Sally was confused. “Rolf admitted he killed Brian?”
“No, no. He admitted he was the mirror-man. But you yourself saw him leaning over Brian’s body. You were telling the truth about that, weren’t you?”
Sally thought she saw mockery in the suspicious look Michèle gave her. “Yes. I saw him leaning over, but I didn’t see him hit Brian.”
Michèle waved this away. “Perhaps not. But you admit that in all likelihood he is the guilty one? He ran away, after all.”
So did I, Sally thought. So did you. But Michèle continued, “And he didn’t go to the police later to tell his story, as you did.”
Sally remembered the black-cloaked figure, the mirror-face flashing in the sun. It could’ve been Rolf. She had no reason to think it wasn’t.
“The police were easier to convince than you are,” Michèle said.
She shook her head. “Maybe you’re right.”
“No. I see that you have doubts. What are they?”
What were they? Sally considered, then said, “I don’t see why he would have done it. I don’t think Rolf hated Brian. He hardly paid attention to Brian at all.”
Rolf didn’t pay attention to Brian, Sally thought. Rolf paid attention to me. He had watched her with hooded eyes as they sat in the Café du Coin. He rarely spoke to her, but he seemed to have something against her. Her palms began to perspire as she thought about it.
“Ah,” said Michèle. “That, you see, is the other part of the story.”
His excitement seemed to have dissipated. He had stopped pacing and stood next to the desk. “In fact, he doesn’t realize it’s Brian who has been killed,” Michèle said. “He thinks it’s you.”
Sally stared at Michèle. Maybe she had misunderstood. Maybe Michèle had misunderstood. “He thinks it’s me,” she repeated. “How do you know that?”
“He said so. He said, ‘I didn’t kill Sally’.”
Sally thought about it. The idea of Rolf killing Brian hadn’t seemed right. The idea of Rolf killing Brian because he thought Brian was Sally was strange, even frightening, but possible. She still couldn’t imagine why, but she thought the answer was in the way he had looked at her during those long afternoons at the Café du Coin. The answer had nothing to do with Sally herself, but with something that was going on inside Rolf’s head.
“I shouldn’t have told you. I should have waited until they arrested him,” Michèle said.
“How do you know they’ll arrest him? He might get away, now that you warned him.”
“I had to test him, to be sure. The child who told me he’d seen Rolf in the mirror costume might have been mistaken or lying. I had to see Rolf’s reaction.”
Sally wanted to shake him. “Why didn’t you just leave it to the police?”
Michèle frowned uncomprehendingly. “Because it wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting,”
Sally leaned back in the chair and shoved her fingers into the pockets of her jeans. The poem she had discovered on Michèle’s desk crackled softly. She said, “It doesn’t make sense. You think Rolf whacked Brian in the face and knocked him into the canal thinking he was me? I can see him making that mistake once Brian had fallen and was sinking in the water, but on land? Brian was taller than I am. Larger.”
Michèle resumed pacing. “Nevertheless. Both you and I saw Rolf there. The staff – his mirror staff— was broken. These mistakes happen at Carnival. Our senses can play us false, our preconceived ideas mislead us. Rolf believed the Medusa was you, and in his mind the Medusa became you.”
Sally wasn’t sure she bought this argument, but it would take some time to unravel. “How did you know where to find Rolf?” she asked.
“It was easy.” Michèle looked pleased. “I called the bistro in Paris where he worked and asked if anyone knew. A very cordial man there seemed happy to give me the address.”
“But how did you know about the bistro?”
“Brian mentioned it, the night we met at the taverna. He told me so many things.” Michèle went to the desk, saying, “I meant to show you this sooner.” He moved the paperweight and began to thumb through the stack of papers.
As Sally watched he searched through all the papers, then started over and looked through them again. After he’d finished the second search, he looked at Sally, a faint smile touching his lips. “I see I’m not the only one who can conduct an investigation,” he said. “Sally, why have you taken Brian’s poem?”
