Intrigue In Milan

Chapter 7

Milan, 22 October 1816, 4.30 a.m.

Cà Granda Infirmary, Strada dell’Ospedale della Cerchia dei Navigli

Lieutenant Ziani’s direct coach to the Infirmary skirted the Cerchia dei Navigli, the medieval city walls of Milan’s ancient defensive moat that could be flooded as and when; the south-eastern parts of the city had been transformed by the genius of Leonardo da Vinci at Naviglio by linking the Naviglio Grande to the Martesana. The turrets had been lit and the fog had raised enough for it to be seen that the canal still had no boats passing through.

As the carriage proceeded between swings and creaks that the uneven paving compelled, Ziani didn’t seem anxious to visit the mortuary chamber at the hospital. In his heart of hearts, he hoped to reach there with the autopsy newly ended and to meet his friend Doctor Carlo Vercesi of Pavia, who’d pioneered neonatal forensic medicine. Vercesi was second to none when it came to analysis of his findings on cadavers and the organs therein.

Having both emerged from the front and moved towards the rear entrance of this enormous hospital building, Ziani lingered on the long terracotta façade of the building, fascinated by the monumental central gate dividing the façade of the contrada dell’Ospedale, or the via Festa del Perdono, in twain and equally. In particular, he observed the eastern wing of this edifice, the building of which was instigated by Filarete to whom was owed the round-arched arcade resting on columns of stone, their foundations raised high.

After a few breaths drawn in force, Ziani decided to enter the building. He walked along the gargantuan courtyard alone, surrounded by arcades up to the guard post. He was then accompanied to the mortuary by the officer on duty through a series of large rooms bearing wooden beams; between these rooms he would often lose his way.

Milan, 22 October 1816, 5 a.m.

Piazza San Marco

Sangalli was unable to find any clues whatsoever in the area that had been so well cleaned. Testily, he threw a cigar to the ground he had been nervously smoking and turned to Biraghi:

‘So, lad, can you tell me where the blood was?’

‘I don’t follow the question, sir; it was here on the bridge, of course’.

‘Try not to give me stupid answers and we’ll do well. You"ve cleaned the bridge with so much of that water, there’s no longer any more here than in the rest of this godforsaken lake. There was blood only on the spot you were at when we arrived?’

‘Ah, now I understand; do forgive me, sir. This was the biggest patch of it and the rest was dripping as far to the spot at which you and the lieutenant arrived’.

‘Do the boats tend to be moored on the same side from which we reached you?’

‘Yes, sir!’

‘Were there any colleagues of yours about at the time of death?’

‘In this fog? You have to be joking, right, sir?’

‘Not a bit! Who discovered the body?’

‘The guard at the lock who took ill on seeing it. Now it falls to us at the station at Andegari to report to sergeant Gobetti. He should be back then’.

‘On his return, let me know because I want to interrogate him also. If memory serves me right, there’s a tavern open through the night on the bank opposite; you’ll find me there. Should I move about, I’ll come to tell you of it. When you’ve finished cleaning, stay here and wait’.

‘Very well, sir, but ─ if I may ─ what will you be doing in that trough?’

‘Interrogating the landlord and his patronage. What did you think, you fool?’

Milan, 22 October 1816, 5 a.m.

General Hospital

A few years earlier, the General Hospital of Milan had introduced many an innovation regarding its organisation that had always been efficient and innovative. During the recent Napoleonic era, its superintendent Pietro Moscati had established a well-accoutred chemical laboratory, rearranged formulas, advocated that medicines be distributed gratis to the poor and developed an educational institution to instruct young doctors in waiting, the absence of a Faculty of Medicine within the city notwithstanding. No less important was his creation of a small department of forensic medicine, a new discipline making its first steps through all Europe, particularly in Vienna with an actual school of its own to support the police in their criminal investigations.

Barely concealing his unease, Ziani turned to an orderly wishing to clean the long corridor floor leading to the mortuary.

‘Police! Is the Catalan here?’

‘He’s in the mortuary chamber at the end of the corridor, sir’.

