4 - The Iron Tongue of Midnight (15 page)

So, family, you may well imagine that I didn’t like this turn of events one bit. I went to that disgusting brothel to discover information, not to become a whore’s errand boy. But what could I do? Sefa might be hoodwinking me. Still, if there was one chance in ten that she had information about Grisella, I had to play her game. In this part of the world, two red-haired young women are too much of a coincidence. Especially when one is dead and one has disappeared.

I asked what she wanted me to do.

“Go to Danika’s village. Ask for her,” Sefa replied with a challenging nod. “Yanus told me that Danika’s brother came to fetch her home to Wallachia. Yanus agreed to release her because her brother offered a generous ransom he’d raised from selling sheep.”

I found that hard to believe, but Sefa assured me that such a thing had happened several times since she had been confined in The Red Tulip. “A Muslim family would never come after a dishonored girl,” she said, “but Danika was a Christian. They have different ways. And Danika did tell me of an older brother who looked out for her.”

I was still dubious. If this brother was so protective, why had he allowed her to be taken in the first place? Then I remembered how Grisella had once slipped through our grasp and hung my head in shame.

Much annoyed, I asked Sefa just where this village could be found. She named a place beyond the Balkan Mountains.

I paced her tiny room, figuring the journey in my head. I’d have to take a ship up the Bosphorus and north along the Black Sea coast to Varna. Once on land, I’d hire a horse to take me into the rocky uplands, a backward, bandit-infested area if there ever was one. Sefa was demanding a dangerous journey of at least ten days, even with the best of luck.

I must finish quickly, dear ones. The midday call to prayers has begun. I argued with Sefa, pointing out that Danika would hardly leave without a word of goodby for her dearest friend, but the woman was adamant. Before she will tell me what led up to the departure of Chevrier and the red-haired girl, I must travel to this godforsaken village. If Danika is there, she’s to surrender a little silver ring that Sefa gave her as a present. If not, I’m to bring back the name of the brother as proof that I at least tried.

Seeing no honorable way to shake off this burden, I will leave for Wallachia as soon as possible and write again when I have news.

In haste,
Alessandro

Anger had started welling up inside me the moment I read of Grisella taunting Sefa at The Red Tulip. Out by the drive, my sister had looked into my eyes, thrown herself on my bosom, and described how Jean-Louis had given her into the care of his sweet, Christian landlady. She’d fed me a brazen falsehood, and I’d swallowed it as eagerly as a baby licking sugar off a spoon.

“I’m an idiot, Gussie, a full-fledged idiot.” I jumped up, knocking my stool aside. “You are right to mistrust Grisella. Her entire story may be nothing more than a web of lies.”

Gussie stared at me steadily. “It’s no joy to be right in this case. I’m sorry, Tito.”

“It’s Alessandro that I’m sorry for. He’s setting out on a fool’s errand. No…” I bent over the letter and shuffled back to the first page. “He wrote this on the second of September and today is the thirtieth. He’s actually had time to travel to Danika’s village and return home. If only we could have gotten word to him. If only Constantinople were not so far away.”

“What do you think really happened to Danika?”

“I think Jean-Louis, probably with Yanus’ help, transported her to the
yali
to serve as a duplicate for Grisella. Perhaps they even murdered poor Danika at The Red Tulip, before they set out.”

“That means the fire must have been planned well in advance. And…” he continued carefully, “that Grisella is not entirely innocent in this matter.”

Giving a tense nod, I reached for Gussie’s paint rag and molded it into a ball. I voiced my thoughts as I kneaded the cloth: “But why? Surely the fire at the
yali
was more than an elaborate plan for Jean-Louis to abscond with my sister.”

“In the letter before this one, Alessandro mentioned that the Russians from the embassy were very interested in where Count Paninovich stored his valuables. What if Grisella and Jean-Louis made away with something—something the Russians prize highly?”

“You’re right.” I again consulted the papers before us. “And now, according to Alessandro’s whore, we learn that Jean-Louis met with… here it is… ‘a foreign gentleman’ before he and Grisella left Constantinople for good. Was this a Russian, I wonder? And Sefa mentions business. Does that mean something was bought and sold?”

