The Mystery of the Three Orchids

by Augusto De Angelis

  Verna paled slightly but appeared unintimidated. She replied sarcastically, “In any case, Valerio wasn’t worth the Signora’s getting herself into trouble.”

  “Who told you it was she who killed Valerio?”

  “Wasn’t it? What do you want to know, then? She had reasons to kill him.”

  “How do you know that?”

  She shrugged. “Look, ask me something specific and I’ll answer you. Yes, I went to the Albergo Palazzo with my mistress. She was the one who wanted to go. So?”

  Cristiana revived the moment Verna Campbell appeared. She stared at the girl, and it seemed to De Vincenzi that she was no longer indifferent.

  “What did the lady do there?”

  “She asked for Mr Bolton and spoke to him.”

  “Were you with them?”

  “I stayed in the next room.”

  “Did you hear what they said?”

  “I wasn’t authorized to do so.”

  “But you did hear.”

  She smirked. “It was short. As he walked her to the door he said, ‘We’ll leave together tomorrow. Thank you, Ileana.’”

  “That’ll be all, Signorina Campbell. Go back to your room.”

  Verna hesitated. The brusque dismissal surprised her. She gave another of her sarcastic smiles and walked into the corridor. De Vincenzi watched her for several seconds before returning to the showroom.

  “I’d say that things are now perfectly clear. Just a few brushstrokes, one or two touch-ups, and we’ll have the complete picture.”

  Cristiana stood up. “So you believe, Inspector, that I was the one who killed Russell?”

  “That’s your sister-in-law’s accusation, Signora.”

  “And I killed Evelina too?”

  “We haven’t yet spoken about Signorina Evelina.”

  “But she was murdered!”

  “That’s a fact, and a sad one. Very sad.”

  “Well it’s also a fact that Valerio was murdered. Are you accusing me of that murder as well?”

  “We need to take things in sequence, Signora O’Brian. To reconstruct the crimes and then reach our conclusion. Yes, everything seems to point to you. And since I want to convince you that our legal system doesn’t act blindly, I’ll clarify the situation before declaring you under arrest.”

  Prospero O’Lary interrupted. “But Inspector, you’re making a grave mistake! What motive would Cristiana have—Signora Cristiana—for committing the crimes? And what about the weapon?” His voice rose even higher. “Have you found the weapon?”

  De Vincenzi smiled.

  “I haven’t found it yet, Signor O’Lary, but are you really asking me what motive Signora O’Brian might have had for killing Valerio and Evelina? A short time ago you yourself—”

  “But I—” the little man protested vigorously.

  “I know. You told me so. You wanted to scare her into defending herself. That’s fine. A noble intention, but pointless. Getting to grips with reality, as you say, in order to destroy incriminating evidence is not enough to protect someone. Let’s mull over the facts, and you’ll see that they reveal the motives. Please take a seat.”

  He pushed a few armchairs towards the people standing by the wall and repeated his invitation.

  “Make yourselves comfortable.”

  Cristiana was the first to sit. She must have been worn out. Marta, Madame Firmino and O’Lary sat down after her. The last to take a seat—reluctantly—was Anna Sage, and she left an empty chair between her and her sister-in-law.

  De Vincenzi briefly studied the four faces focused on him.

  “Now, let’s begin.”

  13

  “I’ll be as brief as possible, and I won’t make a single accusation that isn’t based on solid evidence. Let’s start with Valerio, the first to be murdered. As you responded to or even anticipated my questions, you yourselves shed light on him for me. A quick visit to his room served to complete my picture of the man. I can add that, whether you knew it or not, he was taking drugs and alcohol: the results of the autopsy left no doubt. Cristiana O’Brian found him in Naples when he was still young, and thought she could turn him into her devoted creature, someone ready to serve her. She herself defined him as ‘an object’, a loyal pet. And she used him.”

  He paused and addressed Cristiana directly. “Signora, I don’t know if you did it because you had to, or because of some innate moral deficiency, but it’s clear that from the time you opened this fashion house, you used it to squeeze money out of people with whom you came into contact, people who presented opportunities for blackmail. The proof is in all those letters and other documents you kept in a red lacquer box. It wasn’t difficult for me to find it, even though you tried to hide it under burnt wood in the fireplace.”

