Death Among the Ruins (23 page)

Inside the other room, one of the men asked his leader a question.

“No,” he replied in English. “They are fighting honorably, two against two. Let them alone, for the time being.”

Two against two? Was
Belinda
fighting? As incongruous as that seemed, it was easier to picture than Charles with a sword. Please, thought Arabella, to the universe at large; if we come out of this alive, I shall give up this mad quest. And if, by some miracle I should still manage to find the statue, I shall return it to Italy.

At this point, the guards came over to untie their legs, and Arabella and Pietro were frog-marched into the presence of the leader. All she could see of him was his broad back, though, for he was peering through the window at the battle raging just outside.

“Look out, Kendrick!” someone shouted, and she recognized the voice of Charles. Charles was here, too? Arabella moaned again, as she realized that the entire adult generation of her family was about to be massacred, for a bronze statue that she had never seen, never touched, never been able to own.

The two Beaumont siblings who were still at liberty stood outside in the darkness, watching the fighting from a safe distance.

“It may seem to you that I have behaved in a somewhat equivocal manner,” Charles drawled, his voice bored, his manner self-satisfied. “But believe me, Bunny; they also serve, who only stand and wait for it to be over.”

“Charles,” said Belinda, “the esteem in which I currently hold you is the lowest I have ever had for any mortal born of woman! You, sir, are a cad and a coward, and you will greatly oblige me by shutting up!”

Belinda had never spoken like this to anyone in her life, and Charles was shocked to the core. It was a shame that the other sister could not be there to hear it, too. Well, she couldn’t, of course, but she did hear the scream that rent the air a moment later. And Arabella screamed, too. For she knew, without knowing how she knew, that the Reverend Kendrick had fallen in combat.

Il Duce whirled round from the window. And in the guttering light from the candles, Arabella recognized the pointed beard and steel pince-nez of Father Terranova.

 

 

M
rs. Molyneux opened the door to Lady Ribbonhat’s groom, the same one who had originally introduced Rooney to the aviatory. He, too, bore a sack, also tied at the top with difficult knots. The parties eyed one another suspiciously for a moment. Then each tried to grab the sack of the other before letting go of his own. For a time, they played an awkward little game of reach-out, pull-back upon the doorstep, until they finally managed to synchronize the snatch/release operation to occur at precisely the same instant. The groom then carried the prize to his employer, waiting impatiently in the carriage, Mrs. Molyneux having already withdrawn into the house and loudly slammed the door.

“Good-bye, Rooney!” wailed Tilda, waving a dish clout from the scullery window.

“Hell-o, dash!” breathed Fielding as she and the others stood regarding the offer that was at last tangibly present upon the kitchen table.

 

“Ah!” cried Terranova in mock delight. “Good evening, signorina! I was hoping we should meet again, so that I might return your property to you. Although I am afraid you will not be able to enjoy it for very long.” He took her CIN from his satchel, and placed it upon the table. “One of the monks picked it up after our tour of the forbidden room. Apparently you left it on the bench outside. Do you know what I think? I think that you wanted me to find it.”

“I didn’t,” she replied, her voice so choked with fear that it was almost a whisper. “My sister left it there.”

He shrugged. The details were of little import.

“How clever you were, to deduce that I had murdered my cousin in order to keep her quiet! Too clever, in fact. And too inquisitive, also.” He shook his head regretfully. “I am afraid that you and this little boy will have to be permanently silenced.”

“The child knows nothing,” she said quickly. “He’s merely my interpreter.”

“But he arranged for you to be taken to the man who drove the cart which transported the artworks, did he not? I wonder how he knew that?”

“I am not afraid to die,
signorina,
” said Pietro. “Street children cannot expect to live long, in any case.”

“So,” said Terranova. “Now that we have the boy’s permission—not really necessary, but nice, all the same—we shall dispose of you both in some . . . suitable manner.” He smiled, and picked up a bottle from the conference table. “Despite your poor opinion of me, Signorina Beaumont, I am a civilized soul, underneath. So we shall first enjoy a bottle of this wonderful wine, and then I shall stand ready to hear your confession and baptize you to the true church before I kill you.”

