Venus in copper

Chapter XVI

I retraced my steps to Abacus Street. Almost immediately Severina's chair appeared from the house. I had not even reached my usual place at the cookshop table, but was pausing at the opposite end of the street to buy an apple from an old man who kept a fruit stall there. He was telling me about his orchard, which was out on the Campagna and only a few miles from the market garden my mother's family ran. We were so deep in conversation about Campagna landmarks and characters that I could not easily disengage myself to pursue the sedan.

Then, while I was still trying to deflect the old chap's offers of complimentary fruit, who should slyly put her head out of the passage beside the cheese shop, but a heavily veiled woman who looked just Severina's shape and size? The maid at her elbow was definitely the gold-digger's…

My surveillance had been fairly casual. This gave every suggestion that my presence had been noted; that giving me the slip at Tyche's had been deliberate; and that sending out the chair was a decoy.

Both women were now looking towards the cookshop. I waited by the fruit stall until they seemed satisfied by my empty bench. Eventually they set off on foot, this time with me adopting my strictest procedures for tailing a suspect invisibly.

If the visit to the fortune-teller had been indicative, that was nothing to what happened next: Severina Zotica took herself to a marble yard.

She was ordering a tombstone.

I could guess who it was for.

After selecting her square of marble, I watched her depart. As soon as I felt sure she was heading homewards, I nipped back to see the stonemason myself. His name was Scaurus. I found him deep in a narrow corridor amongst his stock. On one hand were room-high stacks of rough-cut travertine for general building purposes; on the other, pallets protecting smaller slabs of finer marble which would be made into self-congratulatory epitaphs for second-rate officials, monuments for old soldiers, and poignant plaques to commemorate sweet lost children.

Scaurus was a short, strong, dust-covered character with a bald dome, a broad face, and small ears which stuck out like wheelbosses each side of his head. Naturally his dealings with clients were confidential. And naturally the size of bribe my clients could afford soon got us over that.

'I'm interested in Severina Zotica. She must be the kind of regular client you love-so much domestic tragedy!'

'I've done one or two jobs for her,' Scaurus admitted, not quarrelling with my jocular approach.

'Three husbands down-and the next looming! Am I right that she's just ordered a new memorial stone?' He nodded. 'Can I see the text of the inscription?'

'Severina only came in for an estimate, and to put down a deposit on the slab.'

'She give you the deceased's name?'

'No.'

'So what was the story?'

'Other people are involved-a subscription effort. She has to consult them about the words to use.'

'I bet! The fact is, this poor fellow's relations may have the good manners to want him dead first, before they commit themselves!' I was starting to feel angry. 'Does she normally have the tombstone cut in advance?'

Scaurus was becoming more cautious. A thriving trade was one thing, but he did not want to be identified as an accessory before the fact. I warned him I would be back for a sight of the finished carving, then I left it at that.

He had given me what I needed. The horoscope and the memorial stone spoke for themselves. If nobody weighed in to stop Severina, Hortensius Novus was a dead man.