The old friar opened his haggard eyes, which gleamed out with a feverish light from the bottom of their sockets, and from under the shadow of his cowl, and looked piteously up into the lawyer's face. "A little time—a moment to collect my thoughts," he said, passing his parched tongue over the still dryer parchment-like skin of his drawn lips, and painfully swaying his cowled head from one side of the hard pillow to the other, while large drops of perspiration gathered on his brow.
The Commissary shot a meaning glance across the pallet on which the old man lay, to the lawyer, in evident anticipation of the importance of the revelation, heralded by so much of painful emotion.
"By all means, padre mio; collect your thoughts. We are sorry for the necessity which obliges us to force your mind back on such painful ones," said the lawyer, laying his hand on that of the friar, which was still fumbling with the shining bog-wood beads, scarcely more yellow than the claw-like fingers which held them. "You saw—?"
Still no reply came from the old friar's lips. He writhed his body in the bed, and the manifestation of his agony became more and more intense. The eager impatient air of the Commissary changed itself into one of persistent dogged determination; and he quietly drew from his pocket a note-book and the means of writing in it.
"Now, father, you will be able to tell us what you saw?" said the lawyer in a soothing coaxing voice.
"I saw," said the old friar at length, speaking with his eyes again closed—"I saw the dead body of the woman who had passed the church towards the Pineta in the morning, brought back by six men from the forest. They passed by the western front of the church, and I saw that the body was the body of the woman I speak of."
The Commissary shut up his note-book with a gesture of provoked disappointment, and shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
"If that is all you have to tell us, frate, you need not have made so much difficulty about it," he said; "we knew all that before, and need not have come here to be told it. Plenty of people saw the bringing in from the forest of the body of the murdered woman, and would give evidence to the fact without making so much ado about it. Is that all you saw?"
"Did you not see," said the lawyer, again motioning his companion to be patient; "did you not see another young woman in the forest yesterday morning?"
"Not in the forest," replied the friar without any difficulty. "Not in the forest; I saw another young woman here yesterday, but it was in the church. She came here to make copies of some of the mosaics. I had been previously told to expect such an one."
"Did she come to the church before the time when you saw the other lady pass towards the forest?" asked the lawyer.
"Yes; about half an hour or more before," answered the friar.
"And where was she when the second lady passed, going towards the Pineta?" asked the lawyer again.
"She was on the scaffolding in the church, which had been prepared for her to make her copies of the mosaics."
"Do you know whether she saw, or was aware that the second lady had passed the church to go towards the Pineta?"
"I know that she was aware of it; I was with her on the scaffolding. We both together saw the woman who was afterwards brought back dead pass in a bagarino with the Marchese Ludovico di Castelmare, towards the Pineta."
The lawyer looked hard at the Commissary; and the latter in obedience, as it seemed, to the look, took out his note-book again, and made a note of the declaration.
"And what did the young lady who came to copy the mosaics do afterwards? Where did you part with her?" resumed the lawyer.
"She left the church, and walked in the direction of the forest. I parted from her at the door of the church."
"And did you see her any more in the course of that morning?" asked the lawyer again.
"I did not: I saw her no more from that time to this," replied the friar. During the whole of this interrogation, he had appeared far less distressed and disturbed than he had been before speaking of his having seen the body of La Bianca carried past the church towards the city. He had answered all the questions concerning Paolina readily and without hesitation.
"I don't think we need trouble you any further, frate," said the Commissary. "I hope that you will soon get over your touch of fever; and then, if we need you, there will be no difficulty in your attending, when wanted, in the city. I don't see, that there is anything more to be got at present," he added, addressing the lawyer.
So the two visitors bade the friar adieu, and went down the stairs on to the open piazza in front of the church.
"Does that fellow know anything more than he tells us?" said the Commissary, as they stepped out of the narrow entry on to the green sward of the piazza.
"I fancy not; I don't see much what he is at all likely to know," replied the lawyer.
"Nor I; but his manner was so remarkable. One would have said that he was conscious of having committed the murder himself. In all my experience I never saw a man so hard put to it to tell a plain and simple fact."
"Well, the poor old fellow is ill, you see. And then, no doubt, the sight of the body brought back out of the forest made a terrible impression on him. The extreme seclusion, tranquillity, and monotony of his life here, the absence from year's end to year's end of any sort of emotion of any kind, would naturally have the result of increasing the painful effect which such an event and such a sight would have upon him. My own notion is that there is nothing further to be got out of him."
"There is our friend the lay-brother sitting in the sunshine just where we left him. We might as well just see what he can tell us before going back to the city."
"He seems very ill, the padre," pursued the Commissary, addressing himself to brother Simone, as he and the lawyer lounged up to the spot where he was sitting; "the fever must have laid hold of him very suddenly; for it seems he was well enough yesterday morning."
"That is the way with the maledetto morbo," returned the lay-brother; "one hour you are well—as well, that is to say, as one can ever be in such a place as this—and the next you are down on your back shivering and burning like—like the poor souls in purgatory. Doubtless the more of it one has had, the less there is to come. That's the only comfort."
"The padre's mind seems to have been very painfully affected by the sight of the body of the woman, who was murdered in the forest, as it was being carried back to the city. Did you see it too?" asked the lawyer, observing the friar narrowly, as he spoke.
"Si, Signor, I saw it too, and a piteous sight it was. Father Fabiano and I were both out here on the piazza when the body was carried past. For I was just coming from the belfry yonder, where I had been to ring Compline; and the padre was at the same time coming out of the church, where he had been as usual with him at that hour, at his devotions before the altar of the Saint."
"Then at the hour of Compline the father had not yet been taken ill?" observed the Commissary. "Scusi, Signor; I think he had been struck by the fever at that time. He fell a-shivering and a-shaking so that he could hardly stand, when the body was carried past. But that is the way the mischief always begins. Ah, there's never a doctor knows it better than I do, and no wonder."
"You don't think then," said the lawyer, "that it was the sight of the dead body that moved him so?"
"Why should it?" said the lay-brother, in the true spirit of monastic philosophy; "why should it? all flesh is grass; there is nothing so strange in death. He sighed and groaned a deal, but that is often Father Fabiano's way when he comes out from his exercises in the church. He seemed as if he could hardly stand on his legs: but, bless you, that was the fever. He took to his bed as soon as ever the men carrying the body were out of sight. He's an old man is Father Fabiano."
"Where had he been all the time between the time when the painter lady left the church, and the hour of Compline?" asked the Commissary, who had been busily thinking during the lay-brother's moralizings.
"Ever since a little after the Angelus he had been on his knees at the altar of St. Apollinare, according to his custom. He told me so, when he came to give me my potion; for I was down with the fever yesterday morning."
"Do you know where he was before the Angelus?" returned the Commissary.
"He had to ring the Angelus himself, seeing that I was down with the fever. And he came back to the convent in a hurry, fearing that he was too late. There's very little doubt that it was heating himself that way that made the fever take hold of him."
"Where was he hurrying back from, then? Where had he been?" asked the Commissary, endeavouring to hide his eagerness for the reply to this question under a semblance of carelessness.