A Visitor
At this point, Sally felt no guilt or shame for going through Michèle’s papers. She said, “I wanted to find out what’s going on. I keep thinking you haven’t been straight with me.”
Michèle nodded approvingly. “You did exactly right. I meant to give you the poem myself, although I was afraid it would pain you. Brian said it expressed something of how he felt. I find it extremely sad.”
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Sally said.
“What is that?”
“Why did Brian talk to you that night? I mean, tell you his secrets?”
Michèle paused to consider before he said, “Two reasons, I suppose. First, he was desperate and ready to talk. Second, he told me his secrets because I told him mine.”
Unaccountably, Sally felt stung. She wondered what Michèle had told Brian that he hadn’t told her. “Your secrets?”
Michèle walked to the French windows and peered up at the sky. “Do you know, I think it will rain,” he said.
Sally waited. She wasn’t going to discuss the weather. He returned to the chair opposite hers and sat down. “You must understand that I am a lily of the field who neither toils nor spins,” he said. “My life is not dull because I know how to amuse myself, and my attention is easily caught. It was caught by Brian.”
He settled himself in his chair, seeming to compose his body carefully. “When I saw Brian at the taverna, he was the picture of despair. I was intrigued, as I told you. Why should a man so young and beautiful be so dreadfully sad? I tried to talk with him, but he would barely answer me. I suppose he thought I was interested in him in a sexual way.
“You may be too young to have learned this, Sally, but often telling someone your secret will lead that person to tell you his. A confidence will elicit a confidence. I saw that Brian was sad. I concluded that if I wanted to know the reason for his sadness, I should be sad myself.”
At Michèle’s last words his face changed, almost miraculously it seemed to Sally. His mouth drooped, his cheeks sagged, even his skin appeared to change color and become an unhealthy gray. Pain hovered in his eyes, and when he continued, his voice had a tight, gritty quality. “I began to speak about my beloved wife, Antonia, who has left me. He ignored me at first, but my account of abandonment and despair was irresistible. I was moved by it myself, almost to tears. After I told him my story, he told me his. He had written a poem about Medusa that expressed some of his distress, and he gave it to me. I was very touched.”
Michèle’s face cleared. “That’s how it happened.”
“But was it a lie? About Antonia?” Sally asked.
Michèle frowned. “Certainly not. It was all true.”
Then why were you using the story just for your amusement, as a way to get Brian to confide in you, Sally wanted to ask, but didn’t. Wind rattled the windows, and the room darkened a little.
“Antonia doesn’t like Venice,” Michèle said in a soft, absent tone. “She tells me, ‘If you love decay so much, why don’t you shut yourself up in a shabby, tumbledown room with beautiful, rotting things in it and watch them fall apart around you? That’s what living in Venice is like’.”
“Is that why she stays in Milan?”
“She stays in Milan because she loves the future. What future does Venice have? Inundation. One day, waves will break over the domes of the Basilica. Antonia has no use for such melancholy thoughts. She has a design studio in Milan, she has many forward-looking friends. They sit in rooms where everything is white, even the f
loors, and smoke cigarettes and talk about the future. Antonia doesn’t like pattern, complication, intricacy. She thinks Venice is too elaborate to be truly stylish. She’s right, of course.”
Sally couldn’t think of any reply. She wasn’t used to this kind of talk.
“I said Antonia doesn’t like pattern, complication, and intricacy,” Michèle went on. “On the other hand, they fascinate me.”
“Do you and Antonia agree about anything?”
He smiled ruefully. “Some years ago we agreed to get married. Quite frankly, I thought if she didn’t marry me I would die. To spend an hour away from her was torture. She felt the same. Oh, yes, we were in complete agreement then.” His shoulders twitched. “But now she is in Milan, and you and I are in Venice, surrounded by as much pattern, complication, and intricacy as we could wish.”
Footsteps sounded in the hall. Maria came in and spoke to Michèle in Italian. He seemed surprised, Sally thought, at what she told him. When Maria had left, Michèle turned to Sally and said, “Francine is on her way up. She arrived uninvited and asked to see me.”
