by Rita Monaldi
"Very well, very well," assented Atto. He had arranged that in the event of an emergency, Buvat was to mention nothing to anyone before speaking to him. I was soon to understand why.
Atto lowered the handle, pushed on the door and entered, lighting his way with a candle.
"But the door has not been forced," I observed in astonishment.
"No, indeed it has not, as I'd have told you if you'd given me time," replied Buvat who, during the wild rush that had followed his announcement had barely had a chance to open his mouth.
I advanced too and entered the apartment. A second and then a third candle were lit, revealing the unmistakeable traces of an incursion. Everything — every object, every ornament — was cast into a general disorder. A chair was turned upside down. Books, gazettes and loose papers of every kind were scattered on the floor. Atto's clothes too had been roughly thrown to the ground or heaped up on the furniture, and it was quite clear that they, too, had been thoroughly searched. A window was open.
"Strange, truly strange," I commented. "Despite all the guards keeping watch over Villa Spada in recent days, the thieves have had no difficulty in getting right here into the great house…"
"You are right. Yet it must have been a swift job," observed Atto after taking a rapid look around. It looks to me as though they have removed only the spyglass. 'Tis a tempting enough object. Apart from that, I think that nothing is missing."
"How do you know?" I asked, given that Atto's survey had lasted only a few seconds.
"Simple: after the attack on you two, I entrusted all my precious things to a servant of the villa. Papers of a certain importance… well, they are not here," said he with a sly expression which I pretended not to notice, since I too knew the hiding place: the dirty linen where I myself had found Maria's letters.
The Abbot then hastened to put his apparel back in order.
"Look at this," he groaned, "how they've crumpled them. One moment…"
Atto was prodding his mauve-grey soutane, within which I knew that he secretly kept the scapular of the Our Lady of the Garmel, the ex voto into which he had sewn my three little pearls.
'"Tis not there any more," he exclaimed. "Oh heavens, I left it in here!"
"What?" I asked, feigning ignorance.
"Er, a… relic. A most precious relic which I was keeping inside here, in a scapular of the Madonna of the Carmel. They have robbed me of it."
My poor little pearls, I lamented inwardly, they seemed fated to be stolen. In any case, this showed that the thieves had been through Abbot Melani's apartment with a fine-tooth comb.
We now stood in the light of the large candelabrum which I had lit, the better to be able to carry out our own thorough check. Abbot Melani, who had suddenly sunk to his knees, shifted the day-bed and raised part of the herringbone parquet underneath it, near the window. He removed one block, then another just next to it, then a third one.
"No… By all the saints!" I heard him swearing in a low voice. "The accursed rogues!"
Buvat and I stayed silent, looking questioningly at one another. Atto stood up, dusted down his elbows and collapsed into an armchair. He stared fixedly before him.
"Dear me, what a disaster. But how is it possible? What sense does it make? Whoever could… I do not understand," he was raving away to himself, shaking his head with one hand clasped to his brow, quite indifferent to our amazed looks.
"This is a grave misfortune," said he, once he had recovered his aplomb, "a serious matter. I have been robbed of some most important papers. At first, I did not even take the trouble to check, so sure was I that no one could get at them. I had replaced the slats of parquet with the greatest of care and skill. I know not how they managed to find them, but that is what they have just done."
"Were they under the parquet?" I asked.
"Exactly. Not even Buvat knew that they were there," said Melani, dismissing forthwith any suspicion of a betrayal.
In the brief moment of silence that followed, Atto must have become aware of the question running through Buvat's head and my own. Since we would have to help him recover the stolen papers, he must needs furnish us with a description, however summary, of their contents.
"It is a confidential report which I have written for His Most Christian Majesty," said he at length.
"And what is it about?" I dared ask.
"The next conclave. And the next pope."
