“Your associates?” Duilio echoed.
“You haven’t met Inspector Anjos or Miss Vladimirova yet,” Gaspar said. “They’ve been working their way through the ranks while I was off hunting Mata.”
Although Anjos was a Portuguese name, Vladimirova sounded Russian to Duilio. “Are they witches, like you and . . . the Lady?”
“Yes. You’ll probably meet Anjos later, but you’d rather not meet Miss Vladimirova.” Gaspar smiled grimly, not showing his teeth. “Unfortunately, they haven’t turned up anyone associated with this floating-house business. With so many officers to question, it may take them weeks to root out the right men, and the ones whose names we did have all disappeared as soon as Commissioner Burgos gave us permission to start questioning them.”
Duilio didn’t doubt that. “What about Mata?”
“I haven’t seen him since yesterday afternoon, Mr. Ferreira. I have no doubt he’s still after you, but is keeping his distance because he’s seen me.” Unfortunately, Gaspar was difficult to miss in a country with relatively few representatives of its former African colonies.
Duilio licked his lips. Joaquim wasn’t going to like this. “Silva spoke of using Miss Paredes as bait, Inspector. Why not use me that way?”
“No,” Joaquim said immediately.
“I’m not suggesting standing in the middle of a plaza all day to be shot at,” Duilio told him. “Just doing what I would be doing anyway.”
Gaspar regarded him with narrowed eyes. “What did you have in mind?”
Duilio shot a glance at Joaquim. “Miss Paredes mentioned that Espinoza was raised in Matosinhos. I could go there and ask around about him.”
Gaspar looked intrigued, but Joaquim wasn’t placated. “Mata is not going to get on the tram out to Matosinhos with you,” Joaquim pointed out. “You know what he looks like.”
It was about four miles out to the town of Matosinhos on the Marginal line. “No, he’ll know he has to take the next one, try to catch the steam tram out of Boavista, or find some other means of transportation.”
Joaquim sat back, a scowl twisting his lips.
“I’ll head up to Matosinhos,” Duilio said. “I can ask a few discreet questions about Espinoza, and that should give Mata time to follow me. Matosinhos is small enough that he should be able to find me if he tries.”
Joaquim sighed heavily. He didn’t like it, but Duilio knew he understood. If this man had killed Alessio, Duilio wanted him brought in. “Start with Father Barros at the Church of Bom Jesus,” Joaquim suggested. “He’s been there forever and knows the parish better than anyone else. He can tell you whom to talk with about Espinoza.”
One of Joaquim’s teachers from his days in seminary, no doubt. “I’ll do that.”
“And watch your back,” Joaquim added.
Duilio patted the pocket where his holster was clipped, his Webley Wilkinson revolver quiescent within. “I’ll stay on my guard.”
Mr. Ferreira showed up at the house near lunchtime, evidently wanting to change clothes. He came into the front sitting room, where Oriana sat on the couch, poring through the journal he’d left with her, gesturing for her to stay seated as he entered. “Miss Paredes, I hope you were able to get some sleep last night.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Your mother is still abed, and Felis is reading to her, so I thought I would give this a try.”
He settled in a chair across from her, much as he’d done the day before. He seemed to have forgotten their . . . closeness . . . of the previous evening. Or he was pretending so to set her at ease. It was a pretense she was willing to join, as discussing the issue would surely be embarrassing for him. “Rough going?” he asked. “From what I glimpsed before I pocketed it, it looked fairly technical.”
“I’m not mathematical, sir,” she admitted. Languages, history, and literature: those all made more sense to her than this confusing tangle of numbers and symbols. “A great deal of this is calculations and plans that mean nothing to me.”
“I’m more curious if there’s anything useful in there. Names?”
“Not a one, I’m afraid. He’s very cagey about the people he’s working with.”
Mr. Ferreira sighed heavily and sat back in the chair, crossing his legs and lacing his fingers over his knee. “Then we’re wasting your time.”
“Not at all,” she said. “I’ve noted, for example, he doesn’t mention the victims in his calculations. Or the table on which the spell was inscribed. Those had to have been added later in the process.”
“That would throw off all his calculations,” Mr. Ferreira said. “For buoyancy and weight, I mean.”
She nodded. “Also, the houses aren’t wood, as everyone thinks. The wood is a veneer, over cork. That’s what actually makes them float. If the chain broke on any one of them, it would probably pop to the surface like a rubber ball.”
He shrugged. “I was told those charms on the top were useless.”
She told him then what she’d read about the patron who’d made it all possible, but didn’t have a name for the man, which made the information useless. “I’ll read more this afternoon, sir. Perhaps he’ll say who’s paying for his creation.”
He nodded, his lips pursed, and then cautiously asked, “Does the name Maria Melo mean anything to you?”
It was a common name, but Oriana didn’t actually know anyone who bore it. “No, sir.”
“Have you ever been to a tavern called The White Rose?” he asked then.
That tavern was frequented by servants from up and down the Street of Flowers. Carlos had once suggested she meet him there, although at the time she’d thought it a joke. And it was one of Heriberto’s favored haunts. When her master wasn’t on his boat, he could often be found there. “I’ve never been inside,” she said. “Can I assume that Mrs. Melo has?”
He looked grim. “My cousin talked to the Amaral servants yesterday. Both the first footman and the lady’s maid said they met her there. They said she asked after you. How you were faring, how you liked the household. The maid thought Mrs. Melo was your cousin. Do you have any cousins here?”
Oriana laid one mitt-covered hand over her mouth. How should she answer that? He’d met Nela and so must suspect about the exiles, so it was a logical question, but her father was her only direct kin. No, the woman had to be lying. And given it was a tavern Heriberto frequented, he had to figure into this somehow. Oriana dropped her hand back to her lap. “She’s your saboteur, isn’t she?”
“We don’t know that,” he said swiftly, as if to reassure her again. “But if she is, then she had to know you’re not human.”
“You knew,” she pointed out, and then felt guilty for withholding information he might need. “My master frequents that tavern, as well. It’s possible he gave her that information, although I can’t think why he would.”
Mr. Ferreira pinched the bridge of his nose. “Would your master willingly put you in that position? In the floating house?”
Oriana thought of her father speaking of paying Heriberto more money. If Heriberto was willing to stoop to extortion, what else might he be willing to do? “He might,” she admitted. “I’m not one of his favorites.”
“And you lived in one of the houses in question,” Mr. Ferreira said. “Are there other spies like you in comparable positions? Or some of your people who chose to live here? I don’t need specifics—just a general idea whether you were one of a hundred or the only choice.”
Oriana knew of six other spies currently in the city, none of whom worked on the street of the aristocrats. Of the exiles, the only one she knew who frequented the street was her own father. He visited the Pereira de Santos mansion often, but that house had already appeared in the water, so he’d been bypassed. He didn’t actually live in that house anyway. “I may have been the only choice,” she whispered, a sick feeling swelling in her stomach.