Death of an Englishman (7 page)

'I'd prefer my pipe,' said the Chief, 'if it doesn't bother anybody …'

'Please. Do make yourselves quite comfortable.' He looked down at the file while the Chief was lighting his pipe. They could hear, beneath the tall windows, cars streaming past in the damp, foggy street, sounding their horns impatiently at the frequent delays. Two cars left the building with their sirens going.

'Well,' began the Chief Inspector, 'we've been having a chat with the vicar and we've been to the English library but I'm afraid we haven't got much to tell you other than that Mr Langley-Smythe read science fiction and doesn't, as far as we can gather—I should say didn't—have any friends. I hope you've had a more profitable morning than we have.'

'A number of things have come to light,' said the Captain carefully. 'But perhaps we should begin by looking at Professor Forli's autopsy report. The weapon used, as I think I told you, was a 6.35. The bullet pierced the left ventricle and there was very little loss of blood, death being virtually instantaneous. Professor Forli puts the time of death at approximately three a.m. and this is confirmed by a witness, a child living in the building who was disturbed by a loud bang at a quarter to three. No one else heard anything, There was quite a large amount of alcohol in the bloodstream and the stomach contained whisky but Mr Langley-Smythe seems to have been a steady consumer of alcohol, according to the state of his liver; we have no reason to believe that he was intoxicated, that is, in any way incapacitated by alcohol. His health was otherwise fairly good for a man of sixty.'

'Excuse me …'

'Certainly?'

'You've established the time of death but I presume his meal, his evening meal, would have been completely digested by then. Does that mean we don't know where he ate or who with?'

'We do, as a matter of fact. My men questioned restaurant owners in the quarter, starting from the ones nearest his home. They made a false start, unfortunately, by trying only those restaurants which they thought a well-to-do foreigner might patronize … '

'And … ?'

'They drew a blank. No one knew him. But as there was very little food in the house, and only coffee cups in the sink, it seemed certain that he ate out. They began trying the cheaper places. Apparently, he dined every night at about eight-thirty in a small place in a side street off Via Maggio, known as the
Casalinga,
the sort of place patronized by local workmen and artisans during the day and by students in the evenings. It's possible to eat a very substantial meal there for about four thousand lire. Langley-Smythe had the same table for one in a corner every night, usually eating just one course, occasionally two. He drank quite a bit of wine.'

'Always alone?'

'Always. Including, of course, the night he was killed. Paolo, the owner's eldest son, served him. He ate two courses: roast beef with salad followed by a crème caramel. He drank most of a litre of red. He was alone at his usual table and was reading an English newspaper throughout the meal …'

They remembered the irate old man in the library: 'He used to steal the newspaper, walk out with it in his overcoat pocket.'

'Doesn't seem to have liked spending money,' murmured the Chief Inspector.

'A foible perhaps,' returned the Captain politely. 'It often happens … people who live alone … it need not necessarily have a bearing on the case but we need to build up a picture of his life and habits. What we do need to know, more than anything, is what contact he had with people other than his lawyer.'

'He doesn't seem to have had any.'

'But he had. A number of them. The people whose fingerprints were found in the flat. There is also the question of the money, which, you will remember, was in various currencies and which didn't pass through any bank in Florence—at least, not in his own name. Let's consider the fingerprints first.' He extracted the report from the file. 'The problem with these prints is that, according to his neighbours, Mr Langley-Smythe was never known to have a visitor, and yet we found prints on all his furniture and his pictures—prints of seven different people, altogether. Now, he may have had one visitor without anyone noticing, but not seven, I don't think. There were other prints, too—older, unidentifiable ones.'

'What you're saying is that these are not prints of someone who broke in … You've checked, anyway?'

'With Records, naturally. Only one person has been identified. A local greengrocer by the name of Mazzocchio. He has a van and does occasional small removal jobs on the side. One conviction for receiving, small stuff.'

'In that case,' said the Chief Inspector, relaxing a little, 'it's quite possible that Mr Langley-Smythe had just bought some furniture and this chap Maz —Maz … whatever you call him delivered it?'

'Quite possible.'

'In which case there ought to be at least some furniture which has only his own prints, am I right?'

'Quite so. His desk and the two leather chairs with it, and an armchair—and the other rooms, too, of course; the different prints were found only in the living-room.'

'So Mr Langley-Smythe treated himself to some new furniture. We could be wasting time on this.' The Chief spoke as if to one of his Inspectors, forgetting that he wasn't in charge of the case.

'We could.' The Captain was unperturbed. 'But I don't think so …' Sooner or later, he would have to be told about the bust. Perhaps the simplest way was to let him see it for himself. 'We're about to revisit the house —I wonder if you would care to accompany us? As a matter of fact, there's an English lady on the top floor, a Miss White, who speaks no Italian. She would, I'm sure, respond better to you than to us, if you would care to … ?'

'Oh yes, certainly. We'll handle that for you.'

'Thank you. We have spoken to her already, of course, yesterday, but only very briefly … since we were expecting your arrival … I hope I wasn't being presumptuous … ?'

'Not at all, not at all.' The Chief was delighted. 'As I've said, we're not to be considered to be here in any official capacity but any help we can give …'

'You're very kind.'

