5 - Her Deadly Mischief (15 page)

I nodded cautiously. “What are you asking me to do?”

“I ask that you keep my presence here a secret…”

“And?”

Alessio stretched his long legs out and folded his hands over his midsection. He regarded me with his chin on his chest. “In the guardhouse, I had a great deal of time to ponder. I came to the conclusion that I was purposefully delayed on the night of the murder. My gondolier has never been drunk a day in his life. I’m certain someone interfered with him. I can’t row over to Murano and make inquiries—I’d be spotted immediately—but you can. And now you tell me my father received a note. I don’t understand it. No one knew Zulietta would be at the theater that night besides ourselves.”

“You may be wrong about that. La Samsona either knew or suspected because she’d consigned her best jewels to the bank for safekeeping.”

Alessio shook his head. “That was strictly forbidden in the agreement—the women summoned a notary to formalize terms—Zulietta’s copy is somewhere hereabouts.”

“In the desk,” Sary spoke up.

I grunted a chuckle. “It seems neither party to the contract was being honest, Alessio. And you’re wrong about something else, too.” I sent the maid a sidelong glance. “Zulietta’s servants knew about the culmination of the wager. Pamarino accompanied her to the theater and actually tangled with the killer. Bravely, too. He could have easily suffocated with that thick cloak swaddling him.”

Alessio sat up tall. “Yes, of course, the dwarf was loyal to a fault. He worshipped Zulietta and would never have let our secret out—to my father or anyone else. And Sary certainly knew the importance of keeping mum.” He questioned the maid with a look.

She nodded gravely, saying, “I don’t see how anyone outside of this household would have known my mistress was attending the opera that night.”

“And yet someone did, because she was killed,” I said.

Liya spoke up. “Perhaps the killer saw Zulietta in the theater foyer or on the grand staircase, then followed her to see which box she entered.”

“You’re forgetting the key, my love. The duplicate was made beforehand.”

“Key?” Alessio questioned me in a weary, puzzled tone.

“Zulietta unlocked your family box with the key you’d given her.”

He nodded in agreement.

“Messer Grande discovered that key in her pocket. The killer had a second key which was used to lock the box after Zulietta had fallen into the pit.”

“Then that’s another thing I don’t understand. There has always been only one key to the box.” Alessio bowed his head and cradled it with outstretched fingers. He rocked from side to side, giving the impression that his strength was nearly at an end. “What a tangle! You must help unravel it, Signor Amato.”

We were all silent for a moment, lost in our own thoughts. A finger of sunlight streaming through the shutters happened to fall on a panel painted with a walled garden. Realistic herb beds surrounded an ornamental pond, and a brick path led to a stone bench. It would be quiet and peaceful there, pleasantly cool. I could almost smell the sweet fragrance. Liya and I should be strolling in such a place without a care in our heads. Instead we were in the company of a guardhouse escapee who was not only suspected of murder, but planning a glassmakers’ revolt. I should take my wife’s hand and walk right out the door.

I wouldn’t, of course. Solving a mystery that no one else cared, or dared, to investigate had always been my forbidden fruit. Messer Grande had been ordered to concentrate on the San Polo robberies. By necessity, Alessio must remain in hiding. If Zulietta’s killer was going to be unmasked, it looked like it was up to me.

***

It was past noon, and Maestro Torani had called a rehearsal for two o’clock. To satisfy the public’s insatiable thirst for new spectacle, the next opera must be readied even as we continued to perform the current offering. The quickest route to the Teatro San Marco lay back the way we had come, but Liya clearly didn’t want to give me up. As we left Zulietta’s building, my wife slipped her arm under mine and suggested a stroll toward the Piazza. I was easily persuaded. There was sufficient time to enjoy her company and also make a timely appearance at the theater.

As we crossed the arched bridge, I noticed the crab-catcher with the unkempt beard leaning on the railing, face turned up to bask in the sun’s rays. Something about his stance seemed familiar, but when I stepped closer to get a better look at him, he chose to take that moment to shade his eyes with his hand. A coincidence? I was reminded of the turbaned Jew who had dogged our steps through the ghetto, but this was a different man. Shorter and older. Besides, the crab-catcher hadn’t followed us from home. Of that, I was certain.

