Chapter 34

D ear Diary, Alessandro arrived after breakfast this morning and requested an audience with Rat. They have been cloistered away for more than an hour. I longed to know what they were discussing, but could not bring myself to listen at the door, however tempting it was.

Rat was quiet during breakfast. Of course, perhaps that was due to Lady Bainbridge's presence. She still has no idea what happened last night. Nevertheless, I expected Rat to be elated that we discovered the identity of Mr X. Who could have possibly imagined it would be Xander, of all people? Poor Herr Peetz. He must be devastated to find out about his daughter's betrayal. I still do not understand the full extent of his role in the scheme we uncovered, but whatever it was, I cannot imagine anything that would justify a daughter's planned murder of her father.

Will Alessandro ask to speak with me before he leaves? While I acknowledge that my willingness to be courted by Xander was little more than hurt pride at being rejected by the man I am interested in, still, it pricks my vanity to know that even his regard was not real. How did I go so quickly from believing I had two suitors to realising I had none?

There was a knock at the door. As Mary wasn't present, Melody put down her pen and went to open it. She found her brother waiting there. He looked… well, if she had to put a word to it, Melody would have said he looked bemused.

"May I speak with you?" he asked with surprising formality. Melody stood aside and let him enter. She took one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace, and he took the other .

Melody sat patiently while Rat seemed to consider what to say. Finally, he leaned forward and said, "It seems I have been very wrong about Conte Foscari."

If such an acknowledgement wasn't enough, this was one of the few times Rat had used Alessandro's title. She raised her eyebrows slightly in reply but said nothing.

Rat continued, "It seems that the conte has similar professional associations to mine." Now, Melody really raised her eyebrows. Did Alessandro work for the Secret Service Bureau? Rat continued, "He had been asked to keep an eye on me."

"By Uncle Maxi?" Melody said in shock. She couldn't believe that Lord Langley would show such little confidence in the young man he had mentored for so many years.

"No, not by Lord Langley," Rat answered with such relief in his voice that it was evident he had initially shared her horror. "By someone else in the bureau who had concerns about my readiness for this assignment. These concerns were overruled at Lord Langley's insistence. However, unbeknownst to him, they were taken seriously enough that I was assigned a secret handler, Conte Foscari. He was to monitor my activities and only intervene if absolutely necessary."

Rat made a face of grim resignation, "I suppose last night's debacle counted as absolutely necessary. Whoever had doubted my readiness was clearly prescient." Rat saw Melody about to jump to his defence and put up a hand. "Don't try and console me. I know that Xander and Martha were only apprehended because of the intervention of Foscari and Ispettore Moretti. And the ispettore was only there because we had been followed for two days by one of his men. Not only hadn't I noticed the man, but I was so indiscreet in my conversations with you that he overheard all of our plans. I do not deserve anything more than a desk job. Perhaps not even that."

"Is that what Alessandro said?" Melody asked, genuinely concerned for her brother's emotional state.

"Well, not exactly. He said that he was impressed by how we had pieced together the parts of the investigation. But even then, I don't deserve the credit; it was mostly you." Rat buried his head in his hands as he said these words.

Melody couldn't bear to see him so disconsolate. She leapt out of her chair and went to kneel beside her brother. "Rat, do not say such things. I could not have achieved anything without your help. We were a team. A great team."

"Ha! Besides escorting you around Venice, what did I contribute?"

Trying and failing to remember a specific piece of the puzzle that Rat had come up with alone, she said, "That is not how a partnership works. Look at Wolfie and Tabby Cat. From what I have seen, she is often the one to have the important epiphanies, yet without Wolfie as a sounding board and confidante, she would never be as effective in solving cases."

Rat was not entirely sure he would characterise Wolf and Tabitha's teamwork in quite such black-and-white terms, and he was very certain that Tabitha would never take such credit for herself. Nevertheless, his sister's point has some truth to it; Wolf had been a very good thief taker before he had met Tabitha, but her penchant for puzzle-solving had elevated what he was able to achieve.

Nodding in acknowledgement of Melody's words, Rat said, "There is more."

Melody retook her seat and waited. On the way upstairs, Rat had considered how much to confide to his sister. To his surprise, Conte Foscari had left this up to him. Finally, realising that Melody deserved to know everything, he said, "When Martha was taken to the police station, it appeared that she realised her blunder in admitting what she did at the pavilion and has clammed up."

Rat smiled ruefully, "Xander on the other hand was happy to spill the beans on Martha in the hope that he can persuade the authorities that he was as much her victim as anyone. It seems the scales have fallen from his eyes regarding his lover. According to him, Martha had said that she had become suspicious in Vienna as to the extent of her father's involvement in the publication of secret government information. Initially, she had believed he did nothing more than allow, even encourage, his journalists to publish pieces that were anti-war. However, over time, she began to suspect that he had a more meaningful role. She had long despised his pacifist tendencies and reported her suspicions to the government."

"She turned her own father in as a traitor?" Melody said in horror. Though, almost as soon as she said this, she wondered why she was so surprised. After all, the woman had been willing, almost eager, to shoot her father in cold blood.

