Death of an Englishman Page 7

  'Thrown in at the deep end, eh?'

  'I'm sorry?' But there was no time to explain that one.

  Only the meat-roaster and the corner barman were still around to come out and stand watching their arrival; the other shops had rolled their shutters down for siesta and the wet pavements were rapidly emptying. They walked into the dark flagged passageway at number fifty-eight and the guard outside the ground-floor flat saluted them.

  'Any incidents?' asked the Captain.

  'No, sir.'

  'None of the tenants tried to speak to you?'

  'No, sir …'

  'But?'

  'Small girl, sir.' The young Brigadier blushed. 'Gave me a bit of trouble on her way in from school.'

  'Yes, I can imagine …' The Captain frowned. 'She wasn't alone?'

  'No, sir. Older child and a maid.'

  'Thank you. That's all, Brigadier. Go and get something to eat. We're going inside and I'll leave the Vice-Brigadier to take over from you.'

  'Thank you, sir.'

  'The cold room was uninviting. 'Shall I switch on the light, sir?' suggested Carabiniere Bacci.

  'Do.'

  The only light was the lamp with its dusty parchment shade. The two English detectives looked about them at the carelessly placed antique furniture, the oil paintings in heavily-carved, gold-painted frames leaning against the walls, the cigarette butts scattered in the stone hearth.

  'The body lay here, as marked, across the bedroom doorway—if you'd like to come through you can take a look at the safe.' The Captain led the way. Without thinking, Carabiniere Bacci stepped over the chalked outline as though the bulky figure were still lying there.

  It was Inspector Jeffreys who happened to notice the slightly warped hardback book that was lying between a whisky glass and a full ashtray on the bedside table. 'May I?' he asked the Captain, and picked it up. Planet on Fire. 'There should be another,' he said to the Chief, and to Carabiniere Bacci: 'The librarian wants them back, if your Chief has no objection; there's probably a second book somewhere.'

  The second book was found: Out of all Time, beneath the turned-back eiderdown. Evidently, Langley-Smythe had lain beneath his eiderdown for warmth, but not in the bed, since he was dressed. He was waiting for something or someone but not expecting trouble or he wouldn't have had the safe open or have turned his back on the visitor. The Captain gave his permission for the books to be moved. Jeffreys planned to leave them at the porter's lodge of the library building; he didn't relish another visit to the place. The Chief Inspector was examining the open safe on the wall behind the bed, the neat stacks of notes in various currencies, chiefly Swiss francs, dollars and lire.

  'All used,' he remarked. 'Any papers?'

  'Personal ones, of course, but nothing of interest to us—we did find the name of his lawyer and he may come up with something useful yet but, in the circumstances, I really don't think we're going to find anything.'

  'Well … as an attempted robbery, I agree, it makes no sense … and since he seems to have had no … social life of any kind, I suppose that leaves us with this safe. Some sort of business deal that went wrong …'

  'Yes … I wonder if we couldn't save some time by sending your Inspector upstairs along with Carabiniere Bacci to have a word with Miss White. I'm afraid she's unlikely to have seen or heard anything, being on the top floor, but we ought to make sure … And if then Carabiniere Bacci would come down and do a little interpreting for us …'

  'Quite, yes. Good idea … Jeffreys, would you mind … ?' He was grateful for the Captain's tact. They were going to have to have a talk and the sooner the better. Things were much more serious than the Chief had expected and no tactfully cosmetic report was going to cover this lot up. He would just rather Inspector Jeffreys were not around while he decided what should be done. As the younger men left he sat down heavily in the chair where the Marshal had once sat down heavily, and reached automatically for the pipe in his mac pocket, gazing thoughtfully out through the french windows into the courtyard.

  After their recent chat, Carabiniere Bacci felt able to admit as they climbed the stairs: 'My English wasn't good enough. She's quite strange, this lady.'

  'This Miss White? Well, these old dears often are.' Jeffreys was the eldest of seven children, and though always in trouble with his superiors he would go out of his way to help younger men without giving it a thought or doing anything more than wink solemnly when the younger man got the credit. 'The thing to remember is, first, that a lot of what they tell you is likely to be gossip—they'll say anything to get a bit of self-importance or to get back at a neighbour, just because they're lonely. You've got to be patient, give them some attention, be willing to have a cup of tea with them—I should say coffee in your case but it's the same thing. These stairs are a bit much—how much farther?'

