A minute shake of the head.
“Very well. I shall leave you here. Although,” I added as a thought occurred to me, “Senhora, I wonder if you’ve heard of another new patient, named Dalser?”
Her ageing eyes flew wide, then fluttered up past my head before she leapt to her feet and scurried across the sun-scorched lawn. I made no attempt to go after her. The poor creature was clearly terrified of something; I had only made matters worse.
But before I left the garden, I studied the building in the background—the building the Portuguese woman had stared at in horror before running away. Its windows were barred, some standing open to catch a little sea breeze, but from somewhere up there came a madhouse sound that tied this place to Bedlam: a long, thin keening noise with neither direction nor word. Like an animal in pain—or a woman separated from a young son.
No: I was not likely to forget this patient named Dalser.
Chapter Thirty
HOLMES TOOK A TRAGHETTO ACROSS the Grand Canal, landing on the wrong side of a small waterway from the Porters’ Ca’ Rezzonico. However, a circuitous walk brought him to a bridge and the palazzo’s gates. As the servant led him up a ceremonial staircase and through the stunning, high, light-filled ballroom beyond, Holmes reflected that this was a house built to make lesser mortals feel that the gods dwelt among them. The family motto might as well have been sumptibus parceretur, as clearly no expense had been spared: a site on a magnificent sweep of the Grand Canal, its architect the greatest one available, with a bottomless purse to tempt all the Names of the Baroque to decorate its many surfaces. Putti and tapestries, frescoes and trompe l’oeil, gilt and marble and crystal, a ballroom that could host hundreds—there was even a garden the size of a decent campo, unheard of in this tightly-built city. Ca’ Rezzonico was a massive, magnificent, mind-boggling temple to excess, the cost of which could have comfortably set up entire nations.
Today, its occupant was a small man at a piano.
When Holmes was shown in to the inner room, just after midday, he found Cole Porter at a grand piano that in any other house would have been impressive, but here looked mildly apologetic. The pianist was making rapid-fire notations on music sheets propped on its rack, at his elbow a pietra dura table like a tapestry half-buried under a sprawl of newspapers, empty coffee cups, an overflowing glass ash-tray, and a cat.
The cat poured itself onto the floor and departed. The man kept writing, left-handed, wearing a dressing-gown and stubble despite the hour. His right hand stole along the keyboard as if under its own guidance. The melody reminded Holmes of something…
Yes: a song from that 1919 musical play. Was Porter even aware that his hand was picking out the notes of “I’ve Got Somebody Waiting”?
“You know what they call this floor of the house?” the younger man demanded without salutation, his slightly pop eyes squinted against the smoke from his dangling cigarette.
“In England we call it the first floor. Here it would be the piano nobile.”
“Exactly. The noble piano, and here we are, in my cosy little corner of the palazzo.” He plucked out the cigarette and stood to shake hands with his would-be violinist. “Morning, Mr Russell.”
“Mr Porter. So tell me: did this noble instrument come up the staircase, or was it raised by pulleys from the canal?”
Porter laughed. “The stairs—and they got this far and decided they’d have to take it apart to get it any further. But, how’d you guess it didn’t come with the place?”
“If it had, the tuning wouldn’t be going off.”
He grimaced. “I know, I got a guy coming this afternoon—always seems to take a couple weeks for the wood to settle down. Bring your fiddle?”
Holmes moved a silver candelabra off the stunning table, trying to ignore the drips of wax across a glorious lapis columbine, and set his case there instead. “I did. What are you working on?”
“Can’t call it work—I’m the laziest guy in town. And anyway, song-writing is a mug’s game. You give ’em your best, and they knock ’em to the side, one by one. No, songs are a good hobby. I play for my friends and they don’t complain.”
“You’re a bit young for retirement.”
“People like me are born retired. Anyway, I was just playing around with some ideas. A musical, you know? About a kid who shocks his family by falling for a Paris actress. What d’you think?”
“It sounds the sort of thing for which Broadway is known.”
