Death in the Palazzo (29 page)

From her intonation and the quick look she gave him it was clear that she wanted—needed—some verification of this. He fortunately could give it.

“None that I could see. And I'm sure that when it's repaired you'll be proud to hang it in the gallery.”

“Ah, but the memories behind it,
caro!
What of those?”

“You're a brave woman, Barbara. And so is Gemma. Dwell on those memories—on those associations. It's such a lovely portrait. Alvise wanted a portrait of you in the gallery. In its own crooked and sad, but, yes, perhaps even inevitable way, this is the fulfillment of that wish.”

The Contessa didn't seem convinced, but he was fairly sure that, with time, she would see it this way. Her thoughts this afternoon could only temporarily remain on herself, as was evident when she said, after a short pause to take a sip of tea:

“I hope Gemma will stay with me when she's released from hospital—despite the Ca' da Capo's bad associations. I went to see her today—and Filippo, too.” Filippo had suffered a severe concussion not long after leaving the Ca' da Capo when he had been hit by a stone dislodged by the storm. “He's bounced back, thank God. Oriana is by his side every minute, driving the hospital staff mad. His accident seems to have done wonders for their relationship. Gemma has regained some of her color and a lot of her energy. She's refused to see Luigi, you know.”

“It comes as no surprise. You must have noticed yourself that she doesn't feel comfortable around him.”

“But surely that was only because there was a doubt in her mind whether he might not have murdered Renata.”

“Perhaps only partly. She's very sensitive and susceptible. Vasco has been hiding so much, feeling so much, torturing himself so much over the years that I wouldn't be surprised if Gemma responded to it at some level. I mean aside from the fact that she suspected him along with Signora Zeno and Bambina. Vasco himself, from what I hear, still insists that he's responsible for the deaths of Renata and Molly.”

“But it was Bambina!”

“Yes, she did kill them, but Vasco wanted both of them dead. The desire, the wish, and the will were all strong, and you know what stock he puts in those things. He was furious at Renata for preferring Lydgate to him. She had given him reason to hope. Then years and years later Molly comes along, apparently in the know about the events of thirty-eight. He was attracted to her but also wanted her out of the way as a threat. The wish is father of the deed. Bambina, he came to realize, had killed Renata. Had the thought been planted in her mind by his own dark thoughts? Was he responsible? He tortured himself in the same way over Molly. Viola said that Vasco reminded her of Dr. Caligeri, who had a minion to carry out his evil bidding. I guess Viola wasn't far wrong, not from Vasco's own opinion of himself and of the power of the mind.”

“But what about Marialuisa? In the library I thought that she had done everyone in with a rapier concealed in her walking stick!”

Urbino smiled to himself as he recalled his own fleeting suspicion about the special properties of the old woman's cane.

“So how much did she know about what really happened to Renata?” the Contessa asked.

“She probably knew everything right away, but didn't let Bambina know that she did. What would she have accomplished by turning in her own daughter? Scandal. The end of any hope of advancing the family through marriage. Remember: Bambina was not even eighteen back then. Lydgate was now free, and Alvise was a very attractive possibility. Then, as the years went by and she saw her plans turn to dust, she clung in her way more and more to Bambina. Dominating her, yes, but needing her. Rather classic, really. No, Marialuisa never would have turned in Bambina. Now she's revealing the secrets of the past because she has no other choice. And I suspect she might be worn out by having had to conceal them for so many years.”

“And Bambina did try to kill her,” the Contessa reminded Urbino, “and then at the
Questura
she accused her of the two murders. Bambina was as desperate as a person can get—and still is, I'm sure.”

“Desperate and unbalanced. I don't think there's much doubt about what the psychiatric examination will turn up. I admit I was going on the assumption that we were dealing with a disturbed mind from almost the beginning. The slashing of your portrait seemed to be one more proof, but of course—”

“Of course you were wrong there because it wasn't Bambina but Marialuisa.”