Ten minutes brought us to the great square that was the focus of carnival gaiety. On three sides, the Piazza was belted with arcades sheltering shops and
café
s, and on the fourth, the tessellated arches and golden domes of the Basilica glittered in the midday sun. Though our mood didn’t match the inclinations of the maskers who surged to and fro in a noisy, reeling promenade, we settled ourselves at one of the few unoccupied tables under the Procuratie Vecchie and ordered two lemon ices. In between the capering Harlequins and Brighellas, the comical Devils, and anonymous eye masks, we caught snatches of the entertainment proceeding on a nearby trestle stage.

An Irish giant by the name of O’Bryan was amazing the spectators with feats of strength. Nearly eight feet tall and with shoulders as broad as the table where we sat, O’Bryan lifted a blacksmith’s anvil over his head as if it were a sack of meal. “Three hundred pounds of iron, good ladies and gentlemen,” his manager cried.

“Oh, Tito,” said Liya, mightily impressed. “Do you really think it weighs that much?”

“Probably.” Though the Piazza was full of tricksters like the thimble-rig man who fleeced the punters with his sleight of hand or the fortune-tellers who traded promises of health and wealth for a few
soldi
, that anvil appeared absolutely authentic. As did the muscles of the bare-chested O’Bryan.

“I wonder how many pounds La Samsona lifted when she entertained the crowd,” Liya mused over her ice.

I leaned over the white tablecloth. “You’re really asking if she had the strength to push Zulietta over the box railing.”

“I suppose I am. Like you said this morning, ‘one twist and a new pattern emerges.’” Liya made a tube of her curled hands and moved them to her eye as if she were gazing through the petal-scope. “Before we visited Zulietta’s home, I saw her as a gaudy dragonfly—an airy mixture of charm and cunning.”

“And now?”

“Now I understand that Zulietta embellished the contents of her head as much as the exterior. She had far more substance than I gave her credit for. How tired she must have grown of all the forced vivacity—the round of balls and other frolics her mode of life entailed.”

“By putting the wager into play, she certainly embarked on a path that would take her away from all that. Far away.” I shuddered, still not convinced that Alessio’s longed-for Charles Town was not peopled by ruffians and savages. “But does your new viewpoint exclude Reyna and Aram as suspects in Zulietta’s death?”

“I would never entirely discount that pair of villains, but seeing those few lonely baubles in Zulietta’s jewelry box did change my focus. Perhaps the wager is the thread we need to pull to unravel this mystery. You’ve talked to La Samsona—tell me about her.”

Licking the frozen treat off my spoon, I thought back to the scene in the courtesan’s box. “La Samsona is a woman of strong appetites. In every respect, she is beyond extravagance. The French have a word for it—
de trop
—too much. The decors on her gown could have supplied four women of good taste, and her scent…” I wrinkled my nose. “A full acre of roses must have been distilled into the perfume she’d dabbed on her person for that one night at the opera.”

“Hmm…” Liya stared out toward the square where the Irish giant was lifting a squealing bull calf with its legs tied together. “A lack of refinement, certainly—but that doesn’t translate into murder. I’m more interested in her character. How do you think she would have reacted if she learned that Zulietta had concocted the wager to defraud her of her jewels?”

“I wouldn’t want to have been there—she would have been livid. At least initially. Her moods seem to change quickly.”

“We know she’d taken steps to protect her jewels.”

I nodded. “An astute move on her part. That doesn’t surprise me—these women who barter their services are negotiating in a man’s world. Their wealthy benefactors are accustomed to imposing terms and conditions on every sort of business endeavor and are practiced in protecting their assets. La Samsona is no empty-headed fool. She must have learned something along the way.”

“Perhaps ensuring that Zulietta would never get her hands on her diamonds wasn’t enough for this lady. Apparently, La Samsona sets great store by her celebrity. Imagine the blow to her pride—hoodwinked by a little Jew who hadn’t been circulating in gallant society nearly as long as she had. La Samsona must have bubbled like a stew pot, her anger growing hotter and hotter until the lid blew off.”

“An apt metaphor.”

Liya pushed her empty ice cup away, narrowing her eyes like a cat that has just spotted a plump, slow-moving mouse. “It would take steady nerves to attack the dwarf in the corridor, drag him into the cloakroom, then return to the box to murder a woman who had once been her friend.”

