11

De Vincenzi found Cristiana and the two other women sitting in the showroom. Prospero O’Lary was pacing in front of them. The little man’s face was brighter than ever, his head shiny. He’d lost all the gloss of the pricey knick-knack, and despite his impeccable frock coat and glasses (which kept sliding down his nose), he appeared strangely different from before. One might have said that, stripped of its sheen, his humble nature was exposed for what it was, and he seemed rather common.

“You can’t shut your eyes to the evidence!” he was saying, all the while pacing aimlessly. “You have to face it! When you’re being accused of something serious, it’s not the time to hide your mistakes, either from yourself or anyone else.” He stopped in front of Cristiana and extended his hands in a dramatic gesture of entreaty. “You went to see Russell Sage and spoke to him. Right after that he came here and someone killed him. Who would believe that you weren’t the one to lure him here so you could kill him? Of course I don’t believe it, but the others? Why don’t you admit that Valerio was blackmailing you? You didn’t kill him either, I agree. But the fact is that that scoundrel left a lot to incriminate you. And Evelina? Everything will come out, I’m telling you—everything!”

His voice was low and breathy, but it was perfectly intelligible to De Vincenzi, who’d stopped in the doorway. Marta and Madame Firmino were listening too, completely astonished. Their eyes flitted between Prospero and Cristiana who, pale though she was, watched him, a faintly sarcastic smile on her tense face, now more inscrutable than ever.

At the sound of an officer’s heavy steps coming from the lobby into the corridor, Prospero swivelled round and saw De Vincenzi. He immediately fell silent, biting his lip in a gesture of annoyance. Cristiana was still smiling. She too had seen De Vincenzi, and she said in a perfectly calm voice, “Now that you’ve heard O’Lary’s closing speech, Inspector, there’s nothing left to do but handcuff me.”

Prospero erupted again. “Damn! Don’t listen to her, Inspector. I know she’s innocent. But I wanted to startle her so she’d wake up to reality.”

“Of course,” agreed De Vincenzi, and he turned to his officer. “What is it?”

“A woman is asking to speak to Cristiana O’Brian. They stopped her at the door but she’s insisting. She says her name is Anna Bolton. When she saw the stretcher from the mortuary she started screaming and we really had to sweat to keep her from going after it.”

“Send her up.”

The man rushed off. The news that Anna was there had fortunately roused Cristiana from her torpor. She stood up and now waited, paler than ever and trembling with tension, her eyes fixed on the door.

Anna Sage was led in by the officer; he left at a nod from De Vincenzi. Edward Moran’s sister was wearing the same black dress as before and a small hat with a veil. Her naturally white face was even more striking now. She was very controlled, but her green eyes flashed menacingly. De Vincenzi approached her in an effort to keep her in the corridor, but she moved quickly—her tread was so light, she seemed to have magical powers of levitation—and encountered him in sight of the open door to the showroom. It was exactly what De Vincenzi hadn’t wanted and he stepped between her and the door. He might have asked for her to be sent up—a rash move inspired by anger and sorrow—hoping to glean some useful and decisive information. But he didn’t want the inevitable conflict with Cristiana O’Brian to be too serious. Anna looked first at De Vincenzi, then over his shoulder at the other people in the room.

“My brother came here,” she said in a strong, grating, cutting voice. “He’s been killed, hasn’t he?”

De Vincenzi had not been expecting such a direct attack. He paused.

“It’s useless lying to me. Even if I hadn’t seen the stretcher, I’d have been sure. When he left the hotel, he said, ‘I’m going to see Ileana. If I’m not back within half an hour, alert the detective; I called him and he should be here shortly.’” She stopped and stared at De Vincenzi. “Who are you?”

“The very police inspector your brother invited to see him.”

“Right,” Anna said, by way of conclusion. She fell silent. Her pallor had if anything increased, and she seemed ghostlike. To De Vincenzi she appeared to be swaying, and he made a move to support her. But she gestured for him to stay away.

