2 - Painted Veil, page 21
part #2 of Tito Amato Mystery Series
As the Savio and his party were showering Florio with well-deserved praise, Emma reached for my hand and threw me a pitiful glance. At first I thought she meant to bolster my spirits, then realized that she was seeking comfort from me. Emma had sung well that night, but the soprano was not enjoying the mellow, self-congratulatory exhilaration that should follow a successful performance. Her jaws were clenched tight and the pupils of her eyes resembled hard, black discs. Emma was afraid, close to panic if her vise-like grip on my hand was any indication.
I sought to calm her with a silly quip. “Steady, Cleopatra, there are no asps around here.”
Emma’s eyes widened even further. “Oh, Tito, how I wish it were so.”
The Savio moved down the line and stopped in front of Emma. “A pleasure, as always, dear Signora Albani. You have been so generous to Venice—delighting us with your inimitable song for so many years.”
She dropped into a low curtsey. “As I hope to for many more, Excellency.”
The Savio twisted one of the medals on his jacket and traded sharp glances with Torani over the soprano’s bowed head. He made a sound that was something between a mutter and a clearing of his throat, then abruptly shifted his attention to me.
“You must have been born under a lucky star, Signor Amato.”
“Excellency?”
The Savio smiled with one side of his mouth while Messer Grande glowered darkly at his side. The old military commander continued, “If Signor Florio had not seen fit to intervene on your behalf, your fine costume would be carrying the stains of rotten fruit.”
Messer Grande chimed in. “I hope you have properly thanked Il Florino for pulling your chestnuts out of the fire.”
The remark he had intended as a sanctimonious rebuke must have struck Isabella as irresistibly funny. She erupted into a peal of giggles. Holding her sides, she squealed, “His chestnuts! How amusing. He doesn’t even have any.”
Morelli grimaced and pulled his wife’s arm in a rough grasp. She winced as his long fingers tightened around her elbow. “Excellency, I beg your pardon for my wife’s unbecoming outburst.” He hesitated, shooting Isabella a venomous look. “She is apt to let her high spirits get the better of her.”
The Savio gave Morelli a dignified nod but his eyes were twinkling. He turned back to me. “I’m sure Signor Amato will soon be back to playing the nightingale at full strength. Since the unfortunate business with the painter has been resolved, he’ll have no more distractions standing in the way of his recovery.”
I cleared my throat. “The business you refer to was more than just unfortunate, Excellency. It was murder. And no one has been brought to trial for it.”
The twinkle in the Savio’s eyes narrowed to a gimlet gaze that must have once had his subordinates squirming in their boots. “Nevertheless, Signor Cavalieri’s killer was dealt his punishment and the matter is closed.”
“Since when does a frenzied mob take the place of the judicial court?” I sensed my fellow singers drawing away, even Emma. Not one of them wanted to seem to be in support of a troublemaker.
Messer Grande stepped around the Savio and put his weasel-thin face only a few inches from mine. “What are you saying? I am satisfied that the Jew murdered Luca Cavalieri and so is the Tribunal.”
I strove to keep my voice level and my expression benign. “Based on what facts?”
Messer Grande snorted. “Based on the fact that this Jew was known as one of the worst of his whole grasping, thieving tribe. He had been hanging around the theater, obviously making observations toward his personal gain. When he returned under cover of darkness, the painter simply got in the way.”
“Did anyone see Isacco Del’Vecchio here the night of the murder?” Thanks to Pincas, I knew all about Isacco’s activities on the night Luca was murdered, but I doubted that Messer Grande had uncovered that information.
Indeed, my simple question seemed to confound the constabulary chief. He chewed his lip and tapped his opera libretto on his thigh. I glanced at Signor Morelli. He appeared calm—detached, even. It was Torani whose forehead was covered with a sheen of sweat.
