6 - Whispers of Vivaldi (16 page)

“Broken from the outside,” my brother-in-law said, poking at the shards of glass on the wide sill. “Was someone trying to get in?”

“Unlikely. At this point the exterior wall drops sheer to the water. There are other, easier windows to breach on the landward sides.”

“But this is the only set of windows in Maestro Torani’s private office.” Gussie sent me a meaningful look.

“True.” I took up a branched candlestick and bent nearly double to hunt the terrazzo floor. I found the culprit under Torani’s desk: a rock of the sort you find in mountain streams, its sharp contours smoothed by centuries of running water. It fit into my palm as if it had been made for it.

But that wasn’t all. Wrapped around the missal was a picture of some sort, held firmly in place by an overlay of twine. I rose, divested the rock of its wrappings, and tossed it to Gussie.

“What have you there, Tito?” He asked, snatching the stone from the air with one hand.

“An angel—at least a picture of one.”

“Well, I’ll be blistered.” He covered the space between us in two bounds.

“It’s a card from a tarocchi deck.” Indeed, it was the very card that had fallen from Liya’s deck earlier that day—a winged angel pouring water into a wine goblet. I handed it to my brother-in-law.

“How long has it been here, do you think?”

“A storm came through early this evening. It rained quite hard.”

“So it did. It didn’t stop until…” Gussie thought for a moment, still studying the creased card. “Oh, eight o’clock or so.”

I crossed back to the windows. Avoiding the broken glass that glittered like scattered diamonds, I patted my hand along the sill and the floor beneath it. “Dry,” I announced, straightening. “The stone was thrown during the last several hours.”

“Who knew you were coming here?”

“Just Aldo.” I shrugged. “And Liya, of course. I don’t think this card was meant for me to see. No, I think it was meant to send a message about Angeletto taking on the primo uomo role.”

Gussie handed over the card, accompanied by a wry look. “For or against?”

I shook my head. “Only the one who threw the rock could tell you that.”

***

Once we’d settled in to survey the music that filled Maestro Torani’s cabinets, our search moved along faster than I’d expected. We quickly discovered that, while bound and printed scores, fragmentary manuscripts, and libretti appeared to be piled haphazardly, each shelf was actually devoted to one letter of the alphabet and arranged by the composer’s surname.

I’d already cleared the desk of clutter and stained chocolate cups. The only thing that remained was the bust of Minerva. I placed her in the center of the battered mahogany surface. Perhaps she’d imbue us with some of her reputed wisdom. Then Gussie and I surrounded her with all the manuscripts from the “V” shelf. We lit a few more candles, pulled up chairs, and went to work. My brother-in-law sorted out the operas by Valentini, Veracini, Vinci, and the like, while I skimmed through the compositions by Vivaldi. There were many that I knew, more that I didn’t—the maestro of the Pieta had certainly wielded a prolific pen. Vivaldi had the reputation of making music in his head while his hands were playing billiards, carving a joint of beef, or caressing his mistress. He would later set the tunes to paper in a fury of composition. Unfortunately, I found nothing in Maestro Torani’s stock of Vivaldi that remotely resembled the arias and ensembles that made up
The False Duke
.

Gussie had thrown up his hands in frustration and gone to look out upon the moonlit canal, when it struck me all at once: Torani wouldn’t have left Vivaldi’s score sitting in plain sight. In his last letter, the old man had referred to something that brought him shame. He’d asked me to forgive him. I interpreted his words to mean that although he knew Rocatti was not
The False Duke’s
true composer, he was so set on using the opera to reinvigorate the Teatro San Marco that he was going along with Rocatti in presenting one man’s work as another’s. I could follow his flawed line of reasoning. Maestro Vivaldi had enjoyed his time in the sun; now he was dead and gone. Who would be hurt? And who would be the wiser?

To cover this contemptible act of piracy, Torani would have hidden the original Vivaldi manuscript. Or perhaps destroyed it altogether. But if he had kept it…

My gaze darted around the office. It wasn’t a large chamber. The door on one wall, then windows overlooking the water, glass-fronted cabinets covering the two other walls, desk and three chairs in the center. The floor presented a surface of hard, smooth terrazzo. No loose boards to pry up.

I sighed, drumming my fingers on the desk top. Minerva’s enameled eyes stared at me over the piles of scores which had grown to reach her nose. In the candle flame, her blue eyes glowed like lapis lazuli instead of mere paint. “If only she could talk,” I said to Gussie as I gestured toward the statue. “She could tell us if Maestro Torani hid the score in this office.”

“She’s a pretty thing.” Gussie came back to the desk and ran his hand along her crested helmet. “This looks to be gold leaf. I wonder why Torani didn’t sell her when his creditors were at his throat.”

