Death Among the Ruins (Arabella Beaumont Mystery)

by Christie, Pamela

  “And had he?” asked Belinda.

  “What do you think? He was just a slug, after all.”

  “He sounds like Nero,” said Terranova thoughtfully, stroking his beard.

  “Well, for my part, I pity the poor creature,” said Kendrick. “Imagine what it must feel like to know for a certainty that there will never be any way out of one’s wretched existence but death.”

  “And yet, you have just described the condition known as ‘life,’ Mr. Kendrick,” said Arabella. Signora Fiorello appeared with a pitcher and began pouring cocoa into the wineglasses. “But I do not mind in the least. Personally, I am finding life quite enjoyable, at the moment.”

  “Naturally,” he said. “But you are a human being. Life cannot be nearly as rich or as satisfying for the slugs of this world!”

  At that moment, someone began pounding the heavy iron ring that served as a front door knocker. Signora Fiorello set down the pitcher and hurried out to answer it. Her husband, too, came running at the summons.

  The coffee room’s occupants fell silent as an officious voice without was heard commanding or demanding something. This was followed by argumentative jabbering from the landlord, and the words “no-no-no!” repeated frequently. Terranova exchanged uneasy glances with his monks.

  “Let us go and see whether we may be of any assistance,” he said, rising. The rest of the company followed him into the entrance hall, where two gargantuan soldiers and their enormous officer loomed over the diminutive landlord. The signora was arguing, too, and trying to break into the circle to stand next to her spouse.

  “What goes on here?” asked Arabella in her best imperious tones. “Do you gentlemen speak English?”

  At the sight of her, all three soldiers removed their hats, and the officer, apparently mistaking her for the proprietress, said, “Sorry, signorina, for the disturbance. But we have had a report that a dangerous speech was recently made here, and we must investigate. Can you tell us anything about this matter?”

  Arabella turned to look for Father Terranova, and was just in time to see him slipping out of the coffee room to rejoin the company. He had evidently gone back inside for some purpose. Now he stood waiting in the shadows, surrounded by his monks. He was beyond the reach of the central lantern, and completely at her mercy.

  “Yes,” she said calmly. “I can tell you all about it, in fact. That man over there was the focus of a large gathering some days ago, when he addressed a crowd from the balcony that overlooks Ercolano.”

  The soldiers all turned toward Terranova. “Yes?” said the officer. “And can you tell us what this speech was about, signorina? ”

  “Quite. He was baptizing the victims who died in the eruption of 79 A.D. Hardly a danger, signor. On the contrary, it was an act of mercy.”

  Then Father Terranova stepped into the light, and a gasp of recognition went up from the soldiers, who knelt and asked his pardon. The officer apologized for the intrusion, and the warriors returned from whence they had come. Terranova was evidently a man of some renown.

  “Those men did not look like Italians,” said Arabella.

  “No,” said Terranova. “They were Austro-Hungarians.”

  “Then, why . . . no, never mind. The explanation is doubtless political.”

  After the rest of the guests had returned to the coffee room, the priest detained her at the entrance for a moment.

  “Signorina,” he said. “Thank you for that.”

  “For what, signor? You said that you were going to bless the dead, and I must assume that you have kept your word. For I, as you know, speak no Italian.”

  A glass shattered in the coffee room, and they entered to find a serving girl on her knees, mopping up a puddle of cocoa.

  “The cat, she’s-a jump on the table,” explained the landlady. “Thanks to goodness, it was not my prize goblet that broke!” And after an accusing glance at Arabella, Signora Fiorello poured the contents of her Venetian masterpiece into an ordinary wineglass and set it on the revolving stand with the others. “Here,” she said, handing the beautiful goblet to one of the maids. “Wash-a this, and then return it, very carefully, to the cabinet! If it-a should break, you will pay for it . . . with your next five years’ wages!”

  “It’s probably all cold now,” said Charles bitterly.

  “Not a bit,” replied Terranova, hefting one of the glasses and feeling the temperature through it. “But you have changed seats, I think. Here, Signor Beaumont, this one was yours.” And he turned the stand. “Signorina Beaumont, I believe your cocoa is in this glass, now.”

