Intrigue In Milan

Chapter 8

Milan, 22 October 1816, 7 a.m.

Headquarters of the Directorate-General of the Austrian Police

Sangalli made himself known at Ziani’s office with a yawn and a written report concerning the clues left.

The lieutenant invited him to sit down on a stool of worm-addled wood that, with a table and a dusty filing cabinet, comprised all the furnishings in the room.

‘A spot of coffee?’ Ziani offered. ‘The Molinari girl made it, not Dei Cas’.

‘Praise be!’ answered the second lieutenant in a sigh of relief.

‘Can you summarise your novel by mouth whilst taking out the irrelevant details?’

‘Very simply: none in the vicinity of the tombone saw or heard anything’.

‘Who did you question?’

‘The lock’s night watchman and the proprietor of the only tavern open at that time of night ─ situated at the side of the bridge opposite the church ─, a certain Cirillo, a Neapolitan immigrant who’s run the place for a dozen years or so. Neither he nor his five patrons have seen or heard a thing. Nearly all were drunk’.

‘As perfect citizens of the Austrian Empire should! Have you provided for their being identified?’

‘Certainly. Molinari is looking into each of them in our records. Given their grit, I wager they are all unreliable’.

‘You’ve lost the bet, Sergeant!’ a womanly voice called out over Sangalli’s shoulder.

‘May I enter, Lieutenant?’.

‘Come in, Molinari,’ answered Ziani, then offering her his seat.

Anna Molinari was the young daughter of the architect behind one of the best gilt bronze centrepieces in Milan that was exhibited before the Viennese court of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. Upon Napoleon’s arrival with the French, he was disfavoured due to his sympathies with Austria and died impoverished. The first governor of Milan, Bellegarde, had nonetheless helped the young Anna by procuring for her a post in the archive of the Directorate-General of Police. Her impeccable knowledge of French and German, as well as Italian, afforded her access to the enormous amount of information accumulated over the preceding half-century (including the two decades of Napoleonic occupation) in all three languages.

She was a fair-haired, short-sighted and buxom girl of medium height and wide flanks; she would try to hide her chest with a frock coat twice too large. She wore a pair of thick spectacles and her hair tied in a plait hanging down.

‘I wager that the suspects are more candid than the doves!’ said Ziani.

‘Your “unreliables”, Paolo, are a milkman, a lantern lighter, a knife grinder, a painter, a baker and a shoemaker,’ Molinari clarified.

‘And what of that landlord from Naples, this Cirillo character?’ the sergeant asked in disappointment.

‘He came to Milan when Murat was King of Naples. His hostelry has neither been patronised by miscreants nor has it been a place for brawling or illicitness’.

‘So now we’re in the s**t!’ Sangalli cried out, with Ziani looking askance at him due to the presence of the lady functionary to whom he then gave the victim’s credentials.

‘The surname was Marais, but his first name is illegible. Can you investigate this?’

‘As once I find something, I’ll be back with you, sir’.

‘Not before late this afternoon; the sergeant and I must go …"

‘Do you mind?! No, just a moment, what’s that mean? I must make clear to you that I’ve not had a wink of sleep all night and I’ve not even broken fast yet!’ Sangalli protested.

‘I was just saying that the sergeant and I must go to Piazza San Fedele into the hotel of the victim, then to the constabulary and onto Cà Granda’.

‘You know where to find me,’ answered Molinari with a military salute.

‘May I apprise you of the fact I’ve not slept for more than twenty-four hours? I’ve not the word “slave” marked on the forehead!’

‘There is still coffee in the pot, feel free to avail yourself of it!’ Ziani answered.

‘Very well, let’s not sleep! As to everything else:’ he said, continuing in dialect, ‘neither at the hostelry nor in bed do you grow old!’

Milan, 22 October 1816, 8.30 a.m.

Hotel “Bella Venezia”, Piazza San Fedele

Ziani and Sangalli swept alongside the Teatro alla Scala to turn right for contrada Del Marino (which would later become via Marino), thereby reaching in a few minutes the nearby piazza San Fedele, its name taken from the sixteenth century church appearing before it.

To the right of the church could the rear parts of the Palazzo Marino be admired, the building occupied by numerous bureaux of the Habsburg financial administration.

On the south-west wing of the square, Ziani noted the remnants of a building being felled.

‘And what was this?’ he asked the sergeant.

‘The Palazzo Sannazzari. Upon the demise of the proprietor over ten years ago, it was taken over by Napoleon who installed the Ministry of Finance there for his Kingdom of Italy’.

‘Do you mean that poor whippersnapper Giuseppe Prina?’

