Death in a Serene City (33 page)

The face she turned up to him now was shining. Urbino found it difficult to understand but it seemed that Christian Kobke was quite the charmer.

21

HIS next move was decided for him when he called the Ca' da Capo-Zendrini again from the café next door to Benedetta Razzi's building.

“She's not back yet, Signor Macintyre,” Lucia said, “but she called a few minutes ago from Signor Bellorini's studio. Milo took them from the Giudecca. She said you could join her there until six or come here later. Sister Veronica will be stopping by about eight.”

As he hung up, Urbino marveled at the busy schedule the Contessa seemed to have arranged for herself today. Now she was at Bellorini's studio only a few minutes' walk along the quay. Were Adele Carstairs and Kobke still with her? If he knew for sure, he would be able to plan things better.

One thing he should do was let Gemelli know where he was going to be, but when he called the Questura the Commissario wasn't in. As he put the phone back on its hook, he hoped he had been able to convince Gemelli's assistant of what should be done and how it might be best to do it. Yet he knew he couldn't count on getting any help at all. Hadn't Gemelli warned him not to do anything rash?

The shops were opening now and he found a stationery store not far from the quay. He didn't have time to go all the way to Valese's for something elegant. A simple student's notebook would have to do. He wrote “Venezia” on the cover with his fountain pen in a thin spidery hand. He wished he could do something with all the blank pages but he'd have to leave them the way they were. Unfortunately the Contessa had sharp eyes.

To deceive the Contessa was not something he was looking forward to. He would have avoided it, he would have run in the other direction if only he could have. But he had started something and it was now, he hoped, near its end. Hadn't he decided almost from the beginning that he couldn't allow himself to be influenced by anything but the need to uncover the truth?

He put the notebook under his arm as he returned to the quay. When he passed by Benedetta Razzi's building, he restrained himself from looking up at her window. There seemed no need to. He could feel her looking down at him. A few minutes later, however, as he walked along the quay, he had reason to doubt this as well as whatever else came into his mind. After all, it was improbable, wasn't it, that one of the two nuns in modified habits stepping into a crowded vaporetto could be Sister Veronica? Or that the thin man he had just glimpsed turning down a
calle
up ahead was Cavatorta? His nerves must be collaborating with one of the city's peculiarities: So often it seemed as if you had just missed someone you knew, as you saw a person leaving the far side of a
campo
or being swallowed by the shadows of a
sottoportego
. He thought he had become accustomed to the city's trickery but maybe this was one of the many differences between him and a true Venetian.

The Contessa and Bellorini were sipping Strega when he arrived at the studio. No one was there but the two of them. Perhaps Milo had taken Adele Carstairs and Kobke back to the Danieli and Angela had gone with them. Despite the conviction that had been with him since the early morning hours, he had a momentary doubt as to whether he should proceed as he had planned, whether it might not be better to wait until every possible thing was in place. The dream that had disturbed his sleep last night flashed its images across his mind.

After giving Stefano his coat and putting the notebook down on the little table by the door, he walked to the far side of the room to the small area set aside for socializing. Stefano, apologizing for having nothing else to offer him, poured a glass of Strega.

The Contessa sat on the sofa across from the windows that looked down on the
calle
below. The work area was set up near the larger windows that gave on to the lagoon and the north light. Urbino was glad the Contessa was sitting where she was, with Stefano in an old armchair to one side, for if he went to the windows across from them and turned around to face them…

“You came, Urbino! You're a darling. What do you think?”

She pointed to the worktable on the other side of the room. He went over and saw the three frames with her family photographs mounted in them.

He picked them up one by one. The frames enhanced the old photographs, and the photographs contributed a patina to the newly fashioned frames. It was a harmonious marriage between Bellorini's art and the Contessa's history.

“You're both to be congratulated.”

He had been sincere in his praise but a slight frown furrowed the Contessa's forehead.

“You got here so quickly,” she said. “I called Lucia only a short time ago.” She gave him a quizzical little smile. “Where were you?”

“Benedetta Razzi's.”

“Benedetta Razzi's? Again? Whatever for? You were just there yesterday, weren't you?”

Was this how she had kept her promise of not mentioning anything they had discussed yesterday?

“Yes, I was.”

He looked toward the little table by the door.

“A mission of charity, most likely,” Stefano said. “Benedetta Razzi is always eager for visitors. It sometimes makes me feel guilty not to be more attentive.”

“You two have made your own visit of charity, I hear.”

“Yes, with Angela, Adele, and Christian,” the Contessa said. The use of Kobke's first name wasn't lost on Urbino. “You'll never guess what's happened. Filippo left Oriana. You wouldn't believe what a scene there was. Filippo came back for some of his things. He's staying at the Cipriani. I kept thinking of the opening of
Anna Karenina
. How does it go? Something about happy and unhappy families and the poor wife discovering an intrigue.”

She looked at him for help but before he could say anything Stefano jumped in.

“Of course in Oriana's case the intrigue was the other way around. Maybe now her young friend from Dorsoduro will finally move in.”

“Stefano, please! He's just a friend—almost a son to her—”

She looked at Urbino with entreaty in her eyes. It was as if to say: There's trouble all around us. Be gentle. I can't take too much.

“I'm sure they'll work things out,” he said, making another glance in the direction of the door. He saw they both noticed. “They've gone through this so many times before, haven't they? I'm sorry if I don't sound concerned. It's just that I'm a bit distracted. The most extraordinary thing has happened.”

The Contessa suddenly showed an interest in the way her brooch was pinned to her dress, so it was Stefano who asked the obvious question.

“And what is that?”

Before answering, Urbino walked over to the entrance hallway and took the notebook from the little table.

“Nothing more extraordinary looking than this.”

He held it up and walked toward them.