“We won’t have any answers for several weeks. That’s assuming Alessandro wasn’t kidnapped by bandits and Sefa keeps her promise.”

I tore at the ball of cloth in my hands. Ripping off stripes of fabric suited my mood precisely. “I’m not worried about Alessandro. He could outmaneuver a pack of bandits with one hand tied behind his back. Whether he can trust Sefa remains to be seen.”

“What are you going to do in the meantime, Tito?”

“Do?”

Gussie bit his lower lip. “About Grisella. You hoped… I mean, you ventured a theory that the murder of the Russian stranger had something to do with Carmela’s earrings. But now Carmela has been killed with her pearls in place. That poor lady has established her innocence rather conclusively, don’t you think?”

“Yes…” My ominous tone might have stopped some people, but not Gussie.

“So, what are you going to do? Are you going to tell Grisella what we know about The Red Tulip?”

“No, not yet.”

Gussie sighed. “Why?” he asked with a long-suffering look.

“I don’t know,” I answered miserably, twisting what remained of the paint cloth around my hand.

“I do.” Gussie stood up and faced me squarely. “You can’t stand to relinquish your dream. You’ve always wanted to see you
r family reunited. Everyone getting along—everyone happy. You’ve been longing for that ever since your father gambled away your manhood and banished you to the
conservatorio
in Naples.”

I shuddered. Gussie had hit the nail squarely on the head. The first few months at the Conservatorio San Remo had been the most difficult of my life. The pain of being separated from my family had far eclipsed the physical pain the surgeon had wrought. For a time, I might have even gone a little mad. I developed a bizarre fantasy: real life existed only in Venice where my father and my brother and sisters were going about their daily activities. My life at the
conservatorio
was that of a ghost. I moved through my lessons like an insubstantial phantom. I sang, but no one heard. Or so I believed. How could a dead boy who had been cast out of his home produce any sounds? Half a year passed before I returned to a semblance of my old self.

I took a deep breath, staring down at the cloth I’d been torturing. “We’ll never all be together again, will we?”

“That time is past. We have to look to the—”

“Gussie!” My hand shot out and grabbed his wrist.

“Tito?” My brother-in-law gazed at me as if I really had lost my mind.

“Don’t you see what this is?”

“What?”

“This cloth! Where did you get it?”

“It’s… just a paint rag…” he stammered. “I tore it off a larger piece. I have it somewhere around here…” Gussie pawed through his supplies and came up with a bundle of cloth.

I whisked it from his hands and unfurled a nightshift that had seen some rough times. The torn muslin was dirty and stained but not sufficiently to disguise its tiny yellow rosebuds.

“This is Carmela’s nightshift!” I cried.

“Her shift was draped across her bed. We all saw it.”

“That was only one of her nightshifts, a fresh one. I searched her room, remember? She had a stack of these in her chest of drawers. All identical, all cut from the same bolt of sprigged muslin.” I peered at him intently, agog with curiosity. “What on earth are you doing with it?”

“I found it here.” He crossed the
barchessa
in a few loping strides and dug into the hay bulging from the nearest rack. “I neglected to stock my painting case with rags. Rather than go back through the house and find a servant, I started looking around for something I could use. I spotted the tail end of the gown protruding from the feed. It was dusty, but once I’d shaken it out, it seemed like the very thing, a discarded garment that had somehow got misplaced.”

Failing to find anything else tucked in the sweet-smelling fodder, Gussie joined me as I moved Alessandro’s letter aside and spread what was left of the nightshift on the upturned crate. Besides the ruffles that Gussie had torn off to wipe his brushes, a side seam had ripped open and some lace at the neckline had come loose. The front was stiffened in a trail of dried, colorless patches, and the entire shift was liberally stained with purple splotches. One in the unmistakable shape of a handprint.

“Gussie,” I said over a lump in my throat. “These are grape stains. Carmela must have left her room in her night clothes and come in contact with the grapes. Then she got back into the day garments she was discovered in.”

Gussie’s eyes went wide. “Or… maybe someone else dressed her.”

“Maybe,” I agreed slowly.

With a grim expression, my brother-in-law turned the shift back over and bent to scrutinize the patches on the front. He straightened and asked, “Was she violated, do you think?”