As absurd as this was—a priest offering absolution to his intended murder victim—an even more preposterous event had just taken place outside.

When John Kendrick had received a slash wound to his fighting hand and dropped his sword, Belinda had screamed. At least, everyone assumed it was she. Later, Belinda would claim that the scream had actually come from Charles, but who would believe
that?
At any rate, following the scream, whose ever it was, Kendrick’s comrade-in-arms had simply called a halt to the proceedings. Then he had stepped into the light, and the guards had bowed to him! What was more, the man from whom Kendrick had received his wound apologized, and bound up the cut with his own handkerchief!

Whilst Arabella’s would-be rescuers stood speechless with wonder, the stranger nodded toward the hut and smiled. “Shall we go in?” he asked. “I believe they are about to start serving the wine.”

 

 

L
ady Ribbonhat put her head out of the carriage window. “Did you get him?” she asked, extending both arms out, as well. “Give him to me!” After fumbling ineffectually at the knots for a few moments, she contented herself with cradling the sack upon her lap. “Welcome back, husband,” she murmured. “I am sorry that I cannot let you out until we get home, but I shall endeavor to make you as comfortable as possible in the meantime.”

A passing familiarity with Lady Ribbonhat may engender doubt that anyone so ruthless toward her adversaries, and so imperious in general, could ever be soft-spoken and considerate to a mere cat. She certainly had never addressed her husband thus when he was alive and housed in a human body, but then, he had always treated her with equal contempt.

The explanation is a simple one: Lady Ribbonhat, like many another cruel woman before her, had the habit of talking baby talk to her pets. The orange tomcat was not a pet, strictly speaking, or she would never have had him put through her enemy’s window in the first place. But now that he possessed the metaphorical key to Lustings, he was her own precious widdow peegie weegie, washn’t him?

“You said something, my lady?” enquired the coachman.

“Not to
you,
I didn’t!” she replied sharply. “Mind your driving!” and to the sack she said, very quietly, “Do not worry, beloved; the soothsayer has told me everything. You may lead me to those letters as soon as ever you like.” William of Orange made no response. “Have you gone to sleep, my precious? That’s right, then. We’ll soon be home.”

And soon they were, where Lady Ribbonhat assigned her butler the task of opening the bag. Two of the footmen tried to help him, but at length they simply gave up and severed the rope with a knife. Whereupon their mistress snatched the sack from them and peered inside, cooing reassuringly to the orange fur she glimpsed through the opening.

“Come out, William,” she said, reaching in. “Come to your own . . .” But at that point in her monologue, Lady Ribbonhat withdrew a dead hare, wrapped in the ratty orange boa that Arabella had given to Doyle two or three seasons previously.

 

“The hour grows late, and we are all too overwrought for explanations tonight,” said Terranova, pouring wine for the entire assemblage. (They were twenty-one, including the guards, but fortunately, the priest had several more bottles tucked away.) “So I propose to call upon you tomorrow,
signorina,
or today, I suppose, at the villa at around midday. You may then give me luncheon, and I shall give you answers.”

It was most bizarre. Like a dream one dreams upon the drawing room sopha after a dinner of suspect seafood. Charles and Belinda, and Mr. Kendrick with his bandaged hand, were standing about clinking glasses and chatting with men who, not ten minutes ago, had been discussing methods of killing her. To be fair, some of these men seemed to be just as confused as Arabella was.

“But . . . she is a spy!” insisted the one who had first called her that. “How can we let her go?”

“This is no spy, Hilario,” Terranova replied. “Signorina Beaumont is a famous English courtesan! An inamorata of the regent’s! A fine impression that would make, eh? To murder his mistress and then request his help?”

A lover of the regent’s? Why did everyone think that?

“If the woman is not a spy,” said one of the guards, “then why has she broken into this house?”

“There is somewhere a mistake, I think,” said Terranova. “The
signorina
could never have done such a thing! . . . Did you?”

Arabella cleared her throat. She was now fairly certain that she would not be killed, as she and Pietro had been freed from their bonds and her friend and family were now present, but it was all so odd that she could not be absolutely certain about anything.

“Well, in a way,” she said cautiously, “I suppose I did. But you broke into my hotel room, against my expressed wishes. Now that I have entered your . . . hovel, equally uninvited, I suppose we are quits.”