"He told me, when he came to my cell, that he had been into the forest; and it was plain to see that the walk had been too much for him; he's too old for moving much now, is Father Fabiano."
"He had been into the forest; and when he came back at the hour of the Angelus, he seemed quite overcome by his walk?" said the Commissary, recapitulating, and taking out his note-book as he spoke.
"Yes, he did; so much so, that as I lay on my bed and listened to the Angelus bell a-going, I thought to myself that the old man had hardly the strength to pull the rope," said the lay-brother.
"Hardly strength to pull the rope," repeated the Commissary, as he completed the note he was scribbling in his note-book. "Well, I hope he will soon get over his attack of fever. I think we need not trouble you any further at present, frate—what is your name, my friend?"
"Simone, by the mercy of God, lay-brother of the terz' ordine—"
"That will do, frate Simone," interrupted the Commissary, adding a word to the entry in his note-book. "Now, Signor Giovacchino, if you are ready, I think we may get your carriage out of the barn and go back to Ravenna."
"We have not got much for our pains, I am afraid," said the lawyer to the Commissary of police as they began to leave the Basilica behind them on their way back to the city.
"Humph!" said the Commissary, who was apparently too much absorbed in his own meditations to be in a mood for conversation.
"Signor Giovacchino," he said, suddenly, after they had traversed nearly half their short journey in silence, "my belief is that your young friend the Marchese has no hand in this matter."
"I am convinced he had not," said the lawyer, who was, however, very far from having reached any conviction of the kind; "but what we want is some such probable theory on the subject as shall compete successfully with the theory of his guilt in the matter."
"That theory—shall I give it you? It is not only a theory; it is my firm belief as to the facts of the case."
"You suspect—"
"I more than suspect—I am very strongly persuaded that this murder has been committed by the girl Paolina Foscarelli."
"My own notion—"
"Look here, this is how it has been. The Marchese Ludovico has made love to this girl—has made her in love with him—taking the matter au grand serieux, in the way girls will—specially, I am told, it is the way, with those Venetian women. Well, by ill chance, as the devil would have it, she sees her lover starting on a tete-a-tete expedition into the Pineta with this other girl—just the woman of all others in the world, as I am given to understand, to be a dangerous rival, and to excite a deadly jealousy. This much we have in evidence. Further, we know that the girl Paolina was expected to return from her expedition to St. Apollinare early in the morning—say at nine o'clock, or thereabouts—whereas she did not return till several hours afterwards. In addition to all this, we have now ascertained that when she left the church she did not set out on her return towards the city, as she might naturally be expected to have done; but, on the contrary, went in the direction of the Pineta. Then, assuming the story, told by the Marchese to be true, we know that, about the very time that this Paolina was entering the forest, her rival was lying asleep and alone there in the immediate neighbourhood. We know that the means adopted for the perpetration of the crime were such as to be quite within a woman's physical power, and that the weapon used for the purpose such as a woman may much more readily be supposed to have about her than a man; what do you say to that as a theory of the facts? Is not the evidence overpoweringly strong against this Venetian?"
"Of course my own attention had been called to the case of suspicion against her. But I confess I had not been struck by the last circumstance you mention; and it seems to me a very strong one. How can it be supposed that a man—a man like the Marchese Ludovico—should chance to have a needle about him? The case of suspicion against him, mark, altogether excludes the notion that he went out prepared to take the life of this unfortunate woman. It is suggested that he put her to death in order to escape from the ruin that would have ensued from his uncle's marriage with her. No other possible motive for such a deed can be conceived. But he knew nothing of any such purpose on the part of the Marchese till the girl herself told him of it as they were driving together to the forest. Therefore, he had not come out prepared with a needle for the purpose of committing murder. Neither, it is true, does the theory we are considering suppose that Paolina came out prepared to do such a deed. But the weapon used is a needle. Is it more likely that a man or that a woman should have by chance such an article about them? I confess it seems to me that this circumstance alone is sufficient to turn the scale of the probabilities unmistakably."
"But that is not all," said the Commissary, laying his finger impressively on the lawyer's sleeve; "my belief is that that old friar, padre Fabiano, is aware of the fact that the murder was committed by Paolina Foscarelli. I am not disposed to think that he had any hand in the doing of the deed; but I think the he has a knowledge of her guilt. He is ill now, doubtless; but I do not believe that he is suffering from fever and ague. He is suffering from the emotions of horror and terror. We know that he was in the Pineta much about the time at which the murder must have been committed, and very near the spot where it must have been committed. And he comes back in a state of terrible emotion and consternation. His manner in speaking to us to-day you must have observed. I have no belief in an old friar being so terribly impressed by the mere sight of a dead body."
"That is all true," said the lawyer, nodding his head up and down several times; "and the circumstances do seem to point to the probability of your conclusion; but—"
"But why, you will say, should the old man, if he has a merely innocent knowledge of that which I suspect him to know, refuse to tell the whole truth simply as he knows it? I will tell you why not. In the first place, if you had had as much experience of monks, and friars, and nuns, as I have, you would know that it is next to impossible to induce them ever to give information to justice of any facts which it is possible for them to conceal. It seems to them, I fancy, like recognizing a lay authority in a manner they don't like. They will communicate nothing to you if they can help it."
"Yes, that's true. I know that is the nature of them," assented the lawyer.
"Then, observe, this Father Fabiano is a Venetian, a fellow-citizen of the girl. You know how the Venetians hold together. You may feel quite sure that if he did know her to be guilty of a crime, he would screen her to the utmost of his power. Of course I have not done with him yet. Tutt' altro. We must have an account of that morning stroll in the Pineta from the old gentleman's own lips. Meantime, I do not think that we need consider our trip to-day to have been altogether thrown away."
"Very far from it. Very far from it, indeed. Honestly, I think that you have hit the nail on the head, Signor Pietro. There is nothing like the practical experience of you gentlemen of the police, who pass your lives in playing at who-is-the-sharpest with the most astute of human beings."
"And beating them at their own game," said the Commissary, self-complacently. "If that murder was not committed by Paolina Foscarelli, I will give you or anybody else leave to call me a blockhead."
And therewith Signor Fortini and his companion drove under the old archway of the Porta Nuova and entered the city.
It was the end of the first week in Lent; and all Ravenna was still busily engaged in talking, thinking, and speculating on the mysterious crime that had been committed on Ash Wednesday morning in the Pineta. The excitement on the subject, indeed, was greater now than it had been immediately after the event. For, by this time, everybody in Ravenna knew all that anybody knew on the subject; the manner, time, and place of the murder, and the different competing theories which had been started to account for it, and with the conflicting probabilities of which the judicial authorities were known to be occupying themselves.
These, as the reader knows, were three; based, in each case, on the fact that the suspected person was known, or was supposed to be known, to have been at, or near, to the spot where the crime was committed at the time when it had been committed.
The Marchese Ludovico was indisputably known; on his own confession, to have been in the immediate neighbourhood of the spot at the time when the murder must have been done.
Paolina Foscarelli was equally indubitably, and by her own confession, not far off from the neighbourhood of the spot at the same time.
