Death in the Palazzo (28 page)

It was perhaps a strange comment to make since it had been Bambina herself who had apparently tried to mislead Urbino. Vasco glanced at Sebastian, surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke and an air of barely subdued anger.

“It's interesting that you mention my being misled, Dottore, because you tried to do that to me yourself, didn't you? You insisted, drawing on your professional knowledge and experience, that the cause of Molly's death was a piece of broken glass from the loggia door which pierced her throat, and that she died instantly.”

Vasco nodded his head.

“Instantly—or relatively so.”

“But as we discussed this afternoon in your room, if Molly died in that way, blood would have spurted around the room because of the pumping motion of the heart.”

“Only if the carotid artery had been pierced.”

“As we both observed, it had been. This leads me to wonder how—or perhaps I should say, why—you made such an error. Did you really want me to believe it was an accident, or did you want me to see through your deception? I can come up with one reason why you might not want to believe it actually was an accident—and that's not because of any sympathy with Barbara's position as the
padrona
of the Ca' da Capo. It's because of your belief in the powers of the mind—your belief that if we direct our energies in a certain direction, we can affect the course of the natural world and maybe even behavior. Am I right? Accident or murder. You're not comfortable with either alternative. But better that Molly's death is determined to have been an accident than murder, for there's much greater culpability there, a much more frightening example of the power of the mind. The power of a mind focused consciously on ending the life of another person.”

Urbino paused, and for a moment his eyes locked with the frightened, pleading ones of the Contessa.

“Surely, when the Caravaggio Room was examined and the autopsy was done,” he went on, “there would have been no doubt that Molly didn't die in the way that you said. I can only assume that you hoped to gain time, perhaps to make some changes in the room so that her death would seem more like an accident.”

The old physician's expression had become dazed, and the silence surrounding the immobile Mamma Zeno now seemed to spread over him. Without a word spoken between them or so much as a brief glance exchanged, they had an unmistakable air of complicity.

“Why did you want me—and later the police—to believe that Molly's death had been an accident? So that no one would associate her death with Renata's except to say that they both died under strange circumstances in the Caravaggio Room? Maybe you were afraid that your past had caught up with—with who? Yourself? Who, with your skills as a physician and your long-standing interest in mesmerism and the powers of the mind, has remained devoted to the Zeno family? Or maybe it had caught up with Gemma, whom you seem to cherish as if she were still the eight-year-old girl she was when Renata died. Or Signora Zeno, so long a widow and so long a mother burdened with the greatest sorrow a mother could have: the death of her child. Or Bambina, with all her energy and love of pranks and pink ribbons and cats and—many years ago—Andrew Lydgate. I suppose I should add Robert, Gemma's son, to the list, and his fiancée, Angelica, Lydgate's grandniece.”

As Urbino had named each of these individuals, he had treated them impartially with his glances, but now his eyes returned to Mamma Zeno and rested on her, still so silent, sitting there on the sofa swaddled in midnight satin, her only adornment the gold wedding band worn as thin as a thread.

“You married a Zeno, signora, and you yourself are by birth and blood a Zeno, the cousin many times removed of your deceased husband.”

The old woman said nothing. She didn't even move except for the slight rising and falling of the bodice of her dress and the nervous tapping of her fingers against her cane.

“I've noticed, signora, that you prefer not to wear any jewelry—no earrings, no necklaces or bracelets, no brooches of any kind, no rings except your wedding band.”

“Mamma has been like that ever since I can remember,” Bambina said quickly. “I always—”

She was silenced by a look from her mother, who then immediately returned the full power of her eyes to Urbino. He waited, as everyone else around him was waiting. They all sensed that the time had come for her to utter her first words since she had reprimanded Bambina in the dining room about the brooch.

Her thin voice was very clear, and as was her habit when using English, she spoke slowly and precisely.