Sally didn’t want to see Francine. She stood up. “I’m going to wait in my room until she leaves.”
“Very well, but you’d better go quickly if you don’t want to meet her.”
Sally hurried down the hall and across the landing. As she started up the stairs she heard Michèle’s voice greeting Francine. She went to her room and closed the door.
Lunch In The Campo
Francine, Tom, and Jean-Pierre huddled over stale sandwiches at a table in the Campo Francesco Morosini, although it was almost too cold now to sit outside. Revelers passing on their way to the Piazza bent into the wind, capes and veils billowing. One among them, a Pierrot, his sad-clown mask framed by an extravagant ruff of black net, escaped the crowd to hover in a nearby doorway. A café employee, looking at the sky, began stacking unoccupied tables.
Francine felt cheated and dissatisfied in the aftermath of her conversation with Michèle Zanon. Although the count had been extremely courteous, he had told Francine nothing new, and she had had no chance to look around the palazzo on her own. Neither, to her chagrin, had there been an opportunity to discuss Sartre.
The meeting was hardly worth the difficulty Francine had gone through to get there, which had been considerable. She had despaired of ever being free of Ursula’s company again, but eventually even Ursula’s inventiveness and capacities had flagged and she’d pronounced herself ready for a siesta. She had insisted that Francine remain with her in the darkened bedroom until she fell asleep. When Ursula was emitting breathy snores, Francine tiptoed out and escaped.
Francine had felt more than ready for a siesta herself. Her head ached, and the bright sunlight and brisk winter breeze seemed unpleasantly harsh as she wound along the route that led to Michèle Zanon’s palazzo. Ursula had not been especially willing to give her directions, but Francine was not above withholding, or threatening to withhold, skills she now knew appealed to Ursula very much. Ursula finally told her, then clutched Francine and said, “You won’t leave me for Michèle will you, cara?”
“Don’t be absurd,” said Francine, repeating the directions several times in her head.
Now, her meeting with Michèle ended, Francine’s headache was worse and she felt hollow inside. This bad feeling came from fear and from anger at Sally.
Francine was sure she had seen Sally in Michèle’s palazzo. Sally was wearing her dreadful sweater with the flying geese on it, and she was rushing upstairs. When Francine asked Michèle, he blandly denied it, saying Francine must have caught a glimpse of his wife, Antonia, who had just arrived from Milan. Antonia apologized, Michèle said, for not coming to meet Francine, but she was exhausted from her trip.
Francine wasn’t fooled. Sally was staying in the palazzo with Michèle, and Michèle had deliberately lied about the fact. Thinking of it made Francine wild. It was monstrous that pale, plain Sally was enjoying the company of Michèle Zanon, living with him at his palazzo in great luxury.
Francine wanted, she needed, Michèle as her ally. She couldn’t have Sally standing in her way.
The final annoyance had been running into Tom and Jean-Pierre outside Michèle’s gate after her unsuccessful visit, where they apparently had just bumped into one another. Michèle had met with Tom earlier, and had left a message for Jean-Pierre. Both of them wanted to speak with him. Although Francine supposed that if Michèle had sought her out, it was reasonable for him to have visited the others; she wished it weren’t true. She wished she had been singled out, unique.
Jean-Pierre seemed to be barely functioning. Tom rubbed his cheeks in a way that drove Francine mad, and treated her warily, as if fearing a repeat of their early-morning quarrel. It was he who suggested the three of them exchange addresses and then go on to lunch together nearby.
Jean-Pierre had eaten nothing, and Tom had two whiskies and half a sandwich, but Francine was ravenous. She also had an idea. She nodded in the direction of the palazzo and said, “Do you know who’s staying there with Count Zanon? Sally.”
Tom, frowning, settled his chin deeper into the collar of his coat. “How do you know?”
“I saw her. And let me tell you something else.” She leaned over the cold metal table. “The count gave a party last night— a masked ball and breakfast on Torcello. Count Zanon dressed as Harlequin. He even did acrobatic tricks.”