“Did they tell you I screamed at the sight of the stretcher? I screamed, all right. But only because they tried to stop me from coming up. My place is here beside him.” She shook her head vigorously. “To avenge him. You won’t see tears in my eyes until I’ve had my revenge. How was he killed?”

“He was shot from behind. He died instantly, without suffering.”

“Do you know who killed him?”

“No, not yet.”

“I do!”

She stepped decisively past De Vincenzi and stood at the door of the showroom. She looked at each of the three women, one after the other, and raised her arm, pointing to Cristiana.

“It was her! His wife.”

Cristiana flinched as if struck literally by the words; they sounded icy, lethal. Clearly gripped by terror, she shouted out in a broken voice: “It’s not true!”

“She did it!” repeated Anna Sage, throwing another hateful look at her. She turned to address De Vincenzi. “Would you like the proof? I’ll give it to you. You know she was his wife, don’t you? Yes, maybe you do, but what you don’t know are the reasons why she fled America. Not even my brother revealed them to you when you were with him today, because my brother, believe it or not, was a softie and loved that woman.” She stopped and lifted the veil from her forehead, breathing harder as if to take in more air. In a different voice, trembling with a childish note of distress, she murmured, “Dead! She killed him! I didn’t want him to see her again.” Her outburst lasted only an instant. She immediately straightened up, cold and decisive. “My brother was arrested in a Miami hotel where he was staying with her. No one knew his real identity. No one suspected that Russell Sage was Edward Moran. However, one day the Feds went to the hotel and got him. She was the one who reported him. Betrayed him.”

“It’s not true!” Cristiana’s shout was so piercing, so desperate that Marta and Dolores trembled.

“It is true. She’s the only one who could have done it, and she did. Apart from the fact that she never loved my brother, she was forever anxious to be free of him so she could take control of the bonds and money. Edward hid them somewhere and told her. As soon as he was convicted, Cristiana disappeared. And when Edward got out of prison, the money and bonds were gone. That’s the truth!”

Cristiana leant against the wall, staring at her sister-in-law. She seemed to have given up the fight and any further self-defence. Her staring eyes flashed with impotent desperation.

“Edward wanted to find her. After she’d run off to Paris, he found her here. He wasn’t after the money. He would have forgiven her everything just to have her with him again. I told you: he was in love with her and thought he couldn’t live without her. But she was afraid. She saw him as the avenger and killed him as soon as she could.”

There was a silence. Anna Sage remained standing, motionless. Her eyes never left De Vincenzi’s. She was waiting for him to exact punishment.

De Vincenzi wracked his brain. Things were finally where he wanted them, things were unravelling… It all hung on his not making the tiniest error, not uttering a word more than required—or failing to utter a necessary one. Everything was resting on him, from undoing the knot to revealing the truth—a truth that was natural, logical and unquestionably damning. There’d been another body, but it hadn’t been humanly possible to prevent it. He now realized that he’d been deluded to think he’d be able to intervene in time. If he had, and in the only possible way—that is, by arresting the suspect—he’d have had to apologize and let him go. Edward Moran’s murder explained everything, and it alone could provide De Vincenzi with the means of obtaining the evidence he needed to charge someone.

“Did you hear me? I’m accusing that woman of being my brother’s killer!”

“I heard you, Signora.”

He turned to look at Cristiana. Instinctively, Marta and Madame Firmino moved away from the woman who was in charge of the O’Brian Fashion House—and of them as well. Cristiana stood alone against the wall, unmoving. Her wide eyes never left Anna Sage. De Vincenzi stepped towards her, and Cristiana looked at him as if she were seeing him for the first time.

“Are you arresting me?” she asked. There was no trace of anger or fear in her voice.

De Vincenzi kept walking in her direction. He took a chair and pushed it towards Cristiana.

“Please, sit down. I can tell you whether I’ll be arresting you within half an hour at the most.”

Cristiana sat.