Page 74 of Vengeance in Venice
“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 theycouldstill 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.”
“Hopelessly,” Solomon repeated. “So why kill her husband? Is it likely she would turn toFoscolo? 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, Constancebowed 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. Butwe must time it correctly. In daylight, not long before he might reasonably be expected home, yet not so late that he actuallycomeshome. 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 darkand quiet, they would have had difficulty getting in. So Solomon knocked loudly on the door.
