The Thief of Venice by Jane Langton Read Free Book Online Page A

course young Ricky had paid no attention to his mother, but he couldn't help remembering some of her sour maxims and guilt-inducing platitudes— This have I done for thee. What hast thou done for me?
    Later on, at the time of his marriage in Venice, he had been baptized a Roman Catholic, and another weight of moral reproof had landed on his shoulders.
    Both of these influences had been feeble, and he had shrugged them off. Yet now as he looked at the dead man they peered around the corner of his conscience.
    Today in the operating room of the Ospedale with a gastric carcinoma under his knife, something else had affected him. Poised over the tumor he had seen a sharp vision of the anguished face of the dying spazzino , and it had given him a turn. "Separate thyself from evil," cautioned his mother. "Repent and thy sins will be forgiven," promised the Holy Father.
    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