A Siren

CHAPTER X

Public Opinion

The post-mortem examination had taken place at an early hour, before the members of the idler portion of the society of the city had come forth from their homes. An Italian idler—one of the class who, in common Italian phrase, are able to "fare vita beata," to lead a happy life, i. e. to do nothing whatever from morning till night—an Italian of that favoured class never passes his hours in his own house, or dwelling of whatever kind it may be. As soon as he is up and dressed he goes out into the city to enjoy the air and sunshine if it be fine weather, to saunter in cafes or at the Circolo, if it rain.

Professor Tomosarchi and lawyer Fortini had been earlier afoot, and the scene described in the last chapter had passed, and the general results of the examination were beginning to be known in the city, when the jeunesse doree of Ravenna began to assemble at the Circolo. It was known also by that time that the young Venetian artist, with whom Ludovico was well known to be on intimate terms of some kind or other, had been arrested at her lodging at an early hour that morning, on suspicion of having been concerned in the murder of La Bianca.

Of course that terrible event continued more than ever to occupy the attention of all Ravenna, almost to the exclusion of every other topic of conversation. It was very easy to understand the nature of the motive, which might be supposed to have led Paolina to do the deed. And when it became known farther, that the means by which the death of the victim had been brought about were such as might easily have been accomplished by the weakest woman's hand; and that it had been discovered that Paolina had been in the Pineta—for such was the not quite accurate form which the report assumed just about the time when the crime must have been committed, the general opinion inclined very much to the notion that she, the stranger from Venice, was, indeed, the assassin.

Precedents were hunted up, and many a story told of women who had done equally desperate deeds under similar provocation.

"I feel very little doubt of it, myself," said Manutoli; "there is nothing improbable in such a solution, while it is in the highest degree improbable that Ludovico should have raised his hand against a sleeping woman, enticed by him in the forest for the purpose. Bah! It is monstrous."

"He would have been more to be pitied than blamed if he had done it," said another of the young men, who did not bear himself a reputation of the most brilliant sort; "if I had a rich uncle I swear by all the saints, that I would not let the prettiest woman that ever made a fool of a man, come between me and my inheritance."

"Ludovico was not the man to have done it any way. Besides, the mischief had not been done; it was only a project talked of. There might have been a hundred ways of breaking off so absurd a match. It would have been time to have recourse to les grands moyens, when the thing had been done, and all else had failed. To my notion jealousy has done it."

"So say I. Two to one I bet that it turns out that the Venetian girl has done the trick."

"But have you heard, all of you, that there is a third horse in the field?" said the Marchese Faraoni whose palazzo was close to the house in which the Conte Leandro lived; "there is another candidate for the galleys. Has nobody heard that our poet was arrested before he was out of bed this morning?"

"What! Leandro?"

"The Conte Lombardoni?"

"No!"

"You don't mean that?"

"What, arrested for this murder of La Bianca?"

"Impossible!"

"But quite true, nevertheless. Anybody can easily assure themselves of the fact by walking as far as the Palazzo del Governo."

"Leandro arrested on suspicion of murder? Well, I think the tragedy is passing into a farce."

"It will be fatal to Leandro. He will die of fright, if no other evil happens to him."

"Think of the cantos of verse he will make on it."

"He will die singing, like a swan."

"But do you know anything about it, Faraoni? Have you any idea how he has come to be implicated in the matter?"

"I learnt at his own lodging that he did not come home to bed the night of the ball, but was absent from home at the time the murder must have been committed. And then I was told that the men at the Porta Nuova had declared that they had seen him pass out of the city going in the direction of the Pineta at a very early hour that morning."

"Per Bacco! it is very strange. What, in the name of all the saints, could he be doing out there at that time, when all honest folks were in their beds?"

"Remember all the snubbing he has had from the poor Diva all through carnival. By Jove! it looks very queer."

"Do you remember how he turned all sorts of colours here last night, when we were talking of it?"

"And how anxious he seemed to say everything that appeared to make it bear hard upon Ludovico?"

"Yes, and contradicted himself. First, he knew about it, and then he knew nothing."

"Per Dio! I don't know what to think of it."

"So, then, there are now three persons suspected—Ludovico; and the Venetian girl, and the Conte Leandro?"

"And all three were not far from the spot where the deed was done, and all three had motives, more or less credible, for doing it."

"Ludovico, because his uncle was going to marry the woman, which would have cut him out of his inheritance; the Venetian girl, because she loved Ludovico, and saw him making love to the poor Diva; and Leandro, because she snubbed him, and laughed at him, and would have nothing to say to either him or his verses."

"And the one certain thing is, that the unlucky Diva lies dead, and was murdered by somebody. Upon my life, it is the queerest thing I ever heard of."

"What do you think of it, Manutoli?" said one of the speakers in the foregoing dialogue to the Baron, who was an older man than most of the others there.

