The Jewels of Paradise Read Online Free PDF

.”
    “Secretive?”
    This time her smile was bigger than her shrug.
    Caterina smiled in return and said, unwilling to admit to no motive higher than her own mounting curiosity about the Foundation, “All I want to do is save time by learning if there are any people who might eventually be able to help in the research.” Then, as if confessing uncertainty to a friend, she said, “I don’t know if it will help me with these documents, but it might be useful to know who the interested people are. They often know a lot more than the experts do, especially in a field as narrow as this one.” It was lame, and she knew it, but Roseanna might not.
    Apparently sufficient goodwill had been restored because Roseanna got to her feet, saying, “I suppose you can.” Then, with a smile of solidarity, she added, “Besides, I’m the acting director, aren’t I?”
    She led the way from her office, turning toward the back of the building. The hallway ended in a door. She stopped and took a set of keys from her pocket, opened the door, and started up a set of steps. Caterina followed her. At the top, another door led into a small entrance corridor with wooden doors facing each other on both sides.
    Roseanna opened a door on the left and let them into an office that looked like one, complete with barred windows. The desk was large, and a dark wooden cabinet was fitted into the wall to the left of it. On either side of the cabinet hung etchings of bewigged men. Even from this distance, she recognized round-faced Jommelli. The other might have been Hasse. She liked him; any man who would marry Faustina Bordoni had to be a hero.
    Roseanna nodded toward the wooden cabinet, saying, “All of the correspondence is in there.” Caterina saw that the key was in the lock. Looking around for the storeroom, Caterina noticed a pair of smooth metal doors, almost a meter high, set into the wall to the right of the desk and partly blocked from her sight by both the desk and the chair.
    Pointedly ignoring those doors, she asked, “How far back does the correspondence date, Roseanna?”
    “To the beginning.”
    “What sort of things do people write about?” Caterina asked with genuine interest.
    “Oh, all sorts of things. You’d be amazed. Some send us copies of manuscripts or scores and ask us to identify them or verify the handwriting, and some ask for biographical information about the composers. Or what we think of new CDs, or whether we think it’s worth going to see a particular production. Sometimes people have even sent us documents and manuscripts, but never anything of great importance. There’s no telling.” She studied the cabinet for a moment and then said, “If you read through the files, you’ll get an idea.”
    “If it’s no trouble,” Caterina said, interested in the letters and even more interested in showing Roseanna that she had come up here in good faith and not in the hope of learning something about the identity of the composer whose manuscripts might well be behind those thick metal doors, doors she continued to ignore.
    Roseanna turned the key of the cabinet, latched her fingers expertly under the side of one door, and pulled it open. The other swung after it.
    Caterina had met Roseanna only a brief time ago, but she had seen enough—the conservative clothing, the neatness with which the snakes were wrapped around one another—to know she could not have been responsible for the chaos inside the cabinet.
    There were two shelves, each sized to hold manila folders, and on each of them files lay splashed about. Some leaked papers, others appeared untouched; still others were strewn across the shelves as if by a heavy wind.
    Roseanna’s gasp was entirely involuntary. “ Maria Vergine ,” she exclaimed. No liar, Caterina thought, would say that. Then Roseanna gave her astonishment an upgrade and whispered, “ Oddio .”
    When Roseanna reached toward the files, Caterina said, “No, Roseanna. Don’t touch