10

He put the orchid in a glass filled with tap water from the sink, then opened the door and went into the “museum of horrors”.

It was a ruse. He was preparing a trap. Maybe the suspect would fall for it, maybe not. In any case he had little choice, since he had few cards to play in order to confuse him and get him to betray himself. So he wasn’t playing fair and square? Well, neither was the murderer.

Never before had he come up against a suspect with both the desire and the know-how to assemble so much damning evidence against an innocent person in order to get them convicted. And purely to save himself: such villainy enraged him. No, he had no scruples about preparing a trap for someone who, during the previous forty-eight hours, had done nothing but set traps and manipulate appearances.

Glass and flower in hand, he weaved through the mannequins. It was easy to find the spot where the overturned mannequin had provided evidence of a struggle. He set the glass on the floor and walked over to the door to the corridor. He remained in the room for only seconds, because from the moment he entered it he was suffused with the same strange uneasiness he’d sensed the first time he was surrounded by all those headless bodies.

He called down to Sani from the top of the stairs, and Sani came up with the doctor.

“I’ve finished, Inspector. There wasn’t much to do, actually. The bullet entered his skull from the neck. In all probability, it damaged the spinal cord: death would have been instant. You see, Inspector—”

De Vincenzi interrupted him with a curt gesture. It wasn’t the moment to listen to the good man’s disquisition.

“Did you look in his pockets?” he asked Sani.

“Yes—nothing interesting. A full wallet and a passport in the name of John Bolton from Chicago. But here’s what’s interesting—look.”

Sani opened his right fist. On his palm was a flower: an orchid.

De Vincenzi winced.

“Where did you find that?”

“In the victim’s buttonhole.”

Absurd. Edward Moran had put an orchid in his buttonhole? But there hadn’t been any orchids in his room—he’d have had to procure one deliberately. Where? De Vincenzi took the flower, already crushed and flattened, and put it in his pocket.

“Good,” he said. “Now go into that room”—he pointed to Cristiana’s room—“and look everywhere. It doesn’t matter if you make a mess.”

“What are you hoping to find?”

“I don’t know. Nothing specific. I’m asking you to do it but I don’t have the slightest expectation that you’ll discover anything of interest.” He turned to the doctor. “I very much hope that this third body spells the end of your work here, Doctor.”

The doctor didn’t seem overwhelmingly troubled by his work. He shook his head.

“Oh, as far as I’m concerned…” he said. “Actually, Inspector, have you read my report on the first body, the young man’s?”

“I haven’t seen it yet. Strangled, right?”

“Exactly. But what you said following my first examination was right. Light pressure was sufficient to kill him. The victim was off his head—cocaine, morphine and alcohol. Whoever started pressing on Valerio’s throat would have found him dead in his hands without even being aware of it.”

It was all perfectly clear, and interesting—very interesting. De Vincenzi walked the doctor to the stairs with newfound gratitude.

“Thank you, Doctor. You’ve been very helpful to me. More than you can imagine.” He shook his hand and went back to Cristiana’s room.

Sani had emptied out the dresser drawers and was about to attack the wardrobe.

“Wait. I’ll look in there. You take care of the rest.”

The mess made by the person who’d hidden in the wardrobe had been tidied. The clothes were in place, the hangers all aligned. Nothing odd about that, since Cristiana must have been in there. He opened up a gap in the clothes and studied the back of the wardrobe. Nothing: he had to rule out the possibility of a passageway or hiding place. The shelf near the top was empty. He slid the hangers back, looking at the clothes mechanically, feeling the silk and other expensive fabrics.

All at once he noticed that one of the garments—a silk damask dress, soft and light—had a long tear at the neck. He took it off the hanger and examined it. It was ripped from neck to shoulder.

He hadn’t expected to find such an illuminating clue. The doctor had said that Valerio was completely out of it… He stood silently pondering the revealing garment.

He turned at a loud exclamation from Sani.

“Look here!”

His deputy was getting up from the fireplace, a red lacquer box in his hands.

“It was there, hidden under the wood.”

De Vincenzi smiled. The unhoped-for kept happening. He took the box and put it on the table. It was locked.

“Have you got a pocketknife?… Not working. Give me a shoehorn—that’ll do.”

He used the silver shoehorn to lift the lid, which was wooden and quite fragile. Inside the box was lined with red velvet; he saw a small bundle of letters of every shape and size. He sifted through them and established that they were all addressed to Cristiana O’Brian. After opening one, he didn’t need to read the others: he learnt nothing from them that he hadn’t already gleaned from his conversation with Commendatore N—. He closed the box and set it on the table.

“If I’d known what was in there, I wouldn’t have broken the lid. It was an act of real vandalism, that.”

Sani watched him.

“Love letters?”

“Call it love, if you want. You’re finished, yes? Let’s go downstairs and see if we can wind this up.”

“Do you know who the murderer is?”

“Maybe. But knowing doesn’t help at all! If I can’t get them to trip up, they’ll wriggle through my hands like an eel.”

As they descended the stairs, they saw the body on the landing being watched over by two officers.

“Haven’t they come from the mortuary yet?” asked Sani.

“Not yet, sir.”

Bolton was now lying supine, and his round face bore his usual calm, smiling and charming demeanour. He looked as if he were sleeping. The bullet would definitely have struck him before he knew he’d been hit. De Vincenzi paused to look at him. His unruffled appearance revealed a lot to De Vincenzi. Bolton had been walking up the stairs, completely unaware that he’d been lured there. He must have been coming to a very promising meeting. He’d phoned De Vincenzi to ask him to meet him right away, and as he spoke on the phone his voice had trembled with suppressed anxiety, almost quaking with fear.

Bolton had phoned him at three, when Cristiana—if things were really as she had described—had already left the Albergo Palazzo. Not even an hour later, the man had climbed the stairs in the building on Corso del Littorio and had been shot and killed from behind.

What had happened in that short space of time to induce him to leave his hotel unexpectedly and throw himself into the dragon’s den? He shook himself and turned to Sani.

“Would you mind running a quick errand for me? You won’t have to go far, but you’ll have to go quickly. I’ll wait for you before beginning.”

As they walked downstairs, he told Sani what he needed. Sani’s face lit up.

“So you know, then?”

“Alas no, my friend! I’m not certain of anything. And what I do know is so hit-and-miss that if it turns out to be wrong, my job will be on the line for real this time.”