Half an hour later it returned. Soon afterwards the Princess Sirisha came out, accompanied by a tall dark bony man whom Roger recognised as Malderini’s valet, Pietro. He got into the gondola with her and it brought them across to the San Samuele steps, where they both landed, then tied up there. Close on midday they returned and it ferried them back to the palace. About two o’clock it went downstream again and brought back Malderini.
By that time Roger was extremely hungry so he walked through to the little square behind the Palazzo Morosini, and had a good meal of minestrone, ossobuco and wood-strawberries at a tavern there. Satisfied with the progress he had made so far, he decided that it would be unwise to overplay the part of an amateur painter; so he arranged with the proprietor of the tavern to leave his painting things there, and spent the rest of the afternoon sightseeing. First he visited a jewel of the Renaissance, the Church of the Miracoli, next the Rialto bridge, by which he crossed and went on to the huge cathedral-like church of the Frari; then he idled away the evening.
The following day, events provided for him a programme that differed little from that of its predecessor. He took up his station at eight o’clock, saw Malderini go out at nine and return shortly after two—this time accompanied by two other well-dressed men—and the Princess go out for her walk, accompanied by Pietro, between ten and twelve.
Later in the day, he strolled along to Venice’s waterside promenade, the broad Riva degli Schiavoni, on one side of which rose the square Palace of the Doges, supported so miraculously upon its ground-floor range of arches, and on the other a long row of booths where cheapjacks of all kinds plied their trades against a background of masts rising from the scores of small ships moored alongside the quay. He walked on as far as the great gates of the Arsenal, behind which lay the dockyards of the Venetian fleet, where, in the great days of Venice, 16,000 men had laboured on her ships week in, week out. On his return he left the quay to visit the tiny church of San Giorgio degli Schiavoni and admired the wonderful series of paintings by Carpaccio, which at least the French could not steal, because they were painted on its walls.
Before settling down for the evening again in the Piazza San Marco there was one grimmer sight at which he paused to look. It was a little enclosed bridge—almost the shape of an inverted V—high up over the narrow canal between the Doge’s Palace and the city prison. It had been named the Bridge of Sighs because so many men had passed over it never to return, for the prison, which was known as the ‘Leads’, had a reputation as sinister as that of the Bastille.
On his sixth morning in Venice, he took with him to the San Samuele steps his tray of scent samples as well as his paints and canvas, as he felt that, should events follow the same course as on the two preceding days, they would have established a pattern, and he might risk acting upon it. Since Malderini was involved in a conspiracy, it seemed certain that he must often go out by night as well as by day, so Roger had considered lying in wait for him after dark. But to attack him on the water would have necessitated difficult and dangerous negotiations to find a gondolier prepared to accept a heavy bribe to become an accessory to murder; while to attack him on land was to risk a hue and cry being raised with the almost inevitable result that the attacker would get lost in a maze of alleyways and find himself cornered in one of the cul-de-sacs in which Venice abounded. In consequence, Roger had decided that the deed must be done in Malderini’s own palace and, as a first step, he had prepared a plan by which he hoped to get inside it.
Malderini left in his colourful gondola as usual soon after nine, then it returned and, an hour later, ferried the Princess and Pietro across the Grand Canal. Roger continued his painting for some twenty minutes, then he went to the little tavern in the Campo Morosini, where he had had two midday meals and left his artist’s paraphernalia with the proprietor. From there he walked back to the Grand Canal, picked up a gondola near the Palazzo Cavalli, and had himself taken to the landing steps of the Palazzo Malderini.
He did not attempt to land but had his man keep the gondola close in to the steps so that he could do so at any moment. After a wait of nearly half an hour, all the church bells of Venice began to chime midday. They were still pealing when Roger saw the Princess coming down the San Samuele steps. Two minutes later her gondola had ferried her across. By that time Roger had stepped onto the landing place and, as Pietro handed her ashore, he salaamed, presented his tray of scents and cried, ‘Gracious lady! Perfumes from the East! Very beautiful but price modest. Please to accept samples.’