Of the Conte Leandro Lombardoni it was known only that he had passed out of the city gate leading in the same direction, at a time which might have enabled him to be present where the deed was done, at the hour when it must have been done. The evidence as to propinquity to the place was less strong in his case than in that of either of the others; but it was supplemented by the unaccountable strangeness of his passing out of the Porta Nuova towards the Pineta at such an hour, and on that particular morning.
The Marchese Ludovico stated that he went thither for the purpose of showing the Pineta to the prima donna, who had never seen it. And there was nothing incredible or greatly improbable in the statement.
Paolina declared that she had gone to St. Apollinare in pursuit of her professional business. And the declaration was not only very probable in itself, but could be shown by evidence to be true. Only, while it accounted for her presence in the church of St. Apollinare, it left her departure from the church with her face turned, not towards the city, but towards the Pineta, unaccounted for.
In the case of the Conte Leandro, it was difficult to imagine the motive that could have induced him to leave the city at that hour, in the manner in which he was proved, by the testimony of the men at the gate, to have done. And he gave no assistance himself towards arriving at any satisfactory explanation of so strange a circumstance. He was unable, or unwilling, to account in any way for his conduct on that Ash Wednesday morning.
"He had thought it pleasanter to take a walk that fine morning, than to go to bed after the ball."
Nothing could be more unlike the usual known habits and tastes of the Conte Leandro, than such a freak. But supposing such a whim to have occurred to him, would he have set out on his walk evidently intending to be disguised—with a cloak wrapped round the fantastic costume in which he had been at the ball? Was such a supposition in any wise credible, or admissible?
In each of the three cases there seemed also to be a motive for the deed that might be deemed sufficient to have led to it; and from which neither of the parties suspected could show that they were free.
In the case of the Marchese Ludovico, it was the terrible temptation of delivering his family name from ridicule and disgrace, and himself from the prospect of absolute beggary.
In the case of Paolina, it was the madness of woman's jealousy, wrought to a pitch of desperation by circumstances similar to such as had ere now produced many a similar tragedy.
In the case of the Conte Leandro, it was the cruel mortification of a man whose monstrous vanity was notorious to the whole city.
These were the three hypotheses between which the possibilities of the case seemed to lie to those whose position or means of information gave them any real knowledge of the facts. But there was a section of the outside public which had set up for itself and preferred yet a fourth theory—namely, that the prima donna had committed suicide. The holders of this opinion were mainly women; and at the head of them; was the Signora Orsola Steno. In an agony of grief, indignation, and despair at the accusation brought against her adopted child, and the arrest by which it had been followed up, she loudly maintained her own conviction that the evil and wicked woman had brought her career to a fitting close by putting herself to death.
"Likely enough she may have endeavoured to entrap the Marchese Lamberto; but not very likely," old Orsola thought, "that that exemplary nobleman should have been caught by her wiles. Likely enough she may have plotted to play her last card, by giving the Marchese Ludovico to understand, that the only way to avoid the ruin which would fall upon him by her becoming his uncle's wife, was to take her himself. How any such overtures would be received by the noble Marchese Ludovico, all Ravenna ought to know; and at all events she, Orsola Steno, knew surely enough. And upon that rebuff, and utter failure of her last hope despair had come upon the wretched creature, as well it might, and she had put an end to herself."
To her, Orsola Steno, the case was clear: and she only wondered that anybody could be so blind as not to see it.
But what if such a supposition were simply inconsistent with the known facts? What if it were simply impossible that any person should inflict on themselves such an injury as that which it was evident the murdered woman had sustained; and more impossible still that they should have been able to adopt the means for concealing the wound which the assassin had adopted? What if such was the perfectly unhesitating judgment and declaration of the medical authorities? Such people as Orsola Steno, and those who shared her opinion, are ordinarily impervious to any such reasoning. It is remarkable that, in any case of doubt or circumstances of suspicion, the popular mind—or, at all events, the Italian popular mind—is specially disposed to mistrust the medical profession. They suspect error exactly where scientific certainty is the most perfect, and deception precisely in those who have the least possible imaginable motive for deceiving. Probably it may be because the grounds and means of the knowledge they mistrust are more wholly, than in any other case, beyond the sphere of their own conceptions.
When old Orsola Steno was told that the doctors declared that it was not within the bounds of possibility that La Bianca should have put herself to death in the manner in which she had been put to death, nothing could exceed the profundity of the contempt with which she sneered in reply:
"Ah! they'll say anything to make out that they know more than other folks, and, maybe, they often know a deal less. Don't tell me. How should they know what a woman will do when she is driven? I know what women are, and I know what them doctors are; and you may believe that an old woman, who has been a young one, knows more what such an one as that Bianca can do, when she has no hope before her, than all the doctors."
"But it is impossible—physically impossible that she could have done it."
"Ta, ta, ta, ta! Physic, indeed; what's physic got to do with it? I should like to physic them that try to throw suspicion on a poor innocent girl all to make out their own cleverness."
So Signora Orsola victoriously, and to the great increase of her confidence in her own powers of insight, continued to hold her own opinion, and it was shared by many other similarly-constituted minds.
The old Venetian woman had lived a very quiet life in the strange city to which fate had brought her, making but few acquaintances, and holding but little intercourse with those few; but now, under the terrible misfortune which had happened, she was stirred up to activity in every way in which activity was possible to her. She went to the Palazzo Castelmare and endeavoured to see the Marchese Lamberto in vain. She was told that the Marchese was ill, and could not see any one.
She went to the Contessa Violante, of whose acquaintanceship with Paolina she was aware, though she had never before seen her, and, oddly enough, the Contessa Violante was disposed to share, or to become a convert to, her own opinion respecting the mode of Bianca's death. The young Contessa was, doubtless as ignorant of all such matters as old Orsola could be. Her education had been entirely conventual, and those who dwell in the inner sanctums and fortresses of the Church have a curiously instinctive aversion to the certainties and investigations of medical—especially of surgical—science; and the Contessa Violante was, perhaps, hence prepared to vilipend and set at naught the dicta of the scientific authorities.
It was likely that her mind was also warped by the conceptions of what were probable, likely to be providential, and even suitable, in the case of such a person as the deceased singer. Of course, the whole life of such an one was, to the Contessa Violante, a thing abominable and accursed in the eyes of Heaven. It was more strange that all others, who led similar lives, and were engaged in such a profession, should not make an evil end of themselves than that one such should do so.
The Contessa Violante, therefore, was disposed to share the conviction of her visitor, as she most sincerely and cordially sympathised with her in her affliction. To her, also, it was wholly impossible to believe that Paolina had done this thing; nor was it credible to her that Ludovico should be guilty of such a deed. Of the three persons accused she would have found it more possible to believe in the guilt of the Conte Leandro; but, on the whole, she preferred to avoid the necessity of assuming that either of the accused were guilty by admitting the hypothesis of Signora Orsola.
"And if you will take my advice, Signora, I think that the best thing you could do would be to go to Signor Fortini, the lawyer, who is interested in the matter on account of being the lawyer of the Castelmare family. I have always heard him spoken of as an upright and respectable man. I have heard my uncle speak well of him. If I were you I would go and talk to him; you will very easily find out where his studio is. Go and tell him who you are, and what your interest in the matter is, and I have no doubt but that he will receive you kindly and listen to what you have to say."
