The Seventh Sinner - Elizabeth Peters [45]
“Hopeless. We were all more or less lost. Besides, do they know when the attack took place? Albert didn’t die until later.”
“Yet that avenue needs exploring. I can ask, in a casually nosy fashion. It seems to me that Ann and Ted were together much of the time.”
“Yes, but alibis like that aren’t any good. Michael and Dana were together part of the time too; but they might lie for each other. Actually, both of them were on the lowest level only minutes before I found Albert.”
“I,” said Jacqueline, “have sort of an alibi. Don’t look so surprised; if you haven’t suspected me, you’re pretty dim. I got tired of your bloody ruins and went up to look at those lovely frescoes in the chapel of St. Catherine. The priest selling tickets must have seen me go up, and anyone going down would have to pass him. When I went back down to look for you, Ann and Ted were talking to the priest on duty. If they had been there for any length of time…”
Jean shook her head.
“We’re on the wrong track. The police could do this sort of thing much more effectively than we can, and I’m sure we can’t narrow it down to a single suspect. It’s motive we ought to explore. Why would anybody want to kill Albert? That is the one aspect of the case we can investigate better than the police. We know the people involved.”
“It’s also the weakest part of the case. If you know anything about murders, real or fictional, you know that people have killed for reasons which would strike you and me as ludicrously inadequate. That’s why motive is, quite rightly, a secondary consideration in police investigations.”
They stared at one another in despairing silence. Then Jacqueline got up and went to the French doors onto the balcony. She threw back the heavy wooden shutters. The sun had just lifted above the horizon. A pearly hush lay upon the drowsy world, and through the still cool air a burst of bird song rippled.
For several seconds Jacqueline stayed at the window, her arms raised. With an art critic’s eye for line and color, Jean commended the pose. The pale sunlight on Jacqueline’s unbound hair was like a wash of gold.
Then the poised statue turned and said in a flat, weary voice,
“We’re both shot. Maybe we can think better after we get some sleep. There are twin beds in this room; do you mind if I—”
“Why should I mind?”
“I hope you don’t. Because, whether you mind or not, from now on I’m sticking to you like the proverbial limpet. You are moving into this apartment, and you are not going out of it without me.”
“We may be all wrong,” Jean said. “About everything.”
“Maybe. But I’m not taking any chances. Tomorrow we’ll start detecting.”
“If we only knew what to detect!”
“Don’t worry about that,” Jacqueline said coolly. “I’ll think of something.”
II
“Seven saints?” José said. “Where did you get that notion? Oh…” There was the slightest possible check in his voice. “From Albert, of course.”
They were standing in front of the altar of Santa Cecilia, looking at Maderno’s famous statue of the saint. In the past forty-eight hours Jacqueline had carried on a mad rush of sightseeing, dragging with her every available member of the Seven. Only four of them were with her that day; Dana had flatly refused to come, and Andy was barricaded in his room with coffee pots and ice bags, and Ann in devoted attendance. The résumés were due in two more days.
Jean knew why Jacqueline was doing this; at least she knew what the motive was, even if she couldn’t understand the underlying logic. Santa Cecilia was an old church, and it contained some lovely things, but it was not one of the major attractions in the city.
“I guess it does sound silly,” Jacqueline admitted ingenuously. “But you know, I got to counting, and I did find seven of them.”
“Santa Cecilia being one?” Ted regarded the statue with interest. “Do you know that after they cut her head off, she lay for three days on the floor of her bath, fully sensible, and joyfully awaiting her crown of martyrdom?”
Jean snickered, and José smiled even as