“Think so?”
“Perhaps a bit…light.”
Porter crushed out his burning stub in the Murano glass bowl, spilling ash across a king’s ransom of inlay work. “Yeah, well, I wrote a nice serious piece—‘Within the Quota.’ Lotsa yawns. Didn’t even cover its costs.”
“Perhaps a satiric commentary on America’s repressive 1921 immigration law would have translated better into opera than it did a ballet. A modern-day La Bohème.”
“You know it? Jeez. I bet you’ve been talking to Linda. Did she tell you she had me doing fugues and symphonies with Stravinsky? At the Schola Cantorum?”
“Linda is your wife? I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“She’ll be back soon, I’d guess. Yeah, those fugues nearly killed me—I used to sneak out to the Folies Bergère for some fresh air. No, I’m better at snappy love, the music and lyrics. Oh, and college fight songs—I’m hot at those. If only Broadway wanted football-love ballads. Catchy, finger-clicking music. You know?”
As the composer talked, Holmes had taken out his violin and set it beneath his jaw to check that it hadn’t lost its tune—so he replied to Porter’s question by dashing the bow into a climbing progression leading to the maudlin opening notes of Porter’s song “Old Fashioned Garden.” The younger man threw back his head in laughter, then pounced on the keys, adding flourishes of ridiculous complexity as he warbled the words to a tune that had sounded out of date when it was new, six years before. His voice was nasal; his playing was flawless.
At the end, his supple fingers continued on into another run of notes, uncertain and unfinished. “Problem is,” he mused, “I get tired of shallow music. It’s like people who are pretty on the surface but have nothing below.” His fingers pounded a march down the keys, dull feet descending a staircase. “So booorrrriiing. Give me a song with layers to it—or a person who’s pretty on the surface but smart or clever or even vicious underneath…” The illustrating tune shifted to a light but minor-chord tinkle, the sort of music to warn an audience in a picture house. “Now, that kind of person does something to me.”
Violence, perhaps? thought Holmes.
“Of course, a pretty face with a brain behind it—like Linda—or a song that sounds simple until you start to think about it…those are worth spending time on.”
“That is true for many kinds of art. Poetry certainly. Japanese prints. Fairy tales.”
“You’re right about that last. Some of those fairy tales—all very well and good till the lights went off and then, wow! Used to give me nightmares. Red Riding Hood’s grandma gobbled up by a wolf. Sleeping Beauty poisoned by her own stepmother. I remember lying awake in my bed wondering what the hell Goldilocks was doing in the woods all on her own.”
“Along with Hansel and Gretel, it is one of several variations on the Babes in the Wood story.”
“Babes in the wood, eh? Catchy.”
“Two wealthy orphans are given to a greedy uncle, who decides to have them killed, only to have the soft-hearted hired murderers abandon them in the forest instead.”
Porter reached for his cigarettes. “And some creature finds them and raises them, so they can grow up and take their revenge, right?”
“Actually, in the original story the children die and the woodland creatures cover their bodies with leaves.”
The cigarette lingered, unlit. “Not sure I don’t like it better
my way.”
“Broadway would,” Holmes said dismissively. “Now, have you decided what sort of music you want on Saturday? Porter? Mr Porter?”
The pianist absently discarded the unlit cigarette and picked up his pencil instead, pawing through the sheet music for a blank page.
Half an hour later, having filled his eyes with Tiepolo and Colonna, with Allegories and gods and the family pope, Holmes heard his name echo along the piano nobile. He made his way back through the live-in museum to the composer, who was still on the piano bench, looking cross. “I thought you were here to work?” Porter demanded.
“I was allowing you to think,” Holmes replied mildly. “Shall we continue?”
They worked—if work described it—for a couple of hours before Cole’s wife swept in, tut-tutting at his unshaven face and silken gown. Linda turned out to be American, too, with a well-tended Kentucky drawl and an air of brooking absolutely no nonsense when it came to her husband’s comfort or his work.
