When he returned to the bathroom, he heard his officer saying: “Wait here. The inspector will be back.”
12
It was Cristiana’s maid: powdered face, slim yet muscular body in a short dress with thin blue stripes, her blonde thatch topped with a lacy bonnet. She kept her hands in the pocket of her little white apron and seemed not the least perturbed.
“Are you Signora O’Brian’s maid?”
“Verna Campbell.”
A hard voice, which came from her head. She threw her name out as if in challenge and stared insolently at De Vincenzi.
“Did the signora bring you with her from America?”
“Yes.”
So there were two of them: the other was Prospero O’Lary.
“Go out to the corridor.” The officer joined his companion who’d already studied four of the herms and was now admiring the fifth.
“Sit down, Signorina Campbell.”
The girl took a fresh look around before sitting down. She wouldn’t glance over at the bed and De Vincenzi was sure that she either knew about or had guessed the presence of the body. He put on a show of good-natured friendliness.
“Is it tiring serving Signora O’Brian, Signorina Campbell?”
“If doing nothing is a fag, then service here is certainly tiring.”
Following his habit of adopting the native language of those whose trust he wanted to gain, he spoke to Miss Campbell in English, and she used far niente in Italian for “doing nothing”. But her tone remained cross, almost disengaged, with all her phrases rising at the end.
“Is that why you came with her from America to Italy?”
“I came with her because I need to earn money.”
“Were you her maid over there too?”
“No. Mrs Sage hired me from the hotel where I was doing seasonal work in Miami. Since she offered to double my salary, I decided to come to Europe with her.”
“Sage?”
“That was the lady’s name, or at least the name of her husband.”
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t think so.” A fleeting, sarcastic smile. Then the girl’s eyes turned mocking.
Sage? De Vincenzi felt he’d heard the name before. Or rather, read. That was it: he must have read it in a book or some newspaper.
“Divorce?”
“If you like.”
“What did Mr Sage do?”
“Robbed banks. He was renowned for it. It’s just that no one knew him under his real name of Sage, except when he stood before the court in Rutland. Until then he was content to become famous under the name of Moran.”
Edward Moran, sidekick of Machine-gun Kelly, Baby Face Nelson, John Dillinger… A phantom gangster, the one who’d hit up the Bank of Lincoln for a million dollars. But of course! De Vincenzi remembered him now perfectly, not because he was in the habit of following the exploits of American criminals, but because he’d come across quite an interesting book, Persons in Hiding, written by the head of the G-men, J. Edgar Hoover. He affected indifference.
“Nothing more natural than that the wife of such a villain should have wanted to divorce him and revert to her own name.”
“Who said anything different? Are you sure O’Brian is her name?”
She pursed her lips in spite. Verna Campbell wasn’t fond of her boss.
“So you came directly to Italy?”
“Yes. We disembarked in Naples, but after a few days there we went to Paris, and from Paris to London. Two months in London, and back to Paris again. We’d been in the French capital for three months and I thought we’d finally settled down there when the lady suddenly put us on a flight for Venice. We’ve only been in Milan for two years.”
“That seems normal as well. Didn’t it occur to you that Miss O’Brian was looking for the best place to establish her fashion house?” His smile was guileless. He’d discovered the woman’s Achilles’ heel and was trying to provoke her, make her speak. The ploy was successful.
“Oh, exactly! It was precisely because she wished to create a fashion house, one with lots of rich male clients for whom she’d do favours.”
“Male clients? Are you sure you’re not mistaken, Signorina Campbell? The rooms below are full of women.”
She looked at him pityingly. She’d never met a policeman so indescribably obtuse, or even dreamt there could be one.
“Well, I could be mistaken.”
Her condescending tone said: why bother obstructing this man when he’s so trusting? But she looked at the telephone on the small table next to the bed and De Vincenzi followed her gaze. Beside the telephone was a small book in green leather.
“Do you want to take a look under here, Signorina Campbell?”
He got up and walked towards the bed. The girl watched him indifferently. He lifted up the edge of the bedspread to reveal the body.
Verna Campbell paled, but displayed neither fear nor uneasiness. Instead, the dull roar of anger, a fiery hatred.
“Did you know him?”
“I don’t know him any more. At last he’ll go to hell!”
De Vincenzi covered up the corpse once again. When it came down to it he was sentimental, and he had an instinctive respect for the dead, for scoundrels who’d once been alive. The girl’s words, so icy and disrespectful, had upset him.
“Where were you today between two and four, Miss Campbell?” he asked in a hard voice.
“In my room.”
“Where is your room?”
“On the second floor before you get to the atelier.”
“Near the service stairs?”
“How did you know?”
“I don’t know. I’m asking you.”
“Exactly. But if you’re thinking I might have killed… that man, you’re making a big blunder. He’s been avoiding me for some time.”
“We’ll come back to that, Signorina.”
He accompanied her to the door. Verna Campbell left rapidly and disappeared down the service stairs. De Vincenzi let out a sigh. He was in a bad mood. The atmosphere was becoming increasingly charged and heavy with foreboding. He recognized his state of mind and it scared him, since it always heralded some catastrophe, as if the premonition itself had some power to act.
