Page 63 of Vengeance in Venice
With what was apparently a great effort, Giusti dragged his gaze free and looked directly at Constance. “Whether or not I suspected her, even if I had done it myself, I would not have poisoned you. I didn’t, for whatever that is worth. Do you have any idea who did?”
“There were times when the glass was out of our sight,” Solomon said. “And neither of us were paying attention. But the people we knew who could have done it were you, Premarin, Sebastian Kellar, and Adriana, the girl clearing away the glasses.”
Giusti frowned, shaking his head. “I doubt it—unless the girl was coerced, though who on earth by?”
“She is Rossi’s girl.”
“Rossi? The artist? I thought he was painting you both.”
“He had a grudge against Savelli.”
“Hardly one worth killing for,” Elena snapped.
But Giusti sat up straighter. “The man has a drink problem. I have run across him in some shocking states. I reminded him once of trying to punch me in a tavern one night, and he looked at me blankly as though he had no idea what I was talking out.”
Elena looked at him. “You mean he could have got vilely drunk and taken everything out of proportion, as drunks do, and decided Angelo had treated him so abominably that he deserved to die?”
“Something like that. And then not remembered anything about it.”
Constance met Solomon’s gaze. “He didn’t come today. Perhaps he started to remember.”
“And perhaps he just decided there was no point in coming while you were ill,” Solomon said.
“Or he was drunk in some tavern,” Giusti added. “I’ll go and get the truth out of him for you.”
“No,” Constance and Solomon said together.
Solomon’s lips twitched. “We’ll send for him. I don’t want him to close up like a clam. But thank you for the offer.” He adjusted his gaze to encompass Elena as well. “And thank you for telling us the truth at last.”
An instinctive, surreptitious glance passed between Giusti and Elena. It might have been permission, for he said, “There is one thing more. I sort of called on Signora Savelli the next night.”
“Sort of?” Constance repeated.
“He climbed up the building,” Elena said without expression, and yet Constance had the idea that it both impressed and terrified her, “and entered by a first-floor window that was unlocked.”
“Why?” Constance asked.
“Because he was dead,” Giusti said. “I needed to know she was well. Again. And…”
“And what?” Constance prompted him.
“Condolences,” Giusti muttered. “I needed to offer condolences. He was her husband.”
“And your friend,” Elena said in little more than a whisper.
Giusti swallowed. “Once.”
Solomon said, “Forgive me, but I have to ask. Was that the only time you—er…scaled the walls?”
Giusti’s fingers curled involuntarily. Then he gave a shrug and an odd, crooked smile. He met Solomon’s gaze with anexpression of reckless defiance, as though he were about to charge into battle or fight a duel.
“I had done it before as a boy. With Savelli. It was my only time as an adult. But since it is a day for confession, it is not the only time I rowed past the palazzo.”
“Were you looking for a fight?” Solomon asked. “Or reconciliation with an old friend?”
Giusti shook his head. “No. Just a glimpse.”
Of her. Of Elena.Poor, foolish, lonely boy…
