4 - The Iron Tongue of Midnight Read online

  “I can’t sort this out with a pack of music makers running all over the house. I’ll thank you to return to your room and stay there.” Our host sent a dark look around the company. Vincenzo recognized what Carmela apparently hadn’t: there was no reason why the killer wasn’t one of our own.

  “All of you,” he continued, “shut yourselves in and leave your chambers on no account. I must send for the constable. He will want to question everyone.”

  There was a brief moment of absolute stillness.

  Emilio was the first to break it. “You do us a disservice, Signore, treating us like common criminals. It’s positively offensive.”

  The rest of the company leapt in at once, defending themselves loudly, stridently, shrilly. Everyone except Jean-Louis, that is. In a tone as icy and sharp as an alpine peak, he raised his voice and said, “Signor Dolfini is right. An organized investigation must commence. We can help clear ourselves of suspicion by obeying his orders.”

  As Vincenzo bowed in the Frenchman’s direction, Gussie and I nodded at each other and headed for our room. With lingering glances divided between the corpse and the silent clock, the others slowly followed our lead. I closed the door of our chamber on a last glimpse of Karl and Octavia in deep, whispered conversation.

  ***

  Once Gussie had every candle and lamp in our room aflame, he threw himself in a chair and exhaled through pursed lips. “It’s like a bad dream. We were expecting a few quiet weeks in the countryside, and now we’re faced with a murder.”

  “We do seem to have a knack for finding trouble of this sort.” I crossed to the window, opened it, and unlatched the shutter. The two halves swung apart and hit the side of the building with a thud.

  I leaned out and took a deep breath. The odor of dying vegetation and wood smoke laced the crisp night air. All was dark except for a glowing window in the cottage beyond the cypress trees. Turning back to Gussie, I asked, “Did you hear the shutters slamming earlier this evening?”

  He nodded. “Vincenzo and I were in his study on the first floor. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I thought we were under attack until he explained the procedure.”

  “Which is?”

  “Ernesto, the steward who helped us with the carriage wheel, closes them every night. His time is eleven o’clock in the summer and nine once September comes. He starts with the rooms in the west wing and moves through the central part of the villa and on to the east wing. When all the shutters are latched and the ones on the ground floor secured with steel bars, he and Vincenzo meet at the front entrance for an amusing little ceremony.”

  “You saw it?”

  Gussie nodded. “I went to the foyer with Vincenzo. The poor man kept me talking for hours. He seemed pitifully glad of the company—I don’t think people around here listen to him very much. He immerses himself in books with titles like The Complete Farmer and Observations on Modern Agriculture. Believe me, I learned more about the theory and practice of four-field rotation than I ever thought possible. Vincenzo made his fortune making anchors and other iron fittings, but it’s this estate that he dotes on now.”

  “He’s playing lord of the manor.”

  “Exactly. If you didn’t know that Vincenzo acquired the Villa Dolfini only months ago, you would think he was the last of a noble family that has held the estate for centuries.”

  “Tell me about this ceremony at the front door.”

  “Vincenzo handed his steward an ancient key that looked like something Doge Pisani might use to lock his palace doors—” Gussie’s forehead creased thoughtfully “—if the Doge would ever stoop to such a menial task. And then Ernesto responded with a solemn recitation about being the guardian of the land and the villa. Can’t remember every word, but it seemed to end with him wishing a healthy, happy life to the master of the estate.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Almost.” Gussie smiled quizzically. “Vincenzo responded with a regal nod, then Ernesto crossed the threshold, tugged the door shut, and shot the bolt with the heavy key.”

  “I wonder what happens in the morning.”

  “Vincenzo said that Ernesto lets himself in at cock’s crow, goes through the rooms opening shutters, and returns the key. Whether they perform another little drama, I don’t know.”

  “It all sounds very pretty—the vassal paying homage to his liege lord.”

  “I think that’s probably how Vincenzo likes to think of himself.”

  “So with all the windows and the door secure, how did our corpse get inside the house?”

