The Mystery of the Three Orchids

by Augusto De Angelis

  De Vincenzi noted that Cristiana had moved her armchair slightly so she wouldn’t have to keep looking at the body, and he thought to himself that this woman for whom Valerio was nothing more than a pet had a strong desire to see his macabre remains disappear.

  She walked over to the bed, lifted a corner of the damask bedspread and pulled it over the corpse.

  “I have nothing against that, Signor O’Lary, particularly since the investigating magistrate has yet to arrive and give the authorization. But Signora, you spoke of the service stairs.”

  “Yes. They start from this floor, communicate with the corridors on the other two floors and end in the small courtyard on the via San Pietro all’Orto side of the building.”

  “Is the door to via San Pietro all’Orto left open all the time?”

  “No, it’s always closed. You need the key to get in. It’s left open while the staff are arriving and departing and also on Tuesday, when we receive suppliers.”

  “Who has the keys to that door?”

  Cristiana turned questioningly to Marta, who said, “Signora O’Brian, me, Madame Firmino, Signorina Evelina and… Valerio also had one. And of course Federico, the doorman.”

  “So the service entrance was closed today?”

  “Especially today. With all the people filling up the showrooms, there’s always the risk that some stranger could use that entrance to get in and mingle with the invitees. We don’t have private security like the other fashion houses, but we worry no less about our designs. You may not know, Inspector, that it’s possible to steal a very valuable design just by looking at it.”

  De Vincenzi smiled at her cordially.

  “I’m aware of that, Signorina, and so much so that I’d ask you to take me to meet your Madame Firmino, the creator of your designs. I understand that she stayed upstairs in the offices.”

  “She did.”

  “Well, take me to the offices.”

  “But Inspector, I’ve told you that Madame Firmino is in her bathing costume, with her face all oily!” “Oremus” broke in almost violently.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Signor O’Lary. I’ve seen women with their faces covered in aromatic oils before.”

  8

  Cristiana wouldn’t look at the bed, now in such strange disarray. Valerio’s body made a lump under the bedspread. As soon as Marta and the inspector left, she deliberately turned her armchair to face the dresser with the orchid on top of it. Behind her and between her chair and the body, Prospero O’Lary stood staring at the door the other two had just gone through. Rays of March sun were coming through the ivory silk curtains and glass of the window, cold but clear and razor-sharp.

  “I wonder…” he murmured.

  Cristiana’s voice rose up from the back of the tall armchair, so low and strangled that it seemed to be issuing from the depths of some strange altar.

  “I’m wondering the same thing, Prospero. It’s a very serious question, and I don’t have an answer for it.”

  Prospero started.

  “It’s always painful—and dangerous to ask oneself questions. But I’m wondering what Madame Firmino will say to the inspector. That dear young woman has a screw loose. She might introduce some unexpected and unpleasant complications.”

  “No complication will be as unpleasant as the presence of that orchid in the vase, O’Lary. Do you know the symbolic significance of the orchid, Prospero?”

  The little man hopped over to the dresser, looked at the flower and turned to Cristiana.

  “I don’t know any apart from that of the aster—the symbol of Christ.”

  Cristiana shrugged.

  “If only Christ could really help us… Who would kill Valerio? Who would bring his body and that orchid to my room, O’Lary?”

  “Valerio was destined to end that way.”

  “Because he was corrupt—is that what you’re saying?”

  “Because he played with fire.”

  Cristiana shot a look at the fireplace, and the look wasn’t without apprehension.

  “I don’t understand you, O’Lary,” she said sternly.

  “Oremus” blinked and held up a hand to calm her.

  “It doesn’t matter, Cristiana. In fact, forget I said it. You know I sometimes talk nonsense. Over there, too, in Portland, when you turned to me to help you escape—to free yourself from Russell Sage…”

  Prospero’s voice had become shrewd, insinuating, perhaps a bit ironic. Cristiana paled, and her eyes shone cold and menacing.

