A Rich Full Death

by Michael Dibdin

  I looked around, but could not see the figure of the portly jester anywhere, although until then he had been as conspicuous as a circus elephant. Talenti had already taken his leave of me and was walking away, but I went after him and asked if he had noticed Mr Grant leaving; he had not. My companion seemed to have been there one moment and gone the next.

  Then, suddenly, one of the constables came running up to Talenti and gabbled out some news so quickly that I could catch only two words. But that was enough, for the words were ‘terrible’ and ‘murder’!

  I was of course quite forgotten as the Commissioner barked orders at his men and ran off down an ancient street leading off into the slum quarters. I followed as fast as I could, but what with one thing and another it was five minutes before I caught sight of a knot of people huddled about the entrance to a little courtyard. I pushed my way forward, and by dint of much ruthless elbowing and peering over shoulders was able to make out what they were looking at.

  The yard was occupied by a workshop where boats are brought from the nearby Arno to be repaired and recaulked. Several of these vessels lay about, together with a prodigious quantity of timber-and an enormous cauldron of pitch, with a fire of wood-shavings smouldering underneath it, on which all attention was fixed. Or rather not on the kettle itself, but on the pair of legs that were hanging over the side of it.

  Two constables were endeavouring manfully, but without apparent success, to raise the remainder of the body out of the molten pitch in which it was entirely submerged. But neither I nor Commissioner Talenti-who was seemingly engaged in a heated altercation with one of the bystanders-needed any further clue as to the identity of the victim. Those dangling shanks told their own pathetic tale, clad as they were in tight-fitting gaily-coloured jester’s motley.

  Suddenly I heard my name called out-and realised in the same instant that the man quarrelling with Talenti was none other than Robert Browning.

  There he is!’ cried Browning. ‘God be praised-it is the man himself! Mr Booth, kindly explain to this overbearing official that you did indeed write me that letter! Come, all will soon be clear!’

  Talenti motioned to me to come forward. Browning, I was told, claimed to have received a letter from me, urging him at all costs to meet me that afternoon just a few steps from where we were standing. It was for that reason that he had been at the spot where the police had arrrested him a few minutes before.

  ‘Well, Signor Boot?’ Talenti demanded. ‘Did you send this man such a letter?’

  Browning was looking at me with the calm confidence of one who is about to be vindicated at last.

  ‘I am sorry, Browning,’ I said to him. ‘I cannot continue to lie to the police.’

  Then, turning to the Commissioner: ‘I know nothing of any letter, and certainly did not ask this man, or anyone else, to meet me here this afternoon.’

  ‘That will do!’ cried Talenti in a voice of triumph. And he directed his constables to take Browning away.

  My former associate, for his part, shot me a look of infinite contempt.

  ‘You will be sorry for this!’ he hissed. ‘Both of you!’

  The formula was the same-deliberately so, I felt-as he had used to Beatrice. But while she had been in some doubt as to whether or not it had been meant as a threat, I was left in none whatsoever. I did not make any atttempt to respond, however, contenting myself with maintaining a dignified silence.

  Of course, it was easier for me to be gracious, for it was not I who was being hauled off to the Bargello like a common criminal this time! On the contrary, if there is one person in Florence other than the Grand-Duke himself who is utterly above suspicion in this affair, then it is your correspondent. How could it be otherwise, when during the entire time from Grant’s disappearance in Via Tornabuoni to the discovery of his corpse in the courtyard I was engaged in conversation with Police Commissioner Antonio Talenti himself! A finer alibi could not be wished for, I think.

