The Seventh Sinner - Elizabeth Peters [32]
The sound cut through her voice like a buzz saw; both of them jumped.
“Blast that doorbell,” Jacqueline muttered. “It has the ugliest sound…. Stay here. I’ll answer it.”
By the time Jacqueline had reached the elevator door, switching on lights as she went, Jean had recovered herself. In the glow from the salone she calmly made herself another sandwich. She was chewing on it—the hard Italian rolls made mastication a real exercise—when Jacqueline returned with the man who had rung the doorbell. The sight of him was not cheering to Jean, but she couldn’t help being amused at Jacqueline’s expression. It was, as the old romances used to say, a study.
“Signorina.” Di Cavallo made a bow so punctilious it looked like a joke. “You are feeling better now?”
Jean nodded and smiled. She couldn’t speak; her mouth was full.
At Jacqueline’s invitation the lieutenant sat down and accepted a glass of wine. He sighed loudly.
“How lovely it is, here in the darkness. And how lovely it would be to forget all unpleasant things. Alas, I must not allow myself, or you, that indulgence.”
“What have you found out?” Jacqueline asked.
Di Cavallo sipped his wine.
“The case seems obvious. I now tie up the loose ends.”
“Suicide?”
Di Cavallo nodded. He reached for the briefcase which all proper European businessmen, of all professions, habitually carry.
“Be so good to look at this,” he said, taking out a sheaf of papers and handing them to Jacqueline.
Jacqueline shifted her chair so that she was sitting in the shaft of light from the salone. She peered nearsightedly at the papers.
“I can’t see a thing,” she muttered. “What did I do with my glasses?”
“They’re on top of your head,” Jean said, watching her curiously. When Jacqueline acted disorganized and incoherent she was usually up to something.
“How ridiculous. What would they be—” Her groping hand found the glasses. Giving Jean a hard stare, she perched them on the end of her nose and began to read.
She read for some time, in silence. Her face was a studied blank, giving nothing away. After a time she glanced inquiringly at the lieutenant and then handed the papers to Jean.
The papers were Albert’s notes. They were covered with writing in French, Arabic—and, surprisingly, in Latin. Not so surprising, though, Jean thought, as she leafed through the sheets. Albert’s sources dated from the early Christian era, so naturally most of them would be written in Latin. But…
“But,” she said slowly, “this is gibberish. None of it makes any sense.”
“You understand the languages, signorina?”
“Yes, I read Latin and French, though I don’t speak them. But it would be obvious, even with a slight command of the languages. All of it seems to be either prayers or…well…blasphemies. The names of saints, over and over…‘Santa Cecilia, ora pro me—Saint Cecilia, pray for me. Saint Christopher, pray for me….’ And this part seems to be a series of epithets, directed at the Pope.”
“Yes, yes,” di Cavallo said impatiently. “The work is that of a person whose religious views are eccentric, to say the least. What I wish to know is—are these papers as worthless as they seem to be?”
“They’re not only mad, they’re meaningless,” Jean said, handing the papers back to di Cavallo. “Have you shown them to Andy Scoville? He knows more about the subject than I do.”
“I have talked with him. He agrees.”
“Is this all?” Jacqueline asked. “All you found in his room?”
“All, yes. A few shabby clothes, books…letters from his mother…”
“His mother,” Jean repeated stupidly.
“He had a mother, yes; it is not unusual.” Di Cavallo studied her without sympathy or prejudice. “Signorina, it is all very sad, no doubt; but the world is full of tragedies, they occur every thirty seconds and many of them are sadder far than this loss of a very disturbed young man who might have injured some innocent person eventually if he had not had the