Page 12 of Vengeance in Venice (Murder in Moonlight #6)

“Being a nationalist,” Solomon murmured. He frowned. “How loyal would these bravos be to Savelli’s family?”

“Very. As long as they are paid.”

Then they did not expect Elena Savelli to stop paying them as she had threatened during her first conversation with Solomon. They still obeyed her without question, despite her clear disdain. Interesting. Possibly…

Like him, Constance seemed unwilling to discuss too much in front of Alvise, whose grasp of English was increasing daily. Back at the Palazzo Zulian, Solomon dismissed the boatman, and Constance almost flew into the house and up the stairs to their favorite drawing room.

By the time he closed the door behind them, she had already found paper and a pen and was seated at the charming little bureau between the two central windows.

He knew she would be writing down everything they knew about the case and those involved with it—not in case she forgot, for actually she remembered everything that was said to her and everything she read, almost verbatim.

But it helped her—helped both of them—to see connections and different points of view.

Constance said, “I don’t want her to have done it either. But she could have. She is hiding something . Something besides discontent and loneliness.”

“It need not be anything incriminating. After all, she is happy for us to question her servants, even to keep coming back.”

“Is she?” Constance looked up, her pen stilling. “Can you be sure she translated all our questions accurately? Let alone the answers?”

“No,” he admitted. “Not completely sure. But I didn’t catch any obfuscation.”

Constance sighed. “Do you think she regretted marrying him?”

“I think it left her without family and friends. Whether that is enough…”

“Is it enough for you?” Constance said suddenly.

“I had very few friends in the first place and, to my knowledge, no one rejects you. Or me. We may be an odd couple, but our marriage hurts no one. I think Elena’s did.”

“Giusti, for one.”

“And possibly Elena herself. In which case, if Savelli knew it, he would also have been hurt.”

Constance began to write again, furiously.

“There are too many oddities here. What was Savelli afraid of to have hired such men? It seems incongruous. He was not a brawling man. He was much too refined and self-disciplined. And yet he sent them after Giusti. And made them feel it was permissible to abduct Giusti’s mistress—me, apparently. ”

“Something was bothering Savelli, at least on the night he died, but possibly for much longer. If he didn’t sleep well, he might not have been thinking very clearly. He might have made several bad decisions.”

“Like hiring these men in the first place,” Constance said. “Like assaulting Giusti. Like going out unarmed and half dressed in the middle in the night, his bed not properly slept in.” She stopped writing again and stared at him, her eyes gleaming. “He was waiting for someone!”

“Perhaps,” Solomon allowed. “His dressing room overlooks the back of the house. He could have seen someone arrive by boat and dashed out to meet them.”

“A lover?” Constance suggested. “That would certainly explain Elena’s unhappiness.

And her secretiveness. She would hide it, pretend she neither knew nor cared…

” She frowned and shook her head. “Except I could swear he loved his wife. He was more concerned for what she might think about my departure from the house than about anything else. He did not want her hurt or humiliated, and not just because it might earn him an earful of abuse. He cared for her.”

“And she chose him over Giusti. We keep coming back to Ludovico. Somehow, he is involved in this story.”

“He had another woman,” Constance recalled. “And I don’t think Elena liked that. She definitely disliked the idea of Giusti and me knowing each other.”

“Well, you can’t help being a threat to any woman’s amorous ambitions.”

Constance stuck out her tongue at him. “She is not indifferent to Giusti. But it might just be a dog-in-the manger-ish possessiveness. I don’t know her well enough to say.”

“Shall we go and see Giusti this afternoon? I want to know why he was so determined to hold on to those jewels, including Elena’s father’s ring. That does not seem very…gentlemanly.”

“We could and should see Giusti,” she replied, a sparkle in her brilliant eyes. “But first, we could discover the portrait painter’s view of the Savellis.”

Solomon raised his eyebrows. “Do you have his name?”

“I read his invoice,” Constance said with relish. “I have his address.”

A maid came into the room with a letter, which she presented to Solomon with a curtsey. It was a large, official-looking envelope emblazoned with a familiar coat of arms.

“It’s from the consulate,” Solomon said in surprise.

