‘Our business is here.’
‘Ah, well, step right in, please. I’m the Reverend Blythe.’
When inside the cosy white interior with its neatly-arranged dark brown pews, Inspector Lovelace asked after any upcoming weddings, tomorrow in particular. The Chaplain looked doubtful for a minute, then picked up a big blue-covered book.
‘Ah, yes,’ said the Reverend, running a finger down a page. ‘We do have one wedding. Tomorrow. Boynton-Dale? Name sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Famous chappie, is he? It was booked a few weeks ago. Fee already paid.’
Posie gulped. So Max had been wrong, and Alaric had had good enough intentions to organise it all well in advance.
‘Ah, oh! No! Wait a minute! I tell a lie! What’s this?’
The Chaplain frowned and pushed his face nearer the book, then held it up for Posie and Lovelace to examine. ‘What do you make of this?’
They looked. What appeared to be a thin but firm pencil line, double-scored, had been placed over the entry for the Boynton-Dale marriage.
‘I’m terribly sorry.’ The Reverend Blythe shrugged in embarrassment. ‘I think we must assume it has been cancelled. My superior, the Vicar of the church, Father Gregory, will know something about it; they are his pencil-markings, but he’s away just now, visiting the sick, all over the town and the lagoon. He left just before lunch and he won’t be back until tomorrow morning.’ The Chaplain scratched his head. ‘Actually, come to think of it, I remember Father Gregory speaking about this: saying the marriage had been cancelled over the telephone. Most unusual…’
The Chaplain shook his head apologetically: ‘I’m sorry not to help you more. Guests for the wedding, were you? Or,’ and here he smiled at Posie and the Inspector in a kindly fashion, but with real interest, ‘were you thinking of tying the knot yourselves? Had to be tomorrow, did it? On a Cox and Kings Venice short trip, are you?’
‘No, no,’ said Lovelace hastily. ‘But if you do happen to find out if the wedding is going ahead or not, for definite, can you contact us? We’re staying at the guesthouse next door.’
After giving his name and details they left.
‘So it has been cancelled,’ muttered Posie darkly.
‘Looks like it. Although it pains me to admit it. I’m so sorry.’
But Posie just felt a strange numbness of being, as if she couldn’t care less what happened to her next. Or to Alaric. She was certain now that the ominous pencil markings in that blue book were testimony of Alaric’s spectacular disloyalty towards her. What other explanation could there be?
Fearing that a dreadful bitterness would break over her, Posie resolved that she would bury herself in her work rather than sink into aching misery: it was as if the murder of Bella Alladice and the awful history behind it had become much more real than her own life anyway, more real than her own future.
A hopeful Venetian stallholder, terribly illegal, had set up his wares on the metal grills covering the stone well in the centre of the Campo San Vio. He was selling bright carnival masks, and was calling out in jaunty tones to the passing hordes of pilgrims. A few people had stopped to buy, and Posie and Lovelace watched, entranced, for as soon as the buyers had gone, the man reached down into a seemingly bottomless sack and brought out yet more identical masks.
Inspector Lovelace laughed. ‘Not much difference between here and the hawkers around St Paul’s, is there?’ But he stepped forwards lightly, selected one gold carnival mask and one red, and paid for them quickly. He didn’t even bother to haggle.
Joining Posie, he placed the red mask in her hands. ‘This might be the only bit of Venetian souvenir-hunting I get to do. And if I give this to you now, even if the wedding doesn’t happen, it was a present just for you, wasn’t it? And you don’t need to feel bad about it with any nasty associations. The gold one is for Molly.’
Posie smiled, absurdly cheered by the little red mask shaped like a half-moon.
‘Thank you, Richard. That’s very kind of you. I’d never have bought it for myself, and I love it.’
Back at the guesthouse Posie sat on the bench pulling off her shoes and hat and coat, and a black weather-proof cape flapped into her face in an annoying fashion. She batted it away, remembering the night before, when Lucy, just out of the rain herself, wearing that very cape, or one similar to it, had offered her the glittering silver flask of liqueur.
The Inspector was rubbing at a patch of dark green foamy mould on the papered wall. ‘Quite some place this, isn’t it? Could give the Savoy a run for its money. See you later? At six o’clock?’