The Savio had had enough. With a last irritated “Harumph,” he turned the talk back to arias and roulades. Torani shook his head and wiped his forehead as the remaining members of the cast accepted the Savio’s congratulations with grateful humility. I was sorry to distress the director on his important night, but I couldn’t accept the sorry, speedy solution that Messer Grande had convinced the Tribunal should close the case on Luca’s murder.
Sometimes I wished I were the sort of man who could close his eyes to injustice and just walk away, but I was not. Perhaps I identified with Venice’s victims and discards because the knife had doomed me to live as an outcast of sorts. Or perhaps I was just too fond of truth, as one of my old mentors used to say. But I knew I couldn’t let Isacco continue to take the blame for a murder he didn’t commit. That would dishonor the memories of both Luca and Isacco, and allow a callous killer to roam free. Somewhere the mask of a plague doctor was twisted into a cruel grin, laughing at all of us. I was determined to find the owner of the mask and silence his laughter for good.
I headed for my dressing room with leaden feet. I was tired and discouraged, but at least Annetta and Gussie would greet me with smiles. When I opened my door, I was surprised to see only Benito, laying out a stack of fresh towels.
“Where is my sister? I thought Annetta and Gussie would be waiting for me.”
My manservant fiddled with the jars and tubes on my dressing table. “They would have, Master, but I sent them home.”
“What? You take far too many liberties, Benito.” I would have gone on, but the pleading look in the little manservant’s eyes stopped me. With an almost motherly tenderness, he pressed his forefinger to my lips. “Please don’t be angry, Master. Just come with me and ask no questions. I have something to show you, something of importance.”
Curious then, I let Benito dress me for the street and followed him out the stage door, where he turned right to proceed in the general direction of the Piazza. We met only one other fellow on the pavement by the dark canal—a drunken, pleasure-wasted soldier who muttered a vague apology after lurching into us on a narrow bridge. Before we reached the great Piazza, Benito stopped at the entrance to a modest square and pointed to a church. I knew the place. The church was dedicated to an obscure saint but much visited for its Madonna who was credited with miraculous cures for hopeless illnesses.
My patience was wearing thin. “Benito, I say my prayers where and when I see fit. I don’t need to beg for intercession at this altar.”
He raised his chin and headed toward the church. “Trust me, Master.”
The stoutly paneled door refused to budge under Benito’s delicate hand but yielded when I added my own strength. The interior was much like that of my own parish—not an opulent cavern like the Basilica, but a cozy, columned shelter that welcomed the worshipper with the warm glow of altar lamps and the lingering smell of incense. Benito indicated the Madonna’s shrine down the nearest shadowed aisle.
A man kneeled before a bank of candles illuminating a life-size statue. His face was hidden, but I would have recognized that bullet-shaped head anywhere. “Benito, you’ve arranged a meeting with Aldo.”
My manservant’s lips curled in one of his saucy smiles. “You said it was important that he answer your questions. Aldo has promised to indulge your curiosity as long as you stay on the topic of Luca’s murder.”
“But… how?” I was forming a theory about the strategy that Benito must have used to bring Aldo to me but could barely believe my own suspicions.
“It was simple,” he whispered. “Aldo fancies me. He’s been after me for months. I finally granted his desire.”
“Benito! The man has a wife and a houseful of children.”
The manservant shrugged and tossed his head. “Aldo’s little hen is a tasty dish, but sometimes the man requires a bit more spice. Go on, he’s waiting for you.”
My feet stayed rooted to the worn carpet runner covering the flagstones. “I don’t like this. I won’t have you playing the whore—even in a good cause.”
“Don’t worry. I had already decided to indulge him. It was just the timing that I adjusted to suit your needs.” Benito made a mock bow. “You know that I am ever in your service, Master. Now, go talk to Aldo. I’ll wait at the door.”
The stage manager was aware of our presence. He had risen and awaited me with an unreadable look on his robust features. I entered the shrine. The plaster Madonna towered over us with a benevolent smile. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a great while.”
“I know that, Amato.”
“Then why have you taken such pains to avoid me?”
