“I’ve remembered something, though,” the Contessa said. “A rumor was going around this summer when you were out of town that Flint had forged one of Filippo’s checks. Oriana swore on her mother’s grave that it wasn’t true, but where there’s smoke there’s fire. I promised her I wouldn’t encourage the rumor but now—But how ridiculous! Oriana intimate with a murderer! It could never be. Love isn’t that blind. Marco, then!” she quickly went on. “He was at Abano when Helen Creel was murdered. But what motive could he have?”
Urbino, who thought the Contessa’s silence meant that she was pondering Zeoli’s possible motive, was about to offer his opinion when she burst out with: “Harriet! Now, isn’t she the one best placed to do some damage! She knows my affairs—my business,” she corrected herself, “and don’t forget that she handled some of the publicity for Bobo and that the postcard of Abano passed through her hands. But I don’t know! I can’t see any motive for Harriet any more than Zeoli. Or for Livia either!” she added with almost a touch of pique.
Urbino thought very much the opposite about Livia. He told her about Orlando’s will.
“Nothing for Bobo? But—but that’s impossible! Whatever was he thinking of? And a generous sum for Livia! Well, there you are then! Just find some link between Orlando, Moss, and Quimper that involves Livia. Then you’ll have it all in a neat package!”
Urbino silently disagreed, but only with how neat the package would be. It would be very messy, indeed, and it would almost inevitably involve Bobo.
“How well do you know Livia?”
“I know that I don’t like her, and never have!” Then the Contessa relented: “But it doesn’t make her a murderer—a triple murderer or a double murderer or any kind! I met her twenty years ago at the Venice Film Festival. She was just a scriptwriter then, although she had worked with some of the best. She was never a beauty and even then she was”—she searched for the right word—“zoftig, but she had a certain presence and determination that got her what she wanted—and who she wanted,” she added after a pause. “She started to make films two or three years later. One of her films—all about sex, love, and death in Sardinia, you might remember it—got a lot of attention, but after that she seems to have lost whatever she had. Talent, patronage, drive? She went into debt and dropped from the scene for a few years, then began directing little theatrical productions. She puts up a good front, lives beyond her means. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bobo helped her out from time to time, not that he has all that much, but they’re old friends.”
The Contessa paused.
“He was at the festival, too, alone,” she said quietly after a few moments. “Rosa was ill. I always thought Livia was throwing herself at him, rather shamelessly really. Divorce had just become legal. Maybe she hoped he would divorce Rosa and marry her. But of course he’d never have done that and—and I’m sure it was all one-sided on her part. I mean, he didn’t marry her after Rosa died, did he?” she added with obvious satisfaction. “Over the years, our paths have crossed from time to time. This is the longest exposure I’ve had to her and I hope it’s the last! You just saw her behavior! How and why Bobo puts up with it is beyond me! Some men are better than they should be.”
Was it Urbino’s fancy that she seemed to say this with less conviction than she would have a short time ago?
Urbino told her what Livia had said about Rosa.
“She’s wrong! Rosa was a sweet woman. Was it her fault that she was ill? Livia will never forgive Rosa for not having died sooner—or, more to the point, for not having left all her money to Bobo when she did. She probably figured she could get her hands on it some way.”
“What do you mean about Rosa’s money?”
“I thought you knew! She left everything to Orlando except for an amount to Bobo that’s been enough to live frugally on, along with what he has himself. I can see your wheels turning! But Bobo wanted Rosa to do it. He said it was the only way he could show her that he really loved her.” She shook her head with less conviction than irritation. “And now see what Orlando’s done! Shut poor Bobo out completely! And left a tidy sum to that scheming woman! For her kindness to Rosa! Now, isn’t that a laugh!”
The Contessa, however, was quite without humor.
16
Bobo, still in his purple dressing gown, sat on the sofa of the salotto blu, looking as if he were about to hold court. A Gauloise dangled from one finger. Clouds of smoke hung over his head and drifted around the room.
