Murder in Venice

by L. B. Hathaway

  Posie explained about Roger running away. ‘Lucy, do you think it possible that Roger could have murdered Bella? Or have been responsible for the fire at the Palace?’

  Lucy shrugged. ‘I have no idea who did all of this, but it took nerves of steel. I don’t think Roger would be up to that. Besides, he had a strange loyalty towards Bella, he almost revered her. And Roger is fundamentally a coward. Look what he’s doing now! He’s not facing the enemy head on. He’s running because he’s scared.’

  Posie mentioned the mysterious ‘reel’, and laid the torn smidgen of photograph on Lucy’s lap. ‘We’re stumped. We think this was part of a blackmail package Roger was threatening someone with. Any idea what it shows?’

  Lucy fumbled in the pocket of her long, brown cardigan and extracted some tiny golden reading glasses: ancient, like the rest of her stuff. She picked the sliver up but her frown displayed her ignorance.

  ‘No clue.’

  Posie put the ribbon of film away, disappointed. ‘What will you do now? Will you marry Dickie Alladice? He looks at you sometimes as if he’s thinking of asking you.’

  Lucy shook her head in amusement. ‘How funny you should think that! I think he did love me once. But it was a passing childish fancy; years ago, when we were all young and thought we had endless days and nights to fill. But he didn’t want me after I’d been with his brother, and I didn’t want him, either. I don’t want any other man, not yet. Dickie and I are just friends. There have been many women for Dickie in the years since the war; they’ve come and gone, and why not? He’s rich, and good-looking, and a lovely fellow when he’s not blind drunk. I think I’ll leave Venice. Maybe I’ll go to America, after all. Everyone can reinvent themselves there, can’t they? Put on yet another disguise.’

  ‘I suppose so. And speaking of disguises…’

  Posie repeated Rita’s story about seeing Minnie Alladice and the Count Romagnoli the night before, all in black. ‘Unlikely bedfellows, don’t you think?’

  ‘Tell me the conversation again, will you?

  And like an elaborate game of Chinese whispers, Posie did. When she had finished Lucy shook her head in disbelief. ‘I thought Minnie looked like she was doing better for herself recently. Not quite the cat’s whiskers, but a few new blouses here and there, and trinkets, mainly. She always was a bit of a magpie. But blackmail? My goodness! And blackmailing poor Giancarlo? What on earth would she blackmail him about?’

  ‘Does it need twenty guesses?’

  ‘But the fact that the Romagnoli marriage was a sham was an open secret!’

  Posie shrugged. ‘Venice is still Catholic, isn’t it? Even if it’s not a Republic anymore. Even if its glory days are long gone. And newspapers always need stories in hard black and white. The juicier the better…’

  ‘I say! But what did Giancarlo mean “You’ve gone too far now”?’

  ‘I don’t know. I hoped you might.’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘All I know is that Minnie Alladice was used to better things.’

  ‘The large company shareholding you spoke of? Bella said her father had done Minnie a big wrong…’

  And Lucy explained that Mr Alladice Senior had helped Minnie when she was in the grip of a nervous breakdown, but help had come at a terrible cost: he had got his sister to sign away her shareholding in the family business, reducing it down from fifty per cent to only two per cent.

  ‘Minnie probably didn’t know what she was doing at the time. Doped up to the eyeballs. It was tragic. Johnny told me all about it. He was irate, but there was little he could really do.’

  Posie was able to understand Minnie’s malice better now. ‘Well, Bella has made the situation good again, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Under her new Will, you mean? Because she made it more than better for Minnie. Minnie will now be the majority shareholder in the business. Her original two per cent, plus Bella’s fifty per cent will enable her to control the company.’

  ‘Gracious. I hadn’t actually realised that… Did Bella tell you about the contents of her Will?’

  ‘Goodness, no. She didn’t tell anyone. It was Roger, of course. He organised the Will, very proudly, but he’s such a blabbermouth he couldn’t resist prattling on about it to me. Looking back, I’m surprised he wasted his breath; it’s not as if he could get any money out of me for the information. I don’t even benefit under the Will!’

