That Awful Mess on the via Merulana by Carlo Emilio Gadda

revolver isn't the same as the kind crooks have . . . The ones that really shoot. This revolver here, officer, is a gentleman's weapon. I ... I was a bonded guard when I was a youngster: and I think I know how to handle a gun better than the next fellow. I . . . I'm in full control of my nerves . . ." The thief had got away. By a hairsbreadth: "But next time he won't make it."
    "And what about the boy?" "What boy?" "The grocer's boy," the women said. "Didn't you hear what these ladies said? They've been talking about it for an hour . . ." Ingravallo said. "Well, I don't have much to do with grocers: for things like that . . . that's the wife's department," the man answered self-importantly. Grocer's apprentices, obviously, couldn't compete with his revolver. No, he hadn't seen any boy, grocer's or other tradesmen's, butcher's or baker's.
    And yet Signora Manuela had seen him, clear as day, running out of the entrance, after the thief. "No, no!" Signora Bottafavi said, supporting her husband. "No?! No, my foot, Signora Teresa dearie, you think I don't have eyes in my head? . . . Fine thing that would be . . . with all the comings and goings in this building . . ." Professoressa Bertola contradicted the Bottafavis' denial and, at the same time, corrected the affirmation of the concierge. She was just coming home. On Wednesdays she taught only one class, from eight to nine. She was just turning into the entrance when she saw coming out—and was almost run into by—that frightened seraph with an unbelievable shock of hair: his face distraught, his lips white ... his lips were trembling, she was sure of that. She had lost sight of him because, immediately thereafter, she saw "that wicked young man" come out, the mechanic in the gray overall, but it was a rather special overall, quite swollen, and with a package: "in other words, the murderer in person . . ." "And what sort of cap was he wearing?" Ingravallo asked. "His cap . . . why, to tell you the truth ... the cap . . ." "What was it like? Tell us." "I really wouldn't know, officer." A moment before, yes, oh yes, she had heard the two shots: two thuds, which came out of the main door.
    Now it was the concierge's turn to speak up again. The two shots, yes, first of all the two shots .. . everybody agreed on them. Then she had seen a kind of gray streak in the hall, a mouse scurrying off . . . "He looked like a mouse when they run off, when I chase them with my broom . . ." And then, after him, the grocer's boy. She could swear to it. When the boy went past, all in white, except for his pants, of course, well, the murderer had already gone by. The shots? Yes, of course ... A moment before that son of a . . . had fired two shots. Still on the stairs, where they had resounded like two bombs. "Boom! Boom!" I tell you, doctor dear, I started having palpitations . . ."
    The Professoressa chose to answer back. A row flared up between the two women. Signora Liliana, in the meanwhile, hadn't appeared: and Don Ciccio was happy about it: she! mixed up in a business of this sort!
    He felt it was pointless to waste time trying to look for the projectiles, or the mark of the projectiles. Whether it was a Beretta 6.5 or an ordnance Glisenti 7.65 mattered little to him: it's quick work getting a pistol out of sight for a while. He knew this from past experience: all you have to do is entrust it to a partner, a friend.
    He dismissed the tenants, male and female, maids and shopping bags; without noticing, he stepped on the poodle's paw, and the beast unleashed a yelping that the Pope must have heard over in the Vatican. He ordered the main door closed, leaving a guard at the smaller door, the policeman who had taken over from the corporal. He went up, for another brief inspection, to the Menegazzi apartment; Pompeo, who was with him, followed; Gaudenzio hadn't even come down. He asked and looked to see if there were traces or, better, fingerprints of the murderer. The handles, the dresser's