Clement IX Rospigliosi was elected. I was present, too.'
I, however, had never addressed a word to the old Archiater. Tiracorda, having been chief physician to two popes, was honoured in the quarter, so much so that he was still addressed as Archiater, although in reality his office was now that of locum. He lived in a little palazzo belonging to Duke Salviati, situated in the Via dell'Orso, only a few houses beyond the Donzello, on the corner of the Via della Stufa delle Donne. The map of the underground galleries which Atto Melani had drawn had proven to be accurate: moving from one gallery to another and coming to Tiracorda's stable, we had almost arrived back at our point of departure. I knew little, indeed very little indeed, about Tiracorda: that he had a wife (perhaps the Paradisa whose name we had heard him call not long before), and that in their large and fine house there also lived two or three maidservants who helped with the work of the household, and that he practised his art at the Arcispedale di Santo Spirito, at Sassia.
He was more rotund than tall, with rounded shoulders and almost no neck, and a great prominent stomach on which he often rested his joined hands, as though he incarnated the virtues of patience and tolerance. All this suggested a phlegmatic and pusillanimous character. Sometimes I had seen him from a window walking down the Via dell'Orso, trotting along in a garment that reached almost to his feet; oft had I observed him, smoothing his mustachios and the goatee on his chin, in lively conversation with some shopkeeper. Caring little for periwigs despite his baldness, with his hat constantly in hand, his slightly bumpy pate, crowning a low, wrinkled forehead and pointed ears, shone in the sun. Crossing his path, I had once been struck by how rosy his cheeks were and how kindly his expression: with eyebrows that screened the deep-set eyes and the tired eyelids of a physician accustomed, yet never resigned, to looking upon the suffering of others.
When we had covered the most difficult portion of the return journey, Abbot Melani asked Ugonio if he could procure him a copy of the key which he had used to open the stable door.
'I assure your most worshipful decisionality that I shall not emit to execute your desideration; and that, upon the earliest importunity. However, to be more padre than parricide, it would have been more perfectly ameliorating to have had it fabricated upon the past nocturn.'
'Are you telling me that it would have been better to have the copy of the key made last night?'
Ugonio appeared to be surprised by the question.
'Indubiously, in the street of the chiavari, the key-facturers, where Komarek impresses.'
Atto's forehead creased. He plunged a hand into his pocket and drew out the page from the Bible. Several times, he passed the palm of his hand over it, then held it up to the light of the lantern which he held in his hand. I saw him carefully examine the shadows which the folds cast in the lamplight.
'Confound it, how can I have allowed that to escape me?' cursed Abbot Melani.
And he pointed out with his finger a form which I only then seemed able to detect in the middle of the. paper: 'If you observe carefully, despite the precarious condition of this piece of paper,' he began explaining to me, 'you will be able to find more or less in the middle of the paper the outline of a large key with an oblong head, exactly like that of the closet. Look, just here, where the paper has remained smoother, while on either side it is crumpled.'
'So this piece of paper is just the wrapping of a key?' I concluded, in surprise.
'Precisely. And it was indeed in the Via dei Chiavari, where all the locksmiths and makers of keys have their shops, that we found the clandestine workshop of Komarek, the printer used by Stilone Priaso.'
'Ah, then I understand,' I deduced. 'Stilone Priaso stole the key and then went to have a copy made in the Via dei Chiavari, near Komarek's place.'
'No, dear boy. Some of the guests-you yourself told me this, do you not remember? — said that they had stayed at the Locanda del Donzello previously.'
'That is true: Stilone Priaso, Bedfordi and Angiolo Brenozzi,' I recalled, 'in the days of the late lamented Signora Luigia.'
'Good. That means that Stilone most probably already had a copy of the key to the little room that leads from the inn to the underground galleries. Moreover, he already had sufficient reason to visit Komarek, in order to have some clandestine gazettes and almanacks printed. No, we need not look for one of Komarek's clients, but simply one of our own guests. The person who briefly removed Master Pellegrino's bunch of keys needed to have a copy made of the key to the closet.'
