Murder in Midsummer

by Cecily Gayford

  ‘And six days to go,’ Judith said. She had arrived at her grand total. ‘Of course, we have to remember the children’s presents. I’ve got a list.’ She produced a notebook. ‘A mechanical mouse that squeaks and runs; a hunting-crop that turns into a stiletto; an exploding battleship; an atomic submarine; a bone or some other bit of an old saint or martyr; and three caskets in gold, silver, and lead.’

  ‘I’m surprised,’ Appleby said, ‘that Bobby didn’t add an heiress: Portia as well as her caskets. “In Belmont is a lady richly left.” It sounds most attractive. But don’t you think they all sound rather unlikely objects to pick up in Venice? Even the lethal hunting-crop.’

  ‘Pardon me.’ A polite American voice sounded in the Applebys’ ears. ‘But I guess I’d like to know what is meant by an exploding battleship.’

  The American was at the next table. He was elderly and had the air of feeling lonesome. He was also – Appleby decided with his policeman’s habit of rapid appraisal – wealthy, unsophisticated, and highly intelligent.

  ‘An exploding battleship?’ Appleby turned his chair round and addressed the stranger companionably. ‘It’s built up, I think, in a number of interlocking sections, and there’s some sort of simple spring-mechanism inside. You shoot at it with a little gun. And when you hit the vital spot, the spring is released, and the whole thing flies into bits.’

  ‘Sure.’ The American produced this monosyllable thoughtfully and with much deliberation. Then he turned to Judith. ‘Marm,’ he said courteously, ‘I can direct you to that mechanical mouse. The small toy-store at this end of the Merceria dell’ Orologio.’ He paused, and then addressed Appleby. ‘Would you be in the way, sir, of buying objects of antique art in this remarkable town?’

  ‘Well, no.’ Appleby was amused by this question. ‘I used to pick up very modest things here once upon a time. But I don’t nowadays.’

  The stranger nodded wisely.

  ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘I needn’t communicate to you a certain darned nasty suspicion building up in my mind right now!’

  And with this cryptic remark the elderly American stood up, made Judith Appleby a careful bow, and walked away.

  Four days later Appleby received an unexpected request to call on the Chief of Police. He made his way in some perplexity to the Fondamenta San Lorenzo, and was received with great politeness.

  ‘My dear Sir John,’ the functionary said, ‘it was decided by one of my officers that you must be questioned. But when I discovered in you a distinguished colleague, I ventured to give myself the pleasure of inviting you to call. You were well acquainted with Mr Conklin?’

  ‘Conklin?’ Appleby was perplexed.

  ‘An American visitor with whom one of our vigili happened to observe you in conversation in the Piazza on Monday.’ The Chief of Police spread out his hands expressively. ‘A most elusive and unobtrusive man. He proved to be unaccompanied by a wife or other companion. We can discover almost nothing about him, so far. Except, indeed, that the gentleman was a millionaire.’

  ‘Was?’ Appleby said.

  ‘Alas, yes. His body has been recovered from the lagoon. And almost certainly there has been foul play. A perplexing affair. We do not like unresolved mysteries in Venice.’

  ‘Nor do we care for them in London, my dear sir. But what you tell me is most surprising. Mr Conklin seemed a most inoffensive man, quite unlikely to get into trouble.’ Appleby reflected for a moment. ‘You know nothing about him?’

  ‘It appears that he was something of an art-collector. Not, perhaps, among the more highly informed in the field. But – as I have said – a millionaire.’

  ‘In other words, a ready-made dupe?’

  ‘It is sad, Sir John.’ The Chief of Police again made his expressive gesture. ‘But they have much wealth, these people. And they come among us, who have little wealth, but much colourable junk lying ready to our hand. I command very poor English, I fear. But at least I make myself comprehensible?’

  ‘Certainly you do. And you feel, I think, that drowning the dupes is going rather too far?’

  ‘It is my sentiment in the matter. Decidedly.’

  Again Appleby reflected.

  ‘My encounter with this unfortunate man,’ he said, ‘was of the slightest, as I shall explain. But I believe I can possibly help you, all the same.’

