Fanatics

II

I KEPT MY ENTHUSIASM reined in as I looked the coach house over from the inside. There were three overhead garage doors at the front, with a standard entrance on the side facing the main house. Big windows on three walls provided lots of natural light to supplement the overhead fixtures. The concrete floor looked recently painted and was as clean as a dinner plate. The building was fully insulated, and there were electrical outlets spaced every two metres or so along the walls. The power supply-unusual for a garage-looked adequate for my needs.

When I returned to the kitchen Mrs. Stoppini was at the sink rinsing the tea cups.

“Will it suit, do you think?” she asked, wiping her hands on a tea towel.

“It’s perfect,” I was tempted to say. But I settled for “I think it might.”

“Very well. Shall we sit down again and discuss the details?”

Like an awkward kid assembling a difficult Lego figure, Mrs. Stoppini made what she probably thought was a smile.

“Mr. Havelock, I very much hope that you will permit me to describe my proposal in full before you respond,” she began, with her precise enunciation.

“Okay.”

“Splendid. The enquiries I made of my lawyer yielded certain information which I found very much to my satisfaction, and which allowed me to hope you could be of considerable assistance to me and to the late Professor Corbizzi.” She cleared her throat. “I am prepared to lease the coach house to you, exclusively, for a period of three years, for the sum of one dollar.”

“One d-”

She held up a bony hand, palm toward me. “If you please, Mr. Havelock. There is more.”

I recalled Marco Grenoble’s warning: with the Corbizzis there are always strings attached.

Mrs. Stoppini rolled on. “I must share certain information that I will rely upon you to treat with the utmost confidence.”

Meaning, don’t tell anybody. I nodded.

“Indeed, as the late Professor Corbizzi was, and I remain, an extremely private person, everything I am about to tell you must remain confidential. I have been his housekeeper and companion for the past twenty years, first in Italy and then, for a decade or more, here. Professor Corbizzi was a Renaissance scholar, specializing in Tuscan history. He published several books and many articles. He was always devoted to his studies, but toward the end he became more reclusive, even secretive, spending most of his day behind the closed doors of his library. He passed away suddenly-this is, of course, common knowledge. What is not well known is that there was… an incident that immediately preceded his death. An accident. A small fire. These details are my affair, and mine alone.”

She paused and looked at her hands folded in her lap. It was the first time since I’d met her that she seemed to soften, even to search for words. But then she looked up, her composure restored.

“That is the first fact that is pertinent to your decision. The second is this: I am the executrix of the late Professor Corbizzi’s last will and testament. I now own this estate and most of its contents, but nevertheless I require an inventory of Professor Corbizzi’s effects, for legal reasons. A person in my position must conduct matters transparently, so as to satisfy relations who may or may not benefit from the late professor’s will. A certain university is also a beneficiary of a number of items. The objects in the rest of the house I can deal with myself, but to note all the contents of the library is too daunting a challenge even for me. Besides, I… do not wish to be in the library. At all. The late professor seldom permitted it, and in any case I am not… comfortable there.

“This brings me to the third and last item apposite to this discussion, and one that relates directly to your skills and experience. The fire-it was small and easily brought under control-occurred in the library. The authorities concluded that the fireplace was the source, and that the professor, felled by the seizure that ended his life, somehow dislodged a burning log, which then rolled onto the carpet, setting it alight. There is damage to the fireplace mantel, which is of wood, and perhaps the bookshelves on one side, as well as the floor. I trust I have been clear so far?”

“Yes,” I answered, my mind darting about, chasing dozens of questions flushed by her story. “Very clear.”

“I now come to my proposal. In exchange for the three-year lease on the coach house, I require you to complete two tasks. You will repair all damage done by the fire, and you will make the necessary inventory of the library’s contents. You may, within reason, take as long as you deem necessary. I shall provide you with an electronic key to the gate, and you may come and go as you wish. I am always here. I never leave the estate.”

The impulsive angel on my right shoulder whispered, “One dollar! Go for it! Now, before she changes her mind! This is a sweet deal!” The logical angel on my left shoulder cautioned, “Maybe this is too good to be true. Remember? The Corbizzis? Strings? Tell her you need a day or so to think about it. Don’t rush into something you might regret.”

Mrs. Stoppini saved me from being pummelled half to death by two imaginary and opinionated spirits. “I should think you’ll want a day or two to think it over,” she suggested.

“Yes, thanks.”

“Fine. Shall we say two days from today? You may telephone at any time. In the meantime, perhaps you’d care to examine the library?”

I followed the wiry black form of Mrs. Stoppini as she glided along panelled halls, this time to the east wing of the house. Our feet whispered on the oriental rug that covered the central part of the dark hardwood floor. She stopped before a beautifully carved double pocket door sporting a set of brass lion’s-head knobs-smaller versions of the ones on the front door. Mrs. Stoppini rolled the doors open.

Stepping back and to the side she said, “Please enter. I shall be in the kitchen.”

“But-”

“I don’t go in there,” she reminded me.

I heard the doors closing behind me.

III

THE LIBRARY WASN’T in the east wing of the house, it was the east wing-a spacious room full of light, with a view of the lake through wide corner windows, a stone fireplace, antique rugs arranged on the hardwood floor among trestle tables and leather club chairs, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on every wall. I could easily imagine that it had once been a comfortable, restful place where a scholar might spend the day reading for pleasure, doing research, or writing a thesis.

But it didn’t seem that way now. Dozens of books lay scattered on the floor at the end of the room, as if someone had frantically yanked them off the shelves and flung them to the ground. A dark oblong on the hardwood floor indicated that a rug had once lain in front of the hearth between two chairs. One of the chairs lay on its back. Charred wood and blistered varnish scarred the wooden mantel, and tongues of soot streaked the wall and ceiling above the fireplace.

Mrs. Stoppini had said that Professor Corbizzi had suffered some sort of deadly seizure, and the appearance of the room told me it must have been violent. He had probably knocked the heavy chair over when he fell, and when his body hit the rug, the tremor caused a log to roll off the hearth, starting the fire. I shuddered, picturing an old man lying amid smoke and flames, helpless, unable to save himself. I hoped he was dead before the fire got to him.

The professor must have hurled the books to the floor before he fell. Why? What had sparked the kind of rage that made a scholar throw his books around and wreck his own room? Had his anger brought on the fit that killed him? Or had it been panic rather than fury? Had he been searching desperately for something before the seizure came?