“Ah! You don’t even want any tea,” he said to Urbino with a little smile. “That must mean you want to get right down to it. It appears that Commissario Gemelli is also eager to talk with me.”
“Do you know why?
“No, but you’re about to tell me.”
Bobo leaned back, smoking his cigarette contentedly.
“You lied about the night of the murders. You were seen arguing with Moss in Campo San Luca an hour before they were murdered. What was the argument about?”
“As you just said, it was an hour before they were murdered and in any case Campo San Luca isn’t the Erberia.”
“But it’s close enough. So you don’t deny having an encounter with Moss and Quimper? It was Moss you called on the house phone at the Flora, wasn’t it? Not Livia. To set up a meeting.”
Bobo nodded.
“Why was Livia so quick to lie for you? Did she know about your meeting with them that night?”
“No!”
“Did she also not know about Orlando’s will? Or that he disliked her—even though she says he gave her a key to his room?”
“It’s not my business to answer for Livia.”
“What was she so worked up about just now?”
“A purely professional matter about the show.” He smoked his cigarette reflectively for a few moments, then said: “Underneath all of this”—he gestured at himself—“is someone with the full range of feelings. Sometimes I pretend otherwise. Sometimes I admit I get confused myself. But Barbara brings out the best in me. She lets me be me, the real me. Do you understand?”
“What does this have to do with your encounter with Moss?”
“Everything! Moss insulted her. Surely you and the police already know that from whomever it was who saw us in the Campo San Luca.” Urbino gave no indication whether the substance of the argument had been overheard. “He said she was no better than Oriana, that she thought she could buy anything she wanted. He went on and on. An ugly little scene.”
“But a little later he calls Barbara to tell her he’s coming over. It doesn’t add up.”
Bobo snuffed out his cigarette in a Murano ashtray, a new accoutrement in the room since his arrival. He looked at Urbino for a few moments, then opened his arms wide and let them fall in a rather theatrical gesture of defeat.
“You’re right. It doesn’t ‘add up,’ to use your amusing little phrase. You see, Moss threatened to go to Barbara and tell her certain things. About something in my past.”
“About Abano.”
“If you’re trying to impress me with your intelligence, you fail. It was only a small step from that postcard to finding out what happened to Helen Creel.”
“Helen Creel, who was Moss’s mother.”
Bobo flashed a resentful look at Urbino, but when he spoke his voice was smooth and controlled.
“Bravo! That is quite a bit better. At any rate, when I saw that postcard I hoped Barbara would be spared.”
“What you mean is that you wanted to be spared her knowing about Helen Creel, about your affair with her.”
“Is that so strange? She’s a sensitive soul. Murder and suicide are ugly, especially the Creel version of them.”
“And of course you didn’t want her to know that your relationship with Helen Creel precipitated the tragedy. She already knows what happened to that poor woman, but she doesn’t know that you were involved.”
“I’d prefer to tell her myself if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t min
d at all. In fact, I want you to do it as soon as possible. If you don’t, I will, but I think enough of Barbara to realize that she would want to hear it from you. You should have told her long before this. When Moss threatened to tell her. If not then, then certainly after our trip to Abano.”
The temptation for the Contessa to tell him what they had learned at Abano from Stella Rossi must have been great while she and Bobo were riding out the storm on Torcello. If she had, his not having told her immediately afterward about Helen Creel was strange, for what had he hoped to gain, since he must have known she would eventually know the truth?
The answer to his own question came immediately as Urbino sat there in front of Bobo: Time, the most precious of commodities.
“Tell me about Helen Creel.”
“There isn’t much to tell,” Bobo said without any hesitation. “I met her in Milan twelve years ago. At one of the spring showings of a friend of Livia’s. Helen and I took to each other immediately. It was a coup de foudre on both our parts. Helen didn’t tell me at first that she was married and when she did, well, by then I had strong feelings for her. After about nine months we came to a mutual agreement. We would end our relationship.” A troubled look passed over his face. “We said good-bye at the end of July. I went to Lago di Garda and Helen went back to her husband. They lived outside of Vicenza. The next I heard was that her husband had shot her to death at Abano and then killed himself. He was a very jealous man. His son inherited the trait.”
