The Devil in Music (41 page)

"Then
find Orfeo." She clasped his hand in both of hers. "It's
he who stands between us."

Julian
entered the room he shared with MacGregor as quietly as he could, but
even so MacGregor's night capped head popped out from under the
bedclothes. After years of being summoned at all hours to extract
gallstones and deliver babies, he had a great capacity for starting
wide awake at the slightest sound, and falling asleep as soon as the
disturbance was over. "What o'clock is it?"

"Nearly
two."

"What
have you been up to?"

"Walking
in the garden. I ran into the marchesa in the belvedere. As long as
you're awake, I think I'll ring and see if Dipper's returned from the
festival."

He
pulled the bell-rope. MacGregor sat up in bed, saying tartly,
"Heaven forbid a man should have to take off his own clothes at
night."

"Quite
so," Julian agreed.

"What
was the marchesa doing in the belvedere?"

"Not
a great deal."

"Didn't
you want to know why she was there?"

"I
asked. She said it seemed the last place people would be likely to
look for her. She wanted to be alone. Hearing Orfeo sing had
disturbed her."

"You
mean, because she thinks he killed her husband?"

Julian
set his candle on a table and sat down, stretching out his legs
before him. "I think there's more to it than that. She begged
me to find Orfeo, and I don't think it was simply to avenge her
husband's murder. There was a passion behind her request that I
don't understand."

"Sounds
as if she knows more about Orfeo than she's telling."

"Or
feels more about him. But then again, we may be looking at this the
wrong way round. Perhaps she wants Orfeo found and charged with the
murder in order to protect someone else one of Marchese Lodovico's
family, or even herself."

"Or
de la Marque?" MacGregor suggested.

"Yes,"
said Julian after a moment, "or de la Marque."

Dipper
came in. "I'm glad to see you back safe and sound," Julian
said.

"Thankee,
sir. But there was nothing to fret your eyelids about. When it
comes to larking, this here festival can't hold a candle to
Bartholomew Fair or the Westminster Dog Pit."

"Have
you heard about our visitation tonight?" asked MacGregor.
"Orfeo turned up and sang us a ditty in the garden."

"Yes,
sir. Commissario Grimani, he's been in the village rounding up all
the sbirri as ain't too snuffy to stand upright."

Julian
thought it like Dipper to know the Italian equivalent of calling the
police pigs or traps in English. "Did you see Fletcher and St.
Carr in the village tonight?"

"No,
sir. But I wasn't there long. Nina and me, we got separated, and
she went out in a boat with some of the other servants, and I didn't
want her to think I was knocking up a lark with Rosa, so I swam out
to her boat."

"In
this weather?" exclaimed MacGregor. "I know it was a mild
evening, but even so, you'll catch your death of cold. Why didn't
you take a boat?"

"I
thought she'd like this better, sir. H'ltalian gals, they likes a
cove to cut a dash."

"She
won't like it so well when you start snuffling and sneezing,"
MacGregor warned.

"She
took care to see I wouldn't, sir brought me back here and give me a
posset to warm the cockles of me heart "

"I
think," said Julian, "to avoid scandalizing the good
doctor, we had better not hear any more about your cockles." He
wondered, with some exasperation, why Dipper's love affairs were
always so simple, and his own always so complex. "At least if
in spite of all this tender care you should take cold, we still have
the medicine I brought from Milan."

"Nothing
but strong spirits, I expect," said MacGregor.

"I
hope so," said Julian. "That's why I kept it."

There
were footsteps and muffled male voices in the garden behind

the
villa. Julian looked out of the window. "Two soldiers have
taken up sentry duty at the back door."

"What's
the point of that?" said MacGregor. "Orfeo is long gone."

"Unless
he's de la Marque, in which case he may return at any time. In fact,
what would you wager he's just come back, and the soldiers are here
to see that he remains?"

As
if on cue, a male voice was heard singing inside the villa, "Che
invenzione, che invenzione prelibata, bella, bella, betta "

Julian
looked out into the hall. De la Marque appeared at the top of the
main staircase, nearly opposite Julian's room. When he saw Julian,
he stopped singing and exclaimed, "Ah, man vieux! I've just
heard about Orfeo's impromptu serenade! I am desolate to have missed
it! Do you suppose he'll return for an encore?"

"I
have no idea."

De
la Marque beamed at him. "Man cher anglais, have I ever told
you how tremendously I admire you?" He staggered to Julian,
embracing him and kissing him on both cheeks.

Julian
extricated himself and took him by the arm. "Allow me to help
you to your room."

"No,
no." De la Marque put Julian from him. "I'm half seas
over, and there's no telling what madly imprudent thing I might say.
Go to bed, mon tres cher camarade. We'll talk in the morning."

He
reeled off to his room, resuming under his breath, "Che
invenzione prelibata, bella, bella, bella "

MacGregor
shrugged into his old wool dressing-gown and joined Julian at the
door. "He's singing that same song the one Orfeo sang!"

"Yes.
But either he isn't Orfeo or he's not so foxed as he appears.
Because he's singing it in the baritone range."

