Glass and flower in hand, he weaved through the mannequins. It was easy to find the spot where the overturned mannequin had provided evidence of a struggle. He set the glass on the floor and walked over to the door to the corridor. He remained in the room for only seconds, because from the moment he entered it he was suffused with the same strange uneasiness he’d sensed the first time he was surrounded by all those headless bodies.
He called down to Sani from the top of the stairs, and Sani came up with the doctor.
“I’ve finished, Inspector. There wasn’t much to do, actually. The bullet entered his skull from the neck. In all probability, it damaged the spinal cord: death would have been instant. You see, Inspector—”
De Vincenzi interrupted him with a curt gesture. It wasn’t the moment to listen to the good man’s disquisition.
“Did you look in his pockets?” he asked Sani.
“Yes—nothing interesting. A full wallet and a passport in the name of John Bolton from Chicago. But here’s what’s interesting—look.”
Sani opened his right fist. On his palm was a flower: an orchid.
De Vincenzi winced.
“Where did you find that?”
“In the victim’s buttonhole.”
Absurd. Edward Moran had put an orchid in his buttonhole? But there hadn’t been any orchids in his room—he’d have had to procure one deliberately. Where? De Vincenzi took the flower, already crushed and flattened, and put it in his pocket.
“Good,” he said. “Now go into that room”—he pointed to Cristiana’s room—“and look everywhere. It doesn’t matter if you make a mess.”
“What are you hoping to find?”
“I don’t know. Nothing specific. I’m asking you to do it but I don’t have the slightest expectation that you’ll discover anything of interest.” He turned to the doctor. “I very much hope that this third body spells the end of your work here, Doctor.”
The doctor didn’t seem overwhelmingly troubled by his work. He shook his head.
“Oh, as far as I’m concerned…” he said. “Actually, Inspector, have you read my report on the first body, the young man’s?”
“I haven’t seen it yet. Strangled, right?”
“Exactly. But what you said following my first examination was right. Light pressure was sufficient to kill him. The victim was off his head—cocaine, morphine and alcohol. Whoever started pressing on Valerio’s throat would have found him dead in his hands without even being aware of it.”
It was all perfectly clear, and interesting—very interesting. De Vincenzi walked the doctor to the stairs with newfound gratitude.
“Thank you, Doctor. You’ve been very helpful to me. More than you can imagine.” He shook his hand and went back to Cristiana’s room.
Sani had emptied out the dresser drawers and was about to attack the wardrobe.
“Wait. I’ll look in there. You take care of the rest.”
The mess made by the person who’d hidden in the wardrobe had been tidied. The clothes were in place, the hangers all aligned. Nothing odd about that, since Cristiana must have been in there. He opened up a gap in the clothes and studied the back of the wardrobe. Nothing: he had to rule out the possibility of a passageway or hiding place. The shelf near the top was empty. He slid the hangers back, looking at the clothes mechanically, feeling the silk and other expensive fabrics.
All at once he noticed that one of the garments—a silk damask dress, soft and light—had a long tear at the neck. He took it off the hanger and examined it. It was ripped from neck to shoulder.
He hadn’t expected to find such an illuminating clue. The doctor had said that Valerio was completely out of it… He stood silently pondering the revealing garment.
He turned at a loud exclamation from Sani.
“Look here!”
His deputy was getting up from the fireplace, a red lacquer box in his hands.
“It was there, hidden under the wood.”
De Vincenzi smiled. The unhoped-for kept happening. He took the box and put it on the table. It was locked.
“Have you got a pocketknife?… Not working. Give me a shoehorn—that’ll do.”
He used the silver shoehorn to lift the lid, which was wooden and quite fragile. Inside the box was lined with red velvet; he saw a small bundle of letters of every shape and size. He sifted through them and established that they were all addressed to Cristiana O’Brian. After opening one, he didn’t need to read the others: he learnt nothing from them that he hadn’t already gleaned from his conversation with Commendatore N—. He closed the box and set it on the table.