“Telling us to keep out of Venetian business?” Constance asked, intrigued enough to leave her desk and come to lean over his shoulder. He could not resist leaning his head back so that their cheeks touched. She moved hers, caressing him like a cat, which made him smile.

“It’s an invitation to a reception tomorrow afternoon,” he said thoughtfully. “I wonder whom we will meet there?”

Although the invitation was printed, a note had been inscribed by hand on the back by a secretary, apologizing for the short notice, which was only because the consul had not realized until today that such a distinguished British visitor was in Venice.

“He must mean you,” Solomon said.

“He can’t know about me,” Constance said wryly, thinking of her past. “We are both invited.”

“Which is as it should be. Perhaps they heard of our involvement in the Savelli murder. Either way, it will certainly be interesting to learn what the British here think of Savelli. Official government sympathy is generally with the nationalist cause.”

He rose and put the card on the large marble mantelpiece. “But that is for tomorrow. Perhaps you would like your portrait painted while you are in Venice?”

She smiled. “I would like yours. If he’s good. What a pity Signora Savelli didn’t show us hers. That must have been what was on the covered easel in the corner of her drawing room.”

After a cup of coffee—they had more or less given up on finding decent tea in Italy—they duly summoned Alvise and set off in search of the painter, Domenic Rossi.

It had clouded over and there was a fine mizzle of rain.

Unlike rain at home, this did not detract from Venice’s charm, merely changed it subtly to one of brooding moodiness.

No wonder artists were drawn here. Or born here.

In fact, Domenico Rossi lived pretty close by.

According to Alvise, there was a tradition of painters living in this quarter of the city, including the great Canaletto.

They could easily have walked the short distance, but the novelty of traveling everywhere by boat had not yet worn off.

After tying up the craft, Alvise pointed them down a narrow passageway and they set off to find the painter’s house.

Thoughtfully, he had nailed a sign to his door, consisting of a small, square view of the Cannaregio Canal with his name inscribed below it.

Solomon raised the knocker, which was loose, and rapped on the door.

After several moments, he rapped again. A male voice shouted within, easily heard through the open window on the floor above.

Footsteps clomped nearer and the door opened to reveal a young, ill-dressed woman with a tangled mass of black hair, a curvy figure, and a face of exquisite beauty.

“Signor Rossi, per favore ?” Solomon said politely.

“He’s not in,” the girl replied with blatant untruth.

Solomon raised one eyebrow. “Then that was not his voice I heard?”

“No.”

“Then we shall wait.”

The girl moved forward to block him when he would have brushed past her. “There is no point. Come back tomorrow. Early. The earlier the better.”

She would have shut the door, only Solomon, suspicions aroused, placed his hand on it and pushed back. The girl stared at him with more hopelessness than aggression.

“Are you his wife?” Constance asked gently in her careful Italian.

“God, no,” the girl said fervently. She raised her voice. “I have not yet sunk so low!”

Whatever the man above said, it sounded like a curse. He clattered downstairs and the girl made one last effort to close the door.

“Useless girl,” the man roared behind her. “Don’t send my bread and butter away!”

The girl threw up her hands, releasing the door. “Please yourself. Come in if you want,” she added to the visitors. “It won’t do you any good, because he’s drunk as an English lord.”

“Ha!” said the man, striding somewhat unevenly into view. “Even drunk, I paint better than anyone else in the city. Come in, and welcome!” He bowed elaborately, only just keeping his balance. He smelled like old socks and new wine.

Straightening, he regarded them from beneath thick, bushy brows. There was something leonine about him with his wild mane of reddish-brown hair and oddly noble features—apart from bloodshot, unfocused eyes.

It went against the grain to take Constance into such inebriated company. But it was she who sailed first through the door, taking the matter out of Solomon’s hands.

“ Buon Giorno, ” she said briskly. “Do you speak English, Signor Rossi?”

Rossi concentrated hard on his finger and thumb to show about an inch of space. “Little,” he said, and lumbered back to the stairs. “Come, come.”

Solomon followed Constance inside, and the girl closed the door behind him. “I’ll bring coffee,” she said resignedly.