  “O’Lary!” she hissed. “It’s dangerous to talk about him.” She shivered and then abruptly let out a short laugh. “Do you know what happens to people who mention the devil?”

  Prospero adjusted his glasses. “What are you trying to say, Cristiana?”

  “Just what I said. If you saw Russell appear in front of you, what would you do?”

  “In fact he has already appeared. I recognized him immediately just a short while ago, down the corridor. Did you know he was coming? Have you seen him?”

  “I saw his sister, that dreadful sister-in-law of mine.”

  “Is Anna Sage in Milan as well?”

  “At this moment she’s in our showrooms. When I recognized her, I didn’t know what to do except get out of there, so I ran up here, where I found Valerio’s body and the orchid. What do you make of all this, O’Lary? Did you know that every time Russell came back home after one of his trips—which I thought were to do with his job as an insurance salesman, and instead were all about meeting up with his gang to raid banks—did you know that he always brought me an orchid? Flowers are his weakness! Just like books, pictures and stamps. A great collector, my husband. And a pure spirit, so pure that he made the innocent Ileana love him and marry him.”

  The painful sarcasm in her words trailed off in a sob.

  “It’s impossible,” Prospero murmured.

  Cristiana shrugged once more.

  “The body is there… and the orchid… And I am Ileana, even if my name is now Cristiana O’Brian.”

  Prospero looked at the bed.

  “It’s impossible,” he repeated. “How could he have got in here—and why would he have killed Valerio?”

  Cristiana replied to his question with another one.

  “Perhaps he doesn’t know yet that you came with me—that you’re here with me. Why don’t you go while you still have time, O’Lary? Russell isn’t a forgiving sort of man. If he’s been looking for me and has found me, he must have a plan, and Russell Sage’s plans are always dangerous. Like a stick of dynamite!”

  Prospero adjusted his glasses. “Russell Sage thinks I’m dead,” he said slowly. “He won’t recognize me, and if he does he’ll think he’s seeing a ghost.”

  “As you wish.” Cristiana got up. “In any case, it’s necessary to do something now.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “That’s what I’ve been asking myself since I came to. What can I do? I can’t even escape now. If it was Russell who killed Valerio, he did it to force me to stay.”

  There it was. It was a possible theory. The body had been put in her room in order to compromise her and prevent her leaving. It seemed clear and logical to her, and she took heart. She liked clear and logical situations. And if Russell had ultimately just wanted to keep her from getting away again… But how had he managed to get into the building?

  “What do you think, O’Lary?”

  “Yes,” the little man murmured without conviction. “He might have killed him for that reason; but I still don’t see how he could have done it. Was it only today that you saw Anna Sage?”

  “Yes. She must have had an invitation in order to get in, otherwise Marta or Clara would have stopped her. How could she have got one?”

  “Oremus” fluttered his eyelids and his face lit up.

  “Maybe Valerio’s death can explain it!”

  Cristiana wrinkled her forehead.

  “Do you think Valerio betrayed me?”

  “Va
lerio always needed money, and he’d never have imagined that Russell P. Sage would settle the score like that—” and he pointed to the bed with a sardonic grin.

  They heard a step in the corridor. A slow, deliberate tread, advancing confidently and inexorably. The sound was all the more strange to their ears for having arisen so suddenly. It was immediately obvious that it came not from the stairs, but from the corridor itself.

  Paralysed with fear, Cristiana looked at the door, her eyes wide. The waiting went on for several seconds as the step slowly advanced. At last the earnest, smiling figure of John Bolton appeared in the doorway.

  His voice was warm and cordial. “You’re alone, Ileana my dear! It’s just how I hoped to find you.”

  The terrified woman looked around. Indeed, she was alone. Prospero O’Lary had simply vanished.

  9

  Marta opened the door to the administrative offices and, after a quick glance inside, stood aside.

  “Madame Firmino is still there.”