  Before leaving the scene, I could not help remarking the attention being given by spectators and police alike to an inscription in chalk upon the hull of a nearby wherry. It read:

  I might of course leave you to puzzle this out yourself, but to save you hunting out your Dante let me remind you that Bonturo Dati of Lucca was the most notorious of the corrupt public officials who are punished in a lake of boiling pitch in the eighth circle of the Inferno. What this crime has to do with Mr Grant is by no means immediately clear-unless indeed there proves to be any substance in the rumour I have heard that his sojourn on the Continent was not undertaken entirely voluntarily, and that an air of scandal surrounds his period of office as an alderman in the City. But people love to talk ill of their neighbours, and we exiles more than most. On the other hand, he admitted cutting his claret with chianti, and a man who is capable of that is surely capable of anything.

  For the rest, I need tell you only the two facts which have emerged in the hours since yesterday’s tremendous events. First of all, most important, Mr Browning was released later the same day, after being questioned. There seems to be no evidence to connect him with the death of Mr Grant other than his having been found near the body. Were he an Italian, that might be enough, but as it is, not only must the letter of the law be observed, but all its dashes and dots as well. But truth, like murder, will out, and thus we live in daily expectation of some clamorous announcement.

  The other snip of news is just that a second body was discovered soon afterwards, in an alley some distance away. At first this promised to shed new light upon Grant’s death, but the victim has since proved to be one Giuseppe Petacco-a notorious ne’er-do-well who has been in police hands more than once. It is thought that he most likely met his death in some brawl or act of vengeance unconnected with the atrocious fate of poor Grant.

  All may yet be well, as I said at the beginning of this letter, but I do not by any means deceive myself that the danger is past. Nor could I, while my relations with Beatrice continue to be as intimate as they are at present; for she in particular continues to be in a state of morbid anxiety, sure that some calamity is about to befall us. All my attempts to laugh or reason her out of this delusion are to no avail-so much so that I begin to think it may be best for us to leave Florence until this affair is over.

  I have accordingly urged Beatrice to give up her post and go south with me-we could take a cottage on Capri or Ischia and live there as happily as Adam and Eve until the summer comes. But she, like a true Florentine, is loth to leave her native city. It is odd that I should care so-why do not I simply go myself, and leave her? That is what I ask myself, and find no answer. All I know is that I have not gone, and will not go without her. For myself, indeed, I scarcely care any longer, but if anything were to happen to this Italian girl I should never forgive myself. Is it not odd?

  Yours ever most affectionately,

  Booth

  21

  My dear, dear friend,

  You cannot guess what pains it costs me to write. My muscles have all turned traitor, and my body become an Iron Maiden for the poor scrap of spirit which still unwillingly inhabits it-yet still worse is the mental effort, to remember what I have told you and what not, what you know and what you do not know-to say nothing of what you may have guessed. I am terribly afraid I may lose my grip on the story before I finish, at moments everything quivers and shimmers so. Was there not some philosopher-you will know who I mean-who held that the material world is only sustained by God’s attention, and that if that failed for a split second the whole universe would start to curl at the edges, smouldering and shrivelling up like a sketch tossed on the fire?

  But I shall finish-I must! This at least I shall achieve, though nothing else.

  The week following Grant’s death was like one of those great calms which sailors fear worse than the fiercest storm, when nothing stirs and the very air seems all to have been sucked away, leaving a breathless vacuum beneath which the ocean lies so flat and bland you fancy you could dance qu
adrilles on it. So it was that week. There was an oppressive absence of event: the police investigation once again came lo nothing; Mr Browning made no attempt to make good his threats.

  I had by now convinced Beatrice to leave Florence with me, but she would not quit her post without giving due notice; and while she worked out her time I lay abed, or on the sofa, or at the balcony door, dreaming of those azure depths, the rocky coves, wind-battered centenarian olives, the sky a flawless sheet of polished lapis-lazuli …

  Every evening, when she returned, [ordered up supper from the trattoria: first some rounds of fire-charred bread rubbed raw with garlic, salt-sprinkled and drenched in olive oil as green and cloudy as glass on a beach; then a mess of hand-rolled noodles soaking up some rich dark sauce of hare and wild mushrooms; and then a chicken roast on a wood fire, and some fruit, and a flagon of wine.

