“Today? Of course not!” No duchess could have said it more frostily. The very idea! Then, seeing Billy suitably abashed, Sharon relented.
“No, not a date. Although—” Struck by an impulse, Sharon took Ruy’s hand in hers. “I may as well take the occasion to let everyone know that Señor Sanchez has just formally proposed to me.”
That brought a delightful round of eyes-wide-as-saucers. It was all Sharon could do not to giggle.
“Of course, I told him there was no question of my accepting his offer, though I was deeply honored. Not for the moment, certainly. But I would think about it. Perhaps, in the future . . .”
She let that trail away. “However, today we are about another matter—which is why I’d appreciate your assistance, Lieutenant. I’ve asked Señor Sanchez to help us find and apprehend the murderer of Joe Buckley, and he has agreed to do so.”
She’d relinquished Ruy’s hand by then. The hand went straight to the mustachios, stroking them fiercely.
“The villain may as well cut his throat and be done with it,” Sanchez growled.
There was always that about Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, in the end, whatever else might be said of him. He could make a statement like that—and not one person who heard it so much as cracked a smile.
Billy just about snapped to attention. He swept open the door to the embassy. “After you, Mr. Sanchez.”
Chapter 35
Once they got out of the embassy, Sharon felt decisiveness leaving her. Pouring out, rather, like water through a ruptured dam.
She looked around, uncertainly. “I really don’t have any idea where to start.” She gave Ruy a look of appeal.
Sanchez rose smoothly to the occasion. “The last activities of Buckley, I think. I know he was attempting to interview the Turks. Ha! Speak of folly.”
Billy Trumble straightened. His hand slid to the pistol holstered to his waist. As an officer assigned to an embassy guard, he was entitled to one of the precious up-time automatics. Sharon knew little of guns, beyond how to fire them—her father had insisted she learn that much—but the thing was certainly wicked-looking.
“You want to start with the Turks, then?” the young lieutenant asked gruffly. As gruffly, at least, as an twenty-year-old could manage.
Sharon saw Ruy disguise a little smile with another stroke of his mustachios. He was amused by the young American’s bold front, obviously. But, just as obviously, was not prepared to deride him for it. No doubt Ruy had many memories of bold fronts himself, as a youth.
“No, there is no point,” the Catalan responded. “I do not really suspect the Turks.”
“Why not?” Sharon asked.
Ruy shrugged. “They are certainly callous enough. But, first, that was not a callous killing, it was a savage murder done by a man in a rage. I am quite sure of that; and I suspect the murderer was not entirely sane as well. Hard to explain some of those wounds otherwise. The Turks would have simply sent an assassin—they have very good ones—who would have strangled him and been done with it. Or slid a stiletto between his ribs. Why torture him? Still further—why fake the torture? The Ottomans have no motive to do such. Not that I can see.”
His eyes ranged the canal for a moment, as if he sought inspiration in its filthy waters. “Secondly, they have simply not been here long enough. Even a man as heedless as Buckley could not have infuriated them so quickly. No, whoever it was, it was someone who had known Buckley for some time.”
Billy’s expression underwent a peculiar shift. From bold front to . . . startled?
Sanchez didn’t miss it either. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
Billy rubbed his face. “Well . . . I can’t see any reason why they would . . . they seemed to like him, in fact. But, well, he’d been spending a lot of time, there just before the end, hanging out with the Committee of Correspondence.” The lieutenant pointed toward the north. “Over there on Murano. You know, at the building where the Marcolis live.”
“You have been there?” Sanchez asked.
Billy gave Sharon a nervous glance. As an officer in the Marine guard, he’d presumably been subject to Mazzare’s instructions to keep a diplomatic distance from the Committee in Venice. “Well . . .”