Terranova grew stern. “No,” he said. “We are not. I have behaved in an unorthodox manner for the sake of a noble cause. You have acted solely for yourself and broken the law, in pursuit of a thing that was not yours to begin with. At least, I assume that is what you were doing.”

She nodded mutely.

“Well, the statue is not here,” he said, his fists on his hips. “You are hounding up the wrong tree bark,
signorina!
Now, go home! We shall talk this over tomorrow, yes?”

A part of her hated herself for slinking off like a whipped cur, but the part of her that was practically hysterical with relief didn’t care a bean for the other part. Arabella decided that she had never in her life been so glad to see a person for whom she cared so little.

“Signorina,”
said Terranova as she turned to go. “Don’t forget your notebook.”

 

“Do you reckon we’re rich, Mrs. J.?” asked Tilda, standing a little back from the crowd round the table, with Rooney in her arms.

“Yes, Tilda; I reckon so,” the housekeeper replied. “Mrs. Molyneux, would you do the honors?”

“
Avec plaisir,
madame,” said the cook, slicing through the twine and reaching inside the bag. “Een goes zee hand, and out comes . . .”

 

 

 

T
he next day was fine, but everyone got up late and was out of sorts with each other. Belinda brightened considerably when the professor dropped in, and immediately whisked him off for a tête-à-tête in the small sitting room.

Arabella was vexed with Belinda anyway, for having revealed her whereabouts to Mr. Kendrick on the previous evening, explicit instructions to the contrary. And now Kendrick seemed to be angry with
her,
probably because he had hurt his hand, which was hardly her fault. It was all a great muddle, and she would have taken it out on Charles, but her brother had wisely decided to spend the day in bed.

Mr. Kendrick lay pale and silent upon the sopha in the terrace room. His hand was expertly bandaged now, and his arm was in a sling, which secretly pleased him. He was not pleased overall, though, and to Arabella’s occasional chatty remarks, he turned his head away and remained obstinately mute.

Eventually, Belinda returned to them in the highest of spirits, her hand in Bergamini’s.

“Let us all go out on the terrace,” she said. “You and I should take our easels, Bell; we have yet to paint a single picture here, and you know we shall be sorry not to have any when we get home. Mr. Kendrick, you can lie upon the chaise outside and rest your hand, while Bergamini reads to us from this volume of love poems.”

She handed a book to the professor, and Arabella regarded her sibling with thoughtful speculation. Usually, it was her own prerogative, as the elder sister, to stage-manage the men. But the usual hierarchy was let to go hang in favor of a betrothed woman, regardless of birth order.

“These are hardly what I would call love poems,
cara mia,
” said Bergamini, flipping through the book that Belinda had given him.

“What would you call them, then?”

“I do not know the English term, if there is one. But these are like print versions of the items which I showed you in the Naples Museum.”

“Perhaps I had better stay where I am, then,” said Kendrick, who, in any case, had no wish to be a part of any company that included Arabella.

“I beg that you will oblige me by coming with us, Kendrick,” said the professor. “I shall not read from Belinda’s book, but I have an announcement to make before Father Terranova arrives, and I should like you all to be present for it.”

“What about Charles?” Belinda asked. “Shall I send someone to fetch him?”

“No, do not bother. His presence is of no consequence.”

Arabella bristled at this! Charles may have been a cad and a bounder, but he was a part of the family and Bergamini wasn’t; not yet. He had no right to disrespect her brother. And although she was too exhausted to castigate him then and there, she nevertheless made Bergamini hold back his pronouncement until Charles could be summoned, yawning and grumbling, from his room.

The cliff terrace at the Villa Belvedere commanded the most beautiful vista on the Amalfi Coast. This sounds like an outrageous claim, but it is quite true, nevertheless. Overlooking the sea and surmounted by trellises covered in bougainvillea, the terrazzo was both sunny and shaded, exposed and secluded, and the graceful balustrade of pale pink stone lent it a summery air, even in winter. It certainly didn’t
feel
like winter today; the sun was warm upon their faces as the women set up their easels, and Bergamini, who kept to the shade, poured out a cool drink for the gallant Rector of Effing.

