A Rich Full Death (10 page)

‘In a church?’ I enquired. ‘Is it a fit place to speak of such things?’

Browning looked at me keenly.

‘Are you afraid we may shock God?’ he asked.

The church was empty but for an old woman praying before the main altar, the constant murmuring of whose weak voice echoed and reverberated monotonously around the nave.

‘You remember how puzzled we were by the locket,’ Browning began—we were seated side by side on a pew at the very back of the church. ‘Puzzled both by the initials engraved on it, and by the fact that according to her maid’s testimony Mrs Eakin kept it separately from her other jewellery—kept it hidden, in fact. In fact, of course, these two mysteries cancel each other out. The locket was kept hidden from her husband because it was a love-token, suitably inscribed, which had been given to her by a secret admirer.’

‘But who? We have already concluded that there is no one in Florence with those initials.’

Browning pointed to a mosaic in the floor at our feet.

There is no one in Florence with those initials either—nor ever was!’ he retorted.

I realised that my companion must be referring to the letters A.F.V.M., which formed part of the design.

‘Those are not initials—the letters stand for
ausculta fill verba magistri:
the opening words of the Rule of St Benedict. As you must know very well,’ I concluded lamely, realising that I had been showing off my knowledge to Robert Browning!

‘Exactly. And what of the locket? After all, for the lover to identify himself in an offering to a married woman would have been very indiscreet, would it not? It would have given her an excellent pretext, as a woman of good sense, for refusing to accept it. So I sat down last night and started rummaging through the classical mottoes I keep ranged in the most perfect disorder in this head of mine. Love was in the air, so I set down the “A” as standing for
amor
. After that it was simple, for the line is not at all recondite:
Omnia vincit Amor;
“Love conquers all”. Virgil continues:
et nos cedamus Amori:
“let us too yield to Love”. In other words, the locket was nothing but a
billet-doux
which was sent to Isabel Eakin, inviting her to yield to the irresistible power of love. As we know, she accepted.”

‘Accepted what?’ I felt obliged to ask. The locket, or the proposal?’

Robert Browning looked me steadily in the eye.

‘Do you honestly believe it was in Mrs Eakin’s power to accept one and not the other?’

Rather than answer this, I remarked that I failed to see how this insight could help us, since we still had no idea who had sent Isabel the locket.

Browning seemed surprised that I had not yet understood.

‘It was Cecil DeVere, of course.’

‘DeVere!’ I cried.

Italians are extremely—some might say excessively—tolerant of noise in their churches, but this last exclamation of mine was so explosive that the old woman at the front turned round and gave us a distinctly un-Christian look. We huddled down in our places on the bare wooden pews, and Browning went on in a whisper.

‘Strangely enough, it was your question last night, which left me at such a loss, that set my mind working in the right direction. Strange, the tricks the mind plays on us! You very reasonably asked why DeVere’s, of all names, should have popped into my head. Well now, let us try a little experiment. Do you say the very first word that comes into your head when I speak—without a moment’s reflection, mind! Ready? Locket.’

‘Gold,’ I replied at once.

‘Knife.’

‘Cut.’

‘Water.’

‘Well.’

‘Now then, why do you think just those words, out of all the thousands in the language, were the first to come to your mind?’

‘There is no mystery about it. Evidently there is a real connection between the two ideas for which they stand. The locket we have just been speaking of is made of gold, a knife is used to cut, water comes from a well.’

‘Precisely. And in the same way, when I mentioned DeVere’s name after receiving a summons to the villa where Mrs Eakin lived, it was because there was a real connection between these two ideas—even though to the best of my belief I was totally ignorant of it. But then, by dint of turning it over in my mind, I remembered that Mr Lytton—a friend of mine—had mentioned in my hearing one evening not long ago, that the lovely young Mrs Eakin was rumoured to have found a romantic distraction to palliate the rigours of her six-month term in the cold old villa which her even colder and older husband had insisted on renting for her. One of the other men present—the company was exclusively male, naturally—chaffed him, saying that he believed that the Lothario in question was none other than Lytton himself. Bob strenuously denied this, and eventually DeVere’s name was mentioned—I forget by whom. And that was that. I thought no more about it—I knew neither of the parties concerned, after all. But clearly the connection between DeVere and Mrs Eakin was lodged somewhere in my brain, and on Sunday night it emerged pat, without my even recognising the source.’

Browning had mentioned the strange tricks the mind plays, and it was a further testament to this truth that my thoughts at this juncture were not so much of the shocking and repugnant information which my companion was thus communicating to me in hushed whispers, as the fact that we were there at all, Robert Browning and I, calmly discussing the adulterous loves of Isabel—our Isabel, Prescott!—beneath the chilly echoing vault of the ill-named church of the Holy Felicity.

I had no time to muse, however, for Browning was already plunging relentlessly on. While I lagged behind, cavilling over details, he had got the entire wilderness already mapped out and opened up, and was all set to start trading. In a word, he believed that Cecil DeVere had murdered Isabel and then taken his own life!

The discovery of Isabel’s locket at DeVere’s apartment, Browning pointed out, was already very strong evidence of his guilt—for who but her assassin could have been in possession of it? As for the scrap of paper which he had removed, this clinched the matter.

‘As we know, the knife with Eakin’s name was deliberately placed at the villa by the murderer in an attempt to incriminate him. Now you will have remarked, I’m sure, that even educated Italians find foreign names almost impossible to spell correctly. But since this was supposed to be Eakin’s own knife, the slightest mistake would of course have given the game away. The existence of this piece of paper’—he produced it from his pocket and smoothed out the creases on his knee—’might therefore have been logically inferred. It is of course the model which was left for the engraver to copy. Its preservation is no doubt due to characteristic Florentine parsimony: the engraver reused the paper to wrap up the knife when his work was completed and DeVere came to collect it.’

