The Alchemist's Pursuit (27 page)

“Oh, the impetuosity of youth!” Sciara murmured, but he set to work on the binding.

“Do documents often go missing from such files?”

“Not since
Domine
Spataforta became grand chancellor.” He opened and spread out the cover, exposing about a dozen or so sheets of paper held together by ribbon. I could almost believe he was too embarrassed to meet my eye as he passed them across to me.

I moaned. “Sixty ducats a page? I hardly dare touch such valuable material.” Few things taste more bitter than the knowledge that one has been played for a dupe. Sciara must be enjoying himself enormously, remembering past slights. I began at the back, where the earliest documents should be.

The first was a report:
Testimony of His Excellency,
NH
Giovanni Gradenigo, member of the Council of Three
. Clearly he had made a formal report to his brother inquisitors, and the secretary had written it as if he were any ordinary witness. The man who had summoned me to his deathbed was about to speak to me from the grave.

Gradenigo had been present in the dark and crowded atrium and was apparently quite close when Gentile Michiel was stabbed. His first warning had been a woman's screams, followed by clamor from many throats. He had fought his way through the fleeing, panic-stricken mob, and it sounded as if he had been a large, or at least powerful, man. He found Gentile Michiel writhing on the floor, with donna Alina down there beside him, desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood. Counselor Foscari, the “red” among the Three, arrived moments later. Normally an investigation would work its way up through the chiefs of the Ten to the full Council, and only then to the Three. In this case the state inquisitors had been right on the spot. They had seen the blood first-hand. But its setting within the holy precincts of the Basilica had made this a highly unusual case from the beginning.

Either Pesaro or Foscari asked a question and the clerk had followed normal interrogation style:

 

Then Agostino Foscari took up the story, backing up Gradenigo's version and going on to describe Michiel's death, still down on the floor, waiting for medical help to arrive; not that doctors could have done anything for such a wound.

Then came an exchange that hit me like a bolt of lightning.

 

For a moment I sat amid the thunder of our case against donna Alina crashing to the ground in ruins. Jacopo Fauro's tale of the sack of Constantinople might be based on truth, but the
khanjar
dagger had absolutely nothing to do with his father's murder. Why had I trusted him to tell the truth even sometimes?

Without looking at Sciara, I forced my mind back to the work. The rest of that document told me nothing new. It ended at the bottom of the next page, in midsentence.

The next sheet was an account of the Michiel family as it had been at the time. Bernardo was married then, which I had not known, and Domenico had one child by his morganatic spouse, Isabetta Scorozini. Lucretzia and Fedele had already entered the cloister. Zorzi was dismissed with the single word
giovane
.

Then came a brief statement signed by Bernardo Michiel, written in the third person but almost certainly based on interrogation. As a bereaved patrician, he would have been treated with silk gloves. He described his illness on the crucial night, confirming everything he had told me and adding nothing new. The same went for statements by Domenico and donna Alina. Friar Fedele and Sister Lucretzia testified that they had been engaged in worship that Christmas Eve in the company of members of their respective orders. No doubt the inquisitors would have examined witnesses who could support the family members' alibis, but those records were missing, perhaps thrown away as unnecessary once the official verdict was reached.

They all, even Fedele, loyally supported Zorzi, dismissing the recent quarrel with his father as nothing new. Gentile had been threatening to disinherit the boy for years and had never carried through. The men all pointed out that his own record was far from perfect, despite the lofty standards he so hypocritically proclaimed.

There was nothing at all by Zorzi Michiel, the convicted murderer, and that silence screamed of wrongness.

I held out a hand. “May I look at that list of contents, please?”

The death's head smiled. “No. I promised only what was in the folder.”

I silently consigned Sciara to Tartarus.

I was left with one last piece of paper. The note on the back explained that it had been deposited in the
bocca di leone
in the church of San Geminiano on December 27. It was brief:

 

I felt cold fingertips run down my back. I looked up quickly and caught the tail end of a smirk. Despite his denials, Sciara had known what I would find in the file. I held the paper up to the lamp, but it was cheap stuff with no watermark.

“The Republic maintains that its tribunals pay no heed to anonymous letters,” I said.

He nodded. “That is correct.”

“Correct that they say that is what they do, or correct that they do what they say?”

He favored me with one of his rotting-corpse smiles. “In practice, Their Excellencies do have certain stringent procedures for evaluating unsigned submittals. In the case of the Ten, an anonymous letter is examined by the three chiefs and the six ducal counselors sitting together, and only if those nine are unanimous is it brought before the full council, and the council must vote five-sixths in favor of considering it. Even after that, a four-fifths majority is needed before action can be taken.”

Would those safeguards have been observed in the most egregious crime Venice had known in centuries? Surely any lead at all would have been followed up. If the inquisitors suddenly and unanimously decided that they should lock up the prime suspect for a few days and nights and post witnesses to listen to his snoring, no one would ask what had given them such brilliant simultaneous brain waves.

“If that paper you are studying is indeed unsigned,” Sciara continued, “then most likely it was left in the folder precisely because it was deemed to be worthless.”

