A Rich Full Death

10

Now then, Prescott, a test! How do you think I responded? Rack your brains and pronounce. Did I gasp and gawp? Hold my tongue but look volumes? Clutch my temples and fall writhing to the floor? Invoke the gods?

I did none of these things. I laughed-a fierce, hard, brittle, convulsive laughter, akin to vomiting. Strangely enough, Browning took this bizarre outburst quite in his stride.

‘Oh, you may laugh!’ he cried. ‘You have my leave. I quite deserve it. I agree that I look absolutely ridiculous, with all my fine theories.’

I tried to protest that I was not laughing at him-but the fit shook me so uncontrollably that in the end I had to leave the room and go and bathe my face with cold water to calm myself. When I returned I apologised to Browning for my hysterical outburst, and asked him if there was no possibility of error in what he said.

‘It seems almost impossible that he could be innocent,’ I exclaimed. ‘Everything fitted together so perfectly!’

‘Indeed. And the irony of it is that evidence has come to light which appears to confirm my original theory in other respects. For example, Isabel Eakin and DeVere were lovers-of that there is no further doubt.’

There was no risk of my laughing at this.

‘How do you know?’

‘It came out over the port. Despite the official line, no one at the Embassy seems to doubt that DeVere killed himself in despair at his mistress’s death. One of the attaches who was a close friend of his said that DeVere had bragged to him about it. He said-but perhaps you would prefer to be spared the details. Mrs Eakin was a friend of yours.’

‘No, no-tell me!’

Browning fell to perusing a small landscape I like to think may be a Carlo Dolci.

Well, it seems that DeVere boasted to this friend of having made a conquest of Isabel Eakin. He was that kind of man, apparently-to boast of it, I mean. He even showed him a letter from Mrs Eakin, couched in the most passionate terms. He in turn described her as “frisky”. He also-are you quite sure you want me to go on? — mentioned that she had a mole near her right nipple which was extremely sensitive. DeVere further asseverated that he was in the habit of-’

‘Stop!’ I cried, for I could stand no more. If he had not already been dead, I swear I would have rushed out and killed DeVere there and then.

‘Very well!’ I went on wildly. ‘He is dead, and a good riddance of bad rubbish, say I! What of it?’

‘Well there is just the small question of who killed him,’ murmured Browning.

‘Killed him? But he killed himself, didn’t he? You just said as much.’

‘No-I said that that was what the Embassy believe. But they do not know about the locket. Only Mrs Eakin’s murderer could have had possession of that, and if DeVere did not murder her then the locket must have been left on his table by the person who did, after he also killed DeVere.’

I hid my face in my hands, trying to think.

‘But why? It doesn’t make sense,’ I protested. ‘What had DeVere got to do with it?’

‘I have given that some thought,’ Browning replied, ‘and I can see two reasons why the murderer might have wanted to kill DeVere. Firstly, for the same reason that he placed the knife with Eakin’s name in the garden of the villa-to divert suspicion from himself. Let us note in passing that he must therefore be someone who would otherwise naturally have come under suspicion. He evidently chose DeVere partly because his known liaison with the dead woman made the latter a convincing suspect.

‘But there is another reason, which relates to that story DeVere told you about having seen someone prowling about the Eakins’ garden-which we may now presume to be true. You were no doubt not the only person he told about his interesting experience. Suppose, therefore, that amongst others he unwittingly told the murderer himself — who of course had been in the garden that very day, placing the knife where I later found it. Imagine the tremendous resonance of DeVere’s words in the vaults of a guilty conscience! Each bland expression seems to imply a wealth of unspoken knowledge; each smile and glance seems to say “I saw you! I know you!”

‘Now suppose that the murderer, to find out how much DeVere knows, asks for more details. What did he look like, this intruder in the garden? “Oh, about your height and build,” DeVere unwittingly replies-it was true, after all! Now the murderer is sure! DeVere knows, and he must silence him at once. He did so the very same night, and when we went to see him in the morning, it was too late.’

I rose from my chair and went over to confront Browning.