I took another look. “Quite possibly,” I concluded, then fell silent, nodding. I was considering how easily a clock’s hands can be changed and doubting that the note found in the cantina had ever been delivered to Carmela.

Chapter Twelve

The rest of that day and most of the next kept me busy with rehearsal. It was not until after dinner that I was able to set off for a damp stroll to Signor Luvisi’s villa. The deluge had passed, but I was still glad for the beaver hat that sheltered my face against the raindrops blowing off the tree branches. I also reminded myself to add a few extra coins to Benito’s next pay purse, a little reward for his insistence on packing my heavy cloak and knee-high boots.

Back at the
barchessa
, Gussie and I had spent some time pondering how Carmela’s nightshift had arrived at that unexpected location. And when.

Someone had been very clever, we decided. The clock’s hands frozen upward at the traditional witching hour had led everyone to assume that the pendulum had been removed just as it was about to strike midnight. The note that requested Carmela’s presence in the cantina at that hour had amply reinforced that impression. But now we realized that it could all be a carefully constructed fiction. From eleven o’clock on, the pendulum could have been removed at any time and the hands reset. Eleven was the last hour that Gussie and I agreed we had heard the clock strike.

Nita’s story of how her grieving young master had allowed his villa to pass into Dolfini hands had already piqued my curiosity. When I remembered that Vincenzo had proudly shown Gussie’s
barchessa
studio to the Mayor’s party that included Signor Luvisi, curiosity turned to suspicion. I began to wonder just how much Signor Luvisi might resent his new neighbors. In all honesty, I must also admit that I was eager to follow any avenue of suspicion that pointed away from Grisella.

As I navigated the curving drive that led to the Villa Luvisi, I stopped for a moment and noted what close twins the two houses were. Except for different fencing and the horses grazing in a pasture where Vincenzo had planted a crop of wheat, I could have doubled back and been approaching the villa I had just left. The likeness extended even to the doorknocker, a gauntleted hand clenched in a fist.

I don’t often manipulate my fame to advantage, but on that chilly afternoon I needed a plausible excuse to pay my address to Signor Luvisi. While the footman carried my card into the recesses of the house, I perfected my patter. When he returned to show me to a study made snug with a cheery fire and camlet window draperies that kept out the drafts, I was ready.

Signor Luvisi rose from an armchair upholstered in worn leather. A smile played over his aristocratic features. “Signor Amato, you favor me. I’ve often enjoyed your performances at the Teatro San Marco. You are truly one of Venice’s greatest music makers.” Though Luvisi’s tone was polite, I could see that he didn’t quite know what to make of my unexpected visit.

“I appreciate your seeing me, Signore. I hesitated before imposing myself on you, but since arriving at the Villa Dolfini, I’ve fallen in love with your part of the country. I’m most interested in acquiring a villa of my own and wonder if you might know of a suitable property.”

He raised his shaggy eyebrows. “Surely you are not going to retire and deprive Venice of your fine talent.”

“Not at all. At least, not yet. I merely want a place where I can retreat from the hubbub of the city and rest my voice for a few weeks at a time.”

“I see,” he replied. “I imagine the adulation of the crowds must turn onerous at times.”

“It is a bit tiresome to be on constant view. In the country I’ll be able to refresh myself in peace and tranquility.”

“I’m afraid to say that the vicinity of Molina Mori has not been exactly tranquil of late.”

“No, of course not.” I kept my tone regretful but light. “But surely the tragedies at the Villa Dolfini are an aberration. This is such a beautiful place, far from the madness of the city. It’s hard to believe that murder has intruded on this paradise.”

“Now you’re beginning to sound as wholeheartedly romantic as Vincenzo Dolfini.”

“Am I?” My smile was innocent.

Luvisi invited me to take a seat by the fire, summoned the footman, and ordered coffee. A perfect choice. In this very masculine room hung with paintings of dogs and horses and smelling of tobacco, we could settle in over our warm cups like men who had known each other for years.

Once the footman had served us and withdrawn, the talk again turned to available estates. “I can think of nothing up for sale at present,” Luvisi said. “Most families around here tend to hang onto their land.”

“A pity. I thought that since Signor Dolfini had only recently acquired his property…” I took a sip of the pungent brew and let my words hang in the air, hoping Luvisi would feel compelled to elaborate. I wasn’t disappointed.