"Yes," Rat replied. "When she alerted the authorities that her father was planning to escape to Italy, she was told to accompany him and monitor his actions. Given what was being published in the Italian newspapers, there were concerns that information was being smuggled out of the country and that Herr Peetz was somehow involved. The hope was that they could uncover the source of his intelligence. Because this was the true worry: who was leaking confidential government information and papers, and how was it getting dispersed to Italian journalists?"

"And who is the informant?"

"No one knows. It seems that discovering the informant's identity is the reason that Antonio Graziano and Silvio Verdi were killed and that Herr Peetz was lured to the Austrian Pavilion. When Xander failed to get the information from the two men, Martha became convinced that her father must know and planned to force him to tell them at gunpoint before killing him as well."

Thinking back to the conversation Rat had overheard at Luisa's party, Melody asked, "Alessandro and Herr Peetz referred to their plan. How and when did they get involved?"

"Well, from what Conte Foscari told me, they only met recently when Herr Peetz arrived in Venice. However, Herr Peetz had known the conte's father many years before. The elder Conte Foscari had worked with his old friend to put this plan into action before he died last year. Alessandro Foscari merely continued what his father had started. His father had also been a member of the Risorgimento, which is how he knew Antonio Graziano."

Melody considered his words. "So, does Alessandro know who the government informant is?"

"No. It seems that the information chain had been set up in such a way that no one knew every link. Conte Foscari knew that Dieter Peetz had access to secret Austrian information and that Antonio Graziano distributed the information. However, neither Foscari nor his journalists, not even Herr Peetz knew how the bookseller got the information from Vienna. I assume this was to keep the circle of information as tight as possible. So, it seems that Martha was correct: her father does know who the informant is."

Rat continued, "And it seems that you were correct about the medals the two men had looking alike and about the Risorgimento perhaps being the connection between them. The regular meetings Signor Graziano hosted for his former Risorgimento comrades were the perfect cover for the dissemination of materials. Silvio Verdi didn't have to know where Antonio Graziano received the information to trust his word on its veracity."

"So, Alessandro had no idea about Avraham Graziano's involvement?"

"None whatsoever. He had never met Antonio Graziano and only knew about him through his journalist, Silvio Verdi. Just before he died, Foscari's father had told him about the Risorgimento connection and that Herr Peetz was somewhere at the other end of the chain.

"Apparently, Herr Peetz began by publishing articles in his own newspapers but then felt that he could do more to promote the cause of peace if he managed to get information fed to Italians. He knew the older Conte Foscari, who, through their Risorgimento connection, knew Antonio Graziano. Somehow, a plan was hatched for Herr Peetz to receive the information and get it to Italy. It seems that Herr Peetz is still refusing to give up much information, but I believe that you were right; he must have passed it to Avraham, who hid it in the false bindings of the books he sent to Italy."

"But then, how would he justify sending books to Italy so frequently?"

"Well, I mentioned your theory to Foscari, who said that it is very common for libraries to share books either through interlibrary loans, cultural exchanges, or often academic requests. Even if they were shipping more to one library than usual, it was a common enough part of regular library operations that they would not be cause for suspicion with the Austrian authorities."

"So, they were shipped to a library in Venice and then Antonio Graziano would borrow these books and retrieve the documents?" Melody surmised.

"Foscari assumes it was something along those lines. It's quite ingenious, really. Why would anyone find anything suspicious about an elderly bookseller having regular dealings with a library? I'm sure it is common enough for the library to source certain rare books through someone like Signor Graziano, and so his visits would not be cause for comment."

"Did Martha realise that her father was the architect of this plan?" Melody asked.

Rat shook his head, "Xander didn't know, and Martha refuses to say anything at this point. Foscari believes that the Austrians wanted to learn the identity of each link in the chain and then silence them. Unfortunately, since Martha has been in custody, she has foresworn any admission of guilt she made in the pavilion and has reverted to the story that Xander was the mastermind behind it all."

"Surely no one believes her?" Melody asked in a horrified voice.

Rat sighed. "Well, Moretti doesn't. But it appears that the Austrian ambassador has become involved, and it is possible that Xander will be blamed for the entire thing. I am sure that Mr Burrows will not be inclined to rush to Ashby's defence. Whatever happens, Herr Peetz's role in this has been exposed, and I doubt he can return to Austria. And anyway, with Antonio Graziano dead, the distribution of the documents has been brought to a standstill."

Melody added, "Given what has happened, it is hard to imagine that the remaining journalists will want to continue being involved. Few people are so wedded to their political ideals that they're prepared to risk their lives for them." Rat agreed.

It was only after Rat left that Melody considered the full implications of what he had told her; Alessandro had known who they were from the first time they had talked at the train station. He had engineered that meeting with the sole purpose of getting close to Rat to keep an eye on him. It had never had anything to do with her or any attraction, even affection, Alessandro might have felt. His attention to her had been no more genuine than Xander's.

Remembering the passionate kiss in the gondola, Melody was shamed to realise that the moonlight boat ride had been nothing more than a way to maintain a connection to her brother and that Conte Foscari had just taken advantage of a naive young woman's obvious willingness to be seduced. To see it all so clearly now was to burn with mortification and then anger; how dare he take advantage of her like that. Melody hoped that now Xander at least had been brought to justice, she never had to meet the conte again. She was deeply hurt and even more chagrined. Melody swore never to let herself be that vulnerable to a man again.