“If I’d known what was in there, I wouldn’t have broken the lid. It was an act of real vandalism, that.”
Sani watched him.
“Love letters?”
“Call it love, if you want. You’re finished, yes? Let’s go downstairs and see if we can wind this up.”
“Do you know who the murderer is?”
“Maybe. But knowing doesn’t help at all! If I can’t get them to trip up, they’ll wriggle through my hands like an eel.”
As they descended the stairs, they saw the body on the landing being watched over by two officers.
“Haven’t they come from the mortuary yet?” asked Sani.
“Not yet, sir.”
Bolton was now lying supine, and his round face bore his usual calm, smiling and charming demeanour. He looked as if he were sleeping. The bullet would definitely have struck him before he knew he’d been hit. De Vincenzi paused to look at him. His unruffled appearance revealed a lot to De Vincenzi. Bolton had been walking up the stairs, completely unaware that he’d been lured there. He must have been coming to a very promising meeting. He’d phoned De Vincenzi to ask him to meet him right away, and as he spoke on the phone his voice had trembled with suppressed anxiety, almost quaking with fear.
Bolton had phoned him at three, when Cristiana—if things were really as she had described—had already left the Albergo Palazzo. Not even an hour later, the man had climbed the stairs in the building on Corso del Littorio and had been shot and killed from behind.
What had happened in that short space of time to induce him to leave his hotel unexpectedly and throw himself into the dragon’s den? He shook himself and turned to Sani.
“Would you mind running a quick errand for me? You won’t have to go far, but you’ll have to go quickly. I’ll wait for you before beginning.”
As they walked downstairs, he told Sani what he needed. Sani’s face lit up.
“So you know, then?”
“Alas no, my friend! I’m not certain of anything. And what I do know is so hit-and-miss that if it turns out to be wrong, my job will be on the line for real this time.”
11
De Vincenzi found Cristiana and the two other women sitting in the showroom. Prospero O’Lary was pacing in front of them. The little man’s face was brighter than ever, his head shiny. He’d lost all the gloss of the pricey knick-knack, and despite his impeccable frock coat and glasses (which kept sliding down his nose), he appeared strangely different from before. One might have said that, stripped of its sheen, his humble nature was exposed for what it was, and he seemed rather common.
“You can’t shut your eyes to the evidence!” he was saying, all the while pacing aimlessly. “You have to face it! When you’re being accused of something serious, it’s not the time to hide your mistakes, either from yourself or anyone else.” He stopped in front of Cristiana and extended his hands in a dramatic gesture of entreaty. “You went to see Russell Sage and spoke to him. Right after that he came here and someone killed him. Who would believe that you weren’t the one to lure him here so you could kill him? Of course I don’t believe it, but the others? Why don’t you admit that Valerio was blackmailing you? You didn’t kill him either, I agree. But the fact is that that scoundrel left a lot to incriminate you. And Evelina? Everything will come out, I’m telling you—everything!”
His voice was low an
d breathy, but it was perfectly intelligible to De Vincenzi, who’d stopped in the doorway. Marta and Madame Firmino were listening too, completely astonished. Their eyes flitted between Prospero and Cristiana who, pale though she was, watched him, a faintly sarcastic smile on her tense face, now more inscrutable than ever.
At the sound of an officer’s heavy steps coming from the lobby into the corridor, Prospero swivelled round and saw De Vincenzi. He immediately fell silent, biting his lip in a gesture of annoyance. Cristiana was still smiling. She too had seen De Vincenzi, and she said in a perfectly calm voice, “Now that you’ve heard O’Lary’s closing speech, Inspector, there’s nothing left to do but handcuff me.”
Prospero erupted again. “Damn! Don’t listen to her, Inspector. I know she’s innocent. But I wanted to startle her so she’d wake up to reality.”
“Of course,” agreed De Vincenzi, and he turned to his officer. “What is it?”
