Page 32 of Vengeance in Venice (Murder in Moonlight #6)

S olomon stared at the widow. There was no doubt the sight of the dagger upset her, and he was instantly sorry he had asked to see the collection at all.

In fact, he wasn’t quite sure why he had suggested it.

Perhaps to give him some more idea of the murdered man and at least the kind of weapon that had been used against him.

Constance had not quite approved, and of course she was right.

He said gently, “According to Foscolo, the police did not return it.”

“Then why is it here?” Elena snapped.

“It must have been a different dagger.”

She stared at him. “I saw it sticking out of my husband’s chest. Do you think that is something I could forget or mistake?”

“No,” Constance said, taking her hand and leading her away. “Of course he thinks no such thing. We have to work out how it got back here.”

“Foscolo.” Pulling free, Elena hurried to the door and called for her servant before hurling English words over her shoulder at Constance and Solomon.

“He must have returned it on his way out of the house. He probably came with that purpose and struggled for the right moment, and then you came and—”

Elena broke off, turning on the servant instead. “Did you show Signor Foscolo straight to the front door? Did he go anywhere else in the house? In here?”

“No, signora,” said the mystified servant. “I brought him straight up to you without asking, since he is the police, and I showed him straight out.”

“Was he carrying anything when he arrived?” Solomon asked.

“No. Nor when he left.”

“What of Signor Lampl?” Solomon said. “Has he ever been here without disturbing the signora?”

“Oh, no,” the servant said, apparently shocked. “Well, not after that first day when they were both in this room—Signor Foscolo and Signor Lampl.”

That was certainly true. Solomon had been interviewed by them both here.

“Did they pay much attention to these weapons on display?” Constance asked the servant.

“I was not in the room for most of the time.”

“Of course not,” Elena interrupted sharply. “But I’m sure you know which cases were breathed on and which had fingermarks all over them when they had left.”

He flushed and bowed his head. “Actually, none of them, signora. The police seemed more interested in the master’s papers.”

“You may go,” Elena said, and turned slowly back to Solomon. “What are you thinking?”

He wasn’t sure that he wanted to tell her that yet, so instead, he said the next thing that came into his head.

“That dagger you recognize is a conspicuously beautiful and valuable weapon. Why would your husband have stuck it in his belt when he went outside without his coat at five o’clock in the morning? ”

Elena blinked several times, then sank onto the nearest chair. “I don’t know. I suppose… I assumed he was polishing it when he was distracted. He often dusted and polished his collection at the oddest times.”

“When he was distracted by whoever enticed him outside, you mean?” Solomon said, and Constance, suddenly catching on, hurried to each of the windows to confirm what he already suspected.

“Yes,” Elena said helplessly.

“But this room looks onto the side of the house only,” Constance said. “You cannot see the back door or the canal running past it from here. Nor can you see the front.”

Elena frowned, beginning to look baffled. “Did he hear something, then? Even if he did… Surely he would have laid the dagger back in its case, not put it in his belt.”

“Unless he was afraid for his life,” Constance said.

“Then why go out at all? Why not summon the bodyguard he insisted on hiring?”

“Pride?” Constance suggested.

“But to take that particular dagger? When I saw it, when I saw him , it never struck me how odd it was, but he would never have taken that out of the house so carelessly. It would be an invitation to be robbed. For protection—” Elena got up suddenly and strode past Constance to the desk, pulling open the second drawer down.

From it, she took a plain, clean, much shorter blade and set it carefully down on the surface of the desk.

“ This is what he took to protect himself, ever since he returned to Venice with the Austrians. He cannot have been in such a hurry that he chose that ”—she pointed toward the case—“over this .”

“Then we have two more mysteries,” Solomon said. “How was he stabbed with that dagger? And how the devil did it get back to its case?”

For a while, the three of them stood there, staring at each other in consternation.

Elena finally said, “Either someone put it back, or it never left this case. And it cannot be the latter, because I saw it in his chest.”

Constance caught her breath. “Did you?”

Elena’s face twisted in distress, in memory, no doubt, and Constance caught her hand again, as if in both comfort and apology. “No, listen. Only two were ever made.”

Solomon’s skin prickled with excitement. They were on the verge of discovery, of solution. “They were originally a pair.”