It was instantly clear that Cole adored her—worshipped her, needed her, and consulted her on everything. Including, or so the gondoliers’ rumour had it, his liaisons with pretty young men. “Mr Russell, you know my wife?”
Holmes rose as Linda came into the salon. “I have not had the pleasure.”
“What? Linda, there’s someone in this fair city you haven’t laid claim to? Linda, this is Sheldon Russell, fiddler supreme—you’ll find he has lovely manners. Mr Russell, Linda Porter, the queen of my heart, the tyrant of my schedule, you’ll come to love her despite her frightening abilities—all my friends fall in love with her, don’t they, dearest?”
“Good to meet you, Mrs Porter. Mr Porter, I’ll be off now, let me know if you’d like me to—”
“Oh you can’t go, I forbid it, we’ve hardly started.”
“Cole, dear, lunch is in nine minutes, Gerald and Sara are starving, and that strange little prince fellow who followed you in yesterday is here. And before you ask, no, you can’t come to lunch in your dressing-gown.”
“I’m running, see me go? But surely we can throw another plate on the table? Mr Russell and I are having such a good time.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t think of—” Holmes began.
“Don’t you dare put that violin away! No, Linda, I’m not going up until he’s agreed to stick around, even if Gerald starves. Mr Russell, you must stay for a musical afternoon. Ignore your commitments, fling your proper behaviour to the wind: I require your strings.”
The young man’s pop eyes made him resemble a puppy begging for a treat, and Holmes, amused in spite of himself, appeared to relent. “Very well, let us misbehave. Although I’ve—”
“Hah—yes, Linda, I’m gone!” And he was.
“—eaten quite recently,” Holmes finished, turning a quizzical look on Linda. The wife merely shook her head in affection, so he laid his instrument down and stepped forward—but instead of shaking her outstretched hand, he bent over it at a courtier’s nicely judged distance: to actually touch lips to fingers would be the act of a sycophant or gigolo, while too many inches’ distance carried a threat of disdain. Her quick smile as he straightened told her he’d read her correctly. She pulled a cigarette from Cole’s enamel case, allowing him to light it.
“Mr Russell, what have you and my husband been getting up to this morning? No good, I hope?” She settled decoratively onto a brocade settee, leaving him to perch at the edge of its matching chair.
“We ran through some songs that may crop up on Saturday, but he kept getting side-tracked into ideas. I understand he’s working on a Broadway revue.”
One perfectly shaped eyebrow went up. “Is he?”
Holmes made haste to back-pedal, lest he be seen as encroaching onto her sphere of influence. “Oh my, I hope I’m not giving away something he was planning for you. You’ll act surprised, I hope?”
Her ruffled feathers went down a bit. “I’ll try my best.”
“In any event, I expect that ‘working on a revue’ is an exaggeration—more like exercising his fingers. I was actually wondering if he didn’t want to try something more classical.”
This led to Linda’s deprecating story about how she’d tried to convince Cole to work with Igor Stravinsky and a description of his successes at the Schola Cantorum (placing rather more weight on the school than Porter himself had), followed by her husband’s short, politically-inspired ballet, which had been a rather greater success in Paris than it was at home.
Through her chatter, Holmes took great care not to appear that he was trying hard to please her. He countered some of her points, kept his laughter polite rather than effusive, and made it clear that when it came to Cole Porter, this visitor was interested only in a musical friendship.
Then Porter came back, shaven and sleek, and kissed his wife and took his new accompanist out to the palazzo garden for luncheon. By the end of the afternoon, Holmes had received the royal warrant of appointment to the Porter household.
The next step would be to see the Porters’ list of invitations for Saturday night.
Chapter Thirty-one
AS WE SURGED BACK ACROSS the lagoon, moving with more enthusiasm than on the way out, I covertly studied the second oarsman, young Carlo. The shirt he wore was of a sufficiently coarse weave that it retained its shape even when damp—unlike the light and clinging upper garments worn by his more preening brothers. Nonetheless, the boy had muscle. More than that, he had the knack of motion, a quick beat at the end of each stroke that powered the craft forward. A gondola was entirely different from a punt—a lithe enamelled craft rowed by long oars rather than a blunt and heavy canal boat propelled by pushing with a pole—and yet, there was a similarity in the finial gesture of expertise.
