A Rich Full Death

by Michael Dibdin

  ‘In that case let us for God’s sake wash our hands of the whole beastly matter!’ I implored him. ‘The police suspect nothing — still less does anyone else. All we need do is forget what we know-nay, what we suspect, for what is it all but mere suspicion, in the end?’

  But Browning would not have it.

  ‘That I absolutely cannot do, Mr Booth.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Because I am afraid!’

  ‘That is precisely why I am suggesting …’

  ‘I do not refer to the police. I am afraid of God! I am afraid that one day I shall be summoned before Him to account for my life-and how should I explain that out of mere cowardice and incapacity I allowed a murderer to go unpunished?’

  ‘But “vengeance is mine, saith the Lord”,’ I could not help putting in mischievously. ‘Will not God punish where punishment is due? How can we judge?’

  I immediately regretted this sally, for Browning looked at me sternly.

  ‘Do not trifle,’ he replied. ‘Is it not as much a judgment to let a murderer go free as to hang him? Either way, we judge him — we have to, in this world. His soul is another affair, and there God will set all right. But let us leave this, for I suspect you are not in earnest. I have another reason for declining your convenient proposal, and one which you may well consider to have more urgency.

  ‘Just think: somewhere in this city, at this very instant, someone is sitting thinking how immensely clever he has been! How very cunning, to commit two murders which appear to cancel each other out, leaving-nothing! A work of genius! If you think that I could sit tamely back, knowing that this creature remains alive and free and secure from pursuit, believing that he has fooled us all-well, then you do not know me yet, my friend!’

  To this I could only reply, and in all sincerity, that my dearest wish was to know him better; and with that our talk broke up, as Browning was anxious to keep another engagement.

  As I saw him to the door, I picked up a letter lying on my doormat, quickly tore it open and scanned the enclosure. My visitor was just taking his hat from the stand. I passed him the single sheet of paper, which ran as follows:

  Villa Hibernia

  12th February

  Dear Mr Booth,

  Some exceptionally curious indications have recently come to light concerning the tragic deaths of Mrs Isabel Eakin and Mr Cecil DeVere.

  As you know, these two events were not only connected, but the cause of death was in each case very different from that announced by the authorities. However, it now appears that these crimes were but part of a much more ambitious criminal project, whose full scope and extent is only beginning to become evident.

  If either you or your associate Mr Robert Browning will be good enough to come to the above address at your earliest convenience, you will have an opportunity of judging for yourselves the truth of this assertion. Yours ever faithfully,

  (p.p.) Maurice Purdy

  Browning looked from the letter with a pale face. His hand, I noted, was trembling.

  ‘What devilry is this?’ he murmured.

  ‘We must find out without delay,’ I replied resolutely.

  ‘Indeed-and let us not make the same mistake as with poor DeVere, but go immediately!’ Browning declared.

  ‘But what about your engagement?’

  ‘I can call and make my excuses on the way.’

  Now before going any further I should explain that Maurice Purdy is a plump balding little Anglo-Irishman, owner of vast tracts of bogland whose crop of potatoes supports a number of tenant farmers, who in turn support Mr Purdy. When this crop fails-as it did some ten years back, you may remember-a million or so of these Hibernians emigrate to the next world, while an equal number come to try their luck in the New. At other times they remit to Squireen Purdy-well, hardly a million of anything, but enough at any rate for him to live very comfortably here in divinely cheap Florence, indulging his ruling passion for the pleasures of the table.

  The man truly lives to eat, and his dinner parties are famous for the quality and quantity of the fare provided. Not that he entirely stints himself in other respects-he has been known to hire a band out to the villa to play symphonies for him. But even then he does not entirely surrender to the muse, but will nibble at some choice delicacy while Spohr or Cherubini warbles.

