the mess. She could now understand why Nick was so devastated by the fire. All his possessions were ruined — blackened lumps in a fire-seared room. But Katie, already covered in soot, was exultant as she bounced around the room.
“It’s not here.”
Cat took in a deep breath, holding in her exasperation. She calmed Katie down with a downward wave of her hands.
“For God’s sake, don’t you start. Just tell me what it is that isn’t here.”
Her answer came from the doorway, where Zuliani now stood.
“The salamander cloak. I should have realized sooner, but I wasn’t thinking then of anyone having escaped the fire.”
Cat was shocked.
“Escaped? How could anyone have escaped the fire? If it was as bad as you described …” She waved her hand around the room. “… as bad as it looks, no one could have escaped. It started on the ground floor and, from what you have said, Tiepolo was driven up the stairs. How could he escape from there? Unless he flew.”
Katie clapped her hands with pleasure.
“Tell her about the cloak, Nick.” She turned to Cat. “It’s made of salamander hair, you know.”
Zuliani laughed at the monstrous idea.
“Where did you hear that? All that is just part of the myth that no one really believes. The reality is that a fire-proof material does exist, and it’s made of material dug from the ground. I have seen it produced, and it is grey when woven. Throw it in a fire and it emerges undamaged, though by then it is white. There is a Greek word used for it — as?est??. Asbestos means unquenchable. I had a cloak of this material, and it should be in this upper room. Even the fire should not have damaged it. So, if it is not here, then someone wore it to flee the fire.”
Cat was catching on quickly.
“Then Tiepolo could be alive. But it doesn’t explain why he was in your house in the first place. Though he should thank his lucky stars that, as he was, he could use this miraculous cloak.”
Zuliani shook his head.
“No. It was not chance that led him here. You see, it was only days before the failed conspiracy that I showed Tiepolo my whole collection in this very room. He was one of a very few who knew about the salamander cloak.”
Katie was bursting to speak, so Zuliani allowed her to complete the curious sequence of events.
“He planned it from the beginning, gran. Once he was on the run, he knew he would be safe if he could fake his own death. Recalling seeing the cloak, he broke into Nick’s house — ”
“When I was conveniently away.”
Katie acknowledged this with a little bow of the head.
“Tiepolo was in luck there — though perhaps not, thinking about it. Perhaps you, Nick, were going to be the body found after the fire. Then no one would have worked out his means of escape.”
Zuliani went pale at the thought that had not occurred to him. Katie was right. Tiepolo would not have left anything to chance. He was to have been Tiepolo’s stand-in body and, when he was found not to be at home, Tiepolo’s lieutenant, Girolamo Lando, had been killed instead.
“It is I who was the lucky one, then.”
Cat rounded off the story.
“Tiepolo’s other stroke of bad luck was his escape. He had thought no one would see him leaving by the secret back door, used only by the conspirators. But he had not bargained on the nosiness of your neighbour, Justinia. What she thought was Tiepolo’s soul flying to Heaven was a very corporeal Tiepolo wrapped in … asbestos.” She sighed. “So he has escaped justice, after all.”
Zuliani raised a finger, and winked.
“Don’t be so quick to despair. Remember, there is one more place for us to call this morning.”
Cat was puzzled.
“You said the docks, didn’t you? What can be there?”
Zuliani grin wolfishly.
“Come and see.”
The morning mist was clearing, though some stray strands of it weaved around the only ship at the dockside. Since the pope’s proclamations on Venice, hardly anyone dared trade — and stand to lose everything to marauders sanctioned by the Church. But one solitary ship was ready to sail, and a group of men huddled on the quay ready to board. Each had his cloak pulled around him and the hood up against the cold wind blowing off the lagoon.
“Whose ship is that?”
Zuliani answered Cat’s question.
“It is Tiepolo’s colleganza, and I see those seeking passage on it are ready to board.”
Cat made a move to walk down to the ship, but Zuliani stayed her with his arm.
“Just watch. My little errand this morning was to ask the captain the time of his sailing. And to ask him a favour — to shake the hand of everyone as they boarded.”
“Why?”
“You will see, Katie.”
They watched as each man was welcomed aboard in the way Zuliani had prescribed. Each man took the captain’s proferred hand and shook it. The last man, well wrapped up from the weather, winced as the captain squeezed his hand heartily. Zuliani whooped in delight, and ran down the quay, his fur-trimmed robe flying out behind him. He grabbed the final passenger by the arm firmly, pulling him back on to the quay.
“Francesco, I think you have a case to face here in Venice.”
As the big man turned round, his hood fell away. His features were reddened by fire, and his eyebrows had been singed off. But it was unmistakeably Francesco Tiepolo. He snarled at Zuliani, and would have aimed a blow at him, had not the captain held him back. Something heavy fell from his cloak on to the quay. Zuliani scooped it up with a whoop of delight. It was the gold
“Damn you. You should have burned in that fire, then no one would have known anything. A perfect crime that could never have taken place before now, as no one knew of the salamander cloak but you.”
“And which can never happen again, now the cat is out the bag. Trade with the East means that more and more will know about the magical properties of asbestos.”
Zuliani snapped his fingers in Tiepolo’s face as the burly figure of one of the Signore di Notte appeared out of the mists. Zuliani had requested their presence earlier. As he and Cat and Katie watched Tiepolo being led away, the girl asked a question that had been burning to be asked.
“Why did you ask the captain to shake the men’s hands?”
Zuliani’s face broke out in a superior smile.
“I wanted to be sure which man was Tiepolo. Tell me something, Katie, what was your natural movement every time you descended the stairs in my house?”
The girl paused for a moment, then grinned.
“I always put my hand on the bottom newel post, where the cast iron lizard sits.”
“Exactly. I always did it, even as a child. I reckoned Tiepolo would have done it too, especially as he was groping through the flames with the asbestos hood over his eyes. He would have reached out for the bottom newel, and the metal would have been very hot. I am sure that, if you looked at his hand, you would see, burned into the flesh, the image of a salamander.”
Hide and Seek
TONY POLLARD