Even though Arabella’s heart had sunk at the thought of the professor’s announcement, she could not help but be a little cheered by this wonderful weather, and by the beauty that surrounded her on all sides. She had always known that Belinda would marry one day. It was what she (Belinda, that is) had always wanted. But Arabella had never imagined that her sister might be living abroad. They would seldom see one another, and that was going to be hard to bear.

The professor cleared his throat. “First of all, I would like to congratulate everybody for managing to stay alive long enough to see this beautiful day,” he said. “Signorina Beaumont, I shudder when I think of the fate which might have been yours last night, had the director of our local Carbonari chapter been anyone other than Father Terranova. I am reminded of your refusal to eat the Figpeckers. Being already acquainted with them in a social sense, you could not bear to take part in their destruction. Apparently, the good father has the same sort of feelings about you.”

Arabella shot him a veiled glance from beneath her sun hat, whilst continuing to paint the light on the sea.

“And Reverend Kendrick. I have been given to understand that you fought off those two sentries with courage and finesse.”

“Well, I wasn’t alone, you know,” said the rector modestly. “I had a confederate.”

“Had you? And who was that?”

“Well . . . I don’t know who he was, as a matter of fact. I had never seen him before. But he was a most valiant fighter! He met us in the hall, and took the second sword off the wall there. I assume he is attached to the villa in some way.”

“Is he?” asked the professor in some surprise. “I am an intimate of this household, as you know, but I have not heard that any of its members were engaged in combat last night. Can you describe this fellow?”

“I am afraid I did not get a very good look at him. It was dark, and everything was happening so quickly. He was about my height and build. Thirty-two, or thereabouts. Dark-ish. Handsome.”

“Would you say that he looked like me?”

Kendrick was nonplussed by the question.

“No,” he said at last. “No; not really.”

“Would you say that he looked like me,
now?”

And so saying, Bergamini removed his tinted spectacles, the gray wig and bald pate, and rubbed off his wrinkles with a pocket handkerchief!

The effect was electric. Belinda gave a cry and jumped from the stool, nearly knocking her easel into the sea. Kendrick spilt his drink all down the front of himself, and Arabella sat frozen with astonishment. Charles only yawned and scratched the back of his head. But then again, as Bergamini had astutely observed, his presence there was of no consequence.

“I hope that you will all forgive me for perpetrating this deception,” said the speaker, “but I assure you, it was quite necessary. When the real professor Bergamini received a letter from John Soane, informing him of your impending arrival, he quite properly brought the matter to me, and we decided that I should take his place. You see, Bergamini rarely leaves his office at the museum. He was on his way to one of the storerooms on the day that you hailed him,
signorina,
and he realized at once who you were; so he quite understandably ran away, lest you should discover the truth.”

“But why have you done this?” asked Arabella.

“Because you were coming to look for the bronze Pan. We doubted you would find it, but a highly visible foreign courtesan nosing about and asking questions might have easily upset the rather delicate arrangements we were making with regard to its disposal.”

“We! To whom do you refer,
signor?
”

“The Carbonari. An organization to which I have the great honor to belong.”

“But I do not understand this,” said Belinda plaintively. “Why would Professor Bergamini bring John Soane’s letter to
you?
”

“Because I am the patron of his museum.”

“You are? Who are you?”

“Prince Benedetto Gandini-Palmadessola, at your service!” he replied with a bow. “This villa is my principal residence, though I also possess several others. Ah,” he said, looking past her toward the door. “And here is Father Terranova, punctual to the minute! We shall now take this opportunity to enlighten you all more fully.”

The prelate greeted the members of the astonished company with jovial cordiality, whilst servants appeared with chairs and a dining table, and proceeded to set up for luncheon. The prince slipped away for a time, to finish removing the adhesive remnants of Bergamini, and emerged looking quite wonderful. Throughout the ensuing meal, the English guests sat in a kind of daze, though in Charles’s case, this was due entirely to insufficient sleep and a surfeit of alcohol, and the servants went quietly in and out, replenishing water goblets, bringing little dishes of lemons and lemon forks for the seafood, and seeing to everything with crisp efficiency. Arabella thought, fleetingly, of the servants who had attended to her needs so assiduously on that torrid afternoon in Pompeii; one or two of these fellows looked (and acted) rather familiar.

