At the top, we went along a narrow hall, past battered-looking doors with white china knobs, stopped at the one at the end.
“There is a tenant, Signore,” the landlady said. “But he is away now, at his job in the fish market that I, Sophia Gina Anna Maria Scumatti, procured for him! Believe me, if I hadn’t given him an ultimatum that the rent must be paid or out he’d go, he’d be sleeping now, snoring like a serviced sow, while I, Sophia Gina—”
“Undoubtedly the Signora has to endure much from ungrateful tenants,” I soothed. I had a hundred lira note ready in my jacket pocket—the same oddly cut jacket that had been in the closet at Gunvor’s house. I fished the bill out, tendered it with an inclination of the head.
“If the Signora will accept this modest contribution—”
Mama Scumatti’ puffed out her cheeks, threw out her imposing bosom.
“It is my pleasure to serve the guest of Italy,” she started; I pulled the bill back.
“…but let it not be said that I, Gina Anna Maria Scumatti, was ungracious—” Fat fingers plucked the note from my hand, dropped it into a cleavage like the Grand Canyon. “Would the Signore and Signorina care to enter?” She fumbled a three-inch key from a pocket, jammed it into a keyhole you could have put a finger through, twisted it, threw the door wide.
“Vidi!”
I looked in at a collapsed cot snarled with dirty blankets, a broken-down table strewn with garishly colored comics, empty coffee cups, stained, finger-greased glasses, and a half-loaf of dry-looking bread. There was a bureau, a broken mirror with racing tickets tucked under the frame, a wooden Jesus dangling on the wall, and an assortment of empty wine and liquor bottles bearing the labels of inferior brands, scattered about the room. The odor of the place was a sour blend of unlaundered bedding, old socks, and a distillery infested with mice.
I looked at Olivia. She gave me a cool smile, turned to our hostess.
“May we go in?”
Sophia Gina wrinkled her brow at me. “My sister would like to go inside and… ah… commune with the spirit of our departed progenitor,” I translated freely.
The black, unplucked eyebrows went up. “But, as the Signore sees, the room is occupied!”
“We won’t touch a thing; just look at it. A very emotional moment for us, you understand.”
A knowing look crept over the round face. She gave Olivia, still wearing her makeup and rings, an appraising once-over, then looked me in the eye; one eyelid dipped in an unmistakable wink.
“Ah, but naturally, Signore! You and your… sister… would of course wish to commune—in private. Another hundred lira, please.” She was suddenly brisk. I forked over silently, trying to look just a little hangdog.
“I dislike to hurry the Signore,” the concierge said as she shook the second note down into the damp repository. “But try to finish in say two hours, si? There is the chance that Gino will be back for lunch.” An elbow the size and texture of a football dug into my side. Two fat, broken-nailed hands outlined an hourglass in the air; two small black eyes rolled; then Mama Scumatti was waddling off, a hippo in a black skirt.
“What said the fat scoundrel?” Olivia demanded.
“Just admiring your figure,” I said hastily, “let’s take a look around and see what clues we can turn up.”
Half an hour later Olivia stood in the center of the room, still wrinkling her nose, hands on hips, a lock of hair curling down over her damp forehead.
“ ’Twas a hopeless quest from the first,” she said. “Let’s be off, before my stomach rebels.”
I dusted off my hands, grimy from groping on the backs of shelves and under furniture. “We’ve looked in all the obvious places,” I said. “But what about the unlikely spots? We haven’t checked for loose floorboards, secret panels, fake pictures on the wall—”
“ ’Tis a waste of time, Brion! This man was not a conspirator, to squirrel away his secrets in the mattress! He was a poor young student, no more, living in a rented room—”
“I’m thinking of little things he might have dropped; a bit of paper that could have gotten stuck in the back of a drawer, maybe. Nobody ever cleans this place. There’s no reason something like that couldn’t still be here, even after all these years.”
“Where? You’ve had the drawers out, rooted in the base of the chest, lifted that ragged scrap of rug, probed behind the baseboard—”
She trailed off; her eyes were on the boxed-in radiator set under the one small window. The wooden panels were curled, split, loose-fitting. We both moved at once. Olivia deftly set aside the empty Chianti bottles and the tin can half full of cigarette butts. I got a grip on the top board, lifted gingerly. The whole assembly creaked, moved out.
“Just a couple of rusty nails holding it,” I said. “I’ll lever it free…”
A minute later, with the help of a wooden coat hanger lettered “Albergo Torino, Roma,” I had eased the housing away from the wall, revealing A rusted iron radiator, a few inches of piping, enough dust devils to fill a shoe box—and a drift of cigarette butts, ticket stubs, bits of string, hairpins, a playing card, paper clips, and papers.
“It was a good idea,” I said. “Too bad it didn’t pan out.” Silently, I replaced the cover, put the bottles and ashtray back. “You were right, Olivia. Let’s get back out in the street where we can get a nice wholesome odor of fresh garbage—”
“Brion, look!” Olivia was by the window, turning the blank scrap of paper at an angle to catch the sun. “The ink has faded, but there was something written here…”
I came over, squinted at the paper. The faintest of faint marks were visible. Olivia put the paper on the table, rubbed it gently over the dusty surface, then held it up to the mirror. The ghostly outline of awkward penmanship showed as a grey line.
“Rub it a little more,” I said tensely. “Careful—that paper’s brittle as ash.” She complied, held it to the mirror again. This time I could make out letters:
Instituzione Galileo Mercoledi Giugno 7. 3 P.M.
“Wednesday, June 7th,” I translated. “This just might be something useful. I wonder what year that was?”
“I know a simple formula for calculating the day on which a given date must fall,” Olivia said breathlessly. “ ’Twill take but a moment…”
She nibbled at her lip, frowning in concentration. Suddenly her expression lightened. “Yes! It fits! June 7, 1871 fell on a Wednesday!” She frowned. “As did that date in 1899, 1911—”
“It’s something—that’s better than nothing at all. Let’s check it out. The Galileo Institute. Let’s hope it’s still in business.”
A dried-up little man in armbands and an eyeshade nibbled a drooping yellowed mustache and listened in silence, his veined hands resting on the counter top as though holding it in place as a barrier against smooth-talking foreign snoopers.
“Eighteen seventy-one. That was a considerable time in the past,” he announced snappishly. “There have been many students at the Institute since then. Many illustrious scientists have passed through these portals, bringing glory to the name of Galileo.” An odor of cheap wine drifted across from his direction. Apparently we had interrupted his midmorning snort.
“I’m not applying for admission,” I reminded him. “You don’t have to sell me. All I want is a look at the record of Giulio Maxoni. Of course, if your filing system is so fouled up you can’t find it, you can just say so, and I’ll report the fact in the article I’m writing—”
“You are a journalist?” He straightened his tie, gave the mustache a twirl, and eased something into a drawer out of sight behind the counter, with a clink of glass.