Requiem at rogano, p.2
Requiem at Rogano, page 2
A History of Murder. It was quite a thought.
Of course, Nicholas would have to do the writing. And Brough would insist that his own name came second on the title page—“By Nicholas Calvin and Reginald Brough.”
But the unsolved murders of the past exerted a peculiar fascination. . . . As Nicholas said, it would be unique for a respected detective to turn his training to that sort of use. . . . Mr. Dickens and botany could go to the devil, or at least to the old folks’ infirmary where they belonged. . . . The work involved would be immense. . . . But it would certainly put the mockers on this mental stagnation, this so-called retirement. Retirement? More like a slow march to death.
“Yes, Nicholas, I’ll do it,” he said aloud. “God bless you, I’ll do it.”
2
He took out his watch. Twenty minutes to six. If he was to be on time he would have to forego the pleasure of walking, generally his only way of travel in the capital, and take a cab. Putting on a sturdy greatcoat that had served him for a dozen snowy winters, he went down to the street, set off for Piccadilly at a brisk pace and there hailed a cab heading down Coventry Street.
The cries of a newsboy in Leicester Square made him call to the cabby to halt.
“Special! Evenin’ paper!—’Nuvver Stranglin’ in London!—Maniac Kills Again!—Special!”
Brough stepped smartly across the pavement and bought a copy of the Evening News.
“Full story on the Camden Passage bloke, mister,” said the newsboy.
“Thank you,” said Brough, and bidding him a cheery “good night,” he returned to the cab.
The glimmer of the lamp on the side of the hansom was too dim to read by, so he nestled down beneath the covers and reviewed the problems posed by the newcomer to the criminal scene.
“The Deptford Strangler.” A promising subject for the last chapter of the History. Nothing like being bang up to date.
His tongue worked away at a back tooth where a particle of meat had lodged at lunchtime.
The underworld must be running alive with rumor and speculation, he thought. The copper in charge of the inquiry would do well to collar a few criminal contacts. After all, even villains disowned a mad killer. When it was one against society like this, the criminal element nearly always crossed the line and allied itself to the forces of law. This was part of the reason why Brough had managed to forge a tolerable working relationship with a number of men who should strictly have been regarded as the enemy. In his last decade on the force he had been concerned solely with the detection of murder, so in practice he posed no threat to the pickpocket or the fence, or even the robber or cat burglar providing he avoided violence. As such he could pick their brains when their world spawned a specimen too nasty even for their taste.
He sighed miserably and longed once more for the past to return. Even the drudgery, the long hours, the cold, the drizzle and the darkness of his old job took on a romantic aspect as his mind dwelt on the excitement of cases now long solved or long closed.
As the cabby’s horse picked its way through the confusion of traffic at the corner of Charing Cross Road, he turned over in his mind the known facts of the murders which had London peering over its shoulder in fear. He was still ticking off points on his fingers when the vehicle came to a creaking halt outside the Beggar’s Alms.
3
Nicholas Calvin sat in the farthest corner of the saloon bar and sipped at a glass of brown ale. A pile of dusty papers was spread out before him on the table.
He liked the Beggar’s. He had been introduced to it years ago after a nocturnal expedition with Brough to the cellar that had become notorious for its grim connection with the “Clerkenwell Poisoning Mystery.” Four bodies sitting side by side in a damp cellar and all perfectly preserved by the massive doses of antimony each had absorbed. Suicide pact or murder? Publicly, no one had even been able to establish who the three men and one woman were, although some spoke guardedly of a latter-day Hell Fire Club and there had been much talk of a certain demented nobleman.