  Cristiana muttered, “It was my revenge, the revenge I took against my fate. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I may well do, Signora. Perhaps your cynical way of profiting from others’ vices and weaknesses comes out of rebellion, a cold determination to make everyone else do what you had to do—or believed you had to.”

  “My heart was poisoned! You have no idea.”

  De Vincenzi put up his hand.

  “I’m not judging you here, Signora, I’m explaining. You used Valerio to carry out that sort of work, so he naturally knew all your secrets. At first he served you just as you wanted him to and in the way you felt one human being should serve another: blindly. But Valerio himself was unhinged, a person lacking morals or scruples, corrupted by passions and vices. Soon enough, he turned the same weapon you used against others against you: blackmail. And then you became his unwitting victim, and so you remained until you killed him—for some random reason which I don’t understand, though there must have been one.”

  Cristiana looked up. “And would I have killed him in my room and left his body on my bed?”

  “No, not in your room. Valerio was killed in the ‘museum of horrors’ amongst the mannequins. You quarrelled with him, or maybe had to explain something to him there… Or it could have been none of this, simply that he was in that room, there was a chance to get rid of him—and you took it.”

  The woman started to speak but she must have felt that it was no use defending herself. She shook her head and said nothing.

  “There’s proof for what I’ve said. The evidence, still in the ‘museum of horrors’, speaks for itself. And if that were not enough, next to an overturned mannequin I found a medallion belonging to you from the San Siro Dog Track. In your wardrobe, there’s a dress—the one you most likely wore yesterday morning; it will be easy to find witnesses to swear that they saw you in it. It’s torn at the shoulder and shows that you struggled with someone. The evidence in this crime is very clear, and all of it leads to you alone. The body’s having been found in your bed isn’t enough to demolish it, but it’s not difficult to believe that you yourself took it there to muddle the picture.”

  Cristiana appeared resigned. There was nothing but a terrible, hopeless weariness in her eyes, and as she watched De Vincenzi a single plea could be read in them: Make it quick! Make it quick!

  Madame Firmino and Marta sat listening to De Vincenzi’s measured and terrible words. A feeling of horror had crept under their alarm and confusion, and they now felt paralysed with fear. Beside them, Prospero O’Lary seemed so depressed that he lacked the strength to intervene. Only Anna Sage, tragically immobile, continued staring at Cristiana. The coils of the accusation were tightening inexorably around her with the cold-heartedness of Nemesis.

  “After you committed the first crime and thought you were free of the danger posed by Valerio, you suddenly discovered that you had to confront two other problems: Evelina and your husband. Evelina stumbled across one of your blackmail plots. I’m not about to tell you how I discovered it, but I assure you that I have proof. That poor woman, with her innocent, romantic spirit, thought she could come between you and your deal. She phoned one of your victims, made contact with him and p
romised to stop the blackmailing. The evening of the day she was strangled, she was supposed to meet up with Commendatore N—. But Evelina wanted to speak to you before her meeting, to tell you that she knew everything. She was suffering from the shock of Valerio’s murder, and thought you’d committed it. You were terrified of this new danger, and thought you could ward it off by removing the unhappy creature from this world for ever. You pretended to use the telephone behind her chair and then strangled her with her own necklace.”

  Cristiana groaned and Marta and Dolores let out a choked and horrified scream. “Oremus” shifted in his seat.

  De Vincenzi hastened to continue. “Meanwhile, your husband showed up. His appearance just when Valerio’s body lay on your bed was disconcerting for you. Not only did he appear as the material incarnation of your fate, the one you’d hoped to escape by coming to Europe, but he represented a settling of accounts you knew would be dangerous. When she accused you as she did, your sister-in-law revealed the reason you might have killed Edward Moran, whom you married as Russell Sage. You went to see him to suggest running off together, and you might have been sincere at that moment. But you feared that he might have known you were a murderer, and would thus have been able to keep you under his thumb for the rest of your life. You sent Verna Campbell to her room—after having asked her to accompany you earlier so as not to arouse suspicion—and then you phoned him, waited for him and shot him from behind.”

