There was one final step remaining.
Maione and Ricciardi had tried to reconstruct events, developing a number of hypotheses. Pittella, the young mandolinist, could have gone into Gelmi’s or Marra’s dressing room to talk about the situation. Or else the young woman, Italia, could have discovered the affair between her own sweetheart and Fedora, and gone to inform the lead actor to get him to put an end to it. Or else, Erminia herself, in virtue of her close personal ties to her husband’s onetime captain, might have asked him to weigh in once again to help her daughter.
What they now needed to figure out was whether one of them—finding Gelmi’s dressing room empty because the actor had gone to argue with his wife—had taken advantage of that chance situation to reload the prop pistol. Certainly, whoever did it would have had to be quite familiar with firearms, considering how little time there would have been. What’s more, why did Gelmi never tell them that he had gone to Fedora’s dressing room? The brigadier ventured that, perhaps, he had preferred not to admit that he’d been aware of his wife’s betrayal; but it struck Ricciardi as odd that a man would be willing to go to prison for a crime he hadn’t committed just to keep a thing like that from getting out.
The one thing that they could state was that the murder and its consequences constituted a very serious blow to the crews and artists at the Teatro Splendor, who were now facing the loss of their livelihoods. The only ones who actually benefited in any way were none other than the two young lovers; that is, if we admit, and it’s by no means a certain thing, that Aurelio, the mandolin genius, really did intend to stop seeing the lovely celebrity, as opposed to having simply pulled the wool over the young dancer’s eyes.
Anyway, all that the two policemen could hope to do was talk to Italia Pacelli. They had no evidence, there had been no confessions, no glaring contradictions, and the investigation needed to be completed by midnight that day: Garzo had given an order and he’d been categorical.
They headed toward the artists’ entrance. With a little luck, they’d be able to solve this case in a matter of minutes.
Bianca looked at herself in the mirror one last time. Carlo Marangolo had made the enormous sacrifice of leaving his bed and getting dressed, in order to accompany her to buy the entire array of finery for that evening’s outing.
The choice had immediately fallen on a gown with a richly ruffled skirt, shorter in front and longer in back, in a chiffon velvet spangled with rhinestones; not only did it show off to good advantage the contessa’s elegant figure, the fabric happened to be the same color as her eyes: a rich and shimmering purple.
She had objected to the cost of the garment, exaggeratedly expensive in any case and out of all proportion given the occasion, but Carlo had insisted: “Vaccaro di Ferrandina is an old harpy, and she’d be so delighted to detect even the slightest shortcoming in your attire that to me, the pleasure of imagining her with her jaw hanging open in admiration strikes me as cheap at the price. Yes, we’ll take this one, thanks.”
Along with the gown, they had also bought a hat the same color, a satin astrakhan vest, and a broad belt in soft leather that emphasized the woman’s narrow waist and long, long legs. Also, a woolen overcoat with a wide fur collar and a small black clutch bag made of antelope hide, with tiny embroideries.
“I can’t do anything about it,” she had told the duke with a smile, “at my age I feel like going back to playing with dolls.”
Bianca had gone along in order to make him happy, and also out of vanity. Now, though, she felt just a little uneasy: that opulence was alien to her, at least it was now. She went to show it off to the duke, who was waiting for her, exhausted, in the drawing room in her home in Palazzo Roccaspina, a magnificent building that had been neglected and run down due to Bianca’s husband’s bad gambling habit but which now, thanks to Marangolo, was slowly being restored to its former splendor.
As soon as he saw her, the duke opened his eyes wide in amazement. Then he coughed, dabbing at his mouth with his handkerchief, and said: “Never. I’ve never seen you look so lovely. Not even when I met you at age sixteen, in your parents’ garden, red in the face after dismounting from a ride on your horse. You are enchanting. No man, however mad or masochistic he might be, could possibly resist you.”
The contessa smiled at him, tilting her head to one side.
“All credit due to you, my friend. And your stubbornness. Do you realize that all this stuff costs more than an office worker earns in a year?”
He shrugged his shoulders and threw both arms wide.
“So what? I’m sorry for the office worker. I don’t believe I’ve ever made a better investment. If I have the strength, the last thing I’ll try to remember when I shuffle off this mortal coil will be the sight of you as you stand before me now.”
Bianca raised her hand to her mouth.
“Please, oh please, don’t talk like that. You’ll live forever. Without you I can’t even imagine facing life.”
Carlo smiled, sadly: “If only God Almighty took His orders from you, sweetheart. If only. But, rather, can I give you a piece of advice? Your Ricciardi said that he had to go to the theater for work, didn’t he? Go and meet him there in my car, after dropping me off at home. As soon as he sees you, he’ll quickly forget any temptation he might feel to avoid coming to pick you up.”
