The Last Gondola

The Last Gondola

The Mysteries of Venice, Book Seven

Edward Sklepowich

MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

To Nancy Lendved,

with love, admiration, and gratitude

for all she's done

for me and mine

I will go out this evening in my cloak and gondola
—
there are two good Mrs. Radcliffe words for you.

—LORD BYRON

PROLOGUE

Urbino Obsessed

On this February afternoon the Caffè Florian whispered a history of plots and intrigues into Urbino Macintyre's receptive ear as he sat across from the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini.

The maroon banquettes, the elegant portraits, the painted mirror, the wood wainscots, the decorated arched vaults, and the parquet floor—all of them surely had a tale to tell, each from its own point of view.

“Murder, theft, betrayal, adultery, treason, revolution,” Urbino recited. “All hatched here in the Chinese salon. From the eighteenth century to this very minute, you can be sure.”

His gaze swept the room for a likely culprit, but the three Germans who had been sitting at a nearby table had left without his noticing it.

“No one here but the two of us,
caro
,” the Contessa said. “And the only thing I've been contemplating in this den of duplicity is shaking you violently by the shoulders. You're doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Brooding about that dreadful man in his palazzo in San Polo, Samuel Possle.”

The Contessa was right. Dominating his thoughts this afternoon, as so often lately, was the person she had named. Urbino could think of little else these days but an elderly American whom he had never seen in the flesh. The recluse had rejected all of his overtures. The success or failure of his next biography—in fact its very existence—depended on gaining access to the man.

“Obsession is a terrible thing,” the Contessa observed. “Lost in your own world and not seeing the real one in front of you.”

Urbino felt properly chastised. He smiled at his good friend. “But if you mean not seeing you, you're wrong. You look lovely.”

Indeed, she did. With her stylishly coifed honey blonde hair and slanted gray eyes, she was in the full prime of her middle years and carried it with grace and elegance. Her deep purple dress of simple lines and her onyx necklace bestowed a subdued, even penitential air, that suited this time of the year after the festivities of
carnevale
. But yet, as his closer scrutiny now detected, beneath the surface of her repose ran a current of uneasiness.

And then in a rush, like birds coming home to roost, overlooked clues that had been accumulating this afternoon descended on him. Her almost imperceptible sighs, her fleeting frowns, and perhaps, most telling of all, the untouched petits fours. No mood of any kind had ever interfered with her enjoyment of them. He refrained from articulating any of these perceptions, however, knowing that the Contessa, like himself, liked to play a game of hide-and-seek with her own emotions.

“Samuel Possle would be a real feather in my cap,” he said, succumbing to the gravitational pull of his own problems as he waited for the appropriate time to bring up hers. “Venice's oldest expatriate. Think of it.”

“Its most ancient reprobate,” the Contessa corrected with a barely discernible edge to her voice. “Isolated in that house of his like that disreputable marquis you're so fond of.”

“Good old Des Esseintes. He's a duke,” Urbino said with a smile. “You haven't brought him up in a long time.”

“Because I don't want to contribute to your confusion between art and life—if you can call that decadent book art, that is.”

The Contessa was referring to Huysmans's
Against Nature
, a French novel about a reclusive bachelor. Urbino, purging the book of its many excesses, had patterned his own secluded life in Venice after it. It had been a bone of contention between them ever since they had first met twenty years ago at a reception for the Biennale.

“Well,” the Contessa said, with an air of resignation, “you've always had an obsessive personality as long as I've known you. I should have taken warning from the way you would always talk about the mad duke as if he were a living, breathing person instead of some outdated character in a novel.”

“But Samuel Possle
is
living and breathing,” Urbino pointed out, “at least at the moment. You'll have to admit that my obsession is more justified in his case.”

“I'll admit nothing,” the Contessa replied.

Urbino took a consolatory sip of sherry and looked out into the square.

What Napoleon had called the finest drawing room of Europe looked more suited to aquatic engagements than social ones. Deep pools of water mirrored a leaden sky, a slice of gold-and-blue clock tower, and jagged ribbons of narrow arches and rounded windows. Elevated planks marched past the Basilica to provide dry passage. The Piazza was almost empty, and the people strolling beneath the arcades and looking in the shop windows were mainly Venetians. This was one of the blessedly dead times of the year for the city. Mardi Gras had brought
carnevale
to its wild end two weeks ago. Tourists and student groups wouldn't begin to descend for another month.

“These gray days are seeping into my soul,” the Contessa lamented. “And it's still only February!”

She gave a little shiver despite the overheated room and glanced down at the petits fours. “You've noticed that I haven't eaten one,” she said.