But Posie was thinking again of last night. The flask. She was convinced of Lucy’s innocence but this might prove it. She gripped Lovelace’s arm in excitement.
‘The flask Lucy gave me last night was marked “AA”. We all supposed that she was using, or borrowing, her employer’s flask: a flask Bella was known to carry every day. We just assumed that “AA” stood for “Annabella Alladice”.’
The Inspector was looking at Posie as if she had lost her mind, but he nodded calmly. ‘Mnnn?’
‘But what if it didn’t stand for Annabella Alladice? What if it stood for “Alicia Alessandro”? What if there were two flasks? Identical to each other? What if the flask Lucy lent me was actually her own? Perhaps Johnny Alladice gave the flasks, maybe as birthday gifts at different points, to two women he held dear? And, by chance, the engraver would have had to carve exactly the same initials! Two flasks – both engraved with “AA”. Dickie said that Bella felt very strongly about the giver of her flask and she would never have lent it out. He probably didn’t know Lucy has the exact same thing. What do you think, sir? Does it sound likely?’
Richard Lovelace sighed, but there was a slight fire beginning to burn in his green eyes.
‘No. It sounds hideously unlikely. But, as we both know, such things can happen. We’d better check it out – we’ll search Lucy’s room within an inch of its life. It’s important. In fact, the poisoned flask from the crime scene is the only thing – the only evidence – connecting Lucy to the murder of the Countess. If we find a second identical flask she’s a free woman. But why didn’t the girl say something? If she has a second flask, that is?’
Posie bit her lip. ‘Maybe she didn’t want to have to explain the whole story about her identity in front of everyone? Although goodness only knows more than half the room knew it anyway! But not us, unfortunately.’
Within seconds the Inspector had snapped quickly into the sort of action Posie was used to witnessing in the corridors of Scotland Yard, commandeering all of Salvarocca’s policemen in the lobby and vanishing up the stairs.
While she stood nervously waiting, Posie realised that she was longing for some proper evidence, some clarity. A photograph, for example.
Images rarely lied, like that magazine cover of Alaric and Silvia in Constantinople. She decided to place a call through to London, to pursue her quest for evidence, and Sidney at the Grape Street Bureau answered after a few minutes. Cheeky, cheery and as merry as ever.
Posie outlined what she needed. ‘Take a cab.’
‘A motor cab, Miss?’ Delight filled his voice.
‘Yes. Raid the petty cash tin again. Fast as you can. Get down to Fleet Street at once, to the Associated Press office, and ask for Sam Stubbs. If he’s not there ask for anyone else. Flash my card around and mention Scotland Yard if you have to. Get Sergeant Rainbird involved if you must. Get what I’ve asked for and place it in a strong envelope and mark it with my name and “CONFIDENTIAL”. Then rush to Victoria, to the Orient Express platform. Hurry.’
She checked her watch. He should just make it. It was two-thirty in Venice, which meant it was one-thirty back in London, and the Orient Express would leave at three o’clock. Just enough time…
‘You want me to come out there, Miss?’ Sid’s voice had taken on new tones of hushed disbelief. ‘On the Orient Express?’
‘No. Sorry, Sid, not this time. Give your envelope to the Head Stew
ard on the train. Explain that it concerns a murder and that a specially-designated policeman will collect it directly from his hands tomorrow afternoon when the Orient Express arrives into Santa Lucia Station.’
‘Very good, Miss. I’ll cut along now. Shame about Venice, Miss. And a murder, you say? Lawks! You get enough of those at home!’
And he rang off. Happy to have the last word.
****
Nineteen
Just at that moment Inspector Lovelace came into view, running down the stairs, taking them almost two at a time in his hurry. Behind him came a blonde thin streak of a figure which turned out to be Max, who raised an eyebrow and grinned at Posie.
Lovelace waved a silver hip-flask, dripping wet. He grinned. ‘You were right, Posie. Spot-on. We looked in Lucy’s room but to no avail. And then I thought of our resident expert, up in the laundry room. I reacquainted myself and asked him to help.’
Max shrugged self-deprecatingly. ‘I’d never seen it before, but I told you Lucy had keepsakes stuffed in an old hat-box, didn’t I? Mostly old love-letters from someone called John, and a couple of photos of the man in all his going-off-to-war finery. I thought it might be there. But it wasn’t.’