'And then the thief is Padre Robleda! He mentioned Malachi to see how I would react: perhaps he realised that he had lost the sheet of paper with the prophecy of Malachi underground and thought up a trick worthy of the best spies to unmask me, just as Dulcibeni says,' I exclaimed, after which I told Atto of Dulcibeni's harangue about the Jesuits' vocation for spying.
'Ah yes. Perhaps the thief is none other than Padre Robleda, also because…'
'Gfrrrlubh,' interrupted Ciacconio politely.
'Errorific and fellatious argumentations,' translated Ugonio.
'How, pray?' asked Abbot Melani incredulously.
'Ciacconio assures that the provenance of the foliables is not Malachi: this, with all due circumspect for your decisionality, and, of course, decreasing the scrupules rather than increasing one's scruples.'
At the same time, from under his clothing Ciacconio produced a little Bible, worn and filthy, but still legible.
'Do you always keep it on you?' I asked.
'Gfrrrlubh.'
'He is exceedingly religious: a bigot, almost a trigot,' explained Ugonio.
We looked in the index for the Book of Malachi. It was the last of the twelve books of the minor prophets, and so was to be found among the last pages of the Old Testament. I turned the pages rapidly until I found the title and, with some difficulty because of the microscopic characters, began reading:
PROPHETHIA MALACHITE
CAPVT I.
Onus verbi Domini ad Israel in manu Malachiae.
Dilexi vos, dicit Dominus, amp; dixistis: in quo dilexisti nos? Nonne frater erat Esau Iacob, dicit Dominus, amp; dilexi Iacob, Esau autem odio habui? amp; posui montes ejus in solitudinem, amp; hereditatem ejus in dracones deserti.
Quod si dixerit Idumaea: Destructi sumus, sed revertentes aedificabimus quae destructa sunt: Haec dicit Dominus exercituum: Isti aedificabunt, amp; ego destruam: amp; vocabuntur terminis impietatis, amp; populus cui iratus est Dominus usque in aeternum.
Et oculi vestri videbunt: amp; vos dicetis: Magnificetur Dominus super terminum Israel.
Filius honorat patrem, amp; servus dominum suum: si ergo Pater ergo sum, ubi est honor meus? amp; si Dominus ego sum, ubi est timor meus? dicit Dominus exercituum ad vos, amp; sacerdotes, qui despicitis nomen meum, amp; dixitis: In quo despeximus nomen tuum?…
I broke off: Abbot Melani had taken from his pocket the sheet of paper found by Ugonio and Ciacconio. We compared the two. Although mutilated, one could read in it the names Ochozias, Accaron and Beelzebub, all of which were absent. Not a single word corresponded. 'So… it is another text of Malachi,' I observed hesitantly. 'Gfrrrlubh,' retorted Ciacconio, shaking his head. 'To be more auspicious than haruspicious and more medicinal than mendacious, the foliable is, as Ciacconio suggested and ingested, with all deference to the sagacity of your decisionality, from the secondesimal Book of Kings.'
And he explained that 'Malachi', the truncated word which could be read on the scrap of Bible, was not 'Malachia', the Latin name of the prophet, but what remained of the word 'Malachim', which in Hebrew means 'Kings'. This is because, Ugonio explained patiently, in many Bibles, the title is written according to the version of the Hebrews, which does not always correspond to the Christian one. The Christians do not, for example, admit among the Holy Scriptures, the two books of the Maccabees. Consequently, the complete title, mutilated and masked by the bloodstains, originally read, according to the corpisantari:
Carattere Lettura Tonda.
LIBER REGUM.
Secundus Malachim.
Caput Primum.
'Liber Regum' meant 'Book of Kings', while 'Secundus Malachim' stood for the 'Second Book of Kings' and not
