Read Online A Death in the Venetian Quarter by Alan Gordon - Free Book Online

dolly. He shut the door behind him and paused for a moment, catching his breath. Then he went at the crate again, bracing his shoulders securely against it, his legs straining mightily with the effort. He came to the door of another storeroom, opened it, and pushed the crate inside. He emerged a few minutes later with an unladen dolly, and repeated the process. I counted five crates moved before he finished.
    When he emerged from the embolum, I was across the street, buying some rolls from a stall. He walked toward the gate to the wharf. I followed at a discreet distance, but he didn’t even bother looking behind him this time. He passed the gate to the outer part of the quarter and continued until he reached the end of the wharf. He looked across the Golden Horn for a long time, then nodded and turned around. He made his way to a tavern just off the wharf and sat down to a midday meal.
    I looked where he had looked but saw nothing. Maybe nothing was what he wanted to see. Maybe all I had seen was a routine inventory transaction, so important to him that he would skip the funeral of a colleague to perform it. And maybe it was something else. I resolved to find a time to break into that storeroom.
    But at the moment, I was watching a man eat and getting hungry myself. I spotted some of the other merchants returning from the funeral, going back to business. I saw no point in remaining, so I left the quarter, transformed myself back into a fool, and headed south.
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    The Bull and Lion was a tavern situated south of the Great Palace, not far from the Boukoleon Harbor from which it took its name. It was particularly known for an outstanding mussel stew, and it was a bowl
of this that I found in front of Plossus, who had also returned to motley.
    â€œHow did you get here so quickly?” I said. “The cemetery is out on the Adrianople road. You had twice the distance to cover.”
    He pointed to his stilts, which were resting on the floor behind him.
    â€œPicked these up on the way back,” he said. “I can double my walking speed, as long as I don’t fall down.”
    â€œAnd do you ever fall down?”
    â€œOnly if it will get a laugh. Have some stew.”
    I joined him with a will, and we passed the time in silent appreciation of the fruits of the sea.
    â€œAnyhow,” he continued, “I wasn’t that far away. Your mysterious lady did not attend the burial.”
    â€œReally?”
    He tore off a piece of bread and started soaking up the sauce.
    â€œTell me, O Elder Fool, for I am but a tender youth, why women become prostitutes.”
    â€œOut of desperation and poverty.”
    â€œHmm,” he said. “She seemed neither desperate nor poor.”
    â€œSometimes they are gentlewomen who have fallen on hard times.”
    â€œWell, if that’s what hard times are like, let me fall as well.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œShe lives in a nicely appointed mansion on the Fifth Hill. Nothing ostentatious, but nothing you’d be able to purchase from what you make off the streets.”
    â€œA courtesan, perhaps. One who entertains a select and affluent clientele.”
    â€œMaybe,” he said doubtfully. “But it did not seem like that kind of house. Of course, I couldn’t see inside. It was set back from the street with a fearsome iron gate and a stone wall protecting it.”

    â€œAny servants?”
    â€œI saw none, but there must be someone. At the very least, a housekeeper. And here’s another odd thing—none of her neighbors know her name. She only emerges cloaked and veiled, usually at dusk. The people I gossiped with are a bit spooked by her. They think she may be a witch.”
    I guffawed. “You’ve solved it, lad. He was killed by witchcraft, and she was the witch with the craft. Case closed.”
    He looked pained. “It could be an explanation,” he protested.
    â€œThen why was she so distraught at