Chapter 13 #2
As dawn peeped through the crack between the curtains, my mind finally moved on to the danger I’d placed myself in.
So many things could have gone wrong. Rocco could have woken Signore Scala.
Either of them could have challenged me.
They could have reported us to the Carabinieri.
Or if Scala kept a weapon near the bed, I may have been killed, and then Oscar and Miss Wheeler would be in danger, too.
I’d done a very foolish thing to go upstairs on my own and I felt sick from all the terrible possibilities that kept replaying in my mind as I tried to get to sleep.
I needed to scrub all thoughts from the night, and the only way to do that was to talk about it. Besides, I’d also come to the conclusion that Rocco could help us.
Miss Wheeler informed us over breakfast that Mr. Defoe had taken a boat across the lake to do some sightseeing, as he’d stated he would.
“He tasked me with following you two again.” She spread jam on her toast, making sure it went right to the edge.
“Shall we confront the abbot or Signore Scala first?”
Oscar watched Miss Wheeler’s mouth as she bit into her toast. He seemed fixated on the sight of her chewing, so much so that I was surprised when he answered her. “Neither.”
It had been what I was going to say, and not what I’d expected from him. “Why not?” she asked.
He touched the corner of his mouth. “You have a smidge of jam here, Miss Wheeler.”
She dabbed a napkin to her lip, wiping it off. Still, Oscar watched her. “Thank you, Mr. Barratt, you can stop staring now. I am not eating for your entertainment.”
“Sorry.” He picked up his knife and fork. “That was rude of me. I was just…nevermind.”
She arched one eyebrow but Oscar didn’t continue. “Why do you suggest we don’t tell the Scala brothers that we know they’re brothers?” she asked him.
“What will it achieve? Telling Scala that we know his brother is the abbot isn’t going to force him to tell us who he sold the books to, or admit he was involved in the murder of the boatbuilder.”
“Perhaps not, but I would like to see his reaction. I’d like to see the abbot’s reaction more. I wonder if the monks at the abbey know. Would Brother Eduardo be cross to learn his precious books were given away to the abbot’s own brother who then sold them? That smacks of corruption to me.”
“And we know Scala needs money,” Oscar said, reaching for the coffee pot. He poured some into Miss Wheeler’s cup then asked me if I wanted more.
I held out my cup.
“You’re very quiet this morning, Gavin,” he said as he poured. “What do you think we should do about this new knowledge?”
I clutched my cup with both hands and stared into the dark, bitter liquid. “I have a confession to make.” My cheeks began to heat at the prospect of what I was about to say. Hopefully they’d attribute my blush to the hot coffee. “Last night, I met the man I followed from the village to the villa.”
As if they were both puppets whose strings had been pulled at the same time, they leaned forward.
“We spoke,” I went on. “Signore Scala was asleep and didn’t wake. I’m quite sure Rocco won’t inform him of our visit.”
“Rocco,” Oscar echoed.
I sipped, taking my time to gather my wits again. “He begged me not to tell Signore Scala that I saw him meet De Angelis, so he won’t risk telling Scala that I broke in. He doesn’t know you were with me.”
Oscar sat back with a humph. “I didn’t realize you’d gone upstairs. I thought you were looking through the majordomo’s office. I can’t believe you went prowling around up there on your own.”
“I didn’t prowl.”
“On you own, Gavin. Upstairs.”
“Your point?”
“Anything could have happened! Scala could have woken. What if he’d seen you? What if he’d had a weapon? Can we trust Rocco not to tell him?”
They were the same concerns that had kept me awake. He was right. Anything could have happened. Why had I been so foolish?
“What’s come over you, Gavin? It’s not like you to gad about at leisure through another man’s house in the middle of the night. In a foreign country, I might add.”
Miss Wheeler placed a hand on his arm and tilted her head to the side. She didn’t say a word, but an understanding passed between them. I couldn’t decipher it and felt somewhat excluded.
I cut into my poached egg on toast and stabbed it with my fork. “I don’t know why I went upstairs. It was a whim, a moment of madness. Don’t be cross with me.”
Oscar grunted.
Miss Wheeler’s other hand rested on my arm. “He’s only cross because he was worried, Professor.”
“Worried? I’m not worried.” Oscar waved in my direction. “He’s fine, as you can see. Perhaps if I’d known what he was doing at the time, I’d have been worried. But I’m not now.”
“Then why are you cross with him?”
He picked up his coffee cup. “I’m jealous that he had an adventure without me.
I thought about going upstairs but decided not to because I knew Gavin would worry.
So I stayed downstairs, and it seems I missed out on a valuable interrogation.
” He drained his coffee cup and picked up the pot to refill it, only to find it empty. “Does anyone else want more coffee?”
We made plans as we finished breakfast. Armed with the new information about the two Scala brothers, we decided to speak to each in turn. But first, we’d see what Rocco could tell us.
It was Miss Wheeler who suggested we threaten to blackmail him about his connection to anarchists to learn as much as we could. Oscar agreed. Neither seemed perturbed at the thought of using underhanded tactics to get answers.
I, however, had many reservations. My stomach felt a little queasy all of a sudden.
When Miss Wheeler returned to her room after breakfast to collect her parasol, Oscar and I returned to our rooms, too. I unlocked my door and was about to enter when Oscar stopped me.
“Where did you meet Rocco?” he asked.
Admitting I’d entered Scala’s bedroom and been confronted by his naked lover in the corridor was not a conversation I wanted to have with Oscar.
With anyone. “I told you. Upstairs.” I kept my gaze on him.
It was too hard and unsteady. I blinked.
Blinked again. Too many times? Surely he could see I was guilty of deliberately withholding details.
“Yes, but where upstairs? Was Rocco wandering about, too? If he was, perhaps he was looking for something as well. Perhaps he was looking for information about the Scala factory to pass on to De Angelis. If so, we could use that in our interrogation. So, was Rocco sneaking around, searching rooms?”
“I, er…” My stomach gurgled loudly. “I need to use the privy. I’ll meet you downstairs in ten minutes.”