Page 33 of Vengeance in Venice (Murder in Moonlight #6)

“Hopelessly,” Solomon repeated. “So why kill her husband? Is it likely she would turn to Foscolo ? He might be from an old family, but he is nowhere in the current hierarchy. Was he just doing her a favor, as he saw it?”

“An act of temper?” She shook her head impatiently. “It must have been planned. Either he managed to steal and return Savelli’s dagger, or he somehow tracked down its twin. That is obsession.”

“Or luck. Foscolo fought for Venice against Austria, but like Giusti, he probably went on raiding parties. Before the siege, he could have gone anywhere in Italy, negotiating, conferring, even fighting.”

“We don’t know him, or anything about him,” Constance said restlessly. “He was never a suspect. He was the law.”

Solomon took her hand. “Yet he was there, at the consulate reception. He did not stay long, but during his conversation with Lampl, he stood close to your glass on the table. While we could not see it.”

“But why? We were floundering. What did we say or do that convinced him we had to be scared off? We did tell him we wanted to solve the mystery and find the culprit, but surely that alone was no threat to him. Certainly not worth the risk of poisoning me! I’m sure I said nothing…”

“It must have been me,” Solomon said. “You would remember everything that was said. I must have said something when you were not present.”

“Or someone else reported it to him, even in passing.” She shivered. “Oh, Solomon, we have been blind…”

Alvise called a greeting to another boatman who was grinning and calling back.

All along the waterways, supplies were being unloaded and taken on board.

The streets around them bustled with chatter and business and color.

And yet Constance shivered because it seemed suddenly that there was evil beneath the faded, almost decadent beauty of the city, and its charming, friendly residents. Darkness and light .

Vengeance… “There has to be more than unrequited love for Elena,” she said. “Savelli was on the other side, Foscolo’s enemy. Could they have had some encounter during the war? Some awfulness he blames Savelli for?”

“I doubt he is likely to tell us,” Solomon said grimly. “We cannot question him, so we have to ask others, and I’m afraid—”

“Afraid we are running out of time,” Constance finished when he broke off. She squeezed his fingers to get his attention and met his gaze.

There was a pregnant pause. “No,” he said.

“Alvise,” Constance called casually, “do you know where the policeman Foscolo lives?”

*

Although impatient, Constance bowed to Solomon’s sensible insistence on a light luncheon and rest before going to Foscolo’s home.

After all, despite his original refusal to consider her participation in any such visit, he had eventually given in to her argument that she would supply the innocence to the occasion.

“What man would take his sick wife to help break in anywhere, let alone to a policeman’s house?” she had said blithely.

He’d thought it over for some time. “Our excuse to be there, if we need one, is that we are calling on him with the questions we could not ask him earlier in front of Signora Savelli. But we must time it correctly. In daylight, not long before he might reasonably be expected home, yet not so late that he actually comes home. But if there is difficulty, Constance, we leave. In fact, we don’t even go in.

Breaking and entering is not a charge any British consul could save us from. ”

As if trying to convince himself, he added, “We should be in and out so quickly that no one will know. At this stage, we need to discover if he is at least a collector of antiques. I can’t believe we would be so lucky as to find the dagger in his house.

It is more likely at the police office. But he might have Savelli’s keys.

And we might find some hint, some proof of what he did in the war, of why he hated Savelli. ”

“A reason more than Elena? I doubt Savelli beat her.”

“Perhaps Foscolo knows otherwise,” Solomon said.

She was uneasily aware that he was right. Elena bore none of the obvious signs of an abused wife. Nor did she seem to have the character of a victim, as Constance understood it. On the other hand, the widow was racked with guilt and confusion over Giusti, as if she deserved punishment.

The policeman had rooms in an old building that, according to Alvise, had once belonged to his own family before it was sold off decades ago. Now it served as lodgings for several middling sorts of people.

It was not built at the side of a canal, but along a narrow passageway to a little square with a well at the center.

On disembarking from their boat in their role as tourists, Constance and Solomon strolled arm in arm to the nearest bridge, where they paused for a few minutes to watch the gondolas and the supply boats sail beneath them.

Then they walked on to the other side and down the passageway to the square and Foscolo’s discreet building.

They had no idea which floor he lived on, and the side gate, presumably to a backyard, was bolted shut. Even in the dark and quiet, they would have had difficulty getting in. So Solomon knocked loudly on the door.

As it opened, he removed his hat and asked in his best Italian for Signor Foscolo.

The short, stout, middle-aged woman with the hard eyes shook her head emphatically, explaining that Signor Foscolo was not at home.

Solomon frowned. “He told us to come at this time,” he said testily. “My wife is not well enough to walk around the streets… We will wait.”

He took a step forward, and the woman almost rolled up her sleeves for a fight, only her gaze fell on Constance, who clearly did not yet look as well as she felt, for the woman stepped back again and addressed her directly.

“Come in, signora. I will find you a chair to wait.”

Constance took a quick glance around the large, empty foyer. The door nearest the front stood open, revealing part of a small dwelling within—presumably this woman’s.

“I am the caretaker,” she said proudly. Concentrating hard, Constance picked up the gist of the rest. “I see when everyone comes in and out, so I know Signor Foscolo will not be home for—oh, at least half an hour, and probably longer.”

“He would not mind our waiting in his rooms,” Solomon assured her.

“That is not possible,” the caretaker said with finality, toiling up the stairs with Constance and Solomon at her heels.

