A Rich Full Death

by Michael Dibdin

  ‘Now, before I tell you what you want to know, perhaps you will be good enough to tell me what time you arrived at Signorina Chauncey’s apartment? You don’t deny having been there, I take it?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Why indeed? Besides, we have plenty of witnesses that you were there. At what time did you arrive?’

  I might not have been under arrest, but you would never have known it from the official’s manner.

  ‘At half-past eight,’ I replied promptly.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because that is the time for which I had been invited.’

  The mournful little smile that was never very long absent appeared once again on Talenti’s lips.

  ‘How reassuringly English.’

  ‘I am American.’

  ‘It is the same. Were any other guests present?’

  I named Miss Tate, Seymour Kirkup, the Reverend Tinker and Mr Grant.

  ‘And had this gathering any particular purpose?’ the official continued. It was evident that he knew the answer to this question, as to all the others he had asked.

  ‘Yes. As you must know, we were there for a “seance”-a kind of spiritualist assembly, in the course of which …’

  ‘Do you believe in spiritualism, Signor Boot?’

  I hesitated, sensing a trap which perhaps did not exist.

  ‘I used to. Or at least, I had an open mind on the subject. But after what happened last night …’

  Talenti waited for me to finish. When I did not do so he asked, ‘What did happen?’

  Well, I told him. I altered nothing and held nothing back-I did not dare-but it was not difficult to make the whole proceedings sound like an extremely amateur production of the ghost scene in ‘Hamlet’. As I multiplied the details of rushing winds, moving tables, spirit voices and accusations of murder, Talenti’s ironical smile reappeared in full blossom.

  ‘So you did not altogether believe in these … phenomena?’

  ‘How could I, when it was all so crudely done-or over-done? How could anyone?’

  ‘Nevertheless, some of your fellow-guests did believe.’

  It was my turn to smile.

  ‘Some people will believe anything, Commissioner. Florence has but one Calandrino-with us they breed by the score.’

  Calandrino, you must know, is the proverbial credulous simpleton who appears in Florentine folk-tales, as well as in several of Boccaccio’s stories. I saw that Antonio Talenti was both amused and flattered by my reference-as I had intended he should be.

  ‘Besides,’ I continued, risking a little more now I had established this advantage, ‘even if the “seance” had been more convincingly staged, I really fail to see how anyone could take these absurd allegations seriously. There has never been the slightest suggestion that there was any foul play involved in the deaths of Mr DeVere or of Mrs Eakin, has there?’

  Talenti stared at me for an unconscionable time. His smile had disappeared.

  ‘As you say, Signor Boot, some people will believe anything,’ he said finally. ‘And at what time did you leave the Chaunceys’?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I suppose it must have been some time after ten o’clock.’

  ‘You did not see any of the other guests take their departure?’

  ‘How could I? I was the first to leave.’

  ‘Answer my question, please.’

  ‘I saw no one.’

  ‘And you went straight home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did anyone see you come in?’

  ‘There is never anyone about at such an hour.’

  ‘What about your servant?’

  ‘He had gone home.’

  ‘So you cannot in fact prove what time you arrived-or indeed that you went home at all?’

  I stared at him in some confusion.

  ‘Well no, I suppose not, if you put it that way. But why on earth should I have to prove it?’

  The Commissioner did not reply. Instead, he lit one of the murderous local cigars, and, after a few moments’ puffing, began to tell me what had happened.

  The other guests had also left the Chaunceys’ almost immediately, although in what order was still a matter of some dispute. Tinker went immediately after my departure, but the testimony of the others was more confused-Kate Chauncey, for example, claimed to have seen Kirkup in the flat long after Mr Grant saw him leave. At all events, there is no doubt that Miss Jessie Tate was the last to go, after which the Chauncey sisters sat up for some time discussing the events of the evening.

