“It isnot,” I countered. “Beatrice and Pietro were devoted partners, but it was entirely obvious that she was the dominant figure. She had a pretty face and gentle ways, so you cannot see it, but I can assure you, Beatrice was very much the one who wore the trousers. Here,” I said, turning to retrieve the count’s portfolio. I riffled through the papers. “Look here. Letters from various friends and relations addressed to him on his travels. In this one, his sister specifically mentions that she is upset Beatrice chose the spa in Germany instead of the one she recommended in Switzerland for Beatrice’s health.” I thrust the letter into his hands, leaving him to puzzle out the Italian on his own as I flicked hastily through the pages of the guidebook I had found amongst Pietro’s things on a sudden hunch. I pounced with a soft cry of triumph. “And in case you wonder which spa it was,here,” I said, producing a page with an entry that had been neatly underlined in pencil. “They stayed in Baden-Baden, the very spa town where Kaspar was killed.”
“Then why didn’t Pietro admit to being in the same town when wediscussed Kaspar’s death?” he shot back triumphantly. “There was no cause to conceal it if his purpose was innocent.”
I puzzled over that a moment as he continued to loom over me, radiating victory. I snapped my fingers. “Because he did not know.Wait a moment,” I said, searching through the various papers in the portfolio until I came to a pair of train tickets. “I did not realise the significance at the time, but see this. Pietro and Beatrice were at the train station, departing Baden the day of Kaspar’s death. She had already set in motion the events that would kill him, but they left before the news became public knowledge, ensuring that Pietro never realised Kaspar had been there or what she had done.”
“The tickets are for Paris,” he said grudgingly.
I surveyed an envelope addressed to Pietro at his hotel in Paris and pointed to the date. “This puts them in the city at the same time as Alexandre’s death. And they would have had no need to leave Paris immediately because there would be no reason to suspect them, nothing to connect them to Alexandre’s sudden demise.” I pressed home my point. “Beatrice has organised this entire affair,” I said with conviction. “Think too of Pietro’s obvious distress when Tiberius was speaking tonight. Pietro must have known she would be anguished at the mention of Lorenzo, but what if it was something more?”
“Such as?”
“Pietro and Beatrice quarrelled last night. I heard nothing of use, only raised voices and a single word—‘morto.’ ”
“Veronica, have you no better use for your time than listening to the petty arguments of married couples through walls?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to explain that it was J. J. who first discovered the Salviatis arguing, but I had made up my mind to conceal her presence until I had learnt all I could from her.
I smiled thinly. “Regardless of your opinions on how I spend my time, theywerearguing.”
“About death,” he finished thoughtfully.
“About death. This was shortly after Pietro learnt about the cuttings from Tiberius. He may have recognised her handwriting in the margin, realised he and Beatrice were at hand when Kaspar and Alexandre were killed. And then confronted her with her murderous scheme for vengeance.”
“Painfully melodramatic, but possible,” he said grudgingly.
“Not just possible. Likely. I hinted obliquely to overhearing the quarrel and Beatrice fobbed me off with a story about Pietro scolding her for overtaxing herself, but I think it was far more than that. I think he realised, for the first time, that he had married a woman capable of murder.”
“Then why is she there,” he said, pointing to the shroud on the bed, “and not reveling in the success of her homicidal schemes?”
I opened my mouth to explain, then snapped it shut. “I don’t know.”
“Perhaps he realised at last what she had done and decided to stop her in the only way he knew how?” Stoker suggested.
“What an appalling suggestion. He was devoted to her and his grief is real,” I said firmly.
“Married people have been known to be murderous upon occasion,” he reminded me. His fingertip went to his scar, almost absently, and I knew he was thinking of his former wife and the nefarious way she had treated him.
“Yes,” I acknowledged finally, “but can you honestly say that youseeit here?”
“No,” he said at last. “I cannot.” He was silent a long moment, lost in rumination. “It would have been natural to mention she was Lorenzo’s sister, the little Stella he adored. The rest of them had actually met her as a child. She knew Sir James, Tiberius. The purpose of this house party was reminiscence.Whynot reveal she was Lorenzo’s sister?”
“Quite obviously, she could not have done so,” I said. “It would have made her the logical suspect.”
“And since Pietro concealed this, he must be at least her accomplice if not her partner in the murders,” Stoker concluded smoothly. I caught then the gleam of pleasure in his eye as the trap snapped closed.
“Botheration,” I muttered.
“Admit it,” he urged. “Admit that I am right.”
“I shall do no such thing,” I countered. “His grief when Beatrice was found dead was profound, nearly unhinged. You cannot persuade me that he falsified such a display.”
“I do not need to persuade you,” Stoker said. “I am content to be right whether you acknowledge it or not.”
“You are most certainlynot—” I broke off, holding up a hand in a gesture of truce. “It is bad form to argue in front of the corpse. Let us agree that we are divided on the question of Pietro’s guilt. We will interrogate him gently in the morning.”
Naturally, even so simple a suggestion was met with intransigence if not outright rage on Stoker’s part. “You cannot seriously believe we can permit him to roam freely when he may well be a murderer.”
“Feathers! The man is prostrate with grief. He is in no fit state to lurk about the house, killing people. Besides which, he has been dosed with laudanum. If you are nervous, put a chair under your door and sleep with your candle lit.”
