The Dark Heart of Florence by Tasha Alexander (ebook reader screen TXT) 📕

you stay here in case she comes home. I’ll keep you abreast of any and all developments.”

“I would appreciate that.”

I wished I could do more to reassure him. “My husband has a great deal of experience locating missing persons. I can promise you he will do everything in his power to help find your daughter.”

“Grazie, signora,” he said.

We left the shop and walked to the river, following it to the Ponte alle Grazie, which would take us across the Arno near Santa Croce. “Do you really think something bad may have happened to Lena?” Cécile asked.

“Let us not forget that the original reason Colin wanted to come to Florence was because Kat’s house had twice been burgled,” I said. “Marzo wanted money, and the house may have something of value hidden in it. He might have been killed for trying to find it.”

“And Lena could have known what he was doing,” Cécile said.

“Marzo’s connection to the house keeps niggling at me. It belongs to Kat, not Colin, and Marzo works with Darius, not my husband.”

“The legend of the treasure is known throughout the city. His interest in it needn’t have stemmed from anything to do with his work.”

“True. But if the household staff is involved in Crown business, which I suspect they are, Marzo may have been a frequent visitor to the house long before we ever arrived in Florence.”

“It would be much simpler for us to figure out what is going on if Monsieur Hargreaves would take us into his confidence,” Cécile said. “Surely he knows we can both be trusted.”

“Of course he does,” I said, “but it’s not always for him to decide whom he can tell what. There’s a man above him whom I believe supervises it all. He’s called Sir John Burman. I overheard him and Colin talking about the situation in Florence before we came here. He’s a decent, honorable man whose role is to protect the empire and all her citizens. I’ve never heard a word spoken against him and am confident that Colin would not follow his direction if he had even the slightest doubt as to his character.”

“I should like to meet this Sir John and explain to him that his goals would be met with far greater speed if he would let you and me help. I could persuade him.”

“I have infinite faith in your ability to persuade, but Sir John would never succumb to any such temptation. He is a man of unshakable principle.”

“That leaves us with you,” Cécile said. “Surely you could tempt Monsieur Hargreaves into telling us more. In exchange, you could give him timely updates of our own investigation instead of making him wait until we’ve solved the crime.”

A stab of guilt pierced my abdomen. If only she knew my proposal for just such an arrangement had resulted in my agreeing to give information without receiving anything in return. “It would be wrong of me to entice him to act against his principles.”

Cécile narrowed her eyes and remained silent for the rest of the walk to Santa Croce. Colin had been right. Deceiving her was exacting a heavy price from me.

Inside the church, we went straight to Dante’s monument. Reaching the spot on it that Lena had chosen as her ersatz postbox proved a challenge. Santa Croce, as usual, was crowded with tourists and their guides. I would not be able to hide what I was doing from all of them. Better, I decided, to abandon discretion entirely.

I let out a loud sob, threw my arm across my face, and spoke loudly. “Oh lasso, / quanti dolci pensier, quanto disio / menò costoro al doloroso passo!” There is no greater sorrow / Than to be mindful of the happy time / In misery, and that thy Teacher knows. “There can be nothing but sorrow for us, Great Poet, to know that we shall never have a new poem from you.”

I stepped forward and onto the bottom of the cenotaph. I had to get up higher, and gripped the wreath held by the sculpted mourner, but could tell it would not support my weight. As destroying Florence’s monument to her favorite son was unlikely to be met with favor, I looked for something I could use to boost myself up to the top of the next level of the sculpture, the rectangle upon which the empty sarcophagus sat. I put my arm around the waist of the female figure, got one foot onto the base, and heaved myself up. Then, as quickly as possible, I felt around beneath her arm and found an envelope. I grabbed it, shoved it into my jacket, and then tugged at my hat, removing one of the flowers decorating it. This, with great flourish, I placed on the top of the stone sarcophagus.

“You will never be forgotten, Dante Alighieri!” I wished I could remember another quote from The Divine Comedy, but, alas, I’d already used the only one I’d memorized. I leapt down from the monument. A herd of tourists had gathered to watch my antics, and a docent was approaching, a stern look on his face. Before he could scold me, I looped my arm through Cécile’s and dragged her out of the church, loudly reciting Oh lasso, / quanti dolci pensier, quanto disio / menò costoro al doloroso passo over and over until we escaped back into the piazza.

“That was quite a display, Kallista,” Cécile said. “Although a broader knowledge of Dante would have made it more impressive.”

“I entirely agree, but as I did find a message, we succeeded despite my limitations.” We stopped beneath the statue of Dante in the center of the piazza and I opened the envelope. The paper inside was covered in a girlish scrawl:

Meet me in the Cappelle Medicee today, as soon as you read this note. I will wait there for you, however long it takes, in a secret room reached through a trapdoor in the Sagrestia Nuova. Be careful not to be followed. There