  De Vincenzi sent a reassuring smile Evelina’s way. Her small eyes were fixed more firmly than ever on the ledger. The mature, fat lady’s face, so serene, so sweetly pink, immediately inspired the inspector’s trust.

  “Has the signora been in this room for long?”

  Marta looked first at Evelina and then at De Vincenzi.

  “Of course! Signorina Evelina is always in the office at two.”

  “I eat in the building, in the employees’ cafeteria.”

  The earnestness shining through her words convinced De Vincenzi that Evelina would be the ideal, truthful witness, if indeed she had anything to say. He went to stand by her desk.

  “Lots of work, eh?”

  Evelina put her hands palms down on the sheets, where she was filling in figures across five columns, and fixed her gaze on the intruder with less kindliness. As far as she was concerned, it wasn’t done for strangers to take an interest in her accounting: a firm’s books are secret and sacred.

  “Are you the administrator, Signora?”

  “Signorina,” the spinster corrected, lowering her gaze. Then, her voice stronger, “I keep the books, and sometimes also the petty cash. But the administrator is actually Signora O’Brian, aided by Signor O’Lary.”

  “I see.” De Vincenzi leant familiarly against the desk, keeping his gaze from the sacred account books. “And have you seen Valerio today, this afternoon?”

  The unexpected question caused Evelina’s calm face to blanch.

  “Valerio? What does Valerio have to do with me?” She turned to Marta as if imploring her to intervene.

  The director stood just outside the administrative offices, holding the door ajar. In answer to Evelina’s silent, alarmed plea, she lifted her shoulders in a sign of powerless resignation.

  “The gentleman is a police inspector.”

  De Vincenzi moved away from the desk. Nothing was more important than winning Evelina’s trust and goodwill.

  She stiffened immediately into a solid block of frozen flesh. Her cheeks trembled slightly and her chest heaved under her silk bustier, which was too tight.

  “Police? Why the police?” Her eyes flashed with ill-humour under heavy, fat eyelids. “I always thought that bad boy would meet a sorry end.”

  “He ended up terribly, in fact, Signorina. Simply put, someone strangled him.”

  This time the blow hit hard. Evelina swayed and collapsed like a young calf under the mallet.

  “But I saw him. I saw him and he was alive!” she whined.

  “What time did you see him, Signorina?”

  The pale woman was trembling all over.

  “A glass of water,” she begged in a faint voice.

  Her eyes were wide with alarm. Marta ran and De Vincenzi grabbed her arm.

  “She has a bad heart.”

  “Give her some water.”

  Marta ran towards the administrative offices and disappeared through the open door. De Vincenzi grabbed the woman’s hand and gently and repeatedly slapped her back. She seemed to be coming to. The colour was returning to her face and her cold sweat was over.

  “Oh!” she sighed, and looked at De Vincenzi in confusion. “How horrible!”

  De Vincenzi continued to pat her, feeling as though he were smacking a baby.

  “Don’t think about it, Signorina. We’ll talk about it later, calmly.” At the sound of Marta’s returning steps he moved away from Evelina.

  “We’ll speak about it alone.”

  Evelina’s eyes flashed with fear, and De Vincenzi was convinced that she would be of great help to him—if only he could get her to speak.

  “Give her something to drink, Signorina. Spray some water in her face, and take her to the window so she can get some fresh air. I’m going to have a word with Madame Firmino.”

  He went into the administrative offices before Marta could respond. Dolores hadn’t moved from the chair, where she sat smoking. De Vincenzi saw her copper-coloured legs, oily face and a few stripes of her yellow-and-black bathing costume peeking out from under her dressing gown. Above all, he saw a sharp-featured, almost offensive face, and platinum-blonde hair. Madame Firmino’s eyes had begun following him the moment he entered the room, and they never left him. It was evident that she knew, or intuited, who this competent gentleman advancing towards her was, and it was equally clear that she was on the defensive. The inspector threaded through the chairs and small tables and bowed to the young woman.