  “Surely there are other doors,” Gussie responded. “On the ground floor, for instance, giving access to the cantina and kitchens. And the loggia—a set of double doors from there opened right onto the salon.”

  I nodded. Of course the Villa Dolfini would have many entrances; it was the hub of a working farm. The buildings that capped the east and west wings would house stores and equipment, even animals. They would also connect to the house in some way. Then I had another thought. “This is a big place. Our man could have entered in the daytime and hid in a cupboard or unused room until everyone went to bed.”

  Gussie sat forward. “But Nita said that all the rooms are full, and with so much activity about—” He cocked his head. “What’s that?”

  I heard it, too. Clumping steps in the hall. I crossed the room and put my ear to the door. “Someone’s out there.”

  Barely breathing, I turned the door handle.

  Gussie sprinted to my side and imprisoned my hand in his strong grasp. “What are you doing?” he whispered, pressing my fingers into the cold metal. “Vincenzo said to—”

  “Vincenzo be damned. We need to find out what’s going on.”

  Gussie clapped his hands on my shoulders and twisted me round to face him. “Tito, I’m here to paint and you’re here to sing. This murder is not a matter for us. Let’s stay out of it for once and leave it in the hands of the constable.”

  “You’ll excuse me if I don’t find the thought of the local law very comforting.”

  Gussie nodded, mouth twisted in a grimace. We’d had a recent adventure in Rome where a misguided magistrate had almost been the death of me.

  “I know. But this is a different case, and it is simply not our business.”

  “The body of a perfect stranger, murdered on an errand of mystery. Every person in the villa, even you and me, under suspicion. Admit it, Gussie, you want to open this door as much as I do.”

  He sighed, but dropped his hands and stepped away to collect a candlestick. As I clicked the door open, I heard him murmur, “As sure as night follows day, we’re going to live to regret this.”

  We stepped into the hall. Ernesto and Santini were unfurling a length of canvas beside the body.

  The steward turned and cleared his throat apologetically. “We expected to find you in your room, Signor Amato. Is there something I can get for you?”

  “Signor Rumbolt and I thought we might be of some help.”

  “No need. We can take care of this.”

  “Where are you taking him?” That was Gussie. He spoke in whispers, as we all did. There is something about the dead that inspires hushed tones.

  “Signor Dolfini directed us to put the body in the ice house until Captain Forti arrives.”

  “And then?” I asked.

  Ernesto shrugged his broad shoulders. “Then the churchyard, I suppose, to a pauper’s grave. Unless someone comes forward to claim it.”

  “Have you ever seen this man before? In the village perhaps?”

  He shook his head. “Strangers stand out in Molina Mori. If he’s been staying nearby, I’ll wager it would be in Padua. Unfamiliar faces cause no comment in a town with a university and a pilgrim shrine. But Padua is over ten miles away—I don’t often get up there.”

&nbs
p; “Is Captain Forti coming from Molina Mori?”

  “That’s where the constable’s house is. I’ve sent my boys to fetch him, but I doubt he will be arriving anytime soon.”

  Santini nodded knowingly, mouth hanging open. He looked as if he’d been sleeping in the wild. His hair was matted with remnants of leaves and twigs.

  Ernesto continued, “Gaspare Forti is an avid hunter, and it’s perfect weather for boar. I’d wager the grape harvest that right now he’s headed to Monte Rosso with a hunting party.”

  I was astonished. “Then he could be gone a week or more. How can he neglect his duties for so long?”

  Santini and Ernesto both chuckled. “This isn’t Venice,” the steward replied. “We don’t have hordes of people out to rob and maim each other.”

  “Until now,” I answered, stepping closer. Gussie was right behind me.

  Ernesto clenched his jaw. He was clearly itching to tell us to go back to our room, but a steward was not in the habit of giving orders to his master’s guests. Instead, he turned and nodded to Santini. Both men squatted. With no flinching that I could detect, Ernesto slid his hands under the corpse’s shoulders and Santini took hold of the legs. They rolled the dead stranger onto the canvas and began to fold the ends of the heavy fabric around him.

