‘Something with a religious content. Coligny mentioned the title, some fancy Latin expression that was fashionable at the time, but I can’t remember it now. As you know, the titles of missals all run in a similar vein. Pax Gloria Mundi or something like that.’

‘And what happened to the book and Lambert?’

‘That’s where matters become complicated. It seems that poor Lambert, in a fit of madness, wanted to burn his manuscript, so he set fire to it, and to himself, in the offices of the publishing house. A lot of people thought the opium had frazzled his brains, but Coligny suspected that it was Corelli who had pushed him towards suicide.’

‘Why would he want to do that?’

‘Who knows? Perhaps he didn’t want to pay him the sum he had promised? Perhaps it was all just Coligny’s fantasies – I’d say he was a great fan of Beaujolais twelve months a year. He told me that Corelli had tried to kill him in order to release Lambert from his contract and that Corelli only left him in peace when he decided to terminate the agreement with the author and let him go.’

‘Didn’t you say he’d never seen him?’

‘Exactly. I think Coligny must have been raving. When I visited him in his apartment I saw more crucifixes, madonnas and figures of saints than you’d find in a shop selling Christmas mangers. I got the impression that he wasn’t all that well in the head. When I left he told me to stay away from Corelli.’

‘But hadn’t he told you Corelli was dead?’

‘Ecco qua.’

I fell silent. Barceló looked at me with curiosity.

‘I have the feeling that my discoveries aren’t a huge surprise to you.’

I gave him a carefree smile, trying to make light of it all.

‘On the contrary. Thank you for taking the time to investigate.’

‘Not at all. Going to Paris in search of gossip is a pleasure in itself; you know me.’

Barceló tore the page with the information out of his notebook and handed it to me.

‘In case it’s of any use to you. I’ve noted down everything I was able to discover.’

I stood up and we shook hands. He came with me to the door, where Dalmau had the parcel ready for me.

‘How about a print of the Baby Jesus – one of those where he opens and closes his eyes depending how you look at it? Or one of the Virgin Mary surrounded by lambs: when you move it, they turn into cherubs with rosy cheeks. A wonder of stereoscopic technology.’

‘The revealed word is enough for the time being.’

‘Amen.’

I was grateful to the bookseller for his attempts to cheer me up, but as I walked away from the shop a cold anxiety began to invade me and I had the feeling that the streets and my destiny were set on nothing but quicksand.

On my way home I stopped by a stationer’s in Calle Argenteria to look at the shop window. On a sheet of fabric was a case containing a set of nibs, an ivory pen and a matching ink pot engraved with what looked like fairies or muses. There was something melodramatic about the whole set, as if it had been stolen from the writing desk of some Russian novelist, the sort who would bleed to death over thousands of pages. Isabella had beautiful handwriting that I envied, as pure and clear as her conscience, and the set seemed to have been made for her. I went in and asked the shop assistant to show it to me. The nibs were gold-plated and the whole business cost a small fortune, but I decided that it would be a good idea to repay my young assistant’s kindness and patience with this little gift. I asked the man to wrap it in bright purple paper with a ribbon the size of a carriage.

When I got home I was looking forward to the selfish satisfaction that comes from arriving with a gift in one’s hand. I was about to call Isabella as if she were a faithful pet with nothing better to do than wait devotedly for her master’s return, but what I saw when I opened the door left me speechless. The corridor was as dark as a tunnel. The door of the room at the other end was open, casting a square of flickering yellow light across the floor.

‘Isabella?’ I called out. My mouth was dry.

‘I’m here.’

The voice came from inside the room. I left the parcel on the hall table and walked down the corridor. I stopped in the doorway and looked inside. Isabella was sitting on the floor. She had placed a candle inside a tall glass and was earnestly devoting herself to her second vocation after literature: tidying up other people’s belongings.

‘How did you get in here?’

She smiled at me and shrugged her shoulders.

‘I was in the gallery and I heard a noise. I thought it was you coming back, but when I went into the corridor I saw that this door was open. I thought you’d told me it was locked.’

‘Get out of here. I don’t want you coming into this room. It’s very damp.’

‘Don’t be silly. With all the work there is to do here? Come on. Look at all the things I’ve found.’

I hesitated.

‘Here, come in.’

I stepped into the room and knelt down beside her. Isabella had separated all the items and boxes into categories: books, toys, photographs, clothes, shoes, spectacles. I looked at all the objects with a certain apprehension. Isabella seemed to be delighted, as if she’d discovered King Solomon’s mines.

‘Is all of this yours?’

I shook my head.

‘It belonged to the previous owner.’

‘Did you know him?’

‘No. It had all been here for years when I moved in.’

Isabella was holding a packet of letters and held it out to me as if it were evidence in a magistrate’s court.

‘Well, I think I’ve discovered his name.’

‘You don’t say.’

Isabella smiled, clearly delighted with her detective work.

‘Marlasca,’ she announced. ‘His name was Diego Marlasca. Don’t you think it’s odd?’

‘What?’

‘That his initials are the same as yours: D. M.’

‘It’s just a coincidence; tens of thousands of people in this town have the same initials.’

Isabella winked at me. She was really enjoying herself.

‘Look what else I’ve found.’

Isabella had salvaged a tin box full of old photographs. They were images from another age, postcards of old Barcelona, of pavilions that had been demolished in Ciudadela Park after the 1888 Universal Exhibition, of large crumbling houses and avenues full of people dressed in the ceremonious style of the time, of carriages and memories the colour of my childhood. Faces with absent expressions stared at me from thirty years back. In some of those photographs I thought I recognised the face of an actress who had been popular when I was a young boy and who had long since disappeared into obscurity. Isabella watched me in silence.

‘Do you remember her?’ she asked, after a time.

‘I think her name was Irene Sabino. She was quite a famous actress in the Paralelo theatres. This was a long time ago. Before you were born.’

‘Just look at this, then.’

Isabella handed me a photograph in which Irene Sabino appeared leaning against a window. It didn’t take me long to identify that window as the one in my study at the top of the tower.

‘Interesting, isn’t it?’ Isabella asked. ‘Do you think she lived here?’

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘Maybe she was Diego Marlasca’s lover…’

‘I don’t think that’s any of our business.’

‘Sometimes you’re so boring.’

Isabella put the photographs back in the box. As she did so, one of them slipped from her hands. The picture fell at my feet. I picked it up and examined it: Irene Sabino, wearing a dazzling black gown, posed with a group of people dressed for a party in what seemed to be the grand hall of the Equestrian Club. It was just a picture of a social gathering that wouldn’t have caught my eye had I not noticed in the background, almost blurred, a gentleman with white hair standing at the top of a staircase. Andreas Corelli.

‘You’ve gone pale,’ said Isabella.