  He spun the platter in the opposite direction, and Renilde leaned suddenly forward. “But that one is mine, cousin!” she cried.

  “No, Renilde. I do not think so. That is Signorina Beaumont’s.”

  “It isn’t,” she insisted. “I have already drunk from that one, Cousin Felice. Pass it to me! Please!”

  “No,” he repeated, his voice heavy with menace. “That is Signorina Beaumont’s.”

  Renilde glanced at Arabella, her face eloquent with anguish.

  Good God, thought the courtesan, is Terranova trying to poison me? She immediately took up the glass he had spun round to her, not in order to drink it, but to remove it from that murderously rotating platter. It smelt perfectly fine, although that did not signify. She toyed with it, and swirled the liquid around the glass for a while, before finally setting it down.

  “Here is yours, Reverend Kendrick,” said Terranova, continuing to distribute the cocoa via the “lazy Susan,” “ . . . and Aunt Ginevra’s . . . and Signorina Belinda’s . . .”

  Finally, all the glasses had been served save one, and the priest took that for himself.

  “Renilde . . . ? We are now one glass short, it seems,” he said, smiling.

  “I am not taking any, Cousin Felice.”

  “I insist. Cocoa is very healthful. It will calm your nerves.”

  “No, thank you,” she replied. “I really do not care for cocoa!”

  “Now, I know that’s not true,” he said. “I remember in London last year, you could not get enough of it. And look— Signorina Beaumont is not drinking hers. Don’t you like cocoa, signorina?”

  “I like it exceedingly,” said Arabella. “But I have some writing to do tonight, and I am afraid its well-known soporific effect will put me to sleep before I have completed my task.”

  He reached out, and placed her glass back upon the platter once more. “In that case,” he said, “we shall not waste Professor Bergamini’s generous gift. Renilde, you may have this glass, after all.”

  The girl fell back against her chair, and to everyone’s surprise, began to cry!

  “Please,” she sobbed. “Please! I am very sorry, cousin!”

  “You have been over-excited, Renilde,” he said soothingly. “Drink your cocoa, and everything will be all right.”

  “I do not want it anymore.”

  “But I insist. It will calm your nerves, and put you to sleep. Drink it, Renilde. Drink it now.”

  The young woman suddenly seemed to master her weakness. She straightened herself, took up Arabella’s rejected glass, looked at Kendrick, looked defiantly at Terranova, and tossed off the contents in a single draught.

  “Now, if you will all excuse me,” said Renilde firmly, “I am going to bed.”

  “Yes,” Terranova agreed. “Your nerves have had a shock. Good night, my child. May God bless and protect thee, and may you feel better in the morning.”

  Was it Arabella’s imagination, or did the girl stagger as she went through the doorway? Nobody else seemed overly concerned. As soon as Renilde had gone, the Primary Force turned his devil’s beard in Arabella’s direction, his pince-nez glittering diabolically in the light from the oil lamp.

  “Your charming story was interrupted, Miss Beaumont,” he said. “Can you recall where you left off?”

  That night, Arabella wrote in her CIN:

  1. Has Renilde actually, knowingly, drunk poison
ed cocoa? If so, Terranova must have done it when he slipped back into the coffee room, whilst the rest of us were talking to the soldiers.

  2. Was the poison intended for me? But why would he do that, after I saved him from the soldiers?

  3. If he did not poison her glass, why did Renilde look at me in that fashion, as if to warn me? The girl seemed so terrified of the cocoa—why did he force her to drink it? Why did she keep apologizing to him?

  4. Why would Terranova, after setting out to poison me, poison Renilde, instead?

  Could this be connected to Renilde’s confiding in Mr. Kendrick? But she hardly told him anything! I suppose I am imagining things, and tomorrow I shall feel a great fool.

  The next morning, Renilde failed to come down to breakfast.

  “Where is Miss Rinaldo?” asked Arabella.

  “She . . . is gone,” said Osvaldo.

