"Excellent," said Melani, dusting the cylinder down with his sleeve. "Those who don't die, meet again."
Then he handed it to me with a triumphal smile.
"Your spyglass!" I exclaimed. "Then it is true that the German was behind this."
"Of course he stole it. Like the others in this collection."
On the ground there stood a little forest of telescopes of all shapes and sizes, some brand new, others filthy and falling to pieces.
Sfasciamonti too drew near and began to rummage about near the telescopes. At length, he picked up from the ground a large device that seemed familiar, and showed it to me.
MACROSCOPIUM HOC
JOHANNES VANDEHARIUS
FECIT
AMSTELODAMI MDCLXXXIII
"This is the other microscope stolen from the learned Dutchman, as reported to me by the sergeants my colleagues, do you remember?" said he, "it is the twin of the one which I and you recovered from the cerretano a few nights ago."
The hooded troop looked on powerless and embarrassed at the unmasking of their trafficking. We all looked at Ugonio.
"You also stole my handwritten treatise," hissed Melani spitefully.
The corpisantaro's hump seemed even more bent, as though he were struggling to become even smaller and darker in his desire to escape the consequences of his misdeeds.
Sfasciamonti drew the dagger and grabbed Ugonio by the collar of his filthy greatcoat.
"Ow!" he cried, at once loosening his grip.
The catchpoll had pricked a finger. He turned the collar of Ugonio's jacket and drew out a brooch. I recognised it at once: it was the scapular of the Madonna of the Carmel, the ex voto stolen from Abbot Melani. And above it were still sewn my three little Venetian pearls which Atto had so lovingly kept on his person all these years.
The catchpoll tore the relic from Ugonio's breast and handed it to Atto. The Abbot took it between two fingers.
"Er, I think it would be better if you held onto this," said he with a hint of embarrassment, turning away as he handed it to me.
I was happy. This time, I would hold jealously onto my three little pearls, as a keepsake of that Abbot Melani who was from time to time capable of an affectionate gesture. I grasped the relic, not without a grimace of disgust at the dreadful odour emanating from it after its prolonged sojourn close to the corpisantaro.
Sfasciamonti, meanwhile, had returned to work and was holding the dagger against Ugonio's cheek.
"And now for Abbot Melani's treatise."
Atto grasped the pistol. The corpisantaro did not need to be asked twice:
"I have not stealed anyfing: I executioned a levy on commissionary," he whispered.
"Ah! A theft on commission," Atto translated, turning to us. "Just as I suspected. And on whose behalf? That of your wretched compatriot the Imperial Ambassador Count von Lamberg, perhaps? Now, tell me, do you also have people stabbed on commission?" he asked emphatically, showing Ugonio the arm wounded by the fleeing cerretano.
The corpisantaro hesitated an instant. He looked all around, trying to work out what the consequences might be for him if he were to remain silent: Atto's pistol, the dagger in Sfasciamonti's grasp, the corpulent bulk of the latter, and, on the other hand, his band of friends, numerous, but all more or less halt or lame…
"I was commissionaried by the electors of the Maggiorengo," he replied at last.
"Who the Devil are they?" we all asked in unison.
Ugonio's explanation was long and confused, but with a good dose of patience, and thanks to some recollections of his extraordinary gibberish, retained from the events of many years ago, we did manage to grasp, if not all the details, at least the main message. The matter was simple. The cerretani elected a representative at regular intervals, a sort of king of vagabonds. He was known as the Maggiorengo-General and was crowned at a great ceremony of all the sects of cerretani. We learned among other things that the previous Maggiorengo had recently passed on to a better life.
"And what has all this to do with the theft which they commissioned you to carry out?"
"Of that I am iggorant, with all due condescendent respect to your most sublimated decisionality. Ne'er do we ejaculate the why and wherefore of a levy. 'Tis a problem of secretion!"
"You are not speaking because it is a matter of secrecy between you and your client? Do you imagine you are going to get away with it that easily?" threatened Melani.
The dusty and suffocating storeroom in which we stood was lit by a few torches set into the wall, the smoke from which escaped through channels set above the flames of the torches themselves. Atto suddenly grabbed one of these torches and held it next to a nearby pile of papers, which seemed to me to consist of legal and notarial deeds stolen from who knows where by the corpisantari.
"If you will not tell me to whom you have given my manuscript treatise, as true as God exists, I shall set fire to everything in here."
Atto was serious. Ugonio gave a start. At the idea of all his patrimony going up in smoke, he grew pale, at least as far as the parchment pallor of his face permitted it. First, he tried blandishments, then he tried to persuade Melani that he was placing himself in some ill-defined danger, this being a particularly delicate moment as the milieu of the cerretani had been shaken by a grievous robbery perpetrated against them.
"A grievous robbery? Robbers aren't robbed," sneered Atto. "What have they stolen from the cerretani?'
"Their novated lingo."
"Their new language? Languages cannot be stolen because they cannot be possessed, only spoken. Try inventing something else, you idiot."
In the end, Ugonio gave in and explained his offer to the Abbot.
"Agreed," said Atto in the end. "If you keep your side of the promise, I shall not destroy this wretched place. You know full well that I can do it," said Atto, before having us accompanied to the exit. "Sergeant, have you anything else to ask these animals?"
"Not now. I am curious to see whether they will keep their word tomorrow. Now, let us go. I do not wish to remain too long absent from Villa Spada."
"Ugonio recognised me as soon as he saw me from close up. Do you think it possible that he did not know from whom he was stealing the treatise and the telescope?" I asked Melani.
"Of course he knew. Rascals like him always know where they're sticking their hands."
"And yet, he didn't think twice about doing it."
"Certainly not. Evidently, the pressure from whoever commissioned him was too great. They must have offered him a great deal of money; or perhaps he was too afraid of failing."
"Now I understand! That was why I always had the feeling of being watched at the Villa Spada," I exclaimed.
"What are you saying?" asked Atto in astonishment.
"I never told you this, because I was not sure of what I was seeing around me. We have already encountered so many strange things," I added, alluding to the apparitions at the Vessel. "I didn't want to make it look as though I'd become a visionary. Yet, several times in the past few days, I have had the feeling of being spied on. It was as though… well, as though they were constantly keeping an eye on me from behind hedges."
"Obviously. Even a child could see that: it must have been Ugonio and the other corpisantari' said Atto, irritated by my slow thinking."Perhaps," I thought aloud, "they may even have been following us on the evening when we were drugged. Some rather strange fellows came into the wine shop where we had stopped, some mendicants who seemed to be spoiling for a fight. There was even a brawl which forced us to abandon our table. They almost knocked over the jug of wine."
"The jug of wine?" exclaimed Atto, wide-eyed.
I told him then of the scuffle that had broken out in the wine shop, which I and Buvat had witnessed, and how we had momentarily lost sight of our table. Atto exploded: