The Collected Stories

‘What matters?’

‘From what you said, Mrs Faraday was a gallivanting lady. Our Italian friends find some significance in that.’ Mr Humber silently drummed the surface of his desk. ‘You don’t agree, sir?’

He shook his head. ‘There was more to Mrs Faraday than that,’ he said.

‘Well, of course there was. The carabinieri are educated men, but they don’t go in for subtleties, you know.’

‘She’s not a vulgar woman. From what I said to the police they may imagine she is. Of course she’s in a vulgar business. They may have jumped too easily to conclusions.’

Mr Humber said he did not understand. ‘Vulgar?’ he repeated.

‘Like me, she deals in surface dross.’

‘You’re into fashion yourself, sir?’

‘No, I’m not. I write tourist guides.’

‘Well, that’s most interesting.’

Mr Humber flicked at the surface of his desk with a forefinger. It was clear that he wished his visitor would go. He turned a sheet of paper over.

‘I remind sightseers that pictures like Pietro Perugino’s Agony in the Garden are worth a second glance. I send them to the Boboli Gardens. That kind of thing.’

Mr Humber’s bland face twitched with simulated interest. Tourists were a nuisance to him. They lost their passports, they locked their ignition keys into their hired cars, they were stolen from and made a fuss. The city lived off them, but resented them as well. These thoughts were for a moment openly reflected in Mr Humber’s pale brown eyes and then were gone. Flicking at his desk again, he said:

‘I’m puzzled about one detail in all this. May I ask you, please?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Were you, you know, ah, seeing Mrs Faraday?’

‘Was I having an affair, you mean? No, I wasn’t.’

‘She was a beautiful woman. By all accounts – by yours, I mean – sir, she’d been most friendly.’

‘Yes, she was friendly.’

She was naive for an American, and she was careless. She wasn’t fearful of strangers and foolishly she let her riches show. Vulnerability was an enticement.

‘I did not mean to pry, sir,’ Mr Humber apologized. ‘It’s simply that Mr Faraday’s detectives arrived a while ago and the more they can be told the better.’

‘They haven’t approached me.’

‘No doubt they conclude you cannot help them. Mr Faraday himself has returned to the States: a ransom note would be more likely sent to him there.’

‘So Mr Faraday doesn’t believe his wife went off on a sexual excursion?’

‘No one can ignore the facts, sir. There is indiscriminate kidnapping in Italy.’

‘Italians would have known her husband was well-to-do?’

‘I guess it’s surprising what can be ferreted out.’ Mr Humber examined the neat tips of his fingers. He rearranged tranquillity in his face. No matter how the facts he spoke of changed there was not going to be panic in the American Consulate. ‘There has been no demand, sir, but we have to bear in mind that kidnap attempts do often nowadays go wrong. In Italy as elsewhere.’

‘Does Mr Faraday think it has gone wrong?’

‘Faraday is naturally confused. And, of course, troubled.’

‘Of course.’ He nodded to emphasize his agreement. Her husband was the kind who would be troubled and confused, even though unhappiness had developed in the marriage. Clearly she’d given up on the marriage; more than anything, it was desperation that made her forthright. Without it, she might have been a different woman – and in that case, of course, there would not have been this passing relationship between them: her tiresomeness had cultivated that. ‘Tell me more about yourself,’ her voice echoed huskily, hungry for friendship. He had told her nothing – nothing of the shattered, destroyed relationships, and the regret and shame; nothing of the pathetic hope in hired rooms, or the anguish turning into bitterness. She had been given beauty, and he a lameness that people laughed at when they knew. Would her tiresomeness have dropped from her at once, like the shedding of a garment she had thought to be attractive, if he’d told her in the restaurant with the modern paintings? Would she, too, have angrily said he’d led her up the garden path?

‘There is our own investigation also,’ Mr Humber said, ‘besides that of Faraday’s detectives. Faraday, I assure you, has spared no expense; the carabinieri file is by no means closed. With such a concentration we’ll find what there is to find, sir.’

‘I’m sure you’ll do your best, Mr Humber.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He rose and Mr Humber rose also, holding out a brown, lean hand. He was glad they had met, Mr Humber said, even in such unhappy circumstances. Diplomacy was like oil in Mr Humber. It eased his movements and his words; his detachment floated in it, perfectly in place.

‘Goodbye, Mr Humber.’

Ignoring the lift, he walked down the stairs of the Consulate. He knew that she was dead. He imagined her