Murder in Midsummer

by Cecily Gayford

  The police were still there, clearing up their records at leisure. They received Edward with alert interest. He began abruptly: ‘Tell them, will you, that I’ve got something to say about the case, and I should prefer to say it in the presence of Signora Montesanto, if they wouldn’t mind asking her to come.’ He owed her that much, at any rate; or perhaps the debt was to himself. At least he kept his story obstinately to himself until the door opened upon the morning vision of Olimpia, fresh as a flower, with a white ivory necklet round her bright bronze throat, and the innocence of spring in her serene and dewy smile.

  That was his worst moment. When her eyes lit on him, and brightened, and she exclaimed: ‘Why, Edward!’ he felt like a murderer himself.

  He had almost hoped that she would have got up early and asked for him, and finding him gone, suspected her immunity here, and slipped quietly away to new pastures. He ought to have known that Olimpia never ran away; it looked bad, and would have inconvenienced her, and besides, there is always a better way of dealing with any situation. Several better ways. She had only to pass her slender brown hand over the facts, and the appropriate arrangement would come to her fingers naturally.

  ‘You sent for me?’ she said, composing herself serenely in the chair they offered her. She looked at Edward again, and more softly, and knew what was happening; and when he raised his head and looked miserably into her eyes she gave him a sweet, tantalising smile. Good God, what chance did he have, when she even began by teasing him?

  She wasn’t angry or alarmed. She didn’t feel guilty at all. She had only broken other people’s rules, not her own, and to wind her way out of a contretemps of this kind was normal exercise for her. She might even repay him good for evil by turning the whole thing into a silly misunderstanding, and getting him out of it gracefully, into the bargain. If she did, he’d never be able to bear the sight of himself again.

  Forcing himself to face her, he told his story, pausing to give the amazed Professor time to translate. With all those unbelieving eyes upon him, and Olimpia wide-eyed in silent horror, it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his life, but he went through with it; and when the little black kid strap was on the table in front of the police, he turned his head, and looked despairingly at Olimpia again. ‘I’m sorry! I couldn’t do anything else.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. Of course that’s mine, it’s off one of my gloves. I lost it two days ago, after we came back to lunch. If you had it, why didn’t you give it to me?’ Her lips were quivering with hurt and bewilderment, but her eyes laughed at him gently. ‘I’m sorry if you didn’t think I was appreciative enough after all your kindness to me – but I didn’t think you’d try to make trouble like this – I didn’t think you wanted to hurt me.’

  The policeman questioned her in rapid Italian, and she answered as promptly and directly. The Professor, wild-eyed with excitement, translated breathlessly: ‘She says she told the whole truth before; she doesn’t want to change anything. She lost the strap, and she hasn’t seen it since. She says Tonino must have picked it up somewhere, and put it in his pocket until he could give it to her. She – my dear chap, she hasn’t said it – but they seem to have the impression that, for private reasons, you’ve – well, developed a grudge against her. Last night, apparently, she thinks you – rather expected more of her than she felt like giving.’

  He had known how it would be!

  No one could manipulate truth as expertly as she did, with such appropriate silences, such wounded reluctance to wound. She had an answer for everything; and, of course, what could be more probable than that her husband, observing something of his wife’s shed along the road or in the hall, should pocket it until he could give it back to her? His one bit of evidence, and she blew it away delicately, like a bit of thistledown! Not a word too much, no counter-accusations against her accuser. She could not believe that Signor Stanier was insincere or malicious, it could only be that he was terribly mistaken. No, it was the police who suspected him of malice. Here they came, the long measuring looks he had expected, the crisp, polite questions, so devilishly hard to answer.

  ‘If you found the strap on the scene of the murder, why did you not bring it to us at once?’

  ‘Why did you leave the house this morning, and then come back to bring this charge?’

  ‘Do you not agree that your attitude yesterday indicated rather more than an ordinary interest in Signora Montesanto?’

  He discovered, in five horrible minutes, how like a clumsy lie the truth can sound, even in one’s own ears. And there was always Olimpia, reproachful but gentle, holding him in the fixed and shining regard of her great eyes; and behind their bewilderment and hurt he caught the irresistible flash of amusement, and worse, of half-affectionate indulgence.