‘Admirable! But why was the paper displayed so prominently upon the table? And another thing—why did you take it before the police returned?’

‘I’ll answer both those questions with one other one: who or what caused DeVere’s death? And I fancy the answer, my dear Booth, is that you did!’

I was too amazed by this to attempt any reply whatsoever.

‘You are not quite as good at concealing the truth as you may think, I fear,’ Mr Browning went on after a moment, with a slight smile. ‘When you met DeVere yesterday, I am sure you were convinced that you had completely concealed all our suspicions about the manner of Mrs Eakin’s death. But, as blindness sharpens a man’s hearing, so guilt hones the moral sensibilities to a fine edge. I’m certain that DeVere observed some alteration in your manner, some slight hesitation, or unwonted reticence. And where another man might have thought nothing of it, he—knowing himself a murderer—was at once beset with horrible doubts. Did everyone believe that Isabel Eakin took her own life, as he wished them to? Or were some of us just
pretending
to believe, the better to take him unawares? These questions urgently demanded answers, but how was he to answer them without giving himself away?

‘And so, to probe these fearful suspicions of his, DeVere invented the story of having seen someone prowling about in the garden. If you were convinced that Mrs Eakin’s death was a clear case of tragic self-destruction, you would have no interest in tales of an interloper having been seen in the garden some eighteen hours later: some busybody satisfying his morbid curiosity, you would think, and nothing more. But suppose that on the contrary you knew, or at least suspected, that Isabel Eakin had been foully murdered—then the story would become so extremely interesting that you must have been a monster of deviousness not to show it! I am certain you
did
show it, and that DeVere read the truth.

‘Consider his position now. Already stricken by guilt and remorse, no doubt, he learns that it is not merely the pangs of conscience which he has to fear, but also the rigours of the law. His crime has been discovered, and it is plainly but a matter of time—and not very much time, at that—before it is known that Mrs Eakin was killed by a secret lover with whom she had an assignation that afternoon, whom she admitted through the garden gate so that he would not be observed—hence her nervousness when Isa Blagden unexpectedly called—and who removed from her body the locket he had given her, lest its presence reveal that she was expecting him at the hour of her death.

‘In short, it is but a matter of time before the accusing finger points at
him
—a man whose illicit relations with the victim are already a matter for rumour and speculation. In a flash he seems to see the inevitable arrest, the trial, the shame and scandal, his family’s name besmirched for ever! And then, like a blessing, he spies his way clear out of it all, and ends his wretched life — leaving those two pieces of evidence on the table to reveal, to those who could read their cipher, the reasons for his action.

‘As for why I removed the paper with Eakin’s name, that was a quite possibly unnecessary precaution on my part. I doubt very much if the police would have made anything of it—they do not know about the knife, after all. But it seemed as well to be sure that DeVere’s good work would not be undone. The locket is of no importance. On the contrary—they will no doubt assume that some
belle dame sans merci
returned it to DeVere, and that this rejection prompted his tragic plunge into the Arno. Or they will ignore it totally and blame it all on DeVere’s tardiness in having his balcony railing repaired. All I know is that they will never suspect the truth now, and that justice is best served so.’

Such was the eloquent manner in which Mr Browning so satisfactorily explained all the many mysteries which have been perplexing us. I complimented him profusely on his achievement, and then turned the subject to his poetry, mentioning the volume of his which I had purchased, and my high opinion of his work.

Unfortunately we were interrupted at this moment by a party of Americans—some resident, some in transit—among whom were several friends of mine. They were bound for the studio of Mr Powers, and had stopped in to admire the astonishing Entombment of Christ by Pontormo which lurks, like some fierce caged animal, behind the railing of a nearby chapel.

I merely nodded and looked away, for I sorely wished to prolong my conversation with Mr Browning. But my friends insisted on coming to speak to me, and thus introductions had to be effected. When one of the visiting ladies discovered that my companion was none other than
the
Mr Browning, the real live husband of her favourite poetess, there was no containing her effusions—indeed, it was only with some difficulty, and a deal of tact, that Browning was able to make her comprehend that the Casa Guidi was not, like the Capponi Chapel, a shrine which could be viewed by tipping the custodian the appropriate sum. And thus our colloquy broke up amid scenes of confusion and near-farce.

As far as these grim events are concerned, there is thankfully little more to add. Despite Browning’s idea about the locket suggesting a romantic suicide, DeVere’s death—possibly as the result of discreet pressure from the British authorities—has been recorded as due to misadventure. He is to be buried tomorrow. Joseph Eakin has already wound up his affairs here and taken passage from Leghorn to Genoa, whence he continues to New York. Isabel’s remains travel with him, and will be interred, I understand, in beautiful Mount Auburn cemetery. The public accounts of her death make no mention of self-violence, and I understand that the Allen family is doing its utmost to sustain the fiction that Isabel was one of the many victims of the influenza epidemic which has swept Italy this winter. The villa stands empty once more, awaiting the arrival of the next wealthy foreigner.

As for Browning’s explanation of the mystery, while its logic seems irresistible in its broad outlines, I am unable—or at least do not wish—to believe that it was correct in every detail. In particular, I refuse to accept his implication that Isabel’s behaviour towards Cecil DeVere was anything other than unfailingly correct. What
his
may have been towards her is of course quite another matter. The more I think of it, the more that languid Britisher seems to me to have had all the makings of a smooth cunning scoundrel of the worst variety. I can well imagine such a villain unscrupulously taking advantage of the artless and unsophisticated nature of a girl like Isabel, whose candid New England heart had no notion of the devious twists of which the European mind is capable.