CHAPTER II
Was it Paolina after all?
Orsola Steno quitted the lawyer's studio as entirely contented with theresult of her interview as she left him. She doubted not that she hadfully impressed him with her own conviction as to the explanation of themysterious circumstances of the singer's death; that Paolina's innocencewould be readily recognized; and that her adopted daughter would shortlybe restored to her in the Via di Sta. Eufemia.
The lawyer remained for some time seated in his chair in deep thoughtafter his visitor had left him.
Suddenly he let his open hand fall heavily with a loud clap on the tablebefore him, disturbing the papers on it from their places, and causingthe fine blue sand, which stood in an open wooden basin for the purposeof doing the office of blotting-paper, to be spilled in all directionsby the concussion, and said aloud, "By God! That girl has done it!"
"Ah, talk of the passions of men," he went on, in a lower mutteringvoice, after some further moments of meditation; "they are nothing--theyare child's play compared to the blind animal-like impulses that force awoman's will into their service when any of the master passions of thesex are touched. A woman's jealousy; it is as plain as the sun atnoonday. And we are puzzling our brains looking on this side and onthat, to find a possible explanation of the facts. Talk of a tigress andher whelps! There's a young girl who looks as innocent as a St. Agnes,and speaks as if butter would not melt in her mouth. Take--threaten totake--her lover from her, and she turns upon you like a scorpion at bay.Furens quid foemina possit. Ay indeed. And they are all alike. That oldwoman there; why she was ready, with all her 'Ave Marias' and 'Ora pronobis,' to kill the woman again if she were not killed already, out ofpure sympathy with the wrong done to her adopted daughter. I don't thinkthere is a doubt about it. I should like to wager a hundred to one thatthe Venetian girl put her rival to death. The story is neither a new nora strange one."
"Whether the commission of the deed can be brought home to her," hecontinued, after another period of musing, "that is another question;and one with which, however interesting it may be to my good friendPietro Logarini, we need not trouble ourselves. And after all, what agood thing it is that things should have fallen out as they have. Thatold fool of a Marchese! It is a lesson to believe in nothing and no man,when one thinks of it. The death of that woman is the saving of thename. But, per Bacco! I must not say so too loudly," thought the oldlawyer to himself, with a grim smile, "or I shall be doing just what theold fool of a woman has been doing. Yes, that was the last link in thechain of the evidence we wanted. She was on the spot at the time--thedeath-dealing weapon was essentially a woman's weapon, and the murderedwoman was her feared and hated rival--and now we have direct evidencethat she felt her to be such. If the judges can find any otherhypothesis supported by stronger circumstantial evidence than this--why,I think that I had better go to school again."
With these thoughts in his mind, Signor Fortini determined to go and seehis crony, Signor Pietro Logarini, at the Palazzo del Governo. He foundthat active and able official just returned from another visit to St.Apollinare in Classe, which appeared not to have been very fruitful ofresult.
"I can make nothing out of that old friar," said the Police Commissaryto his friend, as they sat in the private cabinet of the former; "and Iam very much afraid that we shall make nothing out of him. For quiet,aggravating obstinacy and passive resistance, recommend me to a monk."
"What induced you to go out there to-day?" asked the lawyer.
"Why, I am very strongly persuaded--I feel sure almost--that that oldfellow could tell something to the purpose if he would speak. And I ammore convinced of it from his manner to-day than ever. The otheranimal--the lay-brother--I am pretty sure knows nothing about it."
"Is the friar about again, or still in bed?" Fortini.
"Oh, he's in bed safe enough; at least I found him there, shivering andshaking, and counting his beads, and answering a plain question with'Ave Maria' and 'Ora pro nobis,' and the rest of it. I don't believe hehas the fever a bit. I believe that he has been scared out of his witsby something he has seen. But the devil wouldn't get out of him what itwas if he don't choose to tell you. Oh, I know them!" said theCommissary, provoked by his fruitless excursion.
"I suppose," said the lawyer, looking doubtfully into the Commissary'sface, "I suppose it is not on the cards that the old fellow was themurderer himself?"
"Ha!" said the Commissary, with a start, "that is a new idea. But no,"he added, after a little consideration,--"no, that's not it; it would bevery difficult even to imagine any motive. An old man, eighty years old.No, it's not that. But, if I am not very much mistaken, he knowssomething."
"In that case, I should have thought that means might have been found tomake him speak," said the lawyer, drily.
"What means? I profess I don't know any. The devil of it is, you see,Signor Giovacchino, that it will not do to treat those fellows roughly.There would be the deuce and all to pay. There he lies, shivering, andtrembling, and muttering, and going on as if he was imbecile; andswearing he is too ill to leave his bed. I don't see how we are to gethim here into court."
"Well, I've had better luck this morning; and had not to go out to seekit. My witness came to me; and I think I have got some importantevidence," said the lawyer, with much of the exultation of a successfulsportsman over a less fortunate rival.
"The deuce you have. There is a luck in those things. But if yourevidence came to you--Who the devil would ever think of coming to aCommissary of Police as long as they could stay away, if they pleased."
"Well, my witness was not altogether a willing one; or at least she cameto me for the purpose of saying something very different from what shedid say."
"But you did not come here merely to boast, I am sure, SignorGiovacchino. You are going to tell me what you have been able to learn,eh?" said the Commissary.
"Boast, no, not I! There's nothing to boast of. Besides, you know myinterest in the matter is of a different nature from yours, SignorPietro. All I want is to clear my friend and client, the MarcheseLudovico. You, of course, are anxious to bring the crime home tosomebody."
"True," said the Commissary, nodding his head.
"And of course, therefore, any light I can throw upon the matter, I amready enough to bring to you, unless it were of a nature to incriminatethe Marchese," returned the lawyer.
