The Veils of Venice (11 page)

How was Mina doing? Was she being well treated? Did she think the contessa had abandoned her? Did she still believe that Olimpia would not have died if she had not taken the scissors out of her chest? Had she –

The ringing of the telephone interrupted her thoughts and awakened Zouzou, who had fallen asleep with her head in the contessa's lap.

It was Urbino.

‘No, I wasn't asleep,' she said. ‘I've been thinking about Mina. I still haven't heard from Corrado Scarpa about when and if I'll be able to see her. He's doing his best.'

‘
Coraggio
, Barbara. He'll work something out.'

‘Are we any closer to getting the poor girl out? I have faith in your abilities. Even if you were only at the Palazzo Pindar for a few hours, you must have learned something. You must have impressions.'

‘Plenty of impressions. I'm not as ignorant as I was when I went there, but what it all amounts to it's much too early to say.'

Urbino gave her details of the conversations he had had with Gaby, Apollonia, Eufrosina, Alessandro, and Ercule, interweaving them with his suspicions and puzzlements.

When he finished, the contessa said, ‘Am I wrong,
caro
, or did I detect a trace of amusement in your voice? Is it appropriate?'

‘Most inappropriate, but they can be a rather amusing group. Even poor Gaby can be amusing with her word game. But I'm under no illusions, and I won't be distracted or misled if I can help it. Maybe amused is not the right word, though. Maybe it's that I feel as if I'm looking at a performance. They are almost like actors in a play. Each of them has his or her role. It usually develops that way in families. But with the Pindars it's almost as if, in some strange way, they're all acting, but whether they might be acting in concert is something else entirely. When someone has something to hide, he becomes an actor. That's obvious enough. But it forces everyone around him to act as well.'

‘Alessandro's little theater seems to have influenced your thinking.'

‘It's very apt, isn't it, his theater? The drama of the extended Pindar family: love, death, and eccentricity.'

‘Not too extended, not with only five members. You'll notice that I'm taking myself out of the picture for the moment.'

‘Five members alive, one recently dead.'

‘Sounds like a game tally.'

‘That's apt, too. The Pindars love their games – and their hobby horses, their little obsessions. Even their disputes and disagreements seem scripted.'

‘And you say you didn't notice anything different about them?'

‘They all seem very much as they have always been. As if they decided to go on as usual, despite Olimpia's death.'

The contessa slowly turned her revolving silver photograph frames with photographs of her dead. Alvise, her mother and father, her grandparents on both sides, a close aunt and uncle, some cousins. ‘Isn't that what we're supposed to do? Go on as usual?'

‘Not when there's been a murder in the house.'

‘Yes, a murder in the house of Pindar, in
my
family. But you shouldn't look only under the Pindar roof.'

‘Exactly. We need to know more about everyone's life outside the house. As for Gaby, she might not leave the house, but that doesn't mean she has no contact with the world beyond it. And we need to know more about everyone's financial situation.'

‘Everyone in that house has money problems, with the exception of Gaby, who doesn't care about money at all. Eufrosina has borrowed some money from me since her husband died. As for Alessandro, he isn't exactly pulling in the money from wood-carving or anything else.'

‘Great expectations,' Urbino said.

‘What does Dickens –? Oh, I see! Their inheritance from Apollonia.'

‘Which she was taunting Eufrosina about. Eufrosina and Alessandro seem to be in competition for it, or maybe each just wants to make sure he gets his proper share – or more than that, if possible.'

‘Maybe that's the “sin in Eufrosina” that Gaby found so amusing – Eufrosina's greed.'

‘Or something else. Or maybe nothing,' Urbino came back with. ‘Gaby could be trying to stir up problems for Eufrosina. She doesn't hide her fondness for Alessandro. But it's hard to know how much credence to give to what she says. And if we're talking about money, we shouldn't neglect Apollonia. She doesn't have the problem of not having enough.
Her
problem is being sure to hold on to what she has and wanting more.'

