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up to the light coming in from the window. The letterhead had been printed on the paper, perhaps by the same printer that generated the letter. Well, just about anyone could do that. Kansas, he believed, was in the middle of America somewhere; he had a vague memory of its being to the left of Iowa or at least near it, but definitely in the middle. Maritime and Mediterranean Trade History?
    ‘I’ll have to take these with me,’ he said, then asked, ‘Do you have an address for him, or an Italian phone number?’
    Dottoressa Fabbiani turned away from her contemplation of the church. ‘Not unless it’s given there. It’s required only for residents who use the collection,’ she said. ‘What happens now?’ she asked.
    Brunetti replaced the papers and closed the folder. ‘As I mentioned, a team comes and takes fingerprints from the books and from the desk where he was sitting, and then we hope to be able to match them with prints in our files.’
    ‘You make it sound very ordinary.’
    ‘It is,’ Brunetti said.
    ‘To me, it sounds like the Wild West. Why aren’t we being informed about these people? Why aren’t we sent photos of them so we can protect ourselves?’ she asked, not angry but surprised.
    ‘I have no idea,’ Brunetti answered. ‘It might be that the libraries that are robbed don’t want it to be known.’
    ‘Why ever not?’

    ‘Do you have patrons? Benefactors?’
    That stopped her, and he watched while she put the two things together. Finally she said, ‘We have three, but only the private one counts. The other money comes from foundations.’
    ‘How would the private donor respond?’
    ‘If she learned that we allowed this to happen?’ she said, then held up a hand and closed her eyes for a moment. She took a deep breath, steeling herself for the truth, and said, ‘Two of the books belonged to her family.’
    ‘Belonged.’
    She studied the pattern on the parquet floor before looking at him and saying, ‘They were part of a large donation. It must be more than ten years ago.’
    ‘Which books?’
    She needed only to name them, and he saw that she tried. She opened her mouth but could not speak. Instead, she looked again at the parquet, then back at him. ‘One of the ones that’s missing. The other’s lost nine pages,’ she finally managed to say. Then, before he could ask how she knew their origin, she added, ‘The family’s name is on the central listing in the catalogue.’
    ‘What is it?’ Brunetti asked.
    ‘Morosini-Albani.’ Then she added, ‘They gave us the Ramusio.’
    Brunetti did his best to hide his astonishment. That a member of this family should be a patron of anything would come as a surprise – even a shock – to any Venetian. Though the major branch of the family had given the city at least four doges, this offshoot had given it only merchants and bankers. While one side of the family ruled, this one acquired, a division that had gone on – if Brunetti had his lists right – until the reign of the last Morosini doge some time in the seventeenth century.

    The Albani branch had then, in a sense, gone to ground, retreated to its palazzo – which they had chosen to build not on the Grand Canal, but in a part of the city where land was cheaper – and continued with the family passion of acquiring wealth. The current Contessa, a widow with three contentious stepchildren, was a friend of his mother-in-law. Contessa Falier had been at a private convent school with Contessa Morosini-Albani, at that time merely the younger daughter of a Sicilian prince who had gambled away the family fortune, her tuition paid by a maiden aunt. She had much later married the heir to the Morosini-Albani fortune, thus acquiring both his lesser title and his three children by a former marriage. Brunetti had met her a few times at dinner at the home of Paola’s parents, met her and spoken to her and come away with the sense that she was well educated, intelligent and broadly