The Jewels of Paradise Read Free

overpowered her that she knew she wanted the job, regardless of the conditions, and to hell with Manchester.
    Dottor Moretti’s explanation contained elements of myth, family saga, soap opera, and farce, though it contained no names. The deceased cleric, he told her, was a Baroque composer who easily would be within her competence; he had died almost three centuries before, leaving no will. His possessions had been disbursed. Two chests believed to contain papers and, perhaps, valuables had been found and brought to Venice. One undisputed element in all of this was the claimants’ descent from the relatives of the childless musician: both had produced copies of baptismal and marriage certificates going back more than two hundred years.
    Here Caterina had interrupted to ask the name of the musician, a question that obviously surprised Dottor Moretti in its rash impropriety. That would be revealed only to a successful candidate, and she was not yet to be considered that, was she? It was a small snap of the whip, but it was nevertheless a snap.
    Would the candidate, she asked, be told the name of the musician before beginning to examine whatever papers might be found?
    That, Dottor Moretti had explained, would depend upon the nature of what was found in the trunks. Another snap. The two heirs, he surprised her by saying, would interview all likely candidates. Separately. No longer able to contain herself, Caterina had interrupted again to ask Dottor Moretti if he were making this up. With a look as sober as his tie, the arbitrator had assured her that he was not.
    Her task, he had gone on to explain, would be to read through the documents that were believed to be in the trunks and that were likely to be in Italian, German, and Latin, though others might well be in French and Dutch, perhaps even English. Any passages referring to the deceased musician’s testamentary wishes or to his affection for or involvement with various members of his family were to be translated in full: those papers relating to music or other areas of his life did not have to be translated. The cousins would expect frequent reports on her progress. It seemed that Dottor Moretti experienced a certain embarrassment in having to say this. “If you send these reports to me, I will forward them.”
    When Caterina expressed a certain difficulty in understanding why no one knew the contents of these trunks, Dottor Moretti told her that the seals appeared to be intact. Assuming this to be true, then the chests had not been opened for centuries.
    Caterina had the good sense to say that all of this sounded interesting, adding that, to a researcher, it sounded fascinating. As she spoke, she ran through the names of composers in search of whom it might be, but since she didn’t know either his nationality or where he had died—or lived, for that matter—there was little chance of identifying him.
    She must have impressed Moretti, for he told her he would like her to speak that afternoon to two men he suggested she treat as gentlemen. He asked only one thing of her, he added: once she learned their family names, she could easily trace them back to the composer. He trusted she would not do so until the decision about the position had been made, then explained, before she could ask, that this was a request from the two presumptive heirs, “men with a certain fondness for secrecy.”
    Caterina said she would begin research only if granted the job and would not pursue it in any way were she not chosen.
    That same afternoon, she had met the contesting heirs, introduced to them, separately, by name. They met in the “library,” which turned out to be a room holding photocopies of the libretti and the scores of the operas and orchestral works of the dozen or so composers who had most delighted Signor Dardago. The library had a large table and bookshelves on which the photocopies no longer made the attempt to stand upright. There were just three or four books on the