The Jewels of Paradise (9 page)

In a voice that had become softer, Dottor Moretti said, “I think I can take care of that.” Four faces turned to him. “A few months ago, our office upgraded the computers we give our younger associates. The laptops they were using are still in a closet in my secretary’s office. I can have someone who knows how to do it take out whatever refers to our office. I think access to the Internet is built into these things.” He waited for comment, and when none was forthcoming, added, speaking directly to Caterina, “It’s only a few years old, but it should certainly be adequate for what you have to do here.”

“That’s very kind of you, Dottore,” Roseanna said, apparently delighted that a man could so casually confess to imperfect familiarity with computers. “On behalf of the Foundation I thank you for this largesse.” Ah, yes, Caterina thought, ‘largesse,’ charmed to hear Roseanna rise to the level of Dottor Moretti’s speech. She was also impressed with the way her graciousness was likely to prevent any embarrassing questions as to why the Foundation had no computer.

“What were you going to do with them?” Signor Scapinelli broke in to ask.

Dottor Moretti was momentarily confused by the question but then answered, “We usually give them to the children of our employees.”

“You give them away?” Scapinelli asked with a mixture of astonishment and disapproval.

“That way, we can deduct them from our taxes,” Dottor Moretti said, an answer that seemed to calm Signor Scapinelli’s troubled spirit, at least to the degree that a usurer’s spirit can ever be calm at the revelation of an unmade profit.

“You mentioned a few things that needed to be settled,” Caterina reminded him.

“Ah, yes. Thank you, Dottoressa,” Dottor Moretti said. “We’d like to establish some parameters for the handling of the actual papers.”

“Parameters,” she repeated, for the first time unimpressed by his use of language.

“Yes. We have to settle how we will go about the actual opening of the chests and decide who will be there when you remove the contents and begin to work.”

“Let me say one thing,” Caterina declared. “I don’t care who’s there when the chests are opened, but I can’t have anyone present while I’m working.”

“
Can’t
?” Dottor Moretti inquired.

“Can’t because having someone there, looking over my shoulder —even sitting at the other side of the room—would slow me down terribly. It would double the time it will take me to do the research.”

“Simply having someone in the room with you?” Dottor Moretti asked.

Before she could answer, Signor Stievani said, sounding angry or impatient, “All right, all right. If we’re there when they’re opened, and we’re sure there’s only papers in there, then there’s nothing to worry about.” Caterina wondered if a life spent on boats led a man to believe that papers could have no value.

“We don’t want her spending the rest of her life doing this, you know,” Signor Stievani went on, this time addressing Dottor Moretti directly, who ignored the sarcasm and heard the statement.

“Quite right,” he agreed. “Once the trunks have been opened, we’re agreed that Dottoressa Pellegrini can stay alone in the room.”

“Then I work upstairs?”

“Yes, that’s the room where the work will be done,” Dottor Moretti said. “It’s got the storeroom, and there’s a wireless connection.”

“Why is that?” Caterina asked Roseanna, remembering that the stolen computer had been on this floor.

Looking not unembarrassed, Roseanna said, “Well, it doesn’t exactly belong to the Foundation.”

“
Exactly
?” Caterina asked. “Then whose is it?”

Her embarrassment grew stronger. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t tell me it’s someone else’s Wi-Fi you’re piggybacking on?” Caterina demanded.

“Yes.”

“Do you think that’s safe?” She did not bother to ask what would happen if the line were to disappear or be secured by its legal owner.

The smile was not present in Roseanna’s shrug. “I have no idea. But it’s the only line we have. Dottor Asnaldi used it and there was no trouble at all.”

Trouble came from Signor Scapinelli, who broke in to say, “We’re not paying for any of those things. You give her a computer, you figure out how she can use it.” Then, with undisguised contempt, “This place doesn’t even have a telephone.”

“And the computer doesn’t leave that room, either,” Signor Stievani broke in to add.

Caterina turned toward the sound of their voices and, after allowing her anger a few seconds to dissipate, said quite pleasantly, “I’m perfectly content to use that connection. And the computer can stay here all the time. After all, what sort of secrets can be in papers that are hundreds of years old?”

Eight

S
OON AFTER THIS DECISION WAS MADE,
C
ATERINA NOTICED
that both cousins grew restless. First Stievani looked at his watch, and then Scapinelli did. It took her but a moment to understand. They were afraid that if this went on much longer they might be expected to go to lunch with these people or, worse, be expected to take them to lunch. Dottor Moretti must have read the signs at the same time, for he looked at his watch and said, speaking in general to everyone at the table, “I hope we’ve made all of the major decisions that concern us.”

He looked around and saw four nodding heads. Addressing them all, he said, “Then perhaps we can remove ourselves to the upper floor and see to opening the chests.” There was no reason for Caterina to be surprised by this, but she was. Though everything she had done since coming back to Venice had been aimed at this goal, she was still unprepared to hear it announced. The chests would be opened, she would see the papers—the putative papers—she would hold them in her hands, and she would be surprised, of course she would be surprised, to learn that they were the papers of Agostino Steffani, composer and bishop, musician and diplomat.

They got to their feet. At the door, the two cousins were careful to see that Dottor Moretti stood between them. Stievani went first, the lawyer next, and then Signor Scapinelli. Women and children last.

Dottor Moretti led them only as far as the door to the stairway that led to the upper floor, where he waited for Roseanna to come and unlock the door. This done, she stepped aside to allow the men to pass in front of her in the same order, after which she and Caterina followed them upstairs. The procedure was repeated at the door to the director’s office.