‘Ercule came right out and said he needs money. There's some honesty in that.' The contessa sighed. ‘Money, the root of all evil.' She had a sharp vision of the money scattered across the floor of the atelier. ‘Money and blackmail go together like a hand in a glove. But the question, as you've said, is whether Olimpia was victim or blackmailer. If she were a victim, the obvious reason would be that she was gay, but that doesn't make sense. She didn't keep it a secret. You can only be blackmailed for a secret – for something you want to conceal.'

‘But someone might have been blackmailing Mina through Olimpia. She wouldn't want her family, the little that she has, to know about her relationship with Olimpia. Of course, there is no chance she is going to be able to keep any of it a secret now.'

‘Poor Mina! But if someone wanted to blackmail Mina through someone, I would have been a more logical target.'

The contessa wondered what she would have done to protect Mina from exposure. She doubted she would have given in to blackmail.

‘If blackmail is behind Olimpia's murder,' Urbino said, ‘and she was the blackmailer, then whom was she blackmailing? What did she know about the person? And who else might have known the person's secret?'

The contessa would have preferred it if Olimpia had been a victim of blackmail and not a blackmailer. Blackmail was cowardly and despicable, although it did not deserve being murdered for. But she could imagine someone so tormented, so fearful, so desperate that murder seemed the only escape. She focused her attention back on Urbino.

‘… and you must see what I mean, don't you?' he was saying. ‘It's not only the living Pindars and not only Olimpia. We need to know more about Achille.'

‘You're not suggesting there was foul play there? He died in an accident.'

‘Nonetheless, we need to know more than we already do about him and the accident. Something you've forgotten about the accident or the family might come back. I'm going to need your help. There's no reason why you couldn't gather some impressions yourself, Barbara. Impressions and information.'

‘From whom?'

‘From the people it would appear most natural for you to speak to, to be around. Think about who they are.'

The contessa did just that, as she sipped her chocolate.

‘Apollonia, for one,' she said after a few moments. She reached for a marron glacé. ‘I've had more contact with her than the others. And she's closer to me as a relation than any of the others.' And closer in age, as well, she thought, but did not say.

‘Who else?'

The contessa thought some more as she bit into the marron glacé. ‘Eufrosina. She's doing the photographs. If what you say is true about the way they're all behaving as usual – '

‘
Acting
as usual,' he interrupted her.

‘If they're all
acting
as usual, then I'll do the same with Eufrosina. I'll tell her that I see no reason why we shouldn't proceed on schedule with the exhibition and the catalogue. And I'll show her that I mean it.'

‘Have you been considering postponing?'

‘It had occurred to me. But it seems important for me – for us – to carry on as we planned. Maybe Eufrosina and everyone else will think that I'm trying to put Olimpia's murder behind me. That could only be to our advantage. Having Eugene here will be a good thing, too. He'll help give us the appearance of going on as usual, of showing a visitor the sights. When is he coming?'

‘The day after tomorrow.'

The thought of Eugene coming didn't please her entirely even though she liked the man. His arrival would bring Urbino's departure with him closer. Her heart quickened as she realized what Urbino needed to accomplish before then.

‘You can even bring him by the Palazzo Pindar and show him the museum. It will give you a good excuse for being there – or another good excuse, along with the Fortuny letters. As for me, I'll do my best to behave as I always have with them – allowing for some understandable bouts of nerves, all perfectly controlled, of course. It would not seem normal if I behaved
completely
as usual. After all, my personal maid just murdered Olimpia.' The contessa gave a high laugh that sounded unpleasant to her ears. ‘That's what
they
believe.'

‘Or what some of them may want to believe.' Urbino paused, and then added, ‘
And
what one of them wants us to think he or she believes. But you will do fine. You're a consummate actress, my dear, a mistress of social artifice. When you have the desire to please and charm, you do it seamlessly. And you definitely know the value of benevolent deception.'

‘It seems you've thought a lot about this.'