“You are implying,
lustrissimo
, that anything worthwhile has been removed?”

“Oh no, I did not say that,
sier
Alfeo.”

He was very adept at implying without saying. I could never hope to know whether the file had been censored just prior to my seeing it or at some earlier time for some other reason. I handed the papers back in silence and stood up.

Sciara displayed mild surprise. “So soon? You must have a remarkable memory.”

“I have better things to do at this time of night,” I said. I bowed and turned to the door.

“I am truly sorry your time was wasted,
clarissimo
.”

“It was not wasted,
lustrissimo
.”

I wanted him to think I had learned more than he knew.

In fact, I had learned more than I knew.

T
he Maestro appeared earlier than usual that morning; I was still sweeping the floor when he came stumping into the atelier, leaning on his staff. The absence of the canes was meant to show that he had recovered. I opened my mouth to congratulate him and he cut me off.

“What's that?” He pointed to the book on his desk.

I told him. He changed direction and went to sit there, instead of in the red chair, and I knew he really must be feeling better. By the time I had put the broom away and returned, he had laid down both the pornography and my notes and was leaning back in his chair, scowling.

“What did you learn from Sciara last night?”

I sat opposite and told him, quoting the documents word for word, or very nearly so. “We have no case left against donna Alina,” I concluded. “I should have realized sooner that Jacopo is not merely a liar but an addicted liar. Apparently he never tells the truth if he can fool you with a good yarn. That's an interesting defense, isn't it—if you are known to be perpetually untruthful, you cannot be caught out in a lie?”

The Maestro's scowl did not change. He tapped the book. “And this sewage?”

“The wheel of fortune turns. We can't use the dagger to make a case against the lady, but now we know for certain that someone in the Palazzo Michiel is killing courtesans. It was written by donna Alina, I think. The writing fits her signature, both on your contract and on the statement I saw last night. I glimpsed either that book or an identical one in the casket where she keeps Zorzi's letters. Seems she gave him money and he repaid her with dirty stories. I doubt that he knew she was keeping a record. Sister Lucretzia left it on your armillary sphere when she was here on Sunday. I didn't notice it until last night.”

Neither had my master, so he couldn't scold me for being unobservant.

“It is not the sort of uplifting literature I associate with nuns.”

“Nor I, master. She had just come from the family reunion. Either someone gave her the book at the house or she stole it. The casket has no lock, just a ward—you spread both hands on the lid and say, ‘My dearest treasure.' That's all; easy enough to spot if you know about such things.”

“Why?” he demanded, eyes narrow.

“Why did she steal the book? I don't know.”

“Why do you think she stole it?”

I had met all these people; he had not. “Assuming Lucretzia was told about the murdered courtesans—and I think they were the subject of the family gathering—she must recognize the book as evidence that someone in Palazzo Michiel is at least involved and likely the actual killer. Whether she intended to destroy the evidence and changed her mind, or knew that Fedele was going to stop in here and try to prevent you from investigating their father's death . . . or perhaps Fedele himself put her up to it. What do you think?”

“I need to see her,” he muttered.

I refrained from uttering mocking laughter. “Even Violetta couldn't talk her way into Santa Giustina. Probably Lucretzia was allowed out to visit her family only because her brother asked. An abbess won't talk back to a priest, but she'd surely set the dogs on people like you and me.”

Nostradamus sat and glared at the offending book. “This thing is poison! I don't see why it hasn't provoked more killings already. I ought to have you take it straight to the palace and give it to the chiefs of the Ten.”

“I'll take my rowing clothes with me.” I wasn't joking, much. The galleys were starting to seem like a real possibility now.

He did not deign to answer. After a while he started tugging at his goatee, which is a sign that he is thinking hard. I quietly opened a drawer and took out Johannes Trithemius's
Steganographia
so I could get started on the numerology home-work my master had set me five days ago. The learned abbot of Sponheim instructed us in how to send messages to specific angels, and after about an hour, when I was seriously considering an appeal for help to Gabriel, Nostradamus at last emerged from his reverie.

“Master?” I closed the book on a finger.

“Donna Alina seems to have faith in me. She could have given the book to her daughter to deliver to me.”

“If she is not the killer . . .” I had not quite rid my mind of that assumption. “Why the nun, though? Surely a nun should hurl such smut into the nearest canal?”

“Because Lucretzia is the only one Alina trusts?”

I gulped and said, “Yes, master,” humbly.

“Get me the knight of cups!”

“Er . . . ?”

“Vitale's solution was to be the knight of cups reversed, you said? Get him. Bring him.”

Somewhere a shutter opened . . . “Ah! The
cavaliere servente
?” I should have seen that Jacopo might fit the “solution” card in the reading I had made for Violetta, but I hadn't met him when I did it.

“Of course. Bring him and I'll reverse him.”

“How far may I turn the screw?”

“All the way to the headsman's ax.”

I pursed my lips in a silent whistle. He rarely gives me so much leeway.

“If he won't come, any second-best?”

“No, it must be Jacopo. And I want Vitale here when he arrives.”