De Vincenzi watched him only briefly. He wanted to be able to think beyond him, beyond the point of having a precise image in front of him. He’d seen him stretched out. That was enough. He didn’t want to observe the contractions of his face, the deep creases that had formed around his mouth and on his smooth skin, the dark circles around his eyes.
He left in a hurry.
Cruni went into the room and looked at Aurigi, who seemed to be sleeping. Then he himself sat down in the armchair near the table, occupied earlier by the inspector. He had to wait for time to pass.
He looked at the clock and jumped to his feet. It said ten past five. The sergeant drew his own watch from his pocket and continued looking for several minutes at the two timepieces.
They should have been keeping the same time, but he saw beyond the shadow of a doubt that there was a huge difference between them.
5
The Young Blond Man in the Attic
Only a few hours of restless sleep. Now he’d bathed and was leaving. Though it wasn’t yet eight, De Vincenzi felt like walking. He would go all the way to via Monforte on foot. He lived on Sempione, a long street. The morning was freezing-cold, with wispy fog that got gradually thicker higher up, as if it were rising towards the heavens from Sempione Park. One couldn’t see the sky, except in the form of more fog above—thicker, greyer and deeper.
De Vincenzi didn’t go across the park, which would have been the shortest route. He wanted to walk. When he’d got back home around five, he’d thrown his clothes on the bed and gone to sleep. A sleep full of nightmares. And now he felt the need to think with a clear head.
He knew Giannetto—or thought he knew him. Sometime poet of life, his wings clipped by necessity, by vice, by a boundless desire for enjoyment. Not, perhaps, of unbending morality, yet only in the sense that he’d never gone to the trouble of formulating for himself the rules of such a code. But honest? Yes. Certainly incapable of committing a crime, or of committing it in this way, which was both clever and stupid, clean and messy.
Because in fact the picture looked like this. Aurigi owed a sum of money to Garlini. A lot. A huge amount, perhaps. He couldn’t repay it; he’d said so. In any case De Vincenzi knew that it was a fact which could easily be checked. According to his account, Aurigi had gone to La Scala but had left the theatre at eleven and then wandered around the city.
If one could rely on his word. However, De Vincenzi wasn’t obliged to trust him without first having suspected him and evaluated the situation, and he had to admit that Aurigi could easily have committed the crime sometime between eleven and around one, when he’d shown up at San Fedele. But what had he done afterwards? Something that was both very clever and stupid. He’d come to him, De Vincenzi, at the station and had shown himself to be nervous and agitated. He had spoken in broken phrases, which could only indicate an unusual emotional state. Yet did that mean it was the state of a killer?
If he’d been able to behave differently, despite all the turmoil caused by his action, and to reason that it was better to come right here to the station… yes, it would have been clever for him to have found his way to De Vincenzi, to dispel serious suspicion. Or maybe he’d come here in his initial confusion without knowing what he was doing.
De Vincenzi remembered now. At midnight, on his way to San Fedele, he’d bumped into a man in evening dress and top hat. And that man had been Aurigi. He’d been coming from the piazza in via Agnello, walking without looking at anyone, passing through the cold of a winter night. He remembered now, with some surprise at not having thought of it before. When he’d seen Aurigi before him in his office in San Fedele, why hadn’t he asked immediately: “I saw you an hour ago walking through the fog in front of this building. Where were you going?” And why had he not immediately connected that encounter with his friend’s agitation?
Surely, he couldn’t have foreseen that fifteen to thirty minutes later the telephone would announce that there was a body in Aurigi’s house. All the same…
So, Giannetto could be the killer. He might soon discover the motive, if not actually the evidence. But De Vincenzi sensed that that wasn’t the truth, that there was something else involved, both more obscure and more complicated.
If not Aurigi, then who?
The porter’s wife had ended up admitting that a signorina went to Aurigi’s almost every day. And that signorina, De Vincenzi guessed immediately, had to be his fiancée, Count Marchionni’s daughter. What’s more, an older gentleman had also gone to Giannetto’s house that day and she must have met him—or maybe she’d decided not to see her fiancé, if only because there was a third person present.
The line of inquiry was more solid here, more direct, and De Vincenzi wanted to persuade himself that he should follow it. But how far? And where would it lead him?
At that moment an image of the pretty, buxom porter’s wife and her scrawny little husband flashed before his eyes. He heard that pleading voice again:
“Don’t believe her! Don’t believe her!… We don’t know a thing!”
And she, the woman, had immediately accused that man in the attic. “If there’s been a break-in, he’s your thief,” she’d said.
Who was he?
He now regretted not having paid attention to that detail and getting right to the bottom of the matter. He would do so as soon as he got to via Monforte. But he had something else to do first.
Arriving in Piazza Cordusio, he noticed that he’d gone too far, lost in thought. He turned back and went up via Meravigli. It was easy to find the Garlini Bank: two large, shiny brass plaques on either side of the main doors.