  “Wait,” I cried. “What’s that?” Now that the body was lying face down, it was evident that the man’s short jacket stretched over a bulge at the small of his back.

  Voicing a grunt of surprise, Ernesto quickly pulled the jacket up to reveal the butt of a pistol. Before the steward could object, I bent over and jerked it from the stranger’s waistband.

  It was a small pistol, uncocked. I took a sniff of the pan. “Doesn’t seem to have been fired recently.”

  “Let’s have a good look.” Gussie brought his light and we all clustered round the object on my outstretched palm.

  “A costly item, that,” Ernesto said. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen a piece quite like it. Look how the lock sits atop the frame instead of sticking out from the side.”

  “A clever design,” Gussie added. “Makes the pistol much less likely to catch on clothing when it’s needed in a hurry.”

  Santini nodded. A rumbled “Hmm” escaped his lips. Did the man never speak?

  I ran my finger over the inlaid scrollwork of gold wire that ornamented the handle. “It’s certainly not of Italian make,” I observed.

  “What’s that image outlined there? A bird?” Gussie reached for the pistol and scrutinized it through narrowed eyelids. “A two-headed eagle with a crown. I’ve seen this crest before—the Imperial Russian eagle.”

  I looked down at the stranger. His still form mocked us with its anonymity. “Then our man is a long way from home.”

  Gussie shrugged. “Just because he carries a Russian pistol doesn’t mean he’s from Russia.”

  My brother-in-law was right, of course. I was getting ahead of myself.

  “Maybe there’s something else we missed,” I said. I started to bend over again, but Ernesto had reached his limit.

  The steward swiped the pistol out of Gussie’s hand and fell to his knees with a thump. “Signor Dolfini will want to see this. I’ll give it to the master once we’ve seen to the body.”

  Ernesto and his helper made short work of trussing the corpse into its canvas cocoon. With a few grunts, they hoisted the bulky burden and started toward the rear of the hall. The steward halted at the top of the enclosed staircase. “Please Signori, tell me that I can assure Signor Dolfini that all the guests are in their proper places up here.”

  There was really no reason to make Ernesto’s job more difficult. “Don’t worry, we’ll go straight back to our room,” I assured him.

  Gussie nodded in agreement. “We’ll pull our covers over our heads and you won’t hear a peep out of us until morning.”

  Chapter Four

  I’m generally quite a reliable fellow, and there’s no one more trustworthy than my brother-in-law. We were doing just as we’d promised; the door to our room was actually giving beneath my hand when a flash of metal caught my eye. It was the pendulum that had felled our mysterious friend, glinting in the rays of Gussie’s candle. Someone had propped it up beside the timepiece that had supplied it.

  Gussie cocked an eyebrow. I knew what he was thinking. Ernesto and Santini had disappeared down the stairwell; Vincenzo and the footmen were in distant parts of the house; our fellow guests remained behind closed doors. We sprinted across the hall.

  “This makes a curious weapon,” I whispered, after contemplating the bloodied disk for a moment.

  “But a very effective one.” Gussie shuddered a bit.

  “If you were going to kill someone in this hall, is this the weapon you would choose?”

  He looked around. “There isn’t much here. If someone was forced to defend himself, the pendulum might have been the only possibility.”

  “Defend against what? The pistol was in the stranger’s waistband. And see here…” I ran my palm over the polished surface of the clock’s case, then moved the door back and forth on its hinges. “This is solid oak, not glass. It’s not as if the killer could have caught sight of the pendulum and thought, ‘here’s my salvation.’ No, the killer must have removed the pendulum and been lying in wait.”

  “You’re talking about planned murder.”

  “It makes more sense than a chance meeting.”

  “Then Jean-Louis must be on the right track. There was an assignation of some sort. Someone was expecting the stranger to be here at midnight.”

