Ascension

by Gregory Dowling

  “Oh goodness me,” she said. “Colleoni himself would be envious…”

  “Above that,” I said. “Look between those two coil-shaped pieces of stucco.”

  “Ah, yes,” she said. “A hole.”

  “A spy hole,” I said. “From the house next door. Which undoubtedly also belongs to our hostess. And no doubt she gets one rent from those enjoying the bed in here and another, a little reduced, from those enjoying the spectacle in there.”

  “How very sordid,” she said. “But does this help us?”

  “Well,” I said, “I suspect there is also a means of communication.” I looked at the mirror on the same wall, a large rectangular sheet of glass in an elaborate frame of carved and gilded wood. It appeared to be solidly fixed to the wall.

  “Aha,” I said, after a few moments. “Look.”

  I pointed to the left-hand side of the frame. Concealed behind carvings of Mars and Venus were two metal hinges. “It’s a door,” I said. “We just need to find the opening mechanism on the other side.”

  She ran her fingers down the various carved figures on the right-hand side. “If I can judge from the lady’s taste I would suspect … ah, yes.” She gently caressed a virile figure with a swelling loin cloth. “Yes, here we go.” There was a click as she pressed the wooden bulge and the mirror swung forward from the wall. “Well, there will be a certain appropriateness if a phallus proves the means of salvation for my cousin,” she said with a smile.

  “No doubt,” I said.

  We gazed through the doorway, which led into a plainly furnished room; it was fairly gloomy, presumably because the windows were shuttered.

  “Shall we explore?” she said, preparing to step through.

  “Well, why not?” I said.

  There was a sudden loud hammering at the front door of the apartment.

  I felt a sudden jolt of apprehension, like a fist to my stomach.

  “Who will that be?” she said, clearly quite untroubled.

  “I don’t like to think,” I said, half tempted to dive through the doorway, as if a land of salvation must lie beyond the mirror.

  “Open up! In the name of the republic!”

  “How very grandiose,” she said. “What can they want?”

  I closed the mirror-door, turned round and walked towards the front door. There was little point in putting off the inevitable.

  As I suspected, the man we had seen on the bridge stood there on the landing, flanked by two old friends, the sbirro with the scarred face and the hairy one.

  Scarface’s mouth grinned, although the jagged downward scar did its trick of maintaining an overall appearance of surliness. “Well, who would have thought it.”

  At that moment Miss Boscombe emerged from the bedroom. The two sbirri gave her a clearly appreciative look and Scarface said: “Congratulations, son.”

  “I’m here as cicerone to this lady, who is the cousin…”

  “Cicerone, eh?” said Scarface. “Anyway, don’t bother explaining it to us, son. Keep it for the folk at the ducal palace.”

  “Who are these people?” Miss Boscombe asked me in English.

  “Sbirri,” I said. “I think we’re under arrest.”

  “For what?”

  “Well, I’m certainly under arrest,” I said. “For disobeying the authorities.”

  “Nonsense,” she said.

  “Come on then,” said Scarface. “We’ve got irons for you again, and even for the lady if she wants to make trouble.”

  “It won’t be necessary,” I said. “I’ll persuade her.”

  She understood this. “Persuade me to do what?” she said in Italian.

  “To come to the ducal palace,” I said.

  “Well, what an excellent idea,” she said. “Isn’t that just what I wanted to do?”

  It was that easy. I managed to persuade the sbirri to let us pass by Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo, so that we could collect her father. “The more the merrier,” said Scarface, with a grim smile. He agreed not to use the irons, since we were being so very accommodating.

  Her father was emerging from the church as we entered the square and he muttered a few inarticulate syllables as I explained the situation. His daughter told him that it was all for the best because now we were going to the ducal palace and we would be able to explain everything. He looked sceptical but accepted the inevitable.

  Bepi had found some colleagues to play dice with in the square and took the news that we would not be requiring his services immediately with his usual laconic resignation.

  “I’ll send word,” I said, and then added, “As soon as I can.”

  15

  Half an hour later I was back in the narrow room with the single chandelier where I had been questioned by the Missier Grande a week earlier. Once again I had been separated from my companions at a certain point in our wanderings through the twisting corridors and staircases of the palace, and found myself with just the hairy sbirro for company.

  I stood in front of the long desk, as I had done before, and waited. It was midday this time, rather than the middle of the night, but it made very little difference in this windowless room. Probably forty minutes passed and I found myself wiping sweat from the back of my neck. I could not tell whether it was the heat or my nerves.

  The same little bespectacled man came bustling in as before, and sat down, and started scribbling in a large book.

  I continued to wait. The Missier Grande chose to break the pattern by abruptly appearing from behind me. My start no doubt afforded him satisfaction. He took his place at the table alongside the little man.

  “So, Alvise Marangon,” he said, quietly and levelly as ever. “You chose to disobey my orders.”

  “Illustrissimo,” I began.

  He raised a hand. “You will be able to offer your excuses to the jailer later. I’m certainly not going to listen to them.”