The problems, explained Atto, were two-fold. In the first place, he had promised His Majesty the King of France to deliver the report as soon as possible. The report in Abbot Melani's possession was, however, the only copy in existence and even if he were to labour for months (making superhuman efforts of memory) that would still not suffice to rewrite it. Thus, Atto ran the risk of making a fool of himself in the King's eyes; but that was the least of things.
The report revealed secret circumstances concerning the election of the last pontiffs and prognostications concerning the forthcoming conclave, and it was signed by Atto. Even if it had not been signed, it would in any case be easy to ascribe it to him, thanks to certain circumstances reported in the text.
The document was at that moment in the hands of strangers, and probably hostile ones at that. Atto thus ran the risk of being charged with espionage on behalf of France. It would not be impossible that the charge might be made even graver by accusing him of intending to disseminate the report, so that he would find himself on trial for criminal libel.
"… A crime which, as you know, is punished most severely in Rome," he concluded.
"What are we to do?" asked Buvat, no less concerned than his master.
"Since we cannot report the theft to the Bargello, we shall have to make do with the help of Sfasciamonti. Once you have put things back in some order, you, Buvat, will go and call him. Indeed no, go at once."
Once we were alone, Atto and I spent some time crawling on the floor picking up the scattered pages. Atto uttered not a word. Meanwhile, a suspicion arose in my mind concerning the object of the theft. I decided to take the plunge and ask him.
"Signor Atto, the hiding place which you chose was excellent. How can the thieves have discovered it? And what's more, the door was not forced. Someone must have had a copy of the key. How is that possible?"
"I really do not know. Curses, 'tis a mystery. Now we shall have to place ourselves in the hands of that catchpoll who will torment me with his tales of cerretani or whatever the deuce they call those mendicants, if they really do exist."
"How will you describe your manuscript? Not even to Sfasciamonti can you say exactly what it is about, seeing that one can trust no one."
He remained silent, and fixed his eyes on mine. He guessed what I suspected and realised that he could no longer put off giving me an explanation. He made a grimace of vexation and sighed: he was on the point of imparting, unwillingly, something which I did not know.
In the corridor, Buvat's footsteps were already ringing out, accompanied by Sfasciamonti's more resounding ones. I know not whether by chance or by choice, but Atto spoke at just the moment when the catchpoll opened the door, meaning, at the very last free moment after which I would no longer be able to talk with him freely or to trouble him with questions to which he did not wish to reply.
"The manuscript was freshly bound. It was the little book made by Haver."
Although he still seemed somewhat somnolent, Sfasciamonti listened attentively to the account of what had taken place. He inspected the hiding place under the slats in the floor, made a quick inspection of Atto's lodgings, then asked discreetly the nature of the document that had been stolen, contenting himself with the summary explanation provided by Atto.
"It is a political text. It is of extreme importance and usefulness to me."
"I understand. The book you had bound by Haver, I suppose."
The Abbot could not deny that.
"It is a coincidence," he replied.
"Of course," Sfasciamonti agreed, impassively.
After that, the
catchpoll asked whether Melani intended to report the theft to the Bargello or to the Governor of Rome. Since the victim of the theft was a person of note, an edict could be posted all over the city offering a reward for the return of the loot or the capture of the thieves.
"Come now," Atto responded at once, "rewards are worthless. When I was robbed of gold rings and a heart-shaped diamond in the Capuchin monastery at Monte Cavallo, the governor placed an enormous reward on the head of the thieves. Result: nothing whatever."
"I cannot say that you're wrong, Signor Abbot," agreed Sfasciamonti. If I have understood you well, apart from this document, you were robbed only of a spyglass and the scapular of the Carmel."
"Quite."
"You have not yet told me, however, what sort of sacred relic you kept in the scapular. A thorn from the crown of Our Lord Jesus Christ? A piece of wood from the cross? There are plenty of those around, but they are still popular; you know, now that it's the Jubilee…"
"No," Melani replied laconically, having no desire to confess that he had jealously kept my little pearls close to his heart for all those years.
"A piece of clothing, then, or a tooth?"