He went in and saw the guard and some of the employees. Early birds—it wasn’t yet nine. But the cashier was there. A big man: tall, fat and red in the face. A short neck on wide, square shoulders supported his heavy blond head.
An unfortunate build for a cashier! thought De Vincenzi. If he had a heart attack at the window he’d frighten the devil out of everyone… His irony had returned.
He questioned the man quickly. The cashier was anxious to tell De Vincenzi everything he knew. De Vincenzi took a look at the books, but stopped instantly: it was wasted effort, since he understood nothing. The expert accountants would be here before long and he would learn what he needed to know in any case. He listened to the cashier instead, and made him repeat something.
“You’re sure of it?”
“I’d swear to it,” exclaimed the other man, going redder still. “I took it from this bundle right in front of him in order to give it to him. See? There’s eighty, not a hundred. Do you want to count it?”
No, the inspector did not want to count it. “What was it for?”
The cashier laughed in that way of his, a kind of forced snicker peculiar to the rubicund.
“Ha! If you think the boss would tell me his business! Look, maybe some chick… he liked his girls, you know?”
Another fact he’d have to take into consideration.
But right away he shrugged. Fast women in Aurigi’s house!
He was increasingly focused on the case, completely immersed in it. He went into a cafe and drank two cups of coffee, one after the other. He looked at his watch and saw that it was already almost nine, so he hopped into a taxi which took him to via Monforte.
As he went past the porter’s lodge, he saw the porter’s wife watching him with bright, anxious eyes.
He went in. The woman could barely manage to say “Good morning”, she was so anxious that he was about to say something.
The dead man in the building had shocked her. She hadn’t even combed her hair, and without powder her face was shiny, like the sweaty face of a fat woman.
“Start talking!” De Vincenzi laid into her. He had no time or appetite for formalities. The porter’s wife was startled.
“What’s going on—more?”
“Last night you were talking about the attic… about a man who lives there who’d be capable of…”
She gulped.
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“I said that… when I thought there’d been a break-in. But now!”
“So who is the man you were speaking about?”
“A young lad. A distinguished one, by all appearances. Though he can’t have a penny. There was an empty room on the top floor. See? One of the rooms they give to servants… and my husband wanted to rent it to him. It must be two years ago by now. He stays up there almost all day. I think he writes or something… he says he’s working on novels, short stories. But you can be sure his stories aren’t putting chicken on the table, because he got himself a little camp stove and in the morning he goes out to buy something.”
“What’s his name?”
“Remigio Altieri.”
“On the top floor, you said?”
“Yes, he’s on the same staircase as Signor Aurigi.”
The inspector left the porter’s lodge and climbed up to the fourth floor. As he went past Aurigi’s apartment, he noticed the half-open door. He hurried by, not wanting to be stopped just then.
He found Altieri’s door easily. It was the only closed one. All the others opened onto a long corridor lit by an electric light that was left on.
He knocked, and a young blond man dressed in black appeared at the door. He stared at his visitor in surprise.
“Signor Altieri?”
“I am he.”
“Would you allow me…” De Vincenzi entered the room and walked past Altieri, who instinctively withdrew.
“I must speak to you.”
He looked around. It was a humble room, but very clean, and the furniture was noteworthy. There wasn’t much, but it was antique—what was left, perhaps, of a bygone prosperity. Or furniture parents had removed from a luxurious house in the country to give to a son who’d moved to the city.
A student, thought the inspector.
The young man remained near the still-open door, watching him. He was so bewildered that he was beyond irritation or offence at this almost violent intrusion. He simply accepted that he couldn’t explain it.
De Vincenzi noticed a bed, a chest of drawers, a table with an armchair in front of it and, on the table itself, a large portrait of a woman.
A pretty woman: she must be young. A great mass of hair, two deep-set, luminous eyes.
The room was suffused with the scent of cigarettes and eau de Cologne.
Poverty? Misery? Scanty meals, sometimes missed? The inspector searched in vain for evidence of a fireplace or a gas burner. But as for misery, if it could be called misery, it had such a dignified aspect that it instilled respect, if anything.
“I’d like to put a few questions to you, Signor Altieri. I’m Commissioner for Public Safety.”
The young man seemed unafraid. In fact, one might have said he was no longer surprised. However, he closed the door with great care and went towards De Vincenzi.
“I don’t understand…”
“Naturally. How long have you been in Milan?”
“Two years.”
“And before that?”
Altieri smiled. From his pocket he pulled out a piece of folded paper. He held it out to the inspector.
“I believe it will be quicker for you to read my identity card. I was born in Nancy.”
“French?”
The young man nodded. “French.”
“But how did you come to speak Italian so well? Without an accent?”
“Indeed! I’ve been in Italy for ten years. I was fifteen when I came here.”
“On your own?”
“With my father.”
“And now?”
“By myself. My father died nine years ago. One year after we found ourselves in Italy.”
“And you?”
“It’s quite a story!” exclaimed Altieri. “Do you really want to hear it? In that case, please sit down.”
