The sergeant interrupted. “Sir, that man hasn’t killed anyone! I’ll tell you that myself, and I mean it. He didn’t kill anyone!”
De Vincenzi muttered, “I don’t know, Cruni. I myself do not know. What I do know for sure, however, is that there is some aspect of this crime… actually its most horrible aspect… that has nothing to do with Aurigi. However, it’s necessary, Cruni—do you understand?—it’s necessary for me to see clearly right the way through. The usual means, legal, all the rules, are not enough, and they’re not helpful in this case. I must have recourse to other methods if I want to get to the truth—to all other means, whatever they might be. My conscience will allow it, and in fact it obliges me, even if the rules and codes forbid it. So I need you. Are you willing to help me?”
“You can count on me!” said Cruni, putting a hand to his breast.
“Yes, I’m counting on you. Now I’ll tell you what has to be done, but first get me an officer. There should be two at the main door. Get the sharpest ones.”
The sergeant quickly went out of the back door, leaving the entrance door open.
De Vincenzi glanced at the door to the dining room. He slowly approached it, listening. He could hear a pin drop. He opened it a crack and saw Giannetto sitting in front of the table, his head between his hands. He wasn’t moving and he didn’t move even when the door opened.
De Vincenzi smiled bitterly. He closed the door and returned to the middle of the room. He looked at Aurigi once more, and this time he was angry. Why did he persist in keeping his silence? Why was it up to him to save Aurigi at all costs?
Cruni came into the apartment with an officer. De Vincenzi looked at the latter and said, “Right. You, go and stand in that room,” and he pointed towards the dining room. “You’ll find a gentleman under arrest in there. You are answerable to me for him. But take care to treat him courteously and, above all, try to give him the impression that you’re not there and you aren’t watching him. Lock the door from the inside if you need to, and don’t let anyone in other than the investigating magistrate, of course. But I’ll see him first myself. Understood?”
The officer bowed, throwing his arms out in an awkwardly expressive gesture, “Yes, sir!”
“Go.” And De Vincenzi went with him, closing the door behind him.
Then he went up to Cruni. “Now, listen.”
Quickly and with the greatest possible clarity, De Vincenzi laid out the essential points of Marchionni’s statement and asked Cruni to verify them. He would go to the Savini, the Clubino, to the count’s palazzo and interrogate all who might confirm or deny what Marchionni had said. He advised him, though, to use the utmost discretion. Cruni had to realize that he, as well as the inspector, was playing a dangerous game by verifying the statement of such an important witness in that way.
Cruni responded by nodding his assent. He understood perfectly. At one point he exclaimed, “That gentleman doesn’t seem very Christian to me either.”
“Christian or not, dear Cruni, if the chief constable hears what we’re doing without his authorization, he’ll blow up at us. For me it’s nothing, but for you…”
“Oh, for me,” the sergeant shrugged his shoulders. And taking up his hat, which he’d set on a chair at the entrance, he headed for the door.
At precisely that moment, a key was inserted into the lock from the outside. The noise it made as it turned was sharp and clear.
De Vincenzi suddenly grabbed Cruni’s arm and drew him into a corner. They stood flat against the wall, their eyes fixed on the door.
The key turned twice, and the door slowly opened.
8
The Two Revolvers
One side of the double doors opened to frame the shape of a square, thickset man. His grey hair was practically in his eyes and he was wearing a long overcoat.
He stopped for an instant to look round the entrance hall, but he didn’t see the two men hiding behind the door to the kitchen. He advanced slowly, carefully closing the door behind him. Then he proceeded towards the servant’s room and took off his overcoat and hat. From the bed he took a blue-and-white-striped vest and a black jacket. He looked at his garments for a moment as if considering whether or not he had to put them on, and then decided. He took off the clothes he was wearing and got dressed in the others, which clearly indicated his function.
He then went towards the dining room.
De Vincenzi could see him clearly. A rather elderly man with grey hair, but good skin, still plump and fresh.
The inspector didn’t let him go into the dining room. When he got to the middle of the entrance hall, he went straight up to him.
The man jumped and instinctively put his hand to the rear pocket of his trousers. In a voice that was threatening, though not terribly perturbed, he asked: “What are you doing in here?”
The inspector asked, “Are you Giacomo Macchi, Aurigi’s servant?”
The man was startled but immediately regained his self-confidence.
“I am, in fact, Signor Aurigi’s servant. But who are you, and what are you doing in my master’s house?”
“I will tell you later,” answered De Vincenzi, heading towards the dining room. “Come along, now, give me the revolver you have in your pocket and answer my questions.”
“Who gave you the right?”
“I am a police inspector. Quickly, the revolver.”
The servant vacillated. He struggled to gain control of himself, take the revolver from his pocket and offer it to De Vincenzi.
“I don’t understand…”
“You will,” said De Vincenzi. He inspected the revolver. “A Browning… 6.5… with seven bullets.” He twisted the barrel to make sure the bullets were there and sniffed the muzzle. The revolver had definitely not been shot recently.
“A nice weapon, perfectly maintained. Give me the gun licence.”
