The Bellini Card

110

He glanced through the window in time to see the stadtmeister sitting rigid in his gondola, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. Opposite sat Vosper, his shoulders hunched.

The gondola moved off with a lazy flourish.

Had Vosper been less downcast, or the stadtmeister less rigid in defeat, they might have seen another gondola sweep up to the steps of the Palazzo d’Aspi. They would not have recognized Palewski, but they would have known the man who sat beside him.

“Palewski was right,” Yashim murmured. “Venice is exactly like a theater.”

“Palewski?” the contessa said. “Who is Palewski?”

Yashim smiled. “Count Palewski is the man I sent to Venice to find the Bellini. You know him as Signor Brett.”

The contessa put a hand to her throat. “The lancer.”

“The lancer?” Palewski was Yashim’s oldest friend, but there were still things they had never discussed. “He is the Polish ambassador in Istanbul.”

She nodded, beginning to understand. “Then he, too, is one of us. One of the dispossessed.” She wrapped her hand around her fist. “I have been a fool.”

He could hear them now on the stairs.

“I thought, at first, that he was the killer.”

“Palewski? But that’s-”

“Ridiculous? But he came for the Bellini, too.”

“I sent him, instead of me.”

Carla frowned. “You? You didn’t tell him about the pattern.”

“I didn’t know,” Yashim admitted. “It was to be a signal, wasn’t it? That the palace had received your offer.”

Before she could answer, Palewski and Brunelli were shown into the room.

“Commissario. Count Palewski.” Carla greeted them with a slight bow.

Palewski leaped a few inches and peered at Yashim. “Not Signor Brett, eh?”

“Your Ottoman friend was very clever,” the contessa said. “And I have been very foolish. I should have guessed: the Polish Legion.”

Palewski inclined his head. “The lancers, Contessa. In Italy under Dabrowski. Later, the Vistula Uhlans. Lance and saber.” He shrugged. “Out of fashion now, as you said.”

The contessa laughed. “Only the saber. Handsome men never go out of fashion.”

“Things have changed since yesterday,” Yashim said. “I caught up with an assassin.”

He told them of the night’s events. He explained how he had broken through the dam, and how the Tatar had been swept away in a torrent of surging foam.

“This,” Brunelli said wistfully, “I wish I had seen.”

“He was a professional assassin. He killed three people here.”

“And found them how?”

“As to that, I think somebody showed him. Somebody who signed his own death warrant as soon as the last name was released.”

“Ruggerio,” Brunelli said.

“He’s dead?”

Brunelli nodded. “He played a foolish game, Yashim Pasha.”

Yashim was silent for a while. It was Ruggerio, of course.

“He served the Duke of Naxos,” Carla said.

“That’s how they knew of him, perhaps. But Ruggerio and the Tatar, how did they come together? Here, in Venice.”

Brunelli shrugged. “Perhaps we’ll never really know.”

“Perhaps not.” Yashim looked thoughtful. “Perhaps not.”

The contessa took a deep breath.

“I have something to give you, Yashim. Commissario, would you mind? It’s not heavy, but it’s a little far to reach.”

They went out together, and Palewski told Yashim about Maria’s priest and the way the man had recognized him.

“Yashim,” he said, “you’re not listening.”

“I have an instinct,” Yashim said slowly, “that something is going wrong.”

Brunelli entered with a heavy tread. Behind him came Carla. She looked very pale.

“The painting,” she said in a tone of dazed wonder. “It’s gone!”