  'I beg your pardon?' Carabiniere Bacci was too nonplussed by the first part of this speech to catch the tail-end of it.

  'How much higher?' he pointed up.

  'Oh yes. The next floor.'

  'Right. Then, secondly, they're frightened.'

  'Frightened?'

  'Criminals, crime, they live alone, they're frightened of anything coming back on them.'

  'I don't think …' But Carabiniere Bacci's vocabulary, a genteel survival of pre-war Florence, didn't run to a description of Miss White, whose footwear alone was enough to confound him. 'This door here.'

  It was open again but they rang the bell.

  'Come in, come in! No charge for admission!' The invisible tenant encouraged them.

  Carabiniere Bacci watched Jeffreys's face.

  'Is it some sort of museum?' whispered the Inspector uncertainly as they stepped into the terracotta hallway.

  'I think so, yes. She says—'

  'Ah! Ahal Just the thing! More visitors to help us out—can you take photographs? It's one of those automatics so it doesn't matter if you can't—you still can, if you see what I mean. Oh, it's you again, nice to see you, and brought another friend—plain clothes, another first! Plain clothes detective, just like Scotland Yard, you'll have to put that in the book—detective, I mean, not Scodand Yard—never had anybody from there, not that said, anyway, but of course you never know, I suppose they keep quiet about it—not much point in going about in plain clothes and then telling everybody you're a policeman—now, come through here and meet Mr MacLuskie, marvellous man, wants a photograph of himself in the house next to a portrait of Landor, but he'd like me to be in it—can't think why—so if you wouldn't mind holding the camera, here you are, press that, that's all you have to do, press—can't tell you in Italian, been here fifteen years and can't speak a word.' She had thrust the camera at Jeffreys. She had other plans for Carabiniere Bacci. 'We'll have you in the picture with your uniform—you don't mind him being in the picture do you? You can send me a copy.'

  'Don't mind at all, ma'am. It would be a pleasure.' The visitor, a large short-sighted gentleman, a prominent member of the Paris (Texas) Poetry Appreciation League, was happy to be here and disposed to oblige everybody. He had taken the picture of the poet from its hook in the hall and was standing before the drawing-room fireplace holding it rigidly before him and gazing earnestly at the dimly perceived camera and Inspector Jeffreys. Jeffreys himself, having at first been taken by surprise, was now demonstrating 'being patient with old dears' for the benefit of his young colleague. But he found that if he got the huge Mr. MacLuskie and the tall Carabiniere in view, he could only see a scrap of Miss White's grey hair between their elbows. The alternative was Miss White flanked by houndstooth check and black serge. He tried kneeling.

  'Just point and press!' advised Miss White. 'Instamatic! One of those words that turns out to be the same in Italian, I should think, let's hope so, anyway—'

  'Stand still,' pleaded Jeffreys, as the grey head bobbed in and out of the frame.

  'Right! Standing still! Fire away!'

  Jeffreys fired.

  'Marvellous! Nice to have you i
n it, too,' whispered Miss White, patting Carabiniere Bacci's arm. 'You must tell your friend,' she added loudly, 'that he should leam a bit of English before it's too late—he looks quite a bit older than you. You have to start young,' she admonished Inspector Jeffreys, raising her voice helpfully. 'I bet you're thirty, thirty-three? Eh?'

  'I'm thirty-two, Miss White.' The disorientated Inspector was trying so hard to sound English that his accent became quite distorted.

  'Too old,' declared Miss White. 'If you want to learn a foreign language you've got to start young, the younger the better. This young man in uniform has the right idea—look at me, can't speak a word—had everything translated but it's not the same thing, wish I could speak like a native—one thing is,' she added comfortingly to Inspector Jeffreys, 'your own langauge is a very beautiful one. Sign the book!'

  'Det. Inspector Ian Jeffreys, New Scotland Yard, London,' wrote Jeffreys, and Carabiniere Bacci left them.

