A Rich Full Death (3 page)

Literally open-mouthed I watched Browning overcome the cabbie’s scruples by liberal recourse to the persuasive powers of coin of the realm. He then took a very perfunctory leave of me, and mounted, shooing the urchin who had delivered the message in ahead of him. As soon as I had recovered my wits I ran down the street to the cab-rank and engaged the solitary vehicle I found standing there, and a few minutes later was also on my way towards the remote villa on Bellosguardo hill.

It was not until we passed through the Roman Gate and outside the protecting circlet of the walls that I realised how violent the wind had become. It was a northerly—the dreaded
tramontana
which sweeps down on Italy like the barbarian hordes of old, and against which poor Florence’s only defence is that massive and high circuit of stone designed to keep out the French, Germans, Milanese, and all the other bloodthirsty bands which once roamed this land, but whose only function nowadays is as a wind-break. Once we got outside the blast hurled itself at the cab like an animate and malignant force, pawing the vehicle about like a cat toying with a mortally-wounded mouse. The clouds had all been stripped from the sky, and the light of the full moon revealed the landscape of cypresses and olives in varying intensities of luminous grey.

As the cab crawled up the steep hillside I tried to explain to my satisfaction just what Cecil DeVere could be doing summoning Robert Browning to a rendezvous at the Eakins’ villa at eight o’clock on a Sunday night. DeVere, I should explain, is a young Englishman of the languid aristocratic type, who is nominally Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul at Spezia, a small port on the Tuscan coast. This post is in fact a perfect sinecure, and the fortunate DeVere visits the town only in those summer months when the heat drives everyone out of Florence. For the remainder of the year he lives here in the most complete idleness, devoting his energies to his wardrobe, his collection of ancient coins and medallions, and the social round of receptions, balls and afternoon drives in the Cascine gardens. He is a pleasant enough fellow, whose extensive range of contacts I found more useful during my early years here than I do now that I have established myself. None of which went any way at all towards explaining the mystery.

If the wind had seemed strong on the slopes of the hill, the effect at the top, more than two hundred feet above the river valley, was truly indescribable. More than once I feared that the cab would be overturned, and in fact when we reached the gates of the villa—which stood wide open—the driver roundly refused to go any further. Rather than waste precious time arguing I alighted and proceeded on foot.

The villa which Joseph Eakin has made his this winter, for the sum of one hundred dollars a month, is the largest and finest of all those which stand on the celebrated hill of Bellosguardo. It is in the classic Tuscan style, being modelled on the huge Medici villa at Artimino—a plain but elegantly-proportioned block of pale yellow rendered stone, with a superb swirl of steps up from the carriage sweep to the
piano nobile
, and rooms high and spacious within, set in several acres of walled park. The formal gardens at the rear of the house culminate in the famous belvedere, from which Florence has been indifferently painted so many times.

As there was no sign of life in the keeper’s lodge I walked, or rather staggered, up the driveway into the teeth of that appalling wind. I just had time to observe that there were lights on the first floor of the house, and that the four-wheeler I had seen Browning hire was standing in the sweep, when another carriage came dashing up the drive. I stepped hastily into the shadows of the undergrowth, from which point of vantage I watched the conveyance draw up and four men emerge. Two of them I knew by their uniform to be constables of the Grand Duke’s police force, while a third elderly man I recognised as the gatekeeper; the remaining individual, a slight well-dressed gentleman, I could not identify. All four disappeared into the villa through the low door beneath the sweeping double stairway, which gives access to the servants’ quarters on the ground floor.

I was now in something of a quandary, since my position was irregular, to say the least. I was not concerned about Mr Eakin’s wrath, for I had established the friendliest of relations with him and Isabel, and had been a frequent visitor at the villa, where a distinctly transatlantic freedom and ease prevails. But it was now clear that the police were involved, and I had no wish to become embroiled with them until I had a clearer idea of what was afoot. I therefore decided to circle around the side of the villa to the gardens I have already spoken of, and try to see how matters stood before declaring my own presence.

Until now I had been in the lee of the house, and therefore to some extent sheltered, although such a wind has a way of finding you out wherever you are. But the garden faces north, towards the Apennines, and here the thing itself raged—a darkness whole, mobile and massive as a stormy ocean. I had only the most general impression of shapes and shades, of the outlines of the garden I knew so well, which seemed to have been shuffled like a pack of playing cards. The place was full of surprises: everything seemed larger or smaller, nearer or more distant, than I expected it to be. I pressed forward, however, towards one shape less dark than the rest, more constant, detaching itself from the blurry confusion of background forms with growing insistence; lighter and more agitated than the rest, swinging to and fro—long, luminous, white.

Steel yourself for a shock, my dear fellow, for it was poor Isabel I saw there, hanging by her neck from a tree!

The next instant my attention was seized by something I caught sight of moving on the ground beneath—something low, dark and bulky. At first I thought it was some animal—a dog, or a wild boar—and it was with a distinct thrill that I realised a moment later that the form was human, and then recognised Mr Browning!

His behaviour was bizarre, to say the least. Seemingly oblivious of the terrific figure which the wind tugged and buffeted this way and that in the luminous darkness above his head, he had crouched down and was devoting all his attention to a wrought-iron garden table which stood close by. So far as I could tell from my position some ten feet off, this item appeared to be as devoid of interest as other examples of its very common type; but there was Mr Browning, in the middle of a howling gale, that pathetic corpse swaying inches above his head, examining the claw-shaped feet of the thing with a degree of concentration worthy of an antiquary inspecting the latest Etruscan relic to come to light.

The next moment, to my utter astonishment, he began poking his fingers into the soil, and then holding them up in the moonlight to study the effect!