  And so time passed, until it was Friday the 3rd of March, and the last day of her service.

  That evening I sat in the room at Via Dante Aligheri awaiting my mistress’s return as usual. A bottle of champagne stood on the table beside a huge bouquet of flowers. I waited, and I waited. The wine grew warm, the flowers began to wilt, and still Beatrice did not come. At length, when ten o’clock sounded without any sign of her, I grew so anxious I could sit there no longer. It was unheard of for her to be so late.

  My mind ran riot with unpleasant speculations, which I could do nothing to allay-it was of course out of the question for me to enquire of the family for whom she had been working. I nevertheless left the house and walked to where they lived, to see if I could catch any sight of her, half-hoping to meet her on the way. I knew not what I hoped, or feared-but in the event I saw nothing and nobody.

  My next impulse was to return home, in case there might be some message for me there. As I hastened through the dark and empty streets my heart was full of evil forebodings, and I seemed to see the final look Browning had given me, and to hear him say, ‘You’ll be sorry for this-both of you!’ That ‘both’ had puzzled me at the time-had he intended Talenti, who had been present, or Beatrice?

  When I opened my front door I looked at once at the silver salver where Piero puts any letters which have been delivered in my absence. There was a long envelope there, bearing my name in a hand I recognised. I tore it open and scanned the contents in a flash. This, word for poisonous word, is what it said:

  Dear Mr Booth,

  I took the liberty of calling on you this evening, at an hour when I knew you would be from home, to discuss this brave New Life of yours. Your manservant was about to leave, but before doing so was good enough to let me in to await your return, which I gave him to understand was imminent.

  I fear I misled him, though, for of course you were wandering ‘pensive as a pilgrim’, as the bard has it: dreaming about everything save that which was under your nose (I quote from memory: consult the original for further details).

  R.B.

  I walked through to my living-room with this extraordinary composition in my hand-and stopped dead. Books, papers, clothes, and household articles of every description lay strewn about the floor in the most complete disorder. My first thought was that I had been the object of a burglar’s attentions, until I caught sight of several valuable objects which should in that case have been taken. What then? A wanton explosion of destructive energy appeared to have reduced my home to a diabolic shambles, as completely and impartially as a bomb.

  Then I remembered the letter. Browning claimed that my servant had left him alone in the suite-was this his revenge? That he sought revenge was no longer in doubt-that much, at least, I could understand from his cryptic letter. But was it credible that this childish tantrum was all a mind as cunning as his could dream up to torment me?

  I picked up the letter once again. That it was crammed full of secret significance I did not for a moment doubt. That my future happiness, and quite possibly my survival, depended upon my understanding it was no less evident. What did it all mean?

  I strode restlessly back and forth, picking my way between the volumes which lay singly, in piles, precarious heaps and fallen rows all over the floor, alternately picking up the malicious text and then throwing it down again in despair-a process I repeated half a hundred times as the night wore on.

  The Dominicans’ chimes had sounded two o’clock before I got my first glimpse of its hidden meanings. I had initially assumed that the phrase ‘this brave New Life of yours’ was a mocking echo of Miranda’s naive exclamation in Shakespeare’s Tempest: ‘O brave new world, that has such people in it!’ The irony of that was evident, if Browning knew-as he presumably did-about my relations with his former mistress. But why ‘Life’ for ‘world’? Why were only the two words capitalised? Why capitals at all, for that matter?

  The truth came to me, as it will, in a flash. The ‘New Life’ of course referred to the collection of verses which Dante published in celebration of Beatrice-the Vita Nuova. Having understood that, it took me very little longer to recognise ‘wandering pensive as a pilgrim’ and the rest of it as the paraphrase of the opening of the famous sonnet on the death of Beatrice: Deh peregrini che pensosi andate.