“And whatever is
that?
” the Contessa asked, abandoning her brooch.

“A notebook.”

“Well, we can see that well enough.”

“It's a notebook that Benedetta Razzi found in the locked room in the Casa Silviano. It's one of Margaret Quinton's notebooks.”

“But that's impossible!” She looked at Stefano, then back at Urbino. “That room has been locked for as long as I've known her.”

“She can't figure it out herself. But there it was, she said, lying on the floor not far from the door.”

Urbino went over to one of the windows and leaned against the sill with his back angled toward the door.

“It's fortunate that Adele Carstairs and Kobke haven't gone up to Vienna yet. That gives me more than a day to look this over. I doubt if she'll mind.” He riffled the pages. “Although it shouldn't take long to read through what's here. There isn't much.” He squinted at a page and turned it to catch the late afternoon light that was coming over his left shoulder.

“But why did Benedetta Razzi give it to you?” the Contessa asked. “And how did it get into that room to begin with?”

Urbino responded to her first question only.

“She's sick and tired of all this poking around, all these questions. I think she's also afraid of being found doing something illegal with that room. I told her I'd take the notebook off her hands and give it to the niece with an explanation. She doesn't seem to know that Voyd was murdered because of Quinton's writing and I thought it best not to tell her. If she knew, she would have been even more eager to get this notebook off her hands.”

He bent down over the notebook again. Stefano poured another Strega for himself and the Contessa but Urbino had hardly touched his. He needed a clear mind.

“There seems to be something about you, Barbara.”

“About me? Are you sure?”

“I'm fairly sure. Give me a minute to make it out. Her writing isn't easy to read. It's an old-fashioned kind of hand.”

He was silent for a few moments while he composed his thoughts. Then—calling up all his inventive and histrionic skills and remembering how he used to entertain his ailing mother in her bedroom by reading out loud from the
Times-Picayune
imaginary articles about her friends—he began.

“‘Stopped by the Ca' da C-Z.'” He stopped and looked up at them. “She uses quite a few abbreviations. Let me see. ‘Stopped by the Ca' da C-Z to pay a visit and borrow some books. I could tell the Contessa wasn't keen on lending them but I managed to convince the dear woman it was
pour l'art
. To think that someone wouldn't trust
me
with books!'”

The Contessa stiffened.

“No, I was not ‘keen' about it, as she expresses it! You know how I feel about letting any of my books out of the library. I worried about it for days.”

He nodded and continued to look at the page, then turned it and began at the top of the next. Hoping his face was reflecting increasing interest and amazement, he said, “She
was
very friendly with Maria. Not exactly a meeting of equal minds but she seems to have found something interesting in the old woman. I suppose she was always on the lookout for material, as Voyd said.”

“What is it?” the Contessa asked impatiently. “It's not polite to be reading and not telling us anything, is it, Stefano?”

Even if she had expected an answer, it didn't seem as if she would get one from Bellorini. He sat looking down into his Strega.

“Wait then. Let me go back a bit.” Urbino ran his eye back up the page and began to read again haltingly, having the ostensible excuse of Quinton's handwriting. “‘I—I don't see why I can't treat the—the whole topic of the glassblower from old Murano in a brief form, maybe a short story or novella. It could end with the—with the death of Domenica.'”

After pausing to clear his throat he continued: “‘It's a worthwhile idea but it might be difficult to bring off because of all the period detail. I wonder if the dear Contessa would be kind enough to lend me more of her collection. It would be so much better than being—than being alternately fried and frozen at the B.M.' That must be the Biblioteca Marciana, don't you think?”

He gave them a quick glance.

“Right after that she mentions Maria for the first time. ‘It might be less trouble to turn my attention to old Maria's story. But there are two problems with that.'” He made a point of turning the page to the light before going on. “'There's—there's what she told me that I can't perhaps use, and then there are all those huge—huge hells.'”

“‘Hells'?” The Contessa frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, ‘hells'—no, wait a minute, ‘holes,' yes, ‘holes.' She seemed particularly fascinated with what Maria had to tell her. She goes into more detail.” He stared at the page, then moved his eyes down to the bottom. “Oh my God, I—”

Looking up quickly to see what reaction he was getting, he saw barely a flicker on either face. He hoped Gemelli had got his message or the Questura had acted on it. He even wished now that Adele Carstairs and Kobke were there with them. Angela, however, was a different matter entirely. He remembered enough about his study of mathematics many years ago with the Jesuits to know that every equation had at least one unknown.

He felt he had no choice but to go on. He bent down over the notebook again for the coup de grâce, this time forgetting to pretend to puzzle out Quinton's handwriting.

“‘Maria was very excited this afternoon and at first I couldn't understand what she was saying. I asked her to speak more slowly. I still don't understand exactly what she meant by some man named Giovanni Fabbri but she said that this Fabbri and the mysterious Domenica she's always talking about were actually—'”

He turned the page and was about to continue when a voice sounded from the door.

“That will be enough!”

Urbino turned around, and the Contessa twisted her body to look over the back of the sofa. Angela Bellorini was standing in front of the closed door. She must have come in while he was reading, noticed by no one but her husband, who now got up from his chair and walked toward her. On the woman's face was a sneer, which did nothing for her already unattractive features. But it was the pistol in her hand that looked most unattractive.

“It would have been so much better if you didn't have such a long nose, Urbino—better for you and for poor, dear Barbara.”

Angela Bellorini made the mistake of gesturing abruptly with the pistol at the Contessa.

What happened next happened quickly. There was a loud scream—it was the Contessa's. There was a cry—it was Angela's as she rushed toward the Contessa. There was a crash—it was the door being pushed open, revealing three grim faces behind it, one of them Commissario Gemelli's.

Epilogue

MURDER AT FLORIAN'S