  Posie stood to leave, picking up the silver hip-flask.

  ‘Hang on a minute, will you?’ Lucy looked uncomfortable. She pointed at the flask. ‘You’re absolutely right that there were two identical bottles, both gifts from Johnny. But that one there isn’t mine!’

  For a moment it seemed as if the world stopped turning. Posie clutched the poison-free flask a little tighter. ‘But the other one had prussic acid in it. It killed Bella. Of course this one is yours!’

  ‘If you want to think that, then so be it. But the flask you are holding is Bella’s, not mine. See how badly scratched it is? That’s because she used it each day, every day, for liqueur. Mine is barely tarnished, because I hardly ever use it properly, normally just for carrying water for my watercolour paintings. Last night was an exception. I was so cold I filched some of Bella’s special almond liqueur from the drinks trolley…’

  Posie was confused. ‘This hip-flask was deliberately hidden in a cistern, so it would look to all extents and purposes like there was only one silver flask: the one with poison in it. Now you’re saying that the poison-filled flask was actually yours?’

  Lucy looked desperate, panicking, realising that things were looking bad for her. ‘One of the reasons I couldn’t say there were two identical hip-flasks earlier was because I hadn’t received mine back from you yet!’

  Posie took a deep breath. ‘But I left it outside your room very early this morning, about seven?’

  ‘I didn’t get it. Someone must have taken it.’

  It made sense. Someone – the murderer – had taken Lucy’s unscratched flask and added poison to the almond liqueur it contained, and then swapped it over with Bella’s own tarnished flask later. Presumably at the heated meeting Mrs Persimmon had listened in on? The same person who had then whisked away the papers in the folio. That was how the poison had got into the room…

  It would require an extraordinary amount of nerve: a steeliness of resolve enabling the murderer to hide Bella’s real flask later in a toilet cistern. It would require a sort of desperation, too: a last-minute opportunism. For no-one could have known Posie would have left that handy second flask outside Lucy’s door that very morning.

  Suddenly Posie gasped, for she saw at once that the murder hadn’t been planned.

  But who could have done it? Everyone except Roger Valentine and Alaric had cast-iron alibis for that time, a quarter past nine…

  ‘Lucy, who knew there were two flasks from Johnny Alladice, identical to each other in every way?’

  ‘Oh, everyone knew, if they bothered to remember, but why would they? It was a sensitive topic and we were given those flasks years ago. I never got my flask out in public for fear of hurting Bella, for she liked to believe that Johnny had given her a unique gift, something special. I didn’t like to remind her of his love for me, or mine for him. So my flask stayed under wraps.’

  ‘Like your diamond ring? Well, thank you. That’s all been most helpful.’

  Posie paused at the door of the cell.

  ‘They found a body, you know. Today. While you were locked up in here.’ And she explained about Silvia Hanro in the secret chamber. Lucy looked as if she might be sick.

  Posie continued in as calm a voice as she could manage: ‘So you see, I know. About them. Together. Bella Alladice obviously knew about it too and tried to warn me.’

  ‘Oh, Posie, I’m sorry,’ Lucy sighed. ‘I told you Bella had high principles. She was outraged on your behalf, and gave Alaric a good dressing down for keeping a mistress. Alaric said it was none of Bella’s business who he entertained, or who he made lov
e to, and to be fair to him, he’d talked about you at dinner the night before, on his arrival, not Silvia. It was quite a scene yesterday morning, when Silvia arrived, I can tell you! Everyone was very star-struck, particularly Minnie and Dickie; both of them fawning over the girl. Silvia was stunning, of course, if you like that sort of bland beauty. But we hardly saw her: she stalked up to Alaric’s rooms after only five minutes and they stayed up there together. Why don’t you ask Alaric about it yourself if it’s troubling you?’

  ‘He should have told me.’

  Lucy coughed delicately. ‘So is the wedding still on tomorrow?’

  But Posie was thinking momentarily of Alaric at that last meeting. His pose, his holding the manila envelope, the scrawl on his hand…

  ‘What would “FRARI” mean?’ she asked aloud, without answering Lucy’s question.