  On the death of Beatrice!. A chill ran down my spine. ‘Consult the original for further details.’ I ran to the case where I keep my Italian classics-and gave out a howl of fury when I realised that it too had been wrenched off the wall and the books hurled to all four corners of the room. Like a beast, I scrabbled desperately on all fours among the volumes which lay strewn about the floor, seizing each in turn and flinging it away like the rubbish they all were now-all except that one I sought, and could not find.

  Dear God, I found everything else that night! Books I had forgotten about, books I did not know I had, books I did not know existed: everything from Browning’s own Sordello, which he had given me to make up for his gaffe at DeVere’s funeral, to a broadsheet singing the exploits of the Monster of Modena, a berserk butcher who terrorised that Dukedom early last century, turning his victims into the large spiced boiling sausages for which the region is famous. Everything but Dante’s posy for his dead love!

  At last I gave it up, staggered to the table, sat down and poured myself a glass of brandy-and there was the volume I had been seeking in vain, ‘under my nose’, as the letter had fruitlessly hinted. Feverishly I snatched it up, hunting out the sonnet in question. Ignoring a piece of paper which fluttered to the table as I found the page, I skimmed the first twelve lines, and found this: Ell’ha perduta la sua beatrice.

  Now Dante meant by this that Florence had lost the person who had made her blessed, the source of her beatitude (with a quibble on Beatrice’s name). There is, however, a simpler way of reading the Italian, and it was this, I knew, that Browning had intended: ‘You have lost your Beatrice’. He had made away with the poor girl-killed or kidnapped or God knew what! I was beside myself with anger and remorse. Let him do his worst with me, but why should she suffer, poor child?

  Then I noticed the scrap of paper which had fallen to the table when I found the correct page of the Vita Nuova. It had writing on it, I saw, and picked it up, and read:

  Since you have been kind enough to act as my guide through hell, I thought it only fair to treat you to a little tour of purgatory. You have been my Virgil. What shall I be to you?

  I heard half past three strike, and still I sat there, my brain swarming with a hellish brew of thoughts and dreams all stirred up and simmering together, poring over the opaque message before me. ‘You have been kind enough to act as my guide through hell’; ‘You have been my Virgil’. That was clear enough-a reference to our joint investigation into the murders based on the Inferno, ‘I thought it only fair to treat you to a little tour of purgatory’; ‘What shall I be to you?’

  Who had been Dante’s guide in purgatory? In the Inferno, as every schoolboy knows, the poet was guided by the spirit of Virgil; in the Paradiso by that of Beatrice. But in the Purgatorio?

  I had to find my copy of the Divine C
omedy to answer this, and that cost me another three-quarters of an hour of frenzied searching through the ruins of my library-for this time it had not been conveniently left on the table for me. When I finally located it, however, I felt that my time bad been well spent, for I discovered that Dante had been guided through purgatory by the most celebrated of the Italian troubadours-Sordello!

  I could hardly be in any doubt what Browning intended me to do next: the reference was plainly to his long poem dedicated to this personage, which had been in my hands earlier. But my subsequent searches had created so much fresh disorder that it took me almost an hour to find it again; and when I had I realised that I had not the slightest idea what to do with it.

  I picked the volume up by the spine and shook it-and out fell another piece of paper with some lines of writing on it. I gathered it up, and read:

  Speaking of your servant, are you still missing some of your personal possessions? I trust not. It might prove embarrassing if the police had to be informed. But no doubt you can locate them first. How about this, for example?

  Select your prey,

  Waiting (the………-…….in the way

  Strewing this very bench)

  At the scene of the last murder. You have until dusk tomorrow.

  I read this through, at first, with a sense that Browning must have taken leave of his senses. The comment about my servant, in particular, seemed utterly nonsensical, for while Piero may be a vain unprepossessing little squirt, he has never presumed to try and steal so much as one of my fallen hairs. So what was Browning getting at?

  ‘It might prove embarrassing if the police had to be informed. But no doubt you can locate them first.’