His words jerked me up straight. “Why, indeed?” I asked, my skin suddenly crawling with anticipation.

We fell on the statue in the same breath, prodding, stroking, pulling, twisting.

“It’s hollow,” Gussie cried, rapping his knuckles on Minerva’s relatively flat back. “Hear that?”

I didn’t, but I knew he was correct. He had to be. “Let me see the other end, Gussie.”

He pulled the bust’s helmet into his generous midsection and balanced the rest of her on some bound scores. Immediately I saw that the bottom of Minerva’s square pedestal was covered with a thick, felted pad. It wouldn’t give to my fingers so I unsheathed the stiletto I should have carried with me last night—if I’d had it when Grillo attacked me, we might not be here now. Under my blade, the felt peeled away to reveal a lighter circle within a darker square.

“He’s plugged it.” I grunted, digging the stiletto point into the newer plaster.

“Here, Tito. That’ll take all night.” My brother-in-law grasped Minerva’s helmet in one hand, her pedestal in the other. He moved away from the desk, raised the bust high above his head. Looking as stalwart as the hero Horatius at the bridge, Gussie questioned me with a twitch of his eyebrow.

At my nod, he dashed the statue to the expanse of bare terrazzo with all his might.

Chapter Sixteen

Coughing my way through a haze of plaster dust, I retrieved a tightly rolled sheaf of papers from the litter-strewn floor. I carried it to the candlelit desk and pinned the corners down with spread fingers. The first page displayed the handwritten title followed by the obligatory dedication. Vivaldi’s own hand—I recognized it from the jottings on the aria I’d found in Maestro Torani’s study. Peering closely, I took an involuntary gulp when I read what Venice’s beloved Red Priest had written.

He had entitled this opera
The Noble Peasant
, a much more inflammatory title than
The False Duke
. The sentiment was flagrantly defiant, especially for 1713, the date of the composition. Then, the ruling aristocracy still enjoyed their God-given powers with few challenges. I shook my head—how tremendously the world had changed in my short lifetime. Now the sentiments of revolution were in the very air.

There was more. Instead of a flowery piece of grateful prose dedicating the work to a patron or ruler, Maestro Vivaldi had inscribed it to
All tyrants, degenerate, deceitful, lustful, and depraved. Those whose foul deeds are covered by their cloaks of nobility. Those mediocrities elevated by their happy accidents of birth
—

I had to stop and wipe my brow before following the scathing language as it burned its concluding way to the bottom of the page.

“That’s it? That’s what you were looking for?” I looked up to find Gussie regarding me with wide blue eyes. His jacket and breeches were coated with plaster dust, his ruddy cheeks streaked with gray. I must have looked an equally frightful sight.

“What? Oh, yes, I think so.” I leafed quickly through a few pages, scanning measures here and there. I nodded. Yes, it might carry another title, but this was the original manuscript for
The False Duke
. Besides the matching music, even most of the comments on the singers’ positions and the cues for sound effects were the same as those I recalled from Rocatti’s score. The young Pieta violin master had simply transcribed his master’s opera into his own handwriting, given it a more innocuous title, and meekly dedicated it to “our gracious prince,” the reigning Doge.

I dropped into a chair and propped my chin on my hand. “This is the same opera, all right. And I can see why Vivaldi never had it produced.”

“That’s something I’ve been wondering about.” Gussie moved into the circle of candlelight around the desk. “If this opera is such a marvel, why did Vivaldi hide it away?”

I passed the title page to Gussie. His eyes narrowed and his forehead crinkled as he read.

“You can see what a monstrous slap in the face this opera would be to his benefactors,” I continued. “The Pieta has always been supported by the aristocrats whose bastard daughters are raised there. If the headmaster had seen it…or worse, the board of governors…” I shook my head, scarcely able to imagine the consequences. Instead of becoming one of Venice’s treasures, Maestro Vivaldi might have found himself under the Leads for the rest of his natural life. “You notice the date?”

“Here.” Gussie stabbed the page with a grubby forefinger. “1713.”

“Thirty-one years ago,” I rapped out before Gussie could even begin to do the sum on his fingers. “My birth year. Maestro Vivaldi must have been a young violin teacher at the Pieta then, much like Rocatti is now.”

My brother-in-law nodded thoughtfully.

I continued, “What would once have been roundly condemned now makes
The False Duke
exciting—it’s the story of a master becoming aware of injustice and the power of Reason, and of a servant learning to think of himself as an equal—it’s still revolutionary at its core, but people are primed to take in the message. Especially as it’s presented with plenty of humor.”

“Maestro Vivaldi was ahead of his time, then.” Gussie replaced the title page, smoothed it out, and tented his fingers on the stubbornly curling papers.

