4 - The Iron Tongue of Midnight Read online

  “Is this someone’s poor idea of a joke?” asked Alphonso, gazing at the clock in bewilderment.

  “I pray that it is,” I replied.

  The valet threw me a puzzled look.

  “Consider the alternative.” I jerked my chin toward the patch of carpet where the Russian had been dumped. A cold queasiness rippled through my empty stomach.

  “Dio mio,” Alphonso exclaimed, quickly making the sign of the cross.

  “Has your master risen?” Gussie asked.

  The elderly man shook his head. “No one is up and about besides the servants.”

  “Get him,” Gussie ordered. “We’ll wake the others.”

  We pounded on doors, Gussie taking the east side of the corridor and I the west.

  In an eerie encore of the scene from the night Carmela’s screams had awakened us, the villa’s inhabitants poured from their rooms with candles held aloft. Half-clothed or shrugging into dressing gowns, they demanded to be told what was going on, some in hushed whispers, some in rampant bluster.

  “The clock has stopped,” I cried.

  Emilio tied the sash of his wrinkled banyan with a peevish shrug. “Is that any reason to make such a racket? I’d hoped to catch a few winks before that bear comes through to open the shutters.”

  “See for yourself,” I replied. “The clock reads midnight and the pendulum is missing.”

  Looks of dismay were traded around as Alphonso returned with a strained-looking Vincenzo. While the master of the villa examined the clock, Romeo realized that our company was one member short. “Where is Carmela?” he loudly demanded.

  Our collective attention immediately shifted to the soprano’s closed door.

  Romeo took two long steps and flattened his palm against the stout oak. Over his resounding smacks, he called, “Carmela, carissima, open up.”

  The door remained shut.

  “Go in,” someone urged.

  Romeo put his hand to the knob, then reddened. “Perhaps I shouldn’t. She might be in her bath… or indisposed.”

  “A fine time for delicacy,” Mario Gecco said with a laugh. “She’s given you a noisy romp in her bed practically every night we’ve been here.”

  His brother Lucca poked him in the ribs, and Grisella started to giggle. The others joined in, grateful for some small release from the growing tension.

  “This is ridiculous,” Octavia exclaimed, pushing her sleeves up as she strode forward. “Signora Costa isn’t in her bath. The footmen haven’t brought the water or stirred up the fires. Stand aside.”

  She threw the door open and passed through. Romeo stepped in behind her, and I pushed Emilio aside to be next. The others followed or congregated in the doorway.

  “She’s not here,” Octavia said shakily.

  “We need more light,” cried Romeo as he opened windows and threw back the shutters. The early morning sun filtering through the mist bathed the furniture and bed hangings in an opalescent glow, but there was still no Carmela.

  I could detect no overt signs of struggle. The pier-glass hanging between the windows, as well as all the other smaller mirrors, was unbroken. A slender brass candlestick sat unmolested on a light tripod table that a hearty sneeze could have overturned. And not one jar on the crowded dressing table had spilled its contents.

  It also appeared that the soprano had left the room before retiring for the night. Her counterpane was drawn up tightly under the bolster at the bed’s carved headboard. Neatly draped across it lay her ruffled nightshift. The muslin gaily sprigged with yellow rosebuds lent a personal touch to the austere four-poster.

  Even as my eyes swept the contents of Carmela’s chamber, I took careful note of my companions’ reactions. Romeo was beside himself. His cheeks shone bright red, and he had lost his nightcap so that his short brown hair stood on end like a dome of needles. He was gripping Vincenzo’s arm, demanding that a search party be organized at once.

  Jean-Louis’ emotions occupied the opposite end of the scale. The Frenchman slouched against the doorjamb, shoeless but clad in stockings, breeches, and a full-sleeved shirt of expensive linen. Like the other men who had been waiting on their shaving water, his chin was dark with stubble. He was rubbing a thumb back and forth through his whiskers and observing the proceedings in a detached manner, as though solving a riddle or adding a column of figures in his head. Grisella’s huge eyes peered around his shoulder. Curious, but not frightened, I thought.

