my hand. “You’ve suffered a burn, madam, or is that a cut?”
“What, where?” Rupert croaked, sitting up.
“On the left hand, sir. We will steer her into the shower and then attend to it properly.” Sloane held my carpetbag in one hand and took my arm with the other.
“I’m quite able to walk, Sloane, thank you,” I said, shaking him off. “Now where exactly is this marble death chamber?”
“That is rather a dramatic term for a perfectly lovely marble bathroom on the second floor. Installed in the early nineteenth century,” he said, leading me into a long dark hallway, his lamp held high. Once a butler, always a butler apparently. He was a slight middle-aged man who I had only ever seen wearing his tidy green uniform, which he wore even here. “With exquisite detailing, I must say. I’m sure you’ll be impressed, at least with the finishing, if not the plumbing.”
“And the ‘death chamber’ part?”
“Apparently a man was shot by his lover there decades ago. Old news, as they say, but Sir Rupert is rather fixated by the lurid tale, that and all the other fates that have befallen the palazzo’s previous owners.”
I climbed the stairs, my gaze glancing over damp-splotched flocked wallpaper and resting briefly on a chandelier whose crystal droplets glinted like frost in the flashlight. I thought of the ruined warehouse and the light that had burned out in this city tonight.
A glow was coming from an open door halfway down the hall. Evan stepped out. “It’s ready for you, Ms. Phoebe.”
With the two men following at my heels, I stepped into a large bathroom completely tiled in rosy marble but for a single mirrored wall. Brass fittings gleamed in the lamplight and a large marble-tiled double tub sat between four pillars in the middle of the room. It was both ostentatious and gorgeous all at the same time, yet felt massive with the shadowy light.
“I guess it’s as good a place to murder someone as any,” I said.
“Easier to tidy up afterward,” Sloane remarked. Obviously butlers think on the practical aspects.
Had it been another time, another place, I might have laughed, but as it was, I just wanted to get this done. “So, this is the makeshift shower?” I gazed up at a contraption I took to be of Evan’s devising: a large plastic water container suspended over the tub with a cord dangling down.
“Yes, a bit primitive, I’m afraid,” Evan explained.
“Not up to your usual standards, you mean?” I remarked.
“Definitely not but hopefully it will function. All you need do is step in and give the cord a tug to release the flow. The water is still hot but I’m afraid it’s not likely to stay that way for long.”
Sloane peered into the tub. “I scraped away as much as the grime as I could but it’s best not to dally, madam. Who knows what’s down there. Evan, what is the story on the pipes?”
“I decided to abstain from investigating further after the snake encountered an obstruction. Hopefully the thing will drain of its own accord, which is the best we can hope for.”
“Very well, then,” Sloane said, stepping back. “Let us permit the lady to get on with it. I’ve set your bag on the counter, madam, and left a clean towel for your use. Please do take care to wash that hand thoroughly so I can tend to it when you emerge.”
“We must tend to that hand” Evan said suddenly.
“It’s just a bit of a cut and a burn,” I told him, holding my wounded member away from his gaze. “Now, leave me, please. I’m not in the mood for a communal shower.”
He almost looked embarrassed as he backed out. “Of c
ourse, ma—Ms. Phoebe, but I’ll wait outside in case you need me.”
Need him, why would I need him? Of course, I could use a little help taking my clothes off but this was hardly the time. I shut the door, stifling a brief bittersweet jolt thinking of Noel as I began the one-handed business of peeling off my damp jeans—trickier than I’d expected. That my hand throbbed seemed irrelevant. All that mattered was the carnage I’d just witnessed and the expanse of despair that had opened up inside me as a result. It was as if the loss of Noel, the imprisonment of my brother, and all the trauma that followed had suddenly hit me anew. And here I thought I’d managed to shove it all to the back of my mind. The heart is not so resilient, after all.