“I suppose he must have written it for his own amusement, during his leisure hours, then hidden it away. Perhaps he anticipated a day when the opera could be safely performed before a public audience. A day when freethinking had spread.”

“But, Tito.” Gussie smacked a heavy hand on the opera score. In his simple, direct way, my brother-in-law swept the philosophical cobwebs away and bore straight to the heart of the issue. “How do you suppose Maestro Vivaldi’s opera came into Torani’s possession?” After a slight pause, he added, “And how did Rocatti come by it?”

“Oh, Gussie, I have no idea.” I hung my head. With one hand, I massaged the aching muscles at the back of my neck. With the other, I rubbed the cut across my chest, which now felt warm and tingly. Instead of answers for Gussie, other questions spun round and round in my mind: Why had Signora Passoni been so anxious to see the opera produced? Was she aware of its content, or was she more interested in its composer? If it was the composer who had stirred her to have Franco give me the purse filled with zecchini, whose opera did she believe
The False Duke
to be—Rocatti’s? Or Vivaldi’s?

“Look here, Tito.” Gussie consulted his watch. “It’s nearly two. Can’t I persuade you to come away? We’ve found what we came for. There’s no sense in combing through that score here. Take it home and look at it tomorrow.” Gussie stretched his arms over his head and emitted a mammoth yawn.

The back of my throat itched to follow suit. I was as tired as if I’d sung two four-act operas back-to-back.

“Wait!” Gussie dropped his arms and whirled toward the door. “What’s that?”

I heard it, too. Footsteps slapping down the corridor, making no attempt at stealth.

“Is Aldo still about?” he asked in an urgent whisper.

“That’s not Aldo.” Tensing, I bounded to my feet. “He wears soft-soled boots.”

Gussie handed me my stiletto, forgotten on the desktop, and made fists of his meaty hands.

A tall figure stepped through the doorway. In the dimness beyond the candles’ glow, it took a few tense seconds for his face to become recognizable.

A husky, sardonic voice asked, “Have you two bloodhounds found anything interesting?” It was Messer Grande.

I felt a relieved breath cool my lips, then immediately wondered if the chief constable’s presence might be a fresh problem instead of a reprieve. “Not much,” I replied carefully. “We’ve made more of a mess than anything. We managed to knock over Maestro Torani’s bust of Minerva. So clumsy…”

Feigning nonchalance as I rattled on, I used the Vivaldi score to sweep debris from the desktop, rolled it back into a sheaf, and tucked it into a cabinet. I preferred to keep our discovery to myself until I’d had a chance to chew over it more thoroughly.

Andrea had traded his red robe of office for a roomy black cloak, but his aspect was nonetheless impressive. In his role as Messer Grande, Andrea always managed to be enormously present no matter what his garb or what his errand. Gussie and I stared as he sauntered around the office as comfortably as if he were making the rounds at his favorite coffee house.

“Did Aldo let you in?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I let myself in.” His boots crunched on the mixed debris of broken plaster and shattered glass. “Would it surprise you to know that my headquarters contains a little room with hundreds of hooks—six banks of hooks, one for each of Venice’s six
sestieri
? And that on each hook hangs the key to an important building?”

I sat down, crossed my arms, and tipped back in my chair. “It wouldn’t surprise me a bit.”

With a long, drawn-out “Hmmm,” Andrea took up a three-branched candelabrum. First, he inspected the broken window pane, removing his glove and patting the sill and floor as I had done. Then he palmed the missile stone that Gussie had left on the sill, nodding judiciously.

While the constable was thus engaged, Gussie sidled toward the cabinet where I’d placed the rolled up score.

No
, I thought desperately,
get away from there
,
Gussie
. Didn’t he realize that Andrea had eyes in the back of his head, and probably on both sides, too?

With an air of innocence that wouldn’t fool an infant, my brother-in-law halted his progress directly in front of Maestro Vivaldi’s score. All I could do was avert my gaze and attempt to distract Andrea by pulling the tarot card out of my pocket. “This was wrapped around that stone with a length of twine.”

Andrea took the card and dropped into the office’s third chair. He examined both sides of the pasteboard rectangle, then shrugged. “Are we to assume that this angel represents the Teatro San Marco’s latest primo uomo?”

“Who else besides Angeletto?” I asked.

“Who else, indeed?” Andrea sent me an enigmatic smile. “I suppose the stone could have been thrown by one of Emiliano’s partisans in a manic frenzy—shocking, the lengths these opera lovers will go to. Do you realize an enterprising shopkeeper is selling ladies garters with badges of his likeness attached? As if the bearer of that likeness would be interested in what’s under a lady’s skirt!” He chuckled, but stopped abruptly when he noticed my scowl. “
Scuse
, Tito. I forget…”

He cleared his throat and continued in a solemn tone, “It could have been a gondolier on his way home, a roving gang of students…or closer to home, Angeletto’s rival at this very theater could have let his resentment boil over.”