“The truth of that one will never come out,” Brough had said, “but that doesn’t mean the truth is not known.” And with those enigmatic words echoing in his mind, Nicholas had followed his uncle through gaslit courtyards and dingy alleys to the lowest pub in Seven Dials. The Beggar’s Alms was the haunt of criminals, pimps, prostitutes and all manner of outcasts, from the unfrocked clergyman who sat day and night by the open fire saying nothing and drinking almost without rest, to the circus dwarf who had grown too old to do somersaults and so outlived his usefulness. Bruno, found distracted and starving by Brough four years earlier, had been brought by the detective to the sanctuary of the Beggar’s, where he now played to a less discerning audience. His pathetic little one-man show had become a nightly event at the farther end of the bar, which all but a few ignored. At the end of it he would curl up in a ball on the straw-covered floor and sleep until opening time in the morning.
At least it keeps his belly full, Brough thought whenever he saw the dwarf in action.
Despite the ceaseless noise of the place, Nicholas found he could relax and be himself. The beer was good and the clientele appealing in a perverse sort of way. It was certainly a refreshing contrast to his parents’ whitewashed vicarage.
The wail of a broken barrel organ drifted across from somewhere in St. Giles as Brough paid the cabby and walked toward the raucous chatter and garish lights of the pub. He stepped inside and looked around the crowded bar for his nephew.
A wiry little man with red side whiskers was emerging from a lavatory to his left. “Sam Croker!” said Brough, and shook the man’s hand. “I thought I might see you here.”
“You thought right, Mr. Brough, sir,” Sam grinned from behind a great glass of frothy beer that had accompanied him to the urinal. “Never stirs outside these doors till closing.”
“Then it’s off to work, eh?” said the old detective with a smile. Sam had been one of his better underworld contacts in days gone by. A burglar by profession, he knew virtually every London villain north of the Thames. Since plowing through Notre Dame de Paris three summers ago, Brough had always thought of Sam as the King of the Beggars.
“What’s the score, Mr. Brough?”
“Oh, just a social visit, Sam. There’s no chance of the Yard taking back an old codger like me.”
“That’s too bad. We need a few more good coppers, not less of ’em. Bet you’d soon lay this strangler character by the ’eels.”
“Maybe, Sam, I don’t know. Perhaps we could have a talk about him sometime. Keep your ears open on that one though, won’t you? You know my address if you get anything.”
Brough knew no one else at the Yard had cultivated Sam as an informant and he assumed that Daubeney, his successor, would have no objection to a bit of free information from his old boss if the situation arose.
He gave Sam a wink and pushed farther into the crush of bodies. Bruno was sitting on a brandy barrel at the end of the bar, pulling faces to amuse the crowd. At the sight of Brough his face opened in a gaping childish grin. Brough smiled and waved. He saw Nicholas in his corner and gently elbowed his way toward him.
“Uncle!” said Nicholas, jumping up and extending his hand. Brough shook it heartily.
Nicholas’ frock coat was crumpled and dusty, and looked as if he had been wearing it day and night for a week. His face was dappled with the stubble of a good three days and there were dark pouches under his eyes, but he beamed with excitement and pleasure.
Brough did not remark on his nephew’s shaggy appearance, although it intrigued him. Before he could say anything at all, Nicholas said, “I’ve been longing to see you. I haven’t slept a wink since Saturday but I had to talk to you before I turned in.”
“Have you just got back?”
“No. No, I arrived in London last night.”
“I’m delighted to see you, Nicholas, but what could be so urgent that it can’t wait until you’ve had some sleep?”
Smiling, the young man looked at the pile of papers on the table in front of him.
“This,” he said. Then, once again before Brough was able to speak, he asked quickly, “What do you know of the Inquisition?”
Brough pulled up a chair and sat down opposite his nephew.
“The Inquisition?” he replied thoughtfully. “Not much at all. You’re the historian of the family, I’m just a pensioned-off bloodhound.”
He thought for a moment.
“The Spanish Inquisition. Now let me see. I think I’m right in saying it did some pretty bloody deeds in its day, mainly persecuting Protestants and heretics.”
“Which of course were one and the same to the Inquisition,” replied Nicholas. He hunched forward in his seat and rested his forearms on the table. “It’s interesting you should add the word ‘Spanish.’ Whenever we speak of the Inquisition we always seem to think of the Spanish Inquisition, chiefly I suppose because it was the most wicked and ruthless branch of the so-called Holy Court. But the Inquisition spread its tentacles all over Christendom. There was an Italian Inquisition, a French Inquisition. Even, for a time, an English Inquisition.”