And Signora Orsola took the Contessa Violante's advice, and went directly to the lawyer's studio in the little cloister under the walls of the cathedral, on leaving her adviser. As Violante had said, she had no difficulty whatever in finding it.
The lawyer was at home, and Signora Orsola was at once ushered into the inner studio, which has been described in a former chapter.
Signor Fortini was, to all appearances, entirely unoccupied; but it is probable that his mind was fully employed in striving to see his way through some portion of the difficulties that hedged about on all sides the subject on which, more or less, all Ravenna was intent. He was sitting before his table, thickly covered with papers; but had thrown himself back in his leather-covered arm-chair, and was grasping his stubbly chin with one hand, the elbow belonging to which rested on the arm of his chair, while the dark eyes, shining out beneath his contracted forehead, were fixed on the ceiling of the little room.
"Signora Orsola Steno," he said, as he half rose, and courteously offered his visitor a seat by the side of the table, so placed as to be fronting his own, while the sitter in it was exactly in a line between him and the window.
"Sua Signoria mi conosce. Your lordship knows me, then," said the old woman, whose surprise at finding herself thus recognized sufficed to put altogether out of her head all the carefully arranged opening of her interview with the lawyer which she had taken much pains to prepare.
Signor Fortini had, in truth, never seen the old woman, and had scarcely ever heard of her before the terrible event, which was now bringing her into his presence. But her name, the nature of her connection with Paolina, and very many other particulars concerning her had become known to the lawyer in the course of the investigations which that event had imposed upon him.
"Sufficiently, Signora, though I never had the pleasure of speaking to you before, to be aware of the nature of the business which has induced you to favour me with this visit," replied the lawyer, with grave courtesy.
"Well, then, Signor Dottore, I hope you will excuse—"
"There is not the smallest need for any apology, Signora. Anzi—I am very glad that you should have thought it well to call on me; I shall be most happy to hear anything that you may wish to say to me."
"You are very polite, Signor Dottore, I am sure," said the old woman, hesitatingly; for she was alarmed at the idea, which the lawyer's courtesy had suggested to her cautious mind, that she might be supposed to be engaging his professional services, and might thus find herself, before she was aware of it, involved in expenses which she had no means of meeting, and no intention of incurring; "you are extremely polite, but—you see, Signor, it is best to speak plainly—I am a very poor woman; and I have not the means—and I am sure—perhaps I ought not to have troubled sua Signoria; but it was the Contessa Violante who advised me to come to you."
"Indeed; I am beholden to the Signora Contessa Violante. As you say most judiciously, Signora, it is best to speak quite plainly. With regard to any professional services, which it might be otherwise in my power to render you, it is necessary to say at once that I am engaged in this most unhappy business on the behalf of my old client and friend the Marchese Ludovico di Castelmare. There can be no question, therefore, of any professional remuneration to me in the matter from any other quarter. Anything that may pass between us," he continued, perceiving that his visitor had not fully comprehended what he sought to convey to her, "must be of the nature of private conversation, and will not entail on you," he added, yet more plainly with a good-humoured smile, and putting his hand on her sleeve as he spoke, "any possible expense whatever."
"Thank you kindly, sir; and, truth to say, it is not so much that I wanted to ask you to say or to do anything, as only just not to say what a many people in this city are wicked enough to say and to think," said old Orsola, much re-assured, and persuaded that she was approaching the business in hand in the most cautious and clever manner imaginable.
"I hope, Signora, that I shall not say anything which it is wicked to say; but what is it that people are wicked enough to say?" rejoined the lawyer, who knew now perfectly well what the wicked saying was.
"Why they say, Signor Dottore—some of them—some of them are wicked enough to say that that dear blessed child has—it is enough to blister one's tongue to say it—has done that dreadful thing; Santa Maria abbia misericordia—that murder in the forest. O Dio mio! Why—"
"Is she any relative of yours, Signora, the Signorina Paolina Foscarelli?" asked the lawyer, quietly.
"No relative by blood, Signor; but she is the same to me as a daughter. I took her when she was left an orphan—"
"And she has lived with you ever since?"
"Ever since she has lived with me as if she was my own, Signor; and if anybody in the world ever knew another, I know her; and, bless your heart, she isn't capable of lifting her hand against a fly, let alone a Christian. There never was such wicked nonsense talked in this world since world it was; and I'm told, Signor Dottore, that you have said that she had been the one as did this deed; and—"
"Stop, stop, my good Signora Orsola! Are you aware that you are accusing me of being guilty of punishable defamation and slander? I say that the Signorina Paolina Foscarelli committed murder? Who on earth could ever have told you so monstrous an untruth? Allow me to assure you that I never said anything of the kind."
"Oh, Signor Dottore, I am so glad to hear you say so. What lies people do tell, to be sure; I am sure it was a very good thought of the Contessa Violante to tell me to come to you; and since you say that the poor child is innocent, as innocent she is, as the child unborn—"
"Stay, Signora, stay; you go too fast—somewhat too fast. Unhappily, I am by no means in a condition to say that your young friend is innocent of this crime; appearances, it must be admitted, are very much against her; we must hope that they can be explained. I accuse no one; it is not my province to do so."
"But you don't think the judges will believe that my child could have done such a thing? If they only knew her! You don't think that, do you, Signor Dottore?" said the poor woman, with a voice and manner of piteous appeal.
"They will judge according to the evidence and the probabilities of the case. It is impossible to say as yet to what conclusion these may seem to point. The Marchese Ludovico is an acquaintance of yours and of the Signorina Paolina, is he not?"
"An acquaintance? why they are engaged to be married," almost shrieked poor Signora Orsola; "has not your lordship heard that they are engaged to be married?"
"Indeed! and you are acquainted with the Contessa Violante too. Do you know whether her ladyship is aware of the engagement you speak of? I ask, because she is an old friend of the Marchese Ludovico."
"To be sure she is aware of it. She and Paolina have often talked it over together. Altro che, aware of it."
"Humph," said the lawyer thoughtfully; and then remained silent for a minute or two, while old Orsola looked at him wistfully.
"It must be very terrible to you then, Signora, to think that the Marchese should be suspected of this shocking crime, since you have such reason to feel an interest in him," said he at last, looking up suddenly at his companion.
"Lord bless your heart," exclaimed the old woman in reply; "the Marchese never did nothing of the sort, no more than my poor innocent lamb did it. Nothing of the kind."
"Perhaps, then, you would not mind saying who did do it," said the lawyer; "since you seem to know all about it."
"Why she did it herself to be sure. It is a wonder anybody should doubt it. And a like enough end for such a baggage to come to," said Signora Orsola, with much bitterness.
"You do not seem to have been among the admirers of the Signora Bianca," said the lawyer, with a furtively shrewd look at the old woman.
"Admirers, indeed! She had too many admirers, I am thinking. A good-for-nothing, impudent, brazen—well, she has gone to her account, so I won't be the one to speak ill of her."
"You seem to have had considerable opportunities of becoming acquainted with her character, Signora Orsola. Had you much acquaintance with her?"
"I never saw her but once in my life, and that was at the theatre on the last Sunday night of Carnival. The Marchese had given us a box."