  'Can't offer you any tea,' announced Miss White. 'Can't stand the stuff, but I can give you a glass of wine or grappa?'

  'I'd like a glass of wine.'

  They were settled in Miss White's private room which overlooked the courtyard, a tiny bedsitter which on other floors would probably be occupied by a servant.

  'Don't give myself much room, do I?' she asked, noticing the Inspector's discreet glances. 'But people come here to see the museum, not to see me—well, some do, to be honest, people who come back year after year, send me postcards—I make lots of friends really, trouble is, they only come to Florence on visits, always live so far away. But they don't forget, as you can see. Marvellous people.'

  The room was decked with over a hundred Christmas cards from people who didn't forget.

  'Mostly from America, England and Australia—but, here you are, look, one from Japan, look at that, snowman with little slanty eyes, lady who translated some of the poems into Japanese—sent me a copy, too, but I don't know which way up to hold it—here's your wine. In a tumbler, don't believe in those wretched little wine glasses. Well, fancy him being murdered, not surprised, of course, but fancy.'

  'Not surprised? Why not?'

  'Well, he was a dreadful man. Shouldn't speak ill, of course, but there it is.'

  'Dreadful in what way? Have his radio on a bit too loud or something like that?'

  Miss White looked at him sharply: 'If that's another joke like pretending to be an Italian, I might as well tell you I don't follow.'

  'No, I'm not joking—and I wasn't—'

  'Probably too old. Fashions change in humour like they do in everything else. A lot of young people these days can't see the humour in Shakespeare, well—all I can say is, I'm not surprised—I invited him up, you know, invite all my neighbours, Italians too, and they do come. Judge came up, marvellous man, very cultured, and the nice young woman from next door, they're away, she's American, she came, and invited me to a cocktail-party once, very nice young woman—too much paint on her face, I'd say, but it's probably the fashion where she comes from and then there's Signor Cesarini, well, he's been a few times, naturally, and the Cipriani, they're always busy, two children, lots of visitors and so on, but very nice people, very polite, showed an interest and no doubt they'll be popping up here one of these days—little girl came up once to tell me about the electricity going off, they learn English at school, you see, while they had some repairs done, very considerate of them, I thought, very.'

  'But Mr Langley-Smythe?' asked the Inspector persistently, reminding himself to pick her up on one of these remarks later. 'What about him?'

  'Wouldn't even open his door, just enough to poke his head out and scowl at me—and so polite on the stairs, butter wouldn't melt, playing the gracious English gentleman, but when I knocked on his door—you'd have thought I was trying to rob him! No interest at all in the English poets, not a scrap, even said so, virtually slammed the door in my face. An out-and-out philistine, and such dreadful manners.'

  'I see. But you said you weren't surprised to hear he'd been murdered; what I mean is, his lack of interest in your museum, his bad manners, that wouldn't make him likely to be murdered …'

  'But he was,' said Miss White incontrovertibly. 'So I'm right. You can't treat people like that. Anyway … I don't know if you like gossip—shouldn't speak ill of the dead so I oughtn't to tell you but I'll have to now I've said that, won't I? Well, I won't say much but I will say that if he'd changed his clothes as often as he changed his furniture it would have been a good thing. Now then, I've said it.'

  Jeffreys took a sip of wine while cautiously juggling the components of this remark into an order that would mean something. Then he remembered the fingerprints.

  'Change his furniture often, did he?'

  'Once a month, I should think, on average—but that suit he's had on since he came here five years ago, I'm sure of it, stains all down the front, sort of thing that gives the English abroad a bad name.'

  'Leaving aside his clothes for a minute,' pursued Jeffreys, 'it's odd that nobody else noticed this new furniture—as far as I know none of the other tenants mentioned his often bringing furniture in.'

  'Well, they wouldn't notice, would they, since he always did it at three in the morning? Lot of people do, of course, they have to because of the narrow streets, against the law to block them during the day, can't be helped, delivering central heating oil, for instance, that has to be done during the night, street cleaning has to be done during the night and that's noisy but there it is. What I say is, a man who changes his furniture every month is probably a crook. Have a drop more, there's plenty.'

