4 - The Iron Tongue of Midnight (21 page)

Captain Forti was staring at me, grinding his teeth.

“Where did you get this?” I asked.

“Signor Dolfini supplied it from his records. A generous sum is it not?”

I had to agree that it was.

“Exactly.” Captain Forti leaned forward, fingers splayed on the shiny desktop. “Not a sum that Jean-Louis Fouquet would simply wave goodby to as you and your sister skipped down the road to Venice without him.”

“He was entitled to a percentage. We could have made some suitable arrangement.”

“Why should he agree to forfeit any of what he expected? Indeed—why should you?”

I drew a long shuddering breath. “What are you implying?”

“That perhaps the easiest way to rid yourselves of the Frenchman was to kill him.”

My jaw dropped. “You can’t suspect me. After the concert broke up, I was in the dining room or salon the entire evening.”

“So I’ve been told—your fellow castrato was most forthcoming. You regaled the company with one story after another, and when Emilio Strada tried to leave, you used force to restrain him. All the better to insure that your sister had adequate time to dispense with the lover who had become painfully tiresome.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. A few exaggerated words from Emilio and Captain Forti believed that I had schemed with Grisella to kill Jean-Louis. My temples began to throb; the blood drummed in my ears.

Meeting the constable’s uncompromising gaze, I said, “You’re on the wrong track, Captain. I had nothing to do with the man’s death, and I don’t see how Grisella could have either. She came down from their room without a drop of blood on the Turkish costume she’d been wearing all evening and joined in our talk without the slightest sign of distress.”

“I’ve yet to work it all out, Signor Amato, but I will in time. My method is simple and sure. I come upon something that doesn’t smell right and follow its trail wherever it leads. The secrecy over your relationship, the story your sister just told me about her flight from Constantinople—it all smells to high heaven. Why would a decent Italian woman consent to live among infidels? Or pretend to be French? Upon my soul, I don’t know which is worse.”

I took an involuntary step back. I wanted to scream at the constable’s stupidity but forced myself to be silent. Captain Forti was a man on a mission, hot on the trail of his latest quarry. He was so convinced that he was right, anything I might say would only make things worse. I was certain his next words would order my arrest, but a brisk rapping intervened.

Displaying a toothy scowl, Captain Forti shifted his eyes to the door. “Come in,” he ordered in a raised voice.

The same deputy who had conducted me to the study entered, clutching Ernesto in an iron grip. He pushed the sweating, rumpled steward forward and announced, “The peasant Santini has escaped, and this man refuses to answer any questions. We just barely stopped him from going after Santini himself.”

Ernesto dusted off his jacket and faced the constable. “I’ll answer any question you would care to put to me, Captain. But I can’t tell you how Santini got out of the tack room, because I don’t know.”

Forti’s scowl deepened. “When was he shut up?”

“I locked Santini in after dinner, at about five o’clock. With tonight’s concert, I had too many things to do to supervise him as well.”

“Was that the last time you saw him?”

“Yes, Captain.” Ernesto nodded uneasily.

“When was his escape discovered?”

The deputy answered, “Just a few minutes ago, during a search of the outbuildings.”

A new light came into the constable’s eyes, and he grinned with cold satisfaction. “I thought that mute had a rank smell about him. And I never did get to the bottom of the business with the nightshift.” Captain Forti hit the desk with a closed fist. “So, our Santini was locked in, stewing and sweating over his guilt until fright got the better of him. He broke out and ran, but we’ll soon have him. The man can’t have got far.”

Captain Forti came around the desk in limping bounds. Moving faster than I would have thought the old soldier capable, he crossed the study and clapped Ernesto on the back. “You’ll have your chance to track him. We’ll make up several search parties, blanket the area. You’ll come with me—you must know all the man’s haunts.”

Ernesto protested, but for naught. He was swept along in the constable’s headlong rush to begin the hunt.

