"Misericordia! The way you talk! As if he had merely died in his bed. But of course, you're no Venetian and can't understand what this means: a member of the inquisition has been murdered, one of the tribunal. This is worse than if it had been a doge, of whom many have come to an unnatural death, for the tribunal has the power, and the doge has the robe. But the most horrible part of it is this: engraved in the dagger they've found in the wound it reads: `Death to all inquisitors'; all of them! Do you understand, Signore Andrea? This isn't just some scoundrel being payed by a bravo to do away with a single man, because he's keeping him from a love affair, a powerful position, or something else. `This is a political murder,' my neighbour the spicer told me, `and there is a conspiracy behind it and henchmen and that Angelo Querini with his followers.' He was rubbing his hands while saying this, but I felt my heart shivering in my body, for I don't want to say what I'm thinking, but I know: an evil deed is like a cherry, once one of them has been shook off a tree, twenty more will come after the first, and this blood will cost much more blood." "Don't they have any lead pointing to the murderer, Signoria Giovanna? What good are those hundreds of spies, they are paying, for the tribunal?" "Not even the shadow of a lead," answered the widow. "It was a dark night, the bora was blowing, and on the Grand Canal, which runs by his palace, there were no gondolas at all. Then, all by himself, he came home through one of the small alleys, and then, that invisible hand struck him down, and he only lived long enough to scare up the porter with his last sighs. Then, there was a deadly silence throughout the alley, and nobody was in sight. But I know what I know, Signore Andrea. Do you want me to tell you? You're decent and good and won't pass it on to anybody else and won't bring new hardship upon me: I know the hand which has spilled this blood." He looked at her firmly. "Talk," he said, "if you've got to get it off your chest. I won't give you away." "Don't you suspect anything?" she said, rising from her seat and stepping up close to him: "Haven't I told you that there are many who are alive and don't return and many who are dead and still return? Do you know it now? He hasn't forgotten about them who've dragged his wife and his child under the lead roofs and tortured them. But, for God's sake, don't say a word about this! If his spirit should have done it, the living would have to suffer for it." "And what reason do have to believe in this?"