As Henchard made his escape from the house of Lucia and Lorenzo Costanza, he added another item to his list of the things to be done next day. Between a colon resection and a lumpectomy he would stop off in San Marco and make a proper papist confession. He would whisper to the priest behind the curtain, Father, I have sinned, and the priest would tell him to go in peace and say a hundred Hail Marys. Or should he confess to a mortal sin? Father, I have committed a mortal sin. Henchard's wife was always talking about mortal sin. Adultery, she said, was a mortal sin.
It didn't matter, one way or the other. He would make his confession to that famous priest in San Marco, and then there would be no more painful visions.
*13*
The official letter to Samuele Bell from Lucia Costanza arrived only three days after Sam's visit to her office. On that day he had come away besotted, but of course there were overwhelming reasons why he could not pursue the matter, namely
Reason One
and
Reason Two.
The letter was strictly formal:
Dottor Samuele Bell
Biblioteca Marciana
San Marco 7
30124 Venezia Gentilissimo Dottor Bell,
Enclosed is a copy of a letter I have sent to His Excellency, Pietro Caravello, Cardinal Patriarch of the Basilica of San Marco. As you see, it is a formal request for his cooperation in your study of the authenticity of the relics in the Treasury.
Also included is his official response, agreeing to the project under very specific terms, which are as follows:
For every loan there will be documents requiring your signature. No more than fifteen objects at a time may be borrowed from the Treasury. Transport will require the presence of one carabiniere, both going and coming. Each object may remain in your possession for only thirty days.
The only slightly personal note in the letter was a final warning As the caretaker of precious volumes in the Marciana you will understand the necessity of absolute promptness in the return of every relic. None may be kept out "overdue." Distinti saluti
Dottoressa Lucia Costanza
Procuratore di San Marco
Sam was overjoyed. He sat at his desk savoring the letter and its enclosures, delighted not only with the opportunity for debunking superstition, but also with the fact that he now had a reason for speaking to the dottoressa again. He called her office at once.
"Pronto?" The voice was loud and masculine.
"This is Dottor Samuele Bell. May I speak with Dottoressa Costanza?"
There was a slight pause. "Perhaps you have not read the paper," said Lucia's assistant, whose name, Sam remembered, was Bernardi.
"The paper! No! What's happened?"
"Signora Costanza's husband has been murdered, and the signora is missing."
"What!"
"And I regret to say," continued Bernardi mercilessly, "an object from her desk is missing as well, a certain very precious statuette." Bernardi fingered the heavy lump in the pocket of his trousers. The statuette was a seventeenth-century bronze centaur, as valuable as it was charming.
Sam tried to speak, but Bernardi interrupted. "In her absence I am acting as procurator, although my permanent appointment will of course be delayed. And I must say, Signor Bell, on reviewing her recent letter to you concerning various sacred relics, I think Signora Costanza's rash decision must be reconsidered."
"Dottoressa Costanza," said Sam sharply, almost beside himself, "she is a dottoressa," and he slammed down the phone.
It was a little while before he could recover himself enough to go out for a paper. And then when he stumbled down two flights of stairs to the entry hall, he saw out of the corner of his eye the imposing figure of a museum director from Hong Kong. The man was darting forward to cut him off.
Sam grinned at him with all his teeth and made a clumsy dash tor the door. Outside in the arcade he almost collided with a gigantic African scholar in a green robe, gold sandals, and white socks. "Mi displace," cried Sam in apology, and hurried away around the corner.
The Molo was thick with tourists. He moved against the tide, heading for the newsstand at the vaporetto stop, where one of the vaporetti was just pulling up, grinding against the floating dock. Tourists poured out and moved eagerly toward the Piazetta as Sam paid for two local papers and unfolded the first with nervous fingers.
Oh, God, yes, there was the story on the front page of Il Gazzettino
PROCURATORE COSTANZA UN' 0M1C1DA?
Below the brutal headline was a dim photograph of the murdered husband, Signor Lorenzo Costanza.
Sam fumbled his way across the moving crowd of jolly tourists, jolly couples taking pictures of each other, jolly mamas pushing jolly baby buggies, and sat down on the stone wall at the edge of the water. Gondole, gondole, sang out a jolly gondolier in a striped shirt, drumming up trade. The gondolas lay rocking below the barrier, their brass fittings glinting joyfully in the sun.