“Young man, I have observed you and listened to you all this weekend. I have even indulged you in the privacy of the chamber that has been put at my disposal. Among other things I have been curious to see how far you would go—how far you
could
go. Very far, I now see. Too far. I suggest that you go no farther. It would be one more indignity, and life is full of too many.”

She paused as if to catch her breath, all the while looking at Urbino. When she continued her voice was even stronger than before.

“I see why you and Barbara are such good friends. Two
ficcanasi!
Meddlers! And you, Barbara, La Contessa da Capo-Zendrini”—she jerked her withered head slightly from side to side as she uttered each of the syllables of the Contessa's title—“more than a meddler! An intruder! But for you Bambina would be the contessa, the
padrona di casa
. Wearing your shoes and your gowns and your jewels. Ha! Your jewels, did I say? Bought with Da Capo-Zendrini money! Or stolen from the Zenos! I laughed when you told me you wanted to heal the wounds between the families this weekend, to bring us together. That was to have been Bambina's job, except that you put yourself into the picture like a well-bred
puttana!
”

The Contessa stood up. She was dead white. Urbino went over to her before she could say or do anything and guided her back to the sofa.

“Let her speak. Say nothing,” he whispered.

Mamma Zeno stared at the Contessa with an ugly smile.

“Your portrait! Your portrait of your new, rested face to hang in the gallery of the Ca' da Capo-Zendrini, where Bambina's should have! Never! And to think that Gemma was a party to it! Never!”

She raised the cane and made a slicing motion with it. Although Urbino doubted it, he almost thought that if he grabbed the cane and twisted the ferrule, a foot or two of sword-stick would appear.

“Never!” Mamma Zeno repeated. “I'm still strong enough for some things!”

“You did it, Mamma?
Brava! Brava!
”

Mamma Zeno looked at her daughter and shook her head slowly. She now spoke in Italian:

“You poor fool! It's all over, don't you see? You'll die like me, never having had one single thing you wanted! You wanted Lydgate but he didn't want you. You wanted Alvise and see what happened! When the time was right for you both—
she
came along!”

Bambina, who had been so enthusiastic a few moments before, now looked distressed.

Vasco started to get up. Mamma Zeno waved the cane at him and he retreated back to his seat.

“Sit down! I said I wanted to bring things to an end with dignity, not have
il signore americano
point his finger at me. You have been a fool, Bambina, but I've loved you. All these years you've had me to thank!”

“Oh, Mamma, you are wonderful! Calm yourself, please. Cool yourself with some perfume.”

Bambina sprang up from the ottoman and went over to her mother. She extracted her silver flask from the deep pocket of her dress and unscrewed the cap.

“Knock it out of her hand, Vasco!” Urbino shouted, hurrying across to where Bambina was about to pour the liquid against her mother's neck.

Vasco flung out his hand and sent the flask flying through the air. It fell and spilled its contents on the Aubusson, far from any of the guests. The scent of Shalimar began to drift through the library.

Mamma Zeno looked up at her daughter with shock.

“Your sister and even me, your own mother?”

But Bambina didn't hear. All her attention was now riveted on the door, which, unnoticed by the others because of this little drama, had opened in the last few moments. Standing framed in the doorway as if she were posing for one of her own portraits was Gemma. Her hair was wild, her face white, her eyes blazing.

Oriana screamed.

Gemma remained in the doorway for but a moment, trembling. Then, with an indistinguishable cry that seemed to come from her very soul, she rushed between Urbino and Vasco to Bambina and fell upon her, knocking her to the floor.

From down the hall a telephone suddenly shrilled its message that there was, after all, still a world outside and that they were once again connected to it.

EPILOGUE

Telling the Contessa

“I feel as old as Noah,” the Contessa lamented to Urbino. Considering what she had recently suffered through, the sentiment was understandable and certainly sincere.