“I don’t have it,” the servant responded after a moment’s hesitation.
“Fine. And the revolver is yours?”
“Yes… no… it’s not mine.”
“Whose is it then?”
“It’s Signor Aurigi’s… my master’s.”
“So why are you carrying it?”
“I took it yesterday evening. I’d hoped to put it back in its place this morning. He wouldn’t have noticed.”
“Where does he normally keep it?”
The servant turned and pointed to a small chest of drawers in the corner, close to the mantelpiece, where the clock was sounding a quarter to ten.
“There, in the top drawer of that chest.”
De Vincenzi went over to the chest and tried to open the drawer. It was locked. He turned to Giacomo.
“The key?”
The servant was clearly surprised. “I don’t know! It was open… it’s always open…”
He went up to the chest and opened some of the other drawers to look for the key.
“I don’t understand! Last night it was open and the key was in the lock.”
De Vincenzi turned to Cruni. “Get a chisel, some sort of tool. There must be a chisel in the house, a hammer, something to open this drawer.”
“Yes,” said Macchi, “there’s a toolbox in the kitchen, in the cupboard. I’ll go and get it.”
De Vincenzi held him by the arm. “No. Stay here.” And he signalled for Cruni to go to the kitchen.
The inspector, still holding Giacomo by the arm, looked him in the eye: “You say it was open last night?”
“Of course. Signor Aurigi always leaves all his drawers open. He knows he can trust me.”
“Indeed,” the inspector said ironically.
The other man raised his shoulders. “I told you I would have put it back. If I’d asked to borrow it, he would have given it to me.”
“Why did you need a revolver last night?”
Giacomo was silent.
“Why?” the inspector insisted.
“Oh,” the servant said with some effort, “I don’t know why you’re as
king me all these questions. You found the revolver on me. I don’t have a licence for it. So arrest me if you wish. I have nothing else to say.”
“Ah, you think so?”
Cruni came in with a chisel. The inspector took it from him brusquely.
“Give it here…”
He bent over the drawer and opened it by jiggling the latch. He looked inside and expressed amazement. He turned to Giacomo.
“Oh, I say! If you are toying with me, my good man, you’ll regret it.”
The servant looked at him in surprise.
“Me? But what are you saying?”
“Watch it!” said De Vincenzi. He took another revolver from the drawer. “And this one here, whose is it? Did your master have a collection of revolvers?”
Giacomo seemed totally amazed.
“But no! Only one. That one wasn’t there! No, I’ve never seen that one, sir. Let me have a look…” He held out his hand.
De Vincenzi was about to give it to him but he stopped himself.
He studied the revolver, sniffed the end as he’d done with the other, and nodded.
“Wait!”
The revolver he’d taken from Giacomo was sitting on the table. He wrapped it in his handkerchief for the second time and put it in his pocket.
He turned to Cruni.
“Telephone the doctor at the Monumentale cemetery right away, and ask him to send me the bullet he’s removed. And then find me a gunsmith who’ll—”
He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, smiled, and took his own watch from his pocket. Yes, the clock was actually an hour ahead.
He went on, turning back to Cruni “—who’ll come here at eleven. As soon as you’ve done that, go you-know-where and do what I told you.”
“Right, sir,” said Cruni, starting for the entrance. “Do you want me to have Paoli come up here to see you?”
“It’s not important. Just tell him not to move from the lodge for any reason.”
The inspector waited for the sergeant to leave and then turned to Giacomo.
“And now, it’s just us.” He sat down and showed the servant a seat.
“Please sit down. There are a lot of things I need you to tell me. What time did you go out last night?”
Giacomo remained standing.
“At eleven. My master had given me permission. He knew I wouldn’t come back before this morning.”
De Vincenzi was startled. “Oh, he knew that?”
“Of course,” said Macchi. “Yesterday morning he himself said I’d have free time. Every week Signor Aurigi gives me a night off. Usually it’s Friday night. This week he wanted to change it. Yesterday morning, he said, ‘Giacomo, today is Tuesday, but it doesn’t matter. You’re free tonight instead of Friday. I prefer it that way’.”
Silence fell. De Vincenzi said to himself that the further the investigation advanced, the more it seemed to demonstrate Aurigi’s guilt.
“And you take the revolver away with you every week?”
“Yes. What’s wrong with that? I go to a house in the Cagnola zone, five minutes’ walk from the station at the end of the line—at night.”
“And Aurigi has never noticed that you’ve taken his revolver away—as a precaution?”
“No, never! I told you: he’s never had occasion to use the revolver.”
“Fine. We’ll check up on what you say. But be careful. A crime was committed in this house last night…”
The servant took a step backwards. The terror written all over his face had to be sincere, thought De Vincenzi, or else the man was a hardened criminal, a consummate actor.
“No!” he exclaimed in a hoarse voice. “My master?”
“Not your master. He is safe and sound. But be aware that everything you tell us, including your alibi, is extremely important.”
“It goes without saying.” He didn’t even try to hide his distress. His fear must have preyed on him.
“I’m saying exactly what I mean,” De Vincenzi stated coldly. “But your only concern is to tell the truth.”