  ‘“Frari?”’ Lucy frowned and then her expression cleared. ‘Oh, you mean the Frari Church! I believe its real name is the “Basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari”; it’s a huge Franciscan church. It’s in San Polo, quite near the Grand Canal. It’s not beautiful. In fact, from the outside it looks like a loaf of brown bread. But go inside and you’ll be astounded. People think some of the best paintings in the world are there, and some of the best painters are buried there. Titian, for example. There are fascinating tombs. People say it’s better than St Mark’s Cathedral.’

  Posie blushed red. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t read my guidebook on Venice very well. Or at all, for that matter.’

  Lucy smiled. ‘Oh, don’t worry. Bella and I have only been to the Frari once in the whole time we’ve been here. Bella was more interested in a coffee shop opposite it, beside a canal. It had a famous cat, apparently. Long since dead, but still a tourist attraction. Bizarre. There is also a shop next to the café selling carved Italian cameos, which Bella was partial to. She bought several, I recall, although they aren’t really fashionable anymore.’

  Posie’s thoughts were running on ahead. That scrawl… ‘FRAR1. 7 AM’. Some kind of meeting? She opened the door to step out into the corridor, already sensing the dim shadows of the Police Inspectors pulling away in the darkness, anxious not to be seen by the girl within.

  ‘Wait!’ Lucy was standing, a slight trace of excitement playing over her lovely face. ‘Show me that slip of burnt photo again.’

  Posie produced it quicker this time.

  Lucy pointed a long finger at the scant detail on the far right. A blouse with gorgeous sleeves among several men’s plain, boring suits. ‘Yes, I thought as much. See this cameo brooch? That was Bella’s. This is a photo of Bella! Years ago. Around the time of the Court case, in 1912. In fact, it could have been from the Court case. I know I said Roger revered Bella, and I still don’t think he killed her, but did he know something about her which she didn’t want made public?’

  And as Posie ran through all of this a few minutes later, the puzzle pieces still refusing to come together, she found her head was hurting.

  She took the motor launch home to Mrs Persimmon’s and went straight to bed without eating anything except a couple of damp and stuck-together Peek Freans Marie biscuits which she had found wrapped in foil at the bottom of her carpet bag.

  As she fell asleep, the chanting and cheers of the real-life crowds flocking to and from the Salute Church were a mere backdrop to her uneasy dreams of fog and fire and burning rooms and hidden chambers. And over it all came a sound Posie had never heard before. She could swear she heard Alaric weeping.

  Which was impossible.

  Because before going to bed, Posie had checked his room and he wasn’t there, and nor was his rucksack.

  He, like Roger Valentine, had disappeared into the freezing Venetian night.

  ****

  PART THREE

  VENICE

  (Thursday 22nd November, 1923)

  Twenty-Four

  When she awoke, Posie Parker could smell trouble in the air.

  A church bell, possibly from St George’s, or even the Salute, was ringing incessantly. It was six o’clock, and deathly dark, and cold as ice. Posie got up stealthily, swinging frozen legs over the bed. She dressed hurriedly, trying not to shiver. She didn’t bother to switch on the light or strike a match to the Penhaligon’s travel candle by her bedside. She needed to move.

  That scrawled note on Alaric’s hand.

  FRARI. 7AM.

  Posie had no clue how she would get to the Frari Church, but do it she must. Pushing open her door as quietly as possible she almost screamed as she immediately ran into a soft, shadowy figure lurking just outside in the darkness. The shadow stepped backwards.

  ‘Forgive me, Posie. I was just coming to see if you were awake and about to leave? But I see you are… I was about to rap on your door. Perhaps we can travel together?’

  It was Dickie Alladice, togged up in a thick overcoat and hat which made him virtually unrecognisable. Posie frowned, caught off guard. This was the last thing she had been expecting. ‘Where did you think I was going, Dickie?’

  ‘Well, to find Alaric, of course. You’ll know he hasn’t returned all night, and his things are gone?’

  Posie swallowed, but stayed quiet.