For a moment, I stood in the book-lined study forgotten and bemused. Captain Forti had changed his focus to a new quarry. I wouldn’t be clapped in irons that night, but I couldn’t rejoice. Even if the constable managed to capture Santini, I sincerely doubted that justice would be served. Sighing, I shot a glance toward the only other person remaining in the room.

The secretary merely shrugged and took out his penknife to sharpen his quill.

***

For once Gussie awakened before me. I had passed a dreamless night, so deep in sleep that I forgot where I was. When Gussie shook my shoulder, I kept my eyes glued shut. “No, Liya,” I insisted with a groan. “I don’t have to go to the theater for hours. Slip back under the sheets for a bit.”

“Tito, wake up,” Gussie’s deep voice replied with an exasperated sigh.

My eyes flew open. I took in the lofty bed chamber as different from the confined room under the eaves that I shared with Liya as the surrounding fields were from the city of stone and water that was Venice.

Everything suddenly came flooding back: Gussie and I were in the midst of a bucolic paradise that had been invaded by a clever, merciless killer. And for all Captain Forti’s bluster, the chief lawman had no more clue to the murderer’s identity than I did.

“Tito!” Gussie’s expression and tone were both urgent. Fully dressed, he waved a sheaf of papers under my nose. “You must read this letter at once.”

I rolled over and propped myself up on one elbow. My brother-in-law pressed the missive into my hand. “Where did this come from?” I asked with a dry, thick tongue.

“Giovanni brought it from the Post yesterday, but in all the commotion, it slipped his mind. He gave it to me when I went down to breakfast. It contains urgent news from Alessandro.”

I scooted to a sitting position and unrolled the pages on my crimson coverlet. The morning sunlight fell on shaky and uneven characters quite unlike my brother’s usual bold script.

Constantinople, 15th September 1740

Dear family,

I write to you from bed, a bit battered and sore, but do not be alarmed. By Allah’s mercy, I am now safe at home. My writing arm is propped up on a pillow, so you must excuse my scrawl, as well as my brevity. I send you a warning. Pray don’t ignore it as I did mine.

A few days after I told Sefa of Danika’s death, the city was abuzz with rumors about a whore who had murdered her keeper in the middle of Taksim Square. Every person who came through the doors of the warehouse had a more fantastic story to tell. Fearing the worst, I sent one of our more capable workers out to discover the truth.

Ahmet returned with news that the proprietor of The Red Tulip had been bloodied, but the wound was not mortal. Wielding a broken wine bottle, one of his women had chased him from the brothel into the busy square. Bypassers tried to restrain her, but she struggled and screamed like a mad woman. A pair of Janissaries finally wrestled her to the ground and took her to a nearby guardhouse. According to the descriptions that Ahmet gathered, the attacker was most surely Sefa.

Nothing is ever simple in Constantinople. Predictable, yes. Simple, no. All officials expect a small present as compensation for attending to their assigned duties. To induce them to go out of their way, a bigger present is required. And it must be the right present, not an outright money bribe. To visit Sefa, I had to work my way through a series of wardens and jailers with astonishingly varied tastes. Fortunately, the bazaar was close at hand; practically any item can be found in its stalls.

You may ask why I went to such trouble, especially as I had intended to wash my hands of the entire matter. It comes down to simple justice. Yusuf Ali and I agreed that my visits to The Red Tulip set this train of unfortunate events in motion. Sefa had been arrested because of my search for Grisella. I owed it to her to see how she fared.

Sefa was surprised to see me. They had placed her in a cell with a score of other women, all of whom drew veils over their faces when I approached the bars. Sefa and I talked in a corner, as far from curious ears as possible.

“With Danika dead, there was no reason for me to go on living,” she whispered between sobs. “I meant to cut my own throat right after I sent Yanus to the firepots of Hell. I would have done the same for Chevrier and your Grisella, but they are long gone.”

Realizing that I might take exception to the murder of my sister, Sefa lowered her eyes, keened softly, and pummeled her chest with her fist. There was no real comfort I could offer. Instead, I sought to turn her mind to practical matters. I asked if she’d had sufficient food. When she shook her head, I promised I would leave enough piastres with her jailer to purchase dinners for many days. Then I inquired about an attorney. Of course, she had none.

