That Awful Mess on the via Merulana - Carlo Emilio Gadda [67]
Valdarena's affirmations had the timbre and the incontestable warmth of the truth. "And how do you explain the disappearance of the iron coffer? and the two bank books?"
"How should I know?" the young man said: "how could I know who did it?" He looked at Ingravallo. "If I knew, that monster would already be in jail for sure, in my place. The coffer? I've never even seen it. The chain and the ring, along with the ten thousand lire—she gave them to me: she forced me to take them. The envelope—she was the one who insisted on hiding it here": he slapped his hip with his hand: "For that matter . . . Remo must know about it, too, I should think."
"No, he didn't know anything!" Ingravallo contradicted him harshly. "Cousins' secrets!" under that pitch on his head, he was livid: "And you," he incriminated him with a forefinger, "you knew that he didn't know." Giuliano flushed, shrugged. "Well, like I said before, she was the one who gave me the ten thousand. She stuffed the money here, in my jacket," and he touched his side again. "That envelope, the one they took from my desk": Don Ciccio frowned. "Then I ran off, I ran away. I went into the dining room and locked myself in, playing, click. No sooner was I in there when she knocked . . . Then I opened the door to her: she went to the sideboard ... to the buffet."
"Ah, in the dining room? Near the buffet? Right where you cut her throat?" Ingravallo's face by now was white, furious. His eyes were those of an enemy.
"Cut her throat? What I'm talking about was two months ago, Doctor, still in January, the twenty-fifth of January, like I said. About three weeks before . . . before you and I also met. You remember that Sunday, maybe a month ago, when you were at their house for dinner? well, about three weeks before that dinner. And besides, it's easy to check, my God. Why didn't I think of it before? Ask Ceccherelli, the jeweler in Campo Marzio. I went to get the damned jasper myself. He can testify to that. He had instructions from Liliana to give it to me, to me personally, the fob with the new stone with my initials on it, to replace that other one: she had told him to attach it to the chain for me himself, to her grandfather's chain," he pointed to it, on the desk, with his chin, "and she told him I'd bring it to him: me, in person. Liliana was so precise about everything; she had arranged it all: she had even showed him my picture. But Ceccherelli, when I went in, made me show him my identification, a license or something, he said: so I showed him my papers. He begged my pardon. But then I was bringing him the chain. What better identification could he want than that, after all. . .?
"So it was twenty days before the twentieth of February, even twenty-five days, all right. How is it that you didn't mention a word of it to anybody? To your grandmother. To your aunt? Why didn't you show it to the family? Wedding presents, according to what you've been saying. Family jewels. Grandfather's gold: which was to go to the grandchildren. Why hide it then? And how come Balducci, this morning, was so taken by surprise? A memento of your own . . . great-grandfather . . . you can surely show it to your grandmother: who is his daughter, if I'm not mistaken."
"The daughter-in-law would be closer: Grandfather Valdarena, Grandfather Rutilio, was my father's grandfather; that is to say, if you follow me, the father of my grandfather": Don Ciccio looked at him furiously with the suspicion that Giuliano was pulling his leg: in his situation?