Frail Barrier (32 page)

‘Luca and Clementina had as much of a motive for murder as Hollander had.'

Urbino noted that she no longer used his first name.

‘Actually you could say that Clementina would have had a motive for two murders. First Zoll, then her brother if she had known about the will. She still says he never told her. He might have wanted to keep it to himself for a while. She believes he had no ulterior motives in befriending and taking care of Zoll.'

‘What do you think?'

‘We're all only human. It must have occurred to him that he had something to gain. But I keep thinking of the two of them out there under the arcade' – he indicated the precise spot where they had seen Zoll and Luca in late July – ‘and I say to myself, Zoll had someone looking after him at the end.'

The two bronze giants on the top of the clock tower started to strike the fifth hour. The eyes of the two friends, as well as those of most of the people in the square, were drawn to the tower. Its clock, with its golden stars, Zodiacal signs, and planets against a blue background, looked seaward and glittered in the sun. Beneath it was the entrance to the Merceria, one of the main shopping streets of Venice.

When the Moors had finished, the contessa continued to stare at the clock tower.

‘Such a beautiful instrument to measure the inevitable passing of the hours.'

‘But since their passing
is
inevitable, isn't it better when it can be beautiful as well?'

‘Yes, and I know that I'm fortunate. We
both
are.'

Urbino couldn't disagree with this.

‘How is Claudio doing?' the contessa asked. ‘Isn't he a little cramped with Gildo?'

Claudio was staying with Gildo until he could find another apartment. He didn't want to stay in San Tomà. Urbino had suggested finding him a hotel room but he preferred, for the moment, the arrangement with Gildo.

‘He seems fine. And they'll be even more cramped for the next few days. They'll be living in the gondola. They're taking it out into the lagoon. To spend some time on their own, away from everything. No crowds, no competition, no dangers except natural ones, no—'

‘No Perla for Claudio,' the contessa interrupted. ‘Not that Jill for this Jack.'

‘That's over whether Claudio stays in Venice or goes farther away than the lagoon. He's been shaken up enough from his experience with Hollander to make him want to play things safe. And I'm sure that Romolo is going to keep a short leash on Perla for a long time to come.'

‘There's something about that part of the story that I can tell you,' the contessa said with a smile of satisfaction. ‘Perla and Romolo are through. That's what Oriana tells me. All that love – if it was love – turned to hate, it seems.'

‘“All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven. 'Tis gone,'” Urbino recited. He pursed his lips in imitation of a blowing motion.

‘You don't make a very good Othello,
caro
, and Perla never was or could ever be a Desdemona. Romolo loved her so much. It's another one of those thin lines though, or it can be, can't it? Love and hate.' Her gray eyes became reflective. ‘So what are your plans, now that most of the madness of the season is over?'

‘First of all, I'll put together the little book on Albina. I have to make my lie the truth. I've already written some of it.'

‘When it's finished and printed, we'll have a memorial reception.'

‘And after I finish the book, I'll immerse myself in Goethe. I want to move ahead with the project. I've missed him. He's a tranquil companion.'

‘Before you immerse yourself – or maybe you should say
immure
yourself – why don't you spend three or four days in Asolo with Giulietta, Maisie Croy, and me? It might be one of the last times before the spring.'

Giulietta and Croy had become close during the past few days. Giulietta was still at the Ca' da Capo-Zendrini, and the contessa had invited Croy to stay for a while, too.

‘Maisie is going to do watercolors. And I've advised her to bring what she considers the best of what she's already done. Perhaps she can sell some of them there.'

As it turned out, the watercolor in Zoll's apartment was one of only two she had sold in Venice. Zoll had seen her at work by the Accademia and had bought her painting. The fact that she spoke good German had delighted him. She had had no idea of his death or that of his Italian companion until the contessa had provided an account of some of the events that had come to a crisis on regatta day.

‘Did you and Maisie talk about her health?'

A more serious expression settled on the contessa's attractive face.

‘She mentioned that she finished some treatments in London before she came here. But I didn't want to press her for details. She's not comfortable with the topic.'

And neither, Urbino knew, was the contessa.

‘By the way, she has something to give you.'

‘One of her watercolors. Which one did she choose?'

‘The Bridge of Sighs. She said that she thinks of you as a bridge. America and Italy, crime and punishment, art and life – oh, she went on and on! She even said between the living and the dead, but I stopped her there. I didn't want to hear any more.' The contessa shook her head. ‘As for Giulietta, some of my Asolo friends might have work for her. So what about you? Will you join us?'

‘I'll bring my Goethe and mix business with pleasure.'

‘Then it's settled. We'll all go up together in the Bentley on Saturday morning.' She looked over his shoulder. ‘My, my, what's this?'

Urbino turned around.

The waiter Marcello, two of his colleagues, and the manager stood a few feet away. They were smiling. The manager handed Urbino a small, dark wooden box, a little larger than a box for a wristwatch. There was no name or inscription on it.

‘Whatever could that be?' the contessa asked, with a big smile.

Urbino opened the box. Inside, against the dark green velvet lining, was a small crimson ribbon looped and crossed, with the Florian logo and the words ‘
Mille grazie'
woven into it in golden threads.

‘It's to thank you for what you've done for Claudio and Albina,' the manager said. ‘And for what you've done for Florian's.'

The contessa got up and went over to Urbino.

‘Give it to me,' she said.

The ribbon had a golden pin affixed to its back. She pinned the ribbon to the lapel of his sport jacket. The patrons at the other tables fell silent and watched.