“Majorano?” Tossing a rock through a window seemed like a petty response for a star performer.

“It’s possible,” Messer Grande declared. “The hot-headed boy reserves his noble sentiments for the stage, does he not?”

“That is true.” I leaned forward, extending my hand palm-up for the card.

Smiling once more, Andrea slipped the card beneath his black cloak. “Enough about this trifle, I’ve tracked you down to deliver good news. I found our man Grillo, and it was as you reported in every respect. He admitted entering the Ca’Passoni to keep an assignation with Beatrice. Her maid was waiting to admit him through the garden gate—a hole-and-corner affair of just the type a young miss finds enthralling. Grillo even admitted fighting with you. He wore the injury to his brow with pride—claims to have given better than he got.”

“I daresay he’s right about that.” My chest was throbbing again, and the uncomfortable warmth had climbed to my cheeks. They felt like they were roasting before a blazing cook stove.

“Where did you find Signor Grillo?” Gussie spoke up for the first time.

“At his favorite brothel. According to the proprietor, who happens to be a keen observer of human foibles as well as everything else, Grillo arrived soaking wet around the time that Passoni’s footman discovered Maestro Torani’s body in the card room. Grillo had stopped there ever since.” Andrea threw one leg across the other and dug under his cloak. He looked as if he might take snuff, but his hand came away empty. He shook his head and continued, “Since this establishment is some distance away, actually on the other side of the Arsenale, we can rule Grillo out as the murderer.”

“What about Tito?” Gussie put in quickly.

Andrea locked his gaze on mine. “Tito lacks the willful selfishness of a murderer—the cold heart that puts one’s own needs above all else.”

“Even to reach the pinnacle of an operatic career?” I asked quietly. “To make a last grab at the only glory left to me?”

“Even that,” he replied. “I never doubted your story of how you came to be bloodied, but now I have the proof to convince…others. Before Grillo set off for Terra Firma, I had him sign a statement admitting his presence at the Ca’Passoni and his fight with you.”

“He’s truly gone?” I asked, recalling how neatly he’d tricked me. “Girolamo Grillo is as much a creature of Venice as a canal rat—I’m surprised he would consent to leave.”

“Especially at Carnival time,” Gussie added, “with so many foreigners ripe for the plucking.”

“I gave him a choice.” Andrea rose, his gaze straying to Gussie’s right, then his left. “It was either voluntary exile or a stint under the Leads for swindling fools out of their money with that deceitful oracle of his. Grillo took but a moment to declare his preference. I personally escorted him to the San Giobbe quay and watched him sail away.”

“What was he wearing?”

“Wearing?” Messer Grande transferred his attention to me with a puzzled look. “He’d outfitted himself in a suit of some dark stuff that he’d sent to his lodgings for.”

“And his cloak?”

“Also dark.”

“Not bright green with yellow lining?”

“No. Why?” A muscle near his mouth twitched. For once I was a step ahead of the crafty chief constable.

“When he leapt through the window, Grillo left a cloak of this description in the card room. As everyone poured in after Torani’s murder, I noticed that the cloak had disappeared.”

“Perhaps the young footman who discovered Torani’s body took it.” That was Gussie.

We both sent the Englishman withering glances.

“No, makes no sense.” Andrea tapped the fingers of one hand on the back of the other. His impressions came out with rapid-fire precision. “Either Maestro Torani’s murderer took the cloak—perhaps to later implicate Grillo in some manner—or to erase his presence and shift blame to you,” he pointed toward me. “But in either case, the killer would have been watching and seen Grillo leave after you fought.” Now he raised the finger like a schoolmaster underscoring a particularly salient point. “Or perhaps a golden demoiselle besotted with the whoring scapegrace took the cloak to protect Grillo?”

“Eh?” Gussie cocked his head, obviously not following.

“Beatrice,” I advised him.

“Oh, of course. Right you are, Tito.”

“Now, my fine friend…” Andrea took several paces toward Gussie. “The hour is late and my pillow beckons, but I find myself intolerably curious about that roll of paper you’ve been so intent on hiding.”

Gussie’s jaw dropped open. I could only shrug.

Messer Grande motioned Gussie away from the cabinet with the swipe of a forefinger and the faintest of smiles.

“Ah…” The chief constable let out his breath in satisfaction as he picked up the thick roll. He placed it on the desk where the candles’ rays were strongest, and read the title page with keen interest. We exchanged a freighted glance.