“First of all,” said Father Terranova, who really
was
a priest, “I should like to acquit myself of the charge leveled against me in your notebook,
signorina
. I have
not
murdered my cousin.”

In such a place, on such a day, the subject seemed absurdly inappropriate, and Arabella had to struggle to recollect her sense of outrage from the corner of her mind, where she had swept it.

“It does not signify what you call it,” she said. “I suppose you are going to tell us it was a mercy killing, or that Renilde died a martyr for your noble political cause. But taking a life is always wrong, except to save that of another.”

“Ah!” said Terranova. “But that exception
applied,
you see.”

“Inventing justifications after the fact will not fool me,” said Arabella severely. “The way in which you casually announced that Renilde was with God, and then forbade further discussion about it, as though we had been arguing over a disproportionate wine bill, displayed a coldness of heart and a wanton disrespect for decency,
signor!
Renilde was a human being! And you did not even give her a funeral!”

“That is true,
signorina.
There was no funeral for Renilde, because Renilde is not dead. I will give you her address, if you like, though I cannot be held responsible for the reception she is likely to give you, if you visit her. You are not exactly a favorite of hers.

“We have always known the girl was unbalanced, you see,” he explained, addressing himself to Mr. Kendrick, “and we believed, in our ignorance—my mother, my aunt, and myself—that if we kept her close to us and spared her any agitation she would be all right. But we were wrong, and the consequence of our mistake was nearly fatal. Renilde became obsessed with you, Reverend Kendrick. Something of the sort had happened before, and we hoped that one day, a kind man would marry her and take her off to a calm and quiet life in the countryside. We were trying to avoid the alternative, you see. None of us had the heart to send poor Renilde to the madhouse.”

“Stealing letters is antisocial, certainly,” said Arabella, recovering from the surprise of learning that Renilde was alive, “but hardly abnormal to the point of institutionalization.”

“Unfortunately, there was more to it than that,
signorina.
I am thankful that you were unable to read that curse scroll which she nailed over your bed.”

“Was that Renilde’s doing?”

“Without doubt. She has the singular habit of dotting her
I’s
with little squares.”

“What did it say?”

“Please,
signorina;
I have been doing my best to forget what I read there. I shall not, under any circumstances, utter the words aloud. They were meant to frighten you away, of course. Renilde saw you as the main obstacle between herself and Reverend Kendrick. But even so, they were terrible. The awful ravings of an unhinged mind.”

“Nevertheless,” said Arabella, “it was only a threat, however vile. That is not the same as attempted murder.”

“Of course not. But in the last few years, Renilde’s condition has steadily worsened. On the night the soldiers came to the hotel, she tried to kill you,
signorina,
and but for my interference, she might have succeeded. You see,” he said, “she poisoned your cocoa whilst the rest of us spoke to the soldiers in the hall. I had observed Renilde’s agitation earlier in the evening, so I stepped aside as everyone else was filing out of the coffee room, and watched from the shadows while she emptied the contents of a vial into your distinctive wine goblet. When the soldiers left, the cat knocked over one of the ordinary glasses, and the landlady, fearing for her costly piece, unknowingly transferred the poisoned contents to a glass identical to all the others. So, carefully noting its position, I rotated the platter to confound Renilde. When I saw that she had completely lost track of its whereabouts, I took it for myself.”

“
You
took it?” Arabella exclaimed.

“
Si
. I did not drink it, of course. And after Renilde went up to bed, we called in the doctor from next door and arranged to have her sent away. It’s not a bad place,” he said sadly, “as such places go. The attendants there are very kind, and poor Renilde responds to kindness. Well, usually, she does.

“We had to keep this matter secret. I hold a vital position in the Carbonari—which I will explain to you in a moment, if you can bear to sit through a political discussion—and I cannot afford to have the slightest whiff of scandal crop up now. I must avoid attracting attention at all costs. Our family council decided it would be better if we said that Renilde had died.

“You were right, in your diary, about one thing,” he added. “She
did
tell Mr. Kendrick the truth that evening: I
am
the person responsible for the theft of the Pan statue.”