Until this moment both men had been standing face to face near the center of the room. Now Eccli walked to a chair near the small window that faced the street. He looked pale and shaken. When he finally spoke, his lips quivered and sweat broke on his forehead.
“All right,” he said. “I admit that I took the ring, but I didn’t do it for any vulgar reason.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I didn’t take it because I wished to profit, but because I wished to revenge myself for the manner in which he and some others lorded their wealth over us. The student with the ring was always wearing expensive jewelry and silk clothes. He was the worst of the nobles. So, you see, I took it for revenge, not profit.”
“You took it for jealousy... But never mind. How did it happen?”
Someone shouted outside the window. Another man shouted back. Soon the two men were yelling together, at each other if the words and curses were an indication. Eccli turned his head to the window, as though intensely interested in hearing this street commotion. But the commotion ended as quickly as it had begun.
Eccli faced Adrian. He wiped his brow with his right sleeve, started to say something, hesitated. He waited a moment, then tried again:
“It happened a couple of weeks before my final examinations. I already knew that that Spaniard had been selected to act as an accuser at my examination. Of course, he had shown us all the signet ring with the Borgia bull on it. So, when I got my chance, I took it to spite him. And he was furious. Not just because of the ring’s monetary value, but also he felt it was an assault on his honor. He swore revenge upon whoever took it. He suspected me, all of us.”
“Whom do you mean by ‘us’?” asked Adrian.
“Three students from Milan, Noppo from Venice, Rohan from France, De Bourgouse from Burgundy, Carlo, and myself. We were a group at the university.”
“Was this Borgia relative also in a group?”
Eccli laughed sardonically. “A group of purse-proud nobles who would be torn to pieces by a mob if ever they set foot in Florence. The Spaniard was the worst, with his silk clothes and perfumed gloves and his powerful connections in Rome. The second worst was Juan Garcia, another Spaniard from Valencia, like the Borgias, but so far as I know not a kinsman of theirs. Then there was Giuseppe Ioli of Naples, Piero Luazzenza, Carlo Longhinini, and the least obnoxious member of their group, Stefano Gaffi.”
“Were there fights or quarrels between these two groups?”
Eccli looked up in surprise. “Of course not. We were just two groups among many. Their group was prominent because of their great wealth and influence, but we had no trouble with them until my last few weeks at the university. Then there were some hard words, leading to my taking the ring and the Spaniard’s accusation of theft. But we stuck together. The others knew I took it but swore they wouldn’t betray me.”
“Was there any way — other than a betrayal by one of your friends — for the Borgia student to learn who took his ring?”
“No. All in our group spent a week at the estate of Cosimo del Runnalo, who invited us to come there and hunt. He teaches sometimes at Pisa. Anyway, we were all riding back to the university and were about an hour from it when we saw the Spaniard and his friend Piero Luazzenza sitting under the shade of a huge tree near the road. They were visiting with some man of great ugliness, and from their relaxed attitude I thought that they expected to remain there for a while. When we reached the school, I immediately went to Ferdinand’s room even before I went to my own, and there I found the ring. No student nor servant saw me take it nor saw me enter or leave the room.”
“Do you still have the ring?”
Eccli nodded.
“Give it to me.”
Eccli hesitated, then stood. “Do you plan to return it?”
“I plan to have it returned, in such a way that the source won’t be traced.”
“Do you think it’ll help?”
“It won’t hurt. Besides, you would never dare wear that ring and you accomplished the purpose you set out to accomplish, such as it was.”
At that point it looked like the investigation had progressed far, but then two events destroyed all of Adrian’s theories about the mystery.
First, the Vossi agent who’d been asked to locate the young robbery victim reported that the man was a victim again — this time of murder. The Spaniard had been slain in his own house by an unknown assassin almost a month earlier.
This murder did more than rule out Borgia vengeance as a motive for the slaughter. Adrian told Leon Vossi that it wasn’t only one group of students from Pisa being killed, but students from Pisa generally. There had to be some pattern for the murders, yet it no longer appeared to be membership in the clique Carlo had belonged to.
The second disturbing event was reported to Adrian in the same manner as had been the attack on Carlo. Vossi men came to his apartment at night, disturbing Adrian’s time with the same woman he had been with before, a woman who had until that night refused to come to him again because of what had happened the last time.
“Never, ever again, Adrian della Cle!” she’d snarled later when she came out of hiding.
Adrian had hardly heard her. His mind was stunned by the news that Girolamo Eccli had been stabbed to death in his own house. Girolamo had been dining with his family when a man dressed in black clothes and wearing a black mask dashed into the room and daggered him in the heart. The assassin had escaped into the street and vanished.
That meant that Eccli couldn’t have been responsible for the murders either.
Adrian shifted his feet. He wasn’t used to waiting on Leon Vossi. Vossi normally made quick decisions.
Vossi was pacing back and forth in front of his desk. This time the pace was slow, thoughtful. His steps followed no pattern, which Adrian believed was because of the old man’s fear of wearing a path into his expensive Byzantine rug. Perhaps that was ungenerous, though.
“I’m paying you to solve this matter without such risks as these,” said Vossi.
“The risk is minor.”
“Minor!” roared Vossi, whirling to face Adrian. “Minor is it? Only my eldest grandson’s life.”
“He’ll be under guard on the highest floor of the palazzo, safe from everything happening below. Although we’ll send all guards except six to the villa, the three best fighting men on your payroll will be with Carlo every moment and the three next best guarding the entrances into the palazzo. The assassin won’t know that. He will only hear that the Vossi have sent all their armed men except three to their country villa, where we plan to remove Carlo for his protection. He won’t know about the three men guarding Carlo personally, nor that the assassin himself is being followed by a Vossi agent.”
“That’s another thing, Adrian. How do you know that we’ll follow the right man? You could offer Carlo for bait, follow the wrong man, and the real assassin could slip through and murder him like he murdered Girolamo Eccli.”
“We know that the assassin is one of four men. Those four who attended your banquet and whose presence in the hall at the time of the attack couldn’t be confirmed. We’ll assign a man to follow each one of them.”
Vossi sighed heavily. He walked around his tall desk. When he was behind it, he leaned upon it, his hands flat upon its top. Vossi looked at his hands, which were large and smooth. Then he looked at Adrian.
When Vossi continued to stare at him without speaking, Adrian became uneasy. He was always uneasy in Leon Vossi’s presence, but never so much as when the old man’s black eyes bored into him as they were doing now. Vossi was the only man who could frighten Adrian merely by staring at him.
“I would never even consider such a plan as this,” said Vossi, “if the situation weren’t extraordinary. But it is extraordinary. An attempt has been made on my grandson’s life. The men Carlo knew at the university are being ruthlessly murdered, one after another, from Rome to Milan, without any apparent motive. I dislike trusting you in something so risky, Adrian, because you’ve always been rash, prone to rush headlong into dangerous situations. But I’ve no choice.”