  “Gone? Gone where?”

  “What Osvaldo means,” said Father Terranova, his be-ringed fingers flashing as he cut his ham, “is that Renilde is with God.”

  Terranova’s party crossed themselves without looking up from their plates.

  Arabella could scarcely believe her ears. “What are you saying? Do you mean that she has died?”

  “Yes, I am afraid so,” said Terranova and he sighed, as if with regret.

  “What? Is she laid out, upstairs?”

  “Oh, no. The body was taken away early this morning.”

  “Taken away? By whom?”

  “By the sexton. It was taken away and buried.”

  Arabella looked around the table to see how everyone else was reacting to this. Charles, Belinda, and Mr. Kendrick sat as if turned to stone, with their eyebrows sitting straight across their faces, and their mouths slightly open. Terranova’s party, on the other hand, were drinking coffee and eating breakfast as if nothing had happened, and though they kept their eyes, at least, at half-mast, no one was crying. Renilde’s own mother was dry-eyed.

  “Something is not right, here,” cried Arabella.

  “How very perceptive you are, signorina,” said the priest quietly. “But then, we are none of us very good actors. I think it is better, much better, if you do not ask questions, yes?”

  She looked at him. At his heavy, square-shaped body, and colossal hands. She looked at the monks, who were also large, and also ready to do his bidding. And she prudently decided to hold her tongue, for the time being.

  Chapter 19

  A CLEAR CASE OF PARRICIDE

  This is outrageous! Despite his general popularity, Terranova is a man of unspeakable evil! For he has surely murdered his cousin, who made the mistake of confiding her scant knowledge of the statue’s whereabouts to Mr. Kendrick. Neither he nor I took much notice of what she said at the time, for we both believed she was fabricating the story in order to ensnare my worthy friend in the net of her matrimonial hopes.

  Poor Renilde! I believe her now! “Please! I am sorry, cousin!” Thus she begged the monster for her life. And then he forced her, before God and all of us, to drink that fateful draught! I saw the look which passed between them then. I shall never forget it. He seemed to be saying, “Thus are you punished!” And she, courageous in her final moments, seemed to answer, “I, who am about to die, salute you!”

  I am resolved to learn the details from her brother, who is currently sitting here in our parlor, making love to Bunny.

  It was raining. Arabella was content to remain indoors, for the hotel was comfortable, and the inclement weather afforded her an opportunity to wear her writing turban, which resembled Madame de Staël’s, but with narrower stripes. She sat at the little desk before the window, scribbling away in her CIN with a goose-quill pen, and cutting, or so she imagined, a dashing figure of singular romance.

  Things were easier now, for Terranova had left the hotel temporarily, taking his monks with him. The two living Rinaldos and Signora Terranova had remained behind, but they were not much in the way. Arabella was about to make use of Osvaldo, as a matter of fact.

  “It is raining, yes; but it is a dry rain,” he said, with an expression that was probably meant to convey profundity, but merely succeeded in making him look constipated.

  “And what is that supposed to mean?” asked Arabella, wiping her quill and setting it back in its stand.

  “I think he means it is not the sort of rain that lurks about in damp puddles and turns things moldy,” said Belinda, who was sitting next to him on the sopha and knitting a small pair of trousers from dark green wool. “After it stops, there is little sign that it was ever there, and everything dries out in half an hour.”

  “Good! Yes!” cried Osvaldo, grinning and pointing at her as though they were playing charades. “This is it!”

  Arabella decided to take advantage of his elevated mood. “Osvaldo,” she said, “tell us about Renilde’s death.”

  He immediately fell silent, so she rose from her chair and came to sit beside him upon the sopha. Thus, flanked by Beaumont sisters, the unlucky fellow now stood no chance of escaping with his secrets intact.

  “I am not supposed to speak of it,” he mumbled, looking down at his hands.

  “I know you are not. But no one can hear us now,” said Arabella, patting his hand. “And we should very much like to learn of this matter.”

  “Yes,” said Belinda, linking her arm through his and pressing her thigh against his own. “Please tell us, Osvaldo, dear.”

