The Maestro leaned back, rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, and put his fingertips together, five and five. That almost always means that he is about to start lecturing, but for once it did not.
“The revered and mighty Council of Ten does not reveal all its methods, Your Excellency. I have my own professional secrets and need them to earn my living. I assure you that you have your man and a couple of witnesses are available. With a little encouragement, Guarini will confess to everything.”
Inquisitors do not take kindly to defiance. Indeed, they take very cruelly to it, and Gritti’s smile clotted my blood like butter. “But it is you I am presently encouraging. You will tell me how you learned his name. I will know who told you, and when. I am prepared to go to great lengths to get the truth.”
There was the ultimatum. We were back to the question of how much torture a frail octogenarian could stand, and who else might be questioned in his stead. Gritti meant what he was saying. He was clearly prepared to accept as a working hypothesis that Guarini was Algol and would solve both the espionage case and the murder for him. Now he was investigating the problem of black magic. He had the scent of witchcraft in his nostrils and a true fanatic sees witchcraft as much worse than espionage.
“I am not prepared to tell you at this time,” the Maestro said calmly, making as if to rise. “After we have eaten I may say more on the topic, but I believe it is irrelevant.”
“It is relevant if I say it is!” The inquisitor’s rubicund face darkened a few shades.
“But I know the details and you do not.” If the Maestro was deliberately trying to get both himself and me arrested, he was certainly proceeding in the correct manner.
“Filippo Nostradamus, I am aware of your international reputation as a doctor. I am also aware of your reputation as a philosopher who dabbles in the dark arts, and I fear that this time you have dabbled much deeper than any Christian should, or can without selling his soul to the Enemy. I am aware that you have served La Serenissima well in the past, but I will not and cannot tolerate Satanism. How did you learn that Algol was Francesco Guarini?”
“Black magic,” said Filiberto Vasco.
Heads turned. Now who was the life of the party?
“You have our attention, Vizio,” the inquisitor said.
Judging by his gleeful expression, Vasco was rising above his pain. “When Zeno knocked on Guarini’s door, Guarini called out to ask who he was.” His voice was muffled and slurred by all the wine that he had consumed, but he was not too drunk to know what he was saying, and he was looking at me, not Gritti, gloating over worse tales he had yet to tell. “Zeno wouldn’t tell him. First he asked for Guarini by name. Then he asked for ‘Mirphak.’ And finally he said that the dead man sent him!”
“Mirphak?” Gritti looked to me.
I hope my smile was debonair and not grotesque. “A shot in the dark, Your Excellency. Algol is the second brightest star in the constellation of Perseus. Mirphak is the brightest. If one was a code name, then the other might be. I was hoping it might provoke a guilty reaction.”
Undeceived, the inquisitor shook his head contemptuously and looked back to Vasco, who probably tried to smile, because he winced with sudden pain.
“But when Zeno said, ‘Danese Dolfin sent me,’ Guarini threw the door open and attacked him.”
“That one worked,” I explained brightly.
And that one worked for Gritti, too. It would have been a believable ruse for me to try, and it had produced a convincing indication of guilt. He shrugged.
“It was true,” Vasco protested. “Dolfin did send him! That was how they learned the name. Last night, Nostradamus and Zeno raised the ghost of Danese Dolfin and made it tell them who murdered him.”
“Head injuries,” the Maestro muttered sadly. “Difficult prognosis. Prolonged rest is indicated.”
“No, he’s just drunk,” I said. “He never can hold his liquor. After all that lost blood, he’s sprung his timbers.”
“Over there?” Vasco pointed. “There’s a spyhole beside the mirror. I watched from the dining room. I saw it all! I heard the ghost speak in Dolfin’s voice!”
Missier Grande strode over to inspect. “That is correct,” he announced. “There is a spyhole and the cover is currently open.”
I felt as if I had been clubbed between the eyes. How had he done that? Someone might have opened it that morning, but I was certain I had seen it closed last night before we began our seance. Had Vasco himself used occult means to open the shutter so he could spy on us?
“Necromancy?” Gritti declaimed. “In all my years I have never heard a more terrible accusation. “ Missier Grande, take Nostradamus and Zeno to the palace and lock them in separate cells. They are to be charged with practicing Satanism.”
“I’m ravenous,” I said. “Providing first aid to critically wounded comrades is very hunger-making work and I need my breakfast. Mama Angeli has prepared a marvelous prima colazione in your honor, Excellency. Can’t we eat first?”
The inquisitor stood up. “No,” he said. “I will not sup at the table of a man I believe to be an agent of the Fiend.”
“This is ridiculous!” roared the Maestro. “That boy is confused by concussion and also quite obviously drunk, and yet you accept his wild allegations as reliable testimony? Am I an idiot that I would perform forbidden rites where he could overlook me, when I knew he was in the house? Do you think we don’t know the spyhole is there? If you think I am so senile that I would forget about it, do you believe Alfeo would? Your Excellency, you are running a travesty of an investigation!”
Ignoring the tirade, Gritti had beckoned in the two fanti, but I reached the Maestro first and helped him up. I handed him his staff and gave him my arm to lean on. If he was going to be humiliated by being carried off like baggage to jail, then the least I could do was help him postpone the indignity as long as possible. Besides, I did not have my sword with me, so I couldn’t put the time to better use by sending Vasco to hell with a warning I was coming.
I had always overestimated that dog’s human qualities.
We shuffled out into the salone. The Angelis were emerging from the kitchen, just about all of them, and Bruno was with them. Bruno was going to be a problem. Already he was sensing the tension and frowning. The fanti would have to carry the Maestro downstairs and the moment they laid hands on him, Bruno was going to charge along the hall like my father’s galley at Lepanto.
“Can you manage the stairs?” Missier Grande asked Vasco, eyeing the group of us. The Maestro must be carried, I must be watched, he had only two able-bodied men to assist him, and he must realize that Vasco would be in danger if he stayed around Ca’ Barbolano unprotected.
“Do let me assist,” I said. “I’ll give him a helping foot.”
Someone rapped the front door knocker.
33
F orce of habit sent me to open the door and nobody moved to stop me. Outside, beaming, stood sier Alvise Barbolano in his formal nobile homo robe, or as much of it as the moths had left. At his side simpered madonna Maddalena compressed into a puce brocade gown that had been the fashion and perhaps her size about when I was born. She was ballasted by a display of jewelry that would have surprised the Sultan.
“We are not too late, I hope?” sier Alvise demanded.