Ottoman justice is quite different from that of Venice. Turkish courts sit uneasily on the crossroads of imperial law, religious teaching, and tribal custom. The forfeit of blood money is the usual penalty for causing bodily injury. Since Sefa has nothing of her own and no family to provide for her, she could end up in prison for a very long time. Still, if Yanus fails to press his claim with the court, she may well be turned loose. I believe that a skilled attorney stands a decent chance of persuading Yanus that he is hardly in a position to call attention to himself or his activities. As I recounted all this to the unhappy woman, she stopped sniffling and a slight trace of hope brightened her face. I told her that my father-in-law and I were willing to provide counsel for her.

“But why would you do this for me?”

Sefa didn’t really understand my explanation, but she did want to show her gratitude in some way. Before I left, she clutched my sleeve through the bars.

“Please. You must be very careful,” she urged. “I’m sure Yanus has figured out that you were the one who told me about Danika’s death.”

“And who am I?” I replied, smiling.

Sefa knew me only as Alessandro the Venetian. She had no idea of my surname, my business, or my place of residence. Even so, when I reminded her that Yanus knew no more, she bit her lip anxiously.

“Yanus has ways and means that you could only dream of,” she said. “Mark my words. If he wants to find you, he will.”

“For what purpose?” I asked. “Yanus is no fool. His best course of action is to forget this incident completely. I will certainly never return to The Red Tulip to remind him.”

Back at the warehouse, I reported this conversation to Yusuf Ali and left the legal arrangements to h
im. So confident that his attorney would prevail, my father-in-law spent the afternoon musing about what could be done with Sefa after she was freed. I did a good afternoon’s work among the bales and, after stopping at the mosque for sunset prayers, set off for home. Without a care in my idiotic skull, I took the short way through a doglegged alley bounded by high walls on both sides. By this time it had grown dark, but I knew this passage like the back of my hand.

A trio of men stood at the entrance, dressed in plain caftans with nothing to set them apart. One faced the wall and had pulled his robe aside as if to make water. The others waited quietly and shuffled aside as I passed. I paid them no heed until I sensed the nearness of someone directly at my back. Running was no good, dear ones. I turned to fight, but they brought me down before I could even reach for my stiletto. A vicious blow left me insensible to the world.

I awoke in a tiny room with metal shutters over the windows and straw heaped in the corner as a crude bed. The only light came from a barred slit in the door. Manacles and chains pinioned me to the wall. After many hours of being nearly eaten alive by bugs and lice, I was removed to a larger room to face my interrogator.

I will not distress you with details of my abuse. Suffice to say, a man can learn much from the questions put to him, even in such extraordinary circumstances. My captors were Russian and their chief goal was to learn where Chevrier and Grisella had got to. They obviously blamed them for the fire at the yali which they believed was set for the purpose of covering up the murder of Count Paninovich.

Apparently, they discovered that the count’s jugular vein had been cut before the yali was set ablaze. I know this because they threatened me with the same fate, even holding a stiletto to my neck while they pummeled me with questions about Grisella’s whereabouts. “An eye for an eye,” they explained.

Count Paninovich must have been very dear to someone with great power. His murder provoked ten times more anger than the theft of whatever Chevrier and Grisella stole from the yali and sold back at great price. Try as I might, I could inveigle no hint of what that might be.

Here is my warning, family. Agents from St. Petersburg have been dogging Chevrier and Grisella around Europe, intent on taking revenge. So far, the pair must have managed to stay one step ahead of their pursuers. But now that the Russians know who I am, that Grisella is my sister, and all about our house on the Campo dei Polli, they will surely send a man to our house. No, I didn’t break and supply that information, but they know.

You must be on the alert. And if Grisella returns, alone or with Chevrier, you must not let her in. Do you understand? It is of prime importance that you provide no refuge. The Russians are out for blood! Harden your tender heart, Annetta. If you shelter our evil sister, you may well condemn everyone in the house to execution.