Not only that, Urbino said to himself, but he had even fleetingly thought Sebastian had done it. There had been that expectant smile on his face as he stared at the Contessa right before the portrait was unveiled. A now repentant Sebastian, who had remained in town after his sister's departure, had confessed to Urbino that he had taken a peek at the portrait after it was slashed and had been waiting for the unveiling with amusement. Urbino had thought it best not to mention this to the Contessa. Nor had he yet told her about something else concerning her young cousin.

“And you know,” the Contessa broke in on Urbino's thoughts, “Marialuisa might be as disturbed as Bambina.
Telle mère, telle fille!
”

“Not really” came Urbino's somewhat deflating response. “I suspect that Marialuisa is most
compos mentis
. And she still has a will of iron.”

“I wonder what will become of her.”

“Oh, I'm sure that Vasco will look after her.”

The observation was, perhaps, a bit unrealistic since Vasco was himself in his eighties, but the Contessa didn't disagree. She instead asked:

“Did you know from the start how Molly was killed?”

“Not for a moment did I think she had been killed because her head went through the glass—either because of an accident or because she was pushed through. Since there were no other visible wounds, I suspected poison. The lingering scent of perfume confused me at first. Why would Molly douse herself with it after she had taken a bath?”

“The obvious answer to that is that she could have been expecting a visitor. Didn't it occur to you that Vasco might be dropping by?”

“That's exactly what I did think at first: him or someone else. But when I didn't find a bottle of that perfume among Molly's things—the same kind that Bambina and Gemma wore, and which Mamma Zeno filched from time to time from Bambina's bottle—the picture started to change. Then I saw the tin of rose spray in the cabinet in the conservatory. I remembered how you said that nothing had been changed in the conservatory since the days of the house party and how you insisted on getting the same nicotine-based rose spray from the old pharmacist in the Dorsoduro quarter. I know enough about nicotine—pure nicotine—to know how it works. Very fast, especially when administered directly to the skin, faster than when it's ingested. I remembered how Alvise was disoriented by the scent of perfume surrounding Renata's body. He called it the ‘odor of sanctity.' Murderers seldom change their methods, even over such a long period of time. I had a hunch that both Renata and Molly had been killed in exactly the same way.”

“But how did you know it was Bambina?”

“In many ways she was the most likely suspect from the start. She was infatuated with Lydgate. Jealous of Renata. Jealous, even at her advanced age, of every female in the house. Then there was her cat, Dido, who died a painful death a few months before Renata. Jealous of little Gemma, whom Dido became so attached to. Bambina probably poisoned the cat, too. Kind of a dry run for Renata.”

The Contessa shuddered and shook her head.

“And of everyone Bambina seemed to be in the least touch with reality—”

“Ah, reality!” the Contessa interrupted. “As if any of us have been on such close terms with it! If I had had more sense, this weekend never would have taken place, and if you had been thinking clearly, you would have discouraged me!”

“No one is responsible for what happened this weekend, except Bambina herself. And Gemma, of course, for endangering Molly the way she did.”

“Of course you're right, but nonetheless I know I'm never going to be able to get rid of a feeling of responsibility in it all. And there are so many reminders! The portrait, as I've already said. The brooch. The Caravaggio. The room itself. What am I going to do about all of those?” she almost wailed.

She was to be forgiven as her thoughts strayed back to the personal. Urbino tried to reassure her, by first repeating what he had said earlier about the portrait and then by saying, with what experience had taught him was the right combination of banter and force to use with her:

“You'll wear the brooch as often or as seldom as you did before. It was Alvise's gift to you, and it's surely in better hands with you than Marialuisa. Remember, she gave Bambina the task of stealing it this weekend. She was determined to have it in the family. She'd probably have it in her possession now, if Bambina hadn't decided to plant it on Gemma. And don't think of giving it to Gemma. I doubt if she'd want anything to do with it, and you can be sure Angelica would shrink from it if you made it a wedding gift. You see I know how your mind works! You're probably thinking of Viola, too. But everyone will think you're trying to pass on bad luck—nonsense, of course!—so you must keep it.”

