another copy of their code?'
'It does not even exist, I think.'
'And how do you know?'
'You need only add two and two. Buvat told us that, traditionally, only the Maggiorengo-Generai can dictate the new rules. He writes them out in his own hand and the text is read to a general meeting of all the sects who then do whatever is necessary to spread it far and wide. But Ugonio told us that a new Maggiorengo-Generai was to be appointed because the previous one had died. So the only person who knew the contents of that paper, namely its author, was no longer there.'
'At that point, however, the general meeting had already been convened, perhaps months earlier,' said I, taking up the argument. 'Swarms of cerretani were converging from all over Italy and a new code could not be drawn up because there was no time.'
'Of course. Even if, given the emergency, they'd wanted to fashion a new secret language in the place of the late Mag- giorengo-General, how do you imagine those beasts dressed in rags could have managed such a thing in less than a week?'
'It is quite incredible,' I commented, after a brief pause. 'I could never have imagined Sfasciamonti running like that after someone with whom he'd come to terms immediately afterwards.'
'On the contrary, it is absolutely obvious. Corrupt catchpolls are always the first to arrive at the scene of a crime or where there's no more than a suspicion that something could take place; they're already counting the money they hope to extort.'
He fell silent an instant, wiping the sweat from his forehead with one of his fine lace handkerchiefs.
'Do you think that he will make it?'
'Have no fear. Before shooting him, I got him to turn around for two reasons: because he's a traitor, and traitors are shot in the back; and also because I aimed at his backside, the only part of the body where there's nothing one can fracture and there's almost no likelihood of infection.'
Abbot Melani's familiarity with infections caused by firearms caused me to suppose that he had in the past had no little experience of such matters. Like every true spy.
When we arrived, it was already daylight. We arranged to be set down not too near to Villa Spada, so as not to be seen by any of the staff of the villa when we were leaving the carriage.
Atto was exhausted. On his way to his apartment, he had to be supported by myself and Buvat. The servants of the villa, by now inured to our appearing and disappearing at the most absurd hours, pretended not to notice.
Laid on his bed like a dead body, Abbot Melani closed his eyes and prepared for a long sleep. I was on the point of slipping out the door when I saw Atto's nose curl up as it always did in the presence of a bad smell. At the same time, my eyes, no less tired than Atto's limbs, noticed a movement behind the curtains. Looking down, the folds of the curtain failed to conceal a pair of old down-at-heel boots.
'We'll never be free of all this,' said I to myself, at once scared and exasperated. The intruder did not budge, perhaps fearing our reaction. Buvat, Atto and I stiffened in turn, waiting for him to make a move.
'Come out from there, whoever you are,' said the Abbot, grasping his pistol.
There was a moment's silence.
'To be more medicinal than mendacious, I desiderate to submit to your most subliminal decisionality this most modest production of my hardput industrialising,' mumbled a hesitant voice.
The sleeve of a sackcloth cassock stretched out from behind the curtain and held out the remnants of a book that looked as though it had been run over by a hundred carriages.
'My treatise!' said Atto, grasping it and sharply pulling aside the curtain.
Ugonio, in an even sorrier state than usual, wasted no time in idle chatter. He explained that he had escaped from the cerretani only thanks to the Catherine wheel which Buvat had lit just before we escaped from the fray. Once out in the open, he too had carefully avoided the main path, which was why we had not seen him. To return to Rome, he had adventurously purloined a horse from an unguarded stable, at the risk, however, of being caught and slaughtered by the irate owner who had followed him on a filly, armed to the teeth. Now he had come to deliver the promised goods and to receive a last, well-deserved reward.
Abbot Melani was paying no great attention to him, so overcome was he by emotion at recovering his treatise. He opened it and I could at last see with my own eyes the little book for which I had risked life and limb:
Atto proudly read me the frontispiece:
'Secret Memoirs containing the most notable Events of the past four Conclaves, with severall Observations on the Court of Rome.'
'I am most factiously in urgent neediness of the ultimate parcel of my emollyment,' Ugonio solicited, massaging one shoulder. One of his hands was bandaged and there were bloodstains on his face.
'What happened?' asked Atto, turning from his beloved opus. He was still incredulous that the exceedingly skilful Ugonio should have been caught with his hand literally in the sack when stealing the treatise back for him.
'A nothingness, an utteringly minimous snaggle.'
The answer was too evasive not to get on Atto's nerves:
'What does that mean? With all the money I've given you, you let yourself be caught with my treatise in your hand and you call that 'a minor unforeseen contingency'.'
The corpisantaro said nothing, but showed clear signs of embarrassment. His wounds spoke for him: when he was filching the book from the cerretani, something had gone askew, nor could he refuse to explain what had happened. He therefore spoke as though at one remove, explaining after his own fashion (that is, in terms somewhat colourful and bizarre) how the Grand Legator Drehmannius had been wearing a little chain around his neck with a most interesting relic hanging from it: a small wooden crucifix from which hung a small box containing a canine tooth which Ugonio, with his unfailing flair, had at once recognised as coming from the sacred jaw of the Dutch Saint Leboin.
'Who cares! You weren't there to…' Atto interrupted him, then suddenly clapped his hand over his mouth. His little eyes narrowed, becoming as sharp as two daggers about to strike.
'Go on,' said he.
Amidst ambiguities and fragments of sentences, the confession painfully emerged. Ugonio, despite the fact that he had at great personal risk filched Atto's treatise from the Grand Legator's bag, had proved unable to resist temptation. With a feline movement, he had drawn close to the Dutch canter, whispering some empty compliments in his ear. The chaos provoked by the fireworks was still reigned, transforming the whole assembly into one wild, deafening crucible. With one hand, Ugonio had undone the little chain of the crucifix behind the other's neck, whereupon, pretending to lose his balance, he had practically fallen on top of him ('a most hightly commendable and productifer- ous technique!' he gloated) so that his victim should not notice that he was being robbed. The crucifix had fallen into the Grand Legator's lap, whereupon Ugonio had grabbed and pocketed it.
'Just as I thought,' muttered Atto, barely restraining his fury.
As Melani and I well knew, the corpisantari robbed, trafficked and made use of everything they could lay their hands on, but their ruling passion was for holy relics, whether true or false, (and we had witnessed their insane appetite for these things when first we met them seventeen years before). Unfortunately, their unbridled greed for relics all too often got the better of them when there were far more important matters at stake, thus ruining everything. Ugonio's rapacity had all too soon been punished, as he went on to explain, his voice growing more and more feeble with embarrassment.
When, a few minutes later, the Grand Legator scratched his foul mangy chest, he became aware at last of the theft of Saint Leboin's tooth and consequently that of the treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave, which would otherwise have passed unobserved. That was why Ugonio had soon had to run for his life, succeeding in escaping his former allies only by dint of the strength which desperation lent him and with the help of Buvat's Catherine wheel.
'Drehmannius is a silly absent-mindless fellow,' the tomb robber smugly concluded, betraying his genuine ape-like inability to forego his favourite fun and games.
'Beast, animal, idiot!' Atto burst out. 'I paid you a fortune to get back my treatise, not to go hunting for your rubbish!'
