The other mezzanine room had been Danese’s before his eviction. It had a fine view of the garden and the iron grille over the window matched Grazia’s on the other side. The furnishings were superb, and the paintings on the walls cried out for study and appreciation. The only criticism I could have leveled at it as a room was that its ceiling was no more than about nine feet high, which I found oppressive after Ca’ Barbolano. Even in Ca’ Sanudo, the altana and piano nobile ceilings were at least twice that. But Danese had indeed done well for himself, and I wondered what quarters he had enjoyed at Celeseo, for the mainland palaces of the rich sprawl far larger than those in cramped Venice.

“You had better dowse this room well, messer,” Grazia proclaimed, with an attempt at aristocratic hauteur. “Who knows what missing jewels it may contain?”

I portrayed wronged virtue. “Madonna, it was your aunt who accused your late husband of theft. I never did. Remember that no one here observed how your aunt had been cursed. She looks twice as old as she should, and yet none of you noticed. When valuables disappear for a day or two and then turn up again, it is only common sense to inspect them carefully, and apparently nobody had thought to do that. It was my duty to suggest that precaution, but any servant could have made the switch. I did not hint at Danese.”

She ignored me, deaf as Odysseus to the sirens.

I persisted. “The jewel incident was recent? It happened after you moved back from Celeseo?”

Reluctantly she nodded.

“Then I should certainly suspect the new servants more than Danese, who had been employed by your family for years.” I did not point out that Danese would have found it easier to have stolen jewelry counterfeited here in Venice than he would have done in Padua, or that he might have been worried about his tenure as cavaliere servente since his employer’s husband returned from foreign lands.

There was no obvious Neptune in sight, but I dowsed my way around the room. No demons emerged. Vasco kept yawning behind Grazia’s back.

We went downstairs, crossed the hall, and started up the main staircase. At the mezzanine level, Grazia swept right by the two doors and continued on up toward the piano nobile without a hint that the rooms there ought to be inspected also. I caught Vasco’s eye and for once we shared smiles of real amusement.

Martini and Bolognetti, the two fanti, were sitting patiently on a divan, and Madonna Eva was just emerging from the salotto, assisting the blighted Fortunata.

“Let us begin with your aunt’s room,” I said. “After all, that is the most likely place to find the source of the evil that cursed her.”

Fortunata would have to be billeted on that level, being unable to manage stairs, and Grazia led us across to the right-front corner, overlooking the canal. The room itself was magnificent. The ceiling paintings alone made me want to hurl myself down on the bed and spend half an hour admiring. There were several fine oils hung on the walls, also, although they were poorly arranged and matched. The furniture was of fine quality, but scanty, and some pieces obviously old, perhaps heirlooms. The bed was gracious, standing upon golden pillars in the center of the room. I was able to dowse all the way around it. No Neptune, no jinx, no demon.

We were safely back out in the salone before the owner arrived at her tortoise creep. I crossed to the open door opposite and found myself in the dining room. Little Noelia was laying out silverware and crystal. She stared with octopus eyes at me and my twig as I solemnly paced my way around the room and her, but neither of us spoke.

Now I had the piano nobile worked out also: on the right, Madonna Fortunata’s room and the salotto; on the left, the dining room and what must surely be the Sanudos’ own bedchamber at the rear. With Eva attending her aunt and Zuanbattista closeted with his son and Gritti in the salotto, now was my chance to pry there also. Grazia started to protest, but I rapped on the door and entered.

It was different. Here the former ambassador displayed his souvenirs-rich silk rugs on the floor and walls, ornate silver urns, carved ivory tables, and other oddities. The ceiling painting seemed old and faded by comparison and, with the big doors out to the balcony closed, the air held a peculiar, foreign scent that I disliked. I did my dowsing as fast as I could without breaking out of my role and returned to the doorway, where Vasco watched me with amused contempt and Grazia with extreme displeasure.

She twitched her nose at me, “Are you ready to start on the library now, sier Alfeo?”

I was not going to be browbeaten by a sulky child when I was engaged in a war with Ottone Gritti. “Not quite, madonna. We still have to investigate your own room and that of your honored brother.”

G irolamo’s room I could have predicted. The furniture was minimal and Spartan: a bed, a chair, a lamp, and one small cupboard to hold his clothes, with or without hair shirts. The only art was a magnificent triptych on the wall opposite the window, which I had to stop and examine. It was old, certainly pre-Giotto, and not Venetian work. I could not guess at the artist’s name and perhaps nobody could, but in its way it was the finest thing I had seen in Ca’ Sanudo. I played out my act with the dowsing rod and was not surprised by the lack of results.

Vasco closed the door behind me as I crossed the little landing to the lady’s chamber. Scowling at this invasion of her privacy, Grazia wrestled the door open for me, so I walked right through.

“I shall be as quick as I can, madonna,” I said, but my eye had spotted Danese’s portmanteau in the far corner. That was why I missed Neptune. My rod did not; it twisted in my hands like a snake, wrenching me around to face my objective and causing me to gasp out an Ooof! of alarm.

“I didn’t know you practiced Dalmatian dancing,” Vasco remarked with childish sarcasm. “That doesn’t look much like a book to me.”

But it did look like my vision, Neptune taming a seahorse. The bronze itself was about three feet high, standing on a pedestal of green-veined marble of roughly the same height. It was magnificent, so I wondered why it was hidden away in a girl’s bedroom where only she and her maid would ever see it. Had even Danese ever been in this room?

“Where did it come from?” I asked, examining it carefully without touching it. I threw the apple-wood wand away.

“How should I know?” Grazia snapped. “It’s been around as long as I can remember. I asked for it when we moved back to town. Why does it matter?”

“Who made it?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care!” Grazia was trying to be imperious again.

It had to be hollow, I decided, or it would weigh as much as a cannon and the floor beams would collapse. I took out my dagger and rapped the hilt on the god’s chest. Yes, it was hollow. Bronze castings always are.

“Stop that!” Grazia squealed. “Now finish what you came to do and go down and start dowsing the books.”

I peered closely at the top of the pedestal and thought I could see faint scratches in front of the bronze. Vasco was watching warily. He knows I play tricks, but he also knows I have knowledge he does not. I was going to make an almighty fool of myself unless there was something significant about that statue. So be it! I had never tried dowsing before and never believed in dowsing, and yet my rod had gone for the bronze before I had even seen it myself. Now I believed. I sheathed my dagger and drew my rapier.

“What are you doing?” the lady screamed.

“I want to see if there’s something hidden inside that thing,” I said. “Stand well back, so I don’t hit you by mistake. Vizio, can you lift it?” I very rarely give Vasco his title.