A Rich Full Death (18 page)

All the while Isabel was speaking I had gradually become aware of a strange turbulence—I know not how else to describe it—of the table about which we were all seated. It was as if the thing were afloat, at first upon a sea almost dead calm, with just the slightest swell betraying the mighty potency beneath; then somewhat choppier, frisking on little wavelets; and finally swaying up and dipping down, as though impelled by the passage of long ocean rollers, outriders from the storm that suddenly broke, without warning, cutting off Isabel’s final words as the table reared up and crashed down upon the speaker amid the cries and exclamations of all the assembled company.

Well this time of course it
was
the end—for by the time the maid had come running, and the lamps had been lit, and Miss Chauncey had been extricated, and we had assured ourselves that she had sustained no serious injury, there was clearly no possibility of restarting the ‘séance’—and precious little desire, either, if most people’s expressions were anything to judge by. Even those with considerable acquaintance of supernatural experiences seemed to be badly shaken by what they had witnessed. Seymour Kirkup, for example, was grey and drawn.

‘We have indeed had a fortunate escape,’ he pronounced in his strange cracked voice. ‘There was an evil presence in this room, of that I have not the slightest doubt. Rarely have I sensed the power of Satan more palpably.’

Miss Chauncey appeared at first to be completely ignorant of the astonishing results of her spirtual exertions, but as soon as these had been explained to her she announced her determination to make another attempt to contact Isabel’s spirit later that night, and try and learn the identity of her murderer.

Rather to my surprise, both Seymour Kirkup and Miss Jessie Tate went out of their way to try and dissuade her from doing so.

‘I really must beg you not to meddle any further with this matter,’ Kirkup implored. ‘The forces involved are more powerful and more malevolent than you can conceive. Spiritualism is all very well, Miss Chauncey, but we must acknowledge its limitations. Here I sense the presence of Powers of Darkness which can be manipulated only by the exercise of certain esoteric arts of which, forgive me for saying so, you are utterly ignorant.’

But the indignant ‘medium’ did
not
forgive what she clearly saw as an insult to her skill and professional standing.

‘No one is more powerful than the spirits, except for God Himself—and I need not fear Him,’ she proclaimed boldly. ‘Were all the forces of hell ranged against me, Mr Kirkup, I should not shrink from my duty to Isabel, who spoke of me so kindly just now. Nor do I need to know any heathen spells or mumbo-jumbo filched from musty old books to confront the spirits, who are my friends. We meet together naked, face to face, and know no shame,’ she concluded blithely.

Kirkup merely muttered something in a language I did not recognise, and made the sign of the cross. Jessie Tate also tried to persuade her friend not to exert herself any more that night, using more homely arguments—she would over-exert herself and impair her health. But Miss Chauncey remained admirably firm in her resolve, saying only that she would rest for a short while before making a fresh attempt to wrest the name of Isabel’s murderer from beyond the grave.

By now, I could quite frankly stand no more. I hardly heard what was going on any longer. My brain was reeling from the knowledge that Isabel had spoken from the dead, that the dead do survive, that death is not just a hole into which we drop and are no more, that there is a meaning and a plan to everything, as Mr Browning plainly believes. Why did this revelation—which I had so often fervently sought and prayed for—now seem more dreadfully depressing than my blackest nihilistic nights had ever been?

Obsessed with these and other matters, I took my leave with almost brutal haste. Social niceties were, however, the last things which anyone was concerned about at that moment, and my perfunctory farewells—indeed, my very departure—passed almost unnoticed.

It would be vain even to attempt to describe my state of mind that night in any detail. If I told the truth I should scarcely believe myself, never mind expect anyone else to do so. Besides, the whole affair was very shortly destined to become the subject of a quite different kind of examination, as you will see, and there is no point in anticipating that event. Let me therefore say only that when I returned home I was so utterly exhausted in both mind and body that I simply fell into bed and passed straight into a fitful sleep, crammed like a bolster with the rags of scrappy dreams.

I was awakened at ten o’clock the next morning by Piero, who—when I asked him angrily why the devil he had ignored his standing orders to leave me undisturbed—replied that there was a policeman at the door with a message for me. Before I had a chance to say anything a burly individual of unpleasing demeanour pushed his way into the room, and informed me, without any over-indulgence in the more rarefied forms of politeness, that my presence was requested at the Bargello—which is the Police Headquarters in Florence.

I felt as though the earth had suddenly and unaccountably been whisked away from beneath my feet. Nevertheless, I attempted to maintain that tone of careless arrogance which the Italians expect from foreigners—not easy to do when one is surprised in one’s nightshirt—and enquired coolly if I might know the reason. Imagine my feelings when he replied that I was to be interrogated in connection with the death of an Englishwoman, by name Edith Chauncey!

A black four-wheeler bearing the Grand-Duke’s crest awaited us below. The police constable led me into it, and the vehicle promptly clattered and jolted away through the streets towards the Old Market, where out of a profusion of bizarre and colourful scenes I noticed a showman displaying a crocodile in a tank just large enough for it to thrash about: I felt the strangest affinity with the poor beast, plucked up from its dim familiar surroundings and put on show in an alien land, caged in glass for the diversion of the mob.

When we drove into the mediaeval fortress of the Bargello my spirits sank still farther. As well as being the headquarters of the Chief of Police, or
bargello
, the place also serves as a gaol, and is associated with many sad events in Florence’s history. We alighted in the courtyard, flanked by high and gloomy walls, each one of whose stones has a grim tale to tell. I was led up a flight of steps, along a long corridor, down another, through an ante-chamber; and into a large bare room furnished with a desk, two chairs and a portrait of the Grand-Duke Leopold. My escort had not said a word since mentioning Miss Chauncey’s name, and he did not break his silence now—merely withdrawing and shutting the door behind him.

