A Rich Full Death

4

‘You? Alone?’

‘If need be!’

Then an idea seemed to strike him.

That is, unless you would be prepared to assist me. Clearly I cannot drag anyone else into this business, but as fate has already made us confederates …’

As I set all this down now I see clearly for the first time what he meant by this. The reason Mr Browning does not want to involve anyone else in the matter can only be because it is connected-in some way I do not as yet understand-to various private concerns of his which he does not want known. I am thus his ‘confederate’ in the sense that I am aware, however vaguely, of the existence of this secret. Might not his appeal for my assistance have been prompted at least in part by his need to assure himself that I could be trusted to keep it?

My first thought, however, was that to take matters into our own hands in the way Mr Browning appeared to be proposing was to risk putting ourselves in the wrong not only morally but also legally. If he believed that murder had been done, his clear duty was to communicate this belief-together with his reasons for holding it-to the proper authorities, who could achieve far more than two private individuals such as ourselves.

‘Ah, but that is just the point, don’t you see? Could they? In my London, Mr Booth, or your Boston, there would be no question. But here the matter is very different. Crime is rare in Tuscany, violent crime almost unknown. The police here are recruited, trained and employed for purposes of simple repression. Breaking heads is their style, not teasing out the truth. They don’t want the truth; it’s the very last thing they want, for their government is a lie, built of lies, and dependent on force for its survival.

‘But even leaving that out of account, let us not forget that it is a hundred to one that the criminal, like the victim, is a foreigner. Now, where does that leave the police? You know how it is here in Florence: the English and Italian communities are like oil and water; there is no friction, but neither do they mix. What do the Tuscan police know of us exiles? Consider what happened last night, for instance-the official became suspicious of me over a trifle, whilst remaining blissfully ignorant that you were lying to him.’

‘What?’ I bleated weakly.

‘Why, your story of having come up to the villa to visit Mr Eakin, when all their friends knew that Mr Eakin had gone to Siena. Besides, even if he had been at home, in our little community one does not pay social calls at that hour of the evening. But how is a Tuscan police officer to know that, you see? How can he judge what people like us say or conceal, do or leave undone? How can he spot the revelatory fact, the inconsistent detail? In a word, how can he discriminate? Where all is strange nothing is remarkable. No, if I have not informed the Grand-Duke’s constables of my suspicions, it is precisely because I believe that the best hope of catching Mrs Eakin’s murderer lies not with them but with us. At present he thinks that his attempt to mask his crime has been successful: the authorities have given out that Mrs Eakin died by her own hand. Let him go on thinking that no crime is suspected; he will be off his guard and so easier to take. What were you doing there, by the way?’

Once again I was caught completely unawares, and would no doubt have had to admit to Browning that I had been following him, had not our colloquy been interrupted at that moment by the appearance of the police agent. Having observed us enter Doney’s, the spy had presumably set down to mark the entrance and await our reappearance; after some time he had become suspicious, and had determined to search the premises to ensure that we had not given him the slip.

As soon as he caught sight of us the man wished for nothing better than to beat a hasty retreat. But he was not so lucky. Mr Browning rose to his feet and in stentorian tones bade him approach. With a reluctance almost comically marked, the fellow obeyed.

‘Return to your masters,’ Browning pronounced in the most icily correct Italian, ‘and inform them that in the event of this harassment not ceasing instantly I shall contact Her Majesty’s Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Tuscany and ask him to raise the matter with the Grand Duke in person. Is that clear?’

The man muttered something inaudible, and went.

‘I begin to despair of the Italians, Mr Booth,’ Browning commented. ‘What has become of the flame that once burned so bright? Speak to them like dogs and like dogs they obey.’

It seemed to me to be very convenient for Mr Browning that this was the case, and that the English diplomatic corps in Florence are all friends of his-but I said nothing. Instead I enquired what action we were to take to identify Isabel’s murderer, if the police were not to be informed.

There is one suspect whose guilt or innocence must of course be established before we waste time looking elsewhere,’ Browning told me. ‘I refer of course to Mr Joseph Eakin.’

‘Eakin?’ I exclaimed. ‘But he was in Siena! Everyone knows that, as you yourself just pointed out.’

‘Not so. I pointed out that everyone knew he had gone to Siena. It is not at all the same thing. How do we know he did not come back, murder his wife, and return to Siena later the same evening? It is but a few hours’ journey on the new railroad.’

I must admit that I was not unduly distressed to learn that Mr Joseph Eakin was the object of Mr Browning’s suspicions. Although I have hitherto been at proper pains to conceal the fact, my opinion of Isabel’s choice of husband-when at long last she did choose-was by no means of the highest. ‘Pique!’ you will say, and evidently the rejected suitor must always find it difficult to approve of his successful rival. But even discounting any personal animus, there were grounds for thinking-and I was by no means the only one of Isabel’s friends to do so-that her choice of Joseph Eakin had been motivated to some extent at least by-how shall I put it? — expediency.