  In short, if we accept Sydney Smith’s friend’s notion of paradise as eating pate de foie gras to the sound of trumpets, then Maurice Purdy has undeniably seen heaven’s glories shine-but what this utterly inoffensive, slightly comical hedonist could have to do with the mysterious and sinister epistle which had appeared on my mat was a question to which there seemed no possible answer. As Browning said, there was a smell of devilry about it; as though the voice of Evil were to speak through the mouth of a child’s doll. How did Purdy know that Isabel’s and DeVere’s deaths were connected? How did he know that they had not died in the way given out by the police? How did he know that Browning and I had an interest in the matter? Above all, what was the ‘much more ambitious criminal project’ of which these events were just a part?

  We soon found a cab, whose driver-a youngster new to the work, and as keen as mustard-made no fuss about an expedition without the walls, promising to take us to the moon and back if we wished. The initial destination my companion named proved no less interesting, although considerably nearer: Via Dante Aligheri.

  I had by no means forgotten the evening when I had followed Browning through the city to this street, where he had disappeared, but the incident had been eclipsed by the more urgent matter which had latterly occupied me. Now it seemed that chance had put the solution to this mystery into my hands.

  Our cab drove past the Strozzi palace and through the Old Market, before turning into the street Browning had named.

  ‘This will do!’ Browning called up to the driver. ‘Please wait for me here, Booth. I shall not be five minutes.’

  He was in fact ten. I got out of the cab and strolled back and forth in the misty street. The cab-horse shook its harness and snorted and stamped, while the cabbie essayed a variety of popular Florentine airs.

  At length Browning reappeared, full of apologies for the delay. I remarked that it was a very poor and run-down neighbourhood.

  He agreed.

  Very few foreigners lived in that part of town, I opined.

  He agreed.

  I myself, I commented, had never set foot in a house in that area.

  ‘It is a charitable duty which I have taken on myself,’ Browning replied at last. ‘A deserving case to whom it has been possible for me to offer some measure of assistance. And now without further delay let us find out just what Mr Maurice Purdy means by his extraordinary communication!’

  11

  Twenty minutes later we rolled in through the open gates of Mr Purdy’s villa, which stands on the hill-slopes to the north of the city, in the centre of an extensive wailed estate. Not only the gates but also the front door stood open, and lights were burning in the hall-quite as if a reception had been planned. While we waited for someone to answer our ring, I remarked on the absence of the huge wolfhound which Purdy keeps chained up at the front of the villa, and whose boisterous welcome is normally such a feature of visits to the house.

  Despite the apparent air of welcome, we had to ring three times before Sergio, the handsome lout whom Purdy for some reason insists on employing as his factotum, appeared.

  ‘You are the doctor?’ he bawled, looking at Browning.

  Before either of us had a chance to reply-or even to consider what we should reply-a carriage drew up outside, and a soberly-dressed gentleman descended. He, it appeared, was the doctor-and was instantly led away into the innermost regions of the villa by Sergio, whose only response to our enquiries was to repeat that Signor Purdy was ill and could not see anyone.

  This news, of course, merely whetted our curiosity, and we therefore settled down to await further developments. These were not long in coming, for
the doctor very shortly returned, with Sergio bustling along self-importantly at his heels. We introduced ourselves, and enquired whether we could be of any assistance. The doctor, who proved to be Swiss, shook his head.

  ‘Everything possible has been done,’ he replied gravely. ‘Mr Purdy has been savaged by that hound he keeps, and I am afraid that he may be most seriously ill.’

  More lamps were fetched, and the four of us went to the spot where the attack had taken place. Here we found the body of the dog stretched on the gravel. The medical man carefully directed Sergio and one of the gardeners in the task of wrapping the cadaver in sacking and loading it to his carriage, and he then drove off to examine the beast at his surgery-the implications of this, and of his earlier words, were of course only too evident.

  Once the doctor had gone we cornered Sergio and got him to tell us exactly what had happened. I say ‘exactly’, but in truth the fellow seems to combine the worst of both sexes, being as skittish as a woman and as dull as any peasant-Heaven knows what Purdy sees in him. In the end, however, we managed painfully to cull the following information from the confused and lurid account he provided.

