Dr. Bruno Modo entered the large drawing room panting, his collar unbuttoned, his hat askew, and his bag in hand.
“Here I am, what’s happened? Which girl was it?”
Ricciardi and Maione could hardly help but notice that the doctor’s demeanor was quite different from his usual: normally, even in the presence of the most heinous murders, he remained detached and ironic, even as he brought to bear his vast and impassioned expertise, which is why the police continued to request his personal assistance.
This time the doctor’s brow was furrowed by a deep crease under the shock of snow-white hair. He seemed pained and frightened, the way one would be when summoned to rush to a family member’s aid.
Maione walked toward him.
“Dotto’, buonasera. Unfortunately, there’s no need to hurry. That girl’s not going anywhere ever again. Her name is, or was, Cennamo. Maria Rosaria Cennamo.”
Modo gave him a bewildered stare:
“Cennamo? Who’s that?”
Madame Yvonne took a step forward as if she were stepping onto center stage, and intoned dramatically:
“Viper, Doctor. Viper, our own Viper, is dead.”
The doctor took off his hat and scratched his head.
“Viper. Poor girl. Where is she?”
Ricciardi walked slowly over to him.
“Ciao, Bruno. So you knew her, this signorina?”
The doctor grimaced wearily.
“Oh, ciao, Ricciardi. At least it’s you, on this case, and not one of your incompetent colleagues. Yes, of course I knew her. Everyone in the city knew her. In her way, she was a celebrity. And after all, I’m someone who knows all of these girls.”
He waved to the group of women in nightgowns, who all responded affectionately in return.
Ricciardi sighed.
“I’m well aware that you’re familiar with this place.”
The doctor was preparing a retort when Maione broke in:
“Speaking of family members, Dotto’, is that famous dog still with you?”
“Of course he is, Brigadie’. Why on earth would he leave me, with what I feed him? Sure, his ideal meal would be ground policeman, but he finds that all too rarely in his bowl.”
Maione snorted.
“My flesh would be too tough to chew, Dotto’. You’d probably blunt the edge of your scalpel if you tried.”
“In any case, the dog is downstairs. He’s just like Ricciardi, he doesn’t like to come into places like this. He waits for me, and if I’m in here too long, he even starts to howl. I’ve acquired a mother-in-law, not a dog.”
Ricciardi pointed upstairs.
“Come on, let’s go take a look at the young lady. After all, this lovely reception is being held in her honor.”
While Modo was focusing on the corpse, Ricciardi examined the bedroom more carefully.
It seemed that nothing was missing nor, at first glance, was there any reason to suppose that theft had been the motive. The drawers were all shut, the jewelry box on the dresser was full, and in any case, none of the baubles inside seemed especially valuable, junk for the most part, gaudy but made of cheap metals. The chaos that reigned in the room was only the result of the girl’s messiness.
He started searching more carefully.
He looked in the dresser drawers, turning up nothing other than a vast assortment of elegant unmentionables, culottes, brassieres, stockings, and negligees of every cut and color. No letters, no documents.
And no whips.
He looked on the floor, under the carpet, beneath the bed. He noticed that everything was very clean. But he found nothing.
He realized that in all likelihood there’d been a brief struggle: whatever had been atop the nightstand had been swept off, possibly by the woman herself as she thrashed frantically, seeing as her left leg had been very nearby; apart from a few hairpins and a nail file, there was nothing on the nightstand. It must not have made much noise, because some of the objects had fallen on the bed and the rest onto the thick carpet that covered the floor; nothing had broken.
The commissario focused on the objects that had been knocked off the nightstand, but here too nothing seemed out of the ordinary: a bottle of glycerine, a container of talcum that hadn’t burst open as it fell; nail polish, a small mirror with a handle, a small bottle of perfume with the name “Fleurs Parisiennes”; a round tin of face powder without a lid, but practically empty; a brush made of inlaid wood, a comb, and a cigarette case. All of them scattered across the carpet, with the exception of the face powder, the perfume, and the brush, which were on the bed.
Ricciardi reflected on how grotesque it was to see all this makeup and cosmetics in the grim presence of death. Beauty, cared for, cultivated, and then wiped out with a single act of violence.
He noticed that on the pillow that had been used to suffocate the girl there were a number of blond hairs, as well as on the brush; he filed away that detail.
Modo called him: the doctor had completed his initial summary examination. In the meanwhile, the photographer too had arrived; the commissario warned him take particular care with his shots.