A Rich Full Death

by Michael Dibdin

  The idea of that horrible Philistine upstart Eakin thus scoring an easy victory over a man such as Robert Browning was so distressing that I doubly regretted the impossibility of bringing his wife’s murder home to him. Certainly in a just world he ought to have done it-or to have hanged for it at any rate!

  But meanwhile Mr Browning, with that restless mental energy which characterises him, had already moved on to confront a new complication.

  ‘We agree, then, that Joseph Eakin did not murder his wife,’ he said, rising from the divan to stand in front of me.

  I nodded.

  ‘Then who, pray, tried to make it seem that he had?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Why man, the knife! If it is not Eakin’s, it must have been placed where I found it with the intention of incriminating him.’

  ‘But why should anyone do that when it has been given out that Isabel died by her own hand?’

  ‘It may have been so given out,’ Browning retorted, ‘but remember that at least one person knows better. The murderer is not fooled by his own strategems, and must at least be worried that the police may also see through them, in time. This knife, I take it, represented his insurance policy against that eventuality. If the suicide verdict held, no harm had been done; if it fell through, suspicion would be diverted in the most natural direction, towards the victim’s husband.’

  ‘But how did he get the knife, then? Where does it come from, if it is not Eakin’s?’

  For all answer Browning handed me the article in question.

  ‘Open it,’ he said.

  I tried to do so-without success.

  ‘I cannot.’

  ‘No more could I. See, here is the thumb-nail I splintered in the attempt. Plainly the thing is brand-new, bought from a cutler’s shop the same day I found it. It has never been used, never been opened. It was taken straight to an engraver, and Eakin’s name placed on the handle-if you examine the lettering closely you will observe several flakes of metal scalloped up by the burin and not yet dislodged.’

  I was extremely impressed with this further demonstration of Mr Browning’s intellect; the operations of his mind, combining as they do an unparalleled grasp of reality in all its raw and unrefined quiddity, with a soaring reach and synthetic power to meld all into ideas of the very largest and grandest carry, are a delight and an inspiration. But there was still one further question in my mind.

  ‘All this is wonderful, and I have no doubt that you are quite correct in your assessment of the murderer’s motives. But I fail to understand how this knife could constitute evidence against Mr Eakin, given that it is not his.’

  ‘It couldn’t, of course, from the moment that it emerged that he had an unshakeable alibi. But suppose he had not had one. Who would then have believed his protestations that the knife was not his? You know how the police proceed here-they find some scrap of evidence against some likely suspect, and then obtain a confession by recourse to methods into which no one enquires too closely.’

  I remembered that Cecil DeVere had told me while we drove together through the streets of Florence that afternoon that he had seen someone skulking about the garden of the villa on the Monday morning, at the very spot where, a few hours later, Browning had found the knife. When I mentioned this, Browning’s response was immediate and enthusiastic.

  ‘Splendid! Let us go and see this man DeVere immediately — I have an appointment, but it can wait.’

  But I was forced to disappoint him.

  ‘Unfortunately DeVere will not be at home. I recall him telling me he was going out.’

  ‘Very well, then-tomorrow morning, without fail! There is no time to lose.’

  As though these words had prompted a thought in his mind, Browning consulted his watch and announced that he had to be going. I was genuinely disappointed that he was not staying longer-but he explained that his wife’s chronic consumptive condition had become aggravated again, and that he had to return to look after her.

  ‘You are not a friend of Cecil DeVere, then?’ I remarked casually as we walked to the door.

  Browning replied with an air of slight puzzlement, ‘DeVere? No-I have met the man, I believe. That’s all. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I was curious as to why you used his name to explain the message which arrived for you on Sunday night-the summons from Isabel’s maid?’

  I was very aware that I was treading on delicate ground here — as was confirmed when Browning flushed at this allusion to his mendacity.

  ‘Did I?’ he queried.

  ‘Use DeVere’s name? Certainly.’