  ‘My dear Sir John, I am enchanted.’

  ‘Only I am afraid it may cost money. Or at least look as if it were costing money.’

  ‘Non importa,’ the Chief of Police said.

  Appleby began by buying – or appearing to buy – a genuine Tintoretto. He followed this up with a clamantly spurious Carpaccio, and then with a Guardi so authentically lovely that he could hardly bear to reflect on how fictitious his purchase really was. Judith sometimes watched him covertly from over the way. It intrigued her to think that she might really have married an American precisely like this.

  It was on the third day that Appleby made the acquaintance of the Conte Alfonso Forobosco. This gentleman’s conversation, casually offered over a cappuccino, showed him to be familiarly acquainted not only with his fellow members of the Italian aristocracy but also with the President of the Republic, the exiled Royal Family, and most of the more important dignitaries in the Vatican. All of which didn’t prevent Conte Alfonso from being hard up. This fact, emerging in due season and with delightful candour, precluded the further revelation that he was even constrained, from time to time, to part with a few of the innumerable artistic treasures which had descended to him from his ancestors.

  All this was extremely impressive. And so was the speed with which the Conte worked. Half an hour later, Appleby found himself in a gaunt and semi-derelict palazzo on the Grand Canal.

  ‘The goblets,’ Conte Alfonso said, ‘belonged to Machiavelli. The pistols were Mazzini’s. The writing-table was used by Manzoni.’

  Appleby made the sort of responses he judged appropriate in a wealthy American. The palazzo – or its piano nobile at least – had been well stocked with a variety of imposing objects. And presently the Conte came to the most imposing of the lot: a species of elaborately convoluted urn in Venetian glass. Appleby doubted whether anything more completely hideous had ever issued from the glass-factories on Murano.

  ‘The poison-vase of Lucrezia Borgia,’ the Conte said, pointing to it on a table. ‘Take it – but carefully – and hold it up to the light.’

  Appleby did as he was told. But even as he raised the precious object in his two hands there was an ominous crack. And then he was looking at its shattered fragments lying at his feet.

  Conte Alfonso gave an agonised cry. Then, with a gesture magnificently magnanimous, he stopped, picked up the pieces, strode to a window, and pitched them into the Grand Canal of Venice.

  ‘Non fa niente,’ he said. ‘No matter. An accident. And you are my guest.’

  Appleby went through a pantomime of extreme contrition and dismay. The least he could do, he intimated, was to pay up. The Conte protested. Appleby insisted. Reluctantly the Conte named a sum – a nominal sum, a bare million lire. And then Appleby led him to the window.

  ‘At least,’ he said, ‘I may get back the bits.’

  And this seemed true. Several police launches were diverting the vaporetti and other traffic on the canal. Just beneath the window a frogman was already at work. It would have been possible to reflect that there was an authentic Carpaccio depicting a very similar scene.

  ‘And now I think you have visitors,’ Appleby said, turning round. ‘Including your Chief of Police himself.’

  ‘It was this so-called Conte Alfonso’s regular racket?’ Judith asked afterwards.

  ‘Certainly it was.’ Appleby paused in the task of packing his suitcase. ‘The fellow had a steady supply of Lucrezia Borgia’s teapots, or whatever. Two seconds after you picked them up, the spring went off and shattered them. And then, of course, the problem was to get rid of the evidence. But there lay the advantage of having the sce
ne of the operation on the Grand Canal. The Conte made detection impossible simply by putting on that aristocratic turn of gathering up the bits and chucking them into the water. Our friend Conklin, however, was a shrewd chap in his way, and he suspected he’d been had. When I explained about the exploding battleship, the full truth flashed on him.’

  ‘So he went back and taxed the Conte with the fraud?’

  ‘Just that. And the scoundrel – rather an engaging scoundrel if he hadn’t gone so decidedly too far – liquidated him at once. Quite in the antique Venetian manner, I suppose one may say. But, apart from that, there was certainly nothing genuinely antique about him.’

  A knock came at the bedroom door, and a hotel servant handed in a parcel. Appleby received it, regarded it doubtfully, and then opened it up. What lay inside was the little Guardi.

