Now this disappearance was strange; and except that there had been foul play in some quarter, what other solution could be imagined for it? Why had the Chevalier Lorenzo first quitted Florence? It was not from fear of the plague, for he had returned in the height of it. And when was it that he had so returned—himself to disappear so strangely? when but on the very night, and almost at the very hour, that the Countess Arestino had died! The belief of all made the duty of none. Men might suffer wrong, and never know they suffered it; or they might be wronged, and yet sit down contented. But yet the Count Ubaldi, by those who knew him, was scarcely numbered as one who would so sit down; and there had been a rumour once, though it had passed away, which joined the name of the Chevalier di Vasari too closely with that of the Lady Angiolina. And had Lorenzo’s true kinsman, the soldier Carlo, lived, less doubt had drawn his sword for vengeance or for explanation.
But “true Carlo” was dead—your honest men are ever so—dead in the wars of Germany and Spain. And Gonsalvo di Vasari, the last relative and next heir, seemed less curious to revenge his kinsman’s death than to inherit. No man in Florence doubted Gonsalvo’s courage, but still his dagger slept in its sheath. It might be he believed his cousin had taken no wrong; or it might be that—take the worst to be proved—his conscience whispered he might have juster cause of quarrel. But week after week elapsed, and even month after month; and though all concluded the absent Lorenzo to be dead, yet no certain tidings even of his death could be obtained, so that the title to his large estates remained in abeyance. The disappearance of the servant Jacopo, too, seemed more puzzling to many people than any other part of the affair. When one morning, about ten weeks after the absentees had been lost sight of, and while men were still debating whether they had been swallowed up, horses, arms, purses, and all, by some local earthquake, or translated suddenly to the skies, and there converted into constellations, as a great mob was sweeping over the piazza Santa Croce, conducting a robber, who had just been condemned, to the place of execution, a citizen, whom accident or curiosity had drawn close to the person of the culprit, suddenly exclaimed, that “he wore a cloak which had belonged to Lorenzo di Vasari!”
“Holy Virgin! will you not hear what I say?” insisted the person who thus stopped his fellow-creatures on their passage to the other world.—“Should I not know the cloak, when I made it myself?” he continued. Which was at least so far likely to be true, that the spokesman was a tailor.
“But the man is going to be hanged, and what more can you have if he had stolen fifty cloaks?” replied the superintending officer, giving the word that the cavalcade, which had halted, should again move forward.
The chief party (as one would have thought) to this dispute—that is, the prisoner who sat in the cart—remained perfectly silent; but the interruption of Nicolo Gozzi bade fair, nevertheless, to be overruled. For the culprit was no other than the famous Luigino Arionelli, or, as he was surnamed, “Luigino the Vine-dresser,” who had been the terror of all Florence during the period of the plague; and a great many people had come out to see him hanged, who were not disposed to go home disappointed of the ceremony. And the provost, too, who commanded, was well disposed to get rid of the interference, if he could; for since the law had resumed its powers, despatch (in matters of justice) was rather the order of the day. The disorders which had to be regulated were many and dangerous; and the object being to get rid of such as suddenly as possible, a good many of the delays which were used to lie between the commission of crimes and their final punishment had been agreed to be dispensed with. So that, upon the whole, Signor Gozzi’s remonstrances were generally treated as impertinent; and it was a moot point, whether he did not seem more likely to be personally added to the execution, than to put a stop to it; when luckily there came up a servant of the house of Di Vasari, attracted by the uproar, who identified the cloak in question, not merely as having belonged to the Chevalier Lorenzo, but as being the same which he had worn on the night of his disappearance.
This strange declaration—backed by a recollection that Gonsalvo di Vasari’s interests must not be treated lightly—decided the commander of the escort in favour of delay; and the culprit, who had been observed to pay deep attention to all that passed, was reconducted to prison. When questioned, however, both casually in his way back to the jail by the officer of justice, and formally, afterwards, by Gonsalvo di Vasari himself, he maintained a determined silence. A sort of examination—if such it could be called when no answers were given—was prolonged for several hours; but no further facts were discovered; and not a word, either by persuasions or menaces, could be extorted from the prisoner. In the end, the chief judge, the Marquis Peruzzi, to whose daughter Gonsalvo di Vasari was affianced, suggested that time should be given for consideration, and that—Arionelli being retained in close confinement—all proceedings should be staid for four days. This recommendation was agreed to, not because it was the course which any one desired to take, but because it was the only course, under the circumstances, which seemed open. Arionelli was then shut up anew under close caution. Gonsalvo di Vasari and his friends betook themselves to study how they might hunt out fresh evidence; or, against the next day of examination, work upon the prisoner so that he should confess. And the gossips of Florence had enough of employment in discussing the singular providence which had at last led to the detection of the Chevalier’s murderer, puzzling what could be the object of his present silence, and disputing whom his disclosures would impeach.
“Bring in the prisoner,” said the presiding judge.
The day of examination was come, and the judges had taken their seats in the Palazzo di Governo. The Gonfalonière, the Marquis Peruzzi, sat as president, with Gonsalvo di Vasari and the Count Arestino, both as members of the Council. Two secretaries, with writing implements before them, sat at the head of a long table placed below the president’s chair; and a few ushers and inferior retainers of the Court, distinguished by their robes and wands, waited in different quarters of the apartment. But no other members of the Council than those already described were present, for the affair was one rather of individual than of general interest; and the heads of Florence were still too much engaged with private calamities and difficulty, to have any more leisure to spare than was absolutely necessary for the service or direction of the public.