The Devil in Music (28 page)

"No,
sir, the murder was the night before."

"Which
would have been the marchesa's second night in Belgirate,"
Julian calculated. "I assume Nina can vouch for her
whereabouts?"

"That's
just what she can't do, sir. She came over queer the first night
they arrived, and Her Ladyship had her bled. She slept most of the
next day and night. And she don't know nix-my-doll about what Her
Ladyship was doing, meantime."

"The
devil! And of course the inn servants won't remember after all this
time. The marchesa could have retired to her room, saying she didn't
want to be disturbed, then travelled here, committed the murder, and
been back in Belgirate in fifteen hours, while the servants thought
she was merely resting after her long journey."

Dipper
left off brushing the back of Julian's coat and came around to look
at him encouragingly. "She'd have had to plan all that,
wouldn't she, sir?"

"Probably."

"Well,
sir, she couldn't have counted on her maid being took ill and not
knowing what she was about."

"No,"
said Julian, with cold composure, "not unless she was
responsible."

Dipper's
eyes got very round. "You mean she might've hoc used her, sir?"

"It's
possible. Nina's illness was remarkably convenient, if the marchesa
was up to some devilry." He relented. "Of course there's
a good deal to be said in the marchesa's favour. To begin with, she
would have been taking an extraordinary risk. She had no alibi for
the murder, and no way of knowing that the authorities would hobble
their investigation by keeping it a secret, or that they would fasten
so firmly on Orfeo as the murderer. Then, too, it's hard to imagine
a woman so refined journeying alone at night across a countryside
infested with smugglers and soldiers."

He
leaned thoughtfully against the mantelpiece. "If I were
Commissario Grimani, do you know what I would say? I would say: it's
most unlikely the marchesa killed her husband herself. If she had
any hand in his death, it must have been as an accomplice to the real
murderer Orfeo. When Orfeo fled the villa after the murder, his first
concern would be to escape from Austrian Italy. The Swiss border at
Chiasso is close by, but very well guarded. So perhaps he crossed
Lake

Maggiore
into Piedmont, where the marchesa was waiting for him with horses,
provisions whatever he might need."

He
smiled quizzically. "It's not a bad theory. The marchesa would
make a first-rate accomplice: clever, adroit, quick-witted, able to
keep a cool head in a crisis. But if she was an accomplice whose was
she? Rinaldo is the only person we know for certain joined her in
Belgirate. Can it be that she deliberately made herself scarce so
that he could wander about the countryside on the pretext of
searching for her? If he were caught at the villa, he could have
pretended he had come to report that the marchesa was missing. Where
are my gloves?"

Dipper
presented them. Julian drew them on, pursuing his train of thought.
"Then there's de la Marque. He admits he was in Turin at the
same time as the marchesa, though there's nothing to indicate he
followed her to Belgirate." Julian looked up from doing up a
glove button. "How long was the marchesa in Turin?"

"About
a month, sir, Nina said."

"Why
was she there?"

"I
dunno, sir."

Julian
pondered. There were three significant facts about Turin in the
first months of 1821: the marchesa had gone there, de la Marque had
gone there, and the rebellion had occurred. The more he thought
about it, the more certain he felt that at least two of these events
were linked. Could the marchesa or de la Marque have had some
connection with the revolt, on either the government's side or the
rebels'? Or had they merely gone to Turin to be well out of the way
of the marchesa's autocratic, perhaps jealous husband? Julian hoped
that politics and not love had sent them to Turin. But there was no
denying that, especially in Italy, it could be both.

Next
morning the villa party disembarked at the pier in Solaggio and
strolled up to the church. The marchesa walked arm-in-arm with
Carlo, Nina following with a cushion of scarlet velvet and cloth-of
gold for her mistress to kneel on at mass.

The
congregation filing in at the church door was large perhaps swelled
with people from outlying neighbour hoods come to see the marchesa
and her guests. Everyone made way as the Malvezzi party swept into
the church. De la Marque dipped his fingers in the font and held
them out to the marchesa, smiling into her eyes as she touched her
fingers to his to receive the holy water. This pretty ceremony
annoyed Julian exceedingly. If de la Marque was anything more than a
nominal Catholic, he would be much surprised. Yet he was not enough
of a hand at self-deception to believe his indignation was religious.

The
cold and gloom of the church contrasted starkly with the sunshine and
gaiety outside. The frail tapers and dimly burning lamps did no more
than add a gold fringe to the darkness. Don Cristoforo took his
place before the high altar, droning the time-honoured Latin words
amid clouds of incense and the meek, muttered responses of his flock.
Julian excited great superstitious dread by being the only person
there who did not take Communion. As he had hoped, the music was
very fine. No one seemed scandalized to hear airs from Rossini's
operas mingled with the liturgical strains.

After
mass, the villa party made their way back to the harbour. As they
approached the pier, Julian heard a little cry behind him. He
turned. Nina was standing stock still, gazing toward the pier with

stricken
eyes. He followed her gaze. Dipper was sitting on one of the stone
breakwaters, his feet dangling over the lake. Beside him, talking
and laughing, her face close to his, was Rosa, the black-eyed
temptress from the Nightingale.

Dipper
caught sight of Nina. He sped to her side, telling her in his
mixture of broken Milanese and eloquent gestures that he had come to
escort her back from church. At first she shrank from him, but after
a good deal of coaxing she consented to take his arm. Rosa looked
after them with hands on hips and narrowed, glinting eyes. Julian
perceived that war had been declared.