  My gaze slid to Emilio, who was unsuccessfully attempting to calm Romeo. The castrato seemed more worried over his roommate’s distress than Carmela’s disappearance. The Gecco brothers had pasted grim expressions on their faces, but as they whispered between themselves, I nevertheless formed the impression that they were speculating on how long breakfast would be delayed.

  As usual, Karl held himself aloof from his fellow musicians. Under his riotously patterned banyan and nightcap, the composer was pale and trembling. Octavia hovered at a discreet distance, casting glances that seemed to confer a steadying influence. Just once, she reached out so that her fingertips barely brushed his shoulder; an inscrutable quaver passed over Karl’s thin face.

  Vincenzo occupied the center of the room. A heavy frown creased his brow and he was staring at the floor. Just as I concluded that he lacked the will to confront this new crisis, Vincenzo raised his chin, dusted his palms, and briskly assured Romeo that Carmela would be found. Then he called to Alphonso in the corridor, “Are all the other servants downstairs?”

  “Yes, Signore.”

  “Right then, we must proceed in a logical fashion. We’ll split our forces and search every—”

  Before Vincenzo could finish, the sounds of running feet sounded in the corridor. Giovanni and another footman burst into the room, terror on their faces. “Ernesto says you must come, Signore! Right away!”

  “What is it?” Octavia and Vincenzo cried in tandem.

  Giovanni shook his head wildly. “Something in the cantina. Ernesto wouldn’t let us go down. He sent us to fetch you.”

  Vincenzo rushed for the stairs, motioning the footmen to accompany him. To everyone else, he threw over his shoulder, “Stay up here, all of you. Go to your rooms.”

  “I’ll be damned,” said Romeo and broke into a sprint.

  The rest of us followed like a herd of startled sheep—down the stairwell so low its ceiling brushed the top of my head, across an uncarpeted hallway, and into another tight stairwell. A right turn, and a left, and then a blast of warm air met my face as we entered the kitchen. Copper pots bubbled on a hearth set before a huge fireplace, and the long worktable was covered with stoneware bowls, heaps of vegetables, the skinned carcasses of several rabbits.

  Across the room, a brick arch framed Nita and the two young maids. The girls were gabbling in whispers and twisting their aprons, one with tears running down her face. “Stop your foolishness, Bettina,” Nita was saying. “I know no more than you do, so it’s no good going on with your questions.” The nervous trio scurried back at the sight of their master and his motley entourage.

  Beyond the arch, a passageway with a short flight of steps led down to the cantina. After a heartbeat of hesitation, Vincenzo plunged ahead. In my haste to keep up, I tripped over the hem of my dressing gown and tumbled into Emilio.

  He shoved me back on balance with a rough hand. “You don’t always have to be first, Amato. We’ll all see soon enough.”

  See we did, and it was a sight I won’t soon forget. Carmela lay half-submerged in the stomping vat, her shoulders propped against the far rim and her head lolling to one side. Long tendrils of her unbound hair floated on the surface of the grape slurry, and the discolored fabric of her skirt billowed in violet hillocks. By virtue of a trio of bows that decorated her sleeves, I recognized the dress as one of her loose morning gowns.

 
The juice had stained the soprano’s face with livid purple blotches so that I didn’t at first notice the dark, reddened pulp where her hairline met her forehead. Had a bash on the head felled her? Her mouth was agape in a circle of surprise, and her eyes seemed frozen in the desperate gaze of a drowning woman.

  I looked away, sickened, but an urgent memory forced me to look right back. Yes, they were still there: a beautiful pearl gleamed at each ear.

  “Get her out!” Vincenzo ordered. “You, Giovanni. And you, Adamo.” The footmen shuffled toward the vat. Neither seemed to want to be the first to touch the corpse.

  Ernesto stepped over the rim with a look that clearly asked, Must I do everything myself? The footmen reluctantly followed, staining their white stockings as dark as their blue livery. After much slipping and sliding, the three of them lifted Carmela from her ghastly bath and laid her on the flagstoned floor.