  “But Illustrissimo…”

  My shirt collar was suddenly gripped from behind and I felt the hot stinking breath of the hairy man close by my ear. “Shut up.”

  I shut up. My collar was released.

  “You will, however, answer my questions.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who suggested the visit to the casino of Signora Padoan?”

  “The young lady,” I said. “She’s the cousin –”

  “I know who she is.”

  Well, of course he did. “Has she told you what we found?”

  The Missier Grande made no acknowledgement of my aborted question. “And you raised no objection?” he asked.

  “I told her I had been ordered to stay clear of the affair, but I thought that she might need…” I faltered to a stop, realising how lame it sounded.

  “She is an attractive young lady,” he said, and it sounded like definitive proof of her iniquity.

  I said: “She’s very worried about her cousin.”

  “Which is none of your business.”

  “Well, no, but she’s a foreigner, and –”

  “There is an English Resident in this city. And I believe he was very clear on this subject to you.”

  “With all respect to Mr Murray,” I said, “I did not feel that he intended to exert himself very greatly in this matter.”

  To my surprise he did not try to cut me off. I realised he was gazing at me in a strangely speculative fashion. He remained silent for a few seconds, and then he addressed the sbirro behind me. “Please leave us.”

  Without a word the sbirro turned and walked out. When the door had closed behind him the Missier Grande spoke again. “Signor Marangon, are you a courageous man?”

  Was this the way he introduced the threat of the rope?

  “It is hardly for me to say,” I said, and hoped the quiver in my throat was not audible.

  “It would seem that you are endowed either with stubborn courage or with inordinate stupidity.”

  “Maybe something of both,” I said, trying to sound jauntily off-hand.

  “
It may be so,” he said. “And it may be that the state will need both qualities.”

  “The state?”

  “The Most Serene Republic of Venice. You could perhaps be of service.”

  “Well, I’d be happy to help.”

  “Be quiet.” He paused for a moment. “You will have to learn the gift of silence. It doesn’t seem to come easily to you.”

  It was clearly better not to answer this, so I nodded.

  “You presumably know that the republic employs a number of confidenti. I myself am responsible for some of them; the Inquisitors for many more. Most of these confidenti are little more than private snoopers.”

  “A Venetian pastime,” I said.

  He shot one icy blue glance at me and went on: “Idle people, reporting on noblemen who go out without a cloak. On noblemen’s wives who spend too much on their Sunday lunch or use too many coloured ribbons in their hats.”

  The sumptuary laws of the republic lay down very strict guidelines for all such matters, guidelines that are forever being pushed against until the Senate is forced to revise them. Which does not mean people cannot be fined for breaking them; it usually depends on who the Inquisitors are at any given moment.

  “This is not to say that such confidenti are useless. All such information has its value,” he said. His eyes ran round the cupboards and bookshelves in the room, presumably crammed with such serviceable jottings. “However, I am also responsible for a number of confidenti who provide information of a more vital nature. Confidenti who must never allow themselves to be suspected of playing such a role, and therefore do not give the impression of being watchful or, indeed, especially intelligent. It seems to me that you have the requisite qualities.”

  I didn’t think he was being complimentary.

  “At the same time I suspect you are not without resources. You are clearly linguistically gifted, since your Venetian seems flawless to me, despite the fact that you were raised in England. And your theatrical background might also prove useful.”

  He paused. I waited, definitely intrigued.

  “Now, you presumably know that my area of competence extends no further than common criminality in the city. Anything connected with crimes against the state, with treason, with political chicanery, with foreign intrusion into Venetian affairs, is in the exclusive jurisdiction of the three Inquisitors. However, the dividing lines are not always clear, and before I refer matters to them I need to know precisely which category of crime we are dealing with. Once a matter has been referred to them it is out of my hands.”

  I nodded. He had not said so, but I gathered that he did not feel the hands of the Inquisitors were necessarily the most efficient. For most Venetians such a sentiment would have been close to blasphemy; the three Inquisitors were held in even greater awe than the Missier Grande himself – a fact that I suspected irritated the Missier Grande.

  “So let us come to the point. Nobleman Piero Garzoni.” He paused again and I wondered whether the time had come for me to make another remark.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “You mentioned the nobleman in connection with Mr Boscombay, referring to the fact that Mr Boscombay was hoping to meet him. And you referred to the Georgian count who appears to have been taken into nobleman Piero Garzoni’s confidence.”

  “Count Gelashvili,” I said.

  “I suspect that the count is merely a common fraudster whose aims are purely mercenary, so no international complications need worry us here. Exactly the same considerations apply in the case of Mr Boscombay and the murder of his tutor. However, the case of nobleman Piero Garzoni is more complex.”

  “The case?” I said.

  “To put it very simply, we need to know what nobleman Garzoni is up to.”

  “Ah,” I said. Probably I looked and sounded very stupid as I did so. And presumably that was all to the good.

  “I suspect you have already heard something of this man: his former connections with the Arsenale; the fact that he lives a somewhat isolated life. And, as you yourself mentioned, his cult of Doge Marin Falier.”