Life
at the villa soon settled into a pattern. During the day the party
dispersed. The marchesa went boating, walked in the garden, called
at neighbouring villas, or visited beauty spots. Frequently Carlo
escorted her, sometimes Julian or de la Marque.

Carlo
spent a great deal of time on the lake. He was a first-rate boatman,
understanding the lake's many moods as well as any of the local
peasants. Yet Julian wondered if he went rowing so often in part to
escape from the villa. Though he gave no sign of grudging it to
Beatrice, it must surely bring him painful memories.

Grimani's
time was taken up with supervising the local gendarmes, who were
methodically combing the villa and gardens and the surrounding area
for clues. He was frequently absent from the villa, but the
constraint he created was never wholly dispelled, because he or his
shadow Zanetti had a way of turning up unexpectedly.

Donati's
pupil, Sebastiano, talked very little, scowled a great deal, and
practised his singing every day. His Che invenzione, che invenzione
soon became a collective joke, with people rolling their eyes in
tolerant exasperation whenever they heard it.

Julian
continued his explorations in the neighbourhood. He talked with a
number of people about the murder, including Ruga and Curioni. He
ascended the crag and circled the grim, grey walls of Castello
Malvezzi, though in Rinaldo's absence he could not go inside.
Sometimes he went up into the hills, rambling through forests bright
with autumn berries or along rocky gorges cut by sparkling streams.
Climbing higher, he watched eagles wheeling or caught dazzling views
of the Lombard plain and the snow-dappled peaks of the Alps.

At
first he worried that he was neglecting MacGregor, but when he looked
for him to invite him on these expeditions, he often could not

find
him. MacGregor would have gone out fishing with Carlo, or to visit a
patient with Curioni, or to watch the fishermen at work and listen to
the songs of their wives mending fishing nets.

"You've
discovered dolce far niente," Julian told him one day, finding
him seated on the terrace of the Nightingale, with the inevitable cup
of bad tea.

"Dokefar
what?"

"It's
an Italian saying "Sweet to do nothing." "

"I'm
not doing nothing!" MacGregor bridled. "I'm learning how
they make wine here." He pointed to a spot on the shore, where
two naked little boys were cavorting in a vat of grapes and splashing
each other with the juice.

"I
beg your pardon," said Julian, eyes dancing. "It must have
been all my fancy that you were asleep when I came upon you just
now."

"Hmph!
well, I might have nodded off for a minute or two." MacGregor
rallied. "Not much else to do, now that your wild scheme of
trying to solve a murder that's none of your business has pitched us
into the Land of the Lotus-Eaters."

It
dawned on Julian that being effectively stranded in Italy had set
MacGregor free. As long as he had had it in his power to go back to
England and his patients, he had fretted after them. But now that he
was pledged to remain at the villa till the murder was solved or the
investigation abandoned, leisure was forced on him. Italy had done
the rest.

On
Julian's fourth day at the lake, he was out on one of his rambles,
following the twisting path of a mountain stream, when he saw a man's
hindquarters protruding from under a holly bush. He asked in
English, "Have you lost something?"

The
man scrambled out from under the bush. "No, not exactly. I was
trying to catch a lizard, but they run confoundedly fast." He
got to his feet, vigorously brushing off the knees of his trousers.
"How did you know I was English?"

"Not
many Italians wear English twill, and those who do don't hazard it
crawling about under bushes."

"I
see." The man grinned. "Very scientific. I approve."

He
was about Julian's age, big-boned and lanky, with wiry brown hair and
a countenance that looked as if it had been put together at random

with
rejected features from other faces. The effect was surprisingly
pleasant, though it might have been the young man's cheerful brown
eyes and wide grin that made it so.

He
retrieved his hat from the depths of the bush and started to put it
on. "Oh, dash it!" He took it off and ran his fingers
through his hair. "Holly prickles!" he pronounced, as if
it were a curse. He gave the hat a good shake and cautiously put it
on again. "That's better! How do you do, sir? I'm Hugo
Fletcher."

He
thrust out his hand, and Julian shook it. "Your servant, Mr.
Fletcher. I am Julian Kestrel."

"No
are you really?"

Julian
smiled. "So my passport says, and in Italy one should never be
at odds with one's documenti."

"Are
you staying hereabouts?"

"Yes,
at Villa Malvezzi."

"This
is the most extraordinary piece of luck. Should you mind if I used
you as a diversion?"

"What
do you mean?"

"I'm
tutor to the Honourable Beverley St. Carr. He's on the Grand Tour,
and his parents sent me with him in the fond delusion that I could
keep him out of trouble. He got into some scrapes in Milan, so I
brought him here, and already he's bored to distraction. But when he
finds out you're here, he'll be in high feather he has horrifying
pretensions to be a dandy, when he remembers. But you mustn't on any
account let him meet you straightaway. Angling for an acquaintance
could keep him harmlessly occupied for weeks."

"You
don't seem overfond of your work," Julian observed.

"I
don't know if you've ever had charge of a rich young man with little
sense and less discipline, let loose in a country where the wine runs
too fast, and the women not fast enough. Perhaps you've tried to
carry a swarm of bees about in your pocket it's much the same thing."
Fletcher grinned ruefully. "I talk too much. It's just that
it's been so long since I had a civilised conversation."

"Are
you a tutor by profession?"

"I'm
a naturalist. I used to work with a German naturalist in Berlin,
helping him with a book he was writing about arachnids spiders, you
know. But I had to return to England when my father died. He was
Lord St. Carr's steward, and the St. Carrs have done everything for
me sent me to university and helped me to get on in the world. When
they asked me to take their son abroad, I couldn't refuse."