The Devil in Music (13 page)

Julian
arrived in Milan with just time enough to change into evening
clothes, dine, and reach La Scala before the curtain rose. He sat in
the pit, which was mainly a haunt of the cinadini, Milan's merchant
class. In Florence or Naples he would have had introductions to
aristocratic boxes, but here he was practically a stranger. He knew
he must set about improving his acquaintance with the Milanese
nobility, whose boxes would be the best places to pick up gossip
about the Malvezzis. But tonight he could not resist sitting far
enough from the noise in the boxes to hear the opera.

It
was L'ltaliana in Algeri, Rossini's whimsical romance about an
intrepid Italian girl captured by Turks. If Julian had not already
known the plot, he would have found it impossible to follow, since
the audience around him went on taking seats and chattering
throughout the opening scene. He gazed his fill at the magnificent
scenery and costumes, then scanned the boxes above. But his eyes
were dazzled by the light from the stage, and at first he could make
out only hollow shapes, like empty eye sockets, with here and there a
twinkling candle to illumine a game of cards.

A
hush fell on the audience as the tenor stepped out to sing To sigh
for a beautiful woman. The theatre had been fortunate enough to
secure the great Rubini for this role. He stood with his bullish
head thrown back and his hand clapped over his heart in what, for
him, passed for acting. But his voice was sweet and flexible, his
range extraordinary. He excelled at fioriture, the trills and other
vocal embellishments improvised by singers. Indeed, he indulged in
them to excess, or so Julian thought. He found himself mentally
excising some and rearranging others.

When
the aria was over, there was mad applause, screaming, stamping of
feet, and beating of canes on the floor. Julian's thoughts went to
Orfeo, whom Lodovico Malvezzi had thought to launch in this same
theatre, perhaps even in this same role. He would never know now
what it was to be the object of a Milanese audience's adoration or
the butt of their derision, if his efforts failed.

During
the duet that followed, Julian noticed the spectators around him
staring and pointing up at the boxes toward the left. His eyes had
adjusted to the dimness, and he could now see figures in the boxes:
two ladies or a lady and gentleman seated at the front, with more
shadowy forms sitting or moving about behind them. But one box in
the fashionable second tier had its curtains closed, screening its
occupants from view.

"Pardon
me, signori," said Julian in the Milanese dialect to the
middle-aged couple seated on the bench beside him, "whose box is
that?"

The
couple exchanged glances. They looked like prosperous tradespeople,
instinctively friendly, yet wary of a foreigner who, by his clothes
and manner, seemed to belong up in the boxes with the nobility. At
last the husband said, with the aloof courtesy of a Milanese
uncertain of his bearings, "That's Marchesa Malvezzi's box,
signer."

"Lodovico
Malvezzi's widow?" said Julian, as off-handedly as he could.

"Yes,
signer."

The
tradesman's wife could not resist adding, "She's been here every
night since the news came out about the poor marchese's murder."

"And
why shouldn't she come to the opera if she likes?" demanded a
woman from the bench behind them. "Holy Virgin! She's been
widowed nearly five years!"

"She's
kept the curtains of her box closed since she learned of the murder,"
the tradesman reminded his wife. "So it isn't as if she'd
flaunted herself in public, for everyone to see."

"It's
still not right," his wife insisted. "She ought to show
more respect for her husband's memory. He was a great man, and he
was murdered in cold blood by that English singer."

"What
can you expect of the English?" broke in another man, throwing
up his hands. "They don't believe in God, you know. They're
all Freemasons."

The
trade man wife ignored him. "So what I say is, she should be at
home praying for her husband's soul, not enjoying herself here."

"She's
had masses enough said for his soul," declared the strident
woman behind her. "She even built him a great tomb out of her
own money and him old enough to be her father!"

"Her
own money!" scoffed the tradesman's wife. "She hasn't a
sol do of her own. Everything she has, the marchese left her in his
will. That very opera box she's sitting in now that was his."

Their
argument was so loud it annoyed even an audience used to

noisy
distractions. Their nearest neighbours hissed at them. The Austrian
soldiers scattered through the pit looked around at them ominously.
Julian interposed one last question. "What else did he leave
her?"

The
tradesman blinked in mild surprise at his ignorance. "Why, the
villa, signer. The one where he was murdered."

Julian
spent the next few days gathering news about the investigation. It
was not difficult: at the afternoon parade of carriages on the Corso,
at the opera in the evening, and in all the cafes, the murder was on
everyone's lips. Julian was thankful that the Milanese dialect had
come back to him so readily. It was the language of everyone in
Milan from duchesses to street vendors, and foreigners who spoke only
the elegant Italian of Dante missed a great deal.

Nothing
new had come to light about Orfeo. The police were looking high and
low for Lucia Landi and Tonio Farese, but so far the search had been
in vain. The Director-General of Police had just appointed Alfonso
Grimani, an ambitious young commissa rio to head the renewed
investigation. Julian was surprised that an Italian rather than an
Austrian should be entrusted with such an important, politically
delicate case. Grimani must be both a first-rate investigator and a
man of staunch and proven loyalty to the government. The stakes
would be high for him: an assignment like this could make or break
his career.

Julian
soon began running into acquaintances from other parts of Italy, who
had come to Milan for the autumn season at La Scala and other
diversions. They procured him introductions to the Milanese
aristocracy, who were curious to meet the famous man of fashion.
English dandies were not very well understood here: to be passionate
about grooming and dispassionate about love was inexplicable to an
Italian. But many young gentlemen seemed to pride themselves on
following in Julian's footsteps, although their long hair and
fantastically looped cravats would have astonished St. James's
Street.