  ‘Silly child,’ she said to him clearly, without a word, ‘to think you could ever drive me into a corner. Now see how much trouble and suspicion you’ve brought on yourself. And I could make it much worse for you, if I chose.’

  She still liked him, there was no resentment in her at all. She would only scratch if he persisted, and then without malice. Her eyes reminded him of the previous night, of her mouth surrendered to him without reserve, of the stars drowned in her eyes.

  ‘But there is no evidence to suggest that Signora Montesanto had more than a passing acquaintance with Leoni – none that she ever saw him alone.’

  ‘I did not – ever. I have only spoken to him among other people, in the dining room or the hall—’

  It was at that moment that the door opened quietly, and Giulia came in.

  She had been crying again, though there was little to show it except the brightness of her eyes, and the slight unsteadiness of her lips. She gave one intense glance round at them all, sitting there tensed and wary in their chairs, and then she advanced towards the table, extending a slip of paper in her hand. Halfway across the room she wavered, and presented it instead to Professor Lacey. ‘Please – read it first in English. It is best your friend should hear this.’

  Charming as she was, it had never occurred to Edward until then how much delight and satisfaction there could be in looking at Giulia. A fine little woman – straight! She called a bagascia a bagascia, and to her face, too, not behind her back. A man would be safe with Giulia. Paolo had been safe with her, if only he’d had the sense to appreciate his luck.

  ‘I find it,’ said Giulia, her large eyes resting gently upon Edward’s face, ‘in my husband’s card-case, in the coat he wears the last morning he lives. At lunch he changes his clothes. Now I am packing his things, and I find this.’ She looked at Olimpia, who had drawn herself back into her chair, and was as still as stone, her eyes flaring greenly in her taut golden face.

  ‘Paolo is not a good husband,’ said Giulia simply, ‘and it is not easy to live with him. A long time now I am not in love with him, but I love him like a troublesome child, and I do not let my child be killed.’

  Professor Lacey read, translating reverently in the midst of a deep and foreboding hush:

  Very well, then, at six, but be a little sensible about it. Wait for me well down the slope, and out of sight of the path. If I can get rid of Tonino, I will be earlier, but you know what he is. Be sure no one follows, or knows where you are going, and take care to burn this. You are a fool, but nice. Olimpia.

  Olimpia’s eyes were lowered, but her face was serene again. She had begun to reassemble her powers already. By the time she looked up she would be ready with her parry, and it would be tireless and ingenious, and she would take delight in it still. Silly children, to think they could ever drive her into a corner! But, the world was narrowing.

  Limp with relief, Edward was not thinking of her, and that in itself was remarkable. He was thinking first and foremost of his own self-esteem, which had been so unexpectedly reprieved, but close upon that preoccupation pressed the thought of Giulia. She lifted her fine, dark eyes, and gave him a kind, regretful, partisan look. She did not like her children hurt
, and any man in trouble had acquired a sort of kinship with Giulia.

  ‘She is very sure of her power with men, you see,’ she said simply. ‘But these are the only words Paolo has from her, he cannot bear to burn them. It is perhaps the only thing in the world she can ask of him,’ said Giulia very softly, ‘that he will not do for her. But this time she asks too much.’

  Credits

  ‘Achilles Heel’ by Ruth Rendell from the collection Means of Evil © Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd, 1977, is reprinted with permission from United Agents.

  ‘The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face’ by Dorothy L. Sayers, from Lord Peter Views the Body, reprinted by permission of David Higham Ltd.

  ‘The House in Goblin Wood’ by Carter Dickson, from The Third Bullet, reprinted by permission of David Higham Ltd.

  ‘The Villa Marie Celeste’ by Margery Allingham, reprinted by permission of Peters, Fraser & Dunlop (www.petersfraserdunlop.com) on behalf of the Estate of Margery Allingham.

  ‘The Exploding Battleship’ by Michael Innes, reprinted by permission of Peters, Fraser & Dunlop (www.petersfraserdunlop.com) on behalf of the Estate of Michael Innes.

  ‘The Flowers that Bloom in the Spring’ by Julian Symons, 1982, reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London on behalf of The Estate of Julian Symons. © Julian Symons.

  ‘Dead Mountain Lion’ by Ellis Peters, reprinted by permission of United Agents.

  While every effort has been made to contact copyright-holders of each story, the author and publishers would be grateful for information where they have been unable to trace them, and would be glad to make amendments in further editions.