Watching Carlo brought to mind Holmes’ mention of a wager with his gondolieri Irregulars—and that gave me an idea.
I gathered myself on the cushions to look behind me at Giovanni. His position at the stern of the gondola was the command one; the second oarsman provided more power. I studied his stance, his easy steering, the positions of his arm—making him nervous indeed. His rhythm faltered as he gave me an uncertain look, then consulted wordlessly over my shoulder with his junior.
“Signora, is there a problem?”
“No no, not in the least. I’m just interested in the way the gondola is rowed. In England, we sit in the centre with two short oars. We also have long, shallow boats—you understand ‘shallow’?” I held my hands fifteen inches apart to illustrate the depth. “We call them ‘punts,’ but because we use them on rivers that are not very deep—sometimes canals—we use a pole, a long stick, to push off the bottom.”
“Ah, punt, yes, I have heard of this. Young boys take their girlfriends, yes?”
“Sometimes. And often fall in.” Both men laughed, and their strokes picked up again—until I made my request. “May I try?”
The rights of women had not made it as far as the Venice lagoon. Giovanni looked shocked. Behind me came a spluttering sound. But I had chosen my time with care: we were in the lee of Santa Maria della Grazia. There were few boats here at present, and no gondolas visible through the haze off the water. I stood, taking care not to rock the vessel in the least, and stepped over the seat-back, holding out my hand for Giovanni’s oar.
As usual with men, be they Boy Scouts or gondoliers, he had no defence against a woman who assumed command. He drew back as if I were infectious, causing me to grab for the precariously balanced oar. He seemed to be waiting—for me to admit I was kidding, or to erupt into shrill giggles, or perhaps simply to tumble with a shriek over the side, I don’t know which. Instead, I braced my feet in the same places his had stood, and positioned my hands on the long oar.
I glanced up at him. “You might want to sit.”
When he had edged past me to the cushions—Carlo, too, hastened to ship his oar and abandon t
he vulnerable standing position—I tried out the oar. The first stroke pushed the boat’s nose around like the hands of a clock, causing the professionals to tsk even as they looked relieved at my incompetence.
I crabbed the oar a few times before I managed to return the metal cock’s comb at the prow in the right direction. Without looking down at my bemused passengers, I presented my offer. “Let us make a wager. If I manage to get us to San Giorgio without mishap, you will tell me about the woman you know on San Clemente.”
The two exchanged a look that was a mix of uneasiness and disbelief. “And, Signora, if you do not?”
“Then I shall double the day’s fees.”
After another wordless consultation, Giovanni nodded. “Si.” Amused now, he turned to take up his regal position on the seat, mocking the attitude of a proud tourist.
And I started rowing in earnest.
It was slow, at first. The high perch was more like the Cambridge style of punting than Oxford’s, and my hands were slow to perfect the delicacy of the steering process. But the weight of two men in the gondola’s belly helped stabilise our course, and after that it was more a matter of muscle power.
In minutes, my arms were burning. The upright peg used to brace the oar for its push offered little control, turning the craft’s lithe darting into a clumsy forward shamble. The intended snap of power at the end of the stroke deteriorated as my forearms gave out, leaving the work to the less flexible but more authoritative shoulder muscles. Sweating, quivering, and parched, I plugged methodically on. San Giorgio inched slowly closer. I thanked all the gods of Italy that the tide was not on its way out, for we’d have been flushed back past San Clemente and into the Adriatic in no time at all. Onwards, aching, cramping, numb…
Finally, Giovanni took pity on me. Or perhaps he spotted the approaching gondola and dared not risk the mockery of his fellows, I don’t know, but he stood, wordlessly gesturing me to stop. I did so, my hands beyond feeling the wooden grip.