"And it was upon that occasion then, that she impressed you so unfavourably. The Signorina Paolina I suppose was with you at the theatre?"
"Of course she was. Would it be likely, I ask you, Signor Dottore, that the Marchese took the box for me?"
"And no doubt the Signorina Foscarelli was impressed by the actress in the same manner that you yourself were."
"Of course she was, as any other decent young woman would have been; let alone being, as Paolina is, engaged to be married to the Marchese."
"I have no doubt, Signora, that your remarks are perfectly just. If the manners and conduct of the young women now-a-days were regulated a little more in conformity with the ideas of such persons of discretion as yourself, the world would be all the better for it. But I don't quite see how the behaviour of the prima donna on the stage could have had anything to do with the circumstance of the Marchese Ludovico's engagement to the Signorina Foscarelli," said the lawyer, with the most demure innocence of manner.
"You don't see it, Signor Dottore. Perhaps you were not in the theatre that night. If you had been you would have seen it fast enough. The way she went on, when the Marchese Ludovico was a-giving her a lovely nosegay of flowers—hothouse flowers, if you please—as big pretty near as this table; not just a-throwing them on to the stage the way I've seen 'em do it many a time at the Fenice; but putting them into her hand; and she, the minx a coming up to the box to take 'em before all the people as bold as brass."
"Ah, I see? The Signorina Foscarelli naturally did not quite like that," said the lawyer, encouragingly.
"Like it! Who would have liked it in her place, I ask you? And that painted hussy a-going on they way she did; making such eyes at him, and smiling and a-pressing her hand to her bosom, that was just as naked as my face; and looking for all the world if she could have jumped right into the box, and eaten him up. Like it, indeed!"
"No doubt it was provoking enough. And your adopted daughter, Signora Steno, would not be the right-minded and well-brought-up girl I take her to be, if she did not express to you her disgust at such goings on," said the sympathizing lawyer.
"You may say that. She expressed it plain enough and not to me only, but to the Marchese himself well, when she saw him afterwards. She let him know what she thought of the painted huzzy. And she told him, too, some more of the truth. She told him that the creature knew well enough what she was doing, or trying to do. The way she looked straight up at my poor child in the box, where we were, was enough to make the blood curdle in your veins. If ever I saw a face look hatred, it was the face of that woman when she looked up at our box. She looked at the poor child as if she could have taken her heart's blood. She did. Ah! bless your heart, she knew all about it. Talk of the old Marchese, indeed. Yes; the creature had set her mind upon being Marchesa di Castelmare. Not a doubt of it; but it was the nephew she wanted, not the uncle; and she knew that my Paolina stood in the way of her scheming; and Paolina knew that she knew it."
Old Orsola paused, out of breath with the length and vehemence of the tirade, which her feelings had prompted her to utter with crescendo violence. She was verbose; but the lawyer had listened with the most perfect patience and unflagging attention to every word she had uttered.
"It is, indeed, clear enough," he said, shaking his head, "that between two women so situated with reference to each other, there could have been no very kindly feeling. And it must be confessed that this unfortunate Bianca Lalli was, by all accounts, just the sort of woman that was likely to be a very dangerous rival."
"She; a common, impudent, low-lived, brazen-faced, worn-out Jezebel. No; not where my Paolina stood on the other side. She couldn't take the Marchese away from her with all her arts. And that's why she went and put an end to herself. But she's gone—she's gone, where her painted face and her lures won't be of any more service to her. And so I won't say any evil of her. Not I. It's a good rule that tells us to speak well of the dead. Ave, Maria gratia plena, ora pro nobis, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae," said the old woman, crossing herself and casting up her eyes in attestation of the Christian nature of her sentiments.
"Amen!" said the lawyer, piously, while he waited to see if the exuberance of his visitor's feelings would lead her to throw any further light on the state of feeling that had existed between Paolina Foscarelli and the murdered woman.
"I always say and think, for my part," continued the old woman, perceiving that her companion sat silent, as if expecting her to continue the conversation; "I always think that the blessed Virgin knows what's best for us. Maybe it's just as well that that poor miserable creature did as she did. For we all know what men are, Signore Dottore; and there's no saying what hold she might have got upon the Marchese."
"And no doubt that is the feeling of our young friend Signorina Foscarelli?" said the sympathetic lawyer.
"To be sure,—to be sure it is," said the old woman, meaning to credit Paolina with the piety she had understood herself to have expressed; "she did take a mortal aversion and dislike to the woman, and small blame to her. But now she is gone, Paolina is no more likely to say anything against her than I am myself."
"Quite so, quite so. And I hope the magistrates may take the same view of the circumstances, that you have so judiciously expressed, Signora," said the lawyer, who was abundantly contented with the result of his interview with the Signora Steno, as it stood, and did not see any further necessity for prolonging it. "You may tell the Contessa Violante, if you should see her, that I am much obliged to her for having sent you to me," he added, as he rose to open the door of his sanctum for the old lady; "Beppo, open the door for the Signora Steno. Farewell, Signora, we shall meet again."
Orsola Steno quitted the lawyer's studio as entirely contented with the result of her interview as she left him. She doubted not that she had fully impressed him with her own conviction as to the explanation of the mysterious circumstances of the singer's death; that Paolina's innocence would be readily recognized; and that her adopted daughter would shortly be restored to her in the Via di Sta. Eufemia.
The lawyer remained for some time seated in his chair in deep thought after his visitor had left him.
Suddenly he let his open hand fall heavily with a loud clap on the table before him, disturbing the papers on it from their places, and causing the fine blue sand, which stood in an open wooden basin for the purpose of doing the office of blotting-paper, to be spilled in all directions by the concussion, and said aloud, "By God! That girl has done it!"
"Ah, talk of the passions of men," he went on, in a lower muttering voice, after some further moments of meditation; "they are nothing—they are child's play compared to the blind animal-like impulses that force a woman's will into their service when any of the master passions of the sex are touched. A woman's jealousy; it is as plain as the sun at noonday. And we are puzzling our brains looking on this side and on that, to find a possible explanation of the facts. Talk of a tigress and her whelps! There's a young girl who looks as innocent as a St. Agnes, and speaks as if butter would not melt in her mouth. Take—threaten to take—her lover from her, and she turns upon you like a scorpion at bay. Furens quid foemina possit. Ay indeed. And they are all alike. That old woman there; why she was ready, with all her 'Ave Marias' and 'Ora pro nobis,' to kill the woman again if she were not killed already, out of pure sympathy with the wrong done to her adopted daughter. I don't think there is a doubt about it. I should like to wager a hundred to one that the Venetian girl put her rival to death. The story is neither a new nor a strange one."
"Whether the commission of the deed can be brought home to her," he continued, after another period of musing, "that is another question; and one with which, however interesting it may be to my good friend Pietro Logarini, we need not trouble ourselves. And after all, what a good thing it is that things should have fallen out as they have. That old fool of a Marchese! It is a lesson to believe in nothing and no man, when one thinks of it. The death of that woman is the saving of the name. But, per Bacco! I must not say so too loudly," thought the old lawyer to himself, with a grim smile, "or I shall be doing just what the old fool of a woman has been doing. Yes, that was the last link in the chain of the evidence we wanted. She was on the spot at the time—the death-dealing weapon was essentially a woman's weapon, and the murdered woman was her feared and hated rival—and now we have direct evidence that she felt her to be such. If the judges can find any other hypothesis supported by stronger circumstantial evidence than this—why, I think that I had better go to school again."