"My notion is that the girl is the guilty party," said Manutoli. "As for Leandro, it seems too absurd. I don't think he has courage enough to kill a cat: Besides, I daresay he hated La Bianca quite enough to slander her, and backbite, and that sort of thing; but murder—"

"She made fun of him. Leandro don't like to be laughed at,—specially by the women, and, more specially still, when other fellows are by to hear it and then those poets are always such desperate fellows I should not wonder—" said one of the young men.

In the meantime, while talk of this sort was going on at the Circolo, Signor Fortini was on his way out to St. Apollinare in Classe, according to the intention he had expressed on the preceding evening; but he was not making the expedition alone. Signor Pietro Logarini, the Papal Commissioner of Police, was bound on the same errand. The old lawyer, as he passed under the gateway of the Porta Nuova in his comfortable caleche, overtook Signor Logarini, who was about to proceed to St. Apollinare on foot, and who had paused at the gate for the purpose of making some inquiries of the officials there.

"Good morning, Signor Pietro. I suppose we are bound for the same place; will you permit me to offer you a seat in my carriage?" said the lawyer.

"Thanks, Signor Giovacchino, I shall be glad of the lift. Yes, I suppose we are about the same business, and a bad one it is. I was making a few inquiries at the gate; but I don't see that there is much to be gleaned there," said the Commissary, as he got into the lawyer's carriage.

"Well, it seems to me that we have reaped a pretty good harvest there already," returned the lawyer.

"Enough to make the matter one of the most puzzling I ever had to do with," returned the Commissary. "You have heard, I suppose, that we have arrested the girl Paolina Foscarelli, and the Conte Leandro Lombardoni?"

"No; but it was a matter of course that you would do so—specially the girl," said the lawyer.

"We could not avoid arresting the Conte also; it is so unaccountable that he should have been going out of the city, and so near the place of the crime."

"What account does he give of the matter himself?" asked the lawyer.

"No very clear one; and he seems to be frightened out of his senses; but that proves nothing. One man takes a thing coolly, another is so flushed that you would think he was guilty only to look at him; but there is little to be judged from such appearances. I don't much think the Conte had anything to do with it, for my part."

"What were you asking about at the gate?"

"Well, I thought I would just ascertain if any other parties had passed the gate that same morning," said the Commissary.

"Others! Have we not enough to make a sufficient puzzle already?" said Fortini.

"Yes, indeed; but information is always useful. The men say that they are quite sure that no other person of any kind whatever passed the gate either outwards or inwards, during the night till the Conte Leandro passed in the morning; and then the girl not long afterwards; and then the Marchesino with the prima donna."

The lawyer remained plunged in thought for some minutes, as the carriage rolled over the flat dismal-looking road towards the old church; and then he said, shaking his head, and pouting out his lips,—"I think we shall find, Signor Pietro, that that girl has done it. There's nothing a jealous woman will not do. We shall find, I think, that to have been the case; that is, if we succeed in finding out anything at all. Perhaps the most likely thing is that we may never know what hand did the deed."

"Oh, come, I hope better things than that. That would not suit our book at all. We must find it out if we can; and it is early days yet to talk of being beat. We are not half at the end of our means of investigation yet, Signor Giovacchino," said the Commissary.

"It may be that something may be to be picked up at the church here."

"And then I must go on to the farm-house, where the Marchesino and the prima donna left their carriage."

"We'll have a talk with the friars first."

As Fortini spoke the carriage drew up at the west front of the desolate old basilica. It was a fine spring morning, and by the time the lawyer and the Commissary reached the church, the sun had dissipated the mist, and it was warm and pleasant.

The great doors of the church stood yawningly open as usual, and the gate of iron rail was ajar. And at the south-western corner of the building, just where the sun-ray from the south-west made a sharp line against the black shadow cast by the western front of the building, an old Franciscan was sitting; not Father Fabiano, but his sole companion, Friar Simone, the lay-brother.

Neither Signor Fortini nor the police Commissary had ever seen the old guardian of the Basilica; but they were sufficiently instructed in the details of Franciscan costume to perceive at once that the figure before them was not a priest, but only a lay-brother.

"Is there any place, frate, where I can put my horse and carriage under shelter for half an hour or so?" said the lawyer, as the old friar, having risen from his seat in the sunshine, came forward towards the carriage.

"There is place enough and to spare, Signori," said the old man, pointing with a languid and wearylike gesture to the huge pile of half-dilapidated conventual buildings on the southern side of the church; "you can put horse and carriage as they stand into the old barn there, without undoing a buckle. I will open the door for your lordships, if it will hang together so that it can be opened."

The lawyer and the Commissary dismounted from the carriage, and the former proceeded to lead his horse into the huge barn of the convent; while the latter employed himself in observing every detail of the surrounding localities with those rapid all-seeing and all-remembering glances that the habits and education of his profession had rendered a part of his nature, preparatory to the investigations they had both come to make.