She might just as well have said that she had no patience with their tacit game of concealment.

“I've noticed more than I've let on, Barbara. Either you're going to tell me what's troubling you or I'll have to resort to some form of torture,” Urbino replied.

“As if you've been so eager to know! And speaking of torture, hasn't it been just that to listen to you go on and on about Samuel Possle? You've barely given me a chance to say anything. Before you bring up his name again, let me just tell you in no uncertain terms that I may be losing my mind. There!”

Melodrama was one of the notes that the Contessa often liked to strike, but this afternoon there was more appeal than provocation in her words. Her eyes seemed suddenly glazed with fatigue.

“Didn't I say the gondola was madness?” Urbino teased in the hope of dispelling her mood. The Contessa had recently given him nothing less extravagant than a gondola in commemoration of their friendship.

“I wish that were the extent of it,” she responded, with a rueful smile. “I'm all too serious. We need to talk. You keep hinting that you need my help with Possle. Well,
caro
, I need yours with something much more serious. But I'd like a fresh pot of tea before I say anything more.”

After this was supplied, along with a sherry for Urbino, she began to explain.

“I have to go back to about three weeks before the beginning of
carnevale
. You and Habib were so involved in getting the Palazzo Uccello ready for the celebration that I kept quiet.”

Habib was Habib Laroussi, a young Moroccan artist who was living at the Palazzo Uccello with Urbino. He had left for Morocco a few days after
carnevale
to arrange for the shipment of his work to be exhibited at the Biennale in June.

“It all began with the silver cascade you gave me. You haven't seen me wear it recently, have you?”

Urbino gave an involuntary start when she mentioned the necklace of beaten silver ovals from Marrakech. The necklace, as well as the Contessa herself, had a connection to a recurring dream that had been disturbing his sleep during the past few weeks. The dream also involved Samuel Possle, the object of his desires. More and more often he was sleeping through the seven o'clock and seven-thirty bells that pealed over the city every morning. The Contessa had become aware of his changed routine, but not the disquieting reason behind it, for he had been accustomed to calling her at an early hour, but seldom did so these days.

“No,” he said, averting his eyes, “but I didn't think anything of it.”

“Well, you should have! I'm sorry,” she apologized, although Urbino had hardly registered her vehemence; he had been too concerned that she might notice his own reaction of surprise. At the moment he did not want to explain why her reference to the necklace had disconcerted him.

“You know how much I love that necklace. I wanted to wear it for the reception at the Casa Goldoni. But it wasn't in my jewelry box. I put it there after I wore it at the Feast of the Salute in November—or I think I did. And now it can't be found. We've turned the house upside down.”

“Surely you've mislaid it.”

“If it were that simple! It's so confusing. I don't know what's going on. There have been other things.”

“Other things? Other pieces of jewelry?”

“No. Items of clothing. One of my favorite dresses, for one thing. The mauve-and-blue tea dress. I don't think I've seen it since we went to the film festival. And my Regency scarf is gone, too! And of all things, my old slouch hat with the flowers.” She stared blankly at him. “And it was so strange,
caro
. As soon as I missed the silver cascade, I noticed that I was missing these other things. I went through my whole wardrobe to see if anything else was gone, but how could I tell? What I put Silvia through! She was mumbling under her breath for days afterward.” Silvia was her personal maid. “I just know that I'm going to miss something else, probably a lot more, any one of these days.”

“I hate to say it, Barbara, but someone in the house must have taken them. But why that particular necklace? You have so many other pieces of jewelry that are obviously much more valuable. It's a bit of a puzzle. And why take your used clothes, exquisite though they are? Strange, but we know all too well the kind of things that can happen, even at the Ca' da Capo.”

This was Urbino's way of reminding her of the violence associated with a member of her staff, which had been his most personally troubling case to date.

She shook her head.

“Not this time. I almost wish that were the case. If it were only the necklace or some other piece of jewelry, I could accept the possibility that someone had stolen them, even someone in the house. But as you say, why would anyone in his right mind take used clothing? Don't you see what this means? I'm sailing into the darkness! I'm losing my mind!”

“I would say, my dear friend,” Urbino replied, restraining an involuntary smile at her exaggeration, “that you're losing items of your clothing and one piece of jewelry. If they haven't been stolen, it could be a hoax of some kind, a peculiar one, I admit. I'd advise you to reconsider what I said about your staff.”

“But how do I know that I haven't taken these things myself and—and put them somewhere?” she asked, ignoring the thrust of his comment.

“Mislaid them. But of course.”