looking gentleman complaining loudly that the watch he has been sold keeps stopping dead at five to five every day; a priest scurrying along on some urgent mission of life or death; a soldier with a prisoner in guard; a girl with big grave eyes who leaves her work for a moment to watch you pass.
And when at length you reach the river, and the huddling mediaeval walls fall back to reveal San Donato hill with the monastery, and the great reach of glinting water bridged by the quaint old Ponte Vecchio (which is apparently to be pulled down any day now) and the snow-capped mountains in the distance-well, to my unphilosophical eye it all seems a quite sufficient justification in itself for the existence of the world.
Once beyond the river, however, this mood of unreflecting joy waned, deserting me altogether as I approached the Guidi palace. I had set off thither without much thought of the difficulties of my enterprise, but as I drew nearer to my goal these became only too evident. What did I think I was about, setting off thus blithely to pay a morning call on Mr Robert Browning? Even assuming that this gentleman was prepared to receive me at such an hour, it would almost certainly be impossible for us to discuss what had happened the previous night, since his wife was bound to be present. Moreover, I realised, it was more than likely that I featured in whatever story Browning had dreamed up to account for his late return home-the servant to whom I had handed in the note had recognised me, and this would have had to be explained. To blunder in and attempt to improvise my part in this domestic comedy was to risk my entire standing here. At one stroke I might become a social leper, persona non grata wherever I turned, the man to whom no one would ever again be at home!
On the other hand, the fact remained that I absolutely had to know the outcome of Browning’s interrogation and the police enquiries into Isabel’s death; and since an approach through a third party might equally give rise to embarrassing questions my informant could only be Mr Browning himself.
The only solution which occurred to me was to wait until Mr Browning left home, and then approach him in the street. I accordingly made my way to a small cafe on the other side of the Rome road, ordered a large dish of coffee and settled down to read the morning paper-keeping a careful watch on everyone who emerged from the Palazzo Guidi.
I had not been there very long when I became aware that I was not the only person thus employed: in the doorway of a church opposite stood a man lounging in a painfully self-conscious fashion, whom I recognised with a shock as one of the policemen who had been at the villa the night before!
For a moment I assumed that the fellow was spying on
I had devoted some thought to what the police agent might do at this juncture, and what my best course would be if-as indeed proved to be the case-he were to follow Browning. To have two of us dogging the poet’s footsteps was manifestly absurd, yet now Browning had emerged I did not wish to risk losing him. I therefore crossed the road and dashed down a side-street opposite, past mangy cats and beggar brats-for though the Brownings face the Grand-Dukes’s palace, the alleyways behind are plebeian in the extreme-to the next street, where I turned right and continued my headlong course, lungs bursting-thank heaven they are fully mended now, and can support this kind of exercise! — as far as the Trinity bridge. Thanks to my exertions, however, I arrived at the bridge before Mr Browning, and was leaning over a parapet contemplating the turbid waters of the Arno when he passed by-at which moment I turned and greeted him with as convincing a show of natural surprise as I was capable of.
‘You are followed,’ I told him, indicating with a nod the spy who had just hove in sight at the end of the bridge, struggling to keep up with the foreigner’s brisk pace.
A look of deep dismay crossed Browning’s features.
‘Have you time for a coffee?’ I enquired without pause. ‘I would like to hear how last night’s little drama ended.’
‘All the time in the world,’ he replied.
And indeed all his earlier haste, his sense of purpose and bustle, had quite evaporated. Where had he been headed so urgently, I could not help wondering, that he would not go now he knew himself to be watched?
We strolled up Via Tornabuoni as far as the famous Doney’s, where somewhat to my disappointment-for I naturally had no wish to make any secret of my familiarity with Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s husband-he insisted on taking a table in a small room at the rear of the premises, where the scions of noble Tuscan families fallen on hard times come to read the news-sheet and drink coffee strained from grounds that have served already for the brew of rich barbarians. In the end, however, it all worked out as well, or even better, for some half dozen of my friends saw us pass through the main saloon together, and then retire to the intimacy of the back room to pursue matters we did not wish to have overheard.
On our way from the bridge I had mentioned to Browning that there seemed to be no word of Isabel’s death in the news-sheet, and asked if he knew what conclusions the police had arrived at concerning her death. He said that he had no idea, beyond the fact that they were trying to trace the mysterious woman who had called at the villa at four o’clock, on the theory that her visit might in some way have occasioned this tragic and unnecessary act of self-destruction.
As soon as we were seated and had been served I pressed my companion more closely. What of his questioning by the police, for example?
‘Bah! A formality,’ replied Browning dismissively. ‘I quickly explained the situation to the official, who apologised profusely for having detained me. The whole incident was an absurd misunderstanding and nothing more.’
I could not help feeling that the presence of the police spy rather gave the lie to these bland assurances, but I merely asked my companion how this ‘misunderstanding’ had arisen.
He gave me a pained look.
‘The authorities have accepted my explanation, Mr Booth,’ he replied in a distinctly frosty tone. ‘I must beg you please to do the same.’
‘I shall be happy to,’ I cried, expectantly.
But Mr Browning did not continue. After a long moment’s silence, he added: ‘I mean, to accept that the explanation I gave the police last night was accepted by them.’ Another silence, longer than the last, fell. Then, relenting slightly, he went on: ‘I can assure you, however, that what Mrs Eakin’s maid said was utterly and completely untrue. No relations of any nature ever existed between her mistress and me. You have my word for that.’
‘I never doubted it for an instant,’ I hastened to affirm. ‘But that being so, have you any idea why the girl should have made such an absurd claim?’
It seemed that I had once again unwittingly touched a raw nerve.
‘Mr Booth, I hoped that I had already made it clear that I do not wish to be subjected to a second interrogation on this matter, which I can assure you has no bearing whatsoever on the principal issue at stake here: namely, the murder of Isabel Eakin.’
So curious had I been to learn why any reference to the maid’s testimony should embarrass Mr Robert Browning to such a very marked degree, that it was not for a moment that I realised exactly what he had just said. When I did, I repeated the word in a cry of anguish.
‘Murder?’
Browning hissed urgently to silence me, and looked anxiously around the room. But none of the other people there, being Italian, had taken the slightest notice of the word.
‘Please forgive me!’ he said. ‘I had not meant to tell you so brutally. But the fact remains, I fear, that Isabel Eakin did not take her own life. She was killed-cold-bloodedly murdered.’
It cost me a long and bitter effort to master the waves of horror that threatened to overwhelm me at the repetition of that ghastly word! Isabel’s death was still a fresh wound; to have it dressed thus!
‘But how on earth can you know that?’ I demanded, when I could at length express myself with some degree of equanimity.
Browning looked at me with keen appreciation.
‘An interesting question, Mr Booth. You go straight to the heart of the matter, I see. The answer is simple. I am a collector of life’s ephemera-an amateur of the odd. I am interested in exceptions, not because they prove a rule, but for themselves; because they exist, and sometimes-more often than you might think! — they disprove one.