  Sobbing unabashedly, Romeo bent on one knee and tried to wipe his lover’s face clean with the hem of his nightshirt. I’d never seen the big fellow so moved. The other musicians gathered close behind him, frightened, astonished, whispering among themselves. I noted that Octavia had the presence of mind to test the door to the outside ramp. It was locked from the inside.

  Meanwhile, Ernesto had returned to the brick platform that supported the stomping vat. Bending at a sharp angle, he plunged his arm into the liquid mixture and raked it back and forth. “Ah,” he said, “I thought my foot slipped on something that shouldn’t be in a wine vat.”

  He brought up the clock pendulum and held it aloft. In the flickering candlelight, the horrified company gazed at the juice sluicing off the brass disk and hitting the floor in noisy plops.

  Giovanni had noticed something else. “Scusi, Signore,” he said to Vincenzo. “But what is that?” The footman pointed to a chink in the bricks at the foot of the vat. A paper folded into quarters and splotched with purple stood up from the crack.

  Vincenzo bent to retrieve the paper, carefully peeled the corners back, and studied it for a long moment. I was close enough to see some sort of message written there, not formed in a running hand, but in the blocky letters of a child or the barely educated.

  Vincenzo looked up and gazed at us in uneasy amazement. In a quiet, but forceful voice, he ordered, “Get dressed. We’ll gather in the salon in half an hour.”

  ***

  “I must speak with you. Meet me in the cantina at midnight.”

  Vincenzo’s ominous tones filled the salon as he read the missive found by the stomping vat. Then, he sliced the paper through the air like a battle flag. “Someone connected with the villa lured Carmela to her death with this note, and I mean to find out who. Captain Forti may hunt boar until Judgment Day, but that doesn’t force me to shelter a murderer on my land. I’ll deliver the guilty culprit to justice myself.”

  If Vincenzo’s response to the Russian’s murder had been a bit tepid, the discovery of Carmela’s body had raised his indignation to a white-hot heat. This mild man who tended to avoid conflict at all costs seemed personally affronted that a killer’s violent passion had once again invaded his well-ordered estate. In our own way, each of us was similarly affected. For me, it was the difference between tripping over the body of a stranger and coming face to face with the gruesome death of someone you’ve come to know and admire.

  Nita had served coffee. It was an excellent brew, but the ten of us gathered under Vincenzo’s gimlet stare sipped at our cups with little enthusiasm.

  As we watched from a semi-circle of sofas and chairs, Vincenzo paced before the unlit fireplace. He said, “Ernesto has told me that he rose before sunrise. After seeing to a few duties connected with the harvest, he entered the front door of the villa at a quarter past seven. Instead of immediately opening the shutters in his usual ritual, he went down to inspect the cantina.”

  Vincenzo paused and rocked back on his heels. “We know what Ernesto found. What I want to learn is who last saw Carmela alive.”

  All eyes turned toward Romeo. The basso was the only one among us who had not dressed. He made a pitiful figure as he slumped in his chair with his dressing gown hanging open and his nightshirt streaked with purple and red.

  “Carmela and I came up together last night,” he said hoarsely. “Around ten o’clock. We passed a few words and then said goodnight at her door.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes, the clock was striking ten.”

  “I mean to say, are you certain that you stopped at her door?”

  Romeo eyed Vincenzo coldly. “Absolutely certain. Carmela insisted. She was feeling tired and meant to go straight to bed. She was going to call a maid to unlace her gown. So you see, I wasn’t the last person in the villa to see her alive. You had better talk to the maids.”

  “I intend to,” Vincenzo replied. “Nita is gathering the indoor servants downstairs, and Ernesto is rounding up everyone from around the estate. All will be questioned in due time.” He surveyed our group with a lifted brow. “Now, did anyone else see Carmela after ten o’clock?”

  “Wait,” Romeo cried. “Where is Carmela now?”

  “I had her remains taken to the ice house,” Vincenzo replied gently. “Ernesto’s wife will bathe her and dispose of her filthy garments. Before she’s wrapped in her winding sheet, she must be examined more thoroughly than we were able to in the cantina.”

  Romeo sprang up. “I must protest. I won’t have you pawing all over her.”

