Of course the Strangler might not be Zorzi Michiel, merely someone using his name to gain access to his victims. Either way, I was still at a loss to imagine why he was killing courtesans.
After ten minutes or so, the inner door opened and out stalked a man I had met two days before, Senator Marco Avonal. Recognition was mutual. His face darkened; I smiled angelically-I practice that in a mirror. I sprang to my feet and bowed low.
"Clarissimo! An unexpected pleasure!" I straightened up just as the outer door banged shut behind him. Oh dear, what a shame…
"Sier Alfeo! I might have known," chirruped old Celsi. "Come in, come in, dear boy. Sit down, sit there."
He dragged me bodily into his sanctum, which might charitably be described as a box of four bookcases with a fireplace and two chairs. The window was partially blocked by a stand-up desk, on which lay a folio volume of blank sheets, ready to receive more news. He poured me a glass of red wine.
"You must try this ghastly French brew. So Nostradamus is dipping into the pot, is he? He's after the Strangler?"
Carlo Celsi is a year older than the Maestro, but still as spry as a mouse. He is very short-not reaching up to my shoulder-and rotund, sporting a mass of silver curls all over his lower face and out from under his hat. I have never seen him anything but pert, happy, and effusive.
"I brought his-"
"Does it say anything?" Celsi demanded, grabbing the proffered letter, "except that he wants you to pick my brains and tell me nothing in return?"
"No. That's it exactly."
"Good." My host dropped the letter in a wastebasket, unopened. "Sit, sit! You haven't changed your preferences since the last time you were here, have you, dear chap?"
"No, clarissimo." I always have to wade this river when I call on Celsi.
"What a tragedy! Well, drink up, and tell me why Nostradamus is interested in a few dead whores."
"Money, of course," I said. "And why is sier Carlo interested in Senator Marco Avonal? Because he discovered a body and turned in the jewelry, when he could have better pocketed it himself or given the proceeds to charity? Did he have some special reason for wanting the deceased identified?"
Celsi chuckled, leaned back in his chair, and took a sip of the wine, which I had already decided must be one of the most expensive vintages I had ever tasted. "He was here because I wrote and asked him to explain that. Of course he wants to be immortalized in the annals of the Republic, so he came in person to give me the entire story and make sure I spelled his name the way he likes it. What do you think of it, dear Alfeo?"
"I think he may be telling the truth."
The old man sighed. "So do I, unfortunately. No underlying scandal at all! Some people are appallingly inconsiderate."
"Was he in Milan?"
"Yes-and he returned with the others. I already checked."
"His Excellency puzzles me, though. He has a squeaky voice, belongs to a small and obscure house, lives with shameful thrift, and is barely adult by Venetian political standards, so how does he get elected to the Senate?"
Celsi sniggered affectedly as he does when he has a gem to impart. "The Contarini campaign, dear boy!"
"Which Contarini?" The Contarinis are a huge clan.
"The ambassador to Rome. The Great Council waxed very mad at him just before Christmas. It couldn't hurt him directly-only the Senate could recall him-but every time the Council had a vacancy of any sort to fill, it would nominate three other Contarinis plus a nonentity, then elect the nonentity. When it put Avonal into the Senate itself, that was the last straw. The Senate recalled Contarini in self-defense." He chuckled. "They only sent Avonal along on the Milan junket to get a respite from his efforts to make speeches. At the end of his term he will vanish back into well-deserved obscurity.
"So what is your master after this time?" He took a sip of wine to mask his appraising look at me. "He expects me to tell you who killed three harlots and what the Council of Ten is doing about it, mm?"
I couldn't resist that lead. "No. We know all that." My turn for a sip.
"You cherub! You do? You will swear to that? I have a reliquary somewhere with a holy toenail paring of Saint Theophilus of Bulgaria."
I backed down a little. "We know to a high degree of probability. No, Nostradamus wonders if you would comment on the death of Gentile Michiel and his son's exile."
Celsi stared in amazement at bookshelves behind me and let out a long breath. "So-o-o? You think he's come back? Strangling the girls? That doesn't sound like young Zorzi. He used to hump them to death… I speak figuratively and with sinful envy. What do you want to know?"
"Everything, fair exchange."
"Nostradamus going soft in his old age? If he's willing to tell all, he can't know much. Well, let's see. Start with Gentile. Had a few uncles but no brothers, sisters, or cousins. A carefully husbanded tribe, the San Marco Michiels-they have always believed in keeping the family fortune intact. Gentile was publicly devout, straitlaced, sanctimonious. An obnoxious tyrannical prude, in fact."
"The sort who won't let his wife look out any window that overlooks a street?"
"Exactly. Gentile married Alina Orio-eccentric sort of woman. She lost five brothers to the plague, them and their families, extremely careless of her. That wiped out a whole branch of the Orio clan, so she ended up with all the property, very odd. Four sons and a daughter survived infancy."
"I heard three sons."
"Don't interrupt me when I'm gossiping. I might miss out a juicy bit. Bernardo was going to be the politician. Of course he wasn't even thirty then, but he'd already made a major speech in the Great Council, opposing a change in the salt tax that his father had supported in the Senate. Got a response from the doge himself, tremendous honor that, for a nipper! The patricide put the whole family in the lazaretto, of course, but Bernardo wouldn't give up; he kept on attending Great Council meetings. So they tried electing him to trivial offices and he accepted and worked hard at them. He's started making speeches again, and it looks as if they're about ready to forgive him. He's been nominated for several meaningful jobs lately, and come near to winning a couple of times. He won't want the old scandal dug up."
"What is he now?"
Celsi closed his eyes for a moment to think, then twinkled them at me. "Inspector of meats!" This was one minor politician he was recalling, out of hundreds, a fine feat of memory.
"Then, Domenico's the businessman. Doesn't attend the wind factory unless there's some critical vote coming up. He's a genius at buying up estates on the mainland, tidying them up, and selling them at a spanking profit. Dull, like all men who make money. Only those who make art or history are interesting, Alfeo dear. Dom's not the sort to hide a murderer-no profit in that. Has a couple of children by a long-term mistress.
"Next was Timoteo. He inherited his father's acid piety, but he seems to have meant it. He renounced his share and entered the cloister."
"He's a monk?" I spoke a little too eagerly.
Carlo Celsi has extremely sensitive antenna. He eyed me suspiciously.
"A friar. And a priest also, as I recall. Why?"
"Just wondered. The other brothers form a fraterna?" I asked, being as innocent as possible. I had caught a faint whiff of motive…
This time the old gossip missed my eagerness. "So far as I know. They have to go to law to disenfranchise, you know."
I nodded. "And the daughter?"
"Oh, they packed her off into a cloister years ago. That costs money too, but it's cheaper than providing a dowry. Did you hear the size of dowry old-"
I headed off his digression. "Which leaves only the infamous Zorzi."