Page 13 of Vengeance in Venice
“It is a small but important part of what we do. If neither you nor Solomon nor I killed Signor Savelli, perhaps it behoves us to find out who did. How competent are your police?”
“In matters such as this…I have no idea,” Giusti said frankly.
“And yet Savelli felt free to attack you in the street, to steal from you? Was he so confident that the police would not intervene?”
“Our…disagreement is well known. Neither of us would have complained to the police. But this is different. They will not ignore this, especially not since Savelli was a supporter of the Austrian government.”
“Could his politics be the reason for his murder?”
“I would be surprised,” Giusti said. “The revolution is over. There is ill feeling, of course, but no one wants to go back to those days of violence. If he was not assassinated in ’49, why now? Why kill him at all?”
Again, she was sure she glimpsed genuine grief, or perhaps just anger, in his expression. He threw his arm out as he spoke, as though gesturing to where the murder had happened.
“He associated with some unpleasant men,” Constance pointed out. “Like those who attacked you and abducted me. Could one or more of them have turned on him?”
Giusti shrugged. “Unlikely. Some of those men may have been servants, not hired bravos. Servants rarely attack their masters. As for the others—why bite the hand that feeds them?”
“Then a random attempt at robbery? Or a planned one?”
Giusti sighed. “I suppose that is what the police will investigate. But…why was he at the back door? He has servants to take deliveries.”
“Perhaps he was meeting someone who did not want to be seen? Or—” She broke off as another thought struck her. “Whendid he die? He was at the back door when you and I last saw him.”
*
The same manwho had let Solomon into the Palazzo Savelli was delegated to show him out. As the door of the room was closed behind him, the silence of the rest of the house felt oppressive. As though even the sound of walking was disrespectful to the dead. In London, sometimes, houses of mourning put sawdust down in the street to deaden the noise of horses’ hooves and wheeled vehicles. Here, he could almost imagine there was no one else in the house.
Until a lady swept across the landing to the stairs and paused as she caught sight of their approach. She was young and pale and dressed all in black. Her hat was covered by a heavy-looking veil that had not been drawn down over her face. She was not conventionally beautiful. She did not dazzle as Constance did. But there was something about her that caught and held the attention, without any effort on her part.
“How odd,” she said in Italian. “I have no idea anymore who is in my house. Are you another policeman or a friend of my late husband’s?”
Solomon bowed. “I can claim to be neither. My name is Grey. I merely called to see your husband and was interviewed by policemen instead. I offer you sincere condolences, signora.”
“You are English?” she asked in that language. A spark of interest showed in her otherwise glazed eyes. He wondered how much she knew about Constance’s abduction.
He inclined his head. “I am.”
Her chin tilted slightly. “About what did you wish to see my husband?” she asked with conscious boldness.
“Nothing that is relevant anymore.”
“Many things no longer matter,” she said, an odd catch in her voice. She began to descend the stairs, and Solomon walkedbeside her. “A house of death alwaysfeelswrong. As if it is no longer real. Like a bad dream.”
“Are you going to stay with family?” Solomon asked.
“Oh no. I shall stay here, of course.” She drew the veil over her face. “Once I have walked. Goodbye, Mr. Grey.”
At the foot of the stairs, she increased her speed, all but striding across the foyer to the front door, where a manservant stood to open it for her. He continued to hold it for Solomon, who watched the widow’s straight, tragic figure vanish to the left. By the time he climbed into his waiting boat, he could no longer see her.
*
On reaching thePalazzo Zulian, Solomon heard that Constance was entertaining. Although glad she had company, he was somehow not best pleased to discover that her visitor was Ludovico Giusti.
The sight of him sitting in a chair close to Constance, a glass of wine in his bruised hand, deep in serious conversation, made Solomon pause in the drawing room doorway. Whether the reaction was due to jealousy or distrust, he hid it, as both pairs of eyes turned eagerly toward him. And both jumped to their feet.
Constance hurried toward him. “Oh, Solomon, you’re back! Did you go to the Savelli house? Signor Giusti says he has been murdered!”
Her eyes were anxious, relieved, excited, all at once, and her hand slipping through his arm comforted whatever misgivings the sight of Giusti had caused.