‘I was hoping he’d not yet left … Thank you!’ he answered, proceeding with measured steps and the grimace of disgust seen in those preparing for the worst.

“Catalan” was the vernacular for what would now be called a forensic scientist whose remit was, above all, health: he was a fully-fledged doctor who registered the cause of death for all the dead, not just those whose death was suspect as an English coroner did and does. The vital difference between Italian and English forensic medicine is that the coroner is only a civil servant who refers cases of unnatural death to the public authorities. In contrast, this “Catalan” ─ first cited in official papers from the middle of the fifteenth century ─ was a fully-qualified doctor called upon to ascertain causes of death. The origin of the name may very well have been the robe he’d wear for prophylactic purposes as opposed to a shirt: an exceptionally long garment, almost like an enormous tunic meant to protect him from any which scourge.

As Ziani lingered over the final steps, a slight, fair-haired young doctor with haunted eyes took him by the hand over the mortuary threshold.

‘You were just the thing I needed to round off such a wonderful night. What can I do you for? Another remedy for those bottle aches of yours? Just when will you ever cease to ruin yourself by your own hand?’

‘Hullo, Vercesi; I am pleased to see you too. I sensed a little nostalgia on your part and of this place, obviously. I’m here about the man from the tombone of San Marco’.

‘You’ve come late; he isn’t very presentable and, having remembered the last time you saw an autopsy, I counsel you against coming through this door’.

‘Well, you’ve now finished, praise be. Tell me all because I have blind faith in your account without having to see the cadaver. I cannot abide autopsies’.

‘Well, you know what they say in the barracks: “If you don’t know how to stay in the game...”’

‘“...you didn"t have to join in”. I know it well! Now, what can you tell me about the suicide?’

‘When alive, he must have been such a unique chap, full of invention; I would venture his was a creative spirit,’ commented the doctor.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘By that, I mean that I’ve never seen anyone attempt suicide by two knives to the back, then extracting the blade,’ answered Vercesi. ‘Disappointed in the failure of his attempt, he then threw himself from a bridge to be battered against the foot of a pillar on that bridge’.

He led the guest into a near-darkened room full of test tubes, with chemical solutions deposited on a bench, seemingly in disorder and defying reason.

Ziani sat down on a wooden stool, with the doctor removing his coat and then presenting him with a large chest of objects of various kinds.

‘The personal effects of the victim’.

‘What can you tell me of his death?’

‘I could have told you more of what I’ve deduced, had I examined him at the scene of the crime!’ Vercesi commented as he drank a glass of milk.

‘The Directorate-General of Police are working to recognise your province, as it were, officially. Believe!’

‘Let us wait now for Vienna! Well, to get back to this creative suicide: as you were saying, he twice stabbed himself in the back ─ not the once ─ and then, unhappy as to the outcome, he takes the dagger out and leaps into the tombone of San Marco to be pummelled against the foot of a bridge pillar’.

‘Which means whoever killed him has tried awkwardly to make it look like suicide’.

‘Not that awkwardly; do you know how many cases like this have taken place in Pavia?’

‘No, how many?’

‘At least ten since I left university! The cases were closed due to their being entrusted to incompetent functionaries and malingerers or … drunkards’.

‘Just like me, then!’ Ziani cried, suddenly reawakening from the torpor.

‘I didn’t mean to offend you, Marco, but everyone in the constabulary knows you drink and for that, if they’ve given you this case, they want you to chalk it up to suicide’.

‘Good-for-nothing bastards!’ whispered Ziani as he stared at the white wall of the study.

‘Now, what do I do? Do I record it as a suicide and omit the dagger wounds?’

‘Perish the thought, Doctor! Write the truth; the rest will be my affair. Let’s look at his chattels,’ Ziani said, availing himself of a sudden zeal.

Vercesi’s words motivated him to find a purpose to the man’s life.

‘Our decedent hid them well in different pockets within his jacket and overcoat. I feel sure that neither his assassin nor your colleague in the constabulary, that scoundrel of a second lieutenant, Mangiafico…"

‘Spreafico. I see it wasn’t only me to have his name wrong!’