When
it was discovered that Julian could not only dress but sit a horse,
flirt, play cards, and talk intelligently about music, his success in
Milanese society was assured. At the opera, he soon had the entree
to half a dozen patrician boxes. Each box held about ten guests, but
they changed constantly in the course of the evening. The etiquette
was inflexible: whenever a new visitor arrived, the one who had been
longest in the box must take his leave, whereupon everybody else
moved up one seat. In this way, each guest eventually reached the
front of the box, where the hostess sat with her husband, a woman
friend, or, most often, her recognized lover.

For
Julian, the advantage of all this shifting of seats was that he met
so many people, most of whom had known Lodovico Malvezzi and were
well acquainted with his family. He learned that Lodovico's two
relatives now in Milan were his widow, Marchesa Beatrice, and his
younger brother, Conte Carlo, who had come from Parma on learning
that his brother's death was murder. He was now acting as head of
the family in the absence of Lodovico's son and heir, Marchese
Ri-naldo. Rinaldo was away on a journey, and it was not known if he
had heard yet about his father's murder. "Hasn't anyone written
to him?" Julian asked.

"Who
knows where he is?" shrugged one of the would-be dandies.

"Poor
Rinaldo!" sighed a pretty contessa. "He's always away
travelling in Austria or Russia or some awful place. As soon as he
returns, he's off again."

"It's
the pain in his head that makes him restless," the young dandy
said knowingly.

"What
pain in his head?" cried an elderly duchessa.

"Why,
the one that comes from wearing horns for so long, dearest Aunt."

Loud
laughter greeted this sally. But the pretty contessa shook her head
seriously. "It isn't good for his children, being dragged all
over Europe. He ought to leave them here. Beatrice would see that
they were well looked after, even if they aren't her own flesh and
blood."

They
all looked toward the Malvezzi box, where the curtains remained
closed. The old duchessa smiled cannily. "It isn't his
stepmother he's worried about."

"For
the love of Heaven, Aunt," said the would-be dandy, "you
can't mean he thinks Francesca would swoop down and carry the
children off? I don't believe she's given them a thought these six
years."

"You
don't know anything about it," retorted the duchessa. "Before
Lodovico died, she came from Venice with Valeriano and stayed in a
villa just across the lake from Lodovico's. Well, why would she have
done that, if not to persuade him to let her visit the children? And
after he died, she went to Rinaldo and begged for at least a glimpse
of them. I would have thought he'd relent after all, keeping the
children from her was Lodovico's idea, not his. But even from beyond
the grave, Lodovico rules him. He turned Francesca away practically
had the servants throw her out! And now he doesn't dare let the
children out of his sight, for fear she'll get at them."

A
newcomer arrived in the box, reshuffling the guests. When they had
all changed seats, Julian remarked, "Marchese Rinaldo must have
been greatly shocked by his father's death."

"I
expect he was like a little dog that had lost its master,"
laughed the would-be dandy. "But none of us saw him. He was
off chasing Beatrice around Piedmont."

"Chasing
her?" Julian lifted his brows. "Was she so difficult to
catch?"

"She's
impossible to catch!" the dandy lamented. "All Milan
knows I've tried!"

"Don't
pay any mind to him, Signor Kestrel," cut in the duchessa.
"Beatrice was in Turin when the revolt broke out, and she
thought it best to leave. And I don't know how it happened, but
somehow she was lost on the roads, and Rinaldo went looking for her,
and they were both missing for days."

Missing
for days, thought Julian. Could people of such exalted rank
disappear without a trace? Because if they could, then it seemed
that neither Lodovico's wife nor his son had an alibi for his murder.

On
his third morning in Milan, Julian heard of a new wrinkle in the
murder enquiry. He had been pondering how to offer his services to
the Malvezzi family now he saw an opportunity. He wrote a letter to
Lodovico's brother, Conte Carlo:

Bella
Venezia Inn 27 September 1825 Signor Conte,

I
hope you'll forgive this abrupt approach from a stranger and impute
my boldness, not to impertinence, but to an excess of good
intentions. I considered asking a mutual acquaintance to introduce
us, but as I wished to broach a delicate matter to you, I thought it
more discreet to write.

First
I should like to offer my sincerest condolences on the death of your
brother. I had the honour to meet him when I last visited Milan, and
found him generous and kind to a stranger who shared in some slight
measure his remarkable knowledge and love of music. I was on my way
to Italy when the manner of his death came to light, and since
arriving in Milan, I've heard you're proposing to engage the Bow
Street Runners to search for the singer known as Orfeo in England. I
have worked with the Runners in solving several murders, and if I can
be of assistance in providing information about them, or in any other
capacity, I hope you won't hesitate to call on me. I should be very
glad to be of service to you and to the investigation.

Believe
me, Signor Conte, your obedient servant,

Julian
Kestrel

He
gave the letter to one of the inn servants to deliver to Casa
Malvezzi, the family's ancient palace in the Contrada delle
Meraviglie. Although the palace presumably belonged to Rinaldo,
Beatrice lived there, and Carlo was staying there during his sojourn
in Milan. The palace was only a short walk from Julian's inn, and he
had strolled by it several times, surveying its imposing Baroque
facade and wondering what went on behind it.

Once
the letter was gone from his hands, and the die was cast, he felt a
need to take his mind off the murder. Surely he had earned a day of
sightseeing, after all his researches. So he went to the Brera
Academy, with its superb collection of paintings and frescoes. He
strolled in the public garden, where Napoleon had built an immense
arena that was still used for chariot races or filled with water for
mock naval battles. And because this was a rare sunny day, in a city
nearly as famed for its fogs as London, he climbed the five hundred
and twenty steps to the roof of the cathedral, where he stood amid
lofty white-marble spires as delicate as filigree, and looked out
across the red-tiled roofs of Milan to the fields, farms, and rivers
of the Lombard plain, and beyond to the dreamlike, snow-covered Alps.