  Browning looked utterly blank.

  ‘Mr Booth, you may believe this or not, as you choose-and I should hardly blame you if you do not-but the fact of the matter is that I have not the slightest recollection of having mentioned Mr DeVere-whom, as I say, I hardly know-nor the remotest notion why I should have done so!’

  This response was so hopelessly inadequate that I did not doubt its veracity for a second; a man as gifted as Robert Browning, had he wished to lie, could certainly have invented a more satisfactory explanation than this ingenuous shrug of the shoulders. The mystery, however, remained.

  We arranged to meet the following morning at nine o’clock, at the south end of the Ponte Vecchio-DeVere’s house lies hard by this venerable structure. Then, with a second glance at his watch, Mr Browning left.

  It may have been that excessive interest in the time that did it, or perhaps I remembered how he had strangely contradicted himself in the reasons he had given for having to leave a few minutes before. As soon as he had gone, at all events, I rushed to the window and looked out. What I saw so intrigued me that I ran back to the hall, grabbed my cloak and hat, and hurried downstairs after him.

  6

  When I got out into the darkening streets Browning was already lost to sight, but I hurried off in the direction I had seen him go, towards the Cathedral. It had been this that had caught my attention, for Casa Guidi is in the district the Florentines call the Oltrarno, south of the river; wherever Browning was so urgently bound, it was not there.

  He was not going home, then-at least not directly. And yet he had justified his abrupt departure with talk of his wife’s illness. I had noticed at the time, but without remarking its significance, that this rather failed to tally with his mention of an ‘appointment’ he was prepared to postpone in order to see DeVere. There was no reason to suppose that the Brownings’ marriage was upon such terms that husband and wife were in the habit of making appointments to see each other.

  At this point you may be forgiven for thinking that the atmosphere of continual mystery and intrigue I had been breathing since Isabel’s death had quite turned my head, so that I saw riddles in everything. Might Browning not be going quite simply to an appointment with a doctor, or a pharmacist, or lawyer, on any ordinary everyday business, before returning to his wife’s side? That indeed was what I asked myself as I hurried along over the great treacherous gleaming flagstones of the street, which was emptying earlier than usual owing to the onset of a light drizzle. All I found by way of justification for my impulse was that I was surrounded by so many mysteries that the possibility of finally resolving even one of them was not to be missed.

  By the time I reached the Cathedral I had almost despaired of catching up with Browning, who is an almost aggressively brisk walker-one of those you fancy might actually tear themselves to pieces were they tied to a chair for twenty-four hours together, so necessary to their spiritual and intellectual economy does the relief that walking affords them seem to be. I was in fact on the point of giving up the chase when I suddenly caught sight of him, buying something from a street-trader. I approached, taking good care that he did not spot me, and waited until he had concluded his purchase. I then made a slight detour past the huckster’s stall, and discovered that his principal stock-in-trade appeared to consist of embroidered lace handkerchiefs.

  Browning had meanwhile got ahead of me again
, striding away down Via De’ Calzaioli. We were now heading south, and I thought that he must be going home after all, having picked up a little keepsake for his wife. The street runs straight into the very centre of Florence: a mess of mediaeval squalor grown like congestion in a lung upon the clear grid of the ancient Roman city. This area is a maze of the narrowest and crookedest alleys you will ever see, lined with that typical Florentine assortment of wretched tumbledown tenements with more inhabitants than a dog has fleas; ancient palaces whose rock-like walls seem to ooze the memories of evil deeds; quaint churches, half-amalgamated with the rest, preserving primitive frescoes as faded as the piety of their parishioners; the truncated stumps of the tall towers built by proud Guelf or Ghibelline to pour scorn and boiling pitch on their opponents; and little squares, like clearings in the forest, where men lounge and smoke cigars, children play noisy games, women gossip and make eyes, appear and disappear at windows.