“A woman is asking to speak to Cristiana O’Brian. They stopped her at the door but she’s insisting. She says her name is Anna Bolton. When she saw the stretcher from the mortuary she started screaming and we really had to sweat to keep her from going after it.”
“Send her up.”
The man rushed off. The news that Anna was there had fortunately roused Cristiana from her torpor. She stood up and now waited, paler than ever and trembling with tension, her eyes fixed on the door.
Anna Sage was led in by the officer; he left at a nod from De Vincenzi. Edward Moran’s sister was wearing the same black dress as before and a small hat with a veil. Her naturally white face was even more striking now. She was very controlled, but her green eyes flashed menacingly. De Vincenzi approached her in an effort to keep her in the corridor, but she moved quickly—her tread was so light, she seemed to have magical powers of levitation—and encountered him in sight of the open door to the showroom. It was exactly what De Vincenzi hadn’t wanted and he stepped between her and the door. He might have asked for her to be sent up—a rash move inspired by anger and sorrow—hoping to glean some useful and decisive information. But he didn’t want the inevitable conflict with Cristiana O’Brian to be too serious. Anna looked first at De Vincenzi, then over his shoulder at the other people in the room.
“My brother came here,” she said in a strong, grating, cutting voice. “He’s been killed, hasn’t he?”
De Vincenzi had not been expecting such a direct attack. He paused.
“It’s useless lying to me. Even if I hadn’t seen the stretcher, I’d have been sure. When he left the hotel, he said, ‘I’m going to see Ileana. If I’m not back within half an hour, alert the detective; I called him and he should be here shortly.’” She stopped and stared at De Vincenzi. “Who are you?”
“The very police inspector your brother invited to see him.”
“Right,” Anna said, by way of conclusion. She fell silent. Her pallor had if anything increased, and she seemed ghostlike. To De Vincenzi she appeared to be swaying, and he made a move to support her. But she gestured for him to stay away.
“Did they tell you I screamed at the sight of the stretcher? I screamed, all right. But only because they tried to stop me from coming up. My place is here beside him.” She shook her head vigorously. “To avenge him. You won’t see tears in my eyes until I’ve had my revenge. How was he killed?”
“He was shot from behind. He died instantly, without suffering.”
“Do you know who killed him?”
“No, not yet.”
“I do!”
She stepped decisively past De Vincenzi and stood at the door of the showroom. She looked at each of the three women, one after the other, and raised her arm, pointing to Cristiana.
“It was her! His wife.”
Cristiana flinched as if struck literally by the words; they sounded icy, lethal. Clearly gripped by terror, she shouted out in a broken voice: “It’s not true!”
“She did it!” repeated Anna Sage, throwing another hateful look at her. She turned to address De Vincenzi. “Would you like the proof? I’ll give it to you. You know she was his wife, don’t you? Yes, maybe you do, but what you don’t know are the reasons why she fled America. Not even my brother revealed them to you when you were with him today, because my brother, believe it or not, was a softie and loved that woman.” She stopped and lifted the veil from her forehead, breathing harder as if to take in more air. In a different voice, trembling with a childish note of distress, she murmured, “Dead! She killed him! I didn’t want him to see her again.” Her outburst lasted only an instant. She immediately straightened up, cold and decisive. “My brother was arrested in a Miami hotel where he was staying with her. No one knew his real identity. No one suspected that Russell Sage was Edward Moran. However, one day the Feds went to the hotel and got him. She was the one who reported him. Betrayed him.”
“It’s not true!” Cristiana’s shout was so piercing, so desperate that Marta and Dolores trembled.
“It is true. She’s the only one who could have done it, and she did. Apart from the fact that she never loved my brother, she was forever anxious to be free of him so she could take control of the bonds and money. Edward hid them somewhere and told her. As soon as he was convicted, Cristiana disappeared. And when Edward got out of prison, the money and bonds were gone. That’s the truth!”
Cristiana leant against the wall, staring at her sister-in-law. She seemed to have given up the fight and any further self-defence. Her staring eyes flashed with impotent desperation.
