From the combined and overlapping reports of the concierge and the other lady tenants more prompt in myth-making, whom Ingravallo questioned outside without writing anything down, and again later in the entrance hall below, behind the building's main door and at the little door, guarded first by the corporal, then by a policeman, one could finally reconstruct the event. And verify another circumstance, a fairly curious one, indeed. The delinquent had been boldly pursued. "Ah!" Ingravallo said. "Yes," too boldly perhaps. It seemed that in pursuing him, or pretending to pursue him, down the steps and into the hall, even before Signor Bottafavi of the fourth floor who had also chased him with a revolver, there had been first of all a young man, "yes, a young man." "No, not a young man, a kid. ." What do you mean, a kid? He was this talclass="underline" he looked like a grocer's helper, with an apron all twisted around his waist, but he had sporty pants on, with heavy, long green stockings. "What! Green?" He had darted out, through the entrance, a little after they heard the two shots, two pistol shots on the stairs. And nobody had seen him afterwards. "Yes, I did! On the sidewalk! I was coming from Santa Maria Maggiore! He ran off. ." The testimonial passion, striking fire in every soul, kindled an epos. All the women talked at once: a confusion of voices and sights: maids, mistresses, broccoli: enormous broccoli leaves came out of a crammed, swollen shopping bag. Shrill or infantile voices added denials or confirmations. All around, a little white poodle wagged its tail excitedly, and from time to time he barked too: as authoritatively as possible.
Ingravallo felt stifled, crushed by the tales and by their tellers.
After the shouts of the Signora Menegazzi, the two Bot-tafavis above, husband and wife, had come out on the landing in their slippers, also shouting, a lovely connubial soprano-baritone duet: "Thief! Thief!" Now they demanded suitable recognition of their courage, of their presence of mind. Bottafavi, indeed, with a big revolver, which he chose to display to Doctor Ingravallo, then to the others present: the women stepped back a pace: "Well, now don't start shooting at us!": the children craned their necks, lost in admiration. They had, from that moment on, a very high opinion of Signor Butt and Fiver, as they called him. He went on narrating, revolver in hand, but unloaded: barrel in the air. He re-created the events with great precision. At that moment, try as he might, he hadn't managed to fire it. Because the safety was on, a little pin in the seventh hole of the drum. And after so many years of that machine's absolute inactivity, he had forgotten that real revolvers— like his, precisely — had that damn safety! which, when it is down, prevents them from going off. So, at the height of things, the thief had slipped away, full tilt. "But didn't you fire two shots?" Ingravallo asked. "Why, officer, you think I'm some crazy kid?. . Shooting for the fun of it like that?" "But you tried." "Tried. Tried is one thing. My revolver isn't the same as the kind crooks have. . The ones that really shoot. This revolver here, officer, is a gentleman's weapon. I… I was a bonded guard when I was a youngster: and I think I know how to handle a gun better than the next fellow. I. . I'm in full control of my nerves. ." The thief had got away. By a hairsbreadth: "But next time he won't make it."
"And what about the boy?" "What boy?" "The grocer's boy," the women said. "Didn't you hear what these ladies said? They've been talking about it for an hour. ." Ingravallo said. "Well, I don't have much to do with grocers: for things like that. . that's the wife's department," the man answered self-importantly. Grocer's apprentices, obviously, couldn't compete with his revolver. No, he hadn't seen any boy, grocer's or other tradesmen's, butcher's or baker's.
And yet Signora Manuela had seen him, clear as day, running out of the entrance, after the thief. "No, no!" Signora Bottafavi said, supporting her husband. "No?! No, my foot, Signora Teresa dearie, you think I don't have eyes in my head?. . Fine thing that would be. . with all the comings and goings in this building. ." Professoressa Bertola contradicted the Bottafavis' denial and, at the same time, corrected the affirmation of the concierge. She was just coming home. On Wednesdays she taught only one class, from eight to nine. She was just turning into the entrance when she saw coming out — and was almost run into by — that frightened seraph with an unbelievable shock of hair: his face distraught, his lips white… his lips were trembling, she was sure of that. She had lost sight of him because, immediately thereafter, she saw "that wicked young man" come out, the mechanic in the gray overall, but it was a rather special overall, quite swollen, and with a package: "in other words, the murderer in person. ." "And what sort of cap was he wearing?" Ingravallo asked. "His cap. . why, to tell you the truth… the cap. ." "What was it like? Tell us." "I really wouldn't know, officer." A moment before, yes, oh yes, she had heard the two shots: two thuds, which came out of the main door.
Now it was the concierge's turn to speak up again. The two shots, yes, first of all the two shots.. everybody agreed on them. Then she had seen a kind of gray streak in the hall, a mouse scurrying off. . "He looked like a mouse when they run off, when I chase them with my broom. ." And then, after him, the grocer's boy. She could swear to it. When the boy went past, all in white, except for his pants, of course, well, the murderer had already gone by. The shots? Yes, of course… A moment before that son of a. . had fired two shots. Still on the stairs, where they had resounded like two bombs. "Boom! Boom!" I tell you, doctor dear, I started having palpitations. ."
The Professoressa chose to answer back. A row flared up between the two women. Signora Liliana, in the meanwhile, hadn't appeared: and Don Ciccio was happy about it: she! mixed up in a business of this sort!
He felt it was pointless to waste time trying to look for the projectiles, or the mark of the projectiles. Whether it was a Beretta 6.5 or an ordnance Glisenti 7.65 mattered little to him: it's quick work getting a pistol out of sight for a while. He knew this from past experience: all you have to do is entrust it to a partner, a friend.
He dismissed the tenants, male and female, maids and shopping bags; without noticing, he stepped on the poodle's paw, and the beast unleashed a yelping that the Pope must have heard over in the Vatican. He ordered the main door closed, leaving a guard at the smaller door, the policeman who had taken over from the corporal. He went up, for another brief inspection, to the Menegazzi apartment; Pompeo, who was with him, followed; Gaudenzio hadn't even come down. He asked and looked to see if there were traces or, better, fingerprints of the murderer. The handles, the dresser's marble top, the waxed floor.
Signora Liliana finally appeared, very beautiful; she said she could make no guesses; she found kindly words for Signora Menegazzi and offered her hospitality. She confirmed, on being asked, that a short time before the two pistol shots, he had also rung her doorbell — quite timidly, for that matter. She was in the bath, and hadn't been able to open the door; perhaps she wouldn't have opened it in any case. In those days the newspapers had been talking a great deal about the "murky" crime in Via Valadier, then of that other one, even more "heinous," in Via Montebello. She couldn't dispel from her mind what she had read. And then… a woman alone… is always a little afraid of opening the door. She took her leave. Only then did Ingravallo think of his pea-green tie (the one with little black clovers and a quincunx pattern), and his Molisan beard, thirty-six or thirty-eight hours old. But the vision had filled him with bliss.
He asked again widow Menegazzi if, after sober reflection, she had an idea, a suspicion about anyone at all. Couldn't she furnish some clue? People who knew the house? Acquainted with her habits and with the layout— they had to be that, certainly, when you think of their self-confidence. He asked again if there were any traces. . prints or whatever… of the murderer. (This term invented by the myth-making crowd had by now settled also in his ears, and forced his tongue to repeat the same error.) No, not a trace.