“ I told them that,” Elena said impatiently.

“Angelo grew up knowing it. The dagger has been in his family for centuries, only one. Yet the tradition is that two identical daggers were made for his ancestor for some ceremonial occasion. Angelo traced the ownership of this one through the ages—it has always been in Venice in one branch of the Savelli family or another. But he never found any sign of the other. It might never have existed. Who would want two such daggers?”

“Who would want one ?” Constance asked, wandering over to stare again at the beautiful, deadly thing. “Surely no one would take into actual battle?”

“It was never about battle, it was about status, wealth, ostentation. Venice was rich and gaudy when this was made. Her merchants ruled the world. Or at least the Mediterranean world. It was the center of Angelo’s collection.”

“He was proud of it,” Solomon said, feeling his way. “Did he ever look for its twin?”

“Not that I know of. It was not in Venice. I expect he kept an ear out, but he assumed the twin had been lost centuries ago, even broken up and sold for its jewels. You are seriously thinking that he was killed with the lost twin of his own dagger? Would that not be rather fanciful coincidence?”

Or a deliberate message of vengeance. “Perhaps… Signora, are these cases kept locked?”

Constance tried the lid and failed to open it.

“Of course,” Elena said. “They are all locked. The key is in the safe.” She waved at a locked walnut cabinet beneath a beautiful glass vase.

“Would you see if it is still there?” Solomon asked.

Shrugging, Elena took the ring of surprisingly small keys from some hidden pocket of her gown and advanced on the safe. Even the lock of the safe was cleverly disguised, and it seemed to take several turns and half turns of the key to open it.

Clever, thought Solomon, who had recent experience of a much larger and more conspicuously impregnable set of locks. In this case, most people would quickly give up on the correct key as being the wrong one.

Elena put her hand inside and brought out a single, small key. She walked to the nearest glass case, opened and closed it again, then moved to the jeweled dagger’s case and did the same.

“How many keys are there for the cases?” Constance asked.

“Just this one. So the theory is wrong. Angelo was not polishing the dagger when he was enticed outside. He can’t have just shoved it into his belt for quickness. The cabinets were all locked.”

“Could anyone have smuggled it back in? Who else has a key to the safe?”

“Just Angelo. The police still have those, too.”

Constance’s gaze flew to Solomon’s.

“Not his dagger,” Elena mused. “But he is no less dead. What does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” Solomon said, “but for your own sake, let us keep the matter strictly between ourselves.”

Elena frowned. “But the police should be informed…”

“Not yet,” Solomon said quickly. He focused on the dagger, trying to memorize every facet, every tiny scratch on the polished blade. “Tomorrow. Tell me, would you recognize your husband’s dagger beside its twin?”

“Clearly not,” Elena said.

*

As they left the Palazzo Savelli, Constance was aware of a powerful urge to walk briskly in the fresh air. However, since she doubted her body was up to it, she accepted Solomon’s hand and then Alvise’s back onto the boat.

While Alvise rowed, she and Solomon sat beneath the awning and talked in low, urgent voices.

“But the fabric of Savelli’s clothes was torn by a blade,” Constance said. “The dagger had to have been in his belt.”

“ A dagger,” Solomon corrected her. “At one time, not necessarily that night. It could even have been after his death. We never saw the body or what he was wearing.”

“If it was the same as he wore earlier in the night, which is what his valet told us, then I saw no tear in his clothes when I met him. The threads found on the murder weapon could just as easily have come from the killer’s clothes.

Or, as you say, the killer could have made the tear himself to mislead the investigation. ”

“Elena does not have her husband’s keys back from the police,” Solomon said thoughtfully.

“But they could still have returned the dagger without her knowing,” Constance said. She shook her head. “Bizarre behavior, but it goes back to what we thought earlier. Elena is the center of all this.”

“I think she is,” Solomon agreed. “Whether there are two daggers or just one.”

The excitement coursing through Constance was oddly chilling.

“How could we have overlooked the fact that policemen are human too? Foscolo, who seems the professional, determined investigator, unmoved by politics or social station, had no reason to call on her today. He is almost afraid to look at her, yet he protects her, like a dog with a bone, even when you just say her name. Like Premarin, he must be hopelessly devoted.”