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘We have been wrong, despite our best efforts. The time has come to be honest and admit our limitations. This affair has got completely out of hand. Murder is no business for amateurs, and that is all we are. But there can be no doubt now that we are facing a devilishly cool opponent who has already struck twice with complete impunity, and who may even now be planning further outrages. Let us forestall him by going to the police at once and making a clean breast of it! Let us tell them everything we know, everything we suspect, and leave them to decide what action to take. They may be successful or they may not, but we at least shall have done our duty.’

A good speech, I thought it at the time, level-headed and responsible to a fault. Browning’s response, to my amazement, was to shake his head slowly.

To take such a step now would place me in a most awkward position, Mr Booth,’ he replied sadly. ‘Not that I disagree with you! On the contrary-I wholeheartedly echo your sentiments. Would I had listened to your advice in the first place! But you know the Grand Duke’s police-they see plots and conspiracies everywhere. If we go now and tell them that we have kept this matter secret for a week, they will arrest us both on the spot. And the law here is that once arrested you are considered guilty unless you can prove your innocence.’

‘But surely you can prove your innocence,’ I objected. ‘You have an alibi for the time of Isabel Eakin’s death, have you not?’

Again the shake of the huge head.

‘I was out for a walk. Worse, I walked up to Bellosguardo-as I often do. Several people must have seen me there. No, it will look very bad for me, I fear.’

‘Why, then let us invent an alibi for you!’ I cried enthusiastically. ‘I shall simply say that you were with me.’

‘No, that will not do either,’ Browning pointed out, ‘for you really have an alibi, proved by Mr Jarves, and plainly there can be no question of dragging him into our conspiracy. No, there is no help for it-I am in a very unenviable position. If the police learn that I have wilfully concealed information from them, and that I have no alibi, then Commissioner Talenti will avenge himself royally for my former intransigence, and this time neither my foreign status nor my friends will be able to save me. I shall be locked up as an accessory after the fact, and what will become of poor Ba then?’

So that was it! Browning’s unmanly pusillanimity was explained: it was not for himself‘that he feared, but for his wife, who is utterly dependent upon him. And it is certainly true that once in prison here, it is no easy matter to get out again. One hears terrible tales of men who have spent half their lives in gaol, awaiting trial on some trivial charge (of which, perhaps, they are subsequently found to be innocent). Even commoner is the plight of those who have no relatives or friends to bribe the gaoiers and supplement the meagre rations provided, and who almost starve to death. In short, Florence is mediaeval in more than one respect, and the prospect of bringing oneself to the attention of the law is so dismal that one would do almost anything to avoid it.

‘In that case let us for God’s sake wash our hands of the whole beastly matter!’ I implored him. ‘The police suspect nothing — still less does anyone else. All we need do is forget what we know-nay, what we suspect, for what is it all but mere suspicion, in the end?’

But Browning would not have it.

‘That I absolutely cannot do, Mr Booth.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘Because I am afraid!’

‘That is precisely why I am suggesting …’

‘I do not refer to the police. I am afraid of God! I am afraid that one day I shall be summoned before Him to account for my life-and how should I explain that out of mere cowardice and incapacity I allowed a murderer to go unpunished?’

‘But “vengeance is mine, saith the Lord”,’ I could not help putting in mischievously. ‘Will not God punish where punishment is due? How can we judge?’

I immediately regretted this sally, for Browning looked at me sternly.

‘Do not trifle,’ he replied. ‘Is it not as much a judgment to let a murderer go free as to hang him? Either way, we judge him — we have to, in this world. His soul is another affair, and there God will set all right. But let us leave this, for I suspect you are not in earnest. I have another reason for declining your convenient proposal, and one which you may well consider to have more urgency.

‘Just think: somewhere in this city, at this very instant, someone is sitting thinking how immensely clever he has been! How very cunning, to commit two murders which appear to cancel each other out, leaving-nothing! A work of genius! If you think that I could sit tamely back, knowing that this creature remains alive and free and secure from pursuit, believing that he has fooled us all-well, then you do not know me yet, my friend!’

To this I could only reply, and in all sincerity, that my dearest wish was to know him better; and with that our talk broke up, as Browning was anxious to keep another engagement.