Leaving my jeans, panties, and bra on the floor and clutching my toiletries with my one good hand, I climbed shivering into the tub, cringing at the cold marble beneath my feet. In a minute, I’d pulled the cord to release a trickle of warm water, blessedly welcome after the dank canal. I tried to whip up a bit of lather from my shampoo but the most I got was a few halfhearted suds while my wounded paw burned.
As the water poured down over me, I closed my eyes and vowed to catch the bastards who killed Maria and sent her legacy up in smoke. I didn’t care who they were, they’d pay. I doubted I could trust anyone anymore, not that I ever could. The world was peopled with self-serving, ruthless monsters who counted human life and history as worth nothing if it stood in the way of some kind of monetary gain. Damn them all to hell.
Minutes later, the water stopped trickling and I stood in the lamp-lit bathtub shivering. It had grown unaccountably cold despite the space heater. The one long shuttered window was covered with plastic so there were no drafts coming from that direction and yet I felt a definite breeze.
One glance to the right glimpsed my own naked image reflected palely in the floor-length mirror like a freckled ghost. Damn these Venetians and their creepy mirrors. Something was rumbling beneath my feet. I looked down to find brackish water regurgitating at my feet. Quickly, I climbed out and snatched the towel from the counter.
And it was freezing in there.
Luckily, my carpetbag carried a change of clothes—my carry-on emergency kit. I dressed as quickly as a one-handed woman could, hauling on fresh panties, yanking on a pair of dry jeans, a sweater, and topping it all with one of my art knit cardigans. My bra was damp so I’d go without. Stuffing my damp things into my bag, I tried to fling open the door but it wouldn’t budge. I shook the knob and pounded with no success. It was crazy after what I’d been through to feel panic over a stuck door and yet I did.
Hell, was Evan out there? I desperately wanted him to be out there. “Help, I can’t get out!”
He was. “Madam, are you turning the knob?”
“Of course I’m turning the knob,” I called back. “I didn’t lock the door, I only shut it.” But apparently it had locked itself. More likely the wood had swollen shut in the frame, meaning I’d just have to try harder, so I rattled the door with even more vigor. Still the thing wouldn’t open. I turned back to the room, freezing now as if I stood in a refrigerator instead of two yards away from a space heater. And the atmosphere had turned as thick as sludge.
Did I believe in ghosts? Sure, I did. Centuries of people can’t have got that wrong. But was I afraid of ghosts? Naturally, but right then I was too angry to be frightened of vapors. “Back off!” I yelled into the gloom. “The dead don’t have any teeth next to the murderous living! Go to hell!”
And then the door flew open and Evan fell into the room, knocking me against the wall. For a moment he stared down at me, stunned. I stood crushed against his person inches away from the heating element. “Who were you talking to,” he whispered.
“The dead,” I told him, pushing him gently back. “Let’s get out of this place.” I grabbed my carpetbag and got out of there as soon as possible.
Minutes later, I was sitting in the kitchen—now spotlessly tidy with all of Evan’s paraphernalia apparently banished elsewhere—while the two men inspected my hand under a large spotlight.
“Second degree burn, by the looks of things, plus a rather nasty cut. I suggest a loose bandage to let it breathe.” That was Evan speaking.
“Plus the addition of basic antiseptic as we cannot count on it actually remaining sufficiently clean given the countless sources of pestilence seething around this moldering pile,” added Sloane.
I looked up. “Gentlemen, thanks for your concern but I’ll take both the antiseptic and the bandage for now. Could we get on with it?” Anything to stop a debate. That prompted a small smile from Evan, who quickly tended to my hand with a gentle efficiency while Sloane scuttled off, presumably in pursuit of either germs or tea.
Once I had been bandaged, I returned to the ballroom to where Rupert sat bundled in his chair beside a small table, waiting. “Feel better now, I trust?” he asked, indicating for me to join him where another chair that had been pulled up beside his. Evan disappeared for a moment and returned with a stool for himself.
“I am, and you?”