Somewhere else in the building someone was crying, or screaming, and my thoughts turned to the rack and the irons and the other instruments which undoubtedly lie mouldering in some corner of the place, as they do in every other Italian prison—even though we are assured that they are no longer in use. The police here are popularly known as the
Buon Governo
—the ‘good government’: you have to know their ferocious reputation for corruption, inefficiency and brutality to savour fully the almost Dantesque irony of this phrase.

After I had been standing there for a considerable period of time the door opened again, and in walked Commissioner Antonio Talenti. If anything was calculated to increase my miserable anxiety at this point, it was precisely the appearance of this official. On both the occasions we had met previously the Commissioner had struck me as being possessed of a very sharp mind indeed. Browning’s strictures on the police were all very well, but Talenti was Florentine to his bones—and though the Florentines these days may have grown to be windbags, liars, cheats and poltroons, stupidity is no more one of their failings now than it ever has been.

The Commissioner greeted me with mock formality, murmuring that it had been good of me to come. I replied tartly that I had not been aware that I might have declined.

‘The manner of the fellow who came to fetch me was such that I might have been under arrest.’

Talenti raised his eyebrows histrionically.

‘Under arrest? Why—has some crime been committed?’

I smiled cynically.

‘Commissioner, my friend Count Antinori once told me that in this country there are so many laws that everyone has always broken at least one, and thus may be arrested at any moment.’

‘You have witty—and eminent—friends, Signor Boot,’ Talenti commented—the
th
sound is beyond any Italian’s ken, and my name emerged thus throughout. ‘But I assure you that you are mistaken. There is no question of an arrest. I simply want to ask you a few questions.’

‘Before we go any further,’ I said, ‘will you please tell me what has happened? I gather Edith Chauncey is dead.’

‘All in good time. Please take a seat.’

After a moment’s hesitation I did so. Talenti settled down on the other side of the desk.

‘Now, before I tell you what you want to know, perhaps you will be good enough to tell
me
what time you arrived at Signorina Chauncey’s apartment? You don’t deny having been there, I take it?’

‘Why should I?’

‘Why indeed? Besides, we have plenty of witnesses that you
were
there. At what time did you arrive?’

I might not have been under arrest, but you would never have known it from the official’s manner.

‘At half-past eight,’ I replied promptly.

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because that is the time for which I had been invited.’

The mournful little smile that was never very long absent appeared once again on Talenti’s lips.

‘How reassuringly English.’

‘I am American.’

‘It is the same. Were any other guests present?’

I named Miss Tate, Seymour Kirkup, the Reverend Tinker and Mr Grant.

‘And had this gathering any particular purpose?’ the official continued. It was evident that he knew the answer to this question, as to all the others he had asked.

‘Yes. As you must know, we were there for a “séance”—a kind of spiritualist assembly, in the course of which …’

‘Do you believe in spiritualism, Signor Boot?’

I hesitated, sensing a trap which perhaps did not exist.

‘I used to. Or at least, I had an open mind on the subject. But after what happened last night …’

Talenti waited for me to finish. When I did not do so he asked, ‘What
did
happen?’

Well, I told him. I altered nothing and held nothing back—I did not dare—but it was not difficult to make the whole proceedings sound like an extremely amateur production of the ghost scene in ‘Hamlet’. As I multiplied the details of rushing winds, moving tables, spirit voices and accusations of murder, Talenti’s ironical smile reappeared in full blossom.

‘So you did not altogether believe in these … phenomena?’

‘How could I, when it was all so crudely done—or over-done? How could anyone?’

‘Nevertheless, some of your fellow-guests
did
believe.’

It was my turn to smile.

‘Some people will believe anything, Commissioner. Florence has but one Calandrino—with us they breed by the score.’

Calandrino, you must know, is the proverbial credulous simpleton who appears in Florentine folk-tales, as well as in several of Boccaccio’s stories. I saw that Antonio Talenti was both amused and flattered by my reference—as I had intended he should be.

‘Besides,’ I continued, risking a little more now I had established this advantage, ‘even if the “séance” had been more convincingly staged, I really fail to see how anyone could take these absurd allegations seriously. There has never been the slightest suggestion that there was any foul play involved in the deaths of Mr DeVere or of Mrs Eakin, has there?’

Talenti stared at me for an unconscionable time. His smile had disappeared.

‘As you say, Signor Boot, some people will believe anything,’ he said finally. ‘And at what time did you leave the Chaunceys’?’

‘I’m not sure. I suppose it must have been some time after ten o’clock.’

‘You did not see any of the other guests take their departure?’

‘How could I? I was the first to leave.’

‘Answer my question, please.’

‘I saw no one.’

‘And you went straight home?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did anyone see you come in?’

‘There is never anyone about at such an hour.’

‘What about your servant?’

‘He had gone home.’

‘So you cannot in fact prove what time you arrived—or indeed that you went home at all?’

I stared at him in some confusion.

‘Well no, I suppose not, if you put it that way. But why on earth should I
have
to prove it?’

The Commissioner did not reply. Instead, he lit one of the murderous local cigars, and, after a few moments’ puffing, began to tell me what had happened.

The other guests had also left the Chaunceys’ almost immediately, although in what order was still a matter of some dispute. Tinker went immediately after my departure, but the testimony of the others was more confused—Kate Chauncey, for example, claimed to have seen Kirkup in the flat long after Mr Grant saw him leave. At all events, there is no doubt that Miss Jessie Tate was the last to go, after which the Chauncey sisters sat up for some time discussing the events of the evening.