Michael Dibdin: A Rich Full Death

The weather at this time of the year is notoriously capricious, and by the time I arrived back in Florence early this afternoon the wind was rising and the sky streaky with clouds. As I drove at a snail’s pace through the town, where twice as many carriages as in Boston are crammed into streets that are less than half the size, I heard myself hailed, looked around, and saw none other than the man who had formed a shadowy third with Browning and me the night before-Cecil DeVere, instantly recognisable amid the mob of slouch-hatted locals with cloaks draped operatically over their shoulders.

He was going home, and although it was out of my way I offered him a lift, which he was glad to accept. As we drove along we talked about poor Isabel’s death, and I was surprised to discover that this event seemed to have hit DeVere very hard — he spoke of it in a manner unusually agitated for one normally so suave, and then abruptly changed the subject, as though the matter was too painful, and told me a very interesting story.

It seemed that the previous morning he had driven up to the villa at Bellosguardo to offer his condolences to Mr Eakin. As the latter had not yet returned from Siena, DeVere left his card and was leaving, when he noticed someone prowling about the garden in a suspicious skulking manner at the very spot where Isabel’s body had been found!

DeVere promptly walked out and around the side of the villa to investigate. When he reached the garden, however, the mysterious figure had disappeared, despite the fact that the only two other ways out-the gate at the end of the garden, and the large glass doors leading into the villa-both proved to be locked.

I was careful not to betray to DeVere my extreme interest in this incident, and changed the subject in my turn, asking my passenger when he had last seen Mr and Mrs Browning. He appeared utterly bewildered by my remark.

‘The Brownings?’ DeVere replied. ‘Why, I hardly know them-and don’t really care to know them better. All Literature and Liberalism, from what I hear, and each in rather more substantial quantity than appeals to me, to be perfectly honest.’

All this, as you may imagine, has done nothing to diminish my impatience to see Mr Browning again-I expect him at any moment.

But what do you make of it all? Could Isabel’s death really have been murder, as Mr Browning claims? Or is there some detail we have overlooked, or some other way of arranging the known facts which would make matters look quite different? The police should surely be trusted in these affairs, and they apparently see no evidence of foul play.

And supposing they are wrong, whom are we to suspect now that Joseph Eakin’s innocence is proven? Where can we begin to look? What about the mysterious woman who called at the villa shortly before Isabel’s death? But could a woman have done such a deed?

And what of DeVere’s name, which keeps cropping up in this affair with the most inexplicable frequency? Yes-might not the solution to our problems lie in that direction?

The bell! It is he!

Ever yrs affectionately,

Robert N. Booth

Friday 10th

Dear Prescott,

It is over! Thank God, we have come out of it safely, and if so terrible an affair can be said to have ended well, then this has. This has ended, and another has begun-one as full of light as that was of darkness, as rich in promise and the hope of worthy achievement as that was heavy with terror and despair and sinful sordid squalor. You may imagine which I had rather make my theme-but the bad news must be told first, for as I close that door the other opens. But guard this letter well, Prescott! It is intended for no eyes but yours, for it contains secrets which must be buried with those they concern, as you will appreciate once you have read it.

I ended my last letter just as Robert Browning called on me following my return from Siena. Subsequent events have necessarily coloured my view of much of what was said at that meeting, but nothing can dim or diminish the memory of my feelings when at four o’clock precisely my door-bell mixed its humble strains with the majestic chimes of Santa Maria Novella and-was it real? was I dreaming? No! — there was Mr Robert Browning, in person, walking in at my door, standing on my carpet, looking down from my windows and commenting on the scene in the square below! I could hardly believe my eyes.

Sitting, it must be said, looking remarkably subdued; and considerably readier to comment on the scene in the piazza, where the little steam-tram was hissing and clanging off on its way to Prato, than to tell me what had happened. That something had happened became ever more painfully apparent, in direct proportion to Browning’s evident unwillingness to broach the subject.

Meanwhile I filled the gaping silence by describing my expedition to Siena, reporting my conversations with Doctor McPherson and the fragile aunt’s gigolo, and concluding with a statement to the effect that Mr Joseph Eakin’s innocence had apparently been established beyond any doubt.

At this, without the slightest warning, Mr Browning threw his head back and broke into deafening peals of laughter, which then abruptly subsided again, leaving for all trace the smallest of ironical smiles-like the gentle swell of the ocean when the storm has blown over.

‘I don’t need you to tell me that, Mr Booth,’ he said quietly. ‘No, no-I found that out the hard way!’

And at length the whole story emerged.

That day-we are speaking of last Monday, following our conversation at Doney’s and my departure to Siena-had initially seemed auspicious for Mr Browning. First of all, a stroke of fortune had enabled him to succeed where the police remained baffled, and identify the woman who had called on Isabel shortly before her death-or rather, she had identified herself, for it was none other than Miss Isa Blagden, the doyenne and mainstay of our little community here, and one of the Brownings’ closest friends.

She lives in a villa on Bellosguardo hill not far from the one the Eakins’ were renting, and had in a very short time become intimate with Isabel, partly perhaps by the accident of sharing the same Christian name (as do Mr Browning and I, it just occurs to me; may that augur well!). She had therefore hastened to share with the Brownings her horror at the tragedy which has shocked us all so deeply, and communicate to them the particularly ghastly thrill with which she had learned that she had been the last person to see poor Isabel alive.

‘She had called at the villa,’ Browning explained, ‘as dearest Isa always does everything-on a sheer wild whim of kindness, and with as little thought of formality as the bird that comes to perch on your window-sill-and found Mrs Eakin all alone in the house. Instead of relishing the prospect of company, however, as one might have expected, her hostess seemed oddly distraite and ill at ease-indeed I gathered that her reception had been what a nature less sweet than Isa’s might have simply called rude. After twenty minutes of desultory and inconsequential chat, therefore, Isa left Mrs Eakin to the solitude which she seemed so anxious to resume.

‘Nothing they said appears to shed any light whatever on what happened so soon afterwards-but one very important point did nevertheless emerge. Isa repeated several times that Mrs Eakin appeared to be very nervous, starting and looking out of the window at every sound. One way in which this nervousness apparently betrayed itself was by her continual fingering of a gold locket she was wearing.’

The significance of this point can hardly be overstated, for when Isabel’s body was laid out on the table in the kitchen no such locket had been visible.