2 - Painted Veil (21 page)

“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?”

Annetta looked up from some sewing she held in her lap. “Instead of chasing after him, why don’t you let Dr. Palantinus come to you?”

“How could we arrange that?” I asked. “By now, everyone knows I am determined to find the truth about Luca’s murder. Palantinus would be a fool to deliver himself to me.”

“A fox gets hungry,” my sister replied. “Offer something tempting and he may wiggle out of his burrow and draw near to investigate. Think, what does this man crave?”

“That’s easy,” said Gussie. “He wants converts to the Brotherhood. Palantinus has a nose for gentlemen who are addicted to magic and have purses generous enough to accommodate his initiation fees. If we could serve up a rich foreigner who has a yearning to be amazed by the impossible, but who…? We know that Palantinus has ties to the opera house. He surely knows Tito and has probably seen me. I don’t know anyone I could ask to play such a role. Do you?” He looked from Annetta to me.

“If only our brother Alessandro were in Venice—he would relish this hunt. I can think of no one else.” Annetta sighed and shook her head, as did I.

I set my chocolate down and opened one of the morning gazettes that Lupo had stacked on the table before me. An announcement in
L’Osservatore
jumped out at me. “Wait a minute. Tonight is the masked ball at the Teatro San Benedetto. While the court is dining in state at the Doge’s palace, the rest of Venice will be pursuing pleasure at the ball. People have been talking about it for weeks. Everyone will be there, all masked and costumed in anonymity. What better conditions for recruiting could Palantinus ask for?”

“What do we do?” Gussie hurried to the table to scan the gazette.

“We disguise ourselves. Why not? We can play this game as well as anyone, only it will be more than idle adventure that we are after.”

Gussie got into the spirit of the enterprise immediately. “I must have a fantastic costume—a Moor or a turbaned dervish. But I’ll be sure to show my own gold-braided coat beneath the robes and flash my purse at all the stalls.”

“There will be faro tables, too.” Annetta’s eyes glittered with excitement. “You must play a bit, rashly enough to convince everyone that you have more money than sense.”

“And are on the lookout for a soothsayer or a cabalist to help you spend it,” I added.

We made our plans as the sun climbed its arc into the cloudless azure sky. Annetta agreed to take charge of finding our disguises. We had one bad moment when we realized that she intended to accompany us. Gussie disapproved. He didn’t want Annetta exposed to any danger. Perhaps knowing his beloved would be mixing in a crowd where all social barriers were down and license was the order of the day also bothered him. I left them to their disagreement and went on an errand of my own—I needed to pay a visit to my neighbor who owned the fruit press.

***

That night at the Teatro San Benedetto, the giddy atmosphere was heightened by the intoxicating effects that disguise never fails to create. Behind the masks, reality retreated and make-believe reigned; tongues were loosened and actions emboldened. We arrived to find the festivities in full swing. From somewhere, Annetta had produced the costume that Gussie had requested—authentic Turkish robes of royal blue silk and a towering turban embellished with glass gems and a rakish egret feather. Thanks to Benito’s artistry, Gussie’s pale skin had taken on a nut-brown tint and his blond hair had been transformed into dark locks straggling from beneath the folds of his turban. A half-mask with a bulbous nose and a spray of black chin whiskers completed his costume. Only Gussie’s commanding height and confident bearing kept him from looking totally ridiculous.

While my friend prowled the theater’s brightly lit auditorium, weaving his way through the dancers and making a great show of wanting his fortune told, I played the role of the slightly tipsy friend urging his English visitor to leave no delight untried. In a tricorne hat with flowing black veil, leather half-mask, and long
tabarro
, I hoped that I passed for a typical Venetian more interested in seeking amusement than in fussing with an elaborate costume. My sister looked fetching in the ankle-revealing skirts and laced bodice of a rural shepherdess. Masked in the velvet oval of a lady’s
moretta
, Annetta went about the hall asking everyone who this rich, daft, turbaned
Inglese
could possibly be.

Gussie and I eventually moved away from the couples flowing through the graceful footwork of galliard and minuet and concentrated on the hucksters plying their wares and services along the corridors of the huge theater. We found a gypsy, or at least a young woman dressed like one of that wandering race, sitting before a silver vessel filled with water covered by a thin film of oil. For a handful of coins the gypsy would light a candle and describe the visions she saw in the swirling, flickering liquid. To cultivate a further air of mystery, she instructed her customer to ask his question through a tin speaking tube that she held to her ear. To answer, she breathed her prophetic message into the same tube and seemed to gauge the length of her response by the look on her customer’s face.

Gussie confounded the young gypsy with one rapid question after another. Remonstrating with her in vile Italian delivered in a booming drawl that I had heard many of his countrymen use, the big Englishman in the fantastical costume managed to draw quite a crowd. “What can you mean?” he asked in a sneering tone. “My father, the old earl, lived to be ninety-two. All my family are long-lived, unless we manage to break our necks on a horse. Ha! What does your bowl tell you about that?”