  At two o’clock that day, as on every Monday of the year, Purdy had summoned his carriage and had himself driven into Florence to attend the weekly reunion of the Lucullean Club-a select society whose meetings are entirely given over to the consumption of a meal of gargantuan proportions, conversation of any kind being strictly forbidden except between courses, and then only to comment on the fare.

  When the gourmets had concluded their deliberations, Sergio drove his master home. On their arrival Purdy got out of the carriage and went over to fondle the wolfhound, as was his invariable habit. The next instant Sergio heard the most terrible scream, together with the muffled barks and growls of a dog and a succession of obscene tearing sounds. Running to see what had happened, he found his master lying motionless on the ground with an enormous black brute of a dog towering over him, its muzzle dripping foam!

  The beast immediately tried to attack Sergio as well, but he was just beyond its reach, chained as it was to the wall. He ran into the house and roused one of the gardeners, who brought a gun and-Sergio having decoyed the creature away from Mr Purdy-shot it dead. The master of the house, who had meanwhile fainted, had then been carried inside and put to bed, and the doctor sent for.

  ‘There is one thing I should like to verify before we leave,’ Browning remarked, once Sergio had left us to answer a summons from the house. The scene of the tragedy was still brightly illuminated: there was the gravel scuffed up for yards around, and the gun still lying on the ground beside a great pool of blood. But Browning ignored these, directing his attention instead to the chain to which the animal had been attached-or rather to a piece of cheap hemp cord tied to it.

  ‘Does this not strike you as rather curious-and suggestive?’ he asked me. But I hardly heard him, my attention having been attracted to something written in fresh white chalk on the dull-red painted plaster wall. It read:

  ‘What do you make of that?’ I asked my companion.

  He shook his head.

  ‘The word is presumably Italian, but it is not one with which I am familiar.’

  At this moment Sergio emerged from the house with the welcome news that Maurice Purdy wished to speak to us.

  We found the tubby little epicure in his bedchamber on the second floor of the house-a pale flabby figure cowering in the depths of an enormous featherbed, his features covered in livid scratches. He was in a shocking state of nervous excitement. It seemed that the doctor had administered a sedative, but that this had not yet taken effect; meanwhile Purdy had learned from Sergio of our presence, and had summoned us to commiserate with him on the injustice-such was the theme on which he harped-of what had occurred.

  ‘Why me?’ he wailed. ‘I who have never hurt a fly in my life! Why should Luath do such a thing! I have always given him the best of everything! Why should this happen to me? All I have ever asked is to be let alone to enjoy my innocent pleasures. It isn’t fair! What have I done to deserve this? I do declare that it simply is not fair!’

  It was a truly affecting scene-the man was almost in tears. Browning and I naturally expressed our horror and sympathy, and in due course I touched on the letter: it was at once clear that Purdy had no idea what I was talking about-he had written me no such letter, nor had he summoned me or anyone else to the villa that evening.

  By now the effects of the sedative were beginning to become apparent, and we prepared to take our leave.

  At the door Browning suddenly turned.

  ‘Does your dog wear a collar, Mr Purdy?’

  ‘Indeed he does!’ Purdy answered in a singsong voice, as though in a trance-with no apparent awareness of the singularity of the query. The most beautiful thing, all of local leatherwork, with his name worked in bronze.’

  ‘And this collar is of course attached directly to his chain?’

  ‘Directly, directly! The clasp was made specially for me … very good man … give you his name … tomorrow … luncheon

  We slipped silently out of the room. Outside we found Sergio lounging insolently against the wall.

  ‘Ciacco!’ called Browning.

  Sergio eyes blazed with anger.

  ‘Who are you calling “ciacco”?’ he demanded indignantly.

  ‘I said Giacomo-that is your name, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m Sergio!’

  ‘My apologies. Why, what does it mean, ciacco? Something bad, I’ll warrant.’

  ‘It means a pig.’

