procure an entire bottle, we could, all three of us, steal away to one of the many ill-decorated rooms with which, alas, your parents’ home is filled.’ But he wasn’t finished and turned back to Paola. ‘And there, you using the blandishment of your beauty and your husband his unspeakable policeman’s methods, you could together pry the nasty, niggling, dirty truth out of me. After which, if you were so minded, you, or perhaps’—he broke off and gave Brunetti a long look—’both of you, could have your way with me.’ So that’s the way things were, Brunetti suddenly realized, surprised that he had so successfully missed all the clues.
Paola shot Brunetti an entirely unnecessary warning glance. He liked the man’s excess. He had no doubt that the invitation, wildly put as it had been, was entirely sincere, but that hardly seemed something to become angry about. He went off, as directed, to see about finding a bottle of Scotch.
It was a comment on either the count’s hospitality or the laxity of the staff that he was given a bottle of Glenfiddich for the mere asking. When he got back to them, he found them arm in arm, whispering like conspirators. Padovani hushed Paola to silence and explained to Brunetti, ‘I was just asking her whether, if I were to commit a really heinous crime, perhaps tell her mother what I think of the drapes, you’d take me down to your office to beat me until I confessed.’
‘How do you think I got this?’ Brunetti asked, and held up the bottle.
Padovani and Paola both laughed. ‘Lead us, Paola,’ the writer commanded, ‘to a place where we can have our way with this, if not’— with a cow-eyed glance at Brunetti—’with one another.’
Ever practical, Paola said flatly, ‘We can use the sewing room,’ and led them out of the main salon and through a set of massive double doors. Then, like Ariadne, she led them unerringly down one corridor, turned to the left, down another, through the library, and into a smaller room, in which a number of delicate brocade-covered chairs stood in a semicircle around an enormous television.
‘Sewing room?’ asked Padovani.
‘Before “Dynasty”,’ explained Paola.
Padovani threw himself down into the most substantial chair in the room, swept his patent-leather shoes up onto the intaglio table, and said, ‘Right, darlings, shoot,’ no doubt lapsing into English by the mere force of the presence of the television. When neither of them asked a question, he prompted them. ‘What is it you want to know about the late and not by anyone I can think of lamented Maestro?’
‘Who would want to see him dead?’ Brunetti asked.
‘You are direct, aren’t you? No wonder Paola capitulated with such alarming speed. But to answer your question, you’d need a phone book to hold the list of names.’ He stopped speaking for a while and held out his glass for some whisky. Brunetti poured him a generous glassful, gave himself some, as well, and poured a smaller amount into Paola’s glass. ‘Do you want me to give it to you chronologically, or perhaps by nationality, or a breakdown according to voice type or sexual preference?’ He rested his glass on the arm of his chair and continued slowly. ‘He goes back in time, Wellauer does, and the reasons people hated him go back along with him. You’ve probably heard the rumors about his having been a Nazi during the war. It was impossible for him to stop them, so like the good German he was, he simply ignored them. And no one seemed to mind at all. Not at all. No one does much anymore, do they? Look at Waldheim.’
‘I’ve heard the rumors,’ Brunetti said.
Padovani sipped at his glass, considering how to phrase it. ‘All right, how about nationality? There are at least three Americans I could name, two Germans, and half a dozen Italians who would have been glad to see him dead.’
‘But that hardly means they’d kill him,’ Paola said.
Padovani nodded, granting this. He kicked off his shoes and pulled his feet up under him in the chair. He might be willing to vilify the countess’s taste, but he would never stain her new brocade. ‘He was a Nazi. Take that as given. His second wife was a suicide, which is something you might look into. The first left him after seven years, and even though her father was one of the richest men in Germany, Wellauer gave her a particularly generous settlement. There was talk at the time of nasty things, nasty sexual things, but that,’ he added, sipping again, ‘was when there still existed the idea that there were sexual things that could be nasty. But before you ask, no, I don’t know what those sexual things were.’
‘Would you tell us if you did?’ Brunetti asked.
Padovani shrugged.
‘Now for things professional. He was a notorious sexual blackmailer. Any list of the sopranos and mezzo- sopranos who sang with him ought to give you an idea of that; bright, young, anonymous things who suddenly sang a Tosca or a Dorabella and then just as suddenly disappeared. He was so very good that he was permitted these lapses. Besides, most people can’t tell the difference between great singing and competent singing anyway, so few people noticed, and no great harm was done. And I have to give him the credit that they were always at least competent singers. A few of them even went on to become great singers, but they probably would have done that without him.’
To Brunetti, this hardly sounded sufficient to provoke murder.
‘Those were the careers he helped, but there are just as many he ruined, especially among men of my particular persuasion and,’ he added, sipping at his drink, ‘women of similar taste. The late Maestro was incapable of believing that he was unattractive to any woman. If I were you, I would look into the sexual stuff. The answer might not be there, but it might be a good place to begin. But that,’ he said, pointing with his glass to the enormous television that loomed in front of them, ‘might merely be a response to an overexposure to that.’
He seemed to realize how unsatisfactory his information had been, so he added, ‘In Italy, there are at least three people who had good reason to hate him. But none of them is in a position to have done him any harm. One is singing in the chorus of the Bari Opera Company. He might have become an important Verdi baritone had he not, in the dreadful sixties, made the mistake of not bothering to hide his sexual preference from the Maestro. I’ve even heard that he made the mistake of approaching the Maestro himself, but I can’t believe that anyone could have been that stupid. Probably a myth. Whatever the cause, Wellauer is said to have dropped his name with a columnist who was a friend of his, and the articles started soon thereafter. That’s why he’s singing in Bari. In the chorus.
‘The second is teaching music theory at the Palermo conservatory. I’m not sure what happened between them, but he was a conductor who had received a good deal of excellent publicity. This was about ten years ago, but then his career stopped after a few months of devastating reviews. Here, I admit, I have no direct information, but Wellauer’s name was mentioned in relation to the reviews.
‘The third is only a faint bell in my gossip’s mind, but it involves someone who is said to be living here.’ When he saw their surprise, he amended, ‘No, not in the
