My heart dropped. “Gisela?” I demanded. “Who has?”
Trevisan blinked, then stared at me as though I were a madman. “No, no, not Signorina Proietti. The contessa. My mother.” He seized the lapels of my coat. “She has been kidnapped, and you must bring her back to me.”
Chapter23
Idid not need to ask Trevisan if he was certain. The anguish and fear in his eyes told me of his conviction. I pried his hands from me and waved off Brewster, who’d charged in as soon as Trevisan had come at me.
The two of us succeeded in getting him to sit on a padded bench against the wall, Bartholomew materializing with brandy. Both Donata and Grenville emerged into the gallery above and stared down at us, Donata’s gown rippling like water.
“Who has taken her?” I asked Trevisan as I sat down next to him.
Trevisan gulped the brandy Bartholomew shoved at him and drew a shaking breath. “They sent me this.”
I took the paper from his trembling fingers. It was written in Latin, in capitals, rather like an inscription on an ancient tomb.
Bring the evidence of the crimes to the ancient palace of the people. No vigiles.
The palace of the people. Insurrectionist speech, but that, coupled with the mock inscription made me suspect that we were to take the lists we’d uncovered at de Luca’s.Vigileswas the ancient Roman word for their watchmen, further cementing in my mind who had written the note.
I tucked the paper into my pocket. “Who would know your mother’s routine and how to get to her?”
Trevisan swallowed another gulp of brandy, draining the glass. He seemed grateful for my questions.
“She had gone to evening mass. She goes always on Sunday night—she has not lost faith as I have.”
“Because of what happened to your daughter,” I stated.
His startled glance, full of pain, told me I was correct. “Yes,” Trevisan said bitterly. “Where was God then?”
I too hadn’t had much use for God when my wife had left me, taking Gabriella with her. I had begun to be more grateful once I’d found Gabriella again.
“Sant’Agnese en Agone?” I asked, naming the church in which he’d first met Gisela. “Did she go there tonight?”
Trevisan’s nod wrenched my heart. His eyes were full, his fears tearing down the walls of his reserve.
“Who would have known this?” I asked again.
He shrugged. “So many. Her maid, all the servants, Gisela, Signor Baldini …”
“Lacey,” Grenville exclaimed over the railing, but I remained composed.
“Signor Baldini was angry with you today,” I stated. “When we first met him, he could not sing your praises enough, but today he said your name with bitterness. What had changed?”
“Gisela,” Trevisan whispered. “He was so very outraged.”
I knew, things having straightened in my head as I’d worked on the lists tonight, that Gisela was merely the catalyst that had begun Baldini’s anger. His paragon, Trevisan, hadn’t been a paragon after all, he’d discovered. Baldini’s manner about him when we’d discussed what would happen to de Luca’s hidden cache of artworks had been one of disgust. And he’d been so very interested in the lists.
“How long has your mother been gone?” I asked.
“Several hours. She did not return from mass for supper, as she always does. She had taken a sedan chair—her maid walked and lost her in the crowd. I have been searching the streets … ”
“The contessa entered a sedan chair, but it did not carry her home,” I said. “Your mother does not strike me as one to blithely go along with such things, so I will assume she was given something to keep her quiet.”
Trevisan covered his face with a trembling hand. “This is my fault. I ought to have stayed in Milan, minded my business …”
“You could not have. What you are doing is important.”
He glanced at me in surprise. “How do you know?”
