The Devil in Music (48 page)

Donati
bowed formally. "A great pleasure, Signor Marchese."

Carlo
shepherded Rinaldo over to Julian and MacGregor. "I have the
honour to present Signor Kestrel, the renowned English dandy, and his
friend, Dr. MacGregor, an eminent man of science."

Julian
bowed. "Your servant, Signor Marchese."

"How
dye do," MacGregor nodded curtly.

Rinaldo
rounded on Beatrice again. "That's another thing! They told me
in Milan you'd taken up with this Englishman and got him to mount a
private investigation for you. I want it stopped. You've no right
to interfere. Leave the investigation to the police."

"With
the greatest respect," said Beatrice with delicate irony, "I
don't see what authority you have to tell me whom I may receive in my
house, or what we may do here."

"Your
house!" An unpleasant smile spread over Rinaldo's face.
"Perhaps it won't be that for long! You know that my father
always believed this villa belonged by rights to the Malvezzi
fiefdom, and not to the Delborgos. He fought about it in the courts
for years, and only gave it up because the Delborgos sold the villa
to Uncle Carlo, who sold it to him.

"When
I got back to Milan last night, after travelling all the way from
Prague, and I heard how you'd come here with my uncle and my wife and
a parcel of strangers to investigate my father's murder, I swore I'd
be revenged on you. Before I left Milan this morning, I turned over
all the papers about the Malvezzi claim to the villa to Palmieri.
He's been the family lawyer for years, and knows all about the case.
He thinks he can prove once and for all that this is Malvezzi land.
That means it's within the entail, and my father had no power to
bequeath it to you. It's mine."

"Rinaldo,"
Carlo remonstrated, "Lodovico only left the villa to Beatrice
for her life. It will come back to you in the end or if not to you,
then to Niccolo. You wouldn't be so ungenerous as to deprive your
father's widow of her home "

"My
dear." Beatrice laid her fingers lightly on Carlo's arm. "It's
good of you to take my part, but Rinaldo has obviously made up his
mind. And it's unkind to deprive him of a weapon, when he has so
very few."

"You'll
be sorry!" said Rinaldo in a shaking voice. "You think so
much of yourself, because my father left you this villa and his opera
box, and everything he had that wasn't entailed to me! But the villa
is mine by rights! It ought to have been joined with the Malvezzi
lands not left to a widow who couldn't even give my father a child!"

Beatrice's
head moved as if he had struck her. With an effort, she collected
herself and stood looking at him, taking slow, deliberate breaths.

"You
had better go, Rinaldo," said Carlo.

"No."
Beatrice glided to Rinaldo and smiled serenely at him. "You're
exhausted with travel, and probably as hungry as a wolf into the
bargain. Do you mean to go back to Milan tonight or on to Cas-tello
Malvezzi?"

"To
the castle," Rinaldo said sullenly.

"Here's
what I propose. Stay here for the present rest, change your clothes,
have dinner. In the meantime, the castle can be made ready for your
arrival. You know how draughty and dreadful it is when no one has
stayed there for a long time."

"Why
should you want me here?" said Rinaldo suspiciously.

"I
don't, particularly," she admitted, "after the way you've
been behaving. But I'd as lief not quarrel with you publicly. And
you are my stepson."

"You
want to change my mind," Rinaldo declared. "You think you
can charm me, make me ashamed of myself, so that I'll let you keep
the villa. But it won't work. You may wrap every other man around
your little finger, but I'm proof against you."

"Then
why are you so determined to run away from me?" she asked
whimsically. "Come, you wanted to see Commissario Grimani.
He'll be back after dinner, and you can take him to task as much as
you like."

Rinaldo
said, "If you think I would sit down at the same table with that
whore and her tame eunuch "

"You
would not be asked to," Valeriano interrupted quietly. "With
Marchesa Malvezzi's leave, Signora Argenti and I would dine in our
rooms."

"Signora
Argenti!" spat out Rinaldo. "What a farce!"

"I
I thought you would rather I didn't use your name," said
Francesca faintly.

"I
would rather you didn't have my name, you damned bitch!"

"I
think we had better retire now," said Valeriano, drawing
Francesca's arm through his.

"Monster!"
raved Rinaldo. "Shrieking, prancing capon!"

Valeriano
looked faintly bored. A castrate in this present age must be a
connoisseur of mockery. Rinaldo's efforts obviously did not impress
him.

He
and Francesca went out, she pale, exhausted, and leaning heavily on
his arm. Rinaldo bit his nails and paced in a tense, tight circle.

"Now
there's nothing to prevent your staying to dinner," said
Beatrice. "Shall I have the servants prepare a room for you to
wash and dress?"

"He
can use mine," said Carlo.

"Oh,
very well," said Rinaldo. "I'll stay, but only to see
Commissario Grimani."

"Perhaps
in the meantime you might like to talk with Signer Kestrel,"
Beatrice suggested. "He's the nearest thing to a police
official we have at present."

"Oh,
I don't think I need trouble Marchese Rinaldo with questions about
the murder," said Julian. "I can't conceive he could have
anything to add to what I know already."

"What
the devil do you mean by that?" Rinaldo bristled. "Do you
wish to insult me, signer?"

"By
no means, Signer Marchese. I merely meant that Marchesa Malvezzi,
Conte Carlo, Signora Argenti, and Signer Valeriano have been so
obliging in providing me with information that I have no need to
plague you with questions I should think you would prefer not to
answer."