  “I’ve come to speak with you about fashion and design, Madame Firmino. I know how talented you are in this area.”

  Dolores wasn’t going to be tricked, though this was the most astonishing preamble she could ever have imagined.

  “Are you investigating Valerio’s death?”

  De Vincenzi waved away this clarification.

  “Working in an environment you don’t understand is quite difficult, Signorina. Will you help me?”

  “Did they tell you I was the first one to find Cristiana in a faint and Valerio dead on the bed?” She threw her finished cigarette into a crystal goblet on the little table and took another from the sandalwood box, which she had appropriated.

  “Do you have a light? Since I’ve been in here I’ve had to light each one off the other because I left my room without bringing any matches.” She smiled. “And no cigarettes, either, for that matter. The ones I’m smoking are Cristiana’s. That will teach her to faint when she sees a body.”

  De Vincenzi lit her cigarette.

  “You don’t smoke?”

  “Rarely.”

  “Your brain doesn’t need any stimulants?”

  “I get them from observing details and people.” He looked her straight in the face.

  “Are you a police inspector?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I wouldn’t like to be Valerio’s killer. A police inspector who observes people and details is rather dangerous,” she proclaimed, pulling the edges of her dressing gown over her legs. She put her hands on her knees and leant towards him.

  “Question me. I’m ready.”

  De Vincenzi smiled again. However ready she was, Madame Firmino must have been aware internally that the man’s every movement, each of his facial expressions and his reassuring smile projected a sense of calm indifference, as if he lent no weight to the matter of the dead man or his murderer. Yet despite telling herself that his behaviour was a trap, she was prepared to fall into it.

  “Did you know Valerio well?”

  “What do you mean by ‘well’? I’ve been with Cristiana O’Brian for a year and I’ve known Valerio for a year. I saw him a couple of times a day, maybe more. I spoke to him rarely enough, and after he lost his initial illusions that he’d be able to court me, he never approached me unless forced to—if that’s what you call knowing someone well. There was no intimacy between us; we weren’t even compatible. Another level, another class.”

  “Why did Signora O’Brian keep him on?”

  “Probably because
he was useful to her.”

  “How?”

  “Well, in the only possible way: serving her. Cristiana met him in Naples. He was already grown up, but ever the boy from the streets. She brought him here with her. Valerio had a certain intelligence and without a doubt a lot of cunning. He attached himself to her and didn’t let any possibility she offered pass him by.”

  “How did he get on with the staff?”

  “Look, Inspector, the staff—as you call them—in this fashion house are all women. There are no men apart from Mr O’Lary and Federico, the doorman. So you can picture for yourself these relationships you’re asking about. Valerio is a bit of a small-time Don Giovanni, and since he had unquestionable physical charms, he was lucky.”

  “Could a woman have killed him?”

  “Well, why couldn’t a woman have killed him? But in Cristiana’s room?”

  That was the exactly the problem: the place where the body had been found, and the added complication of the orchid. The problem was further complicated by the supposition that Valerio had been killed somewhere other than where he’d been put after his death.

  “Tell me about Signora O’Brian, Signorina.”

  “Why don’t you say: tell me about the last queen of Cambodia? What should I know about Cristiana? She’s the owner of this fashion house, she’s single—or seemingly so—and she’s always very polite to me and to everyone. I create designs, invent dress styles, study colours, evaluate fabrics. I’ve too much work, don’t you see, to concern myself with what has nothing to do with me. Cristiana is Romanian, or at least I think she has Romanian origins. She comes from America, and I’ve heard that she’s been in Milan for two years. She seems to be widowed, or in any case she maintains that she is, and Prospero O’Lary maintains the same. He came with her from America. She has money, maybe a lot, and this business is her first in Milan. If you go down to the showrooms, you’ll find the best names from amongst the aristocracy and the wealthy. A dress from here never costs less than several thousand lire.”

  She tossed away her cigarette, started to take another and then halted. “I smoke too much! Over-stimulated. It makes me talk more than I should.”