But an observer less aware than her good friend of the events at the Ca' da Capo-Zendrini might have accused her of exaggeration, if not disingenuousness. For the Contessa's Ararat was at the moment her customary maroon banquette in the Chinese salon, and her face, though obviously that of a woman of a certain age, was far less obviously that of one of her particular years, especially since exposure to the rejuvenating winds off Mont Blanc. In fact, if you wanted to see any signs of the ravages of time and the elements, you would have to turn your eye away from the Contessa, and out through the windows of Florian's into Piazza San Marco—where the Contessa's and Urbino's gazes were now directed.

Pools of water reflected the stones of the surrounding buildings, some of whose windows had been shattered by the storm. The mosque-like basilica glowed deceptively in the late afternoon light. Only the kind of close scrutiny architects had been giving it during the past few days would have revealed the damages to its recently restored facade and to the mosaics on the floor of the vestibule. Although late in the year for an orchestra in the Piazza, Florian's had set one up beneath a canopy to celebrate the city's survival of the second worst storm of the century.

The city was assessing its damages, licking its wounds, and preparing to face an uncertain future—activities not unlike what Urbino and the Contessa were doing at Florian's this afternoon.

They had already, as was their way and their need, gone over some of the more salient points of the murder of Molly Wybrow and that of Renata Bellini, to which Molly's was so closely, if also so distantly, related. Their knowledge wasn't, however, complete. Some details had been passed on to the Contessa by a friend at the
Questura
. Others had been somewhat grudgingly revealed to Urbino by Commissario Gemelli, with whom Urbino had cooperated on some past murder investigations.

Bambina was in custody, about to undergo psychiatric evaluation. Originally arrested for the attempted murder of Gemma, she had within hours made the mistake of accusing, in succession, her mother, Dr. Vasco, and Gemma of the killings of both Molly and Renata with the kind of detail that only the murderer herself would be in possession of. Whatever shielding of her Mamma Zeno and Vasco had done over the years was at an end. Much was now known but much was also unclear and indeterminate.

The greatest light had been shed by Gemma, now hospitalized for her injuries and for her more serious condition, which had been exacerbated by her fall. She had given a statement to the
Questura
from her hospital bed and, in a rush of heartfelt confession, repeated it all for the Contessa's and Urbino's benefit the other day.

Her revelations had corroborated much of what Urbino had already pieced together and had made use of in the library. Over the years she had harbored a suspicion that her mother's death hadn't been natural. She based it more on the silence that surrounded Renata's death than anything she had heard or seen that weekend back in the thirties: no startling flashbacks, no gradual piecing of things together, but a vague suspicion that grew as the years went by. Any possibility of resolving things through an exhumation was futile, since her mother's body, buried near Naples, had been among those destroyed in the bombardment of the cemetery during the war. What she began to strongly suspect was that there was some kind of conspiracy at work, that her grandmother, her aunt, and the family physician knew something incriminating about her mother's death and were protecting one another—or one of them was being protected by the others.

It was the crisis of her own serious illness that had set in motion the events that had had such tragic consequences for Molly at the Contessa's house party. Gemma had met her at the Victoria and Albert, quickly seen the ases to which she could be put, made her the repository of some crucial details and suspicions, and pulled the unaware Sebastian into the plot. It was her intention to watch, to observe, to evaluate the effects of Molly's observations. Beyond this she hadn't thought clearly, something she now regretted, as she keenly regretted having been indirectly responsible for the murder of Molly, who had never been informed of what Gemma was fishing for.

Yes, Urbino thought, she should have told Molly more and Bambina less. If she had made the one privy to her suspicions and pretended more with the other, Molly might still be alive and Gemma herself might not have been pushed down the stairs on her way to enlist Urbino's help.

Urbino, who had been reviewing all these details as he and the Contessa looked out the window, was surprised to discover that the Contessa had been thinking along parallel lines when she broke her silence. Surely Vasco would see it as a manifestation of the powers of the mind, which—from his point of view—had played such a role in the murders of Renata and Molly.

“Gemma, poor thing, acted irresponsibly, didn't she? To think that all of this was roiling around in her head while I was sitting for her. It's a wonder none of it came out in the portrait.”