  It was as silent as the grave. The silence lasted for a few interminable seconds before Sani appeared at the first of the showroom doors. He took in the scene and then advanced towards the group. De Vincenzi turned to Sani, saw him nod in assent and then stood up.

  “There you have it! Those are the facts against you, Signora.”

  Cristiana stiffened. Her face was tense and she gripped the arms of the chair. “Are you arresting me, Inspector?” she repeated.

  “For now, I’m inviting you to come upstairs with me to the room with the mannequins. I think it’s only fitting that I should present you with the evidence I’ve cited as incriminating.”

  He turned to the rest of them. “You will of course follow me.”

  14

  The dramatic little procession was headed by De Vincenzi with Cristiana O’Brian at his side. Behind them Madame Firmino, Marta and Prospero O’Lary moved as a group. Anna Sage walked by herself, followed by Sani and the two officers who’d been guarding the entrance.

  They took the service stairs, and when they got to the second-floor landing De Vincenzi stopped to let the others go ahead of him. He had an idea. As Sani caught up with him, he noticed the inspector’s faintly ironic smile.

  “It was actually here. He didn’t meet anyone and he used the phone,” Sani whispered to him.

  De Vincenzi nodded in agreement. Cristiana, who’d got there first, stopped in the middle of the corridor. The others kept a marked distance.

  “Signorina Marta, would you be so kind as to go in and open all the shutters? Even with the lights on, this room is unbearably gloomy.” His tone was far from heavy: one might have said that, having solved the mystery, he was no longer interested in it other than as a pure formality.

  Marta entered the “museum of horrors”, leaving the door open behind her. Within a few minutes she came back and stood in the doorway.

  “Come in,” said De Vincenzi, and he ushered Cristiana in ahead of him. The others followed. Sani and the two officers stopped at the door. De Vincenzi walked straight over to where the mannequin lay. Behind him, the four women and the little man moved tentatively, afraid of being confronted with another body.

  Cristiana suddenly looked terrified. Pointing in front of her, she called out in a strangled voice, “Another one! There’s another orchid!”

  O’Lary took her by the arm from behind. “What are you talking about!? You’re crazy, Cristiana!” He immediately dropped her arm and hurried over to De Vincenzi.

  “She’s obsessed, Inspector. The fact that she sees orchids everywhere just goes to show how unbalanced she is. She’s not guilty!”

  De Vincenzi glared at him.

  “Is that what you think, Signor O’Lary? The trouble is, there really is an orchid, there, on the floor.”

  O’Lary raised his arms in a fury.

  “But what are you saying? It’s impossible!”

  “Look!”

  Prospero finally turned and saw the glass containing the orchid on the floor. The sight had an immediate effect on him, and his fiery red face turned blue. His arms fell back down and he stood staring at the flower, no longer able to speak or move, his eyes wide as if he were facing something monstrous and inexplicable.

  De Vincenzi watched him for a few seconds and then shook him, slapping him on the shoulder.

  “Come now, Prospero. That is the only orchid you didn’t put where it was found, and it didn’t get there by itself. It’s a little trap I prepared for you so I could watch its effect on you when you came upon it unexpectedly.”

  The little man jumped.

  “What are you saying? What is the meaning of this idiotic joke?”

  “It means, Signor O’Lary, that I haven’t swallowed the ‘evidence’ you prepared for me. How did you think I could reconstruct the three crimes as I did just now and attribute them to Cristiana O’Brian without noticing the holes in my theory? They were, after all, mistakes you wanted me to make. How could you fail to notice my deliberate avoidance of talking about the orchids? It was your brilliant idea to stack up the evidence against Cristiana O’Brian by attributing to her the obsession with the flowers her husband used to bring her whenever he returned home after an absence, even a brief one. As far as you were concerned, they would constitute proof of her cleverness in trying to implicate John Bolton in the crimes. But that would have backfired on Cristiana O’Brian herself, since in line with your plans for revenge, even John Bolton—or to be precise, Edward Moran—had to die. A really clever idea, and what a testimony to your cunning. However, it’s precisely what’s landed you in it now.”