“Edward wanted to find her. After she’d run off to Paris, he found her here. He wasn’t after the money. He would have forgiven her everything just to have her with him again. I told you: he was in love with her and thought he couldn’t live without her. But she was afraid. She saw him as the avenger and killed him as soon as she could.”
There was a silence. Anna Sage remained standing, motionless. Her eyes never left De Vincenzi’s. She was waiting for him to exact punishment.
De Vincenzi wracked his brain. Things were finally where he wanted them, things were unravelling… It all hung on his not making the tiniest error, not uttering a word more than required—or failing to utter a necessary one. Everything was resting on him, from undoing the knot to revealing the truth—a truth that was natural, logical and unquestionably damning. There’d been another body, but it hadn’t been humanly possible to prevent it. He now realized that he’d been deluded to think he’d be able to intervene in time. If he had, and in the only possible way—that is, by arresting the suspect—he’d have had to apologize and let him go. Edward Moran’s murder explained everything, and it alone could provide De Vincenzi with the means of obtaining the evidence he needed to charge someone.
“Did you hear me? I’m accusing that woman of being my brother’s killer!”
“I heard you, Signora.”
He turned to look at Cristiana. Instinctively, Marta and Madame Firmino moved away from the woman who was in charge of the O’Brian Fashion House—and of them as well. Cristiana stood alone against the wall, unmoving. Her wide eyes never left Anna Sage. De Vincenzi stepped towards her, and Cristiana looked at him as if she were seeing him for the first time.
“Are you arresting me?” she asked. There was no trace of anger or fear in her voice.
De Vincenzi kept walking in her direction. He took a chair and pushed it towards Cristiana.
“Please, sit down. I can tell you whether I’ll be arresting you within half an hour at the most.”
Cristiana sat.
12
“Signora, your brother phoned me at three today to ask me to come and see him. He wanted to tell me something he had kept from me. Do you know what it was about?”
Anna Sage shook her head. “He just said that he’d remembered some detail about his life that might be of interest and have some connection to how he came to be in his wife’s fashion house.”
“He said it just like that?”
“More or less. Edward had just fin
ished talking to—that woman. She’d come to see him and he was upset—I’ve told you he loved her—so upset he didn’t know what he was saying. Several times he said the word ‘orchid’ and sneered.”
De Vincenzi’s eyes were gleaming. From the door of the showroom he looked at the people gathered in front of him. Anna Sage stood beside him and Cristiana was still sitting in a chair next to the wall.
“So he specifically wanted to discuss the orchid with me?”
“Oh, how can you think that? I’m telling you, he wasn’t making sense.”
“Signora, do you know what his wife had gone to tell him?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Oh, that woman is a clever actress! She came to tell him to prepare to leave Milan with her. She’d decided to go with him as long as he took her far away, and immediately. A trap, of course, to get him back into this house.”
“Wait!” De Vincenzi called the officer stationed in the lobby. “Go to the second floor and ask the maid, Verna Campbell, to come down here. Bring her here quickly.” He turned back to Anna Sage. “And your brother came to this building? Why? And why, after a meeting like that, would he phone to ask me to go and see him?”
“It was after the meeting that he remembered the detail I mentioned. It came to him like a revelation. He jumped up and started going crazy, mentioning the orchid… Then he phoned you. I left him to go back to my room and a little later he came in to tell me that he’d be coming here. He advised me to tell you if he wasn’t back in half an hour.”
Verna Campbell came in from the corridor. She got as far as the door where De Vincenzi was standing and stopped.
“Signorina Campbell, did you go to the Albergo Palazzo with Signora O’Brian?”
Verna stiffened. “I told you to ask her!”
“Yes, you did. But I’m asking you to answer me, and I warn you that things are too serious for you to waste my time with your silence. Your mistress stands accused as a murderer. I’m telling you to make you aware of the responsibility you’re under and the danger you yourself are facing.”
The Mystery of the Three Orchids Page 12
