“Dead in a most unpleasant manner?” I repeated the jeweler’s words back to him. “Could you please provide more details?”
“Sì, there are at least three stories that spring to mind,” Signore di Nardo said. “The first, of course, is that of the lady who hid the treasure in the first place. It is said Savonarola burned her as a heretic, and that his action led to the curse that has held the house in its grip ever since.”
“Who was she?” I asked.
“I do not know her name,” he said. “But a century or so after her death, a man decided to start opening walls in the palazzo. He’d heard rumors of a treasure hidden away from Savonarola’s gangs who marauded through the city seizing anything they considered sinful.”
“Jewelry, for example,” Cécile said.
“Exactly.” Signore di Nardo continued. “Jewelry and any trappings of luxury frowned upon by the little friar and his thugs. No sooner had the gentleman then living in the house breached the first wall than he was stricken with plague. It killed him within a few hours. His son had the wall repaired. No one else in the family fell ill.”
“And the third story?” I asked.
“That is the one I know in the most detail. Bartolomeo di Vieri, the last member of the family that built the palazzo, had fallen into a genteel poverty. The Vieris had once been powerful allies of the Medici, but their influence and their fortune were long gone by the time Bartolomeo inherited. He married three times, but none of his wives ever gave him a child. Two died trying, and an illness strangely like the plague that held Florence in its grips during the fifteenth century claimed the third. No doctor could explain how she might have acquired it. We all know how contagious the disease is, yet no one else in the city exhibited any symptoms, only Bartolomeo’s poor wife.”
“What does this have to do with the treasure?” I asked.
“Because he was teetering toward financial ruin, Bartolomeo started to research the stories about the valuables hidden in his house. He spent much of his life trying to find them, to no avail.”
“Yet his wives, not he, were the ones who died,” I said. “That seems to argue against a curse.”
“No, signora, it does not. The curse is a punishment, meant to deter anyone tempted to seek the treasure. Bartolomeo did not care whether he lived or died. Death would have released him from poverty. But he did care, very deeply, for his wives. The curse struck them down to punish him.” He grinned. “Or so they say. I myself do not put much stock in such tales, although they are most entertaining.”
“Do you believe there is a treasure hidden in the house?” Cécile asked.
“All old houses hold secrets, do they not? Most are not worth finding.”
We spent another quarter of an hour in the shop. I bought a pair of cuff links for Colin. As Cécile and I ducked in and out of the other establishments on the bridge, we asked if their owners knew the stories of the treasure at Palazzo di Vieri; they all did. Each told us a version that varied slightly from the rest, but the essential message was the same: look for the treasure and expect a grisly death.
Colin and Darius roared with delight that evening when, having gathered in the Sala dei Pappagalli after dinner, we recounted for them the tales shared by the jewelers. Neither they nor Cécile was put off searching for the Renaissance treasure by a legendary curse.
“It only spurs me on,” Cécile said. “I wonder, Kallista, about the Latin graffiti you’ve discovered. It could contain a coded message that reveals the location of the treasure.”
“I don’t see a connection,” I said. “We have two quotations from a Roman poet: The first beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye, and the advice that
Watch a man in times of adversity to discover what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off.
Neither seems like a code.”
“The first beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye,” Darius said. “How much more clearly could a sentence warn us that at first we won’t recognize what we are seeing?”
“You found that one on the landing outside this room, correct?” Colin asked. I nodded. “That is the first place a visitor reaches after passing through the more public areas of the house, which does suggest that it’s the initial message being communicated by whoever wrote it. Where are the rest of the Latin sentences?”
“I’ve only barely made a start finding them,” I said.
“It sounds as if it’s time to look for more,” Darius said. “Don’t you have a notebook for the project? Colin, fetch it for her.”
“It’s in the room on the third floor directly above our bedroom,” I said. “I’ve been using the space as my study.”
“I’ll get it,” Colin said. “Don’t start before I return.” He dashed from the room. When he came back, with lanterns for each of us as well as my notebook and pencil, he asked where I would like to begin.