  'Thanks. Now, wait a minute,' began Jeffreys cautiously. 'How do you know all this?'

  'Seen him.'

  'At three o'clock in the morning?'

  'That's right. I said so—no point in my telling you things if you don't listen—there's my doorbell. Help yourself to the wine; I'll show them in and be right back.'

  He heard her calling enthusiastic instructions down the housephone, heard the great doors boom closed below, then a rapid volley of excited remarks echoing in the large rooms, the swift padding of sports shoes coming back towards the bedsitter.

  'Now, where were we? Sorry to rush off in the middle of a sentence but these are my opening hours, four to seven, I say opening hours but I let anybody in at any time, nice to see them, only I say these are my opening hours, sounds more proper, more efficient, don't you think so? Hopelessly disorganized, if the truth were known, but people welcome any time, I say, now you'll have to tell me what you last asked me, I've forgotten. It's the wine, I go quite ga-ga.'

  'Oh dear …"

  'That's all right! I enjoy it! Going to have a drop more. Go on.'

  'You were telling me how you knew—'

  'Ah! That's right. Look out the window. Come on! Come and look out and what do you see? Light's going but you can still see. There!'

  The wintry afternoon light was already fading and the shutters were closed at most of the windows in the building, except one where a light was showing behind a muslin curtain.

  'Little girls' bedroom. See the young one bouncing about? Tomboy. Look down below.' They looked down on to the top of a palm tree, plants in huge terracotta pots, and, directly under the child's bedroom, in the gloom at ground-floor level, a rectangle of weak yellow light on the stone flags. Inside Langley-Smythe's flat they could see the Captain and the Chief Inspector deep in conversation. The Chief Inspector had his head down and was rubbing his hand across his face. They couldn't hear anything but presently the Captain moved in front of the Chief Inspector and stood looking out into the courtyard.

  'Notice he doesn't look up. You can see your friend now, behind. Such a good-looking boy, uniform suits him. Nobody thinks of looking up; people come to their windows and they look across or they look down, funny thing, often noticed it. But noise, now, that comes up, and the higher up you are over these courtyards the worse it is. Same with the narrow streets— I stayed in a pensione once when I fi
rst came out here, only came for a holiday and here I still am, dreadful for noise, it rebounds from wall to wall and gets louder as it gets higher—that's why anybody with any money lives on the first floor.'

  'Not the ground floor?'

  'No, no, no, nobody lives on the ground floor, that's for shops, garages, storage, not for living in—anyway, I'm a light sleeper so they always wake me. Got up once or twice when I've heard them banging and clattering and I've seen them at it as plain as I see those three down there now.' Both the Chief and the Captain were at the window now and the Chief was lighting his pipe.

  'And what did you see exactly?'

  'Furniture removal. Pictures and statues, too, and you won't believe me when I tell you that I could swear one of the men who comes is my greengrocer—I bet you think I'm dotty.'

  'I don't think you're dotty at all, Miss White,' said Jeffreys, who had thought so up to now but was rapidly revising his opinion.

  'Most people do think old women are dotty, English people, anyway, and I'm seventy-two, that's why I wear these shoes, keep me going, but I'm sure that man's my greengrocer, good mind to ask him. Couldn't, of course, can't speak a word but the shopkeepers round here know what I want better than I do myself. Excuse me.' She shot away suddenly, her accustomed ear having caught the sound of visitors ready to leave. Jeffreys stood still by the window, looking down thoughtfully. Despite himself he was intrigued by this whole story, and rather taken by Miss White.

  'Here we are! Back again. Have to keep popping in and out, can't help it during opening hours. Now, where were we up to this time, I suppose you know?'

  'You were telling me about your greengrocer.'

  'That's right, and another man, carrying stuff in and out, don't know the other one.'

  'Anyone else? Anyone who looked as though he might be organizing the thing with Langley-Smythe? Or just the removal men?'

  'Well …' For the first time Miss White hesitated.

  'Yes?'

  'Well, I don't know what to say. There is somebody else. There was I suppose I should say, but I never saw him properly, just once from behind …' She looked down at the rectangle of light, frowning.