With these thoughts in his mind, Signor Fortini determined to go and see his crony, Signor Pietro Logarini, at the Palazzo del Governo. He found that active and able official just returned from another visit to St. Apollinare in Classe, which appeared not to have been very fruitful of result.
"I can make nothing out of that old friar," said the Police Commissary to his friend, as they sat in the private cabinet of the former; "and I am very much afraid that we shall make nothing out of him. For quiet, aggravating obstinacy and passive resistance, recommend me to a monk."
"What induced you to go out there to-day?" asked the lawyer.
"Why, I am very strongly persuaded—I feel sure almost—that that old fellow could tell something to the purpose if he would speak. And I am more convinced of it from his manner to-day than ever. The other animal—the lay-brother—I am pretty sure knows nothing about it."
"Is the friar about again, or still in bed?" Fortini.
"Oh, he's in bed safe enough; at least I found him there, shivering and shaking, and counting his beads, and answering a plain question with 'Ave Maria' and 'Ora pro nobis,' and the rest of it. I don't believe he has the fever a bit. I believe that he has been scared out of his wits by something he has seen. But the devil wouldn't get out of him what it was if he don't choose to tell you. Oh, I know them!" said the Commissary, provoked by his fruitless excursion.
"I suppose," said the lawyer, looking doubtfully into the Commissary's face, "I suppose it is not on the cards that the old fellow was the murderer himself?"
"Ha!" said the Commissary, with a start, "that is a new idea. But no," he added, after a little consideration,—"no, that's not it; it would be very difficult even to imagine any motive. An old man, eighty years old. No, it's not that. But, if I am not very much mistaken, he knows something."
"In that case, I should have thought that means might have been found to make him speak," said the lawyer, drily.
"What means? I profess I don't know any. The devil of it is, you see, Signor Giovacchino, that it will not do to treat those fellows roughly. There would be the deuce and all to pay. There he lies, shivering, and trembling, and muttering, and going on as if he was imbecile; and swearing he is too ill to leave his bed. I don't see how we are to get him here into court."
"Well, I've had better luck this morning; and had not to go out to seek it. My witness came to me; and I think I have got some important evidence," said the lawyer, with much of the exultation of a successful sportsman over a less fortunate rival.
"The deuce you have. There is a luck in those things. But if your evidence came to you—Who the devil would ever think of coming to a Commissary of Police as long as they could stay away, if they pleased."
"Well, my witness was not altogether a willing one; or at least she came to me for the purpose of saying something very different from what she did say."
"But you did not come here merely to boast, I am sure, Signor Giovacchino. You are going to tell me what you have been able to learn, eh?" said the Commissary.
"Boast, no, not I! There's nothing to boast of. Besides, you know my interest in the matter is of a different nature from yours, Signor Pietro. All I want is to clear my friend and client, the Marchese Ludovico. You, of course, are anxious to bring the crime home to somebody."
"True," said the Commissary, nodding his head.
"And of course, therefore, any light I can throw upon the matter, I am ready enough to bring to you, unless it were of a nature to incriminate the Marchese," returned the lawyer.
"Of course, just so. And what you have learned this morning—"
"Tell's all t'other way; I have no difficulty in allowing that, on the first blush of the matter, I felt no doubt that the Marchese was the guilty party. It only shows that one ought always to have doubts of everything. It looked so very bad. The Marchese takes the girl into the wood, comes back without her, and very shortly afterwards she is found where he left her, murdered. And he is known to have had the greatest possible interest in getting rid of her. Would it not have seemed a clear case to any one?"
"So one would have said indeed," assented the Commissary.
"Well, the Marchese had nothing to do with it. At the present moment I feel—well, hardly any doubt at all that the deed was done by the girl Paolina Foscarelli."
"That's my notion too," said the Commissary, taking a pinch of snuff, and proferring his box to his visitor; "but what is the new evidence."
"Well, the girl lives, it seems, with an old woman, a country-woman of hers, a certain Orsola Steno. And this morning the old lady comes to my studio for the avowed purpose of begging me not to countenance in any way the very mistaken notion that her adopted daughter had murdered the prima donna; the truth being, as she was good enough to inform me, that the latter had committed suicide."
"Bah, what senseless nonsense!" interrupted the Commissary, indignantly.
"Of course. I pointed out to the old lady that her theory was, according to the medical testimony, simply impossible; but that naturally made not the slightest difference in her opinion of the matter. And then, aided by a little gentle assistance, she prattled on, an old fool, admitting, or insisting rather, that there had been bitter hatred and animosity between Paolina and the murdered woman; that Paolina had conceived the bitterest jealousy of the singer; that she was persuaded that the latter was scheming with a set purpose to lure her acknowledged lover, the Marchese, away from her; that she was further persuaded that the singer nourished the bitterest hatred of her, Paolina. What do you say to that, Signor Commissary? How does the land lie now, eh?" said the lawyer, triumphantly, in conclusion.
Signor Pietro nodded his head with most emphatic approbation and confirmation of his friend's opinion.
"Is not it the more likely story in every way?" pursued the lawyer; "just look at it. The Marchese is known to every man, woman, and child in Ravenna; and being known for what he is, it would be difficult to persuade anybody that he had lifted his hand to murder a defenceless and sleeping woman. But we can all of us easily understand that it is exceedingly likely that he may have so behaved as to make these two women furiously jealous of each other; at least to have made this girl Paolina, to whom, it seems, he had promised marriage, desperately furious against the other, whom she had but too good reason to suspect of having attracted the preference of the Marchese. Then look at the instrument with which the murder was accomplished,—a needle. Is it in any way likely that the Marchese Ludovico should habitually carry such a thing about with him? Is there any unlikelihood that the girl may have had such a thing about her; Amico mio Pietro," said the lawyer, in conclusion, tapping his fingers on the Commissary's coat-sleeve as he spoke, "that Venetian girl is the murderess! The deed was done under the influence of maddening jealousy."
"How on earth could that old woman come to you with a budget of such damning facts against her friend? Do you think she—the old woman—has any guilty knowledge of the crime?"
"Lord bless you, no! If she had, she would not have been so simple. No, she firmly believes her own theory of the matter, that the poor Diva killed herself. She is too firmly persuaded of it to perceive the bearing of her admissions of the hatred that existed between the two girls."
