James Benn - A Mortal Terror

“I wonder if she was there when the pearls were stolen,” I said.

There was a crash, and Signora Salvalaggio stood with her hand to her mouth, a glass shattered at her feet. “Have you found them?” Her voice trembled, as if she were on the verge of tears, the precise English a shock to us both.

“Signora, please sit down and tell us what you know,” Kaz said, as he pulled out a chair. “ Per favore.”

“Do you have them, the pearls?” Her voice was now insistent. Kaz glanced at me and I nodded. He took the pearl necklace from his jacket pocket and placed it on the table. She gasped, and reached for them, but stopped herself. “The last time I saw that necklace, I dressed the queen myself and put it around her neck. It is the same clasp, the same length. It is the queen’s.”

“Signora Salvalaggio, I had the impression you did not speak English,” I said. “You are quite fluent.” I didn’t know which surprised me more, her perfect English, or her claim about the pearls.

“I did not let the Germans know I spoke their language either,” she said. “There is nothing to be gained by idle conversation.”

“Yet you spoke with Doctor Galante often.”

“Yes. He was cultured, and from one of the ancient Roman families, even if he was a Jew. The Italkim, they call themselves. He understood the nature of things.”

“He appreciated Italian culture, the language and history.”

“Yes. Not many men in the army do. Any army. They use the palace as if it were a barracks.” She spit out that last word.

“Tell us about the pearls, Signora,” Kaz urged her with a gentle hand laid on her arm.

“I was a seamstress, but it was not a commoner’s position,” she said, waving her hand as if dismissing a servant. “I came from an old family, honorable but impoverished. My husband had died one year after we married, from the cholera, and I almost succumbed myself. The queen heard of my plight and brought me to Caserta, to be in charge of her gowns-sewing, repairing, and altering. Oh, you should have seen them! Silk, velvet, satin, gold embroidery, nothing was too precious to go into her gowns. ‘Inspire the popular imagination,’ that’s what she used to say about her gowns and jewelry. She saw it as her duty.”

“What happened to the pearls?” I asked.

“It was on Their Majesties silver wedding anniversary, in 1893. She wore a long parure of rubies with this short three-strand pearl necklace. It was a grand party, the emperor and empress of Germany, the queen of Portugal, the grand duke and duchess of Russia, so many of Europe’s finest were there.” Her eyes were focused on a distant memory of the old century, long-dead aristocrats dancing in the now rat-infested palace. Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out what a parure was.

“When did they go missing?” Kaz asked, in a whisper.

“That night. I was supposed to put all the jewelry away, it was a sign of the trust the queen had in me. But I rushed through it, since I had fallen in love with a young man, a lieutenant, like you two gallant gentlemen.” She smiled, and looked away, a faint blush showing on her wrinkled cheeks. “He was waiting for me downstairs, and in my hurry I left the necklace in its black lacquered box on a table in the dressing room. It should have gone in a locked armoire, where I’d put it many times before. But the heart is always in haste, at least for the young,” she sighed.

“What happened?”

“In the morning, the lacquered box was gone. When I last saw it, all the guests had departed, and very few people left the palace after that. Because of all the royalty gathered, there were guards on all the doors throughout the night.”

“Except for you and your lieutenant.”

“Yes. The Carabinieri suspected us, of course. We were questioned for days. We had walked through the gardens under the moonlight. It was beautiful, and I had no way of knowing it was the last truly happy night of my life.”

“You lost your position?” Kaz asked.

“Yes. For my negligence. And my lieutenant was transferred to Sicily, in disgrace. I never saw him again.”

“No one else was questioned?”

“The others were all too exalted to be questioned. But the theft made the guests nervous, and they all left the next day. I was somehow always certain it was waiting to be found. Where was it?”

“I don’t know. It was given to me.”

“Ask the person!” It was an order, and in the set of her face I could see her lineage. Impoverished and disgraced, she still had the aristocratic bearing, the readiness to issue orders that commoners must obey.

“He’s dead. He shot himself moments after he handed me the necklace.”

Signora Salvalaggio crossed herself. “That such beauty could ruin so many lives,” she said, shaking her head.

“Did you stay in Caserta to search for the pearls?” Kaz asked.

“Back then, I had no such thought. I had nothing, no family left, no place to go. I walked into town and looked for work. A good seamstress can always find employment, and I did. Not sewing fine gowns, but it kept me alive. I often wondered where the pearls were, and if the Carabinieri had their eye on me. If they did, I disappointed them. I never ran off with my fortune.”

“But now you have been vindicated,” Kaz said, gathering up the necklace. “We can tell the authorities.”

“Ha! Do what you wish. It does not matter. Who is left alive to remember a theft in 1893? The old king and queen are both dead. The Carabinieri headquarters was destroyed in the fighting; any records they had went up in flames. I am simply an old seamstress with her stories of grand balls, lost love, and other ancient memories. Please, take it away.”

“Did you tell Doctor Galante all this?” Kaz asked as he carefully swept the necklace into his pocket.

“Not at first. But the dottore was so interested, he flattered me with his attention. Foolish for an old woman, I know. I found myself telling him the story, describing the rooms, where the nobles and servants slept, where the jewels were kept. He would come back and tell me about what he’d seen and how the rooms looked. It was all so sad to hear, but at the same time, it brought back memories of the good times, before the pearls cursed me.”

“He never found anything?”

“No. I believe he would have told me if he had. We had become friends, of a sort. A lonely man, more of a scholar than his colleagues, and an old woman with a sad but interesting story. Will you find who killed him?” Her lip trembled, and I knew that she had valued Galante’s friendship. A cultured man, who respected her and her stories of royalty and palace balls.

“That’s why we’re here,” I said, sounding confident but avoiding a direct answer.

“It wasn’t over the pearls, was it? Please, no.”

“There seems to be no connection,” Kaz said. I wasn’t so sure.

“Did you know another American, Lieutenant Norman Landry?”

“No,” she said. “I know very few soldiers, only those they send for my rooms and cooking. But I do know the priest, Prete Dare.”

“How?”

“He came to visit Dottore Galante. Twice. Once he dined with him. Your American priests are very different from ours, I think.”

“Father Dare is one of a kind. Did he know about the pearls?”

“I don’t know. I never heard the dottore speak to him about it.”

“What did they talk about?”

“Nothing I recall. Other soldiers, the war. The dottore spoke often of sgusciare la scossa, you know?”

“Shell shock,” Kaz said. “Combat fatigue.”

“Yes,” she said. “I did not know these terms, but Dottore Galante explained them to me. It was his life’s work, he said, to learn about this. He was very annoyed with some officer who kept him from it, and had him sent to work at the hospital.”