Rossy set his wineglass down with a snap. “How do you know this? Why wasn’t I told?”
I spread my hands. “You were in Springfield. I, alas, was informed because your Signor Devereux suspected I might have been responsible for the theft.”
“From my office?” he demanded.
“From the claims department. The copy in your office was intact.” I didn’t tell him about Ralph’s nagging sense that something was amiss in the paper file.
“So you never saw the agent’s documents in this case?” Rossy ignored my suggestion. “Not even when you went in after the death?”
I laid my knife and fork carefully against the gold crust on my plate. “Now, how were you aware that I went into Fepple’s office after he died?”
“I spoke with Devereux this afternoon from Springfield. He told me that you had brought him some kind of document from the dead agent’s office.”
The maid replaced our dinner plates with more gold-rimmed dishes, this time containing raspberry mousse circled by fresh fruit.
“The dead man’s mother gave me an office key and asked me to look for any evidence that the police were ignoring. When I went in, I found that one piece of paper, which appeared to be a very old handwritten document. The only reason I even associate it with the disputed claim is that the dead policyholder’s name was on it, but whether it was about the claim or something else altogether, I couldn’t say.”
Laura Bugatti once more clapped her hands. “But this is exciting: a mysterious document. Can you tell who wrote it? Or when?”
I shook my head. The questions were making me uncomfortable; there was no need for her to know I’d had the paper analyzed.
“How disappointing.” Rossy smiled at me. “I have boasted of your supernatural gifts. Surely like Sherlock Holmes you know fifty-seven different kinds of paper by their ash?”
“Alas,” I said, “my powers are very erratic. They extend more to people and their motivations than to documents.”
“Then why are you even concerned?” Fillida asked, her fingers once again wrapped around the heavy handle of her unused spoon.
There was a kind of power in the soft, remote voice; it made me want to respond aggressively. “This is a claim affecting a poor African-American family on Chicago’s South Side. It would be a wonderful opportunity for Ajax to make good the rhetoric that Preston Janoff uttered today, to pay the grieving widow her ten thousand dollars.”
The banker said, “So you are pursuing the matter merely out of nobility, not because you have evidence?” His tone didn’t make the words sound like a compliment.
“And why try to tie it to Bertrand’s firm at all?” the novelist added.
“I don’t know who cashed the check which Ajax issued in 1991,” I said, returning to English to make sure I expressed myself clearly. “But two things make me think it was either the agent or someone at the company: my study of the claimant’s family. And the fact that the original file has disappeared. Not only from the agency, but from the company as well—perhaps whoever took them didn’t realize that a paper copy was still in Mr. Rossy’s office.”
“Ma il corpo,” the banker’s wife said. “Did you see the body? Isn’t it true that his posture, the placement of the weapon, that all these made the police believe it was suicide?”
“Signora Bugatti is right,” I said. “Europeans do long for the details of American violence. Unfortunately, it was only after the murder that Mrs. Fepple gave me a key to her son’s office, so I can’t fill in the details of his body in death.”
Rossy frowned. “I’m sorry if we seem voyeuristic to you, but as you heard, the mothers in Europe worry greatly about their daughters and their grandchildren. Perhaps, though, we can discuss something less bloodthirsty.”
Fillida nodded at him. “Yes, I think this is enough discussion of bloodshed at my dinner table. Why don’t we return to the drawing room for coffee.”
As the rest of the group settled themselves on the nubby straw-colored couches, I offered thanks and apologies to Fillida Rossy. “Una serata squisita. But I regret that an early appointment tomorrow means I must depart without coffee.”
Neither Fillida nor Bertrand made any effort to keep me, although Fillida murmured something about sharing an evening at the opera. “Although I cannot believe Tosca can be sung anywhere outside of La Scala. It is heresy to me.”
Bertrand himself escorted me to the door, assuring me heartily that I’d brought them much pleasure. He waited with the door open until the elevator arrived. Behind him, I heard the conversation turn to Venice, where Fillida, Laura, and Janet all attended the film festival.
XXXII
Client in the Slammer