  What could a man do under such circumstances?

  “She fell sick,” he said. “In the night. We called the doctor.”

  “Do you mean the doctor who lives next door?”

  “. . . Yes.”

  Arabella noted his hesitation. “So the doctor came, and then what did he do?”

  “Renilde had a fever. She was screaming . . . words that made no meaning. The doctor, he could do nothing to help her, and she died, without suffering too much. We had to bury her at once, you see, because of the fever.”

  “Fever? I do not understand you.”

  “It was a peste . . . a plaga . . . the kind of sickness that spreads quickly and kills many people. We have to hide it, you see? If people find out, they might burn the hotel down. Because any one of us might have catched it from her. But you must promise that you will tell no one I have said this. My cousin told me not to tell you.”

  Arabella seemed suddenly to lose interest. “Yes, yes,” she said wearily. “We shan’t tell anyone. You had better leave us now, so that you won’t be suspected of having divulged the secret.”

  After he’d gone, Belinda turned a stricken face toward her sister.

  “My God, Bell! Mr. Kendrick was in close contact with Renilde, shortly before . . . ! Do you think he will . . . ?”

  “I do not. And I do not believe that story, either.”

  “You don’t? Why not?”

  “I shall speak to the doctor, in order to make certain, but I know he was not here last night. When someone is raving with a high fever, and the doctor is called, there is much running up and down stairs. Servants are roused to change the linens, fetch water carafes, empty slop basins. There is noise, Bunny, lots of it, and you and I are both light sleepers. Yet we heard nothing at all, nor were the servants behaving this morning as if they had not slept.”

  Arabella ticked off the points on her fingers as she spoke: “The house was not put under quarantine, which the doctor would surely have done in the case of infectious fever. Renilde’s possessions were not burned. And no one else has developed any symptoms. I shall tell you what I have been thinking, and what I am now certain of, after hearing Pear-Head’s lie. Mr. Terranova is a murderer, and a very dangerous man.”

  Belinda gaped at her in horror. “What a dreadful business!” she cried. “Shouldn’t we tell the police?”

  “I do not think so. You saw those soldiers kneeling to Terranova. And he lives in Palermo, remember. He lives in Palermo, yet is instantly recognized in Resina, by Austro-Hungarians. That is an important man.”r />
  “What can we do, then?”

  “Professor Bergamini is already inquiring after other lodgings for us in Naples. I shall tell him that it needn’t be Naples now—this is an emergency, and we shall settle for anything at all.”

  “But what if the professor asks the reason for our rapid departure? Shall we tell him?”

  “No. We shall say that we are upset over the death which occurred here—that is no more than the truth. We cannot tell them the whole truth, Bunny.” Arabella was watching Belinda’s busy hands as she spoke. “Remember, Terranova and Bergamini know one another.”

  “All right,” said Belinda. “I, for one, shall be very glad to get away from this place. To think of that . . . murderer sitting next to you on the downstairs divan, and fondling Cara!”

  Belinda reached down to stroke the head of her little pet. From the moment they’d met, dog and mistress had been inseparable. Their mutual devotion was only natural in two such sweet-natured, exquisite little female creatures, but it had been strange the way Terranova had seemed to dote upon her, also. The first time he had seen Cara, he had gone down on his knees, placed his head against hers, and murmured endearments. And yet, when Belinda had offered to let him take her for a walk, he had suddenly shewn extreme indifference, and claimed to be “too busy”!

  Arabella fixed her eyes upon the little green trousers Belinda was creating. She was really not in a position to do anything about Terranova, for there was no one she could trust.... Trousers . . . perhaps she should take Mr. Kendrick into her confidence. Would he know what to do? It seemed cowardly to simply run away, leaving Renilde in an anonymous grave somewhere . . . green trousers. Little . . . green . . . trousers.

  “Bunny!” she said in sudden alarm. “What is that you are knitting?”

  “Pantaloons. Do you like the color?”

  “The color is neither here nor there,” Arabella replied with mounting agitation. “For whom are they intended?”