A Rich Full Death

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!

15

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 “seance”-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 “seance” 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?’