‘Oh?’
‘No,’ Max continued. ‘So then I thought it must have been hidden somewhere else, if it existed. There are precious few places to hide things in this guesthouse. I’ve hunted them all out, of course. And there it was…’
Inspector Lovelace looked happy. ‘It was in the first of Max’s hidey-holes! Hidden right up in the cistern of the toilet on Lucy’s corridor. None too fresh but we have it anyhow!’
Posie frowned as Max excused himself and retreated up the stairs. It seemed dashed odd: Lucy wouldn’t have hidden her own treasured flask in such a shabby manner, and for no reason. Which meant only one thing.
‘There was a switch, sir? The murderer hid Lucy’s flask so even if she did admit to having an identical one to Bella’s she wouldn’t be believed? What do we do now, sir?’
‘Well…’ The Inspector hesitated. ‘Of course, we’ll tell Salvo, as soon as he returns, and I’ll hold on to this flask. It’s major evidence in favour of Lucy’s innocence. But I’m thinking that she should stay put, where she is. In jail.’
‘Oh?’
‘Suppose she isn’t the murderer, but that someone else is happy for her to take the rap. Maybe she’s safer inside, where she can’t be got at?’
Posie nodded. ‘Will she be all right in those cells? Will the Commissario treat her badly?’
The Inspector grimaced. ‘I don’t think he’s capable of treating anyone badly, Posie. He’s a terribly sad man, really. But I swear he’s a good policeman, even if he has decidedly off-kilter methods.’
‘You mean forcing people to spit out their alibis in front of everyone, sir? In the same room?’
‘Mnnn.’ The Inspector nodded, disapproval curling his lip downwards. ‘It’s a risky strategy, liable to make people clam-up, or simply copy whatever the person before them has just said. And this place hasn’t been properly searched, either. It struck me while I was upstairs that people might be burning things or destroying evidence, so I’ve got Salvarocca’s men in all the rooms right now, grabbing what they can. I’ll go up to supervise them. This really is a mare’s nest…’
Back up in her room, a sound like saucepan lids clashing in the long, narrow alleyway which her room looked over made Posie bolt to the window.
‘What the blazes?’
In the failing light a narrow crowd of festival-goers, all carrying lanterns, were parting hurriedly. Peering into the dimness below, Posie could make out a figure, all in black, running between the crowds, head-down, very fast.
A thief? Nothing more than some nasty pickpocket? But she could also see that the crowds down in the alley were looking up in her direction, and shaking their heads in disbelief.
‘Impossible! Impossible!’ she heard, chanted again and again, before she retreated, confused, back into her bedroom.
In the corridor outside, about two minutes later, there was a sound of heavy running feet, and a slamming of a door, and then silence.
Exhausted, Posie lay down on her bed, fully clothed, in sheets which smelt of the sea, and began to sleep a breathless, uncomfortably shallow sleep, in which she dreamed she was being drowned.
****
The soft knock at her door woke her.
‘Hang on just a jiffy,’ she murmured, croakily. Peering at the luminous hands of her wristwatch Posie saw that it was almost five-thirty in the afternoon.
Darkness had fallen properly, and the un-shuttered, un-curtained window gaped in a ghastly way, like a big, blank eye. The bedroom seemed as if it was packed full of a damp mist and too late Posie realised she had fallen asleep with the window not quite closed. The thick vapours from the salty marshes were invading even here. A drumming sound and a chanting, choral melody were rising from the alleyway below.
Posie reached to turn her bedside light on, and got up, smoothing down her tweed skirt, spitting on her fingers and running them along her eyelashes and patting down her hair. She slammed the window shut quickly, and sprayed Parma Violet liberally about.
She had been expecting Inspector Lovelace, or perhaps Alaric, or even the Commissario, but actually it was just Mrs Persimmon with her designated policeman, who hung back in an embarrassed fashion.
‘Oh, hullo there, dearie!’
For a second Posie couldn’t think quite what the woman wanted. To offer Posie some late-afternoon tea? To give some news? Was this a guesthouse service? An attempt at normal hospitality? As she gawked stupidly, the small lady gripped Posie’s hand urgently.