  When we left the Piazza del Duomo Browning was some hundred yards ahead of me, a lead which by dint of breaking almost into a run I had gradually reduced to half that distance. I dared not approach closer, after the incident of the police spy, for if he had noticed my presence he must have become suspicious. Thus I was obliged to hang back to some extent, and when Browning suddenly turned left into a side-street I was some fifty yards behind him.

  I increased my pace directly, and on reaching the corner was just in time to see him cross into the next street. I could tell by the sound of his footsteps that he had turned neither right nor left, but continued straight on, and I hastened on through the gloom towards the feeble oil-lamp at the next street-corner.

  When I reached it I paused: all was still. The only sound was the steady hush of the rain, which had grown more persistent.

  The next street, named after Dante Aligheri, whose house stands there, was too long for Browning to have reached the other end before I gained the corner where I now stood. He must therefore have entered one of the buildings in it. But which? There was no way of telling, save by keeping watch until such time as he might emerge-which is what I determined to do.

  I was counting on his reappearing almost immediately. ‘He has gone to call on a friend on his way home’ I thought. ‘He will stay but a few minutes-is not his wife ill and anxiously awaiting his return?’

  So I reasoned; but I was mistaken. I crouched in a doorway for more than three quarters of an hour, but in vain; of Mr Browning there was no further sign. Meanwhile the rain grew ever heavier, until my clothes were quite soaked. In the end, cold and dispirited, I abandoned my vigil.

  Perhaps you think that I was foolish to risk my health like that-despite the fact that my lungs are quite mended now, and I feel younger and healthier than ever-to risk it for nothing, for a mere whim of curiosity, an unseemly nosiness about matters that are none of my business. And so before going on to describe what happened the next day, let me explain; let me give you the good news I spoke of at the beginning of this letter, since without it you will be unable to understand even what I do — never mind these other mysteries.

  First, though, you must understand me more deeply-must understand, above all, that I have been one who, while still young, knew-blew, mind! — that he had been born to excel greatly.

  At what, I could not say-nor did it seem important. I dabbled in writing, because I could write, but often it seemed to me that my soul might worship more aptly at some other altar. Music moved me very greatly, and Art-but as I could never tell a crotchet from a minim, or draw a passable likeness, I stuck to words, over which, though poor things, I had at least some power. It mattered little what I achieved: that was for the future, of which I knew only that it would be glorious. For the moment it was enough, and more than enough, just gloriously to be; to feel, think, plan, dream …

  Oh Prescott, those days! I walked, I talked, I sang and danced and laughed and wept with spirits! The rhythms of the Universe sometimes whispered, at others roared through me, at the behest of rules so ancient and all-embracing that it is absurd to speak of rules at all, as of something that might be broken.

  Such, then, is what I was at five, at ten, at fifteen. Much, though by no means all, survived, surprisingly intact, into my twenties-a mere decade ago! It might be a century. But then the rot set in: slowly at first, and by fits and starts, I began to have doubts. What had I achieved? True, my room was full of paper-as full of paper as my life was empty of anything else, for I had sold my soul and kept my end of the bargain-but was all that paper covered in my scribbles worth any more than it had been blank, fresh from the stationers at a dollar a ream? Was it not rather worth less? I had spoiled it, and added nothing. That was the terrible truth which, over the course of several years, I gradually came to admit to myself.

  Note the point-it was not the world’s judgment which sank me, but my own. I was quite prepared to be ignored, despised, rejected by my contemporaries. It was, indeed, almost a requirement; for what, after all, did they know? Was true greatness ever recognised or rewarded? Their contempt would, all other things being equal, have set the seal upon my belief in my stature and assured my ultimate triumph-posthumous, if necessary. I was ready even for that. But the wound I had now was internal, and mortal: a slow draining-away of that youthful faith, drop by drop, until nothing remained.

