Page 76 of Vengeance in Venice
Toward the endof 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 thoughtyouwere 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.
Chapter Seventeen
The first thingthat Constance saw in Foscolo’s home was a small painting of a woman.
“Is he married?” she whispered to Solomon in surprise.
“Widowed, would be my guess.”
And the painting would be the first thinghesaw when he came through the door. There was pathos in that, something innately human and vulnerable and lonely. And yet they believed he had killed a man and poisoned Constance. People were complicated andmessy.