Inside, Roseanna went to the metal doors of the storeroom and dealt with the three separate locks—Caterina had failed to notice the third lock set almost at floor level. With no ceremony whatsoever, Roseanna pulled open the two metal doors and stepped back to allow the others to see the chests that stood, one behind the other, the back one about twenty centimeters taller than the one in front, in the closet-sized storeroom. Caterina had seen scores of similar trunks like them in antiques shops and museums: unadorned dark wood, metal strips rimming the top and bottom and thus creating a border into which a secure locking mechanism could be anchored. The keys were missing from both keyholes.

Signor Stievani, by far the more robust of the cousins, took Dottor Moretti’s arm, saying, “Let’s pull them out. You grab the other handle.” He bent over the smaller trunk and took hold of one of the handles.

Dottor Moretti was unable to hide his surprise, either at being so addressed by the other man or at the idea of being asked to help move the chest. He reacted quickly and well, however, and set his briefcase down, reaching to the right to grab the second handle. From the ease with which they moved it, Caterina got an idea of the probable weight of the chest. They carried it from the storeroom and set it to the side of the desk. Then they went back and did the same with the second chest, which seemed to Caterina to be much heavier and which they set down a meter from the side of the first.

There they were, then, the two chests containing the contested patrimony of the musician whose name she was not supposed to know. Both of them had what looked to be wax-covered ropes tied around them, the first spanning front and back and the other going across the top from side to side. The first one ended in elaborate knots from which hung fragments of what must once have been a large medallion of red wax. The surface was pitted and scarred, and it was impossible to distinguish what might once have been impressed into it. Four nails held a faded rectangle of paper to the front of the smaller chest. The bottom left corner had been torn loose from the nail, taking with it a corner of the paper. Barely legible, in faded brown ink, Caterina read, in the spidery handwriting of the times, “—fani 1728.”

Before Caterina could ask how they were going to proceed, Signor Scapinelli demanded, “And who’s going to open them?”

Dottor Moretti surprised them all by taking his briefcase and pulling out both a folding knife and a large ring of what looked like antique keys. Some were rusted, some polished bright, but all of them ended in serrated teeth and had obviously been made by hand.

Before anyone could ask, Dottor Moretti said, “I showed a photo of the two locks to an antiquarian friend of mine, and he sent me these. He thinks some of these keys will fit.” Caterina was surprised, then pleased, at this very unlawyerly behavior on Dottor Moretti’s part. Could it be that he was enjoying their trip into the past?

“Both locks?” Scapinelli asked.

“He thinks so, and I hope so,” Dottor Moretti answered.

Caterina and Roseanna exchanged approving glances, but Signor Scapinelli made a noise. Caterina wondered if he expected Dottor Moretti to have arrived certain about which were the proper keys.

Dottor Moretti hiked up the right leg of his trousers and half knelt in front of the first, smaller, trunk. Methodically, holding each by the seal, he cut the ropes and left them where they lay. He cut the seal free and handed it to Caterina, who placed it carefully on the desk. Then he went through the keys one by one, inserting them and trying to turn them. A few seemed to move in the lock, but none was successful until a key quite close to the end of the ring moved to the right two times with a grinding double creak. Dottor Moretti withdrew the key and pushed at the top; after a few seconds and some shifting side to side, he managed to raise it a few centimeters but immediately set it back in place and moved to the larger trunk.

Nailed to the front was a similar piece of paper, though this one was intact and read, “Steffani 1728”; there was no wax wafer attached to the ropes. Again, Dottor Moretti cut through the rope and let the pieces fall to the floor. This time the key was the third or fourth he tried, though it took considerably more effort to lift this lid. When he had it raised free of the metal band, Dottor Moretti settled it back into place and got to his feet. He opened his briefcase and dropped the keys and knife inside.

“They’re ours, aren’t they?” Signor Scapinelli asked, pointing to the keys. It was a statement and not a question.

“I’m expecting a judgment,” Dottor Moretti said in an English only Caterina understood, but then he reverted to Italian and added, “The keys belong to my friend, who has asked for them back.” He gave Signor Scapinelli a friendly smile and added, quite affably, “If you and your cousin prefer, I can ask him how much he’d charge if you’d like to keep them.” When neither man said anything, Dottor Moretti turned to Signor Stievani and said, “Have you a preference?”

“Don’t provoke me,
avvocato,
” he said. “Leave them open and send the keys back.” With a wave toward the metal doors, he added, “Anyone who could get through those wouldn’t have much trouble with these locks.” He might be a tax-evading fraud, Caterina told herself, but the man was no fool.

She looked at her watch and saw that it was almost one. “
Signori,
” she began, a term in which Roseanna was included, “I think we should make some logistical decisions. You’re agreed that the trunks will stay open. But as you saw, I can hardly move them back into the storeroom myself.”

She let them consider that for a moment. She was not going to make a suggestion, knowing the greater wisdom of letting herself accede to one of theirs, so long as it was what she wanted.

She watched their reactions. Roseanna followed her same tactic by shaking her head to show she opted out of the decision and left it to the men to decide. Dottor Moretti was there in his legal capacity and so refused to express an opinion; neither cousin wanted to make a suggestion, probably fearful—or certain—that the other would block it.

Finally, Stievani said, “The chests have to be locked in the storeroom at night.” He looked at all of them, not only at his cousin. When he saw consensus, he went on. “So why don’t we let her look through them to see if there’s only papers? Then we put the chests back in the cupboard, and when she’s done every day she puts the papers back in the trunk and locks the cupboard, then locks the room.”

“And the keys?” Signor Scapinelli asked.

“She keeps them. Otherwise we’ve got to figure out someone for her to give them to every day.” Just as it looked as if his cousin was going to protest, he added, “And we’d have to pay him.” Whatever his cousin had been planning was left unsaid.

Dottor Moretti looked around at them all. “It sounds sensible to me. Does anyone object?” Then, at their silence, directly to Caterina, “Do you, Dottoressa?”