wrong? If this devil of a guy pulls out another name? If it’s all been an infernal game?’
‘We can expect anything,’ Sciancalepre admitted, shaking his head. ‘Even that mysterious man entering the game – the one who was in Esengrini’s office on the day of the crime, according to the witness Rossinelli.’
‘It’s been nearly a month since we’ve seen each other,’ Esengrini said to Sciancalepre after greeting the judge.
‘We’ve moved Sciancalepre on to other things,’ the judge explained, ‘but he hasn’t been sleeping on the job, and this morning he brought me a new key to the mystery, we hope.’ So saying, he held out Signora Giulia’s last letter for the lawyer to read.
‘It is to my great fortune,’ said Esengrini after reading it and reflecting, ‘that Barsanti has always been a terrible guardian of his own correspondence. He loses one letter and for three years leaves another with the doorkeeper. But in addition to my mind, there’s a hand keeping things in order here. A mysterious hand, scooping everything up. Now that we’ve got this letter, finding the jewellery isn’t so important. But we shouldn’t neglect anything.’
‘Now,’ the judge observed, ‘I too have a request: I’d like to interrogate your typist and Demetrio Foletti in order to ascertain who was in your office on the Saturday morning when the letter with your forged signature went off to Barsanti.’
‘The suggestion is a good one,’ Esengrini admitted, ‘but perhaps it’s better to put it off; it could turn out to be useless. Let’s try instead to reconstruct the crime, supposing, for example, that Demetrio Foletti had committed it. Just to check a possible theory.
‘So: my wife, overcome by a serious Madame Bovary complex and emotionally needy, takes advantage of her weekly visits to our daughter at the convent school in order to escape the atmosphere of our town. On her way to Milan, she has the fatal encounter with Luciano Barsanti. After the first few meetings in various spots, Barsanti finds the right place in viale Premuda. They’ve already exchanged letters, as we know.
‘My wife has the great idea of receiving letters throughTeresa Foletti, with the simple ruse of envelopes addressed by her in order to encourage the belief that they’re coming from her daughter. Teresa believes in it, but her husband, who opens one of the initial letters – the second or the third – doesn’t. Maybe more than one, but definitely the one which says that the little longed for nest is ready, and giving its address in viale Premuda. Like the true rep he is, Barsanti signs some of the love letters with his name and surname. Which means that Demetrio Foletti knows about my wife’s liaison, knows the name of the lucky one and his exact address.
‘He doesn’t wait long before deciding on blackmail. It’s easy to imagine how his desire, no doubt of long-standing, takes shape when he sees that the woman he once considered unattainable is within his grasp. With the mind of a gardener, he thinks that women, like flowers, yield their fragrance as often to the one who tends them as to the one who places them in the drawing-room; and sometimes more intensely to the one who tends them. One need only reach out one’s hand to such a flower, using, if necessary, a little strength, and one has one’s own share of the perfume… We can imagine the approach and the rejection. Demetrio, the family’s right-hand man, goes in and out of the house at any hour; and my absences are continual and often last the entire day.
‘Poor Giulia pays dearly for her evasion. At a certain point Demetrio becomes jealous, just like a husband, or even more so. And he dreams up the stratagem of sending the letter, purportedly from the husband who knows everything. He’s used the system of tracing my signature a few other times, with my approval, and when signatures of little importance were necessary in my absence.
‘Whether Barsanti
‘We can expect anything,’ Sciancalepre admitted, shaking his head. ‘Even that mysterious man entering the game – the one who was in Esengrini’s office on the day of the crime, according to the witness Rossinelli.’
‘It’s been nearly a month since we’ve seen each other,’ Esengrini said to Sciancalepre after greeting the judge.
‘We’ve moved Sciancalepre on to other things,’ the judge explained, ‘but he hasn’t been sleeping on the job, and this morning he brought me a new key to the mystery, we hope.’ So saying, he held out Signora Giulia’s last letter for the lawyer to read.
‘It is to my great fortune,’ said Esengrini after reading it and reflecting, ‘that Barsanti has always been a terrible guardian of his own correspondence. He loses one letter and for three years leaves another with the doorkeeper. But in addition to my mind, there’s a hand keeping things in order here. A mysterious hand, scooping everything up. Now that we’ve got this letter, finding the jewellery isn’t so important. But we shouldn’t neglect anything.’
‘Now,’ the judge observed, ‘I too have a request: I’d like to interrogate your typist and Demetrio Foletti in order to ascertain who was in your office on the Saturday morning when the letter with your forged signature went off to Barsanti.’
‘The suggestion is a good one,’ Esengrini admitted, ‘but perhaps it’s better to put it off; it could turn out to be useless. Let’s try instead to reconstruct the crime, supposing, for example, that Demetrio Foletti had committed it. Just to check a possible theory.
‘So: my wife, overcome by a serious Madame Bovary complex and emotionally needy, takes advantage of her weekly visits to our daughter at the convent school in order to escape the atmosphere of our town. On her way to Milan, she has the fatal encounter with Luciano Barsanti. After the first few meetings in various spots, Barsanti finds the right place in viale Premuda. They’ve already exchanged letters, as we know.
‘My wife has the great idea of receiving letters throughTeresa Foletti, with the simple ruse of envelopes addressed by her in order to encourage the belief that they’re coming from her daughter. Teresa believes in it, but her husband, who opens one of the initial letters – the second or the third – doesn’t. Maybe more than one, but definitely the one which says that the little longed for nest is ready, and giving its address in viale Premuda. Like the true rep he is, Barsanti signs some of the love letters with his name and surname. Which means that Demetrio Foletti knows about my wife’s liaison, knows the name of the lucky one and his exact address.
‘He doesn’t wait long before deciding on blackmail. It’s easy to imagine how his desire, no doubt of long-standing, takes shape when he sees that the woman he once considered unattainable is within his grasp. With the mind of a gardener, he thinks that women, like flowers, yield their fragrance as often to the one who tends them as to the one who places them in the drawing-room; and sometimes more intensely to the one who tends them. One need only reach out one’s hand to such a flower, using, if necessary, a little strength, and one has one’s own share of the perfume… We can imagine the approach and the rejection. Demetrio, the family’s right-hand man, goes in and out of the house at any hour; and my absences are continual and often last the entire day.
‘Poor Giulia pays dearly for her evasion. At a certain point Demetrio becomes jealous, just like a husband, or even more so. And he dreams up the stratagem of sending the letter, purportedly from the husband who knows everything. He’s used the system of tracing my signature a few other times, with my approval, and when signatures of little importance were necessary in my absence.
‘Whether Barsanti
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