Free Quietly in Their Sleep by Donna Leon Page A

stopped them from standing up there and prattling on about another world where all the happy souls will meet again.’ Da Prè smiled here; it was not a pretty smile.
     
    ‘One of them came to her funeral,’ he went on. ‘Big man, fat. He came up to me after it and said how great a loss Augusta had been to the “community of Christians”.’ The sarcasm with which da Prè pronounced the words scalded the air around him. ‘Then he said something about how generous she had always been, what a good friend she had been to the order.’ Da Prè stopped talking here and his mind seemed to wander away in pleased recollection of the scene.
     
    ‘What did you say?’ Vianello finally asked.
     
    ‘I told him the generosity was going into the grave with her,’ da Prè said with another bleak smile.
     
    Neither Vianello nor Brunetti said anything for a moment, and then Brunetti asked, ‘Did they take any legal action?’
     
    ‘Against me, do you mean?’ da Prè asked.
     
    Brunetti nodded.
     
    ‘No. Nothing.’ Da Prè was silent for a moment and then added, ‘Just because they got their hands on her, that doesn’t mean they could get their hands on her money.’
     
    ‘Did she ever talk about this what you call “getting their hands on her”?’ Brunetti asked.
     
    ‘What do you mean?’
     
    ‘Did she tell you that they were after her to give them her money?’
     
    ‘Tell me?’
     
    ‘Yes, did she ever say anything, while she was at the casa di cura, about their trying to get her to leave her money to them.’
     
    ‘I don’t know,’ da Prè answered.
     
    Brunetti didn’t know how to ask. He left it for da Prè to explain, which he did. ‘It was my duty to go and see her every month, which was all the time I could afford, but we had nothing to say to one another. I’d bring her any post that had accumulated, but it was always just religious things: magazines, requests for money. I’d ask her how she was. But there was nothing we could talk about, so I’d leave.’
     
    ‘I see.’ Brunetti saw, getting to his feet; she had been there three years and had left everything to this brother who had been too busy to visit her more than once a month, no doubt occupied with his little boxes.
     
    ‘What’s this all about?’ da Prè asked before Brunetti could move away from him. ‘Are they going to try to contest the will?’ Da Prè started to say something else but stopped himself, and Brunetti thought he saw him begin to smile, but then the little man covered his mouth with his hand, and the moment was gone.
     
    ‘Nothing, really, Signore. Actually, we’re interested in someone who worked there.’
     
    ‘I can’t help you there. I didn’t know any of the staff.’
     
    Vianello got to his feet and came to stand by Brunetti, the warmth of his previous conversation with da Prè serving to mitigate the badly disguised indignation which emanated from his superior.
     
    Da Prè asked no more questions. He got to his feet and led the two men out of the room and then down the corridor to the door of the apartment. There, Vianello took his upraised hand and shook it, thanking him for having shown him the lovely snuffboxes. Brunetti, too, shook the upraised hand, but he gave no thanks and was the first one through the door.
     
    * * * *
     
    Chapter Four
     
     
    ‘Horrible little man, horrible little man,’ Brunetti heard Vianello muttering as they walked down the steps.
     
    Outside, it was cooler, as though da Prè had stolen the warmth from the day. ‘Disgusting little man,’ Vianello continued. ‘He thinks he owns those boxes. The fool.’
     
    ‘What, Sergeant?’ Brunetti asked, not having followed Vianello’s leap of thought.
     
    ‘He thinks he owns those things, those stupid little boxes.’
     
    ‘I thought you liked them.’
     
    ‘God, no; I think they’re disgusting. My uncle had scores of them, and every time we went there, he insisted on making me look at them. He was just