A Rich Full Death (31 page)
Authors: Michael Dibdin
Your name was familiar to me from my conversations with Mr Booth. He was extremely proud of his friendship with you, and displayed to me on more than one occasion his signed copy of your work on Theoretical and Practical Ethics. I am conscious that I have the advantage of you here, for there is no reason to suppose that Mr Booth has ever mentioned my name in his letters. Nor have I any wish to bring myself to your attention now; if I now take the liberty of doing so, it is solely in order to explain why it has fallen to my lot to break these painful tidings to you.
As you must know, Mr Booth’s health had been steadily deteriorating for some considerable time; indeed, the pulmonary consumption from which he suffered was, I understand, diagnosed before he left America. While the progress of the disease was to some extent retarded, and its effects mitigated, by the favourable climate here, the outcome was never in the slightest doubt
Mr Booth and I had been neighbours for several years, but lacking an occasion to speak, we remained strangers until my cat found her way into Mr Booth’s suite on the floor below mine one day last year. This trivial event gave rise to an acquaintance which gradually ripened into something like friendship as we came to know each other better—and as Mr Booth’s failing strength caused him to depend more and more upon my assistance.
Although it was only in the last few months that he became completely bed-ridden, he scarcely ever went out, and never received company, even during the period when this remained a possibility for him, preferring to immerse himself in his beloved books. I doubt whether he knew half a dozen people here, all told. It must be said, indeed, with all due respect, that he could be a difficult man. I do not believe that I am abnormally sensitive, but on more than one occasion I have been sorely tempted to break off our relations, so deliberately offensive and wounding have I felt his behaviour to be. This is the more puzzling, in that he was extremely touchy and proud himself. If in the end I always relented, it was simply because I could not bear the thought of him sitting all alone downstairs, knowing he was dying.
It often happens that chronic maladies appear to take a turn for the better shortly before they run their course; such was the case with Mr Booth’s. This illusory improvement coincided with, and may even have been occasioned by, the arrival in Florence of Mr Joseph Eakin, the Philadelphia steel magnate. He and his wife were very much the talk of the town last season, and their comings and goings were reported in all the prints. Very much to my surprise, Mr Booth intimated that he knew one or both of these persons, whose social orbit nevertheless appeared so very different from his own. When I enquired why in that case he had not been to call on them, he replied that he would do so directly his health had improved further—for he still cherished hopes of a complete recovery.
But that day unfortunately never arrived. The young Mrs Eakin succumbed to a fever, and shortly afterwards Mr Booth’s own health went into a rapid and irreversible decline, and from that moment on he was confined entirely to his room. An Italian girl was hired to nurse him, while I myself called upon him several times each day.
Late last night I heard him coughing and moaning aloud in a way that greatly distressed me; I therefore dressed and went to see if I could assist in any way. I will always be glad that I did, for I found that the nurse who should have been with him was unaccountably absent, and the bed was in a frightful state, pulled about by poor Booth’s tormented writhings, the sheets and pillows stained with blood he had brought up in his struggle to breathe.
I stayed with him until the fit passed, and then did my best to make him comfortable. But as I was about to retire, his hand suddenly shot out of the covers and gripped my arm, and with a cry of terror he begged me not to go. I therefore fetched a chair, and sat down by the bed to keep him company.
After a time his hand grasped my arm again, but gently this time; pulling me towards him. When I was quite close, he whispered, ‘I
have
been happy!’ The manner in which he said this was extremely singular: as though it formed part of a conversation in the course of which someone had ventured to affirm the contrary.
I hastened to assure him that I believed what he had said. He did not seem to hear me, however, only repeating, in the same way, ‘I
have
been happy! I
have!’
He died almost immediately afterwards.
I have the honour, Sir, to remain, Most respectfully yours
Edward Hackwood
FIRST VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD EDITION, JULY
1999
Copyright © 1986 by Michael Dibdin
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc, New York.
Vintage Books, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dibdin, Michael
A rich, full death / Michael Dibdin.
p. cm.—(Vintage crime/Black Lizard)
eISBN: 978-0-307-55943-2
I. Title. II. Series.
PR6054.I26R53 1999
823’.914—dc21
98-53060
CIP
Author photograph ©Isolde Ohlbaum
v3.0
Table of Contents
BOOK ONE Up at a Villa—Down in the City
Table of Contents
BOOK ONE Up at a Villa—Down in the City
Table of Contents