  ‘Unlike some of those other guests, Signor Boot, you remained sceptical of the effects you had witnessed-the messages spelt out on the board and spoken by spirit voices. I congratulate you on your perspicuity. I questioned la Caterina’-i.e. Kate Chauncey-‘for over an hour this morning. She confessed at once that everything that occurred last night, from start to finish, had been carefully prepared in advance by her and her sister-as was invariably the case with their so-called spiritualistic performances.’

  I was absolutely aghast. I could not-would not-believe it.

  ‘But that voice!’ I cried. That was Isabel’s voice!’

  Talenti looked at me curiously, and I suddenly realised that I had blundered: I was not supposed to have believed in the spirits. But as we were speaking Italian, I was able to conceal my slip by pretending that I had simply expressed myself badly.

  ‘I meant to say it was so like Isabel’s voice! I was almost taken in.’

  Talenti appeared to accept my correction. ‘Yes, the Chauncey woman certainly possessed an amazing gift,’ he agreed. ‘But it was not a supernatural gift-simply a superb talent for mimicry. She could imitate other people’s voices-both sexes, and every age-so accurately that even their closest friends could not detect the difference. And when the people concerned were dead, and their friends fervently wished to believe that they were hearing them speak from beyond the grave, then she was never in any danger of exposure.

  ‘It was this, according to her sister, which made la Chauncey’s fortune as a “medium”. For the rest she relied on the usual trickery involving an accomplice-in this case the maid, who opened a door to create that draught you felt-and such apparatus as wires running under the floorboards, which is how they moved the table. As for the “planchette”, that was manipulated by the sisters, working together to guide it towards the letters they had decided upon in advance. As they took care to sit at right angles to one another, the impulse appeared to come from no one person but rather from the board itself

  A protracted explosion was tearing my soul apart, as all my new-found ideas about the spirit-world and the afterlife blew up in my face. I had to work very hard to keep any trace of this turmoil from showing on my features.

  Meanwhile the police official continued with his story. At about eleven o’clock the Chauncey sisters had retired for the night. Before doing so, Miss Kate did the rounds of the premises, as always, checking that all the windows were shuttered and locked and the front door double-bolted from the inside. Edith Chauncey had meanwhile gone straight to her room, situated at the top of a short flight of stairs.

  The only other occupant of the suite was the maid, a girl of fourteen who went to bed the moment her employers had no further need of her, and slept the sleep of total exhaustion which is the only pleasure such poor devils know in this life. She awoke at half-past five, and set about lighting the fires and heating water. As she passed along the central passageway of the suite, she came upon the body of Signorina Chauncey, lying at full-length upon the steps leading down from her room, her head twisted impossibly out of place-turned around like an owl’s, the girl said.

  Terrified, she ran and fetched Signorina Caterina, who was still asleep. The moment she set eyes on her sister’s corpse Caterina promptly fainted, so the servant ran outside to fetch help. To do so she had to unlock the front door, which was still bolted on the inside. In the street she stopped some peasants on their way to market,
and sent one off to call a doctor while she returned to the apartment with the others.

  The doctor arrived some twenty minutes later. His report indicates that the victim fell downstairs and broke her neck about three or four hours before her body was discovered. It would be convenient if la Chauncey had been given to sleepwalking or something of the kind, but this does not seem to have been the case. On the other hand there is no reason to suppose that the victim had an enemy in the world, and any hypothesis that her death was other than accidental seems to raise insoluble problems. If there was a murderer, how did he get in? And if he got in, how did he get out again, leaving the suite as effectively sealed from the outside world as it had been when Signorina Caterina locked up the previous evening?’

  Talenti paused, puffing elegantly at his cigar.

  ‘In that case,’ I enquired, with a mighty effort to remain civil, ‘might I ask why was it thought necessary to drag me out of my bed this morning like a common criminal to answer questions about what was clearly a regrettable accident and nothing more?’

  The official smiled his little smile.

