books, pens and inkstands, pots and pans, distorts and alembics, stuffed eagles and embalmed foxes, mousetraps, bear skins, crucifixes, missals, sacred vestments, tables large and tables small, hammers, saws and scalpels, entire collections of nails of all sizes, and then arrays of wooden planks, bits of old iron, brooms and brushes, rags and cloths, bones, skulls and ribs, buckets of oil, balsams, ointments and innumerable other disgusting things.
All these, however, were mixed with vases full of rings, bracelets and golden pendants, boxes of Roman medals and coins, frames and ornaments of the finest quality, silverware, porcelain dinner and coffee services, jewel cases, carafes, bowls and glasses of the finest Bohemian crystal, tablecloths from Flanders, velvets and upholstery materials, arquebuses, swords and daggers, entire collections of precious paintings, landscapes, portraits of ladies and of popes, nativities and annunciations, all roughly piled up one against the other and covered in layer upon layer of dust.
'Good heavens,' exclaimed Sfasciamonti despite himself. 'This seems almost like…'
'I know what you are about to say,' interrupted Atto. 'The proceeds of the last three hundred thousand thefts committed in Rome during the Jubilee.'
'It turns one's stomach,' replied the catchpoll.
'What they said about you was true,' continued Atto, addressing Ugonio. 'During the Holy Year, your business prospers even more than usual. You will, I imagine, have made some special vow to the Blessed Virgin.'
The corpisantaro did not respond to the Abbot's irony. I, meanwhile, was looking around prudently in the midst of all that vile chaos, taking care not to knock anything over. One had to proceed down narrow aisles between one heap and the next, without disturbing anything. Failure to do so might result, not only in breaking a vase but getting oneself buried under an avalanche of books, or a pyramid of amphorae, clumsily stacked on top of some rickety old cupboard. Something in a dark corner, half hidden beneath a tumulus of old sheets and a precious golden pyx, attracted my attention. It was a strange ironwork device, like a bush made up of curved pieces of tin and iron sheeting. I took it in my hand and showed it to Atto, who was approaching. He picked up the tangle of iron and his eyes opened wide as he examined it.
'This once was two armillary spheres. Or perhaps three, I cannot tell. These beasts have succeeded in reducing it to mere wreckage.'
There were in fact two or three of these special devices in the form of a globe, consisting of several iron hoops rotating concentrically around an axis and fixed on a pedestal, which are used by scientists to calculate the movement of heavenly bodies.
'The expropriament was complicationed by an unforesightable,' said Ugonio in an attempt to justify himself. 'Unfortuitously, the objectivities got jammied one against t'other.'
'Yes, jammied,' murmured Atto in disgust, casting aside the little tangle of metal and exploring the mass of junk. 'I have no difficulty in imagining what happened. After the theft, you will have gone off and got drunk somewhere. I suppose that here there will also be… Oh, here we are.'
It was a row of cylindrical objects, standing vertically on the flagstones, one beside the other. Atto picked up one that seemed a little less dusty and ill-used than the others.
'Excellent,' said Melani, dusting the cylinder down with his sleeve. 'Those who don't die, meet again.'
Then he handed it to me with a triumphal smile.
'Your spyglass!' I exclaimed. 'Then it is true that the German was behind this.'
'Of course he stole it. Like the others in this collection.'
On the ground there stood a little forest of telescopes of all shapes and sizes, some brand new, others filthy and falling to pieces.
Sfasciamonti too drew near and began to rummage about near the telescopes. At length, he picked up from the ground a large device that seemed familiar, and showed it to me.
MACROSCOPIUM HOC
JOHANNES VANDEHARIUS
FECIT
AMSTELODAMI MDCLXXXIII
'This is the other microscope stolen from the learned Dutchman, as reported to me by the sergeants my colleagues, do you remember?' said he, 'it is the twin of the one which I and you recovered from the cerretano a few nights ago.'
The hooded troop looked on powerless and embarrassed at the unmasking of their trafficking. We all looked at Ugonio.
'You also stole my handwritten treatise,' hissed Melani spitefully.
The corpisantaro's hump seemed even more bent, as though he were struggling to become even smaller and darker in his desire to escape the consequences of his misdeeds.
Sfasciamonti drew the dagger and grabbed Ugonio by the collar of his filthy greatcoat.
'Ow!' he cried, at once loosening his grip.
The catchpoll had pricked a finger. He turned the collar of Ugonio's jacket and drew out a brooch. I recognised it at once: it was the scapular of the Madonna of the Carmel, the ex voto stolen from Abbot Melani. And above it were still sewn my three little Venetian pearls which Atto had so lovingly kept on his person all these years.
The catchpoll tore the relic from Ugonio's breast and handed it to Atto. The Abbot took it between two fingers.
'Er, I think it would be better if you held onto this,' said he with a hint of embarrassment, turning away as he handed it to me.
I was happy. This time, I would hold jealously onto my three little pearls, as a keepsake of that Abbot Melani who was from time to time capable of an affectionate gesture. I grasped the relic, not without a grimace of disgust at the dreadful odour emanating from it after its prolonged sojourn close to the corpisantaro.
Sfasciamonti, meanwhile, had returned to work and was holding the dagger against Ugonio's cheek.
'And now for Abbot Melani's treatise.'
Atto grasped the pistol. The corpisantaro did not need to be asked twice:
'I have not stealed anyfing: I executioned a levy on commissionary,' he whispered.
'Ah! A theft on commission,' Atto translated, turning to us. 'Just as I suspected. And on whose behalf? That of your wretched compatriot the Imperial Ambassador Count von Lamberg, perhaps? Now, tell me, do you also have people stabbed on commission?' he asked emphatically, showing Ugonio the arm wounded by the fleeing cerretano.
The corpisantaro hesitated an instant. He looked all around, trying to work out what the consequences might be for him if he were to remain silent: Atto's pistol, the dagger in Sfasciamonti's grasp, the corpulent bulk of the latter, and, on the other hand, his band of friends, numerous, but all more or less halt or lame…
'I was commissionaried by the electors of the Maggiorengo,' he replied at last.
'Who the Devil are they?' we all asked in unison.
Ugonio's explanation was long and confused, but with a good dose of patience, and thanks to some recollections of his extraordinary gibberish, retained from the events of many years ago, we did manage to grasp, if not all the details, at least the main message. The matter was simple. The cerretani elected a representative at regular intervals, a sort of king of vagabonds. He was known as the Maggiorengo-General and was crowned at a great ceremony of all the sects of cerretani. We learned among other things that the previous Maggiorengo had recently passed on to a better life.
'And what has all this to do with the theft which they commissioned you to carry out?'
'Of that I am iggorant, with all due condescendent respect to your most sublimated decisionality. Ne'er do we ejaculate the why and wherefore of a levy. 'Tis a problem of secretion!'
'You are not speaking because it is a matter of secrecy between you and your client? Do you imagine you are going to get away with it that easily?' threatened Melani.
The dusty and suffocating storeroom in which we stood was lit by a few torches set into the wall, the smoke from which escaped through channels set above the flames of the torches themselves. Atto suddenly grabbed one of these torches and held it next to a nearby pile of papers, which seemed to me to consist of legal and notarial deeds stolen from who knows where by the corpisantari.
'If you will not tell me to whom you have given my manuscript treatise, as true as God exists, I shall set fire to everything in here.'