As I saw him to the door, I picked up a letter lying on my doormat, quickly tore it open and scanned the enclosure. My visitor was just taking his hat from the stand. I passed him the single sheet of paper, which ran as follows:

Villa Hibernia

12th February

Dear Mr Booth,

Some exceptionally curious indications have recently come to light concerning the tragic deaths of Mrs Isabel Eakin and Mr Cecil DeVere.

As you know, these two events were not only connected, but the cause of death was in each case very different from that announced by the authorities. However, it now appears that these crimes were but part of a much more ambitious criminal project, whose full scope and extent is only beginning to become evident.

If either you or your associate Mr Robert Browning will be good enough to come to the above address at your earliest convenience, you will have an opportunity of judging for yourselves the truth of this assertion. Yours ever faithfully,

(p.p.) Maurice Purdy

Browning looked from the letter with a pale face. His hand, I noted, was trembling.

‘What devilry is this?’ he murmured.

‘We must find out without delay,’ I replied resolutely.

‘Indeed-and let us not make the same mistake as with poor DeVere, but go immediately!’ Browning declared.

‘But what about your engagement?’

‘I can call and make my excuses on the way.’

Now before going any further I should explain that Maurice Purdy is a plump balding little Anglo-Irishman, owner of vast tracts of bogland whose crop of potatoes supports a number of tenant farmers, who in turn support Mr Purdy. When this crop fails-as it did some ten years back, you may remember-a million or so of these Hibernians emigrate to the next world, while an equal number come to try their luck in the New. At other times they remit to Squireen Purdy-well, hardly a million of anything, but enough at any rate for him to live very comfortably here in divinely cheap Florence, indulging his ruling passion for the pleasures of the table.

The man truly lives to eat, and his dinner parties are famous for the quality and quantity of the fare provided. Not that he entirely stints himself in other respects-he has been known to hire a band out to the villa to play symphonies for him. But even then he does not entirely surrender to the muse, but will nibble at some choice delicacy while Spohr or Cherubini warbles.

In short, if we accept Sydney Smith’s friend’s notion of paradise as eating pate de foie gras to the sound of trumpets, then Maurice Purdy has undeniably seen heaven’s glories shine-but what this utterly inoffensive, slightly comical hedonist could have to do with the mysterious and sinister epistle which had appeared on my mat was a question to which there seemed no possible answer. As Browning said, there was a smell of devilry about it; as though the voice of Evil were to speak through the mouth of a child’s doll. How did Purdy know that Isabel’s and DeVere’s deaths were connected? How did he know that they had not died in the way given out by the police? How did he know that Browning and I had an interest in the matter? Above all, what was the ‘much more ambitious criminal project’ of which these events were just a part?

We soon found a cab, whose driver-a youngster new to the work, and as keen as mustard-made no fuss about an expedition without the walls, promising to take us to the moon and back if we wished. The initial destination my companion named proved no less interesting, although considerably nearer: Via Dante Aligheri.

I had by no means forgotten the evening when I had followed Browning through the city to this street, where he had disappeared, but the incident had been eclipsed by the more urgent matter which had latterly occupied me. Now it seemed that chance had put the solution to this mystery into my hands.

Our cab drove past the Strozzi palace and through the Old Market, before turning into the street Browning had named.

‘This will do!’ Browning called up to the driver. ‘Please wait for me here, Booth. I shall not be five minutes.’

He was in fact ten. I got out of the cab and strolled back and forth in the misty street. The cab-horse shook its harness and snorted and stamped, while the cabbie essayed a variety of popular Florentine airs.

At length Browning reappeared, full of apologies for the delay. I remarked that it was a very poor and run-down neighbourhood.

He agreed.

Very few foreigners lived in that part of town, I opined.

He agreed.

I myself, I commented, had never set foot in a house in that area.

‘It is a charitable duty which I have taken on myself,’ Browning replied at last. ‘A deserving case to whom it has been possible for me to offer some measure of assistance. And now without further delay let us find out just what Mr Maurice Purdy means by his extraordinary communication!’