"Why
shouldn't I wish to answer them?" shouted Rinaldo. "I
have nothing to hide! And I should be much surprised if they've told
you the truth especially my wife and her abortion of a lover."

Julian's
brows drew together. "I don't think I've been misled in any
particular."

"We'll
see about that!" said Rinaldo. "We can talk while Uncle
Carlo's room is being prepared for me. I warrant I'll have a few
things to tell you that will surprise you!"

"As
you wish. Perhaps we might go into the library?"

Rinaldo
led the way to the door. The marchesa held Julian back a moment.
"Oh, very well done!" she said softly.

He
smiled back, bowed, and followed Rinaldo out.

In
the Hall of Marbles they found two tall, strapping footmen, their
flame-coloured livery coated with travel-dust. When they saw
Rinaldo, they stood to attention without much alacrity, Julian
noticed. "I'm staying for dinner," Rinaldo told them
brusquely. "Get my baggage out of the boat. The servants here
will tell you what to do with it."

"Yes,
Excellency," they muttered.

The
front door opened. De la Marque came in. "Ah, man vieux,"
he said to Julian, "I'm afraid I've delayed dinner abominably,
but "

He
broke off and looked at Rinaldo once, twice, then his eyes stretched
wide with something like alarm. Rinaldo looked back without
recognition or interest.

De
la Marque's gaze travelled slowly to the footmen. They goggled at
him and nudged each other. One started forward impulsively, but the
other, who looked a few years older, caught him by the skirt of his
frock-coat and pulled him back.

De
la Marque withdrew his gaze from them and bowed to Rinaldo. "A
thousand pardons. I ought to have introduced myself at once. I know
I have the honour of addressing Marchese Malvezzi, but you may not
recollect me as readily. I am Gaston de la Marque."

"I
remember you now, monsieur," said Rinaldo. "You're very
often in Milan."

"Often
enough, it would seem," observed Julian, "for you to
recognize Marchese Rinaldo's footmen."

"As
they're dressed in the Malvezzi livery, I can hardly credit myself
with any great discernment there," de la Marque said easily.
"But in fact, I remember them because they used to be Marchese
Lodovico's. They rode at the back of his carriage in the Corso every
afternoon and stood guard at the door of his opera box every night.
They were one of the sights of Milan: the very type of the
picturesque bull who a few generations ago attached themselves to
great men and disposed of their enemies with a thrashing or a knife
in the ribs "

He
stopped short, a little breathless. The footmen exchanged excited
looks. Julian was immensely curious to know what this was all about.
Yet if he tried to get to the bottom of it now, Rinaldo might wriggle
off his hook. He would confront de la Marque later, and set Dipper
to pump the footmen in the meantime.

"I'm
afraid we're detaining you from dressing," he said to de la
Marque. "Signer Marchese, shall we go into the library?"

"I
knew you hadn't been told the whole story," said Rinaldo
triumphantly. "You know that my stepmother left Turin in March
of '21 to get away from the rebels, supposedly. And you know she was
lost for two days, till I found her in Belgirate. But what you don't
know is that she deliberately set out to bamboozle my father and me
about where she was going and what she meant to do. She was lost
because she wanted to be."

"Why
should she want that?" Julian asked.

"I
expect she went to Belgirate to meet a lover. That's what women do."

"So
you're not suggesting she came here secretly and killed your father?"

Rinaldo
blinked in astonishment. "Why should I think that? That singer
killed him. Everyone knows that."

Julian
pondered briefly. "What makes you think she deliberately set
out to be lost?"

"It
shows in everything she did. She travelled incognito, to begin with,
in a plain coach, with servants out of livery."

"That
seems a sensible precaution. The country was in the throes of a
revolt. She might have been taken hostage by the rebels, or robbed
and mistreated by brigands taking advantage of the general
confusion."

"Was
it a sensible precaution for her to send a courier on ahead from
Turin to make arrangements for her to stay the night in Novara then
to turn off the Novara road without leaving any word for him where
she was going? She hadn't even told him she would be travelling
incognito, so that when she didn't arrive in Novara and he went
searching for her on the road, he was asking after the Malvezzi coach
and servants, which of course nobody had seen. Even after she got to
Belgirate, she never tried to send a message to me in Milan or to the
courier in Novara. She just plumped herself down at an inn and
frittered away two days, while the courier and I and a parcel of
servants combed the countryside looking for her!"

Julian
had to acknowledge these were ominous revelations. The marchesa must
have intended to baffle pursuit when she went to Belgirate. The only
alternative was that she had panicked at the outbreak of revolution
and acted on irrational impulses for days. And Julian knew her
better than that.

He
asked, "When did you learn she'd gone missing?"

"At
dawn the next day. A message arrived from the courier that she'd
disappeared. I was horrified. I collected half a dozen servants and
set out for Novara at once."

"Forgive
me," said Julian delicately, "but there doesn't seem to be
any love lost between you and Marchesa Beatrice. Why were you so
worried about her?"

"I
wasn't." Rinaldo's eyes screwed up vindictively. "If I'd
had my choice, I would gladly have seen her robbed of her last sol do
and set loose on the roads in her petticoat. But " His voice
grew hollow. "My father loved her. He would have gone off his
head if anything had happened to her. And he would have held me
responsible. No matter how it came about, or how she'd brought it on
herself, he would have found some way to blame me for it. I had to
find her what was more, I had to do it before he knew she'd gone
missing. He would still have found something to upbraid me for that
I didn't do it quickly or bravely or cleverly enough. But if
everything had come right in the end, he wouldn't have made too much
of it."