‘Ever since we first had the sweet, happy fortune to meet.'

‘If you're heaping praise on my head – rather questionable praise – to manipulate me, it isn't necessary. You will be proud of me. And so will Mina be proud. By the way, my father used to call me his little Sarah Bernhardt, so you're not the first.'

She turned the revolving holder to her father's photograph. He was dressed in black tie for one of her piano concerts at the Venice Music Conservatory. Tears came into her eyes. It had been so long ago, those first happy days of Alvise, long before she had met Urbino.

‘By the way,' Urbino said, ‘there's at least one other person you can use your divine skills on. Italo Bianchi.'

‘Of course. The Pindars and I have him in common. I'm sure there's some legal counsel that I need, that I can
say
that I need, since I'm so good at – what did you call it? – benevolent deception.'

‘You'll work it out.'

‘We're a team. We've been called the Anglo-American alliance,' she reminded him. This was how some Venetians used to refer to them. And after many years of their relationship – and living outside their cultures – their speech had even become influenced by each other. ‘A team, an alliance, a league of two. Call it what you will,
caro
. But I warn you. I refuse to be called Dr Watson.'

‘Understood. Let's call you my Nora, then, and I'll be your Nick.'

‘I can live with that!'

‘You already have your Asta.'

‘Asta was a cocker?'

‘A male fox terrier – in the film. A female Schnauzer in the book.'

‘Such a wealth of information about the trivial.'

‘But haven't you noticed, Barbara, how often the trivial can be the most significant things in our cases?'

The next morning, shortly after getting up, the contessa went to the ground floor of the house, descending the formal staircase from the
piano nobile
. Although the large entrance hall was at water-level, it was well heated. The room, decorated in a sea motif with portraits of sea captains and a frieze of a Venetian ship with the da Capo-Zendrini coat of arms, was very secure. Both of these conditions – its lack of dampness and security – so different from the
androne
of the Palazzo Pindar, were essential for the success of the Fortuny exhibition, which would be held in the largest room that flanked it.

The staff had cleared out the room before Christmas. Centuries ago, the rooms around either side of the
androne
had been warehouses, like the rooms in the Palazzo Pindar's entrance hall, but now all of them were used for storage except for two of them that had been converted into an apartment for the boatman.

Vitale followed her downstairs.

‘Is there something you were wanting, contessa? Are you going out in the boat?'

‘Not now, Vitale. I just want to look around.'

‘If you need anything, please let me know.'

He went over to an armoire carved with dolphins and seashells. He opened the door and made himself busy examining the umbrellas, boots, and waterproofs inside.

Vitale was uneasy. But it was not only Vitale who was on edge. All the staff was. She had gathered them together the morning after Mina had been taken into custody. She had assured them that she believed Mina was innocent and would soon be back in the house. They had shifted nervously and exchanged glances.

She knew what they were thinking. That she was deluding herself because Mina was her favorite. There had been resentment toward Mina among the other staff almost from the time she had come to the house. But this was not because of anything that Mina had done. The contessa was aware that she had not been able to disguise her special fondness for Mina, no matter what Urbino said about her acting abilities. She trusted, however, that when Urbino spoke with them they would have no trouble putting aside whatever petty jealousies they might feel and would help Mina as best they could.

The contessa opened one panel of a double door ornamented with gilded sea horses. It gave her the soothing view she wanted. The waters of the Grand Canal, pearl gray in the morning light, stretched beyond the blue-and-white-striped
pali
of her boat landing to the buildings beyond. Small waves from a passing waterbus slapped the motorboat and rocked it gently. The mooring rope, tightening and slackening, creaked in a pleasant way.

She stood looking out at the scene, despite the cold that crept in from the Canalazzo. She savored the damp air that she always thought, to the amusement of whomever she revealed it to, smelled green. After a few minutes of watching the rhythm of the water traffic and the flinging open of shutters on one of the palaces opposite, she closed the door.