The Thief of Venice(31)

Vaporetto number 1 scraped against the floating dock. "Attenzione," cried the girl as she unwound the rope. "Un momenta."

Sam waited for the flood of disembarking passengers, then stepped on board, thinking how strange it was that his perfectly logical mind could harbor such a thought.

As the vaporetto pulled away he stood at the railing, gazing at the Palazzo Barbara drifting slowly past, imagining Henry James leaning on one of the balconies, looking back at him. Or perhaps Mrs. Jack Gardner had just this moment turned away from one of the lofty Gothic windows to talk to John Singer Sargent. "Oh, please, Mr. Sargent, do tell me which Venetian palace I should dismantle and carry back to Boston?" Whether they had been morally right or wrong, you had to admit that they had left a rich purple stain on the air. How alive they had all been!

Sam moved into the seating compartment of the vaporetto and found a place to sit down. They were dead now, of course. All dead.





*26*


The reliquary arrived under guard in a wooden crate. Sam signed for it, lugged it into his study, and locked the door.

It was very large and very gold. The front was adorned with a golden Christ on a golden cross, the back with a golden image of John the Evangelist, patron saint of the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista. The reliquary itself was shaped like a cross with crystal arms. The uppermost arm enclosed the frammento del Lignum Crucis, the small scrap of wood that was supposed to have come from the cross on which Christ was crucified. Little figures of the mourning Mary and Saint John were flung out at the sides on their own pedestals. Attached to the edges of the reliquary sixteen jewels stuck out into empty air, as though the goldsmith had thought to himself, "Why not pretty it up a little more?"

Sam set it carefully on his desk, then stood back. In the shadowy room it glimmered and glowed. When a ray of morning sunlight struck past the neighboring rooftops of the houses on Salizada del Pignater and slanted through the window, the reliquary flared up like a thousand candles.

Well, that was the goldsmith's art. But as an object of study the tiny piece of Lignum Crucis was going to require very sophisticated equipment because it was encased in crystal. Sam had promised Father Urbano that he would not take the reliquary apart. Therefore he had arranged to borrow a more powerful gadget from a biochemist at the university, a microscope that could examine its object with a high degree of resolving power, even through the crystal.

It was two days before Sam had time to go far across the city to the Department of Physics and Chemistry. It was not in the famous palace housing the rest of the university, the Ca' Foscari on the Grand Canal. Instead he had to take Vaporetto #52 all the way around Dorsoduro past the Zattere to the stop at Santa Marta, and then walk a long way to the neighborhood of the Church of San Niccolo. Fortunately both ends of the journey were in parts of the city a few inches higher than the lowest places. Salizada del Pignater was just south of a deeper area around Campo Sant' Antonin, and the Quartiere Santa Marta was entirely in the clear. Sam walked to his destination dry-shod.

"State of the art," said the biochemist proudly, showing off his microscope, instructing Sam in the subtleties of its use. "It's a reflecting microscope, you see, Sam. You'll have a working distance of a good inch, not just a millimeter." Packing it into its case he said, "Questa maledetta cosa e molto pesante. It weighs a ton. Too bad you can't bring your object here."

Sam looked doubtfully at the big case and explained, "I wish I could, but I've promised to keep it locked up in my house until it goes back under guard."

"Well, for Christ's sake be careful. I mean, Jesus, Sam, this thing's worth a king's ransom."

"Oh, I will, I promise I will." Sam picked up the case, then set it down again.

"Can you manage it?" said the biochemist, opening the door.

"Naturalmente." Sam picked up the case again with a show of ease. "Ciao, Carlo. Grazie tante."

"Prego."

But the microscope in its thick protective case was almost more than he could manage. Sam grasped the handle with both hands and shuffled out of the building, leaning backward. What kind of superman was Carlo anyway? Had he ever tried to carry it himself?

In the Campo San Niccolo he hailed a student and paid him to lug the microscope to the vaporetto stop at San Basilic. There he was able to take a water taxi to the Riva and up a little rio all the way to Salizada Pignater. Molto costoso, but he had no choice.

Home at last, Sam hoisted his burden up two flights of stairs, thumping it down on every step. At last he was able to slide it across the floor to his study door. Gasping, he unlocked the door, dragged the case inside, and cried out.