“If we are to adopt an organized approach to this project, based on the layout of the house, we ought to start on the ground floor and work our way up,” I said. The air having grown chilly since sunset, Cécile and I pulled on wraps, and we clattered down the stairs, along the side of the courtyard, and into the loggia.
During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the loggia would have served as a semipublic space. Here, the master of the house might conduct business or hold political meetings, but it could also be used for private family ceremonies, like weddings and funerals. Over the centuries, many homeowners divided loggias, converting the space into shops, either renting them to tenants or using them for their own commercial ventures.
Our loggia, with its vaulted ceiling, showed no signs indicative of how it had been used in the past. We scrutinized every inch of its walls, illuminating their surfaces with our lanterns, finding traces of three frescoes but no graffiti, and so moved into the courtyard. The Vieri family coat of arms was displayed on the walls above the Corinthian columns that defined the space, and carved heads of individuals whose hats identified them as medieval topped the corner pilasters. A rendering of the di Vieri family tree hung near the entrance and a certain amount of faded paint remained on stones of the staircase. Above us, stars twinkled in the sky.
“I don’t see any graffiti,” Darius said, crouching down to examine one of the walls. He started to rise, but lost his balance and reached out to steady himself. His dinner jacket caught on the wall, tearing the sleeve. “That’s bloody inconvenient.”
“No cursing in front of the ladies,” Colin said, his voice teasing.
I crossed to Darius to inspect the damage. “It doesn’t look too bad. Your valet will have no trouble mending it.”
“Let’s hope so. I’ve no desire to see my tailor anytime soon.” He brushed dust from his suit. “Right. Any graffiti to be found here?”
There was none, so we moved to the storage rooms and then returned to the first floor. We found nothing more until we entered a small room off the Sala dei Pappagalli. As originally built, each floor of the palazzo contained a latrine, one stacked above the next, floor after floor. The countess, after buying the house, had modernized them, a task made easier by the existence of the admittedly primitive plumbing. Humans have a long history of scrawling on the walls of such spaces, as witnessed in the ancient public lavatories in Pompeii.
“What does it say?” Colin asked.
“A single phrase,” I replied. “Who betrayed me?”
“There’s more,” Cécile said. “Look here.” She pointed to one of the other walls.
I translated as best I could:
Love brings me happiness. I feel sorrow when I’m hurt.
There’ll be trouble for whoever tells me they’re leaving.
They’ll have to be quick or I’ll pay them back sooner or later.
“I don’t think this has anything to do with the Lucretius quotes,” I said. “The handwriting is completely different and it’s in the dialetto toscano, not Latin.” Nonetheless, I recorded it, and its location, in my notebook.
“Who betrayed me?” Darius whispered. The light from our lanterns flickered eerily. “Someone was afraid for his life. Someone who could have lived here with whoever wrote the Latin phrases.”
“Or could have lived here two hundred years later,” Colin said. “We have no way to reliably date any of the graffiti.”
“Some include dates,” Cécile said.
“Yes, but the mention of a date doesn’t prove when it was written,” he said.
“I’m not sure it matters,” I said. “We’re taking quite a leap thinking that the graffiti will lead us to the treasure. It’s an enchanting idea, to be sure, but nothing in the sources I’ve uncovered mentions it. I shall continue my project, recording everything written on every wall in the house; and then, once we have that in its entirety, we can examine the texts and locations and draw a conclusion, one way or another.”
Colin nodded. “That’s the way to proceed. In the meantime—”
“I’m awfully tired, darling,” I said, drawing out each of the words and shooting him what I hoped was a longing look. “Exhausted, even.”
He met my eyes and smiled a dreamy half smile. “Are you, my dear girl? We can’t have that.”
“I hoped you’d say so.” I held out my hand to him. “Will you escort me to our room?”
“Of course,” he said, “so long as our friends won’t scold us for abandoning them.”
Cécile shrugged. “Monsieur Hargreaves, none of the thoughts currently racing through my head is suitable for public airing. Go, without delay.”
