Gritti smiled fondly, as at a stubborn child. “I do understand the difference between a proof and a working hypothesis.”
“Yet I must decline to reveal conjectures I cannot yet substantiate.”
Vasco raised two eyebrows; nobody defies the Three and gets away with it.
Gritti settled back in his chair and dropped the comedy mask in favor of the tragic. “Your work in breaking the Algol cipher was brilliant, Doctor, and the Republic will reward you handsomely for it, but now you are implying that one of the most senior men in the government is a traitor and I demand to hear your reasons. I will not rush out and arrest people on mere suspicion. Let us hear it, Nostradamus.”
A grunt from the Maestro made my heart plunge. His stubbornness approaches suicidal insanity.
“I cannot accept these conditions,” he said. “I regretfully decline to work further on this case.”
“You think you can withhold evidence vital to the security of the state?”
“I specified that it is mere opinion, not evidence.”
I could not see the Maestro’s face, but his voice seemed amazingly calm. Gritti, opposite, was starting to show signs of annoyance. His already ruddy face was redder than ever.
“Alfeo, will you answer my question?”
I hope that my start of alarm concealed my simultaneous cold shiver. “I cannot, Your Excellency! I have no idea why my master believes the two crimes are connected. On the face of it, that would be a very strange coincidence.”
“No it wouldn’t,” Gritti said impatiently. “Dolfin is…was, I mean-a notorious lecher. The Ten opened a file on him when he was fifteen. Yesterday, you tell me, he was restored to the delights of his new bride’s bed after a week’s enforced celibacy. Yet instead he leaves Ca’ Sanudo and rushes back here to Ca’ Barbolano to consult the Maestro in an ‘agitated’ condition. Did he know of the Algol case?”
“I do not believe…” I said. “No, he couldn’t possibly. The Angelis never gossip about the Maestro’s affairs and even they know only that he went twice to the palace. The Marcianas downstairs jabber like starlings, but they knew nothing of importance. Danese…he saw the vizio here that morning and would have guessed that he had come on state business. Danese was clever.”
“Sly, you mean,” the inquisitor said with distaste. “So he went looking for his sword and found yours instead? That was enough, apparently. That was what he had come for. Any sword would do. So he ran off. Does it not make sense that he had stumbled on evidence of treason at Ca’ Sanudo and that was why he wanted his sword? Do you swear that this idea has not even occurred to you, Zeno?”
My mouth was very dry, my bladder unbearably full. “I thought of it and discarded it, Your Excellency.”
“Why?”
“Because Danese was no hero. He was an inept, untrained swordsman, a playboy who wore a sword for swagger. Had he found the evidence you suggest, he would have run straight to the palace and informed the chiefs in the hope of gaining a reward. He cuckolded sier Zuanbattista, then betrayed his mistress so he could seduce her daughter, all in the quest for money. I remember when he was a child…If you look at the first entries in that dossier you mentioned, Excellency, I think you will find reports that his greed exceeded his scruples even then. He would have betrayed his wife’s father or brother for gold, but he would never have faced them down himself.”
“It remains a valid hypothesis. Doesn’t it, Doctor?”
“Not to me,” the Maestro said. “I agree with Alfeo. If Dolfin had been able to inculpate the Sanudos, father and son, then their daughter would have inherited everything and he could have cleared the table. It would have all been his.”
Gritti said. “So who killed him?”
“I suspect but cannot prove.” We were back to the beginning.
“Are you gambling that I dare not use force on you because of your age, Nostradamus?”
The Maestro cackled. “Faugh! Tie me on the strappado and I would break in pieces at the first hoist. My heart would stop.”
“Your apprentice is a strong young lad.”
Vasco raised his eyes to Heaven, silently mouthing prayers of thanks.
“Alfeo doesn’t know what I think,” the Maestro said, less confidently. “His brain is not his best organ.”
“You can stop his interrogation at any time.”
“Bah! Has the Republic sunk to torturing the innocent?”
The inquisitor laughed. “Not yet! You always were a pigheaded old scoundrel, Doctor, and every year you get worse. Keep your theories, then, but I shall cancel your reward for the code breaking.”
That was different. The Maestro thumped a tiny fist on the arm of his chair. “It is blatantly obvious! I warned the chiefs last night that I expected attacks against us that the vizio could not repel, and by morning there was a corpse on our doorstep. Why here, at Ca’ Barbolano? Surely Algol arranged that to ensnare my investigation in an irrelevant murder case?”
Gritti leaned forward eagerly. “You credit the spy with magical powers?”
“Who named him Algol?”
“That means nothing. He could as easily be called Hercules or Solomon. I want you to name him for me. Now. His real name. If all you have is a suspicion, I will still hear it. If you refuse, I shall be forced to take you and your apprentice into custody. And cancel your bonus.”
I was holding my breath again. Gritti had the powers to issue any threat he liked and then carry it out.
Nostradamus knew that. Stubborn is stubborn, but this was ridiculous. He pouted. “Give me until tomorrow. Then I shall give you Algol, if not in person, at least his name and address and the evidence to hang him.”
Gritti sat back to consider the offer. “When?”
“About this time. But here at Ca’ Barbolano, if you please. I have done far too much traveling in the last few days, and my joints already feel as if I had spent all yesterday on your strappado. My staff please, Alfeo. Come and have prima colazione with us tomorrow, Your Excellency. I have an excellent cook, and I will serve up Algol to you for dessert.”
“Mmm? And in the meantime, you do what?”
“Collect the evidence I require to confirm my hypothesis.”
Gritti smiled angelically. “I am a patient man. As you wish. But that will be your last chance.” He laid his hands on the arms of his chair to rise. “Now I must go to Ca’ Sanudo and see what that end of the story reveals. I shall, as you suggested, look out for a puddle of blood. Vizio, last night my colleagues and I ordered you to defend Zeno, so I suppose you had better continue to do so.” He smiled a silver-framed, snaggle-toothed smile.
The old scoundrel was going to have Vasco dog my footsteps on whatever errands the Maestro had in mind for me. If I uncovered Algol, Vasco would be able to arrest him on the spot and claim the credit. He had not yet worked that out, though. All he could see was being my nursemaid for another day, and he looked disgusted at the prospect. “Certainly, Excellency. Do I defend him against the perils of foreign travel?”
“Meticulously.”
That was better-he was to be my jailer. “And what should I do with his sword?” The answer he would really like was obvious.
Gritti heaved himself to his feet. “Clean the blood off it and give it back to him. I hope you never seriously believed, Vizio, that Alfeo Zeno would murder a man and forget to take his own monogrammed rapier out of the corpse?”
19
I went ahead to get the door, but it was opened before I reached it by one of the fanti. Behind him stood sier Zuanbattista. Very few people would have been allowed to interrupt Ottone Gritti, but ducal counselors are not just anyone. The week since I had last seen Sanudo had taken a toll. He seemed grayer and not quite so erect as before, but it would be hard for a man of his eminence to endure the mirth of his peers behind his back. He had to be aware of it and yet there was nothing he could do, no way he could strike back or deny allegations that had not been made to his face. He and Gritti greeted each other with the usual deep bows, but omitted the embrace. They ignored the rest of us.