"I learned something yesterday," said the Commissary, "which all looks the same way, not much, but in such a case every little helps. This old friar—this Padre Fabiano—is, we know, a Venetian; and now I have ascertained that, years ago, before he came here, there was some connection of some sort—acquaintance, friendship of whatever kind you like—between him and the parents of the girl Paolina. I think it likely enough that the frate's friendship was more particularly with the girl's mother rather than with her father,—we know what friars' ways are, and, maybe, we should not go far wrong if we imagined that the Father had reason to feel a fatherly interest of a quite special kind in the young lady. Now all this is worth only just this. Why did the frate return from the Pineta in such a state of terror, agitation, and horror? Why, supposing him to have seen, or in any way become acquainted with facts calculated to produce such an effect upon him, does he obstinately refuse to give us any information upon the subject? How will this answer fit? In the course of that walk to the Pineta, undertaken, no doubt, because the old man felt anxiety as to what was likely to follow from the probable meeting of the two girls after the scene witnessed in his presence by Paolina from the window of the church—in the course of that walk, let us suppose, the friar became acquainted with the fact that this girl—his daughter, we will say, for, in all probability, she is such—had murdered her rival. The knowledge of the fact sends him back to his cell half dead with horror and fright. His interest in Paolina ties his tongue, and frustrates all our efforts to get any explanation from him. How will that do, eh, Signor Giovacchino?"
"Admirably well. Clearly helps to give consistency and probability to our theory of the facts. I begin to think that all danger to my client is at an end, and, upon my word, I am more glad of it than I can tell you; it would have been a shocking thing. I am an old Ravenna man, you know, and should have felt it differently from what you would, you know."
"True; but I am glad enough that the Marchese should be cleared in the matter, and so will the Government be—very glad."
"I suppose there is no objection to my seeing the Marchesino?"
"Oh, certainly not the least in the world. It is a pity that he should be detained here any longer; but I am almost afraid to take the responsibility of discharging him before some formal inquiry has been made."
"Naturally, naturally. When do you suppose you will be ready to bring the affair to a trial?"
"Oh, very soon. If there were any chance of getting that old frate into court it would be worth while to wait for him; but I am afraid that the longer we wait the worse his fever and ague will get. But I shall have another try at him out there first."
And with that Signor Fortini passed to the chamber in which the Marchese Ludovico was confined.
"Signor Marchese," said the old man, stretching out his hand with, for him, a very unusual degree of impulsive cordiality, "I have come to make amende honorable—I need hardly say how delighted I am to do so. It is not only that I think I may say there is now very little chance of any mischief falling on you in consequence of that unlucky excursion to the Pineta, but that I am able, thank God, to say that I have myself no longer the smallest suspicion that you had any hand in the crime that has been committed there."
"Has anything been discovered, then?" asked Ludovico, eagerly. "Ah—h—h! that would be good news indeed," added the young man, drawing a long breath of relief,—the evident strength of which feeling afforded a measure of the suffering he had endured more indicative of the real state of his mind than any amount of depression which he had before allowed to be apparent.
"Well; enough, I think, has been discovered to relieve you of all suspicion—enough, as I said, to convince my own mind very satisfactorily that you are innocent of all complicity in the matter."
"I confess that I should have preferred, Signor Fortini, that my own assertion should have sufficed to produce that conviction," replied the young man, somewhat drily.
"My dear Signor Marchese, permit me to say that such preference would have been ill founded. Is not my conviction, based upon the probabilities of the known facts, of much greater value than any mere acquiescence with your assertions? These are matters, my dear sir, which must be looked at reasonably, and not merely sentimentally. If you had committed murder—if I had committed murder,—should we not either of us, have denied it as resolutely as you denied this? If the circumstances are such as to cause a man—any man—to be suspected at all, no words of his can be worth anything whatsoever on the subject; and you must admit that, the circumstances being as they were, it was impossible that the first suspicion should not have fallen on you. You may believe that no efforts or activity have been wanting on my part for the discovery of the means of removing this suspicion. Let us be thankful that they have, to a very great degree, been successful."
"And what has been found out? For God's sake tell me all about it! I declare, for my own part, I could almost believe that I had done it myself in my sleep, or in a fit of madness without knowing it, so utterly impossible does it seem to me to imagine what hand it could have been that did the deed."
"Signor Marchese, the hand that did that deed was no other than the hand of the Venetian girl, Paolina Foscarelli," said the lawyer, with deliberate and impressive slowness, emphasizing his words with extended forefinger as he uttered them.
"Pshaw! Is that all you have to tell me?" cried the Marchese, jumping up from his chair, and pacing the room with impatient strides. "It is an absurdity upon the face of it; I should have hoped that nobody in Ravenna would have believed it possible that I could have been guilty of such a deed; but, by Heaven, the whole city will see that it is more likely that I should have done it than Paolina! It is simply absurd."
"Signor Marchese, prepossessions, and previous notions of what might have been expected to be possible, are of no value in such a case as this against the logic of facts and circumstances. Other young women, who seemed as little likely to be capable of such a deed as this Signorina Foscarelli, have committed such—and have done it under the pressure of motives exactly similar to those which we know with certainty to have been vehemently operative in the heart of the Venetian."
"Motives! What conceivable motive could have existed to—"
"What motive? The most powerful of all the passions that ever drove a woman to become guilty of crime—jealousy; jealousy, Signor Marchese, has been the motive of this murder. Look at the facts as they stand: we know that this Paolina Foscarelli was in the immediate neighbourhood of the spot where the deed was done, and as nearly as possible at the time when it was done; we know—excuse me, Signor Marchese, for speaking very plainly; it is absolutely necessary to be plain—we know that this girl had great reason to feel jealous of La Bianca. Remember that she saw you and the singer driving tete-a-tete together in that solitary place at that unusual hour. I leave it to your own feeling to estimate the degree of jealousy which such a sight, together with other previous circumstances, was calculated to produce in this girl's mind; but, if that be not enough, we know, as a matter of fact, that she had, even previously to seeing what was, so calculated to drive her jealousy to a pitch of fury, expressed jealousy, animosity and hatred against the woman whom she considered as her rival. We have this in evidence—the perfectly unimpeachable evidence of the Signora Orsola Steno. Add to that, again, that the method of the murder was just such as a woman was likely to adopt, and that a man was very little likely to think of, or to have the means of, in his possession. Put all these certain facts together, Signor Marchese; and I think it will be impossible for even your mind to resist the conviction that must force itself upon every one who considers the circumstances."
The Marchese stopped in his agitated walk to and fro across the floor of the chamber, and gazed into the lawyer's face with an expression of bewilderment and pain, which the old man met with a keen and steady glance, and a grave shake of the head. The Marchese, after encountering his eye for a few moments, struck his open hand on his forehead, and threw himself on the chair he had left without uttering a word.
"And to you, Signor Marchese, it assuredly cannot appear strange that the circumstances I have enumerated should carry with them the conviction to other minds that Paolina Foscarelli is guilty of the murder of the singer," continued the lawyer, speaking very slowly and fixing the keen glance of his dark bright eyes on the working face of his companion; "to you, above all others, this cannot appear strange, since—to your own mind this suspicion first occurred."
"What do you mean? I! Signor Fortini. What strange notion is misleading you? I don't know what you mean!" cried the Marchese, while a look of horror gradually crept over his face.
"When the body of the murdered woman was brought into the city,—when we two stood in the gateway, and when your hand raised the sheet that covered the face of the dead, you exclaimed aloud 'Paolina!' What was then the thought that was in your mind? I imagined, at the time, that you recognized her in the dead woman before you. A very few minutes, however, sufficed to show that it was not Paolina, but Bianca who lay there murdered. And then, amid the horror of the first idea of your guilt, which the nature of the circumstances rendered inevitable, I thought no more of the exclamation you had uttered. But I have not forgotten the fact. You did, on seeing Bianca dead before you, exclaim, 'Good God! Paolina!' What was the thought in your mind, Signor Marchese, that prompted that exclamation? What but the sudden spontaneous rush of the conviction that it was she who had done the deed on which you were looking?"