  ‘John!’ – Judith was very startled – ‘you haven’t really gone and bought the thing?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Appleby had opened a letter. ‘It’s a present – call it from the Doge and the Serenissimi.’

  ‘Meaning from the mayor and city council?’

  ‘That does make it sound a good deal more prosaic. But remember for how long Venice held the gorgeous East in fee. She seems capable of decidedly regal behaviour still.’

  The Flowers that Bloom in the Spring

  Julian Symons

  The outsider, Bertie Mays was fond of saying, sees most of the game. In the affair of the Purchases and the visiting cousin from South Africa he saw quite literally all of it. But the end was enigmatic and a little frightening, at least as seen through Bertie’s eyes. It left with him the question whether there had been a game at all.

  Bertie had retired early from his unimportant and uninteresting job in the Ministry of Welfare. He had a private income, he was unmarried, and his only extravagance was a passion for travel, so why go on working? Bertie gave up his London flat and settled down in the cottage in the Sussex countryside which he had bought years earlier as a weekend place. It was quite big enough for a bachelor, and Mrs Last from the village came in two days a week to clean the place. Bertie himself was an excellent cook.

  It was a fine day in June when he called next door to offer Sylvia Purchase a lift to the tea party at the Hall. She was certain to have been asked, and he knew that she would need a lift because he had seen her husband Jimmy putting a case into the boot of their ancient Morris. Jimmy was some sort of freelance journalist, and often went on trips, leaving Sylvia on her own. Bertie, who was flirtatious by nature, had asked if she would like him to keep her company, but she did not seem responsive to the suggestion. Linton House, which the Purchases had rented furnished a few months earlier, was a rambling old place with oak beams and low ceilings. There was an attractive garden, some of which lay between the house and Bertie’s cottage, and by jumping over the fence between them Bertie could walk across this garden. He did so that afternoon, taking a quick peek into the sitting room as he went by. He could never resist such peeks, because he always longed to know what people might be doing when they thought that nobody was watching. On this occasion the sitting room was empty. He found Sylvia in the kitchen, washing dishes in a half-hearted way.

  ‘Sylvia, you’re not ready.’ She had on a dirty old cardigan with the buttons done up wrongly. Bertie himself was, as always, dressed very suitably for the occasion in a double-breasted blue blazer with brass buttons, fawn trousers and a neat bow tie. He always wore bow ties, which he felt gave a touch of distinction and individuality.

  ‘Ready for what?’

  ‘Has the Lady of the Manor not bidden you to tea?’ That was his name for Lady Hussey up at the Hall.

  She clapped hand to forehead, leaving a slight smudge. ‘I’d forgotten all about it. Don’t think I’ll go, can’t stand those bun fights.’

  ‘But I have called specially to collect you. Let me be your chauffeur. Your carriage awaits.’ Bertie made a sketch of a bow, and Sylvia laughed. She was a blonde in her early thirties, attractive in a slapdash sort of way.

  ‘Bertie, you are a fool. All right, give me five minutes.’

  The women may call Bertie Mays a fool, Bertie thought, but how they adore him.

  ‘Oh,’ Sylvia said. She was looking behind Bertie, and when he turned he saw a man standing in the shadow of the door. At first glance he thought it was Jimmy, for the man was large and square like Jimmy, and had the same gingery fair colouring. But the resemblance went no further, for as the man stepped forward he saw that their features were not similar.

  ‘This is my cousin Alfred Wallington. He’s paying us a visit from South Africa. Our next-door neighbour, Bertie Mays.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’ Bertie’s hand was firmly gripped. The two men went into the sitting room, and Bertie asked whether this was Mr Wallington’s first visit.

  ‘By no means. I know England pretty well. The south, anyway.’

  ‘Ah, business doesn’t take you up north?’ Bertie thought of himself as a tactful but expert interrogator, and the question should have brought a response telling him Mr Wallington’s occupation. In fact, however, the other man merely said that was so.

  ‘In the course of my work I used to correspond with several firms in Cape Town,’ Bertie said untruthfully. Wallington did not comment. ‘Is your home near there?’

  ‘No.’