"Three pearls," Atto admitted at last, glancing at me, "of the Venetian margarita variety."
"A singular relic," observed Sfasciamonti.
"They come from the luminous vestment which Our Lady wore on the day of her apparition on Mount Carmel," explained Atto with the most natural air in the world, while the stupefied sergeant remained utterly unaware of the Abbot's irony. "Will that be enough for you now?"
"Of course," replied Sfasciamonti, recovering his composure after the surprise; "I'd say… Yes. Let us begin by looking for the spyglass."
"The spyglass? But that's of no importance whatever to me!" protested Atto.
"To you, no. But someone else might find it an interesting object, to be resold for a good price. Quite apart from the fact that it is not the kind of thing that passes unobserved. On the other hand, the relic and your political document will be difficult to identify. For anyone who does not know its contents, that little treatise will seem like any other old bundle of papers. It might be in the hands of someone who… well, someone not like yourself."
"In what sense?" asked Buvat.
"In what language was your document written?"
"In French," replied Atto, after a slight hesitation.
' "It might have been stolen by someone who does not know how to read Italian, let alone French. And who therefore will not have the least idea of what he has laid his hands on."
"If that were the case, he would not have gone to the trouble of looking for it down there," commented Atto, pointing to the place where the slats in the parquet had been removed.
"Not necessarily. He may have come upon that hiding place by pure chance and been curious about the care with which your document was stowed away. 'Tis useless to speculate, first we must find that stuff."
"So, what are we to do?"
"Do you know what a good lawyer does when a gang of criminals are arrested?" asked Sfasciamonti.
"What does he do?"
"He lets one of his assistants defend the leader, and he himself takes on one of the ordinary bandits. Thus, the criminal judge cannot determine who the big fish is. We shall do likewise: we shall pretend we are looking for the spyglass, but at the same time we shall be looking for your political document."
"And how shall we look for it?"
"Our first port of call will be one of those persons who resells stolen goods. I know two good ones. If your things have passed through their hands, perhaps they'll help me out. But one can be sure of nothing. We shall have to negotiate."
"Negotiate? If it is a matter of spending some money, so be it, I can surely pay for the favour. But, for heaven's sake, I cannot be seen in the company of persons of ill repute. There are cardinals here, I have connections with…"
"As you wish," Sfasciamonti cut him short politely but firmly. "I can deal with that. You, my boy, could accompany me. Those who steal do not willingly hang onto their loot, it burns their hands. Anything valuable disappears like lightning. We shall have to move fast."
"When, then?"
"Now."
It was thus that I began to become acquainted with Sfasciamonti's truly singular double, nay triple, nature. The imprecations which he was wont to utter, invoking arms and all manner of warlike devices, made him seem like some common braggart, swaggering and blustering, as his very name suggested. Yet, when he spoke of cerretani, his bravado vanished, turning into febrile apprehension, and that great mountain of a man would cower at the first old gaffer passing him by, as had happened when we stopped at the Piazza Fiammetta. Lastly, when confronted, not with the indefinite menace of the cerretani, but with a hard and fast case of crime, he proved to be an excellent sergeant: laconic, consistent and phlegmatic. This he had shown in the investigation of the assault on Haver; and likewise his comportment on the scene of the theft of Atto's papers had been both balanced and attentive. He had abstained from asking particulars of the stolen document and above all he had agreed with Atto about an utterly incredible circumstance: that there was no connection between the death of Haver and the theft in Atto's apartment. It was clear that this could not be the case, yet the catchpoll (whom the responsibility vested in him by Cardinal Spada had transformed almost into a private gendarme) had let it be understood that he was not interested in how matters stood but in how he could turn them to the advantage of the person hiring him.
For the time being, it was impossible to tell which of the three natures (blustering, fearful or penetrating) best corresponded to Sfasciamonti's true character. I imagined, however, that sooner or later time would tell.