“La Samsona strikes me as having nerves to equal anyone, man or woman. But don’t forget about the key. She had less opportunity to make a duplicate key than any of the other people we agree had reason to kill Zulietta.”

Liya emitted a frustrated sigh. “That damnable key—always that key—it’s a barricade across the only path that can take us where we need to go. Oh, Tito, at this rate, we may never find Zulietta’s killer.”

“Don’t say that,” I replied, reaching for my watch. As much as I would have liked to continue our discussion, the angle of the sun hinted it was time to set off. Yes, near two o’clock. I snapped my watch closed and shrugged my shoulders. “I suppose I could visit La Samsona’s box again tonight, see if she’ll answer a few more questions.”

Liya sent me a shrewd squint. “Maybe there’s a better way to assess her possibilities.”

“Let me hear it.”

“You mentioned La Samsona’s rose-drenched perfume. So did Alessio. She must wear that fragrance all the time.”

I nodded. Most women seemed to favor one scent over another. Those with means frequented a perfumer who would distill a fragrance especially for them; their signature scent would also be incorporated into lotions, powders, and bath oils. Given her vast herbal skills, Liya concocted her own scent, but La Samsona would be the type of woman who ran up a large bill at the perfumer’s.

“So,” Liya continued, “Aram doesn’t wear scent—he would scoff at any tradesman who perfumes like a young buck of fashion. And I can’t imagine Cesare Pino smelling of roses. Maria Albergati’s brothers, perhaps.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that, instead of trying to wring more information out of that wily courtesan, you should question the dwarf. The killer swooped him up and wrestled him into the cloakroom. If La Samsona was disguised under the cloak and
bauta
, surely he would recall the heavy scent of roses.”

I sat back and gazed at my wife in silent admiration. I had my own reason for wanting to see the dwarf again; she’d given me another. After congratulating her on a capital idea, I couldn’t resist a little teasing. “Did you come to this conclusion all by yourself?”

“Of course, it just occurred to me.”

“Oh,” I replied airily, “I thought one of your otherworldly oracles might have whispered in your ear.”

She arched an eyebrow. “I hope you know you’ll pay for that remark.”

“I’ll take my medicine. But later. Just now, Maestro Torani is wondering if his lead singer is going to be late again.” I gave her my arm as we left the shelter of the arcade, heading away from the Basilica and the Doge’s palace, toward the Teatro San Marco.

The crowd had thickened as we’d lingered over our ices
. A delegation of
Albanians in white kirtles and red leggings blocked our path. More bodies buffeted us from both sides.

“Tito,” Liya squealed, and I caught sight of a hairy arm reaching around my wife’s waist to squeeze her bosom. With all my force, I bent the roving arm back at the elbow and was rewarded with a yelp of pain. A man in a pig mask twisted away and was instantly lost to sight.

I put my mouth to Liya’s ear. “Hang on tight. I’ll get us out of here.”

More easily said than accomplished. I pushed and shoved, but the sea of maskers surged as if controlled by one oppositional force. Suddenly, somewhere beyond the Albanians, there was the sound of wood snapping, metal clanging, and the crash of pottery hitting flagstones. A woman wailed to see her booth collapsing around her. As the crowd turned to view this minor spectacle, a path materialized, like the wake formed by a broad-sterned schooner.

I quickly guided us to an open space near the trestle stage. The Irish giant was trading places with an acrobatic troupe which entered to a flute march played by a white-faced Pierrot.

Catching our breath, we paused to watch six well-formed young men perform a rapid series of handstands and somersaults. They had barely begun to form a towering pyramid when a male dwarf clambered onstage, beating a tin drum. Rigged out in a pink ballerina skirt, dark hair caught back with a ribbon bow, he circled the stage making a fearful din. The tallest acrobat ordered him off with a dramatically outflung arm, but the dwarf made a rude gesture, beat his drum all the louder, and gamboled about the boards in a parody of the ballet girls at the opera house. The other acrobats gave chase. The crowd was drifting back. Hilarity ensued.

“Is that Zulietta’s little man?” Liya asked.

“Not him, but very like,” I answered as we watched the acrobats catch the dwarf and pull his breeches down. The Pierrot reappeared with a wooden paddle. In mimed gestures he asked the crowd:
Should I lay this to him?