  The negative was so firm that it gave no room for further conversational manoeuvre. Bertie felt slightly cheated. If the man did not want to say where he lived in South Africa of course he was free to say nothing, but there was a certain finesse to be observed in such matters, and a crude ‘no’ was not at all the thing. He was able to establish at least that this was the first time Wallington had visited Linton House.

  On the way up to the Hall he said to Sylvia that her cousin seemed a dour fellow.

  ‘Alf?’ Bertie winced at the abbreviation. ‘He’s all right when you get to know him.’

  ‘He said he was often in the south. What’s his particular sphere of interest?’

  ‘I don’t know, I believe he’s got some sort of export business around Durban. By the way, Bertie, how did you know Jimmy was away?’

  ‘I saw him waving goodbye to you.’ It would hardly do to say that he had been peeping through the curtains.

  ‘Did you now? I was in bed when he went. You’re a bit of a fibber I’m afraid, Bertie.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t remember how I knew.’ Really, it was too much to be taken up on every little point.

  When they drove into the great courtyard and Sylvia got out of the car, however, he reflected that she looked very slenderly elegant, and that he was pleased to be with her. Bertie liked pretty women and they were safe with him, although he would not have thought of it that way. He might have said, rather, that he would never have compromised a lady, with the implication that all sorts of things might be said and done providing that they stayed within the limits of discretion. It occurred to him that Sylvia was hardly staying within those limits when she allowed herself to be alone at Linton House with her South African cousin. Call me old-fashioned, Bertie said to himself, but I don’t like it.

  The Hall was a nineteenth-century manor house and by no means, as Bertie had often said, an architectural gem, but the lawns at the back where tea was served were undoubtedly fine. Sir Reginald Hussey was a building contractor who had been knighted for some dubious service to the export drive. He was in demand for opening fêtes and fund-raising enterprises, and the Husseys entertained a selection of local people to parties of one kind or another half a dozen times a year. The parties were always done in style, and this afternoon there were maids in white caps and aprons, and a kind of major domo who wore a frock coat and white gloves. Sir Reginald was not in evidence, but Lady Hussey presided in a regal manner.

  Of course Bertie knew that it was all ridiculously vulgar and ostentatious, but still he enjoyed himself. He kissed Lady Hussey’s hand and said that the scene was quite entrancing, like a Victorian period pictur
e, and he had an interesting chat with Lucy Broadhinton, who was the widow of an Admiral. Lucy was the president and Bertie the secretary of the local historical society, and they were great friends. She told him now in the strictest secrecy about the outrageous affair Mrs Monro was having with somebody who must be nameless, although from the details given Bertie was quite able to guess his identity. There were other titbits too, like the story of the scandalous misuse of the Church Restoration Fund money. It was an enjoyable afternoon, and he fairly chortled about it on the way home.

  ‘They’re such snobby affairs,’ Sylvia said. ‘I don’t know why I went.’

  ‘You seemed to be having a good time. I was quite jealous.’

  Sylvia had been at the centre of a very animated circle of three or four young men. Her laughter at their jokes had positively rung out across the lawns, and Bertie had seen Lady Hussey give more than one disapproving glance in the direction of the little group. There was something undeniably attractive about Sylvia’s gaiety and about the way in which she threw back her head when laughing, but her activities had a recklessness about them which was not proper for a lady. He tried to convey something of this as he drove back, but was not sure that she understood what he meant. He also broached delicately the impropriety of her being alone in the house with her cousin by asking when Jimmy would be coming back. In a day or two, she said casually. He refused her invitation to come in for a drink. He had no particular wish to see Alf Wallington again.

  On the following night at about midnight, when Bertie was in bed reading, he heard a car draw up next door. Doors were closed, there was the sound of voices. Just to confirm that Jimmy was back, Bertie got out of bed and lifted an edge of the curtain. A man and a woman were coming out of the garage. The woman was Sylvia. The man had his arm round her, and as Bertie watched bent down and kissed her neck. Then they moved towards the front door, and the man laughed and said something. From his general build he might, seen in the dim light, have been Jimmy, but the voice had the distinctive South African accent of Wallington.