"Confusions, indeed," Montalbano muttered, the smell of fried calamari from Enzo’s trattoria calling to him more urgently than the case.
The "Carousel" began at the villa of the widowed Contessa Livia. She claimed a masked man had scaled her balcony, but her gardener swore he saw a woman in a red dress descending the trellis. The neighbor, an elderly man with a fondness for binoculars, insisted it was a priest carrying a heavy sack. El Carrusel De Las Confusiones Andrea Camilleri...
He realized the "theft" was a performance. The Contessa, facing bankruptcy, had hired three local actors to play the different roles simultaneously to confuse the insurance adjusters. The "jewelry" was already in a safe deposit box in Switzerland. The neighbor, an elderly man with a fondness
The breakthrough came not from a fingerprint, but from a recipe. Montalbano noticed that the gardener, the neighbor, and even the "priest" had all mentioned a distinct smell of almond blossoms—out of season for Sicily. The "jewelry" was already in a safe deposit