"Of course, just so. And what you have learned this morning--"
"Tell's all t'other way; I have no difficulty in allowing that, on thefirst blush of the matter, I felt no doubt that the Marchese was theguilty party. It only shows that one ought always to have doubts ofeverything. It looked so very bad. The Marchese takes the girl into thewood, comes back without her, and very shortly afterwards she is foundwhere he left her, murdered. And he is known to have had the greatestpossible interest in getting rid of her. Would it not have seemed aclear case to any one?"
"So one would have said indeed," assented the Commissary.
"Well, the Marchese had nothing to do with it. At the present moment Ifeel--well, hardly any doubt at all that the deed was done by the girlPaolina Foscarelli."
"That's my notion too," said the Commissary, taking a pinch of snuff,and proferring his box to his visitor; "but what is the new evidence."
"Well, the girl lives, it seems, with an old woman, a country-woman ofhers, a certain Orsola Steno. And this morning the old lady comes to mystudio for the avowed purpose of begging me not to countenance in anyway the very mistaken notion that her adopted daughter had murdered theprima donna; the truth being, as she was good enough to inform me, thatthe latter had committed suicide."
"Bah, what senseless nonsense!" interrupted the Commissary, indignantly.
"Of course. I pointed out to the old lady that her theory was, accordingto the medical testimony, simply impossible; but that naturally made notthe slightest difference in her opinion of the matter. And then, aidedby a little gentle assistance, she prattled on, an old fool, admitting,or in
sisting rather, that there had been bitter hatred and animositybetween Paolina and the murdered woman; that Paolina had conceived thebitterest jealousy of the singer; that she was persuaded that the latterwas scheming with a set purpose to lure her acknowledged lover, theMarchese, away from her; that she was further persuaded that the singernourished the bitterest hatred of her, Paolina. What do you say to that,Signor Commissary? How does the land lie now, eh?" said the lawyer,triumphantly, in conclusion.
Signor Pietro nodded his head with most emphatic approbation andconfirmation of his friend's opinion.
"Is not it the more likely story in every way?" pursued the lawyer;"just look at it. The Marchese is known to every man, woman, and childin Ravenna; and being known for what he is, it would be difficult topersuade anybody that he had lifted his hand to murder a defenceless andsleeping woman. But we can all of us easily understand that it isexceedingly likely that he may have so behaved as to make these twowomen furiously jealous of each other; at least to have made this girlPaolina, to whom, it seems, he had promised marriage, desperatelyfurious against the other, whom she had but too good reason to suspectof having attracted the preference of the Marchese. Then look at theinstrument with which the murder was accomplished,--a needle. Is it inany way likely that the Marchese Ludovico should habitually carry such athing about with him? Is there any unlikelihood that the girl may havehad such a thing about her; Amico mio Pietro," said the lawyer, inconclusion, tapping his fingers on the Commissary's coat-sleeve as hespoke, "that Venetian girl is the murderess! The deed was done under theinfluence of maddening jealousy."
"How on earth could that old woman come to you with a budget of suchdamning facts against her friend? Do you think she--the old woman--hasany guilty knowledge of the crime?"
"Lord bless you, no! If she had, she would not have been so simple. No,she firmly believes her own theory of the matter, that the poor Divakilled herself. She is too firmly persuaded of it to perceive thebearing of her admissions of the hatred that existed between the twogirls."
"I learned something yesterday," said the Commissary, "which all looksthe same way, not much, but in such a case every little helps. This oldfriar--this Padre Fabiano--is, we know, a Venetian; and now I haveascertained that, years ago, before he came here, there was someconnection of some sort--acquaintance, friendship of whatever kind youlike--between him and the parents of the girl Paolina. I think it likelyenough that the frate's friendship was more particularly with the girl'smother rather than with her father,--we know what friars' ways are, and,maybe, we should not go far wrong if we imagined that the Father hadreason to feel a fatherly interest of a quite special kind in the younglady. Now all this is worth only just this. Why did the frate returnfrom the Pineta in such a state of terror, agitation, and horror? Why,supposing him to have seen, or in any way become acquainted with factscalculated to produce such an effect upon him, does he obstinatelyrefuse to give us any information upon the subject? How will this answerfit? In the course of that walk to the Pineta, undertaken, no doubt,because the old man felt anxiety as to what was likely to follow fromthe probable meeting of the two girls after the scene witnessed in hispresence by Paolina from the window of the church--in the course of thatwalk, let us suppose, the friar became acquainted with the fact thatthis girl--his daughter, we will say, for, in all probability, she issuch--had murdered her rival. The knowledge of the fact sends him backto his cell half dead with horror and fright. His interest in Paolinaties his tongue, and frustrates all our efforts to get any explanationfrom him. How will that do, eh, Signor Giovacchino?"
"Admirably well. Clearly helps to give consistency and probability toour theory of the facts. I begin to think that all danger to my clientis at an end, and, upon my word, I am more glad of it than I can tellyou; it would have been a shocking thing. I am an old Ravenna man, youknow, and should have felt it differently from what you would, youknow."
"True; but I am glad enough that the Marchese should be cleared in thematter, and so will the Government be--very glad."
"I suppose there is no objection to my seeing the Marchesino?"
"Oh, certainly not the least in the world. It is a pity that he shouldbe detained here any longer; but I am almost afraid to take theresponsibility of discharging him before some formal inquiry has beenmade."
"Naturally, naturally. When do you suppose you will be ready to bringthe affair to a trial?"
"Oh, very soon. If there were any chance of getting that old frate intocourt it would be worth while to wait for him; but I am afraid that thelonger we wait the worse his fever and ague will get. But I shall haveanother try at him out there first."
And with that Signor Fortini passed to the chamber in which the MarcheseLudovico was confined.
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