“I like to keep my own counsel. Life is much safer that way.”
“But Luca was your friend. Don’t you want to see his murderer punished?”
Aldo rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “You have it wrong. Luca was no friend of mine.”
What kind of game was Benito’s new lover playing? I had seen him and Luca leave the theater together many times. I told him so.
Aldo shrugged his thick shoulders. “What you saw was one man preying on another’s purse. Luca insisted that I keep his glass and his belly full. Believe me, when we drank together, it had nothing to do with friendship.”
“Why would you submit to such an arrangement?”
His eyes flicked to the door that Benito had just passed through. “Your manservant is not my first such companion. Luca found out about… several others. If I didn’t do as he asked, he threatened to go to Morelli.”
I saw Aldo’s plight. Morelli, that self-styled guardian of vanishing moral standards, would have ordered Torani to give Aldo his wages and kick him out of the theater in the blink of an eye. So Luca was a blackmailer as well as a forger—what a thorough scoundrel Liya had become involved with. Luca’s charm must have totally deluded her. And what a compelling motive Aldo had for dispatching the blackmailing painter.
The stage manager had been watching me closely. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Just put it right out of your head. I wanted rid of Luca, but I didn’t kill him. He’s not worth facing the executioner for.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“I’m here, aren’t I? If I had something to hide, even Benito wouldn’t have been able to persuade me to talk to you.”
“Then enlighten me on one point. Last Sunday afternoon, the day of the ghetto fire, you met Torani on the quay by the Rialto Bridge. What was the purpose of your meeting?”
Aldo whistled softly. “You’ve really been at this game, haven’t you? What makes you care so much? Luca was no more friend to you than he was to me. Did you know that he used to amuse his assistants by imitating your voice and your gestures behind your back?”
“Never mind that. I asked you about your meeting with Torani.”
“I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. You’d have to be a dolt not to have heard the rumors about the theater closing.”
I nodded cautiously.
“I can’t be left without a job when the bigwigs finally make up their minds. I’ve been asking around. I have a friend at the opera house in Verona. He says there may be a place for me there, but only if I can bring Torani with me.”
“So you asked Torani to meet you at the quay?”
“Anywhere but at the opera house. Verona needs a new director, not a bunch of lackeys. If I approached Torani at the theater, word would get out. The stagehands would be all over me.”
“Was Maestro interested in your proposal?”
“He didn’t seem particularly keen, but he said he’d consider it.”
“Did you discuss anything else?”
“Not really, he had the boatman set me down after just a few minutes. He seemed very tired.”
I didn’t pause to consider this information. With Aldo in an unexpectedly cooperative mood, I was anxious to press him with as many questions as he would allow. “Let’s talk about the night Luca was killed.”
The stage manager gave a huge sigh. “Make it quick, Amato. I won’t get home before dawn as it is.”
“Torani told me that you left the theater to have a drink before you locked up for good.”
“He’s right. Emma and Rosa were back in the dressing rooms. Rosa was having a fine fit of hysterics. All that afternoon, she’d kept one of the boys busy carrying messages to Bassano Gritti. Every time the boy returned with a response, she’d torn the envelope to bits and stamped on the pieces. Emma was trying to calm her down. Who knew how long that would take? And then Luca was still at his canvas, said he had a bit of work to finish. Why should I wait around with a dry throat?”
“Was anyone else in the theater when you left?”
“Maestro Torani. He was at his writing desk in his office. He was reading a letter. I could see the red sealing wax from across the room.”
“Was he still there when you returned?”
“Yes, still there, writing a letter of his own. I told him I was locking up and he said he’d be ready in a quarter hour. He was true to his word. I finished putting the theater to bed, and we went out through the stage door together.”
“How did he seem to you?”
“Don’t know.” He thought a moment. “About like always, I suppose. Looked like he had a lot on his mind.”
“How long had you stayed at the tavern.”
“About an hour, or perhaps a bit more.”
“Was Torani the only one at the theater when you returned?”
