a Quaker, but I have long since ceased to know what I believe, if anything. But do you not think it possible that a man without any principles might nevertheless exist-at least in principle?’
I underlined my little jest with a smile; but Browning was all high seriousness.
‘Never! The idea contains a contradiction. What is a man but a bundle of principles? Poor principles, often, to be sure. Weak principles, wrong principles; mad, sad or bad principles. But principles there must be, all the same- just as this stone, this wood all around us cannot exist without the great Principle which holds its atoms together, binding them irrevocably into the nature of wood or stone. Why, just imagine this …’-he produced a handkerchief from his pocket-’imagine this little piece of cloth totally released, unpacked and liberated from all restraints! Imagine that hurricane of energy blasting half Florence into instant ruin! The human counterpart of that apocalyptic explosion would be the man without principles. But he cannot appear until the day matter casts off its bonds, and that cannot happen until he appears-and we know when that will be, and who he is: the Anti-Christ! Until then, thank God, we have only mundane wickedness, ignorance and sin to contend with. And we should get on with it, no doubt, instead of philosophising on ultimate things in this fashion.’
I was, in fact, thinking less of what he was saying than of the handkerchief he was waving in front of my eyes. It was of lace, like those the huckster had been selling by the Cathedral the night before. I observed now that a feature of the pattern embroidered on it was a bold letter B in each of the four corners. At first I thought of his own name, then of the maiden name of his wife, and lastly of the pet name by which he calls her: Ba. So the purchase had been innocent enough, after all.
I enquired where we should go to discuss what had happened-half-hoping that he might invite me back to Casa Guidi, which lay at the end of the street, almost in sight of the church. But he merely asked why we should not stay where we were.
‘In a church?’ I enquired. ‘Is it a fit place to speak of such things?’
Browning looked at me keenly.
‘Are you afraid we may shock God?’ he asked.
8
The church was empty but for an old woman praying before the main altar, the constant murmuring of whose weak voice echoed and reverberated monotonously around the nave.
‘You remember how puzzled we were by the locket,’ Browning began-we were seated side by side on a pew at the very back of the church. ‘Puzzled both by the initials engraved on it, and by the fact that according to her maid’s testimony Mrs Eakin kept it separately from her other jewellery-kept it hidden, in fact. In fact, of course, these two mysteries cancel each other out. The locket was kept hidden from her husband because it was a love- token, suitably inscribed, which had been given to her by a secret admirer.’
‘But who? We have already concluded that there is no one in Florence with those initials.’
Browning pointed to a mosaic in the floor at our feet.
There is no one in Florence with those initials either-nor ever was!’ he retorted.
I realised that my companion must be referring to the letters A.F.V.M., which formed part of the design.
‘Those are not initials-the letters stand for
‘Exactly. And what of the locket? After all, for the lover to identify himself in an offering to a married woman would have been very indiscreet, would it not? It would have given her an excellent pretext, as a woman of good sense, for refusing to accept it. So I sat down last night and started rummaging through the classical mottoes I keep ranged in the most perfect disorder in this head of mine. Love was in the air, so I set down the “A” as standing for
‘Accepted what?’ I felt obliged to ask. The locket, or the proposal?’
Robert Browning looked me steadily in the eye.
‘Do you honestly believe it was in Mrs Eakin’s power to accept one and not the other?’
Rather than answer this, I remarked that I failed to see how this insight could help us, since we still had no idea who had sent Isabel the locket.
Browning seemed surprised that I had not yet understood.
‘It was Cecil DeVere, of course.’
‘DeVere!’ I cried.
Italians are extremely-some might say excessively-tolerant of noise in their churches, but this last exclamation of mine was so explosive that the old woman at the front turned round and gave us a distinctly un- Christian look. We huddled down in our places on the bare wooden pews, and Browning went on in a whisper.
‘Strangely enough, it was your question last night, which left me at such a loss, that set my mind working in the right direction. Strange, the tricks the mind plays on us! You very reasonably asked why DeVere’s, of all names, should have popped into my head. Well now, let us try a little experiment. Do you say the very first word that comes into your head when I speak-without a moment’s reflection, mind! Ready? Locket.’
‘Gold,’ I replied at once.
‘Knife.’
‘Cut.’
‘Water.’
‘Well.’
‘Now then, why do you think just those words, out of all the thousands in the language, were the first to come to your mind?’
‘There is no mystery about it. Evidently there is a real connection between the two ideas for which they stand. The locket we have just been speaking of is made of gold, a knife is used to cut, water comes from a well.’
‘Precisely. And in the same way, when I mentioned DeVere’s name after receiving a summons to the villa where Mrs Eakin lived, it was because there was a real connection between these two ideas-even though to the best of my belief I was totally ignorant of it. But then, by dint of turning it over in my mind, I remembered that Mr Lytton-a friend of mine-had mentioned in my hearing one evening not long ago, that the lovely young Mrs Eakin was rumoured to have found a romantic distraction to palliate the rigours of her six-month term in the cold old villa which her even colder and older husband had insisted on renting for her. One of the other men present-the company was exclusively male, naturally-chaffed him, saying that he believed that the Lothario in question was none other than Lytton himself. Bob strenuously denied this, and eventually DeVere’s name was mentioned-I forget by whom. And that was that. I thought no more about it-I knew neither of the parties concerned, after all. But clearly the connection between DeVere and Mrs Eakin was lodged somewhere in my brain, and on Sunday night it emerged pat, without my even recognising the source.’
Browning had mentioned the strange tricks the mind plays, and it was a further testament to this truth that my thoughts at this juncture were not so much of the shocking and repugnant information which my companion was thus communicating to me in hushed whispers, as the fact that we were there at all, Robert Browning and I, calmly discussing the adulterous loves of Isabel-our Isabel, Prescott! — beneath the chilly echoing vault of the ill-named church of the Holy Felicity.
I had no time to muse, however, for Browning was already plunging relentlessly on. While I lagged behind, cavilling over details, he had got the entire wilderness already mapped out and opened up, and was all set to start trading. In a word, he believed that Cecil DeVere had murdered Isabel and then taken his own life!
The discovery of Isabel’s locket at DeVere’s apartment, Browning pointed out, was already very strong evidence of his guilt-for who but her assassin could have been in possession of it? As for the scrap of paper which he had removed, this clinched the matter.