When she had finished, she said, ‘A little speech?'

Embarrassed, gratified, Urbino said, ‘All I can say is thank you. There's nothing more to say.'

The manager shook Urbino's hand. Marcello gave him a kiss on each cheek. A low murmur ran through the salon, followed by light applause.

‘The guardian angel of Florian's,' the contessa said. ‘Its patron saint.' She reseated herself on the banquette, picked up her teacup, and raised it. ‘Sant' Urbino,' she said again.

The other patrons raised their wine glasses, cocktail glasses, water tumblers, and tea and coffee cups, and repeated, some garbling the words, ‘Sant' Urbino!' They had no idea what was going on, but they probably thought it was another one of the city's unusual traditions.

Urbino drank down the rest of his Campari soda.

Outside in the piazza, Florian's orchestra started to play
‘Ecco la mia Venezia'
from Verdi's
I Due Foscari
. No one less than Michele Altieri, who had entertained the contessa's guests at her regatta party, started to sing from the platform in the square. It was one of Urbino's favorite arias. Altieri's suave tenor rang out and filled the Chinese Salon as if it were a privileged box at La Fenice:

Ecco la mia Venezia! Ecco il suo mare!

Regina dell' onde, io ti saluto!

Sebben meco crudele
,

io ti son pur de' figli il più fedele
.

These words of the exiled doge as he cast his last glance at Venice always stirred something in Urbino, awakened his melancholy side that both tormented and delighted him.

He looked over at the contessa and smiled his appreciation. Everything had been perfectly arranged.

Everything was in its place – the golden and blue clock face, the stones of the piazza, the domes of the Basilica, the bronze
amorini
in the salon, the tenor's liquid notes, the contessa's loving, healthy face.

Urbino wished the moment could last forever.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Mysteries of Venice series

One

Despite a gray astrakhan hat, a Moroccan blanket with geometrical designs, and a heavy black wool cape, Urbino was feeling the cold in every part of his body as he sat inside the
felze
of his gondola. Yet he loved every minute of it.

His heart went out to Gildo, however. The young gondolier, who had added only one layer to his usual outfit, was exposed to the buffets of the icy wind as he guided the craft down the small, quiet canal in Santa Croce.

Yesterday's snowfall decorated the tarpaulins of the moored boats, the edges and steps of the canal, the window ledges and eaves, and the bare branches of a tree that overhung a garden wall. Urbino was glad that the snow was lingering. He hoped that the city would see at least one more snowfall, bigger than this one, before the winter was over. When it snowed, the child came out in him, bringing memories of winter visits to his mother's cousins in Vermont.

On their way across the Grand Canal from the Cannaregio, he had noted with pleasure the relative absence of tourists. Urbino hated crowds, and the crowds he hated the most were the ones that flooded the city during the summer, armed with cameras, knapsacks, and plastic bottles of mineral water. He felt a kinship with the few tourists he saw today. He liked to think of them as travelers rather than tourists. They stood on the bridges and at the rails of the waterbuses, gazing around them with what seemed a pure sense of appreciation.

‘Are you sure you're all right, Gildo?' he called up to the gondolier, the vapor of his breath making a cloud in the small shuttered cabin.

Gildo's laughter floated down to him from the poop.

‘I am more than all right, Signor Urbino.' Gildo's English had greatly improved during the past two years. He always insisted that Urbino speak English with him. ‘I am warm, not cold. Remember that I was the one to ask to take out the gondola today. And you know that it is my sport.'

Last September Gildo had participated in the Historical Regatta on the Grand Canal. He and his teammate had come in fifth, just missing the green ribbon. It had been an amazing victory for two rowers competing for the first time in the event.

Urbino never felt really at ease when he was out in his gondola, and not only because of Gildo's labor. The contessa's gift, given on the twentieth anniversary of their friendship, drew too much attention to him. In fact, this morning, shortly after the gondola had slipped out of the Grand Canal and into Santa Croce, a Venetian woman had called out from the parapet of the bridge, ‘
L'americano
!'

It was a familiar cry. Although the woman could not see him inside the cabin, she knew who it was. Urbino's gondola was the last private one in the city, and his was even more conspicuous because of the
felze.
Gondolas no longer attached them in inclement weather or in any kind of weather at all. They had become a thing of the past. And by now, the handsome, vigorous Gildo with his curly, reddish blond hair was well known as the eccentric American's gondolier.

What pleased Urbino about the gondola, however, even though he disliked the scrutiny and jokes, was the mood it invariably induced. Reflective, calm, and, yes, he had to admit it – with another twinge of conscience to accompany his guilt about exposing Gildo to the weather – privileged. He especially enjoyed the gondola when he was in the
felze
and could observe without being observed. He was particularly grateful for this advantage as the gondola approached a building that loured above him.

‘Stop here a few moments, Gildo.'

It was the Palazzo Pindar. Since yesterday at Florian's when the contessa had told him about Gaby Pindar's fears for her life, the building had taken on a different dimension. Urbino still had no doubt that the Palazzo Pindar was a house of whimsy and eccentricity, but could it be one of danger as well? In his two lines of work, Urbino had been in many strange buildings and households in the city, but the Palazzo Pindar was certainly one of the strangest. And now it was about to be a place of work in both his lines.

He had visited the Pindars with the contessa, and on a few occasions he had made solitary tours of its little museum. He had also accompanied the contessa's maid Mina when she went to collect dresses from Olimpia Pindar, Gaby's older sister, who had a dressmaking atelier in the attic.