Chapter 17 #2
When Miss Wheeler paused for breath, I filled in a piece of the puzzle for her. “That’s when Signora Colombo decided they needed to take a drastic step to protect Emiliano. They faked his death.”
Miss Wheeler nodded. “Emiliano has been hiding in the house ever since.”
“And the murder?” Oscar asked. “If De Angelis believed Giovanni was the firework magician, why did he kill him? De Angelis needed him.”
Miss Wheeler posed the question to Signora Colombo. “She says De Angelis grew angry with her husband for his continual refusal and must have lost his temper.”
At the mention of the village, Signora Colombo spat on the ground. Then she gestured for her son to continue walking.
Oscar dogged their steps. “Miss Wheeler, please tell her we’ll help her if she stays.”
“How can we help her?” I asked.
“By accompanying her to visit Pietro Scala. That letter is the key to her son’s future.
He has a right to his inheritance. The Scala business may be in trouble, but I’m sure that boy’s inheritance is more money than he’ll ever make as a fatherless, poorly educated boy from a provincial village.
We can help persuade Scala to give Emiliano something. ”
Miss Wheeler explained his reasoning to the widow. I was surprised that Signora Colombo didn’t continue walking. She seemed to consider the proposal. With a glance at her son, she nodded then exchanged a few words with Miss Wheeler.
“I’ve told her she and her son can stay in my room at the hotel,” Miss Wheeler said. “Just until De Angelis and his friends leave the area for good. I also told her it’s probably best if her son never uses his firework magic again. If he’s noticed, it will attract the wrong sort.”
“That won’t be easy,” Oscar muttered. “A magician can’t help but be drawn to his or her craft.”
“Indeed,” Miss Wheeler said grimly.
The women chatted quietly as we walked to Monteoro.
After a while, Miss Wheeler interpreted for us.
“She seems relieved to have us on her side. I think she has felt quite alone in Pecco ever since moving there upon her marriage. She wasn’t born in Pecco or Monteoro and the villagers have always treated her like an outsider. ”
“Being married to a man of illegitimate birth probably didn’t help,” Oscar added.
While we’d been talking, clouds had closed in, blocking the moonlight.
Oscar lit the lantern to help guide us. Despite the extra light, or perhaps because of it, my nerves stretched even more.
The light exposed us while deepening the shadows outside the glow.
The dark silhouettes of the trees took on a giant anthropomorphic quality, their branches seeming to reach out to us like claws.
I kept close to my friends and listened for sounds beyond our footsteps.
We all heard the low rumble of men’s voices at the same time and stopped as one. Signora Colombo clung to her son and must have hugged him too tightly. He gasped. Or perhaps it came from her.
The voices also stopped. Then came the sound of footsteps running down one of the narrow Monteoro alleys. Retreating, thank God. It must have been some young men up to no good, as young men seem to do everywhere.
Miss Wheeler insisted she knew a back entrance to the hotel and took Signora Colombo and Emiliano that way.
They’d take the stairs up to her room where they could rest for the night.
She suggested asking Defoe to pay for them to stay there longer, even though she and Defoe had to leave Monteoro.
Miss Wheeler seemed convinced he’d do it since he had so much money and cared little how it was spent.
Oscar and I promised her we’d go with the Colombos to call on Pietro Scala in the morning.
The plan felt hastily thrown together, and I spent the next little while in bed thinking of all the things that could go wrong. Our first act should be to hire an interpreter since Miss Wheeler was departing. It was no use trying to help Signora Colombo if we couldn’t understand her.
I must have fallen asleep because I awoke to shouting in the corridor and banging on my door. I’d hardly got a chance to register that it was Oscar shouting when my door was flung open. A hapless hotel employee holding a key stepped aside as two Carabinieri pushed past him.
I froze. My voice failed me. All I could do was stare at the policemen shouting at me in Italian, and wonder if they’d let me change out of my night clothes into something more suitable. Suitable for what?
“What is the meaning of this?” came Oscar’s snarl. I couldn’t see him. He was still in the corridor. “We’re British citizens! English. Inglesi.”
“You are arrested,” said one of the Carabinieri. I recognized him as the fellow we’d spoken to in the piazza.
“On what charge?” Oscar shouted.
The officer handed me my clothes, shaking them at me when I didn’t move. My body reacted and went through the motions. I changed out of my pajamas and into the trousers and shirt. I didn’t bother with the jacket or tie but managed to put my shoes on before the officer marched me out of the room.
Oscar looked relieved upon seeing me, even though he was pinned to the wall by a very large Carabinieri officer. “Are you all right, Gavin?”
“Your lip! It’s bleeding.”
“I got in a facer or two of my own.”
The officer in charge gave an order and his men forced us along the corridor.
Doors had opened and guests peered out to see what all the commotion was about.
Some quickly disappeared back inside. More than one woman gasped at the sight of Oscar dressed only in his trousers, with no shirt under his suspenders.
The gawps prompted the officer carrying Oscar’s shirt to place it around his shoulders.
Oscar couldn’t put it on properly with his hands cuffed behind him.
It seemed they didn’t need the same precautions with me.
I went willingly, almost numbly. My head felt light, as if all the thoughts had vanished, leaving an empty space.
Indeed, not all thoughts. One remained. The notion that this couldn’t be happening.
We were being arrested in a foreign country where we didn’t speak the language.
Downstairs in the foyer, Oscar again asked why we were under arrest. Finally the officer in charge, the one who spoke English, replied.
“Criminal association.”
“What criminals?” Oscar snapped. “Who have we associated with?”
“Anarchists.”
“We don’t know any anarchists.”
“A reliable witness heard you sympathize with them and their cause.”
That rendered Oscar speechless. Like me, he must have guessed the reliable witness was Pietro Scala, the wealthiest man in the district.
A man who would have enormous sway with the local Carabinieri.
A man I’d clashed with over his treatment of his factory employees and to whom I’d expressed opinions that aligned with the anarchy movement.
“That’s not a crime!” Oscar cried.
“It is here now,” the officer in charge said.
My knees buckled. I would have fallen if the officer hadn’t held me up. “I’m sorry,” I whispered to Oscar.
He didn’t hear me. His body had gone rigid as another two Carabinieri accompanied Miss Wheeler down the stairs. “Release her this instant!”
“Be calm, Mr. Barratt,” she said, although she didn’t sound calm herself. A thread of steel ran through her tone. She was not upset or anxious. She was furious.
“I’m so sorry,” I said again. “This is all my fault.”