“Really?” said Brough. “I didn’t know the blighters set foot here.”
“Very much so, though only for a short time at the trials of the Templars at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Another thing most people don’t know is that the Inquisition was not finally suppressed until 1808. And its successor, the Tribunal of Faith, was not abolished until 1834, less than seventy years ago. In its six hundred years the Inquisition tortured and murdered thousands in the name of Christ.”
Nicholas’ fatigue seemed to dissolve as he became more involved in his subject, and his enthusiasm gave new life to his whole body.
“Is this part of the History of Murder?” asked Brough.
“We must abandon the History of Murder.”
“Why?”
“Because we are going to write a book on one single crime and its aftermath.”
“Ah,” said Brough, still uncertain where the conversation was leading.
“We shall also tell for the first time the true story of the Inquisition and its inner workings.”
He picked up a sheaf of documents in his left hand.
“I have here,” he said, “actual documents from one of the Inquisition’s courts. They include verbatim reports of proceedings, statements of witnesses and copious confidential memoranda. They build up a remarkably detailed picture of one of the most astonishing criminal investigations ever.”
He rose and walked silently to the bar, leaving Brough to ponder what unexpected turns his disclosures might yet take. He returned with a tall glass of orange and lemon juice, the closest thing to alcohol Brough ever drank. The former policeman had always maintained that nicotine relaxed and sharpened the senses where alcohol dulled them. He had begun to revise his thinking over tobacco in recent years since a hacking cough had rendered his alarm clock redundant, and he had abandoned cigarettes for the more gentle poison of the pipe. But about alcohol his views remained unchanged. He thanked Nicholas for the drink and looked at him pensively.
“I am disappointed,” he said.
“Don’t be. In dealing with the whole panorama of murder we should have been able to investigate none of them deeply. Theories are the best we could have produced. Whereas by concentrating on just one case we shall produce no theories but the truth.”
“That does sound a shade overconfident.”
“Why? Answer this. Why should the approach to a four-hundred-year-old mystery differ from that of a modern investigation? Surely, with our scientific methods of detection we are now more likely than ever to succeed in solving the riddle.”
“Assuming we had all the facts, yes. But we are not present at the scene. We cannot go over the ground. We cannot get the feel of the place and the people. We cannot analyze the reactions and behavior of witnesses as we can in a case that occurs today. Instinct and intuition are often as important in solving crimes as are solid facts, you know that as well as I.”
“Yes, but the answer must lie in the facts. All the clues must be there. It simply needs a trained and methodical mind to sort the wheat from the chaff.”
“I challenge the word ‘simply.’ In detection there is very little that is simple.”
“Point taken. But my instinct tells me there is an answer to this mystery, and that it is contained in the facts still available. I am surprised how minutely the whole affair was documented. There are gaps, some of them quite large, but I have every hope that these can be filled in with records still to be obtained. I cannot explain why, but from the beginning I have felt an odd compulsion to get to the bottom of this case, and an intuitive certainty that I shall actually do so.”
Brough nodded silently. “Well,” he said at length, casting a glum look at the papers before him, “as you’ve raised my spirits and knocked them down again all within the space of half an hour, perhaps you’d better tell me about this wondrous crime.”
Nicholas did not react to the sarcasm. Swallowing the last of his beer, he launched into the story that had filled his mind and robbed him of sleep for months past.
4
“On the night of October the thirtieth, 1454,” said Nicholas, looking steadily into Brough’s tawny eyes, “Lorenzo di Corsa, Duke of Rogano, was murdered by an unknown assassin as he lay sleeping in his bed. It was the first of a series of killings that was to convulse half of Italy with fear.