Just then my attention was attracted by a movement to my left, towards the house, and I quickly took cover as the two policemen who had arrived in the carriage walked towards us. They remained quite unaware of my presence, although they passed by no more than a few feet away, and I was able to watch them go up to Mr Browning, tap him on the shoulder, and direct him with gestures to return to the villa—any attempt at speech was quite out of the question in that wind. The two then set about freeing the tree of its awful burden.

It was evident that any future developments would take place at the house rather than in the garden, so I hastily made my way back around the side of the villa to the front, through the low door beneath the steps and into a warren of passages and corridors which eventually led me to the cavernous kitchens. Here I found a little group consisting of the gate-keeper, Isabel’s maid, and the fourth man I had seen arrive in the carriage, who now introduced himself as Commissioner of Police Antonio Talenti.

‘You are Signor Eakin?’ he enquired.

I hastened to disabuse him.

‘And what are you doing here?’ demanded the official, once I had identified myself.

I explained that I had called in hopes of seeing Mr or Mrs Eakin, who were old friends of mine—this story would not have borne much scrutiny, but as luck would have it the door flew open at that very moment, admitting the two policemen carrying the body, and the anomalies of my presence were forgotten.

The corpse was incongruously deposited on the nearest table, which happened to be one of the marble-topped kind used for rolling out noodles; water dripped monotonously from the sodden garments to the stone floor.

Poor Isabel! I said just now that she was one who seemed to have the gift of effortlessly shrugging off the droop and pall of reality—yet here she was, unceremoniously laid out, a nightmare vision; the face horribly discoloured, the eyes and tongue protruding. It was an obscenely compelling spectacle: there was no looking at it, and no looking away. It had to be covered, and as there was nothing suitable to hand Beatrice was sent to search out a sheet.

Meanwhile the door to the garden—at which the wind was heaving to get in—flew open once more, and Mr Browning appeared. He barely glanced at us—did not see me, I am sure. He had eyes for only one thing: Isabel’s corpse.

The police official, with an ironical display of politeness which was not lost on his subordinates, begged this newcomer to have the goodness to identify himself. In view of the tyrannical way the authorities here comport themselves, he was treating Browning with consideration. I was therefore the more impressed with the insolence Mr Browning showed in ignoring the fellow, as if utterly unaware of his existence. He crossed to the table where the corpse lay, and examined with admirable coolness the loop of rope embedded in the bare white flesh of the neck, and then each of the poor dead white hands in turn.

The constables were moving to recall Browning to the realities of the situation, when Beatrice returned and quite effectively did so by covering the piteous figure with the sheet she had procured. Deprived of the sole object of his attention, Mr Browning looked around like one emerging from a spiritualist trance.

‘Mr Booth! Are you here too?’ he murmured vaguely.

‘Aha! So you two know each other, eh?’ the police official demanded triumphantly, as if this fact were a crime. It was no doubt a justifiable impatience with the fellow’s overbearing manner which made Browning reply, ‘Certainly we do; and what of it?’—although of course the extent to which we ‘knew’ each other at this time was fairly limited. Nevertheless it was quite a feather in my cap to hear Mr Robert Browning roundly declare me to be his companion in this unequivocal manner!

Ignoring the question, Talenti seated himself at the head of a long wooden table in the centre of the room. His constables stood guard at either side, and the rest of us remained grouped uneasily together, like schoolboys before the master. And so the interrogation began.

The first point to be established related to the whereabouts of Mr Joseph Eakin: he had left Florence that morning to visit an elderly aunt of his who lives in Siena, and was not expected to return until the following day. That this was in no way remarkable, I was able to confirm from my own knowledge. The aunt suffers from some suitably genteel ailment, and—there being some question of an inheritance—Joseph Eakin has gone fortnightly to commiserate with her throughout his stay here.

In the absence of her husband Mrs Eakin had no plans either to entertain or be entertained, and she had accordingly dismissed all the servants except her own maid until the following morning. Beatrice had been retained to dress her mistress and to prepare a light luncheon, after which she had been given the rest of the day off, with instructions to return about supper time.

From that moment on, it at first appeared, Isabel had been alone in the villa. Shortly afterwards, however, a very important clue emerged in the testimony of the gate-keeper, who deposed that an unknown woman had called at the villa at about four o’clock, leaving about twenty minutes later—and despite the strenuous cross-questioning of the police official, he would in no way be shaken from this testimony. He had opened the gates to let her in, he said, and closed them again after her departure. There had been no other visitors.

This, therefore, brought us to twenty past four or thereabouts. Commissioner Talenti had astutely remarked that the victim’s clothing was extremely damp. As I have already observed, there had been but one fall of rain all day, as brief as it was intense, and this was over by five o’clock. Before that the weather was unnaturally close and still for the time of year, afterwards it grew increasingly windy, but with no further precipitation. It therefore seems clear that Isabel could not have died later than five o’clock—a mere forty minutes after her mysterious visitor left.

The rest is quickly told. Returning at half past seven, Beatrice found the house deserted and the lamps guttering in the wind blowing in through the large glass doors which lay open on to the steps leading to the garden. As she went to close them, the girl caught sight of a strange white form apparently hovering several feet above the ground in the moonlit garden. As always with old houses, there are rumours that the villa is haunted—in this case by a beauteous maiden murdered long ago by a jealous lover, or some such nonsense. Directly the maid caught sight of the white shape glimmering in the garden she naturally assumed it to be the apparition, and fled to the gate-keeper’s lodge. The old man, a sturdy old Tuscan peasant who would bargain with the devil himself, returned alone to investigate, discovered Isabel’s body hanging from the tree, and went to fetch the authorities.