and to do something new: knives, forks and spoons had been placed vertically in the glasses, which had caused no little astonishment among the guests, while avoiding pointless polemics.
'But with hounds, it is quite a different matter,' insisted another cardinal, who was wearing a striking French wig.
'I beg your pardon?'
'I am only saying that once Prince Perretti had sixty hounds. When the season was over, he'd send them elsewhere for the summer, as hounds suffer from the heat, and thus he economised too.'
It was Cardinal Santa Croce who, overshadowed by his own bulky periwig, sang the praises of hunting to hounds.
'There was no need to remind everyone that he has money problems,' I heard a young canon, not far from me, whisper to his neighbour, taking advantage of the fact that the conversation had broken up in disorder into many little groups.
'Ah, Santa Croce is all at cross purposes with himself,' the other responded with a snigger. 'He's so hungry that his tongue hangs out and the very words that he ought to keep in his mouth come tumbling down onto the floor.'
The speaker was another cardinal, whose name I did not yet know; I noticed that he seemed unwell, and yet he ate and drank enthusiastically, as though his humour were sanguine.
Fate (or rather, another factor, of which I shall speak later) came to my rescue, for at that moment, a servant approached this cardinal with a note.
'Eminence, I have a note for His Eminence Cardinal Spinola
'For Spinola di Santa Cecilia or for my nephew Spinola di San Cesareo, who is sitting on the other side of the table? Or for Spinola, the Chairman of Ripetta? This evening, all three of us are here.'
The servant was speechless for a moment.
'The Major-Domo told me only that it was for His Excellency Cardinal Spinola,' he ventured timidly, his voice almost inaudible amidst the gay clamour of the banquet.
'Then it could be me. Hand it over.'
He opened the note and closed it at once.
'Go and give it at once to Cardinal Spinola di San Cesareo who is seated on the far side. Do you see him? Right over there.'
His neighbour at table had, meanwhile, tactfully turned his attention to his plate and begun again to eat. Spinola di Santa Cecilia (for now it was clear that it was he) turned back to him at once.
'Now, can you believe it? That fool of a Major-Domo made me receive a note from Spada for my nephew, Spinola di San Cesareo.'
'Ah yes?' replied the other, his physiognomy lit up by lively curiosity.
'It said: All three on board tomorrow at dawn. I shall tell A.''
'A? And who would that be?'
'How would I know? Seeing that he wants to go out in a boat, let us only hope that he doesn't drown,' concluded Spinola with a snigger.
The guests took their leave at a rather late hour. I was exhausted. The flame of the torch which I had held aloft for hours had roasted half my face and bathed my whole body in perspiration.
We torchbearers had to wait humbly until the last guest had left the table. Thus, despite my burning desire to ask him for explanations, I was quite unable to approach Atto. I saw him move away, accompanied by Buvat, while the servants were already snuffing out the table candlesticks. He had not deigned to accord me so much as a glance.
Up in the attic, in the big servants' hall, I was so weary that I could barely think. In the dark, amidst the rumble of my companions' snoring, I was a prey to anguish; the Abbot had treated me horribly, as had never before happened between us. Nothing made sense. I was confused, nay, desperate.
I began to fear that I had committed an unpardonable error by agreeing to get involved again with Melani. I had allowed myself to be swept along by events when I ought only to have given myself time to reflect. And perhaps even — why not? — to put the Abbot to the test. Instead, within the space of a single day, Atto had been able to plummet down into my life again as though his coming were the most natural thing in the world. Ah, but the temptation of lucre had been irresistible…
I undressed, and, curling up on one of the pallets that had remained free, I soon slipped into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
'… They dressed him for the undertakers.'
'Where did it happen?'
'In Via dei Coronari. Four or five of them held him up and robbed him of all that he had.'
Conspiratorial whispering, not far from me, had torn me from my slumbers. Two servants were clearly commenting on some dreadful assault.
'But what was his trade?'
'Bookbinder.'
The breathless rush that followed these tidings did not prove as useful as I had expected.
When, after a breakneck descent of the back stairs, I came and knocked at Abbot Melani's door, I found him already up and on a war footing. Far from being still in bed as I had expected, there he was with ink-stained hands, bending over a pile of papers. He must just have finished writing a letter. He greeted me with a countenance heavy and fraught with dark thoughts.
'I have come to inform you of a matter of extreme gravity.'
'I know. Haver, the bookbinder, is dead.'
'How did you learn of it?' I asked, dumbfounded.
'And you, how do you know?'
'I just heard tell of it now, upstairs, from two valets.'
'Then I have sources better than yours. That catchpoll Sfasciamonti has just been here. 'Twas he who told me.'
'At this hour?' I cried out in astonishment.
'I was on the point of sending Buvat to fetch you,' retorted the Abbot, ignoring my question. 'We have an appointment with the catchpoll down below in the coach-house.'
'Are you afraid that this may be connected with the attack upon yourself today?'
''Tis the same thing as you're thinking of; or else you'd not have come rushing here in the middle of the night.'
Without exchanging a word, all three of us went down to the coach-house, where Sfasciamonti was waiting in an old service calash, with a coachman and a team of two horses ready to go.
'A thousand bombs blast 'em!' cried the visibly overexcited catchpoll, while the coachman led the horses out and closed the door behind us. 'It seems that things went like this. Poor Haver slept in the mezzanine above the shop. Three or four men entered the shop during the night, some say there were even more of them. We have no idea how they got in. The door was not forced. They tied up the poor wretch and gagged him by stuffing a piece of wool in his mouth, then they searched the place from top to bottom. They took all the money he had and left. After who knows how long, the bookbinder managed to remove the gag and to cry out. He was found in a state of deep shock. He was utterly terrified. While he was telling the tale to all the neighbours, he felt unwell. When the doctor arrived, he found him dead.'
'Was he wounded?' I asked.
'I have not seen the body, other sergeants arrived before I could. Now my men are seeking information on the case.'
'Are we going to this place?' I asked.
'Almost,' replied the Abbot. 'We shall be going very near there.'
We stopped at Piazza Fiammetta, a short distance from the beginning of the Via dei Coronari. The night was barely lit by a sliver of moon. The air was fresh and pleasant. Sfasciamonti got down and told us to wait there. We looked all around us but saw not a soul. Then a market gardener hove in sight on his cart. Not long after that, a piercing whistle made us jump. It was Sfasciamonti, half concealed in a doorway, from which his rounded belly could, however, just be seen peeping out. He was gesturing to us to join him. We drew near.