‘The very man! Back then, he wasn’t so dishonest. In 1814 and not long before Bellegarde came, the baying crowds assaulted the palace and slaughtered the poor mite, causing such damage and devastation. Now it’s to be demolished and replaced with a new palace commissioned by a certain Count Carlo Imbonati’.

Ziani set his sights on the portal of a newer building bearing just the one balcony on the second floor. It was bedecked with various framed flowers, much the same as the seven windows of both second and third floors at the front.

The sergeant at his side, he approached the concierge to question its workers and, finally, the hotel superintendent. He was a tall, greying man with an affable demeanour, wearing a moustache and spectacles.

‘In our guest book, everything is written down, Lieutenant. Here we are: Monsieur Octave Marais, born at Grenoble in 1780, arrived this last tenth of October, payment anticipated for and until the day after tomorrow,’ said the superintendent as he showed them the entry.

‘When did you last see him?’

‘I don’t recall having seen him often, but you may speak to the gents and...’

‘Today’s your lucky day, Paolo, good questioning! If it doesn’t displease you, sir, whilst my zealous sergeant questions the hotel’s employees, I’d like to inspect Monsieur Marais’ room’.

‘I’ll have the keys given to you forthwith and I remain fully at your disposal’.

Whilst the sergeant was taking statements from secretaries, waiters, porters and some guests on the first floor, Ziani opened the window of Marais’ room looking out to the rear of the Palazzo Marino and began the inspection.

Having worked for two hours, he was concluding the examination of the victim’s last jacket when he heard a knock at the door.

‘Yes? Oh, it’s you, Paolo! Have you finished?’

‘Depressingly so! Our suicidal contortionist was a skinflint of few words and didn’t call in on either any of the patrons nor the usual ladies of the night. He was never seen on the first floor of a morning: he’d take coffee and would then leave to return under cover of darkness, almost until dawn, in fact!’

‘Every day?’

‘Except for yesterday, given he still stayed in his room and left before dinner, never to return. Have you found something?’

‘He was a cleanly chap, orderly and meticulous. Aside from the replacement of linen planned until the last day of his visit, I found receipts and orders that indicated what line of work he had’.

‘A merchant, you mean?’

‘A merchant for a large company of Dijon vintners, an inventory for which I’ve found, although I was hoping to find something of more interest, like the name of the one he was to meet at the Tombone last night!’

‘But why meet at that late hour, given the regularity of his movements?’

‘We’re to speak of this later; now, time is short and we have to be in two other places before noon’.

‘So be it. I’ll replace this jacket into the wardrobe and...’

‘Put it back on the bed, Paolo. I’ve yet to search it and I’ve heard something knocking within,’ Ziani said, jumping to his feet as if a spring.

As the confound sergeant shook the garment, Ziani clearly heard a similar noise to that produced by a small sack of dice or marbles.

‘Where does that come from?’ asked Sangalli.

Ziani uncovered an inner pocket so well sewn as to become almost imperceptible to whomever should handle it without undressing. Extending his hand to the sergeant, he asked:

‘Your knife, Paolo’.

With surgical exactitude, Ziani cut into the seam and extracted a sort of closed vial with paper rolled around it and strange dark orbs therein.

Astonished, Sangalli asked:

‘What are they? Lamb droppings, from a particularly small one, at that?’

Ziani silenced him with wide open eyes and relived the nightmare of that accursed night.

‘Marco, just what has happened to you?’

‘You take these things; they’re evidence. I’ll explain everything later’.

‘Just a moment, have you seen the paper that covered the vial? There’s something written on it, perhaps a name’.

‘Let me see … the name is Irina and the surname is incomprehensible; it seems like it’s Verga or Varga. There’s P18 beside it; who knows what that means? I’ll keep this whilst you convey the list of employees and clientèle to Molinari’.

‘Regarding the guests, I’ve questioned them all apart from three who’d left before our arrival. I’ve left the concierge with a summons to report to the Directorate-General for deposition’.

‘Very good. You now go to Molinari whilst I summon another service carriage’.

At last alone, Ziani sighed deeply to ward off the ill feeling provoked by his recognition of the marbles as opium; the illicit circulation of this d**g had caused the collapse of his investigation in Trieste.

After that dreadful night, the opium trade that had consumed Trieste literally vanished into thin air. Ziani always asked himself why the smugglers had abandoned the well-to-do Triestine market, considering that he – after two months in the infirmary – had been transferred to Milan, having been beckoned there by Field Marshal Bellegarde who sought a trustworthy man to assign to the city’s criminal bureau.

Who was furnishing the organisation with opium?

Whence did it hail?

Who was the mysterious hooded one at the port to know everything about his cover?

Who had pulled him by the hair to save him from drowning?

This bombardment of unanswered questions was interrupted by the arrival of the service carriage, ready to take him to a new phase of his investigation.