  “Well, I only thought that perhaps –”

  “He makes little secret of his feelings on this subject. But we need to know whether those feelings have led him into any possibly criminal activity. However, investigating a member of the nobility is always a delicate matter. We must avoid unnecessary scandal and possible resentment. For this reason I need someone who can investigate intelligently and discreetly – but also someone I can deny all knowledge of should the investigation come to light before any useful results have been achieved.”

  “I see,” I said. “And that would be me.”

  “That would be you. I am making you an offer, Signor Marangon. I will lay aside all charges against you for having flouted our explicit orders in exchange for your co-operation in investigating the activities of nobleman Piero Garzoni. But as I have indicated, should anyone question what you are doing I will deny all knowledge of your activities and will see to it that you receive the prison sentence you clearly deserve.”

  “Thank you,” I said, keeping my tone as neutral as possible.

  He nodded. “I see that we understand each other. Your knowledge of English may be of assistance to you in this matter. We can lend you a copy of the book you have already mentioned in this regard, of which we only possess an English version. It may provide a useful starting point.”

  I was about to say that I had already seen the book but fortunately stopped in time. Fabrizio would not thank me for drawing attention to his ownership of the item. Instead I said: “So where do you suggest I go from there?”

  “Signor Marangon, the offer I have made is based on my intuition that you possess a certain resourcefulness. If I am mistaken I might as well just have you sent straight to prison.”

  “With all respect, Excellency, this is the first time I have been hired as a confidente. I thought there might be certain standard procedures.”

  “The essence of this activity is that nothing is standard. But you can talk to my assistant here, Signor Massaro, who will give you whatever practical instructions are necessary.” He waved to the little bespectacled man, who did not cease his steady scribbling. “He will also decide on a suitable emolument.”

  Things were already looking up, I thought.

  “Just one instruction I can give you,” he went on. “You are a confidente. That means you tell no one of what you are doing, not even your closest friend. Because remember this: if it turns out that we have to send you to prison after all, any person you have informed of your activities will accompany you there. Good day.”

  “Illustrissimo, just one last thing,” I said urgently, as he turned towards the door.

  “Be brief.”

  “In that casino we found that there was another way out.”

  “Ah yes, the door behind the mirror.”

  “So you know.”

  “Did you really think my men would have failed to search the place thoroughly?”

  “So the evidence against Mr Boscombay…”

  “I am not here to discuss that case, Signor Marangon.”

  “But you will be talking to his cousin –”

  “Good day. You can discuss all other practical matters with Signor Massaro.” With a final nod, he left the room.

  And so I became a confidential agent of the Most Serene Republic of Venice.

  16

  The little man introduced himself as Sior Marco Massaro, cittadino from the parish of San Polo. In time I came to know Sior Massaro well and to appreciate his knowledge of the intricate workings of governmental machinery. He spent his life scurrying around the more secluded corners and corridors of the Doge’s palace, like a busy ant in a formicary. His devotion to the Missier Grande was total and he would never presume to question or contest any of his decisions. I was to discover that he had an almost instinctive contempt for nearly every other branch of the administration, even though it was always expressed in the guarded lang
uage of officialdom.

  “The Missier Grande is the key to the whole administration,” he said as he took me into another tiny office, lined on all sides by dark cupboards. This, it seemed, was his own small kingdom.

  “And the three Inquisitors, the Council of Ten?” I said, naming the most revered institutions in the city.

  “They play their part, of course,” he said, as if referring indulgently to keen little children. “But in the very nature of things, they cannot get as firm a grip on matters as does the Missier Grande.”

  I realised he was referring to the temporary nature of these appointments. It was an essential feature of the Venetian system of government that the more power a position conferred, the shorter was the term of office. Inquisitors held the post for a year; they could be re-elected but usually were not. Their powers were in theory vast: they could, for example, order secret executions, which helps to explain why they were held in such awe by the Venetian populace. But in Massaro’s view of things, I gathered, they were little more than a series of bumbling functionaries, who barely had time to learn how the system worked before they were substituted by the next set of appointees.

  Of course, he would never express himself in such openly disrespectful terms. What he did say was: “You see, it is thanks to people like me, who keep all the papers in order and understand the regulations, that things get done properly.” He waved a hand at the document-crammed cupboards all around us. “And the Missier Grande realises this and appreciates just how important we are.”

  “So he treats you well?”

  “He appreciates us,” he repeated, with a note of dignified pride. “It makes a great deal of difference, you know.”

  “I’m sure it does,” I said. The Missier Grande clearly knew how to inculcate loyalty.

  “I wish it were true of all our government officials,” he said. He was about to add something but suddenly shook his head, as if to expel any possibly seditious thoughts that had taken lodging there. “But, dear me, we need to concentrate on the matter at hand. First of all, let me file the record of our recent meeting.” He pulled open a cupboard, drew out a large ledger with a series of apparently random letters and numbers on its spine and placed the closely written pages inside it. The ledger was returned to the cupboard.