He returned to the bedside and looked at the small green book. He was almost afraid to touch it, but he overcame his repugnance, picked it up and leafed through it. It was an address book. The pages, divided alphabetically, contained only a few names and numbers. He read one or two of them, closed the book and put it in his pocket. It now seemed more important than ever for him to speak to the plump Evelina. A calm chat, a tête-à-tête, without interruptions, and above all, without heart attacks…
He ordered the two officers in the corridor: “Don’t move from here. No one is to enter this room except the investigating magistrate.”
13
At 6.30 p.m., Cristiana O’Brian’s showrooms looked deserted. The catwalk show had been halted at 6 p.m.—before even half the designs had made their appearance: De Vincenzi had requested that Marta stop it before the scheduled time. He wouldn’t disturb the ladies gathered there; it didn’t seem necessary to question them. But he needed to have free rein. Besides, the investigating magistrate would be there before long and, right after that, the undertakers with the stretcher.
Marta and Clara had smilingly and obsequiously helped the clients to leave. Clara had put on a special smile and bow for the Boltons. As she walked them up to the door she said, “We trust that your sister will want to honour us with a few more visits, Mr Bolton.”
“I’m sure she will, Signorina. My sister has always greatly admired your designs.” John Bolton smiled again in the lift, this time smugly. Almost without moving his lips he said to Anna, “The game promises to be tricky. I saw her and spoke to her.”
Anna Sage responded listlessly. “I don’t see any use in your playing the same old game. Remember, in Miami you lost because you wanted to offer your relatives lunch on the Fourth
of July.”
“A memorable lunch, that was!”
And the most extraordinary visitor Federico had ever seen at the fashion house put another ten lire in his hand.
De Vincenzi was now free to move about in the empty showrooms. He needed to order his thoughts, since he hadn’t yet had time to take stock of the situation. He’d gathered many clues, but he couldn’t connect them; they didn’t add up to a complete picture. As he contemplated a collection of rhinestone and ormolu flower jewellery in a glass display case, he began to tot up the clues. The orchid was one of them, perhaps the most obscure of all, the one that might unexpectedly and accidentally reveal the solution. Right after that came the cold and unfathomable Verna Campbell, who’d made sure to give him disturbing information and enthralled him with tales of gangsters. The girl had done more than that: she’d revealed to him the importance of the green address book now in his pocket.
Evelina’s sudden attack was another clue. Then there was the body’s having been placed in Cristiana’s bed… The list might still be incomplete.
Despite all this, no single, specific piece of information, no clue showed where the path began. Everything was murky and dark. Why had Cristiana O’Brian—who’d never been a dressmaker and didn’t have any aptitude for it—felt it necessary to set up a fashion house? In and of itself, that fact certainly wouldn’t have aroused anyone’s surprise if Valerio hadn’t been strangled. But both the crime and the crime scene cast a sinister light on the woman’s activities. What’s more, Valerio’s murder didn’t chime with all the rest. If it was a product of the environment, the staging seemed over-elaborate. This wasn’t the crime that was meant to happen. And De Vincenzi was startled to think what the real crime might be, and how it might have been carried out.
The lights had been left on in the showrooms, and weak daylight was still filtering through the windows. The corridor looked deserted, but De Vincenzi heard the models chattering in their room even though Clara was there to keep an eye on them. Cristiana O’Brian was in the office with O’Lary, and Marta was with the dressmakers, whom De Vincenzi had prohibited from leaving their room.
So Evelina had to be in her office, waiting in trepidation for him to question her. He thought despairingly about the vast number of people he still had to interrogate. All the women would talk to him about Valerio. What could they tell him that would help to set him on the trail of the murderer? Nothing, probably. On the other hand, they might still reveal other facts about Valerio, and he’d be glad of that.
He took the medallion he’d found on the floor from his pocket. Had it actually belonged to Valerio? He’d been so sure it was his that he hadn’t even bothered to check to see whether the dead man had had a chain it could have fallen off. He slowly went through the doorway of the third showroom, the last one on the same side as the internal lift. He was heading for the office when the models’ voices, coming from behind the closed door, made him stop.
“You’re being stupid to cry over him! He cared for you like he did the knot in his tie! He liked you, but as for loving you, he fooled you just like me and all the others.”
“Be quiet, Irma! Don’t you see that Gioia’s hurting? It’s a mood, and it’ll pass. As it happens, he was in here a short time before he was killed, and he talked to her.”
“I’ll bet the American bumped him off… She couldn’t accept it.”
“What now? Have you seen the police everywhere? They’re going to close this dump and send us packing.”
“Oh, I couldn’t care less! Fercioni have been after me for a while. I only have to go and see them for them to take me on.”
De Vincenzi began walking down the corridor. Could this, then, be a crime of jealousy? Yes, it would have been possible to consider it one—if the body had not been taken to Cristiana’s bed. But it’s rare for a woman to have the strength for such gruesome work, even if she wants revenge against a rival. Could Cristiana have been in competition with her own maid, or with one of the models or dressmakers? It would all be very simple if things had gone like that. But they had not.