They made such an incongruous pair that when I spied them together for the first time, at that ball I told you of, I took him to be some species of uninteresting relative: an uncle, or something of the kind, brought along to act as chaperon. So forceful was this impression that even when I overheard Isabel being presented to someone as Mrs Eakin I did not immediately realise that she was married to the fellow.

What led polite opinion here to speak of Mr and Mrs Eakin in terms of the proverbial chalk and cheese was not solely his age (although I’ll lay he wasn’t born this century), nor even the fact that he hails from Philadelphia, but rather his marked, his so painfully evident and unashamed fascination with Money.

Not-as with her-the spending of it on a million madcap projects and celebrations of every nature-no, Mr Joseph Eakin is one of Mammon’s truest and purest believers, worshipping Cash not obliquely, as a means of exchange, but for itself. Despite the fortune he has amassed by the manufacture of some product without which the human race is either unable or unwilling to do, he is meticulous in counting his change when buying a cup of coffee, while ‘How much did that cost?’ is the question most frequently on his lips.

In short, then, I had no reason to love Mr Joseph Eakin, and so when Mr Browning asked me if I would be prepared to go to Siena that afternoon and make some discreet enquiries concerning Mr Eakin’s whereabouts at the time of Isabel’s death, I found myself quite agreeably disposed to the idea.

‘You are intimate with the Eakins’ circle,’ Mr Browning explained, ‘and can easily find some pretext for asking the necessary questions without giving offence. Besides, I can ill spare the time, for there are one or two urgent matters which I must follow up here in Florence.’

Well, to be brief, I agreed, and it was with no small thrill that I handed Mr Robert Browning my card, and received in return his assurance of a personal visit the following afternoon to hear the results of my enquiries! That interview in Doney’s had left me more impressed than ever with his masterful manner, his sharp intelligence and knowledge of human nature, and that piquant and quirky manner of expressing himself-which I have endeavoured to set down verbatim in so far as I can recall it.

Indeed, there is even the glimmer of a notion stirring somewhere in the back of my mind …

But of that another time, if at all, for I am grown as cautious as an old fox. Enough to say that I went that very morning to the English bookshop, which is but two steps from Doney’s, and asked if they could supply me with any of his works. I knew vaguely that he had written plays, though I had never read any of them-or indeed seen a single copy. I was therefore both surprised and delighted when the assistant cried ‘But of course!’, and returned in a few moments carrying an armful of volumes which I seized avidly-only to discover that their author, although indeed of the genus Browning, was not the rare Robert but rather the common Elizabeth Barrett variety. I tried to explain the mistake, but the assistant was now engaged in selling someone a modern prose version of Dante’s Inferno, and merely waved me towards the shelves at the back of the shop, where after much searching I eventually unearthed-like uncut raw diamond-a single volume of verses by Mr Robert Browning, entitled Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, of which I promptly possessed myself.

As the weather bid fair to continue fine, I decided to eschew the advantages of modern civilisation-in the form of the railroad, the first in Italy, which the Englishman Stephenson has built the Duke-and drive to Siena along the old highway, not yet fallen into complete disuse, through the Chianti hills.

The road is of some forty miles, but steep in places, and the horse attached to the gig I had hired proved as weak as hireling beasts usually are. Moreover I was late leaving, having a number of matters to attend to in town, and compounded this by making a detour out by way of Bellosguardo and then stopping at an inn on the road for a country repast of bean soup, tough bread and roasted songbirds washed down with black wine, accompanied by the howling of a mad dog and the sullen prattle of the peasantry. The result was that by the time I reached Siena it was growing late, and I drove directly out to the villa where Mr Eakin’s ailing relative lives, on the hills to the west of the city.

If chronic invalidism should ever prove to be your lot, Siena has much to recommend it. Florence may have had its day, but that era seems almost contemporary with our own compared to that of its ancient rival. Here life and hope and striving are notions so long extinct that the Siennese turn up their noses at the mere words. The only really well-bred thing to do here is to expire gracefully, like the city itself, by exquisite degrees; which is precisely what Joseph Eakin’s aunt, along with many others of her sex and nation, is single-mindedly engaged in doing.

