Page 54 of Vengeance in Venice
“A married couple with years of acrimony behind them and no common cause.”
She twisted her neck to look at Solomon. “You don’t think finding the murderer is their common cause?”
He shook his head in an impatient kind of way. “Perhaps they just disagree on methods. But they are not a team. They don’t pull together.” He came around to face her and crouched at her knee.
“Constance, shall we go?” he asked urgently. “As soon as you are well enough. We can go to Florence, Pisa, Rome…”
“Later,” she said vaguely. She reached out and caressed his cheek. “If this was a warning, we are warned. I could not bear to lose you over this or anything else, but…I am safe here for now. And, surely, so are you. Our culprit won’t want to draw attention to himself—or herself—by risking another attack so soon.”
“That is sheer speculation,” he pointed out.
“It is. Let’s look at my notes and update them.”
“I think I added everything yesterday and this morning,” he said, rising to fetch said notes from the little bureau beneath the window.
Maria brought breakfast then—a thin soup for Constance that smelled of chicken and vegetables, and something heartier for Solomon. While they ate, they went over the facts, the opportunities, and the questions thrown up by what they had written, and soon the papers were spread all over the floor with arrows joining one point to another.
Constance warily swallowed a morsel of soup. It was watery but tasty and quite unthreatening, so she took another, and then a larger spoonful, and decided to wait. Her stomach felt odd, but did not actively rebel. She was able to concentrate on the discussion until tiredness overtook her again and the thoughts in her head disintegrated. She blinked, trying to get it back.
But already, Solomon had waded through the papers and was lifting her in his arms. It was sweet to be carried to bed, even if she only slept.
Chapter Twelve
Solomon hesitated beforeleaving the Palazzo Zulian. It went against his nature to leave her, even safe, asleep, and guarded by a houseful of servants who seemed to have taken the attack on her as a slight to their honor. It struck Solomon that if he had tried to on the night of her abduction, he could have whipped up an army to storm the Palazzo Savelli and take her back. Fortunately, that had not been necessary, but it was a comfort to know.
As Alvise rowed him to Premarin’s house, it struck Solomon that he and Giusti and Savelli all lived close to each other, on or around the same length of the Grand Canal. One could walk the distance easily, but the back door, opening almost directly onto the water, was only accessible by boat. Without a boat, Savelli’s murderer would have had to go through the house.
Had he? Had Savelli let him—or her—in, and then tried to send them home by boat, at which time his visitor simply stabbed him? Such evidence as they had was against it. Elena had heard no one in the house, and the Savelli boatman had not been summoned. He doubted any other had either, or the police would probably have found them.
Premarin, it turned out, was not at home. Impulsively, Solomon asked for Signora Premarin and was admitted at once.
Constance had found the young lady difficult to talk to, and rather strange. She also suspected her of harboring illicitfeelings for Savelli. If the murder was about love, it didn’thaveto be the love of Giusti and Elena.
Signora Premarin received him with surprise but unexpected delight. When he smiled, her face became animated, as now when she gave him her hand, her plainness vanishing into something almost pretty. Solomon, fastidious and hopelessly devoted to his own wife, could still see her attractiveness, though whether it had been enough to drag the similarly devoted Savelli fromhiswife was another matter.
“Forgive the intrusion,” Solomon said politely in careful Italian. “I hope you don’t mind my calling when your husband is from home?”
“Of course not. You are very welcome. Please, sit down.” She cast aside the needlework she had abandoned on the sofa, as though she expected him to sit next to her. Solomon, wary by nature and not unused to certain women’s wiles, pretended not to notice and took a chair close enough to talk, but far enough away to avoid touching.
A servant brought the inevitable wine and cicchetti. Solomon felt obliged to accept, although the hairs stood up on the back of his neck as he remembered Premarin pouring wine into Constance’s glass.
Since Signora Premarin poured it herself from the same bottle, and drank happily, he risked a sip of his own and politely took a small savory with anchovy and cream.
“We were sorry not to see you with your husband at the British consulate reception,” Solomon said.
She wrinkled her nose. “I am too stupid to enjoy such affairs, and I cannot speak English. I like the way you speak Italian.”
“I try my poor best, but feel free to laugh and correct me at will. How is your husband?”
“He is well. Busy.”
Solomon waited for her to ask after Constance, but she didn’t. So he abandoned subtlety. “I am glad to hear it. My wife was taken ill after the reception, so I was hoping he was not affected.”
“Oh no, Nicolo is never ill. I expect it was the clams. Some cooks are not careful enough with them.”
“Thankfully, we did not eat the clams. You did not hear about anyone else being ill from the event?”
She shook her head. After a moment, as though the thought had just occurred to her, she said, “Is your wife recovered?”