For the time being, he was offering Atto his discretion and his assistance; and, what was more, during the hours of night. Atto knew that all that, like the silence which he had bought from me, had its price.
So Sfasciamonti and I set out with all due speed, almost without taking our leave of Atto and his secretary. I would not be able to keep my appointment with Cloridia; I therefore asked Buvat to warn her of this. I prayed silently that she would not be too worried and unwillingly postponed the time when I would learn from her the news gathered from her women.
We left the villa stealthily under the starry mantle of night which, given the late hour and the gloom weighing down on my soul after so many grim events (killings, thefts), seemed no longer protecting but a menace hanging over our helpless heads.
The catchpoll had arranged for one of his grooms to saddle us two horses, and he helped me to mount the smaller of the two. (I have never been a great equestrian.) We straightaway took the road for the city centre. Thus I followed him towards an unknown destination; the speed of Sfasciamonti's mount, weighed down by its corpulent rider, was in truth little greater than my own.
We descended the slope towards the San Pancrazio Gate, leaving to our left the grandiose panorama over the Holy City. Thanks to the dim light of the moon, we could just descry the silhouettes of rooftops, campaniles and cupolas, and, by the faint glimmer from windows, eaves and penthouses, the space where darkness had engulfed a certain basilica or the abyss into which a palace had vanished. It was a sort of capricious game of hide- and-seek played between my sight and the vision which memory retained of that great view by day.
We veered left, towards the Piazza delle Fornaci, then, leaving the Settignano Gate to our right, we moved directly to the Sisto Bridge. Here, the view, hitherto obstructed by the walls of houses and rented apartment buildings, opened up again onto the bed of the Tiber, showing its tarnished course near the riverbanks, while the middle depths remained inky and abundant in piscatorial booty.
At last, we slowed down. After passing Piazza Trinita dei Pellegrini, we found ourselves within a stone's throw of the Piazza San Carlo quarter. Darkness and silence reigned, broken only by sparks from the horseshoes on the flagstones and the echo of pounding hooves. Only from the occasional
window did the indistinct glimmer of candles penetrate the motionless air, lighting perhaps a young mother's last labour of the day (mending, nursing, consoling…)
Behind one such window, modestly set into the wall at street level, was our objective.
"Here we are," said Sfasciamonti, dismounting and pointing to a door. "But, please remember, you've never been here. Our man is incognito. No one knows that he sleeps in this house. Even the parish priest, when he does his Easter rounds, feigns ignorance. He accepts a gift of a couple of scudi, in exchange for which the parish records remain clean."
"Whom are we going to visit?" I asked, letting myself fall to the ground from my nag.
"Well, visit isn't the right word. Visits are announced and awaited. This, however, is a surprise, by all the mortars in Asia! Heh," he guffawed.
He stood before the door, pushing his thumbs under his belt and sticking his belly out strangely, breathing out rhythmically as though he were preparing to break the door down with his guts. He knocked. A few instants passed. Then we heard a bolt being shot. The hinges moved.
"Who is it?" asked a voice heavy with suspicion, of which I could not have said whether it was a man's or a woman's.
"Open up, this is Sfasciamonti."
Instead of one of the tender mothers about whom I had been fantasising only moments before, there appeared before us a hunchbacked and ill-formed old woman who, as the catchpoll was later to explain to me, was landlady to our man. The woman did not even attempt to protest at the late hour; she seemed to be acquainted with my companion and knew that it was useless to talk back. She began to complain weakly only when she saw us mounting the stairs to the next floor.
"But he is sleeping…"
"Exactly," replied Sfasciamonti, grabbing the candle from her hand to light our way and thus leaving the poor woman in the dark.
After climbing two flights of stairs, we found ourselves on a landing which gave in turn onto a closed door. The candle, which the catchpoll had handed to me, cast a sinister light on our faces from underneath.
We knocked. No answer.
"He's not sleeping. Otherwise he'd have replied. He always keeps one eye open," murmured my companion. "This is Sfasciamonti, open up!"
