4 - The Iron Tongue of Midnight by Beverle Graves Myers

pressing my fingers into the cold metal. “Vincenzo said to—”
    “Vincenzo be damned. We need to find out what’s going on.”
    Gussie clapped his hands on my shoulders and twisted me round to face him. “Tito, I’m here to paint and you’re here to sing. This murder is not a matter for us. Let’s stay out of it for once and leave it in the hands of the constable.”
    “You’ll excuse me if I don’t find the thought of the local law very comforting.”
    Gussie nodded, mouth twisted in a grimace. We’d had a recent adventure in Rome where a misguided magistrate had almost been the death of me.
    “I know. But this is a different case, and it is simply not our business.”
    “The body of a perfect stranger, murdered on an errand of mystery. Every person in the villa, even you and me, under suspicion. Admit it, Gussie, you want to open this door as much as I do.”
    He sighed, but dropped his hands and stepped away to collect a candlestick. As I clicked the door open, I heard him murmur, “As sure as night follows day, we’re going to live to regret this.”
    We stepped into the hall. Ernesto and Santini were unfurling a length of canvas beside the body.
    The steward turned and cleared his throat apologetically. “We expected to find you in your room, Signor Amato. Is there something I can get for you?”
    “Signor Rumbolt and I thought we might be of some help.”
    “No need. We can take care of this.”
    “Where are you taking him?” That was Gussie. He spoke in whispers, as we all did. There is something about the dead that inspires hushed tones.
    “Signor Dolfini directed us to put the body in the ice house until Captain Forti arrives.”
    “And then?” I asked.
    Ernesto shrugged his broad shoulders. “Then the churchyard, I suppose, to a pauper’s grave. Unless someone comes forward to claim it.”
    “Have you ever seen this man before? In the village perhaps?”
    He shook his head. “Strangers stand out in Molina Mori. If he’s been staying nearby, I’ll wager it would be in Padua. Unfamiliar faces cause no comment in a town with a university and a pilgrim shrine. But Padua is over ten miles away—I don’t often get up there.”
    “Is Captain Forti coming from Molina Mori?”
    “That’s where the constable’s house is. I’ve sent my boys to fetch him, but I doubt he will be arriving anytime soon.”
    Santini nodded knowingly, mouth hanging open. He looked as if he’d been sleeping in the wild. His hair was matted with remnants of leaves and twigs.
    Ernesto continued, “Gaspare Forti is an avid hunter, and it’s perfect weather for boar. I’d wager the grape harvest that right now he’s headed to Monte Rosso with a hunting party.”
    I was astonished. “Then he could be gone a week or more. How can he neglect his duties for so long?”
    Santini and Ernesto both chuckled. “This isn’t Venice,” the steward replied. “We don’t have hordes of people out to rob and maim each other.”
    “Until now,” I answered, stepping closer. Gussie was right behind me.
    Ernesto clenched his jaw. He was clearly itching to tell us to go back to our room, but a steward was not in the habit of giving orders to his master’s guests. Instead, he turned and nodded to Santini. Both men squatted. With no flinching that I could detect, Ernesto slid his hands under the corpse’s shoulders and Santini took hold of the legs. They rolled the dead stranger onto the canvas and began to fold the ends of the heavy fabric around him.
    “Wait,” I cried. “What’s that?” Now that the body was lying face down, it was evident that the man’s short jacket stretched over a bulge at the small of his back.
    Voicing a grunt of surprise, Ernesto quickly pulled the jacket up to reveal the butt of a pistol. Before the steward could object, I bent over and jerked it from the stranger’s waistband.
    It was a small pistol, uncocked. I took a sniff of the pan. “Doesn’t seem to have been fired