A Brood of Vipers

proficient in its use. Don't look so accusingly at me! Why should I turn my hand against my patron?' Nobody even looked at him, let alone answered.
    Benjamin got to his feet. 'Perhaps we should return to the garden? I know where I was standing. Where were all of you?'
    Enrico clapped his hands softly. 'Lady Bianca, I was standing behind you. Alessandro, you were a little forward to my right. You were scratching your neck, yes? So, where was everyone else?'
    Benjamin sat down again as confusion broke out, everyone telling their story but nothing tallying. Benjamin tapped the top of the table.
    'The truth is,' he said, 'that we were all so frightened by what Preneste was doing that none of us can clearly remember. But there is a further possibility to consider.' The hubbub of conversation finally died away.
    'Perhaps the assassin is not in this room,' Benjamin went on, nudging me gently under the table to tell me to keep silent. 'There were servants in London, servants on board ship and servants here in the house tonight. All I can advise is that each of us, until this murderer is unmasked, walks carefully.'
    The meeting broke up. Benjamin beckoned me to follow him back into the garden; behind us the babble of conversation died as the household retired to bed.
    'Did you mean what you said about the servants, Master?' I whispered.
    'Of course not!' Benjamin replied. 'The assassin was sitting at that table. What servant would dare commit three murders? Someone would notice something amiss. One death perhaps, but not three.'
    We walked further into the darkness. Benjamin turned and looked at me squarely.
    'But what could the motive for the murders be? Is it revenge for some secret hurt? Is it the lust for power and wealth?' He held a finger to his lips. 'Francesco dies, he is head of the family. Matteo dies, he is Francesco's steward and faithful companion. Then Preneste, the priest lawyer and family confidant. Now, why should the assassin select those last two? Eh, Roger?'
    'Because they might know something,' I replied slowly. 'Preneste, though, may have been killed because the powers he possessed may have enabled him to name the murderer.'
    'Or Preneste, like Matteo, may simply have remembered something that is the key to this puzzle,' Benjamin said. 'What about Throckle?' I asked.
    Benjamin shrugged. 'How can the suicide of an old doctor in the wilds of Essex be connected to bloody, violent death in the golden hills of Tuscany?' He shivered and crossed his arms. 'All murders have a pattern but this one is a maze.' He looked back at the darkened house. 'I wonder?' 'What?' 'Would Preneste still have that information somewhere?'
    We walked back into the house. Benjamin stopped a sleepy-eyed servant and asked for a fresh cup of wine. He also took the opportunity of using the little Italian he knew to discover the whereabouts of Preneste's chambers, on the other side of the courtyard. We slipped up darkened stairways and along a gallery. As we passed a chamber door, we paused. In the poor light Benjamin smiled as he gestured to me to listen. I did so and, from the room beyond, heard the gasps and passionate cries of the Lady Bianca.
    'A merry widow if there ever was one,' Benjamin whispered.
    We crept on, now and again pausing as a floorboard creaked. We turned a corner and the hair on the back of my neck curled as I stared along the passageway. I was sure I had seen someone moving, but then dismissed it as the effect of too much wine.
    At last we reached Preneste's chamber. The door was closed but not locked. We pushed it open and crept in. The room was dark, the shutters of the window firmly closed. I wrinkled my nose at the sour smell which the cloying fragrance from the garden could not hide. The four-poster bed in the centre of the room had its drapes pulled close. Benjamin moved over. I heard him mutter and curse. He struck a tinder, lit the candles, picked one of these up and moved across to the bed. He pulled the curtain back, pushed the candle forward and, in the pool of light, Preneste's pallid face gazed sightlessly up at us. He looked even more eerie in the candlelight, the small hole in the side of the head an ugly black-red patch. I stared at it curiously. It stirred a memory, but I could not place it. Benjamin was now whispering at me to search the room. I did so. Thankfully, the chests and coffers had not been locked, except one at the foot of the bed. One clasp was open, I had to use my dagger to prise the