“The town of Rogano lies in a narrow cleft of lowland between two great spurs of the Dolomites, in a fertile region known as Cavenna. Rogano evolved as a settlement after the Romans built a fortress high up in the valley to guard the perimeter of their embryonic empire from incursion by the barbarians massing beyond the Brenner Pass.
“Lorenzo was the second duke. His father, who rose to prominence as a banker and merchant, amassed a fabulous fortune and wielded enormous political power within Rogano. He was eventually invited to run the affairs of the town as Chief Citizen. After fourteen years of benevolent dictatorship, and with virtually no opposition from the city elders, he declared himself duke. He built himself a grand palace in the center of Rogano and ruled with apparent wisdom and mercy for another five years. He died in 1446 after being thrown from his horse while hunting in the hills above the city.
“He was succeeded by his son Lorenzo, then aged twenty-two, a handsome fellow judging by portraits of him. A pious man, he was both more intelligent and more studious than his father but at this time at least he was wildly undisciplined. At university he had nearly killed a fellow student in a brawl over a woman, and rarely a week went by without his challenging some rival to a duel. After succeeding to his father’s title he began to channel his excess energies into more socially acceptable outlets for aggression like field sports. He was a fine wrestler and an acknowledged master of falconry.
“In a falconry accident outside Rogano shortly after his marriage in 1451 he lost his left eye and ever after wore a white patch over the empty socket.”
“What happened? Did the bird peck it out?”
“Yes, I think so.” Nicholas paused. “In his short reign Lorenzo was as merciful an administrator as his father. But he lacked his father’s financial wizardry simply because he could summon up little enthusiasm for the aimless accumulation of wealth. Nevertheless, he became the most popular leader Rogano had known, his chief bequest to the town being one of the most magnificent libraries of medieval illuminated manuscripts anywhere in Italy. Unaware of the revolution the newly invented printing press was about to bring to the worlds of learning and communication, he commissioned the most beautiful manuscript versions of Aristotle, Socrates, Plato and the rest from calligraphers in the Cavenna monasteries.
“As Lorenzo reached the peak of his popularity something strange happened. As I said, he was a most pious man, and toward the end of 1453 he had led a great pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Shortly after his return a great change took place in his character. At the beginning of 1454 he shocked the Roganese by refusing for no apparent reason to allow his newborn son, Lothario, to be baptized. He would give no explanation for his unforeseen volte-face, which in the eyes of his people amounted to the most arrant blasphemy. The storm clouds gathered over the di Corsa Palace, and after a savage quarrel with Lorenzo, his wife fled to her family in Florence.
“Thereafter Lorenzo was rarely seen outside the grounds of the palace, and his sole companions were two Sicilian dwarfs who had joined his household shortly after the birth of his son. There was some idle talk that they were minions of the Vatican sent to spy on him and discover the reason for his strange conduct, but nothing was ever proven.
“By the autumn it became clear to the leading citizens that something had to be done either to stir Lorenzo from his hibernation or else to resort to law and set out on the miserable road to impeachment. One thing seemed certain—Rogano needed a strong and active leader to withstand the threat posed by the rapidly expanding dukedoms to the south and west. From that viewpoint Lorenzo was a dangerous liability. Before any formal moves were made fate took a hand. One of the dwarfs, a deaf mute, discovered his master murdered on the morning of October 30th when he entered the duke’s chamber with his toilet articles.”
“How was he killed?” interposed Brough. At that moment Bruno began wheeling about the farther end of the bar and singing broken verses of half-forgotten circus songs in his piping childish treble.
“Let’s find somewhere quieter to talk,” said Brough, snatching up an armful of Nicholas’ papers and marching through a doorway hung with a threadbare blanket behind the bar. Nicholas followed obediently as his uncle walked unannounced into the landlord’s dwelling place at the back of the pub.
“Leon, we want to be alone out of the noise. Upstairs O.K.?” said Brough. A growl rather than a word of assent brought the old policeman scurrying back along the passage and up a flight of steep wooden stairs. He led Nicholas to a dingy back room with green paint peeling from the door. The room contained a deal table, two chairs and a tumbled bed.
