We torchbearers had to wait humbly until the last guest had left the table. Thus, despite my burning desire to ask him for explanations, I was quite unable to approach Atto. I saw him move away, accompanied by Buvat, while the servants were already snuffing out the table candlesticks. He had not deigned to accord me so much as a glance.
Up in the attic, in the big servants' hall, I was so weary that I could barely think. In the dark, amidst the rumble of my companions' snoring, I was a prey to anguish; the Abbot had treated me horribly, as had never before happened between us. Nothing made sense. I was confused, nay, desperate.
I began to fear that I had committed an unpardonable error by agreeing to get involved again with Melani. I had allowed myself to be swept along by events when I ought only to have given myself time to reflect. And perhaps even — why not? — to put the Abbot to the test. Instead, within the space of a single day, Atto had been able to plummet down into my life again as though his coming were the most natural thing in the world. Ah, but the temptation of lucre had been irresistible…
I undressed, and, curling up on one of the pallets that had remained free, I soon slipped into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
"… They dressed him for the undertakers."
"Where did it happen?"
"In Via dei Coronari. Four or five of them held him up and robbed him of all that he had."
Conspiratorial whispering, not far from me, had torn me from my slumbers. Two servants were clearly commenting on some dreadful assault.
"But what was his trade?"
"Bookbinder."
The breathless rush that followed these tidings did not prove as useful as I had expected.
When, after a breakneck descent of the back stairs, I came and knocked at Abbot Melani's door, I found him already up and on a war footing. Far from being still in bed as I had expected, there he was with ink-stained hands, bending over a pile of papers. He must just have finished writing a letter. He greeted me with a countenance heavy and fraught with dark thoughts.
"I have come to inform you of a matter of extreme gravity."
"I know. Haver, the bookbinder, is dead."
"How did you learn of it?" I asked, dumbfounded.
"And you, how do you know?"
"I just heard tell of it now, upstairs, from two valets."
"Then I have sources better than yours. That catchpoll Sfasciamonti has just been here. 'Twas he who told me."
"At this hour?" I cried out in astonishment.
"I was on the point of sending Buvat to fetch you," retorted the Abbot, ignoring my question. "We have an appointment with the catchpoll down below in the coach-house."
"Are you afraid that this may be connected with the attack upon yourself today?"
"'Tis the same thing as you're thinking of; or else you'd not have come rushing here in the middle of the night."
Without exchanging a word, all three of us went down to the coach-house, where Sfasciamonti was waiting in an old service calash, with a coachman and a team of two horses ready to go.
"A thousand bombs blast 'em!" cried the visibly overexcited catchpoll, while the coachman led the horses out and closed the door behind us. "It seems that things went like this. Poor Haver slept in the mezzanine above the shop. Three or four men entered the shop during the night, some say there were even more of them. We have no idea how they got in. The door was not forced. They tied up the poor wretch and gagged him by stuffing a piece of wool in his mouth, then they searched the place from top to bottom. They took all the money he had and left. After who knows how long, the bookbinder managed to remove the gag and to cry out. He was found in a state of deep shock. He was utterly terrified. While he was telling the tale to all the neighbours, he felt unwell. When the doctor arrived, he found him dead."
"Was he wounded?" I asked.
"I have not seen the body, other sergeants arrived before I could. Now my men are seeking information on the case."
"Are we going to this place?" I asked.
"Almost," replied the Abbot. "We shall be going very near there."
We stopped at Piazza Fiammetta, a short distance from the beginning of the Via dei Coronari. The night was barely lit by a sliver of moon. The air was fresh and pleasant. Sfasciamonti got down and told us to wait there. We looked all around us but saw not a soul. Then a market gardener hove in sight on his cart. Not long after that, a piercing whistle made us jump. It was Sfasciamonti, half concealed in a doorway, from which his rounded belly could, however, just be seen peeping out. He was gesturing to us to join him. We drew near.
"Hey, go easy," we both protested when he dragged us both by brute force into the dank, dark porch.
"Hush!" hissed the catchpoll, flattening himself against the front door behind one of the pilasters framing it.
"Two cerretani, they were stalking you. When they saw me, they hid. Perhaps they've gone now. I must go and see."
"Were they shadowing us?" Atto asked worriedly.
We held our breath. Prudently craning our necks, we caught sight of two ragged and emaciated old tramps, crossing the road.
"You are a dunderhead, Sfasciamonti," whispered Atto, uttering a sigh of relief. "Do you really think those two half-dead wretches could spy on anyone?"
"The cerretani watch over you without giving themselves away. They are secretive," answered the catchpoll without so much as batting an eyelid.
"Very well," cut in Abbot Melani, "have you spoken with the person I told you to find?"
"All in order, by the recoil of a thousand howitzers!" came the catchpoll's immediate reassurance, accompanied by his curious imprecations.
The place was in a side-road giving onto the Via dei Coronari, scarcely a block away from the bookbinder's shop. We arrived there by the most tortuous route, as Atto and Sfasciamonti wanted at all costs to avoid passing in front of the scene of the crime, where there was a risk of encountering the sergeants assigned to the case. Fortunately, darkness was our ally.
"Why are we hiding, Signor Atto? We have nothing to do with the death of the bookbinder," said I.
Melani did not answer me.
"The criminal judge has assigned new officers to the case. I do not know them," announced Sfasciamonti as we left Piazza Fiammetta behind us, setting off towards Piazza San Salvatore in Lauro.
We defiled through the alleyways of the quarter, where Buvat stumbled upon a sleeping congregation of ragged friars, barely managing to avoid falling against a pile of boxes and baskets belonging to street vendors who lay dozing as they awaited dawn and their first customers. Under the cloths and blankets delicious odours betrayed the presence of French lettuces, sweet lupin seeds, fresh waffles and cheese.
The rendezvous was far removed from prying eyes, in the shop of a coronaro, that is, a maker of rosaries. We were welcomed by the artisan, an old man with a face covered in wrinkles who greeted Melani with great deference, as though he were long acquainted with him, and led us towards the back of the shop. We made our way through that cool little den replete with great rosaries made of wood and of bone, of every form and colour, finely interwoven and hanging on the walls or laid on little tables. The coronaro opened a drawer.
"Here you are, Sir," said he respectfully as he handed the Abbot a packet enveloped in blue velvet, which seemed to me to be in the form of a little picture.
After saying this, the coronaro disappeared with Sfasciamonti into the back room. Atto gestured to Buvat that we were to follow them.
I could not understand. Why ever should the death of the bookbinder have led us into that shop of devotional objects to take delivery of what I imagined to be the picture of some saint, presumably to be hung on the wall? I was unable to make a connection between the two things.
Atto guessed my thoughts and, taking me by the arm, deemed the time right for providing me with some initial explanations.