In the photo, Gregório, in a hat, coat, and tie, a white handkerchief in his coat pocket, had his hands around Vargas’s head, as if smoothing the president’s hair. What caught the inspector’s attention, however, was not that public demonstration of the affection of a hired gun for the man he was protecting. It was the bodyguard’s left hand.
The inspector took from his pocket the ring he had found in Gomes Aguiar’s bathroom and the gold tooth. Inexplicably, to him, they were in the same pocket. He hastily placed the gold tooth on the floor, beside the sofa bed. With the ring in his hand, he again looked at the photo in the newspaper, at what truly interested him, the ring finger of Gregório’s left hand, on which could be seen a ring resembling the one he held at that instant. He recalled the conversation he’d had with the doorman Raimundo about a Negro visiting Gomes Aguiar’s apartment the day of the murder. He put this information together with that of the medical examiner Antonio Carlos, according to which the hairs found on the soap from the dead man’s bathroom were from a Negro. The inspector fought the excitement of the hunt that he was experiencing, which resulted as much from the possible discovery and contingent arrest of the one responsible for the crime as from the identity of the suspect. He had to maintain his clearheadedness and confront such indications coldly: they were merely a clue, a lead to be followed like any other.
He picked up the gold tooth and went into the bathroom. Standing before the mirror, he peeled back his lips and put the gold tooth in front of where it had been previously, now occupied by a porcelain incisor. No one remembered anymore, or perhaps no one even knew, for the dentist who did the work had died, that he once had a gold tooth in his mouth. But he didn’t forget.
The music had stopped. Mattos flipped the LP on the turntable. His stomach was hurting. He needed to eat something. As he was opening the refrigerator, the doorbell rang.
“May I come in?” Alice asked.
“Come in.”
The two stood there, in the living room.
“What opera is that?”
“La Bohème.”
Alice paced from side to side in the small living room.
“Tell me right off what you want to say to me.”
“My husband is Luciana Gomes Aguiar’s lover.”
Alice spoke rapidly, never stopping her pacing.
“That’s what I wanted to tell you that day when we had tea at the Cavé. I had read in the paper that you were investigating her husband’s death.”
“Does your husband know you’re here?”
“No. He went to São Paulo to a boxing match.”
Lomagno had left the night before to attend the fights on Saturday, at the Pacaembu Gymnasium, of two Brazilian pugilists, Ralph Zumbano and Pedro Galasso, against Argentine opponents.
“Sit down, please. Why are you telling me this story of your husband and Luciana Aguiar?”
“I had to get it off my chest with someone.”
Mattos remained silent, avoiding looking his former girlfriend’s face.
“Do you still like me?” Alice asked.
“I don’t know.” A pause. “Get what off your chest?” Now Mattos looked directly at the woman’s face, seeking signs of guile or treachery.
The doorbell rang again.
“Let it ring,” Alice said.
The inspector opened the door.
It was Emilio, the maestro. He removed his Panama hat, passing it to his left hand, which was already holding his cane, and extended his hand to the inspector.
“Forgive me for bothering you at home, but—”
He stopped when he noticed Alice’s presence. “Good afternoon, Miss. I’m an old and humble friend of the gentleman.”
“Come in,” said the inspector.
“May I have a word with you in private?”
Mattos led Emilio to the bedroom.
“Yes, Mr. Emilio. .”
The old man, surprised and disappointed at the modesty of the inspector’s apartment, didn’t know what to say. He chewed his dentures nervously.
“I’m embarrassed to make another request of you. . After all, it hasn’t even been a week. . But I’ll pay it all back to you. . Something unforeseen came up. .”
“I’m broke, Mr. Emilio. I just bought the Encyclopedia Britannica and a collection of classic books. . More than fifty volumes. .”
“Why didn’t you buy them on credit?”
“I bought them at a used bookstore. They don’t sell on credit.” The sounds of Emilio’s dentures touched the inspector.
“What about your girlfriend?. . Could she maybe. .”
“That young woman is not my girlfriend.”
“She’s not? Well, sir, these eyes that the earth will yet consume can spot passion in a woman’s face. .”
“I can’t ask her for money.”
Emilio took an enormous dirty handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes.
“I’m sorry. We old people cry over nothing.”
The inspector put his arms around Emilio’s shoulders. He felt pity at the old man’s fragility and repugnance at the smell of cheap lavender that emanated from his body.
“Wait here.”
The inspector returned to the living room.
“Do you have any money you can lend me?”
“How much do you want?”
“Five hundred cruzeiros.”
“Two hundred, it can be two hundred,” Emilio shouted from the bedroom.
Alice took a checkbook from her purse and signed a check. The inspector took the check and went back to the bedroom. He found Emilio hiding near the door, his mouth open, attentive, trying to hear better. He was starting to go deaf.
The old man took the check. He looked at the amount.
“I’ll be eternally grateful, I won’t forget—”
“Yes, yes. It’s time to leave,” Mattos interrupted, taking Emilio by the arm and leading him to the living room.
In the living room, the old man stopped. He made a sweeping gesture with his hat in Alice’s direction, like a nobleman hailing a queen. Then, at the door, he looked at the man and woman standing gravely in the middle of the living room and said grandiloquently, “The potion that Brangane gave you to drink is not fatal.” This said, he withdrew, dramatically.
“What did he mean?”
“He was doing justice to the five hundred cruzeiros that you gave him.” Mattos flipped the record again. La Bohème in the background gave him a certain feeling of security.
“Who is Brangane? Do you have any matches?”
“A character in an opera. Isolde asks her chambermaid Brangane to prepare a lethal poison for her and Tristan. But the maid prepares a different potion. When they drink it, they rediscover that they love each other.”
“Light my cigarette.”
Mattos lit Alice’s cigarette.
Alice moved closer to the inspector.
“You said rediscover. Did they love each other before?”
“Yes.”
“And after the rediscovery of love, what did they, the lovers, do?”
“Nothing.”
Alice looked closely at the inspector’s face. He had always been hard to understand. At first Alice had thought that her boyfriend’s awareness of his own poverty and an exaggerated pride were the cause of his problems. Later, agreeing with her mother’s opinion, she came to believe that the young man suffered from some kind of psychological morbidity. But who didn’t?
“Why?”
“As a Wagnerian would say, the pathos in the story is that Tristan’s honor prevents their love from being consummated.”
They fell silent.
“Is your husband a Negro?”
“A Negro? My husband?”
“Whoever killed Paulo Machado Gomes Aguiar was a Negro. If your husband isn’t a Negro, he’s not the murderer.”