To his dismay she gave him only a glance and walked on, while the skull-faced Pietro turned to hustle him off the steps. He had meant to whisper a few sentences to her as she was examining his scents. In another moment she would be gone. It was now or never; so he had to take a chance and call aloud after her.
He had before used broken Italian. Now he used a different language for each short sentence—French, Arabic, Italian again, then Persian—and in the last he cried, ‘I come from Bahna. I must talk with you.’
Her steps suddenly slowed. In the doorway she halted, turned and beckoned to him. With the eager smile of the trader who has intrigued a possible buyer, his white teeth flashing between his black beard and moustache, he ran up the steps and presented his tray, once more breaking into a multilingual patter.
After smelling the stoppers from a few of his little bottles, she said in Italian, ‘Come with me upstairs.’
Ignoring Pietro’s scowl, he followed her through a lofty pillared hall and up a curved staircase guarded by a beautiful balustrade of wrought and gilded ironwork, to a room on the first floor with tall windows overlooking the Barnaba canal. It was evidently her boudoir and much of its furnishings were of Indian design. Pietro had followed them up, but with a quick word she dismissed him. He gave Roger a suspicious glance and went with obvious reluctance. As soon as the door had closed behind him, she turned to Roger and asked in Persian, in a whisper:
‘Did I... did I hear you aright?’
He nodded, but put a finger to his lips, again broke into his mixed Italian-Arabic sales-talk, and offered her his tray.
She came close to him and made a pretence of examining the scents. Her long fingers were trembling so violently that she could hardly hold the little bottles as he handed them to her, and her great dark eyes stared into his with an expression that was half excitement, half terror. After a minute he said in a low voice:
‘Fear nothing. I come to help you. Go now and make sure that Pietro is not listening at the door.’
Controlling her agitation with an effort, she did as he had told her. Pietro was not there. Shutting the door again, she ran back to him and cried, ‘What is the meaning of this? Who are you?’
He smiled. ‘My disguise must be good, since you fail to recognise me at close quarters. But you will remember your visit to Lady St. Ermins’s house down in Surrey, when you were in England; and the Englishman who fought a duel with your husband.’
She gave a little gasp. ‘Yes, yes. I know you now. I felt sure I had seen those blue eyes and long eyelashes of yours somewhere before. It is not true, then, that you come from Bahna?’
‘I do,’ he assured her. ‘I arrived in Venice a week ago. But there is one question I must ask you without delay. The night before my duel with Malderini, we met at the bottom of the staircase. You said that he was the most evil of men and asked me to kill him. Do you still desire his death?’
Her hand jerked up to her mouth to suppress a cry, and she threw a terrified look over her shoulder. Then, in a fierce whisper, she replied, ‘Yes; yes; yes!’
‘Then I will rid you of him,’ Roger said firmly. ‘But I shall need your help.’
‘I... I...’ she faltered, ‘I will give it you if … if I am able. But he has the mastery of my mind. He can turn my will to water; When we are with other people he imposes silence on me. There are often times when I do not know what I am doing. And … and he can read my thoughts. That is why I have never succeeded in r
unning away from him.’
‘He did not take you with him to India. Surely you could have found an opportunity to do so during all those months he was away?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Before he left, he hypnotised me into following a set routine. I never left the house. Pietro remained here as watch-dog. Even if I had made a supreme effort and broken the spell, Pietro would have prevented my escape. Now that I am allowed out again for a morning’s walk he accompanies me everywhere. It has always been so. I am never permitted to be alone, even for five minutes, with anyone who might help me.’
‘You imply that you could make a supreme effort. If I am to free you, this is the time to do so. You must arrange some means by which I can get into the house at night. Or come downstairs and let me in yourself. Does he still sleep with you?’