  ‘Signor Boot, the English are dying too much just at present! And while in principle I have nothing whatever against that-on the contrary-I should prefer them to do so in their own country, or in France, or at Rome; or in short anywhere in the world but here in Florence, where I have to account for the fact.’

  ‘But what the devil is there to account for?’ I demanded.

  Talenti took a scrap of paper from a file on the desk and passed it to me.

  ‘Well, this, for example.’

  Crudely scrawled upon the paper in red ink, I read the following:

  ‘We found this clenched tight in the dead woman’s hand,’ I was told. ‘Presumably she wrote it just before she died-the paper and ink used were found in her room. Does it mean anything to you?’

  ‘Nothing whatever.’

  ‘You have never seen anything like it before?’

  ‘Never.’

  Talenti replaced the paper in the file, and stood up.

  ‘May I now ask you a question, Commissioner?’ I enquired respectfully.

  ‘You have already asked several,’ he replied shortly. Then, after a few seconds, he went on: ‘I do not say I shall answer it, mind.’

  I needed no further encouragement.

  ‘It is just this-do you have any notion why the Chauncey sisters should have chosen to invent such an absurd story? Why make themselves look ridiculous, to say nothing of putting their spiritualist pretensions-and therefore their livelihoods-at risk, by making this cock-and-bull claim that DeVere and Mrs Eakin were murdered?’

  I was myself taking a sizeable risk, you might well think, in broaching this subject with Talenti. But I simply had to know the answer.

  ‘They made that claim because they believed it to be true,’ Talenti replied, savouring the last whiff of his cigar. ‘They had been told that it was true-that Eakin and DeVere had been murdered.’

  Finally I could let my astonishment show.

  ‘Been told? By whom?’

  Talenti’s smile became openly mocking.

  ‘Can’t you guess?’

  ‘I certainly can’t!’

  ‘You surprise me. Because the person concerned is a friend of yours.’

  I saw that he was trying to trick me into naming Browning, but I refused to be drawn.

  ‘I am fortunate enough to have many friends in Florence, Signor Talenti.’

  ‘I know. I consulted your file before speaking to you this morning, and I find that you are indeed a man with extensive connections. But I am happy to say that none of them-with the exception of this individual, whose acquaintance with you appears to be relatively recent-is such as to excite the interest of this Department. The same, however, cannot be said for him, or more especially for his wife. They are considered persons of suspect views-she in particular. And it was in fact from her, according to Caterina, that her late sister learned of this rumour concerning the deaths of DeVere and la Eakin. You will not continue to pretend that you do not know whom I mean, will you?’

  I felt it would be decidedly unwise to do so. It was becoming ever plainer that Commissioner Talenti’s animus was directed not at me but at Browning. It would benefit neither of us if I were also to get on the wrong side of him.

  ‘I believe that you mean Mrs Browning.’

  ‘Certainly I mean her-a bedridden invalid who amuses herself by writing verses in praise of Liberty and the French Emperor, by criticising our ruler, denigrating our time-honoured institutions and impugning our virility! They make me sick, such people!’

  The mask of urbanity had slipped from the police official’s face for the first time.

  ‘They come to Florence and lecture us Tuscans on the shortcomings of our government, knowing that we dare not lift a finger against them. I am no radical, Signor Boot. It’s my job to see that the laws we have are obeyed. If tomorrow Tuscany becomes a republic, I shall serve my republican masters as faithfully then as I serve the House of Lorraine now, and they, recognising this fact, will retain my services-for you may be sure that if the men I put in prison today put themselves in the Pitti tomorrow, the day after tomorrow there will be others to take their place in prison.