“Reasonably, though I must take care apparently. Phoebe, we really must talk.”
My gaze landed on my rescued book and the two photographs sitting side by side on the table, one of the Bartolo, the other the Civelli. “I agree.” I sat down and reached for the Contini pattern compendium, relieved to find that it had held up to the recent adventure better than I. “This is the only one I managed to save,” I said. “The others are all gone now.”
Rupert leaned over and patted my knee. “There, there—a tragedy, I agree—but I’ve been thinking of what possible motive these—” he paused to take a deep shaky breath before continuing “—brigands could have for attempting to burn the place down?”
“Are you certain it was arson?” Evan asked.
I looked over at him. “I smelled what I realize now must have been lighter fluid or something similar. Whoever the arsonists were, they entered the building somehow and spread a ring of something highly inflammable around the weaving level before igniting it. They meant to burn me alive apparently. Who knew I was there except Nicolina, Seraphina, and you?”
“That’s what I’ve been asking myself. I’ve run your phones and all your belongings through my devices as a precaution and found no sign of tampering. I must have missed one back in the Contini home.”
“What about the roof? That’s the only place we spoke freely.”
“Possibly,” he said. “I should have checked more thoroughly.” The man seemed to have a thing bearing responsibility but he’d had zero time to check every inch of that villa.
“Nicolina suspects the police,” I remarked.
“Indeed, but perhaps it is she who is behind all this,” Rupert remarked. “But why? Why burn the warehouse and steal what will become her own painting?” I asked.
“To cover her tracks, perhaps, to set loose a school of virtual red herrings to throw the authorities off her trail…in order to get Maria out of the way. I’m only playing devil’s advocate here, you understand, and I don’t truly believe…that the Nicolina I once knew to be involved…with such a heinous crime as murdering one friend and attempting to burn…another but people do change.”
“Maybe,” I agreed, “but surely not that much. I don’t believe Nicolina did this. No, something or someone else is behind these crimes and it all leads back to that painting.” My gaze rested on the two glossy photos sitting on the table before us. “How long have you had these?”
“For ages.” Rupert leaned back in his chair, eyes closed. “They have been enlarged from a very poor photo I took eons ago. The detail is very fuzzy, as you can see.”
And it was. I peered over at them. “I have clearer images on my phone. So—” I pulled back “—why did the thieves send the studio up in smoke tonight?”
“I postulate that they needed to eliminate anything that might lead to the secret location,” Evan replied.
He postulates. Taking a deep breath, I turned to meet his stea
dy gaze, that lovely gray-green almost the color of smoke in the lamplight. “So, you believe the arsonists were trying to burn clues that might lead us to it?”
“Perhaps burn the clues along with the one person who may be able to decipher them,” Evan said quietly.
“But if they’ve taken to burning clues, they must now have a pretty good idea where or what that secret is,” I pointed out.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Rupert was looking from one of us to the other. “Do you mean that these bastards already have the answers and may be trying to eliminate anything or anyone who might stand in their way?”
I didn’t answer him. Instead, I wrapped my arms around myself to try to stave off a new wave of shivering. “But why wouldn’t they have taken these clues on the same night they stole the painting and murdered Maria?”
“Because they didn’t know what they were looking for,” Evan said. “Now they do, or at least believe they do. They may have left devices around the place the night they stole the painting.”
I nodded. “So they knew when I was there tonight, heard me in the library pouring over that pattern book, even heard Nicolina describe what she planned to do with those files. The whole time we were sending them every possible detail to help them send everything up in smoke.” I swung around to Evan. “And now they know where you are holed out, too.”
“Yes. We will have to move,” he agreed, turning to Rupert. “We have already begun seeking out alternatives, sir. Sloane is on it now. I’d best give him a hand. We may have to leave tonight.”
“Really, so soon? Where shall we go?” Rupert croaked.
“Still working on the details, sir. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s sorted.” And with that, he strode from the room.
The Carpet Cipher Page 16