  The long drive back from Purdy’s villa to the safety of the city walls seemed still longer because of the stony silence which my companion maintained throughout. I could see that he was both fascinated and terrified by these dramatic new developments: terrified of the magnitude and gravity of this affair he had so lightly got himself involved with, and could not now get out of, but also fascinated-as it were despite himself!

  When we reached the city we parted without ceremony, merely agreeing to meet the following afternoon.

  ‘What is happening?’ Browning cried suddenly, at the last moment. ‘What is this terrible curse which has descended on our little community? A paradise of exiles, Shelley called Italy — is it instead to become an inferno?’

  I did not know what to say, for my only thought was of the irony of the situation. My most earnest wish had been granted: I had formed a relationship with a man I believed to be truly great-and we must apparently spend our whole energies discussing these gory and depressing crimes. It is so maddening! Imagine being magically transported back to Shakespeare’s times-only to discover that you are his lawyer, and he will talk to you of nothing but land values. What of Art? What of Spirit? What of the great ideals that can make human life seem worth the living? It is on them that I would fain dwell with a soul such as Browning’s-instead of which we seem condemned to spend our time contemplating the legs of garden tables, bits of mouldy rope, lamps and pen-knives, and the precise design of dog collars!

  And the worst of it is that Browning appears positively to revel in it! It seems that he is in some sense attracted by crime, by diseased and abnormal behaviour of every type, and in the greater detail the better! Indeed, I am very much afraid that there is a danger of his undoubted poetic gifts suffering as a result. In the volume I purchased, for example, I have noticed-despite my enduring enthusiasm for the collection in its entirety-several pieces which display an unseemly fascination with the workings of evil and deranged minds. The one entitled ‘My Last Duchess’ is a particularly repulsive example of the tendency to which I allude.

  There is of course much very fine work in the volume-stirring tales of romance and chivalry, touching lyrics, quaint historical scenes and so on. But there is also this other strain — morbid, dark, introspective, unhealthy-which disturbs me; and what disturbs me still more is that it appears to be of relatively recent origin. Sordello, the early work he has given me, appears to be co
mpletely free of it. Is this some cancer which threatens to consume his genius? I have no way of answering this question as yet, but I am very apprehensive. Of course a great soul must be able to understand evil and madness-but at a distance, so to speak, without itself being contaminated. Whereas Browning seems to roll in the nastiness he handles, like a pig in mud.

  We had arranged to meet at a coffee-shop near the Cathedral after dinner-Browning always leaves Casa Guidi for a walk at this hour, and could thus meet me without any risk of arousing suspicion.

  He had already been to visit the doctor who was attending Purdy, and the news was grave indeed, for the dog which had made such a meal of the poor bon vivant had proved to be infected with rabies!

  Thus poor Purdy’s death certificate is in effect already signed, lacking only the date. At some time within the next month or so the hideous symptoms will begin to manifest themselves: the unpredictable shifts from savage excitement to apathetic stupor, culminating in the final death agony lasting for days, in which the throat muscles seize up completely and the sufferer, tormented by extreme hunger and thirst, tries in vain to swallow, unable to bear the sight of food or drink. When I thought of the manner in which Maurice Purdy had lived, this terrible fate put me in mind of some moralistic painting of the Middle Ages. I said as much to Browning, who nodded gravely.

  ‘Indeed. But I fear that something more than just pure coincidence is involved. I inspected the cadaver of the dog which attacked Mr Purdy at the doctor’s just now. That beast was no wolfhound-although he had some wolf blood in him, I shouldn’t wonder. As for that piece of rope we saw attached to the chain at the villa, the rest of it was still tied roughly round the animal’s neck.

  The implication is only too clear. Maurice Purdy has been-or rather is going to be-the victim of a fiendishly cunning murder; a murder which has not yet occurred, but which cannot be prevented. His dog was removed-and no doubt killed-and a rabid animal substituted. In the dark Purdy did not notice the difference until it was too late.’