“It was a bit clunky,” I said, once we’d reached our bedroom and locked the door behind us, “but more fun than I’d expected, despite the fact that we were standing in a latrine.”
“Let’s not dwell on that last point,” Colin said. He was pulling the pins out of my pompadour, which collapsed, leaving my hair hanging down to my waist. He kissed me, then sighed. “Right. Work first.”
“Must we?” I asked. “This subterfuge is more arousing than I’d expected.”
“It will only get more so, I promise.” He walked away from me and leaned against the wall and then, seeming to remember it was decorated with centuries-old paint, moved to the door. He leaned there, but only for a moment before straightening up and starting to pace. “What do you have to tell me?”
“I spoke to Lena, who revealed herself to have lied quite substantially.” I related to him the contents of our conversation.
“So Ridolfo is violent. I can’t say that comes as a surprise. I don’t have any evidence to lead me to believe he killed his brother, but it’s quite possible whoever did kill Marzo is deliberately trying to make us think otherwise.”
“Your assassin might be using Ridolfo to throw our suspicions away from him?” I asked.
“Precisely.”
“We don’t have evidence to tie Ridolfo to the crime, but neither do we have evidence that condemns anyone else.”
“I have enough to feel confident Ridolfo is not involved,” he said.
“You can’t share it.”
“No.”
“I understand.” I studied every detail of his handsome face. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, or your methods, but I can’t agree that we should dismiss Ridolfo’s potential involvement.” He opened his mouth to reply; I raised my hand to stop him. “I’m not making an attempt to persuade you to share your evidence. I know you can’t. At the same time, however, I feel strongly that something in this mess between the brothers and Lena is pertinent.”
“Ridolfo was not in Florence at the time of Marzo’s death.”
“You’re certain?”
“I am.”
“Lena thought—”
Now it was his turn to stop me. “Like you, I believe she’s being deliberately dishonest. Whether that is to hide something she knows or to misdirect us, I can’t say, but it would be helpful if you would continue to try to determine what is motivating her.”
“I shall keep at it.”
“As for this curse…” He paused, and I could tell he was no longer in agent-of-the-Crown mode. He peeled off his dinner jacket and fumbled with his cuff links. “Are you making it all up? It would be quite clever if you were. Darius is completely taken with it and hasn’t the slightest suspicion that you’re investigating Marzo’s death.”
“I wish I could take credit, but I can’t,” I said. “The treasure is mentioned in books, and given that all the jewelers on the Ponte Vecchio are familiar with stories of the curse, it’s likely a well-known local legend.”
“Do you give it any credence?”
I considered the question. “Everyone knows about the bonfire of the vanities and Savonarola’s gangs of boys who forced Florentines to give up jewelry, art, books, anything deemed sinful. It’s not outrageous to conclude that some citizens of the Republic would have chosen to hide things they considered precious.”
“Savonarola was executed little more than a year after the bonfire in question. On the same spot, too, if I recall,” Colin said. “Wouldn’t whoever hid the treasure have taken it back out afterward?”
“Not if she’d been executed herself, burned under Savonarola’s orders.”
“I can’t claim expertise on the subject, but I don’t remember Savonarola burning great swaths of the Florentine population. He did like torture, though. Believed the fear of it was enough to control people. Of course, for that to work, you first must employ the punishment, often enough that the general population becomes afraid. Even so, I’m not convinced it’s an effective measure. At any rate, it’s possible that your Renaissance lady fled the city, fell ill, died—there are numerous explanations of why she might not have ever removed her treasure from its hiding place.”
“And the stories of the curse could have sprung up, as they often do, when people search for explanations of the deaths of loved ones,” I said.
“Quite. Regardless, hunting for treasure, though a pleasant diversion, is not going to bring us closer to learning the identity of Marzo’s killer. Which is why you’re brilliant to focus on it. Or at least appear to. Now, are there any other pressing concerns we need to discuss? If not, I’d like to explore the promises held in that longing look you cast my way when we were in that wretched latrine. Have you any objections?”
Naturally, I did not.