‘Ner … ner … no.’ Again she jerked up her hand, but this time to smother a hysterical laugh. ‘No; my marriage is a mockery. He married me to get possession of my fortune, and because he knew that he could make a good medium out of me. He came to India when I was a child and got my poor father into his toils. I was very young. Too young to be a wife, but he made me his slave. Then he brought me to Europe. It was only later I realised…’
She broke off, suddenly shaken by a fit of sobs. Then, dashing the tears from her eyes, she began to babble semi-hysterically about her life with Malderini. Roger was shocked and amazed, but her voice had risen to so high a pitch that he feared someone would hear her and come running to see what was the matter. Grasping her by the arms, he gave her a quick shake and said:
‘Quiet! For God’s sake lower your voice or someone will think I am maltreating you. What you say is terrible; but it all fits in with what I heard in Banna.’
After a moment she got control of herself and said in a more nearly normal voice, ‘Bahna! What were you doing in Bahna? And what led you to come in pursuit of Malderini?’
It took him several minutes to tell her, and having to give an account of Clarissa’s end re-aroused his hatred of her killer to fever pitch. She listened, her great brown eyes swimming in tears; but she made no comment until he had finished, then she said:
‘I understand now why you are set on killing Malderini. The lovely young lady who became your wife I remember well. That she should have died of a chill caught in such a way is especially terrible. I have suffered the same thing at his hands. Five times he has killed cats, and three times human infants, on my body. The first time I thought I should go mad, but he threw me into a trance afterwards which dulled my memory of it; and at least I am still alive.’
‘Would you swear to that in front of a magistrate?’ Roger asked quickly. ‘If so, we’ll break out together now. I’ve a pistol so could hold off the servants. We’ll get a warrant and return with the municipals to search the palace. Somewhere in it there is bound to be corroborative evidence: an altar to the Devil, perhaps, books on Satanism, robes with…’
‘No! No! No!’ She shrank away from him in terror. ‘I dare not! Even to attempt it would be useless. His familiar spirits would warn him of what we were about to do. He would strike me dumb from afar.’
‘I cannot believe that he has the power to do that.’
‘He has! He has! The evil gods give it to him in return for those blood sacrifices he makes to them. You believe him to be a charlatan because you caught him out in a trick. He is greedy for money and has used it successfully several times to win wagers. Yet he can levitate me. He has done so several times. He learnt how from the fakirs in Bahna. But to perform the feat requires weeks of patient preparation.’
Roger shook his head. ‘He only made you believe solely by his will-power that he raised you from the ground. That he has extraordinarily strong hypnotic powers I admit. I have had personal experience of them. But all this Black Magic hocus-pocus, and the abominable rites he practises, do no more than give him immense confidence that, by one means or another, he will achieve his ends.’
‘You are wrong!’ she cried. ‘Wrong! He can overlook people from a distance. Of that I am certain. He is the Devil incarnate, the very embodiment of evil, and has become the recipient of many strange powers. He may be overlooking us at this very moment, and listening to us conspiring against him.’
As though to confirm her terrified apprehensions, the tall, gilded double doors of the apartment were thrown open, and Malderini stood framed between them.
23
Patriot or Spy?
Immediately behind Malderini, and towering above him, stood the lank-haired Pietro. Farther back there was a group of half a dozen menservants.
Malderini advanced a few paces into the room. His malevolent glance fixed itself on Roger, who had instinctively looked straight at him. Then, without shifting his gaze, he said, presumably to Pietro:
‘You were right. He is the Englishman.’
Again Roger felt the impact of those terrible soulless eyes which fastened on his own, seemed to dissolve his will and bear him down. But he had come prepared for the possibility that Malderini might return earlier than he had on the past two days and catch him in the palace. Swiftly his left hand went inside his robe, fastened on a small packet and drew it out. Tearing his eyes from Malderini’s riveting stare, he shook the contents of the packet out into the palm of his right hand, then springing forward, he flung it into his enemy’s face.
It was red pepper. Malderini’s grey eyes blinked for a second then he shut them with an agonised cry. Next moment he was sneezing violently. His big fleshy face distorted by pain and rage, he staggered forward blindly. With his hands clutching like talons at the empty air, he cried in his thin, high voice:
‘Seize him! Seize him! Pietro! Stefano! Bimbo! A hundred sequins to the man who brings him down.’