Francine waited for possible comments, then continued. “Sally was there, too. She was dressed as a Spanish señorita in a black-and-white ruffled dress, a gaucho hat, and a red shawl.”
Tom looked at Francine as if she were a maniac. “I don’t believe it,” he said flatly.
Francine looked at him with loathing. “Well, why don’t we dispute what I saw with my own eyes? She wore exactly the costume I described. And she said to me”— Francine affected a sophisticated air— “Are you a friend of Michèle’s?”
Tom stared.
“And if you don’t believe me, you can ask Michèle Zanon,” Francine finished triumphantly.
Neither Tom nor Jean-Pierre said anything. It was difficult to say if Jean-Pierre had heard. His eyes were blank. Tom sat shaking his head. At last he said, “God.”
Francine considered this enough encouragement to continue. “We’ve completely underestimated Sally. If she can go to a fancy dress ball a few hours after her husband’s murder, she’s capable of anything.”
Tom said, “That little pipsqueak couldn’t—”
Francine thrust her jaw forward. “She could and she did. And she and her Harlequin, her aristocratic lover, are probably laughing about it now.”
This maddening thought inspired her to continue. Her idea was growing, blossoming, like a rare flower that has found the hot, moist dampness it needs. “I think she killed Brian. She wanted to be with Michèle. She waited for her opportunity and took it.”
Tom was rubbing his face. He shot a look at Jean-Pierre. “Brian didn’t want her, anyway. Sally could’ve been with Count Zanon if she wanted to. She didn’t have to kill Brian for that.”
Jean-Pierre pushed his chair back and stood. “I must go,” he said. Before either of them could protest, he had left, threading his way through the crowded square.
Francine wanted to continue elaborating on her idea, but Tom’s responses seemed halfhearted. After a short while he, too, excused himself and left.
Most of the tables were stacked now. The costumed crowds, still hopeful that the weather would hold, jostled toward the Piazza. The Pierrot had disappeared from the doorway. Francine sat alone in the Campo Francesco Morosini, beneath the overcast sky.
Brian
Something cold and viscous was rising in Brian’s throat, something he didn’t want to taste. He would taste it soon. It was rising, and there was nothing he could do.
Brian saw through brackish water with pale gobs of matter floating in it. These gobs changed shape, stretched out and folded in as the waves dictated.
Thro
ugh the polluted water of his eyes, Brian saw drowned towers and domes, underwater bridges, deep-sea divers in bright costumes. The divers swam by him, laughing in their lace and feathers, sequins and gauze, their cloaks flowing, their jewelry glimmering in the marine light.
Choked, Brian could not call out. He could not tell the swimmers what they needed to know. He could not tell them how cold and unclean death was, how soon it came, how long it lasted. They swam strongly while he drifted, but they would drift and dissolve in their turn. If his throat were not filling, he could tell them.
Still they swam by him, dressed in their disguises. With the right disguise, you could conceal shame. With the right disguise, you could even hide death for a little while, and death was the greatest shame of all.
Something was rising in his throat. There wasn’t much time.
Death should not have happened to Brian. He wouldn’t flow away yet, as much as he might spread and loosen, because he was caught against his rage the way a plastic garbage bag tossed into a canal might be caught in a corner by a bridge, might ride out a tide or two next to this barrier while the garbage inside became more and more foul.
Something was rising in his throat, and he had to hurry. Soon he would be inundated by his body’s tides.
In Antonia’s Room
Sally sat in Antonia’s bedroom, in Antonia’s armchair. She had been sitting there a long time. The sun no longer danced on the walls, and the light in the room was a shifting, watery gray.
Michèle believed, or said he believed, that Rolf had killed Brian because he thought Brian was Sally. Sally thought the idea was at least slightly plausible. Brian was taller and heavier than she was, but the Medusa’s robe and headdress distorted and concealed physical attributes. Plus, Rolf might have been convinced beforehand, for some reason, that the Medusa was Sally and never doubted it.
The Complete Mystery Collection Page 73