Constance remembered to walk slowly and to lean heavily on Solomon’s arm. The snail’s pace was eating into their half-hour, making her tense and impatient. Much to her relief, the caretaker paused on the first floor, outside the first door.

“Foscolo,” she said. “Wait.”

She waddled to the end of the passage and opened another door.

Something scraped and bumped and scraped again, and she emerged, pulling a hard chair with her.

Solomon strode forward and took it from her, which won a look of approval and a breathless “ Grazie .” But she obviously had her own, very strict ideas, for she waddled back to Constance and pointed to a precise place on the floor by the front door.

Obediently, Solomon placed the chair, and handed Constance into it. She sighed as if relieved and grateful, and thanked the caretaker in as weak a voice as she could manage.

The caretaker smiled at her. “ Bella, bella, ” she said wistfully, then swung again on Solomon. “Signor Foscolo is a very busy man.”

“I know,” Solomon said. “And much respected.”

It was a good opening, but their hopes of learning about the policeman from his neighbor were dashed at once, for the caretaker merely waddled off toward the stairs again. “Half an hour,” she repeated. “Or an hour or more. I cannot say.”

Solomon crouched down beside Constance, as though still worried about her. “Can you wait that long?”

“I’ll see,” Constance said. “I will try.”

Solomon’s eyes began to dance. “My brave wife. Just say the word and I will take you home.”

“Not yet. I will just rest here and then I’m sure all will be well.”

Constance did not put it past the caretaker to begin mopping the foyer floor or finding some other task that would allow her to keep her eyes and ears on the foreign visitors. But much to her relief, the slow footsteps faded across the floor below, and she heard the click of the closing door.

From most of the foyer below, they could not be seen.

Solomon straightened and carefully tried Foscolo’s door. Naturally, it was locked.

“Over to you, my dubiously talented wife,” he murmured.

Constance opened her reticule and took out a couple of narrow steel tools. Talking idly, in case the caretaker or anyone else was listening, he moved to the balustrade and peered over, looking both up and down as Constance knelt by the lock and set to work.

Once, the lockpick slipped from her fingers and landed on the tiled floor with an unnaturally loud, echoing clatter.

“You dropped your scissors, my dear,” Solomon said, again for the benefit of listeners. “Let me… Use my handkerchief while I pick these things up.”

She cast him a lopsided smile, picked the tool up for herself, and got back to work. I wish I were better at this…

She smiled up at Solomon when the lock finally gave. He was already beside her, drawing her to her feet, and then he slid first into the space beyond.

*

Toward the end of the afternoon, when Foscolo was considering going home early for once, Lampl strutted into his office without as much as a knock.

Foscolo regarded his superior with barely suppressed dislike. These days, he could hardly turn around without bumping into Lampl, whose mission appeared to be the sabotage of Foscolo’s.

“Well?” Lampl barked.

“I have investigated all the servants, including the bodyguards,” Foscolo said tonelessly.

“As I told you, there is nothing against any of the servants in terms of character, and none of them were out of place when they rose in the morning. Even the bodyguards, who are a mix of brawlers, former soldiers, and one-time criminals, and sleep in a dormitory that the other male servants have to walk through to go anywhere, were all in their beds when the household woke.”

“Then you have missed something,” Lampl pronounced. “Look again. Someone is lying.”

Foscolo barely retained his temper. “Very well,” he managed.

“What of the consulate poisoning? Are you any further forward with that?”

“No, sir.”

Lampl’s gaze was sharp and unblinking, and Foscolo felt a sudden twinge of anxiety. Did the Austrian suspect him? If so, he was in trouble and liable to fall from the tightrope that had been his life over the last few years.

“Then what the devil have you been doing with your time?” Lampl asked.

“Investigating Savelli’s servants, one by one, as you instructed me. It takes a long time to look at the entire life of one person. And now, you want me to repeat the process. As for the poisoning, I thought you were investigating that?”

It was a somewhat desperate attempt to turn the tables on Lampl, which had worked before to get the man off his back for a few hours at least. But Lampl must have grown wise to the tactic.

His eyes narrowed. “I said I would deal with the British officials. If you cannot manage a few cooks and cleaning girls, I question your fitness for your position. What have you been doing all day? All day yesterday?”

That, of course, was the question Foscolo could not answer, at least, not with any honesty.

“My duty,” he said stolidly.

“And your duty took you to the house of Signora Savelli this morning?”

So Lampl did have a spy in the household. He had spies everywhere, including in this office, which made Foscolo’s position somewhat precarious.

Foscolo raised his eyebrows. “Yes, sir. Investigating all these servants repeatedly takes me there quite often.”

“So I hear,” Lampl said deliberately. Oh yes, the man was suspicious.

It was in his voice as well as in his eyes, and he wasn’t even hiding it now.

He took a step nearer, and Foscolo’s fingers curled as though around the hilt of an imaginary dagger.

“And you enjoy it, don’t you? Harassing those who served Savelli. Harassing his widow.”

“Who would you prefer me to harass?” Foscolo asked politely. “Giusti? The Englishman? Signor Premarin? The British consul, perhaps?”

“Your job is not to harass but to investigate, and you are obviously damned poor at that.”

Foscolo itched to punch the Austrian in the face. He even sprang to his feet and, to give his hands something else to do, reached for his hat.

“Now where are you going?” Lampl demanded.

“To investigate,” Foscolo snapped.

He wasn’t, of course. He was getting away from Lampl, because if the man started questioning his every move, he was truly sunk. No, for once, Foscolo was going home early to rest, eat, and plan his next play of the game.