  When this knowledge truly came home to me, and had settled down, coiled like a foul worm in my breast-well, my friend, just try and imagine (you won’t succeed, but try) that one day you gradually came to the realisation that instead of being the eminent and well-respected Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy at Tuft’s University, Medford, Massachusetts, you were in fact the inmate of quite another kind of institution! In short, that you were, and had long been, a pitiful lunatic-but one for whom there was apparently some reason to hope, since your delusions were now happily beginning to lose their force, and there was every prospect that you would soon be able to grasp for the first time the realities of your position! What a joyful awakening that would be, eh Prescott?

  It was in much the same spirit that I gradually awakened from my delirium-to what? A world stripped bare of any inducement to endure its puerile crudities a moment longer. And when you consider that this was also the period when my health collapsed and when Isabel finally tired of teasing me-well, all in all I think it is a wonder I did not put an end to my miserable existence there and then.

  Instead, I drifted to Europe, and round Europe, until I came to rest with all the other flotsam and jetsam of every nationality in this pleasant backwater. Florence is the right place for us weightless men: a burned-out city with a past too massy for its present, and no future at all. We gravitate towards it as naturally as waste paper and dead leaves end up in an angle of wall, whirling about in a miniature tornado of febrile energy-hollowly gay, exhausting itself in a restless round, changing nothing and itself unchanged.

  Oh, I know that from where you sit at your daily grind in dull joyless New England, it must seem a splendid and an enviable thing, this exile existence of mine-a continual dream of Art, Romance and Pleasure in a land where the good life’s to be had at prices which even a Joseph Eakin can find little to complain about; where I have my dinner sent up from the trattoria with a flask of Montepulciano, and a valet in to cook my eggs and make my coffee in the morning, and a girl to clean and wash, and can walk or ride or drive out any day to see what’s best and costs nothing: the most beautiful landscapes in the world; and not mind Fra Somebody’s frescoes, but choose instead to study — what luxury! — that lizard there upon the sun-hot wall, so absolutely still and weighty you’d swear him incapable of movement, a toy worked in gold and bronze by Cellini, except if you blink he’s gone! All this, Prescott, and much more, upon the miserable pittance my father sends, thinking it not quite enough to live on (as would be true in Boston) so that I’ll be obliged sooner or later to turn my hand to some earnest trade-and in the meantime he’s done his duty by his feckless idle offspring.

  But after a
while these marvels pall, as marvels will-is this not why literary visions of hell are so much more convincing than those of paradise? And what’s your exile life then but a heap of motley moments pasted at random into a commonplace book: some good, some bad, all meaningless, devoid of any sense of purpose, neither redeemed nor threatened by the informing touch of the Real.

  And then one day I had my insight! I had been reading Vasari’s Lives of the Artists-reading it here in the city where Vasari was born, and which he never ceased to regard-like the majority of his fellow-citizens-as the centre and cynosure of the world; reading it amid the surviving works of those giants of whom he writes with the same easy yet undiminishing familiarity as Homer of his heroes. And as I came to know this second-rate dauber, who walked with the Great and was transfigured, something stirred in the back of my own brain. Like Vasari, I was not Great-that bitter lesson had been learned. But had Greatness therefore been abolished? Because I had fallen short, did the goal cease to exist? And were there not others, more worthy than I, who would grasp that torch handed down through the ages? All that I had to do, then, was to find one of these men who have that Power, to stand close to him, and draw off a portion of that Greatness from him, as Buonarroti’s Adam draws Life itself from his Creator’s finger.

  But first I had to find the man! No easy task, and one of which I have often despaired. He had, first, to be truly Great-for, having duped myself for dreary years, I have no wish now to become another’s dupe. First, then, the threshing, to tell wheat from chaff-nor could I make the task easier by following the crowd to one of the idols of the age such as Mr Powers, for I had no wish to worship from afar, one of a throng. My Great Man would be mine alone! My glory would lie in my having recognised his before it became a mere commonplace, parroted in every review.