“The sale of the neighboring estate was a singular occurrence. Perhaps you’ve heard that my cousin Annibale once owned it, before his wife died.”

“Nita told me something of the sort.”

“What Nita didn’t tell you—because I kept the matter between myself and Vincenzo Dolfini—” My host set his cup and saucer back on the tray with a delicate rattle. “Is that I’ve made the man several offers for it.”

“When?”

“The first was late last winter, before he had even taken residence. I appealed to his sense of justice. When my cousin lost the estate at the Ridotto, he was wild with grief and despair. If
he had been himself, he would never have let the estate leave family hands. Given that a greedy foreigner won the lot, Annibale should have contacted me, confessed what he’d done in good time for me to buy it back. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Events moved quickly and Dolfini became the owner. When the news reached me, I immediately offered Dolfini more than he had paid—the man deserved something for his trouble, after all.”

“He refused you?”

Luvisi nodded, leaning forward. His lion’s mane of hair was gathered back by a thin black ribbon, but enough light strands escaped to make a halo of silvered gold around his head. “Vincenzo Dolfini’s concept of justice differs considerably from mine. Dolfini only understands the ruthless give and take of the marketplace, not the fair play of gentlemen.”

“You must have been very disappointed, a blood relation cut
off from land that by ancient tradition should be yours.”

“Disappointed?” He gazed at me for a moment, head tilted. “Deeply wounded best describes my reaction. Annibale’s former land curls within mine like a walnut in its shell. Now that nut has been crushed.” He sat back to stare at the fire with his hands tented under his chin. If I wasn’t mistaken, his eyes grew moist.

I bent to my coffee, suddenly uncomfortable with the emotions my questions were arousing. But then I reminded myself that I had come to gather information, not cultivate a friendship. I asked, “What was your next move?”

“I waited,” he replied simply. A wan smile returned to his face as he topped off his coffee with a stream of warmer brew from the pot. “Will you join me?”

I held out my cup, all ears.

“Yes…” he continued. “I waited and watched. As I rode my fields, I watched wagons piled with the Dolfini household goods trundle down the road toward their new villa. They had brought a shocking load for a summer’s stay—it must have required an entire fleet of barges to row it across the lagoon.

“And then I caught sight of Octavia Dolfini riding in an open carriage beside her husband. An unfortunate footman was risking his footing to cover her with an immense sunshade. The signora was corseted and painted in the latest French fashion, as proud as the Queen of Sheba, with a face like the hitching end of my old mule.” He laughed, loudly and good-naturedly. “I’d already determined that Dolfini knew nothing about farming. He’ll be ready to sell in a month, I thought.”

“You approached him again?” I prompted.

He nodded slowly. “I sweetened my offer considerably, but I hadn’t counted on Dolfini’s resolve, and I’d neglected to consider the steward.”

“Ernesto?”

“Ernesto.” Luvisi nodded again. “On his own, he had already seen to the early spring planting, and once Dolfini arrived with his eager, featherbrained plans, Ernesto showed himself to be a master of diplomacy. Truly, the man has missed his calling. He should be carrying out missions of the greatest delicacy for the Doge’s court. Somehow he managed to finish the planting, prune the grapes, and keep the entire farm on an even keel while convincing Dolfini that he was doing just as he’d directed. Of course Dolfini didn’t want to sell. Everything was going swimmingly.”

“Are you going to try again?”

“No.” Luvisi shook his head emphatically. “I told Dolfini that my last offer was just that. If he turned me down, I would consider him a cad and a blackguard, but I would never again seek to rejoin the Luvisi estates. I now consider my legacy his to manage as best he can.”

I sipped at my coffee, then began diffidently, “I just thought… Signor Dolfini might be feeling beleaguered… with two murders in the past week and no arrest of the killer in sight. The villa is practically in chaos. Everyone is so nervous, the bare footfall of a maid in the corridor causes shudders and squeals.”

Luvisi was following me with absorption, but he merely said, “Dolfini seems convinced that he can handle the matter. For the sake of everyone on the estate, I wish him good luck.”