“I suppose you’ll say that was why you suggested to Gemelli that Moss might have killed Quimper and then himself.”
“I don’t like your implication! That’s exactly what I did think.”
“How did Colonel Creel find out about you and his wife?”
“I don’t know. We were discreet. Even Livia didn’t know about us. She still doesn’t.”
“Are you sure? More people might know than you think.” When Bobo made no response to this intentionally cryptic comment, Urbino said: “Getting back to the night of the murders, you didn’t return here for at least an hour after your argument with Moss. Weren’t you afraid he was going to tell Barbara right after he left you?”
“I needed to clear my head. He led me to believe I still had time to decide what I should do.”
“But by the morning he—and Quimper—were dead.”
“I realize it doesn’t look good for me. Now can you understand why I didn’t want to say anything about my meeting with them that night—or anything about them at all? And how could I disturb Barbara? A woman like her shouldn’t be tarred with even the smallest hair of a brush like that.”
He looked at Urbino earnestly.
“I want to be completely frank, Urbino. No secrets. There’s something else you don’t know. It’s an example of how Moss tried to keep me off balance. The day the threats appeared in the bocca di leone at the Doges’ Palace I got a note signed ‘Helen Creel’ telling me to wait in the Sala della Bussola. I waited and waited and no one ever showed up. The guard was suspicious. Of course, I didn’t want anyone to know I had been there once the threats were found. I’m telling you so that you’ll have all the pieces.”
“So you paid off the guard to keep him quiet after I first spoke to him.”
Bobo shrugged in an affectation of helplessness.
“Guilty as charged, but I didn’t lift a finger against Moss and Quimper to keep them quiet.” Almost all his white, regular teeth flashed a quick, nervous smile at Urbino. “You must believe me, Urbino. They went over the Rialto Bridge to the San Polo side and I went for my walk.”
The San Polo side of the Rialto was where the Erberia was—as well as the area where Flint and Zeoli lived, and where Harriet had been wandering after leaving Zeoli’s apartment the night of the murders.
“Did you know that Moss was Helen Creel’s son when you first met him here in Venice?”
“I only saw him once before, and he was just a boy then. No, he told me at the signing. He mentioned even then that he would tell Barbara. And he admitted that he had sent the threats. To let me know that I had been found out, is how he put it. He said that at that very moment one was somewhere in the bookstore.”
“How did he know you were in Venice?”
“I can only assume he was keeping his eye on me through the press. Not very difficult. The show has been well publicized,” Bobo added with more than a touch of pride. “There has even been some advance publicity in England.”
“Has it occurred to you that someone could have told him exactly where you could be found?”
“Orlando?”
“He’s one likely candidate. You probably thought the threats came from him at first, didn’t you?”
Bobo nodded.
“He believed you neglected his sister, maybe he even held you responsible for her death in some way. You were involved with Helen Creel when you were still married to Rosa. And he was asking questions about Helen Creel at Abano.”
“He was?”
Although Bobo gave a good imitation of surprise, Urbino sensed that he already knew—but from the Contessa or from someone else? Or in some other way? And if it hadn’t been from the Contessa after her and Urbino’s visit to Abano, had Bobo learned before Gava’s death or after? These were yet more of the crucial questions swirling around the deceptive man the Contessa continued to trust.
“Perhaps someone else believed the threats were coming from Orlando, even though he wasn’t at the signing when the last one was planted,” Urbino continued. “Or maybe someone even knew that Orlando was aware of the Creel affair. This person could have killed him to keep him quiet—after having murdered Moss and Quimper. All to protect you.”
“That’s preposterous!”
“Or someone could be framing you.”
Or Bobo himself could be going to great lengths to create one of these impressions, and doing a very good job of it.
“Take your choice, Bobo: a peculiar kind of friend or a diabolical enemy.”
