A Rich Full Death

‘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.

‘Unlike some of those other guests, Signor Boot, you remained sceptical of the effects you had witnessed-the messages spelt out on the board and spoken by spirit voices. I congratulate you on your perspicuity. I questioned la Caterina’-i.e. Kate Chauncey-‘for over an hour this morning. She confessed at once that everything that occurred last night, from start to finish, had been carefully prepared in advance by her and her sister-as was invariably the case with their so-called spiritualistic performances.’

I was absolutely aghast. I could not-would not-believe it.

‘But that voice!’ I cried. That was Isabel’s voice!’

Talenti looked at me curiously, and I suddenly realised that I had blundered: I was not supposed to have believed in the spirits. But as we were speaking Italian, I was able to conceal my slip by pretending that I had simply expressed myself badly.

‘I meant to say it was so like Isabel’s voice! I was almost taken in.’

Talenti appeared to accept my correction. ‘Yes, the Chauncey woman certainly possessed an amazing gift,’ he agreed. ‘But it was not a supernatural gift-simply a superb talent for mimicry. She could imitate other people’s voices-both sexes, and every age-so accurately that even their closest friends could not detect the difference. And when the people concerned were dead, and their friends fervently wished to believe that they were hearing them speak from beyond the grave, then she was never in any danger of exposure.

‘It was this, according to her sister, which made la Chauncey’s fortune as a “medium”. For the rest she relied on the usual trickery involving an accomplice-in this case the maid, who opened a door to create that draught you felt-and such apparatus as wires running under the floorboards, which is how they moved the table. As for the “planchette”, that was manipulated by the sisters, working together to guide it towards the letters they had decided upon in advance. As they took care to sit at right angles to one another, the impulse appeared to come from no one person but rather from the board itself

A protracted explosion was tearing my soul apart, as all my new-found ideas about the spirit-world and the afterlife blew up in my face. I had to work very hard to keep any trace of this turmoil from showing on my features.

Meanwhile the police official continued with his story. At about eleven o’clock the Chauncey sisters had retired for the night. Before doing so, Miss Kate did the rounds of the premises, as always, checking that all the windows were shuttered and locked and the front door double-bolted from the inside. Edith Chauncey had meanwhile gone straight to her room, situated at the top of a short flight of stairs.

The only other occupant of the suite was the maid, a girl of fourteen who went to bed the moment her employers had no further need of her, and slept the sleep of total exhaustion which is the only pleasure such poor devils know in this life. She awoke at half-past five, and set about lighting the fires and heating water. As she passed along the central passageway of the suite, she came upon the body of Signorina Chauncey, lying at full- length upon the steps leading down from her room, her head twisted impossibly out of place-turned around like an owl’s, the girl said.

Terrified, she ran and fetched Signorina Caterina, who was still asleep. The moment she set eyes on her sister’s corpse Caterina promptly fainted, so the servant ran outside to fetch help. To do so she had to unlock the front door, which was still bolted on the inside. In the street she stopped some peasants on their way to market, and sent one off to call a doctor while she returned to the apartment with the others.

The doctor arrived some twenty minutes later. His report indicates that the victim fell downstairs and broke her neck about three or four hours before her body was discovered. It would be convenient if la Chauncey had been given to sleepwalking or something of the kind, but this does not seem to have been the case. On the other hand there is no reason to suppose that the victim had an enemy in the world, and any hypothesis that her death was other than accidental seems to raise insoluble problems. If there was a murderer, how did he get in? And if he got in, how did he get out again, leaving the suite as effectively sealed from the outside world as it had been when Signorina Caterina locked up the previous evening?’

Talenti paused, puffing elegantly at his cigar.

‘In that case,’ I enquired, with a mighty effort to remain civil, ‘might I ask why was it thought necessary to drag me out of my bed this morning like a common criminal to answer questions about what was clearly a regrettable accident and nothing more?’

The official smiled his little smile.

‘Signor Boot, the English are dying too much just at present! And while in principle I have nothing whatever against that-on the contrary-I should prefer them to do so in their own country, or in France, or at Rome; or in short anywhere in the world but here in Florence, where I have to account for the fact.’

‘But what the devil is there to account for?’ I demanded.

Talenti took a scrap of paper from a file on the desk and passed it to me.

‘Well, this, for example.’

Crudely scrawled upon the paper in red ink, I read the following:

‘We found this clenched tight in the dead woman’s hand,’ I was told. ‘Presumably she wrote it just before she died-the paper and ink used were found in her room. Does it mean anything to you?’

‘Nothing whatever.’

‘You have never seen anything like it before?’

‘Never.’

Talenti replaced the paper in the file, and stood up.

‘May I now ask you a question, Commissioner?’ I enquired respectfully.

‘You have already asked several,’ he replied shortly. Then, after a few seconds, he went on: ‘I do not say I shall answer it, mind.’

I needed no further encouragement.

‘It is just this-do you have any notion why the Chauncey sisters should have chosen to invent such an absurd story? Why make themselves look ridiculous, to say nothing of putting their spiritualist pretensions-and therefore their livelihoods-at risk, by making this cock-and-bull claim that DeVere and Mrs Eakin were murdered?’

I was myself taking a sizeable risk, you might well think, in broaching this subject with Talenti. But I simply had to know the answer.

‘They made that claim because they believed it to be true,’ Talenti replied, savouring the last whiff of his cigar. ‘They had been told that it was true-that Eakin and DeVere had been murdered.’

Finally I could let my astonishment show.

‘Been told? By whom?’

Talenti’s smile became openly mocking.

‘Can’t you guess?’

‘I certainly can’t!’

‘You surprise me. Because the person concerned is a friend of yours.’