The soothsayer passed her hands over the shimmering bowl, concentrating as if it were about to reveal next week’s winning lottery numbers. She gave Gussie a pathetic smile and tried to sweeten her response by arranging the scarves over her shoulders in even more wanton disarray. Gussie held the speaking tube to his ear, then shook his head vigorously. “Nonsense, I can’t see anything in that soup kettle and I don’t think you can either.” He whirled away from the table, bright blue sleeves billowing out around him. “Does no one know how to conjure the future?” he cried. “I’m searching for genuine mysteries, not some silly miss playing at gypsy tricks.”

I surveyed the crowd. People nudged each other and dropped their masks to get a better look at the unruly Englishman. Perhaps Gussie was overplaying his part. I was stepping to his side when I felt a tug on my sleeve.

“Don’t run away so fast. I know who you are. Come dance with me.”

I turned to face a woodland nymph draped in a flowing tunic. A garland of tinsel leaves contained her brown curls and a narrow strip of satin with oval holes for the eyes formed her mask. The flimsy satin wasn’t sufficient to conceal her identity. It was Rosa, smiling an invitation and pulling on my arm.

“Tito, the orchestra is wonderful. They are beginning a quadrille. My partner hasn’t arrived and I want to dance. Please?”

Alarmed, I deepened my voice as much as I could. “You mistake me, Signora. I do not know you.”

Rosa snorted with laughter. “Now you disguise your voice! Too late, my soprano friend. I’ve already figured out who you are. Why won’t you dance?” She glanced up and down the corridor filled with exotically dressed merrymakers and elegantly turned out courtesans. “Tell me, are you waiting for a certain someone? Does our
castrato
have a secret lover?”

Curious eyes turned from Gussie toward me. I couldn’t let the brazen contralto ruin our plans. I shook my head emphatically, bowed, and backed away as quickly as I could. Rosa narrowed her eyes behind the satin mask, fists on her hips in a pose more typical of a fishwife than a leafy sprite.

I caught up with Gussie in a relatively quiet corner of the lobby. He grinned over the scraggly whiskers that Benito had gummed onto his chin. “How am I doing?” he asked in a whisper.

“You have definitely been noticed.”

“By the right person?”

“That remains to be seen. This gathering is a perfect recruiting ground for Dr. Palantinus, but whether he is here or not…?” Deep in thought, I let my words trail off for a moment. “Gussie, we need to make you a more attractive decoy. Palantinus would not be likely to approach you and expound on the secrets of the Seraphim where he is likely to be overheard. Let’s take a turn in the garden.”

Open space is at a premium in our compact island city, but the San Benedetto was lucky enough to possess a long, grassy strip wedged between its east wall and a canal. Gussie and I went out through a side door and started down the meandering gravel path that wound between boxwood hedges studded with potted flowers. The first turning took us to a bench that was already in use. By the light of a few widely spaced torches, we beheld an amorous couple. The man had turned his mask to the side of his head and was fumbling with the fastenings of his lady’s bodice. We decided to walk the other way. The garden was pleasantly cool after the warm stuffiness of the packed theater and would doubtless be filled with other couples later in the evening. For now, the sprightly strains of the musicians, the tables laden with exquisite dishes, and the never-ending fountain of wine that had been set up on the stage were keeping the revelers entertained inside.

We paused by an olive tree at the center of the garden, trying to project an image of outward calm. Presently, a boy painted and dressed as an Ethiopian slave ran up to hand Gussie a note. Without even holding out his hand for a coin, the boy was gone as quickly as he had come. I watched as my friend unfolded the missive and squinted in the dim light.

He read, “Take the little-trod path. At the bottom of the garden, by the lilac trees, a master of mystery and magic awaits you.” Gussie’s jaw tightened. “Is this it? Did Palantinus send this message?”

“There’s only one way to find out. Let’s go.”

We trotted down the path leading to an ancient stand of lilacs. The trees badly needed pruning. Their branches pressed heavily on the stone wall separating the garden from the canal and reached out onto the path with clusters of cone-shaped flowers that brushed our shoulders as we passed. Near the end of their season, the lilacs littered the path with spent flowers and filled the air with a sickeningly sweet odor.

We passed the last glowing torch and were straining to see through the gloom when the outlines of a dark figure became visible at the edge of the little grove. Like me, the figure was draped in black from the brim of his tricorne to the tips of his dress slippers. The space where his face should have been was completely covered by a white mask molded into the form of a beaked monstrosity. The mask’s eyeholes had even been netted to conceal the color of the wearer’s eyes.

My heart raced. I could hear its frantic beat in the recesses of my ears. We might well be standing in the presence of Luca’s murderer. I imagined the masked figure rowing a small boat to the middle of the lagoon and dumping his purple-swathed cargo under the trembling stars. While Gussie cleared his throat and looked the silent apparition up and down, I moved my dagger to my waistband and touched my fingers to Liya’s painted image on the scarf I carried over my heart. For luck, I told myself.

“Well, Signore,” Gussie finally huffed in the manner of a country squire confronting the local poacher. “You have summoned my friend and me with this cryptic billet-doux. What do you have to say for yourself?”

The voice that issued from under the mask was strange and unnerving—low, sibilant, hissing, yet fascinating in a dreadful way. “You are searching for mysteries conducted in the sphere of the celestial,” the shadowy figure intoned.

“Er, well. Yes, I suppose I am.”

“What blessing do you seek? Cure of physical ills, spiritual enlightenment, protection from harm, wealth?”