For a few moments the Marchese seemed too much stunned by the inference, and the appeal of the lawyer, and by the vision of the consequences, which he purposed drawing from it, to utter any reply to the demand which had been made on him.
"You mistake, Signor Fortini," he gasped out at last; "you are in error. I cannot have made any such exclamation. I have no consciousness of anything of the kind. In any case no such monstrous idea, as you would infer from it, ever entered into my mind. You know how anxious I was about Paolina's prolonged absence. I was thinking of her; at least, I suppose so, if, indeed, I uttered her name. I have no recollection. I don't know why I should have done so. All I know is that no such horrible and impossible suggestion ever presented itself to my mind for an instant. If it were otherwise," continued the young man, after a few moments of painfully concentrated thought,—"if it were otherwise, why did I not suggest such a solution of the mystery when I found myself accused of the crime?"
"That, Signor Marchese, those who know you best will be least at a loss to understand," replied the lawyer. "The motive that ruled your conduct then, is the same that rules it now. You were then unwilling, as you are now unwilling, to exculpate yourself at the cost of inculpating one who is dear to you. Your objection, I am bound to tell you, carries no weight with it. I cannot abandon that part of my case that rests upon the striking fact that your own first impression was that Paolina was guilty."
"I utterly deny, and will continue to deny, that any such impression was ever present to my mind. I wholly refuse to avail myself of any defence based on any such supposition; on any idea at all, that Paolina Foscarelli is guilty. I know that she is as innocent of this deed as the angels in heaven. I will proclaim her innocence with my last breath. I will not accept any acquittal on the hypothesis of her guilt. I will rather avow that I did the deed myself. In one sense I did so. In one sense I am guilty of her death. For it was I who took her to the place, and into the circumstance that led to her death."
"Signor Marchese, in this matter the truth of the facts is what is wanted. It is that, and that alone that the magistrates will endeavour to discover. A great many facts, as I have pointed out to you, will be before them. Mere statements, one way or the other, will have little avail. Quietly and seriously now, supposing we reject the theory of Paolina's guilt, are you able yourself to conceive any other possible explanations of the facts? Can you yourself suggest any other theory whatsoever?" said the lawyer, throwing his head on one side, and interlacing the fingers of his clasped hands in front of his person, in calm expectation of the Marchese's answer.
"There was another theory. I heard that the Conte Leandro had been arrested on suspicion of being the assassin. It would be very dreadful. God forbid that I should say that I suspected the Conte Lombardoni of having done this foul deed. But I cannot avoid seeing that it is a great deal more likely that he should have done it than Paolina," returned the Marchese.
"The accusation against the Conte Lombardoni has been abandoned, and he has been set at liberty," replied the lawyer; "there was, in fact, nothing against him, except the singular circumstance of his having gone out of the city towards the Pineta, at a very unusual hour on the morning of that same unlucky Ash Wednesday; and that he has at last thought fit to explain."
"At last?" said Ludovico.
"Yes; for a long time he utterly refused to give any explanation of the fact whatsoever; and his manner was altogether such as to strengthen the notion that it was possible that he might have been the criminal. He has told the truth at last. And it is no wonder that he was loth to tell it, for it is not much calculated to increase his popularity in the city."
"Why, what is it? I never used to think anything worse of him than that he was a fool," rejoined the Marchese.
"A fool, and a very mischievous and malicious one, as fools mostly are. What do you think took him out of the city that morning of the first day in Lent? Simply the desire to play the spy on you and the poor woman who has been killed."
"No, you don't mean it? the noxious animal!" exclaimed Ludovico, with intense disgust.
"It seems that he overheard you and the singer make your appointment for the excursion, and that, moved by curiosity and the hope of making mischief, he determined to be beforehand with you on the road, and picking up, if he could, the means of paying off both the lady and yourself for some of the mortification your ridicule had caused him," said the lawyer.
"I could not have believed it possible; the mean-spirited spiteful wretch! I did not think he had it in him!" said Ludovico.
"A man is apt to be spiteful towards those who cause him to suffer greatly. And there is no suffering greater to a man as vain as the Conte Leandro than the mortification of his vanity. But his spitefulness has been punished: first, by a couple of days' imprisonment, and a fright which half killed him; and secondly, by the sort of reception which you may suppose awaited him when he was released as the result of his explanation. I think he has had his due," added the lawyer, grimly.
"But how does his explanation exclude the possibility that he may have been the assassin after all? Why may not the same mortified vanity that incited him to play the spy, have moved him to take deadly vengeance on the woman he hated so bitterly? The man who was capable of the one is likely enough to be capable of the other. He is the man who may fairly be suspected of being capable of stabbing a woman as she slept!" argued the Marchese, with intense indignation.
"No," said the lawyer, shaking his head; "depend upon it we did not let him go till it was made clear that he could have had no hand in the crime. He was able to prove beyond the possibility of a doubt, that he had returned to the city, entering it by the Porta Sisi, before the earliest time when the murder could have been committed. No; that notion has to be abandoned."
"And no other idea has been started?—no suspicion? Have the investigations of the police led to nothing?" asked Ludovico, with profound discouragement.
The lawyer shook his head. "I have told you," he said, "how the case stands, Signor Marchese. An idea was started at one moment that the old friar at St. Apollinare might have been the man. Strangely enough he also was in or near the Pineta much about the same time. But the total absence of all assignable motive—an infirm octogenarian; no, that is not it. But the truth is, Signor Marchese, that our inquiries with reference to this Padre Fabiano have brought to light facts which tend to make the case stronger against the girl Paolina Foscarelli."
"I tell you, Signor Fortini, that the notion of her guilt is more entirely preposterous than any other possible imagination. I have told you that I would, rather than accept it, avow myself the murderer;—ay, and think that I had done it too, and forgotten it," said the Marchese, with extreme vehemence.
"But, Signor Marchese," returned the lawyer, with imperturbable calmness, "it matters nothing to the result, whether you will accept the idea of the Venetian girl's guilt or not, seeing that you will not be called upon to pronounce judgment in the case. The fact is, that every reasonable consideration points to that conclusion. I wish with all my heart, that the criminal was one in whom you were less interested." The meaning of which phrase in Signor Fortini's mouth, probably was, that he wished the Marchese felt less interest in her who was the criminal. "But I was about to tell you that the police have become acquainted with the fact, that this Padre Fabiano, who is a Venetian, was formerly very closely connected in some way with the family of Paolina Foscarelli. It seems very probable that he was, in fact, her father. Now he followed her to the forest, and returned thence in a state of great and painful agitation, which all mention of the subject renews and increases; and. further, the old man obstinately refuses to give any account or explanation of his walk to the forest. The conclusion which has suggested itself to the police authorities—not at all an unnatural or unreasonable one—is that the old man has been cognizant of the deed done by the girl."