‘In essence, the victim was never searched by your constabulary friends’.

Ziani noticed the platter, first noting a small, very incisive dagger:

‘It’s clean; he didn’t defend himself. He can’t have been deaf to the steps of the assailant on that bridge, therefore …"

‘He knew that man and gently turned his back to him. Perchance both had arrived at the tombone together and had arranged a rendez-vous’.

‘And above all, who knows for why? Let us move forward,’ Ziani said, cutting to the chase.

‘His identity document is still legible in parts,’ Vercesi observed.

‘See, the Christian name can’t be read any more, but the surname is Marais, born in an illegible French locale’.

‘If he’s a foreigner, you could examine the hotel records of Milan’.

‘There’s no need; look here, there’s an illegible address in the identity document holder’.

‘Excellent, you bloodhound! That quite escaped my notice! What’s written there?’

‘Hotel Belle Venise, piazza San Fedele, Milano’.

‘So, the friend was well kept. As to the rest, even his clothes were of superb quality: from jacket and shirt to trousers and shoes, all were made to measure and bearing the label of a Parisian haberdasher. Even the unmentionables are made from fine cotton and the cap is of the English sort, like their nobility use on their hunts for foxes on the heath. The shoes, nonetheless, were cobbled here in Milan’.

‘There’s also a pocket watch here, a wallet full of French and Austrian currency with some coins’.

‘I dare say you can safely rule out theft as a possible motive!’

‘No doubt. Tomorrow morning, I shall send an officer to retrieve everything. You then let me know when you’ll be able to appear before the Magistrate for testimony at the inquest’.

‘In fact, my deposition is set for tomorrow morning, rather ... today at noon,’ answered Vercesi, his face reddening.

‘What was that? That’s impossible, are you sure you’ve understood?’

‘On governor Saurau’s orders. The magistrate will be Count Giuseppe Sormani. Best of all, the order came in writing before the cadaver even arrived. What am I to do?’

‘Tell them everything you’ve just uncovered’.

‘Now, I’ll go back to examining the wounds. If only I could uncover the type of blade as used and determine whether the assassin used his right hand or if he’s left-handed".

‘Can you spare me ten minutes before you go to your cemetery?’

‘Have you already had that nightmare?’

‘It would be news to tell you I’ve no longer had it’.

‘Is this why you’ve turned back to the drink of late?’

‘Not for that alone. The spirits of my poor friends fallen at the Battle of Wagram have come back to haunt me’.

‘By Christ, it’s the same old story! Why do this, Marco? Everyone likes the odd glass, but to give a bottle to you is like...’

‘All right, Carlo, you’ve said your piece! Now do you want to hark what I say?’

‘You have my word, even if I find it absurd to confide in someone whose only business is with the dead’.

‘Well, at least I know that you’ll not tell my secrets to many’.

‘And it’s me who also listens to your inanities! Is the dream always the same?’

‘Only slightly different. For the first time, I heard voices’.

‘Which voices? The usual elusive maiden ─ or maybe it was a boy ─ who, adept at swimming, thrust you from the icy grasp of the Adriatic Sea, pulling you ashore by the hair until you fell unconscious again?’

‘Damn your eyes, Carlo! I was dying and the tide carried me out to sea that night. How did I return to the shore?’

‘Like you don’t know! We’ve discussed this so many times before: when you’d woken up in a hospital bed in Trieste, you learnt that an unknown individual found you on the beach and summoned the police, not a woman’.

‘But must that be true? I was certainly saved, but by whom?’

‘Is that all? You’ve certainly not told me anything new’.

‘I’d have done so, had you not interrupted me. I heard the voice of those two cads to have left me for dead’.

‘You’re trying to bring to the surface that which is still lacking. What were they saying?’

‘One of the two ─ I believe him to be the man with the hood ─ had a false voice and seemed to know all about me, but I understood precious little of what he said until he called the man to have struck me in the back by the name of Oblak,’ answered Ziani, with a chill taking hold there, as frozen as the hold of the Bora on his body adrift in the Adriatic.