The man looked around him, lost. “But who? Who? And where is my master?”
“Sit down,” ordered the inspector, and this time the man sat down automatically.
“Were you at home all day yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what happened in here yesterday afternoon.”
“But… I don’t know,” Giacomo answered, shrugging. “Nothing unusual, I believe.”
“Aurigi went out at three?”
“Yes, at three… or maybe later… No, I think it was actually at three.”
“And while he was out, someone came.”
“You know?” Giacomo exclaimed in surprise. Immediately he added, “Yes, la signorina came. I’d told her that my master was out and let her come in here, in this room. Nothing strange there, as far as it goes. When Signor Aurigi isn’t at home, the signorina always comes in here… or there, in the parlour, and waits for him.”
“Does she come every day, the signorina?”
“But no!” Giacomo said, amazed. “Why would she come every day?”
De Vincenzi studied him. Which of the two was lying—this man, or the porter’s wife? She had said that the signorina came every day.
“Take care. Try to be absolutely precise. It seems to me she comes every day.”
The servant shrugged. “If that’s what you think.”
The inspector realized he was dealing with a particularly nervous and touchy customer. He would need to get on the right side of him.
“Good. We’re going to find out the truth. If not every day, when?”
“Oh, rarely. Once a week, for example, or less often or more frequently, depending. And then, her visits are always really brief. She stays with the signore in this room or there in the dining room. They talk, but the signorina is always in a great hurry. The signore was never happy about that, naturally.”
It was clear that the man wasn’t lying, at least on this point. Why would he lie anyway?
But in that case, how could one square the porter’s wife’s statement with the servant’s?
The porter’s wife couldn’t be lying, either. She had been too frightened to do so at the time. And anyway, even if she’d wanted to for reasons of her own, she would have lied by denying the fact as she’d tried to do in the beginning, not admitting it. She was clearly receiving money from Aurigi or from the Signorina Marchionni, and one never confesses to such a thing voluntarily.
What then?
De Vincenzi had to allow that the contessina might have come through Aurigi’s door without visiting her fiancé.
It was an arbitrary theory. But wasn’t everything about real life and reality a bit arbitrary?
It was a problem, this, which the inspector set aside to study and resolve later. For the moment, the important thing was to get the man in front of him to speak.
“And so? Go on.”
“After half an hour… or perhaps more… I heard the bell again. It was my master with a gentleman—”
He stopped himself. A look flashed across his face. He got up, deeply unsettled.
“But no! It isn’t possible…”
De Vincenzi got up too and looked Giacomo in the eye.
“What’s not possible?” He held up a hand to stop Macchi. “No, don’t answer, I’m not interested in what you think is possible or impossible. Give me the facts. Who was that gentleman?”
The servant had recovered some of his sang-froid.
“The signorina’s father. Count Marchionni. When I saw him, I immediately said to myself that I had to warn my master. He might not have wanted the father to encounter his own daughter here, I thought. And I tried signalling to him not to enter this room, but he didn’t understand me.”
“So they came in. And did they find the signorina?”
“No, no… the signorina must have heard their voices… I don’t know… the fact is that she hid in there, in the dining room.”
De Vincenzi leapt up. It seemed he was beginning to understand.
“Ah! And then?”
“My master and the count remained in this room for a long time. A few hours. They were arguing.”
De Vincenzi held up a hand to interrupt him once more. He stared at the door of the parlour. He went up to it and looked inside, but saw neither Marchionni nor Harrington. They must have been in the bedroom or the bathroom. He seemed satisfied and carefully shut the door of the parlour. Then he turned to the servant and said in a hushed tone, “So they were arguing. Loudly?”
“Yes… like that… every now and again you could hear a voice break out, grow hushed, then start up again speaking calmly.”
“And the signorina?”
“She stayed in there for half an hour. Then all of a sudden I saw her go out through the door that leads into the kitchen. She was white as a sheet. She said to me: ‘Giacomo, you’ll say to your master that I came and couldn’t wait. I’ll see him tonight at the theatre.’ I saw her to the door on the stairs, making sure this door was closed and that the men in the dining room couldn’t see her. That’s how the signorina left. And that’s all.”
“Her father didn’t see her?”
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“And when your master and the count were speaking, you naturally…”
From the parlour came the voices of Harrington and the count.
De Vincenzi rapidly went up to Macchi and pushed him towards the entrance.
“Enough! We’ll continue later.”
The door of the parlour opened and the count appeared with Harrington. Marchionni made straight for De Vincenzi. He still had a somewhat sarcastic air and he asked De Vincenzi with a hiss: “That room was searched thoroughly, is that right, Inspector?”
Then he noticed Giacomo. He pointed to him. “This man is the servant of… for…”
“Yes, Count,” De Vincenzi interrupted. “This man is Aurigi’s servant, and naturally you must know him, since you had occasion to see him yesterday afternoon.”
The count was visibly startled, but he quickly got the better of his agitation.
“That may be, but I don’t think it’s anything important. What seems terribly important, however, is what Harrington has to say to you.”
The Murdered Banker Page 8