Carabiniere Bacci closed his brown eyes in a thankful prayer for a second after translating this. The Captain was ringing for his Brigadier. 'I've ordered lunch in the Officers'Club.' As the Brigadier entered he rose, and then became aware, without turning, that Carabiniere Bacci was standing to attention behind him, rigid with expectation and apprehension. 'If you gentlemen have no objection,' he added, as the Brigadier took the file and saluted, 'Carabiniere Bacci will join us, as interpreter.'

And once again Carabiniere Bacci was convinced that the young Englishman,who watched the proceedings with an ironic smile and never spoke, had winked.

CHAPTER 2

Two squad cars took them to Via Maggio after lunch; one containing the Captain and a rather mellowed Chief Inspector, his expression bland, his cheeks a little pink after a plentiful helping from a whole roast loin of pork, stuffed with sage and rosemary, and a dish of potato puree and another of green salad, followed by
Gorgonzola
dolce
and a
Chianti Riserva
that was very much to his liking. The car behind carried a brigadier next to the driver, to relieve the guard on the flat, and Inspector Jeffreys next to Carabiniere Bacci in the back. It was the first chance these two had had to talk without their bosses, and Carabiniere Bacci was rather taken aback by the sudden liveliness of this hitherto silent young man. A grey drizzle was falling into the river when they crossed the bridge and drew up at the traffic lights on the other side.

'Like England, this weather, but not as cold,' offered Jeffreys.

'Yes. The rainy season. It starts early in November and goes on until the
tramontana
comes.'

'The … ?'

'Tramontana.
The wind that comes across the mountains. It brings clear sunny weather but much colder, of course.'

'Yes, it would be …' That seemed to exhaust the weather topic but Jeffreys persisted: 'You speak very good English. Learn it at school?'

'Yes, I did study it at school but mostly I learned from my mother. She had an English nanny and then an English governess, so she speaks English as well as she speaks Italian.'

It was Jeffreys's turn to be taken aback: 'And you wanted to be a cop?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'A policeman, sorry. I mean, your family …'

The boy flushed a little, understanding. 'My father was a lawyer and I was also to have been one, but he died when I was still at the
Liceo.
I have a younger sister who was still a baby. Things were rather difficult … my mother is accustomed to a certain way of life, so …'

'I see. Hard for you. I'm sorry.'

'No, really. It's what I wanted. I would not have liked to be a lawyer.' His brown eyes were very earnest. Jeffreys wondered if he ever smiled. Their car was stuck in a queue, inches away from a blue and white police car that had got stuck going the opposite way. Jeffreys noticed that the two drivers gave each other no nod or wave of recognition. 'Colleagues of yours?' He pointed out to Carabiniere Bacci. The other looked blankly out of the window, straight through the blue and white car. 'No,' he stated, turning back.

'Different branch?'

'Oh no. They are nothing to do with us at all.'

'They have a Plain Clothes Division, I suppose?'

'Oh yes. But so do we.'

Inspector Jeffreys couldn't resist the image that sprang into his mind: 'Ha hal You must keep each other well-informed! Imagine what would happen if you both turned up on a job in plain clothes—and started shooting at each other!'

Poor Carabiniere Bacci looked unhappily down at his knees without replying. It was fortunate that the car lurched suddenly to a halt at that point and a loud argument ensued between their driver and that of a car which had shot suddenly out from a side street.

'Ever been to England?' asked Jeffreys brightly, when they had started to crawl along the street again.

'No, never. I have often thought of it but … In the summer we close up the house in Florence and take a smaller one by the sea to get away from the heat … For my mother and sister, you see, it's necessary … I couldn't really … In January there is usually time to ski a little in the Apennines … If I could afford to take all of us to England—but I'm afraid they wouldn't go. The real problem is,' he sighed, 'that Tuscany has everything—beautiful cities and museums, mountains for winter sports, beaches …'

'It doesn't sound like a problem to me,' said Jeffreys, who hailed from a council estate in Stoke-on-Trent.

'But it is,' explained Carabiniere Bacci. 'Because we never go anywhere else —Machiavelli made fun of our claiming to be great travellers if we went as far as Prato.'

'Where's that?'

'About twenty minutes away from where we are now.'

'It's that bad, is it?' He was being flippant, but glancing out at the rows of shutters, the overcrowded, confined streets, he got a brief but strong suggestion of claustrophobia that might overtake anyone who stayed long enough in the city—or maybe it was really agoraphobia, the labyrinth sucked you in and you didn't even want to leave. Jeffreys tried to imagine flying to London but the idea lacked reality. 'Well, it's easy enough to get over to London, if you want to,' he said, to convince himself, 'and I'll give you my address. Be glad to show you round Scotland Yard and anywhere else you fancy.'

'Would you?' The younger man seemed moved. 'That's very kind of you.'

'Be a pleasure. This is the street, isn't it? I can see the bridge at the other end.'

'Yes. This is it. Number fifty-eight.'

'Must be your first big case, I should think?'

'My first of any kind. I'm still in Officer Training School but we are sent out to do some practical.'

'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.