  ‘And you must have seen that scribble on his hand – something about the Frari Church? They celebrate Mass there at seven every morning, so I was going to go along and check he was okay. The fella’s had a huge shock of course, this rum news about Silvia yesterday. And there’s the – ahem – small matter of our signing the Partnership Deeds later on today, I want to make sure he’s not forgotten that. It’s very important that we do it today. I’ve arranged for my lawyer, Mr Ennario, to be present.’

  ‘Yes, well, you won’t want to mess him about, will you, Dickie? Lawyers’ fees being what they are…’

  Posie had to admire Dickie’s transparency and business drive. He was being completely open with her about his motives. It’s supposed to be my wedding day today, she felt like saying. And that was very important, too.

  There seemed no way of leaving without Dickie. Besides, he’d know how to get to the Frari Church, which was more than she did.

  They started to walk towards the dark stairwell, but out of the corner of her eye Posie sensed a movement behind them, felt the hairs raising on her neck. She turned, and picking up on her unease, Dickie followed suit. But there was no-one there. ‘Everything quite all right, Posie?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Posie went to grab at a couple of the black storm capes in the vestibule, but found them all gone. Her fashionable red coat, bright and not at all waterproof, would just have to do.

  They left the guesthouse and walked in silence through the tiny, pitch-black, rain-drenched streets, until they passed the Accademia Bridge. Without crossing over the Grand Canal, Posie realised they had arrived at a vaporetto station. And they were lucky: within only a minute the great hulking, splashing beast of the vaporetto appeared, like some mythical white whale rearing up out of the darkness.

  Dickie and Posie were among only a handful of passengers on the paddle-steamer, the others being a few wide-awake looking nuns in various types of elaborate black habit, and party-goers from the night before, looking very much the worse for wear, happy to sleep across the open-air benches in the drizzle.

  It was a short ride, and they got out at Santa Toma, where Dickie managed to hail a frozen-looking Gondolier to take them away from the Grand Canal, through an inward maze of smaller canals which seemed to go on forever.

  ‘Here we are.’ Dickie said at last, passing some coins across to the Gondolier, before asking him to wait for them up at the next small bridge.

  ‘That’s the Frari Church right there.’

  Posie saw a dainty bridge leading across to a large dark hump of a building which stood at the edge of a square.

  The place was all lit about with torches, illuminating the rain-drenched cobbles in the darkness of the winter morning. A crowd of black-clad women wearing headscarves were standing at
the entrance to the church, their breath and cigarette smoke melding and rising in the cold air, illuminated by the hanging yellow lantern above the main door. It was almost seven o’clock and Posie hurried in, barely waiting for Dickie to walk aside her.

  It suddenly dawned on Posie that she had no idea just what Alaric was doing here, or who he was meeting, or if indeed he was even going to turn up.

  And then the logistics of the church hit her.

  Stepping through the portico, Posie realised she was completely unprepared for the sheer scale of the place. Which was obviously why it had been chosen as a meeting point.

  Looking for Alaric here was like looking for a needle in a haystack. The Frari Church, dark and gloaming and candle-lit, seemed as big as Canterbury Cathedral, with its high-rising arches, and acres of terracotta-and-white chequered floor. Towards the altar, where candles lit up a gorgeous red and blue Madonna, priests and worshippers were arranging themselves into some sort of order. But their activities only took up the first three or four pews, and the rest of the hulking church was empty, and cavernous. All along the sides of the church were row after row of empty, dark side chapels, and what Lucy must have been speaking about – the tombs of artists and famous Venetians.

  He’s not here.

  Posie tried to scan the place as nonchalantly as possible. Suddenly Dickie was beside her. They were still at the main door, unobtrusive among the other worshippers who were coming in late.

  ‘I can’t see him. Have you any idea what he may be doing here, Posie?’

  ‘None. Not taking Mass, though.’

  And then she saw something. Over on the left, by a huge, pale triangular monument – a creepy thing altogether, rather like a small house, complete with carved life-size ghouls and marble flags and even a real doorway – she saw a sudden black blur of movement. In fact, two black blurs of movement. There was something about the way one of the figures moved, suggesting Alaric’s easy lithe gracefulness.