In answer, De Vincenzi sat in the armchair.
The young man went to the other side of the table and he too sat down, in the only chair.
“If you would tell me, Inspector, why you’re interested in me, perhaps I might give you the explanations you need without offering you lots of useless information.”
“I’d prefer to hear everything, even the useless things.” De Vincenzi’s tone was somewhat abrupt.
He regretted it at once. After all, the young man seemed simpatico. And he was obviously wasting his time. How could he consider that Altieri had killed Garlini, or that he somehow knew something about the tragedy?
The young man raised his eyebrows, once more surprised. “Right, if it makes you happy.”
So he told the story of his own life simply, without expression and without working himself up. He did it as if it had nothing to do with him, and it was clear that by now he must be completely separated from his past, having made a clean break with it.
A few other things—quite deep and important—tied him to the present and to the future. And perhaps that very past was a dead weight, which distressed him.
“I was born in France of an Italian father and a French mother. You can see that on my identity card. My mother was a duchess of Noailles. She eloped with my father and married him against the will of her family. My father was a painter who’d gone to France to try his luck. My mother eloped with him. Her parents never forgave her. She lived in poverty with my father. Dad had a lot of talent, but not much luck.”
He paused, and then murmured: “Like me!” He blushed immediately and looked down.
De Vincenzi glanced at the photograph on the table. Altieri noticed, and seemed even more embarrassed.
“I meant like me as far as luck is concerned!”
He quickly resumed his story. His mother had died after fifteen years of marriage and his father had then returned to Italy with his son. He’d taken with him the furniture he’d had in Paris. The young man looked around. He’d sold much of it: this was all that was left.
Then his father, too, had died, leaving him alone. He’d studied, and had got by giving lessons in French. He’d been a tutor to a few wealthy families, but he didn’t earn his living that way. He’d started to write of his own account. He was working for several publishing houses, doing translations.
That was it.
“And now, what can I help you with?” he asked, with such stark simplicity that it bordered on irony.
Clearly, he couldn’t help him with anything. De Vincenzi felt he’d got lost in time: the tale—rather ordinary, to tell the truth, and a bit too much like a children’s adventure story—had so interested him, and the tone of the narrator had been so genuinely calm and serene.
Apart from being resigned, he was irrelevant to the inquiry.
An intelligent young man, without a doubt. One could see that he was of good breeding. A duchess of Noailles! And his father a painter. Much talent, little luck. “Like me!” he’d involuntarily exclaimed.
That was true, after all.
Well, what else was there to do? De Vincenzi had to get up, express his thanks, excuse himself and go on his way.
“Forgive me for having disturbed you. I’ve questioned you as I did all the other residents in the house. A crime was committed here last night…”
The young man flinched.
“A crime?” he asked.
“Yes. A man was killed. The banker, Garlini. Did you know him?”
“No, I did not!” he answered.
But the inspector heard a slight trembling, some hesitation in his voice. So he added, looking Altieri in the eye: “He was killed in Giannetto Aurigi’s apartment.”
This time the young man leapt up so violently and unexpectedly that the table on which he was leaning wobbled. He went pale. As white as wax. And the pallor on his subtle, aristocratic features, gave him the look of an ill person.
“Do you know Signor Aurigi?”
“No,” he mumbled.
He was lying. He was so obviously lying that he was afraid of his own lie and hurriedly blurted out, “I mean… I know his name… I’ve bumped into him a f
ew times on the stairs…”
“Where were you last night?” De Vincenzi asked coldly.
The other man looked at him in surprise, uncomprehendingly.
“What did you say?”
“I said, where were you last night? From midnight until one.”
“But here! In this room. Oh! Where do you think I was?”
“And you heard nothing?”
“Not a thing!”
“Were you sleeping?”
“No. I may have been writing. Or I may have been reading.”
“And there’s no one who can verify your alibi?”
“Alibi? Why do you say alibi?”
De Vincenzi smiled. Actually, he’d gone too far. Of course the boy was upset when he heard the name Giannetto Aurigi, but did that mean anything? Could one surmise and believe that he was the killer on that basis alone?
There had to be something hidden behind it; but to think that that boy had killed Garlini was too much. Why? It was true that twenty million lire were missing from the packet: I counted it in front of him in order to give it to him, the cashier had said.
But this man wasn’t the type to commit a common crime or a break-in.
Unless… and De Vincenzi looked at the photograph on the table: a woman!
“Fine. We’ll talk again. I’ll come back here or send someone for you.”
He left in a hurry.
The young man stood for some time looking at the door the inspector had just left through, whispering, “In Aurigi’s apartment!”
He looked at the photograph, and his entire face lit up with tenderness. And terror.
6
“I don’t know! I don’t know anything!”
De Vincenzi hurried down to the second floor.
He rang at Aurigi’s door, which was now closed, and had to wait a moment or two before Cruni opened it. The sergeant was still sleepy.
The Murdered Banker Page 5