Death of a Duchess Read Online Free PDF

before it had showed its steel in the Duke’s very presence. Ignoring him, the Duke continued, ‘You had the slave girl murdered and left in the fire to destroy any chance of identifying her face; you wished it thought that the Lady Cosima di Torre had perished there, dishonoured.’
    Bandini, flinging his arms wide, answered, ‘Not by me, your Grace. Not by me or my orders. I am innocent of all this. The Lord di Torre seeks as always to discredit me in your eyes, and by what a vile trick he has done it this time. What proof can there be that any of this is my doing? Robbers have taken the girl and murdered the maid.’
    ‘Why should robbers leave a valuable dress on the dead girl, a dress sewn with gold thread and ornamented with gems? Do robbers behave so?’ The Duke’s voice was cool now, as if he debated an ordinary question. ‘There was design to deceive.’
    ‘To put your Grace’s justice off their track, perhaps. Who can tell what may be in the minds of thieves? To honest men, the intentions of rogues are not to be fathomed.’ A raised arm jabbed a finger towards di Torre. ‘He has fastened this abduction upon me to deceive your Grace. He, he has had the poor girl slaughtered to further his deception.’
    Jacopo turned on Sigismondo with sudden energy and scrabbled at the breast of his jerkin. ‘The cloth, man, the cloth!’ He was busy trying to undress Sigismondo, who looked down at his efforts with grave interest and then produced the rag of yellow and red from the pocket on his belt. Jacopo snatched it, but Sigismondo had swung it overhead from his grasp. Di Torre’s voice cried like a daw, ‘Your Grace! Tell his Grace—’
    The Duke’s hand and glance silenced his tongue, his hands continued to make urging movements if to a dog. Sigismondo showed him the cloth. ‘Is this the one you mean, sir?’
    ‘Of course, of course it is.’
    ‘It is the piece found on the nail by the door? The door by which the Lady Cosima seems to have left your house?’
    ‘Yes, yes. See, that is the mark of the nail.’
    Ugo Bandini watched with close-shut mouth and eyes of fury, a hound on a tight leash. Sigismondo approached the Duke, and, going down on one knee, owed him the cloth. ‘Your Grace will see here the pucker where the nail held the cloth.’ His deep voice might be that of a priest teaching. ‘The seam is well-stitched and close.’
    ‘We observe.’ The plural at this juncture might be supposed to mean not the Duke himself only but his brother too, who had come forward with quick interest.
    Sigismondo stepped to a pillar near the dais, and his fingers found what he must have noted, a nail for hanging garlands. He fitted the cloth over this and, after a moment’s pause, gave it a sharp wrench. Returning, he held out the rag between his hands. The nail had dragged a hole in it, and every stitch in the seam was frayed.
    Lord Paolo spoke. ‘Then this was not torn before? Surely, it could not have been manufactured to implicate...’ He drew back, averse to saying out loud what he thought; but his eyes went towards Bandini.
    His distaste was magnified a thousandfold in the whole person of Ugo Bandini. He seemed to swell with indignation; but his outburst and di Torre’s violent denial rang together. They turned on each other, but discovered Sigismondo between them. This silenced them for the moment it took Lord Paolo to say, ‘If I may ask a question of your Grace’s agent?’
    The Duke still watched the antagonists. He gave permission, as before, with a hand.
    ‘Was it you who found — this poor girl?’
    ‘Yes, my lord.’
    ‘How did you trace her?’
    ‘I asked at the gates, my lord.’
    ‘The guards at the gates, they must know the household servants of the great houses, do they not? They could surely have identified any of them leaving the city. You have not said that those who went out with the girl were of di Torre’s or Bandini’s house. If the guards did not know them, then surely they