  “But you’re mad! Mad enough to be locked up! Why in the world would I have strangled Valerio and Evelina and then shot that Bolton man? I didn’t even know him!”

  “I’ll tell you before long, Mr O’Lary.”

  He turned to the back of the room and called, “Sani!”

  His deputy came running.

  “Cuff him. It’ll be safer that way, since it’s possible he hasn’t had time to get rid of the revolver he used to kill Moran.”

  With unexpected agility and strength, the little man delivered a violent blow to De Vincenzi’s stomach, threw Marta to the floor to get her out of his way, and hurtled towards the bathroom door. But he didn’t make it. The two officers on the door had got there just in time, and after a brief and intense struggle they pinned him down. It was an “Oremus” absolutely devoid of gloss, his frock coat in tatters, who descended the service stairs of the O’Brian Fashion House for the last time, handcuffed and with two policemen on each side. He was pushed into a taxi and taken to San Fedele. Meanwhile De Vincenzi, still somewhat pale from the stomach punch, ordered Sani to accompany Cristiana O’Brian and the other three women to his office.

  “I’d like to wind it all up this evening. One cannot give a criminal like him any time to reflect if one is to trip him up. I’ll be there soon, but first I’d like to have a final chat with Verna Campbell on my own.”

  It was eight that evening when De Vincenzi embarked upon the final scene of the horrific drama. Having begun in a fashion house, amongst the silks, lace and other fabrics, an environment of luxury and worldly frivolity, its denouement took place within the damp, whitewashed walls of a room in the police station, on the ground floor of a building that had once housed a convent.

  Cristiana O’Brian, Marta, Madame Firmino, Anna Sage and Verna Campbell sat facing De Vincenzi’s desk in his office as the head of the flying squad. Prospero O’Lary, no longer handcuffed, sat beside it, with Sergeant Cruni standing
behind him. Sani sat on the other side of the desk. De Vincenzi spoke slowly, his eyes fixed on the sheets of white paper in front of him on which he was doodling invisible arabesques with the tip of a paperknife. On his desk, as well as the vase of orchids, were a pistol with holster and belt, a glass necklace, two envelopes addressed to Evelina Rossi and a red lacquer box. And finally, a crushed orchid that resembled a velvety, squashed spider.

  “First I’ll demolish the theory I myself put forward today in order to fool the real murderer into thinking I’d fallen into his trap. Valerio: the thing that immediately struck me when I saw his body was the fact that it was on Cristiana O’Brian’s bed. It isn’t possible for O’Brian to have killed him in her own room unless you consider this an unpremeditated crime committed on the spur of the moment. In that case, however, the body wouldn’t have looked as calm, almost neat as it did. When I discovered later that Valerio had been killed in the ‘museum of horrors’ and was then taken through the bathroom, forcing open the connecting door, to O’Brian’s bed, I told myself that this was a first-rate criminal, the kind in whom criminal deviation unfortunately assumes utterly ingenious shapes and forms. He’d have been able to conceive a plan which, by constructing the appearance of guilt, would induce others to reject the idea.

  “Could Signora O’Brian have been that sort of criminal? Yes, she could, and both science and statistics tell us that it is much more common to find criminal brilliance in women than in men. But then there was the orchid, which had to have some meaning. What that might be I couldn’t possibly imagine, and I admit that the real reason the murderer used that flower didn’t occur to me until much later—that is, last night. When I got home, I consulted a book on American crime, actually written by the head of the FBI and full of interesting details on various famous gangsters, and Edward Moran’s gang in particular. However, so that I can tell this story in the right order, I’ll stop with the observation that that flower was capable of eliciting profound fear in Cristiana O’Brian. That fear was real. It wouldn’t have been possible to fake it as it appeared in O’Brian. Cristiana really was afraid of that flower. Why?