I was jolted back into the present by the brisk footsteps of a swarthy gentleman with a cane. He approached Holmes, leaned on his cane and looked in the same direction in which Holmes fixed his gaze.
“A morning such as this is practically invitations one to chat over a cup of coffee,” said the man, his eyes fixed on the basilica. “May I recommend that you give the band a few coins to play a folk song?”
Without so much as glancing at the man, the detective wiped his lips with his napkin and winked at me.
“Do you have a particular song in mind?”
“How about La tabaccheria mia?”
“Thank you, but I prefer to delight in the beauty of the city in silence,” Holmes replied. “Please, sit with us.”
Mycroft had devised the code especially for this case. The secret service frequently used call and response so that people who had never met could identify one another. This was doubly important for Holmes, who was travelling under the name of his cousin Cedric[14].
“Welcome to Venice, my friends,” said the man and he promptly sat down at our table.
“Thank you, Mr ...”
“No last names, please. Just call me Paolo.”
He pulled out from his breast pocket a packet of folded documents and handed them to Holmes. The detective began to unfold them, but the man stopped him. He held Holmes’s hand under the table and looked around the square to see if we were being watched.
“Wait until I leave,” he said. “You can never be too careful. This is a sensitive case, and if it was discovered that I have spoken to you, I would be in danger.”
“What have you given me?”
“What your London office requested. Records from the investigation of the death of Signor Minutti. These are copies of all the important documents and my notes. Judge for yourself.”
“Excellent. If I need anything else, how do I find you?”
The Italian agent discretely gave us another document.
“I am at your service. Here are instructions for using the drop off point.”
We assured him that we would use it only when absolutely necessary. Paolo once again scanned the square and then disappeared into the crowd. Everything had happened so fast that it seemed like a dream.
As soon as he was gone, Holmes began hungrily examining the documents.
“Let’s take a look,” he muttered. “Evidently, the carabinieri have not given the investigation the attention one would expect in the murder of such an important person.”
“How so?”
“Minutti was killed almost three weeks ago, but so far they have failed to find anything. Everything suggests that the case was simply set aside. Minutti was shot, but the police were unable to find anyone who had heard anything. His office is easily accessible and anyone could get in when the secretary was at lunch; but none of the hundreds of employees has testified that they noticed anything or anyone out of the ordinary. What’s more, everyone has an alibi. There are no fingerprints or footprints at the scene of the crime, nothing at all. The perpetrator’s motive is also unknown. Minutti was rather well-liked.”
“But there must be a bullet,” I said.
“It was never found,” said Holmes. “Neither in the room nor in the body.”
“Strange.”
“Indeed. Nevertheless, the body has been returned to the family and was buried last week in the San Michele cemetery. In this way the opportunity to find other clues on the body of the victim has been all but eliminated.”
He finished reading the document and began focussing on Paolo’s notes.
“According to the findings of our mysterious friends, this is not just a matter of police incompetence, but a much more dangerous game involving people in high places. Apparently the authorities were not interested in shedding light on the incident. Paolo’s source even asserts that a small bribe was paid to one of the commissars!”
“Outrageous!”
“But effective. The chances of finding the murderer are now practically nil.”
“If we found the recipient of the bribe it would lead us to the murderer.”
“There is no evidence of the bribe; it is merely a suspicion. We do not even know who was meant to be its recipient. There are many in the local criminal hierarchy who are capable of thwarting an investigation. What’s more, I fear that the police will cover each other’s backs, just as they do everywhere else in the world, even in England. That is probably why Paolo thinks he is in danger.”
“What about Minutti’s family? They have a great deal of influence. Are they not following the investigation?”
“The poor wretch left behind only a widow and her thoughts after this tragic loss are somewhere else entirely,” sighed Holmes. “I am not surprised that our friend was so careful.”
“Have we reached an impasse?”
“I wouldn’t call it that. I would say merely that should you ever write a literary account of this case, as is your wont, a short story will not suffice.”
The hot Italian sun compelled us to seek the shade of the hotel. Holmes retired for a while to his room to organise his thoughts. Someone had apparently tried to sever the threads that would unknot this thorny case, but enough of them still remained for us to continue.
Directly after lunch the detective set off in pursuit of one of them.
We hired a boat and a rower and set off into the restless waters of the Grand Canal. My friend was perched in the bow of the craft, his eyes roving and watching the events around us like a hawk. The fish and vegetable markets had just closed, lackeys were loading empty crates and leftover goods and sprayed the paving stones with hoses, washing away blood and fish innards into the waters of the canal. Gondoliers transported their customers from shore to shore and shopkeepers loudly rolled up the shutters of their shops. The siesta time was starting.
The detective wanted to take advantage of this odd time, when the city suddenly rested for a few hours, to visit Minutti’s widow.
“This man contacted me because he feared for his life. Perhaps he had a particular suspicion. Who else would he confide in if not his wife?”
The boat took us to one of the river palaces near the Rialto Bridge, a water-worn Renaissance structure with a row of arcades, balconies and columns. The boatman stayed at the steps rising straight out of the surface of the water and covered with rotting algae, holding onto the swaying boat, so that we could disembark. Holmes paid him in advance for the return journey to ensure that he would wait for us.
While the man tied the boat to the red and white painted stake, we walked to the doors of the palace, decorated with black grating.
The detective knocked.
A housemaid, a tiny girl with jet-black hair and dark piercing eyes, opened the door. We asked to speak with the lady of the house and were led into the drawing room.
The girl went upstairs to announce our visit, while we made ourselves comfortable in a spacious room decorated with vases and colourful Murano glass accessories. We could distinguish the tiny patter of the housemaid’s footsteps above us and heard her knock on the door. The hinges of the door creaked as she entered her employer’s room.
Suddenly there was a terrible cry. It cut through the still air of the palace like a scalpel. Apparently the lady of the house was not pleased with our visit.
“Inglese! What do they want again? How many times must I tell them? Enough!”
The girl mumbled something.
“Where are they? I will shame them, those hyenas!”
14
One can read about Holmes’s family in Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street: A life of the world’s first consulting detective by William S. Baring-Gould.