  “Simmer down, young man. I don’t propose to examine her myself. In the absence of the official constable, I sent Alphonso to summon Mayor Bartoli. I’ve also requested that he bring back Doctor Gennari. It appears the unfortunate lady was struck with the pendulum, but I want to make certain there are no other wounds.”

  Gussie and I traded glances. In the privacy of our room, we had engaged in a heated debate over whether to reveal the true cause of the Russian’s death. While it pained my usually forthright brother-in-law to remain silent, we finally agreed that Captain Forti was the only one we should tell. At this point, I trusted no one besides Gussie. The feeling was mutual.

  Romeo sank back into his chair and seemed to drift into his private grief. As no one volunteered that they’d had contact with Carmela after Romeo left her at her door, Vincenzo demanded that everyone account for their whereabouts at the stroke of midnight.

  Jean-Louis was the first to assert that he’d been in bed with his wife, fast asleep. Grisella agreed with a silent nod. As might be expected, we all made a similar report.

  I thought Vincenzo’s gaze hardened as Karl described drowsing over a pile of scores he was copying. The composer looked white and tense, but he stuck fast to his tale, and Vincenzo didn’t challenge it openly. Instead, he announced his intention to descend to the servants’ dining room off the kitchen.

  Octavia stopped him with a high-pitched clearing of her throat. “Vincenzo, dear, I certainly hope this unfortunate business isn’t going to interfere with my concert.”

  “Your concert?” Vincenzo repeated with a look of outright disbelief.

  Karl’s deep-set eyes were blazing like coals. “Octavia, you can’t mean to go ahead with the concert after what happened to Carmela.”

  Octavia twisted uncomfortably. “Please don’t think me harsh, but really, canceling my concert can’t possibly help poor Signora Costa. Why not proceed as planned?”

  “My dear, I should think all plans concerning the concert and even the opera itself are at a standstill for the present,” Vincenzo said quietly.

  “Impossible!” Octavia started from her seat and took a few running steps toward her husband. “The theater has been booked and the opera must be played.”

  “By all means,” a new voice chimed in. Jean-Louis left Grisella and strode to Octavia’s side. “Signora Dolfini is absolutely correct. Contracts are in force for
all of us. If we hadn’t come to Italy, my wife could have had a lucrative run in Paris. This neighborhood concert is of little importance to us one way or the other, but the production of Il Gran Tamerlano is a different matter. The opera must go on or…” He finished with a very Gallic shrug.

  “Or what?” Vincenzo asked.

  “I believe you have some excellent lawyers in Venice,” the Frenchman replied, locking gazes with his host.

  “You would bring suit against us?”

  Jean-Louis nodded solemnly. “I must look out for my wife’s interests.”

  Karl had been listening carefully, chewing at a thumb nail. He asked, “Without Carmela, how can we go on with rehearsals? Who will sing the part of Irene?”

  Octavia hazarded a small smile. “Since that terrible scene in the cantina, I’ve thought of nothing else. One soprano has been cruelly taken from us, and of course, nothing must be spared to find her killer. My husband and the authorities will see to that, I have no doubt. But meanwhile, someone must fill Signora Costa’s shoes…” Here she paused to strike a pose with one arm held aloft in a dramatic gesture. “Fortunately, a trained soprano stands before you.”

  I thought Karl’s eyes might pop from his head. A strange choking noise between a growl and a cough issued from his throat. Finally he managed to spit out, “You’re mad. Stark staring mad.”

  “What?” shrieked Octavia. “Really, Karl, you go too far. I may be an amateur, but my voice can be counted as first-rate. Maestro Vivaldi once heard me at a musical evening and couldn’t stop talking about my performance.”

  Emilio sat up tall, curiosity piqued. “What did the great maestro say?”

  “The red priest said he’d never heard a voice to equal mine. He seemed quite overcome,” Octavia answered, smiling again.

  Gussie leaned toward me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. He whispered, “Maestro Vivaldi must have been commenting on the volume.”

  Suppressing a smile, I put a finger to my lips. I’d been watching a struggle play out on Karl’s face: the inherent honesty of the artist vied with the subterfuge forced on vassals of all sorts. The artist won out.