I was received not by this lady herself, who was ‘indisposed’, but by a youngish man whose relationship to her-as indeed his name, race and other details-remained nebulous. I introduced myself as a friend of Mr Eakin’s, who had been the subject of a bizarre and disturbing experience which I hoped my visit could resolve. I had been strolling past the Cathedral in Florence (I said) at about five o’clock on Sunday afternoon, when I caught sight of my old friend Joseph Eakin walking towards me. Much surprised-for I had believed him to be in Siena for the weekend-I hastened to greet him. To my astonishment and chagrin he had cut me dead, walking on without so much as pausing in his stride, as though I were a complete and utter stranger! I was quite naturally astounded and hurt by this behaviour, but above all anxious to learn the reason for it. Had I unwittingly done or said something to offend him? Had someone been spreading malicious gossip? Having learned that he was now in Siena, I was come thither in hopes of finding him and resolving this misunderstanding.

The young man replied with slightly insolent politeness, in an accent I could not quite place, that Mr Eakin had unfortunately returned to Florence by the midday train. However, he assured me that I must have been mistaken, since he could vouch for the fact that on the afternoon in question Joseph Eakin had not been in Florence, but sitting in the very room in which we were presently talking-a gesture indicated the chair which had supported the plutocratic posterior during this period.

This seemed final, but to ensure that there was no mistake I pressed the point. Was my informant really quite certain? The resemblance had been quite astonishing; I scarcely thought it possible that I could have been mistaken. Was it not possible that Mr Eakin had absented himself for a few hours and returned to Florence? But the young man was not to be shaken: Eakin had spent the whole of Sunday afternoon at the villa, first with his aunt and subsequently with her personal doctor, one McPherson.

There was nothing more to be done that evening, so I put up at an inn which Murray’s Guide accurately described as ‘very indifferent’, where I fell asleep over Mr Browning’s verses-this implies no criticism of the latter, which pleased me, but I was exhausted from my long drive and all the shocks these last days had sprung upon me.

This morning I was up betimes, and in an hour was on the road back to Florence, having verified Mr Eakin’s alibi by applying to Doctor Alistair McPherson: a lean sliver of upright Aberdeen morality as out of place in these accommodating climes as an Italian cupola astride a Presbyterian kirk. Here was a man whose every feature proclaimed his utter probity, and when he assured me that he had been with Joseph Eakin at the hour in question, then I knew that Mr Browning’s convenient theory would no longer serve.

The weather at this time of the year is notoriously capricious, and by the time I arrived back in Florence early this afternoon the wind was rising and the sky streaky with clouds. As I drove at a snail’s pace through the town, where twice as many carriages as in Boston are crammed into streets that are less than half the size, I heard myself hailed, looked around, and saw none other than the man who had formed a shadowy third with Browning and me the night before-Cecil DeVere, instantly recognisable amid the mob of slouch-hatted locals with cloaks draped operatically over their shoulders.

He was going home, and although it was out of my way I offered him a lift, which he was glad to accept. As we drove along we talked about poor Isabel’s death, and I was surprised to discover that this event seemed to have hit DeVere very hard — he spoke of it in a manner unusually agitated for one normally so suave, and then abruptly changed the subject, as though the matter was too painful, and told me a very interesting story.

It seemed that the previous morning he had driven up to the villa at Bellosguardo to offer his condolences to Mr Eakin. As the latter had not yet returned from Siena, DeVere left his card and was leaving, when he noticed someone prowling about the garden in a suspicious skulking manner at the very spot where Isabel’s body had been found!

DeVere promptly walked out and around the side of the villa to investigate. When he reached the garden, however, the mysterious figure had disappeared, despite the fact that the only two other ways out-the gate at the end of the garden, and the large glass doors leading into the villa-both proved to be locked.

I was careful not to betray to DeVere my extreme interest in this incident, and changed the subject in my turn, asking my passenger when he had last seen Mr and Mrs Browning. He appeared utterly bewildered by my remark.

‘The Brownings?’ DeVere replied. ‘Why, I hardly know them-and don’t really care to know them better. All Literature and Liberalism, from what I hear, and each in rather more substantial quantity than appeals to me, to be perfectly honest.’

All this, as you may imagine, has done nothing to diminish my impatience to see Mr Browning again-I expect him at any moment.

But what do you make of it all? Could Isabel’s death really have been murder, as Mr Browning claims? Or is there some detail we have overlooked, or some other way of arranging the known facts which would make matters look quite different? The police should surely be trusted in these affairs, and they apparently see no evidence of foul play.

And supposing they are wrong, whom are we to suspect now that Joseph Eakin’s innocence is proven? Where can we begin to look? What about the mysterious woman who called at the villa shortly before Isabel’s death? But could a woman have done such a deed?

And what of DeVere’s name, which keeps cropping up in this affair with the most inexplicable frequency? Yes-might not the solution to our problems lie in that direction?

The bell! It is he!

Ever yrs affectionately,

Robert N. Booth