He went into Evelina’s room. The door between Cristiana and Prospero’s office was closed. De Vincenzi checked that first, and then looked at the bookkeeper’s large desk. He noticed that the woman’s head was bent over the ledger. Maybe Evelina had felt sleepy, or maybe she’d fallen over like that crying… Yet why should she be crying? How strange that he should consider that.
But then he saw something else that made his blood run cold. On the corner of the desk was a glass, and in that glass was an orchid.
De Vincenzi was at her side in a flash. He shook her, and her head rolled across the ledger but her body didn’t move. He lifted her head: it fell back down. Yet he’d had time to see her face: Evelina was dead. The enormous woman was still warm, but she wasn’t breathing. He tried to sit her up straight, to grab her wrists, but he realized immediately that it would be impossible to move her. All that flesh had become so heavy…
De Vincenzi felt lost for several moments. This new crime, committed practically under his nose, had shocked him and robbed him of any initiative, his power to analyse or to act. From the moment he’d set foot in this building, it had all been happening around him. It was bewildering.
He moved away from the body and walked around the room randomly. It was surprising that he’d managed not to scream, not to call anyone and, above all, not to run. Even a police inspector is a man. He felt like someone had slapped him. He’d been at this job for twenty years without managing to get a grip on his emotions. A body is a body, and that’s that. So why should this one upset him more than any other?
He went over to the window, drew back the silk curtain, put his forehead against the glass and stayed like that for a few minutes. He called on his reason, and succeeded in discovering why he’d had such a shock. Nothing had given a greater impression of life—intense, physical, overflowing—than Evelina’s body when he’d seen it in motion, alive. That body was now motionless, heavy, a mass as enormous as it was inert, and the violent contrast gave her death a frightening meaning, rendering it material, visible. That, rather than anything else, had to be the reason for his fleeting feeling of loss.
Calmer now, he went back to the body and studied it. From her neck, it was clear that she’d been strangled. Yet Evelina’s killer had not used his hands. The marks covered her neck: wide, deep and black. A curious chain of bruises. The woman had been strangled with a necklace.
He finally succeeded in righting the body so that it stayed against the back of the chair. Hanging against Evelina’s breast he noticed a glass necklace whose shiny black beads were held together by a thick silk thread. He tested its strength and was convinced that the pull of a finger alone wouldn’t have broken it. Without a doubt, the necklace was the murder weapon.
He let Evelina’s torso fall once more against the table, settled her dangling head on the ledger and walked over to the door of the offices, opening it suddenly.
Standing next to the rosewood table, Prospero O’Lary was talking to Cristiana, who listened to him as she smoked. Madame Firmino was still sitting in the chair he’d found her in, and appeared to be absorbed in contemplation of the smoke spiralling up from her cigarette. Prospero O’Lary was saying, “I told you, Cristiana, I don’t know the symbolism of the orchid. I only know the meaning of the aster.”
14
“Have any of you been out of this room?”
De Vincenzi marvelled at the harsh, cutting tone of his own voice. It was coming from somewhere outside him, and it made him stiffen. His face was tense.
Madame Firmino leapt to her feet, no longer the least bit listless. Prospero O’Lary twitched too, and went white in the face. Cristiana simply turned towards De Vincenzi, exhibiting no sign of surprise.
“I certainly haven’t!” Dolores suddenly realized that the man standing in the door wasn’t the same one she’d spoken with earlier. “Has something else happened?” she added anxiously.
/> Cristiana looked at Dolores, then at Prospero. She asked in a voice that was unchanged: raspy, bitter and unpleasant, “Have you found Valerio’s killer?”
De Vincenzi left her question hanging and went straight for Prospero. He took him by the lapels of his frock coat and shook him.
“Answer me! How long have you been in this room?”
“Well, I don’t know. Since I came down. You actually saw me come in, and then shortly afterwards she joined me.” He pointed to Cristiana and freed himself from De Vincenzi’s grip, smoothing his lapels in an effort to straighten them.
“Did you hear anything coming from the next room?”
“Not a sound. We didn’t even hear you open the door. We were talking, and you must admit that we have the right to be so absorbed in our jobs that we don’t notice what’s going on outside here.”
“So not one of you three can tell me who killed Signorina Evelina?”
Prospero’s face went bright red. “What did you say?” His every emotion lit up his head like an electric signal.
The two women stared at De Vincenzi incredulously. It seemed that neither of them could take in the meaning of the words they’d heard.
Cristiana got up and stubbed out her cigarette in the bottom of a crystal bowl.
“I don’t believe Evelina can be involved in this matter, Inspector.”
“As it happens, now that someone’s killed her, she won’t have anything more to do with it.” He paused, staring at the three faces, one after the other, with such intensity that it was distressing for him too. As he watched them, he saw the two women finally take in the horrifying news. They were overcome with fear—animal fear, pure and simple. As for Prospero, his own eyes were brimming with terror as he sought to avoid De Vincenzi’s gaze.
The Mystery of the Three Orchids Page 6