“Yes, the others had gone on. Well… I didn’t look behind every piece of scenery or open every wardrobe. I suppose there are plenty of places someone could have been hiding. But I go over the theater every night. I know its nooks and crannies as well as I know my wife’s. If someone besides Maestro had been there, I’m sure I would have known it somehow.”
“Did you go into Luca’s studio?”
“Not all the way in. The lamps were out, everything was quiet. I just pulled the door shut. I couldn’t lock it. That lock has been broken for some time, I just haven’t gotten around to getting it fixed.”
“Was Madame Dumas’ workroom locked?”
“Oh, yes. The old girl likes to take care of that herself. The sewing room was locked up tight as a drum.”
“Who else has keys to the workrooms?”
Aldo rubbed his neck and looked up at the Madonna’s painted face as if he needed her permission to continue. He asked, “What are you getting at?”
I told him about the purple fabric that had been wrapped around Luca’s corpse.
“So that’s what happened to the bolt of cloth that Carpani was in such a rage about.” The stage manager considered a moment. “That means Luca’s murderer is almost certainly a theater person. Only someone familiar with the backstage area would know which room could provide a handy length of fabric and how to get to it.”
I nodded slowly. Aldo and I had come to the same conclusion.
He scratched his chin. “Not a pretty thought, is it? Almost any one of the company could have got at that cloth. Carpani has his own set of keys—he demanded those the first day he came to work. And of course, Madame Dumas has had her own workroom key for years, but everyone else uses my set. They hang on a ring by my door. The only theater keys I keep in my pocket are the ones to the outside doors.”
I nodded again, this time with a sigh. For the moment, I had run out of questions.
Aldo reached for his tricorne and put the hat under his arm. He gave me a nod, and said, “I don’t usually like singers, Amato, but I have to say, you’re not half bad. If I can help you again, just ask, I promise not to run.” He gave me one of his rare charming smiles and swaggered down the aisle. I was left alone with the smiling Madonna, wishing she could tell me which of Aldo’s answers had contained the truth.
Chapter 22
“He’s gone to ground. He must know that we’re hunting him, so he’s found a burrow and pulled the earth in over him.” Standing at the railing of our rooftop garden, Gussie brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes and regarded me over his chocolate cup.
“All right,” I said. “I take your meaning. Palantinus is the fox and we’re the hounds who must flush him out. But how?”
Despite the light breeze and the early morning hour, our rooftop was growing uncomfortably warm. It was June, after all, and the humid, mosquito-ridden days of midsummer were not far off. It could have been a day of leisure for me. My voice was gradually regaining its strength, and after several well-received performances of Cesare in Egitto, the opera house would be dark until the much-heralded royal wedding had taken place. Then we would complete Cesare’s run and Florio would be on his way. But I would not be resting or partaking of the celebrations around the city. Gussie and I were on the trail of the charlatan Palantinus.
Studying the pamphlet that Signor Nevi had so painstakingly copied had already consumed many of my free hours. I had formed the opinion that those words must carry some clue to the man behind the mask. Much like a footprint left in a pool of mud that hardens in the midday sun, a man’s written words could not help but form an enduring account of his opinions and personality. I cannot say that the writer’s verbal abuses against the Jews shocked me. His sentiments were not universal, but they were widely held and often heard. The main thing that struck me about the pamphlet was the clever manner in which Palantinus linked the tainted wells and Luca’s murder to create an all-pervading sense of crisis. The man was clearly adept at influencing people. He had orchestrated a panic out of nothing more than random events and age-old prejudices.
While I had been deep in the pamphlet, Gussie had been asking around the English community for anyone who had been approached to join the Brotherhood of the Golden Seraphim. It seemed that Palantinus had attempted to recruit several of his wealthier countrymen, but these gentlemen must have proved less gullible than he had hoped. They declined his invitation and thus knew nothing about where Palantinus or his temple could be found. I repeated my question, “How are we to flush this fox from his lair?”