Bianca thought it over: “Maybe you’re right, Carlo. Although I don’t know him well, but what I do know does suggest that he’s likely to work late on purpose, just to give himself that excuse. It might be better for me to go meet him.”
From inside the café across from the Teatro Splendor, Ricciardi and Maione watched nearly all the artists go by, one by one.
Erminia had gone inside after their conversation, and she had not come back out; that meant they were reasonably certain that she would be unable to warn anyone about the conversation. Half an hour later, Aurelio Pittella appeared, followed at a safe distance by Officer Camarda. The mandolinist was pale and, even from a distance, seemed very nervous to Maione and Ricciardi. He loitered outside for a few minutes, in spite of the icy wind, smoking a cigarette. The two policemen exchanged a knowing glance: perhaps he was waiting for Italia in order to confer with her before the show began.
But the dancer didn’t show up, and the young man, responding to the urging of Elia Meloni, was forced to desist and go in.
Time passed. Ricciardi and Maione wondered what had become of the young woman.
The imminence of the great celebration rendered the atmosphere increasingly charged and electric. The fireworks were intensifying and old pieces of junk began to rain down from the balconies, especially chipped or dented pots and pans set aside especially for the occasion. The noise of glass and pottery smashing to the pavement below was a steady counterpoint to the whistles, syncopated reports, and clacking of noisemakers; the smell of gunpowder filled the air. Maione pulled his watch from his pocket and sighed as he thought of Lucia’s savage reaction at his umpteenth late arrival.
He realized that he needed to pee, and asked the proprietor of the café if there was a restroom.
Bianca asked the chauffeur to drop her off a hundred yards or so from the Teatro Splendor. A horse drawing a cart and returning home late had reared up in panic at an exploding firecracker, and the drayman was trying to calm the animal down, to the mockery of the street urchins, the scugnizzi, who were clustering around; there was no way the limousine could get through there.
The contessa made arrangements with the chauffeur: they would meet back up at that exact location as soon as she managed to capture Ricciardi and spirit him off. As she walked along the sidewalk, she crossed paths with two young men; one pretended to faint and blew her an impertinent kiss. The little vignette put a smile on her lips.
The evening, thought Bianca, was looking promising.
At last Italia Pacelli appeared.
Spotting her from a distance, Ricciardi realized that she was really quite fetching. She’d taken the best of both her father’s and her mother’s sides, and the result was as noteworthy as it was unexpected. She was wearing a camelhair coat and a little black hat that was too small to contain her thick red mane of hair. She wasn’t walking fast; she seemed indifferent to her late arrival, as if lost in other thoughts, distracted.
Ricciardi looked to one side for Maione, and then remembered that the brigadier had gone to the restroom. If the young woman had a chance to enter the theater, they’d be forced to question her in the presence of the other artists, with the risk of contamination of the testimony.
So he decided to go it alone. He left the café and walked toward her.
Bianca turned the corner.
That short walk had taken her to the rear of the Teatro Splendor, near the artists’ entrance; so she was going to have to walk around the building.
She was just deciding which way to go when she saw Ricciardi walk toward a young woman and call out to her.
Italia Pacelli had a clutch bag in one hand and her eyes were downcast. She must be concentrating on who knows what.
She heard someone call her name and she looked up. About ten yards away from her was the very same specter that had haunted her last two sleepless nights: the green-eyed policeman who had questioned her and her mother, and had even visited their home.
The man who had understood everything.
Concealing her right hand with her overcoat, she opened the bag and clasped her father’s pistol.
Bianca, who was in a favorable vantage point, realized that the young woman was pulling a pistol out of her bag.
She was five or six yards away from her. She wouldn’t be in time to grab her arm or even just shove her aside. Nor could she lunge into the line of fire.
She understood that Ricciardi had not yet glimpsed the weapon.
On the other side of the street, Brigadier Maione had just stepped out of the café and was looking around, at a loss.
The red-haired young woman aimed the pistol.
Bianca did something that the strict nuns who had raised her had soundly imposed upon her, ever since she was a little girl, that she should never, ever do.
She screamed with every ounce of breath in her throat.
Ricciardi, over the noise of pots and pans crashing down off the balconies and the shrill whistles, the clacking of the noisemakers and the bangs of the firecrackers, over the laughter and other happy noises coming out the windows of the apartments, heard Bianca’s voice and he turned to look.
Maione broke into a run.
Italia Pacelli took aim and fired.