Bobo’s face was set in a grim expression.
“More likely an enemy than a friend, considering something you don’t know yet,” he said and paused dramatically. “I received a threat after the murders, you see. On plain paper in a plain envelope with just my name on it. It didn’t pass through the post but was slipped under the door here. The day before Orlando died.”
“Slipped under the door? Which door?”
The Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini had two doors on the land side. The first gave onto a small formal garden after which one reached the main door of the palazzo. Both were always kept locked.
“The main door, I assume. Harriet gave it to me. No point in asking to see it, though. I flushed it down the toilet. Not the right thing to do, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. It wasn’t just a threat. It was a blackmail note. A classic of its kind,” he said dryly, as if it all had nothing to do with him. “Block letters, stationery without a watermark. It said the writer knew that I had reason to want Moss and Quimper dead and that I had in fact killed them. If I didn’t want to have all this divulged, I should leave a sum of money in a remote spot of San Polo. Very good directions were provided.”
“Don’t tell me that you dropped off the money!” Urbino said with a sinking feeling, but at the same time wondering if he were being taken in. “A large sum, which you got from Barbara. And no, she didn’t tell me. The police have been monitoring her financial transactions.”
“They’ll be peeping into her bedroom next, unless they already have. Yes, I left the money. She had no idea what it was for. I couldn’t have Barbara—”
“How convenient to protect her with her own money! If that’s what happened!”
A cold fire gleamed in Bobo’s eyes.
“I pay my debts in full. I hope you have the same habit.” Bobo’s voice was quiet, but with an undertone of contempt. “And I did leave the money. Call it an error of judgment but I was confused.”
“Confused! I would have been furious. Blackmail is de
spicable. It’s only natural to want to strike back!”
“Are you giving me or yourself license? We’re not all cut from the same cloth, thank God for that!”
Urbino was astonished at his dislike for the man. It was deeper, stronger, keener than it had ever been.
“You’ve assumed an air of complacence from the very beginning,” Urbino said, hearing the contempt in his own voice. “As if you’re far above it all. The threats, the murders, and now what you tell me is blackmail. Start acting in a way that makes sense.”
“To who? You?”
Bobo’s mouth curved in a superior smile.
“If you’re being blackmailed, what’s going to happen if you get another demand for money?”
“Ah, but don’t you see, my boy? You know everything now, and soon the police will, too.”
“Forgive me if I don’t believe I know everything! Not about the Helen Creel murder or how Orlando and Livia might fit into the picture. Livia was desperate to talk to you just now. So desperate that she insults Barbara in her own home. Don’t count on Barbara’s patience for too long! She’s not like Rosa, from what I’ve heard of her. And speaking of Rosa, Orlando said that Moss was very curious about her. I wonder why.”
“Do you? And do you also wonder why you’ve turned into some kind of pathetic voyeur of other peoples’ lives, doing damage just for your own pleasure and out of malicious envy and jealousy? Don’t you count on Barbara’s patience for too long! It would have been much better for you to have stayed at Abano and taken care of that toe of yours!”
Bobo’s words—all of them—touched Urbino to the quick, but he pulled back from answering him in kind. Instead, in a voice which he tried to make as uncompromising and unruffled as possible, he said: “As for this note you say you received—”
“The note I received. Check with Harriet.”
“I’m sure an envelope was found but did it really contain a blackmail note? It would be to your advantage to have the police believe it had. A blackmail note that couldn’t possibly have originated from Moss and Quimper. And if the envelope did contain a blackmail note, who wrote it? You, the murderer, or someone with strong reason to believe that you shot Moss and Quimper? Someone who might even have something that could be considered proof! You say you’re not afraid, but I can tell you are—and you should be! Act as much the fool as you want to. Whether it’s real or feigned, I don’t know. You’re a good actor, I give you that. But think about Barbara! You’re staying here. You go out together in public. She’s in danger simply because of her relationship with you. Violence surrounds you, Bobo. I want to be sure it doesn’t touch her in any way and from any direction.”
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