  “But it makes no sense. If you intended to do murder, you’d furnish yourself with a stiletto or a garrote.”

  Gussie drummed a finger on his lips. “Unless you had a specific reason to use the pendulum,” he said.

  “What earthly reason could there be?”

  “Hmm… sending a message of sorts?”

  We both stepped back to view the timepiece with fresh eyes. I creaked the narrow door open as far as it would go and poked my head inside. With Gussie maneuvering his light at my shoulder, I swept the chain that supported the weights aside and squinted into the bowels of the mechanism. A miniature stirrup dangled right above me.

  I freed an arm and thrust it behind me. “Hand me that pendulum, will you?”

  A small steel block at the proximal end of the pendulum fit the stirrup exactly. I hooked and unhooked the pendulum several times.

  “This is fairly easy—doesn’t take as much strength as I would have thought,” I said.

  “What about swinging it?”

  I made several experimental swipes. The brass disk whooshed through the air. “Not so difficult.”

  “Could a woman heft it?”

  “I think so. Especially if rage or hatred fueled her strength.” I handed him the implement. “See what you think.”

  While Gussie wielded the pendulum like a mercenary’s battle-ax, I held the candle close to the clock’s face. The brass hands were pointing straight up, almost on top of each other. Above the face, a lunette was painted with a full moon rising over a woodland copse. The scrolling letters of a motto arched above the lovely scene, but I couldn’t read them.

  “Gussie, is this an English clock?” I pointed to the words.

  Huffing a bit, he deposited the pendulum where we’d found it and stretched on tiptoe. “Yes, it’s a quote. From Shakespeare, I think.”

  “What does it say?”

  Slowly and distinctly, he translated the words of the great English playwright so that I could understand. “The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. Lovers, to bed; ’tis almost fairy time.”

  “Iron tongue? Is he speaking of a church bell?”

  Gussie nodded. “Tolling midnight.”

  “This is very curious.
A clock that speaks of midnight pillaged for a weapon to commit a midnight murder. I wonder—”

  Gussie shook his head in warning and darted his eyes toward the door across from ours. Its stealthy click had also met my ears.

  “You’re right,” I said in a louder tone. “Perhaps it is time to seek our beds.”

  Bowing toward Romeo and Emilio’s room, I made a motion as if I were tipping a hat to our unseen observer, then followed my brother-in-law back into our chamber.

  ***

  The next morning I awoke to find Giovanni, one of the young footmen, depositing a pitcher by the wash basin. Steam curled off the warm water, forming a gauzy ribbon in a slanting bar of light. The washstand sat by the far window, not the one I had opened last night. Ernesto must have been in to open the shutter without waking me.

  “Scusi, Signore. I’m to make sure everyone is out of bed.” Giovanni placed some folded towels by the pitcher.

  “What time is it?”

  “Just past eight, Signore. We’re all getting a late start this morning. Nita will lay out some breakfast in a few minutes.”

  Gussie’s blond haystack emerged from his covers. He gazed around with one eye shut and the other in a squint. “Did the constable come?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

  The footman shook his head. “Signora Forti told Manuel and Basilio that her husband has gone hunting—he won’t be back for many days. Until then, the master says we’re all to go on with our work as if nothing unusual happened.”

  Gussie emitted a gravelly groan and folded the pillow around his head, but I felt strangely exhilarated. I had a new opera to sing and an intriguing mystery to ponder, two things that always made my blood flow more swiftly. I sent Giovanni on his way and dressed in haste. Gussie gave me a grumpy send-off. It was always thus. Though the reverse would have better suited our professions, my brother-in-law was the night owl, I the lark.

  The rest of the household straggled down to the dining room in small groups. The Gecco brothers were already at table, gulping large cups of coffee laced with milk. Plates coated with jam and buttery crumbs sat at their elbows. As I filled my own plate, Romeo and Carmela entered together, murmuring little jokes to each other and appearing none the worse for the night’s adventure. Emilio followed, bleary-eyed and out-of-sorts.