“I must say, you seem quite reconciled to the division of the Luvisi holdings. Is there no trace of a lingering grudge?”

He shifted in his chair and sent me a peculiar smile. “An ill will creates good for no man, especially its bearer.”

When I didn’t answer at once, his smile grew wider and he said, “I’d heard you fancied yourself adept at solving mysteries. What are you going to ask me about next? My whereabouts on the nights of the murders?”

I forced myself to chuckle. “You caught me out, Signore. Once I’d heard the story of how Vincenzo Dolfini bought his estate, I couldn’t help wondering if there was bad blood or if you might feel justified in causing trouble for him. So if you wouldn’t mind… just to indulge my love for puzzles… where were you?”

I was relieved when Luvisi began to chuckle, as well.

“You’ll have to look elsewhere for your murderer, Signor Amato. When both the stranger and the singer were killed, I was in bed with my good wife. If she hadn’t gone into Molina Mori, she would tell you so herself.”

It seemed a good time to take my leave; Signor Luvisi had suffered my impertinent questions with a generous forbearance that could only be stretched so far. Before the footman showed me out, I posed just one more. “Do you know of any household in the district that has guests from far away?” I went on to describe the woman I’d seen peering through the Dolfini gates.

“I know who you must be speaking of. I haven’t seen the lady, but my wife has. A dull little bird putting up at the Post house with her two little ones. She claims to be awaiting her husband, a soldier who is leaving his regiment and is to meet her shortly, but it’s most unusual.”

“How so?”

“Well, a woman alone, waiting for a husband who never seems to come. She watches from the window in her room nearly all day, they say. And according to the old cats who make such things their business, the poor woman hasn’t had so much as a letter from him. Seems a pity, doesn’t it?”

“Indeed.”

As I left the Villa Luvisi, I stepped off the circular drive and peeped in the windows of the
barchessa
that corresponded to the one where Gussie’s studio had been set up. Instead of an easel and paint brushes, I saw a brown and white bull with horns that must have been a full yard wide. He was pulling wisps of hay from a rack just like the one where Gussie had found Carmela’s nightshift.

Deep in thought, I continued toward the open gate. The sun had made a third-act appearance and was casting long shadows over the lawn. I could feel its warmth soaking through the cloak on my back. Once I’d reached the public road, I paused and cast an appraising glance in the direction of the village. For reasons I had yet to fully consider, I was interested in finding out more about the soldier’s drab wife. But the walk into Molina Mori and back to the Villa Dolfini would throw me past my time. I had promised Karl I would return to rehearsal by five at the latest. With a sigh, I headed east.

I’d trudged a dutiful quarter mile or so when a farm wagon drew up alongside. Santini gazed at me from the driver’s seat, slack-jawed and devoid of curiosity. Manuel and Zuzu rode on the bed of the wagon with some provision sacks.

“Signor Amato,” the boy cried. “We’ll give you a ride.”

I hopped on the back. Manuel appeared head over heels with delight at having one of the players who had invaded the villa all to himself. As the wagon jolted along, he plied me with questions about my operatic travels. We made ourselves comfortable against some sacks of rice, and with Zuzu’s head on my knee, I told Manuel about London and Madrid and the other great cities I had visited.

Santini didn’t seem to be listening. He handled the reins in silence, never taking his eyes off the road. I sensed no dissatisfaction or resentment in the man, rather a void in the place where most people displayed their feelings. “Does he ever speak?” I asked Manuel, lowering my voice and jerking my head toward the front of the wagon.

“Once in a while, when he gets excited,” Manuel replied, also in low tones. “There was an accident a few years ago, you see. When I was still young.”

I suppressed a smile. If this boy no longer considered himself young, my twenty-eight years must seem positively ancient.

Manuel continued, “A horse trod on Santini’s head. He lay as still as death for a good week or more. Finally he came to, but he’s never been the same. He’s strong in body, but his senses are still weak. Papa watches out for him, and if Papa is busy, he asks me or Basilio to take charge. Mostly me, even though Basilio is older. Papa says my head is tacked on straighter than Basilio’s.”

“Is your brother forgetful?”

“No…” The boy drew out the word, rubbing his nose thoughtfully. “Hotheaded, more like. It’s just that you never know what Basilio is going to do.”