Next
morning the villa party gathered on the terrace, drinking coffee
before embarking for Sunday mass. De la Marque was the last to
appear. His dark face was a pale, sickly olive, and he winced at the
sunlight. The marchesa was all solicitude, settling him in a chair
out of the sun and sending servants for cushions and strong coffee.
Julian was exasperated. How, after last night, could she make so
much of de la Marque under his nose? Was she merely trying to throw
dust in people's eyes about her feelings for Julian? Or did she
repent of the encouragement she had given him, and was this her way
of putting a damper on his hopes?

Grimani
strode up to de la Marque. "I wish to know where you were at
ten o'clock last night."

"And
good morning to you, Signer Commissario."

"You
refuse to answer?"

"I
should be grateful if you would defer your questions until I can only
see one of you."

"I
have no time to wait upon your convenience. Either you will answer
my questions here and now, or I shall obtain a warrant from the
podesta to commit you to the village gaol until you are more
tractable."

De
la Marque sat slowly back in his chair, his eyes on Grimani's face.
"Very well, Signor Commissario. Ask away."

Zanetti
placed a chair for Grimani opposite de la Marque's, then took a seat
further back, his portable writing-desk open on his lap.

"Where
were you at ten o'clock last night?" Grimani commenced.

"At
the festival."

"I
know you claim to have gone to the festival. But where were you at
precisely ten o'clock?"

"I
really have no idea. My best guess would be that I was out in a
boat."

"For
what purpose?"

De
la Marque's lips curved into a smile. "I ran into a most
charming woman from Milan, who had somehow got separated from her
husband. As she was feeling rather forlorn, I took her out on the
lake to console her. We moored in a hollow in the rocks south of
So-laggio."

"How
long were you there?"

"Perhaps
two hours."

"What
were you doing?"

"Oh,
talking," said de la Marque mockingly.

"About
what?"

"About
the remarkable probity and efficiency of the Milanese police."

Grimani
glared. "You may be under the impression, monsieur, that being
a foreigner, you are not subject to Milanese justice. It may
interest you to know that your countryman, Monsieur Andryane, is now
serving the second year of his life sentence in the prison fortress
of Spielberg for conspiring against the government of
LombardyVenetia."

De
la Marque withdrew his gaze for a moment. "May I ask what I've
done to be threatened with a prison fortress?"

"I
am asking the questions. Where is this woman you say you were with
last night?"

"I
don't know. We parted company on the pier. I assume she rejoined
her husband."

"What
was her name?"

"We
thought it more prudent not to exchange names, Signer Commissario."

"I
see. Did anyone else see you out on the lake with her?"

"I
shouldn't think so. We took care not to be seen."

Julian
glanced at the marchesa, wondering how she felt about this adventure
of de la Marque's. She was listening intently, but without the
slightest appearance of shock or jealousy. Either she did not care
about de la Marque's relations with other women, or she did not
believe his story.

"Of
course," said Grimani, "you realize this gives you no alibi
at all?"

"No
alibi?" De la Marque widened his eyes. "Whatever can you
mean, Signor Commissario? Has there been another murder, and am I
the last to hear of it?"

"Don't
be disingenuous, monsieur. I mean that you can't prove you weren't
singing in the garden last night."

De
la Marque's black eyes gleamed with amusement. "So you think
that I am your elusive nightingale?"

"You
fit the description. You're about the right age, to begin with. How
old are you?"

"Twenty-eight."

"Near
enough. Orfeo claimed to be twenty-one four and a half years ago.
What's more, you read music in fact you have perfect pitch, and I
understand you're writing a book on singing."

"I
scribble at it from time to time." De la Marque spoke easily,
but his eyes never left Grimani's.

Grimani
went on, "You speak English extremely well, according to
Zanetti."

"That's
hardly surprising. I grew up in England."

"But
you are also French, and Maestro Donati thought Orfeo's accent
sounded more French than English."

"Did
he?" de la Marque responded brightly.

Grimani
turned to Donati. "Maestro, does Monsieur de la Marque's voice
remind you of Orfeo's?"

"No,
Signor Commissario," said Donati. "His voice is deeper and
has a different tone."

"Could
a tenor like Orfeo feign a deeper voice?" Grimani pursued.

Donati
looked troubled. "I suppose so."

Grimani's
gaze returned to de la Marque. "Where were you in the first
months of 1821?"

"In
Turin."

"Can
you prove that?"

"I
shouldn't think so."

Grimani
rose. "Monsieur de la Marque, I must ask you not to leave the
neighbourhood until I give you leave. If you do, you will be hunted
down and brought back. One word more: if you are Orfeo and a
Carbonaro, you would do well to confess it before you are exposed.
Your only hope of leniency is to cooperate with the police in
particular by giving us the names of any secret society colleagues of
yours who remain at large. We know there are many Angeli, in
particular, who plotted against the state in '21 and were never
caught."

"Worse
and worse!" laughed de la Marque. "You accuse me of being
a tenor, a murderer, and now a revolutionary! I should like to see
my family's faces at the thought especially my great-aunt Mathilde,
who was lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette, and still powders her
hair and calls her little house in the Faubourg St. Germain le petit
Versailles."