‘Can I come in, dearie?’ she hissed. ‘I think I may have remembered something important, and that nice Scotland Yard chappie said we could come to you.’
‘Ah, yes. Of course.’
Lacking any tea-making facilities, Posie indicated towards the bed with its only-just straightened counterpane. She removed her pyjamas from the chair and threw them on the floor, sitting down and looking at Mrs Persimmon as encouragingly as she could manage.
The little dumpy woman was smartly made-up, with shimmery silver eyeshadow and red lipstick. But she was nervy and fidgety, too. She kept touching her dyed hair.
Sure as bread is bread, she looks guilty of something, thought Posie. But what?
‘What do you know, Mrs Persimmon? I take it this is about the Countess and her murder?’
Posie took out her notebook as the Landlady wrung her hands. ‘It’s like this, dearie…’
Mrs Persimmon had told the police she had seen Bella Alladice twice after she had cleared breakfast: once at nine-thirty, when she brought coffee to the Countess, who was alone, reading, and again at roughly ten-thirty, when Mrs Persimmon came to clear away the coffee things, finding the Countess dead.
Posie frowned. ‘But you’re now saying that’s not the case, Mrs Persimmon? You saw Bella another time? Three times? Four times?’
Mrs Persimmon shook her head indignantly. ‘I only saw the Countess on the two occasions when I told that fascist policeman I had done so. I’m not a liar. But I’m telling you that I heard things which may be of interest.’
So it turned out it was a matter of overhearing: or eavesdropping, as most people might have put it.
The Landlady, with much pursing of the rouged lips and self-righteous nodding, explained to Posie how after the breakfast rush had ended, at about nine o’clock, it was Mrs Persimmon’s daily custom to smoke a cigarette in the small back yard of the guesthouse. But given that the weather this morning had been truly spiteful, the Landlady had changed her usual routine and had sat on the small bench in the hallway outside the dining-room. It hadn’t been her intention to overhear the Countess in the dining-room. Oh, no. But she had.
Mrs Persimmon had heard talking. Highly-strung, indignant words. The Countess had been in a right royal rage.
‘What time was this, Mrs Persimmon?’
/> ‘Oh, about a quarter past nine, I’d say.’
‘And what did you overhear, exactly? Who was she talking to?’
‘I don’t know for sure. I heard the Countess scream: “You fool! You fool!”’
It didn’t sound hopeful. The Countess could have been talking to herself, about herself. Posie often said much the same thing of her own mathematical abilities when in the middle of horrible Revenue calculations.
‘Did you hear anything else?’
‘There was a fluttering of papers. I definitely heard paper falling, or being thrown, and then someone moving about, picking it all up again.’
Posie was quite frankly surprised that anyone could have heard all of this – the sound of paper falling – from the location of the bench, through the thick wooden door, but she kept her expression interested anyhow. She wasn’t about to chastise the woman for listening at her own doors. So she sat calmly, waiting for more.
‘I heard the words “How could you? I’m going to go to the police. Better late than never.”’
Posie was all agog now. ‘Did anyone reply, Mrs Persimmon? Did you hear another voice, a definite second person in the room?’
‘In truth I couldn’t say, dearie.’
‘And? What next?’
‘There was no “next”. It was twenty-five past nine by then and the coffee-pot and tray needed delivering to the Countess in five minutes. I turned tail and went to collect it from Cook. I like to give my clients the “personal” touch.’
Posie tried hard to cover her disappointment. It could be something, or nothing. There was still no actual evidence that anyone had been in the room with Bella. She stood up, smiling primly.
‘Thank you so much, I’ll pass it on to the Inspector.’
But the Landlady continued to sit. ‘Oh, that’s not all, dearie.’ She nodded, surer of her ground now. Surer she wouldn’t be judged for the eavesdropping.
Mrs Persimmon then reported that she had dropped the coffee things off to Bella, who had been alone, at the same table, seeming restless, drumming her fingers on the tablecloth. Thinking something was afoot, the Landlady had immediately stationed herself down the hall corridor, in the recess where the stairs to the staff kitchen began, and loitered. Waiting for something to happen. It was a fairly long wait.
Murder in Venice Page 16