“You must feel the same about the Caravaggio. I was considering giving it to you. There's that corner of your library just waiting for it.”

“Thank you, Barbara, but I can't accept it.” The look that came over the Contessa's face was not so much disappointment or hurt as fear. “Not because of any preposterous superstition, but because I don't want to feel that I've benefited in any way from what's happened.”

A skeptical look passed over the Contessa's attractive features, and Urbino himself wondered exactly how selfless his rejection of the Caravaggio was. Despite his belief in rationality and logic, deep inside him was lodged a small, dark corner of superstition that the recent events at the Ca' da Capo had far from swept clean.

“No,” he quickly went on before the Contessa might say anything, “what I suggest is that you either put it somewhere else in the Ca' da Capo—some less private area, like the entrance hallway or the
salone da ballo
. If that doesn't suit you, donate it to the Accademia or the monks on San Lazzaro degli Armeni. After all, it was one of the monks there who recognized it as a Caravaggio when Alvise's father brought it to be cleaned.”

“That's a good idea. I think that just might be the solution. But if anything were to happen on San Lazzaro after I gave it to them, I'd—”

“As for the Caravaggio Room,” Urbino interrupted, “why don't you completely redo it? After all, it wasn't part of your renovations after you married. Now's the time to do it. We can plan it together. Decide on a theme, choose a Fortuny fabric for the walls, scout around for some items. Maybe Milo can take us out with the Bentley and we can make our way as far as Naples. I know some shops there that have beautiful rococo furniture.”

“And when the room's done, it can be yours whenever you happen to stay over. How's that?”

A teasing but also slightly sad smile played at the corners of the Contessa's lips.

“We'll see” was the extent of Urbino's agreement.

“Maybe you'll feel more easy about staying in it if you completely exorcise it.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you re-create exactly what happened to Molly in the room that night. It would be good for me, too. What I imagine can't be worse than what actually happened.” She paused, a worried expression on her face, and added, “Could it?”

Urbino preferred not to respond to the question and took a sip of his Campari and soda. The orchestra now started to play, for the second time since Urbino and the Contessa had come into the Chinese salon, that Neapolitan favorite, “
O Sole Mio.
” In case anyone missed the intention behind this choice, any ambiguity was removed by a red-faced man, fortified with Veuve Clicquot, now singing—or rather shouting—of “serene air” after the “
tempesta.
” His spirited apostrophes to the sun, shining again on the lagoon city, were joined in by his equally fortified and vociferous companions.

When the orchestra went on to play an arrangement of Verdi arias and the singers had returned their attention to what remained of their champagne, Urbino began to describe how Molly had met her death in the Caravaggio Room.

“Some time after everyone was in their rooms, Bambina must have crept down to the conservatory to get some of the rose spray. Earlier in the day she searched through the cupboard for a glass to fill with water when Gemma became ill. The glasses are above the sink but she could have looked in the cabinet beneath it and seen the tin of rose spray and the white rubber gloves among the gardening tools. That night she put on a pair of the gloves, poured some of the rose spray into a container—probably into her flask—and went back to her room, where she mixed it with a quantity of her perfume. Then, on some pretext or another, she paid a visit to Molly. Poor Molly, for all her dark and bloody pronouncements, was a trusting soul. Exactly what transpired between them, we're not going to know unless Bambina decides to tell, but somehow Molly got thoroughly saturated with the perfume laced with rose spray. Death through skin absorption can be as rapid as five minutes. Bambina probably waited until Molly was dead and then left the room.”

The Contessa shook her head slowly.

“No, I was wrong,” she said. “It isn't better to know exactly what happened. Not at all.”

“But some of this is speculation, remember,” Urbino said by way of soothing her.

“Just finish, if you don't mind.”

“Bambina returned to her room and probably didn't stir for the rest of the night—except to go out to the loggia.”