They needed no bidding. Barely a second after Roger had flung the pepper, Pietro dodged out from behind his master, and the other men started forward after him. Roger had barely time to pull out his pistol, and not enough to cock it and hold them up as he had hoped. The weapon was dashed from his hand by Pietro’s onslaught.
Swivelling round, Roger overturned a small table. The long-legged valet tripped over it and went crashing onto the parquet floor. The Princess screamed, but got in the way of the next man to make a grab at Roger. He threw a quick glance at the double doors. There were five men between him and them. Even having rendered Malderini hors de combat, without a sword he knew he could not possibly fight his way out. Driving his right fist into the stomach of a fat bald man, with his left he fended off a blow from another. A third man dived for his legs, seized his ankles and, with a jerk, threw him over backwards. His bottom hit the floor with an awful bump, but his head was saved by coming down on the cushioned seat of a chair some feet behind him. He kicked out savagely, freeing his legs; then, by a lucky stroke, he landed a kick on the chin of the man who had thrown him.
Imprecations and wailing filled the air. Malderini still had his clenched fists pressed against his eyes. He reeled about, sneezing, choking, and getting in the way of the others. Sirisha, with the shrill fluency natural to Eastern ladies when wrought up to a high pitch of distress, continued to scream as though she was being beaten. The fat man who had been winded made awful noises as he strove to draw in breath, and the fellow who had been kicked under the chin emitted long heart-rending groans. But Pietro was up again. Followed by the three still uninjured men, he flung himself at Roger.
His dive missed only by inches. Just in time Roger threw his body sideways, and rolled over and over across the polished floor. He was brought to rest by a wrought-iron jardinire containing half a dozen pots of flowers. Squirming round it, he got to his knees, seized it by its slender legs and, as he rose, brought them up with him to chest level. As Pietro and the other men came charging across the floor at him, he used all his strength to hurl it at them.
Pietro, his eyes distended by sudden fear, went over backwards. The end of the jardinire caught the man beside him on the arm and threw him off his balance. But
the other two continued to come on.
By that time, Roger was through the open window and out on the balcony. Without looking over he knew that the drop to the canal was a good thirty feet; but if he let himself be captured in the Palace he knew that he would never come out of it alive. Without a second’s hesitation he flung one leg across the stone balustrade. But the two men ran at him and seized him.
Up till then he had not had a second to draw the knife that he carried on the belt beneath his robe. As they grabbed his shoulders, he wrenched it out and jabbed it into the ribs of the nearest. The man gave a piercing cry and, as he doubled up, thrust automatically with his arms at Roger. The violence of the push overbalanced him. The other man had grasped his robe at the back of the neck. As he fell backwards over the stone balustrade the man hung on. For a moment he swung, his legs kicking frantically in the air, suspended by his robe. Suddenly there came a sharp rending sound. The stitching round the collar of the robe gave and it ripped. A ragged remnant of the collar was left dangling from the clutching hand. Roger fell, feet first, like a plummet, into the canal below.
He struck the water with a terrific splash and plunged through it with scarcely less speed. His feet hit mud and went into it as though it were butter. For an instant he panicked, fearing that it would trap him; but his knees had bent double and, as he jerked himself erect, with one wild wriggle he also freed his feet. Automatically he drew in breath. The water gushed up his nostrils, causing him acute pain at the back of his nose. He choked and took in another mouthful of the horrid sewage-tainted water. Then with bulging eyes and straining lungs he came to the surface.
As his head bobbed up its appearance was greeted with a chorus of excited shouts. At this middle-day hour the Grand Canal was full of traffic. Although he had fallen into the Barnaba Canal, scores of people had seen him. Malderini’s people were leaning over the balcony yelling, ‘Stop thief! Stop thief!’ and half a dozen boats had already turned in his direction.
The Rape of Venice Page 41