  ‘But them at least I respect, for they play the game like men, for real stakes-their liberty, their lives. But not these Brownings and their like! These foreign intellectuals who blame our government and praise our terrorists! Let them praise and blame their own! I’d like to see them! But of course there’s no chance of that, for any disturbance in that quarter just might deprive them of the handsome little stipend which goes so far in thrifty Italy, and which depends on law and order prevailing mightily in rich England. Which it does! Just ask the English Chartists and farm workers! Let them try and better their lot, and straightaway the troops are called out-and meanwhile these so-called liberals look the other way and condescend to pity the poor Hungarians or Poles or Italians. But if a humble Tuscan police official such as myself, having good grounds for suspicion, dares set a man to watch one of these great champions of Liberty, immediately he runs to his friends at the Embassy, and the humble policeman finds himself officially reprimanded by his superiors and warned never to do such a thing again unless he wants to spend the remainder of his career in Leghorn!’

  ‘But what were these grounds you had for suspecting Mr Browning?’ I asked, as deferentially as I knew how.

  ‘Ask him yourself!’ snorted Talenti contemptuously.

  ‘I did. He wouldn’t tell me.’

  I did not for a minute think that Talenti would tell me either-I was, after all, prying most fearfully into official secrets. If he did so, it was clearly just to spite the hated Browning!

  ‘The maid, Beatrice Ruffini, deposed in evidence that she had summoned Browning to the villa because he was a friend of the family,’ Talenti recited, as though before a court. ‘Contradicted by the gate-keeper, who denied that he had ever seen him, she changed her story: the Englishman, she now said, had been a friend of Signora Eakin-the implication was of course that he had been her lover. At this point Browning asked to speak to me alone, and I granted his request. I then asked Browning about the maid’s accusation that he had been intimate with la Eakin.’

  ‘Which he denied,’ I murmured.

  The policeman looked at me with some surprise.

  ‘On the contrary!’

  16

  On some other occasion recently, I believe I compared my nerves to a pianoforte struck with an axe. On hearing these words I felt as though the axe had just been buried deep in my own skull.

  ‘On the contrary,’ Talenti continued in an even, unruffled tone, ‘the suspect admitted that he and Signora Eakin used to meet secretly. She let him in through the garden entrance, which is why the gate-keeper did not recognise him. He tried, however, to claim that there was nothing illicit in their relations, nothing carnal: they were simply friends. They used to sit and talk. He trea
ted her like a daughter. He just liked to sit and look at her, to watch her comb her hair. It was all completely pure.

  ‘Naturally I did not believe this for a moment. Men and women do not behave like that! But then a doubt crept into my mind. These people-they were English, and the English are crazy. Their blood is so cold it is a mystery how they ever manage to breed. So I thought perhaps-just perhaps-there was some truth in this incredible story. Or on the other hand this Browning might just be arrogant enough to think that a stupid Tuscan would believe any nonsense if it came from an Englishman’s lips. There it was-I didn’t know. So I followed the standard procedure in such cases: I started to make enquiries about our Signor Browning, and meanwhile set a man to watch him.’

  ‘But did it really matter whether Browning’s relations with Mrs Eakin had been pure or not?’ I asked. ‘After all, she was dead, and by her own hand.’

  Talenti smiled.

  ‘I know that now, Signor Boot,’ he replied dryly, ‘because my superiors have instructed me that such is the case. But at that time they had not yet pronounced, and I myself was very far from being so sure. Suppose for a moment that Signora Eakin did not commit suicide-suppose that she had been murdered.

  In that case Signor Browning’s relations with the dead woman would have been of vital importance. For who would have killed her, if she had been killed in such a way, at such a time and place? A jealous lover was the obvious answer, and jealousy supposes carnal love-platonic lovers do not murder each other.’

  Before I had any time to respond, Talenti’s whole demeanour suddenly changed, and he became brisk, efficient and ironical again.

  ‘But why do I bore you with this stale news?’ he exclaimed. ‘The Eakin case is closed. Indeed, it was never open, any more than the DeVere case-although there again I might have found elements to interest me, had my superiors not determined that his death was of no concern to the Department. And now we have another accidental death! Signorina Chauncey was rather less well-connected than the first two victims, so no decision on the affair has yet been communicated to me-it may even be that I shall have to make up my own mind!