The Hotel of the Three Roses

by Augusto De Angelis

  “It’s the authorization from the investigating magistrate. He’ll be here shortly.”

  “Go to the third floor first; then you can take the one from the first floor.”

  The officer took the two soldiers with the stretcher upstairs. De Vincenzi turned round quickly. Mrs Flemington had appeared at the door of the blue room, and behind her was her husband. She stood straight and proud, yet she was as stiff and pale as a candle. She stared at the stretchers, her eyes wide.

  De Vincenzi’s first move was to run and push her back into the room. But she stayed there, waiting. The minutes were interminable. Mr Flemington kept silent behind his wife, but he was clearly worried. He heard steps on the stairs, slow and measured. They stopped. Began again…

  At the top of the stairs: the head of the first soldier, the stretcher, the second soldier. More steps, one for each stair, measured, equal. They got to the lobby. The dull thud of the stretcher set on the floor.

  A white face and bare shoulder slipped out from under the sheet. A sharp, lacerating scream echoed through the lobby. Diana Flemington fell to her knees over the body of Douglas Layng. Neither her husband nor De Vincenzi made a move. The lawyer looked at the inspector and for the first time his eyes were human, soft and dismayed.

  18

  Mrs Flemington was helped to the sofa in the blue room by her husband and De Vincenzi, who had to persuade her with gentle force. Her husband stood up straight beside her.

  De Vincenzi went over to Mary Alton, who hadn’t budged from her chair. The widow gazed at him with her velvety, violet eyes, so dark, clear and innocent. Every time he looked at her, De Vincenzi had the same impression as the first time he’d seen her: gentle and peaceful. He wished he could trust this woman; her purity worked on him like a nepenthe, reconciling him with his fellow man and with life. Even in the midst of all this moral filth, this horrendous procession of bodies, the young woman remained pure, white and innocent as the Lamb of God.

  “Mrs Alton,” he said with unwitting gentleness, “you must now go and get the porcelain doll. I’d like you to bring the one that belonged to Carin Nolan as well, which you’ll surely find in her room. It’s number 9, at the beginning of the other part of the corridor.”

  Mary stood up. She looked at De Vincenzi. “Aren’t the others who should be present at the reading of the will going to come down?”

  Flemington’s grating voice rose from behind De Vincenzi, at the back of the room. “They’ll come down, Mrs Alton.” And he laughed in that sarcastic way of his.

  “Why couldn’t I go when all the others have got here?”

  “Sit down, please,” De Vincenzi ordered.

  Was the woman afraid of going upstairs? Did she think she’d be safer when all the heirs—apart from the dead and the wounded Carin—were gathered together in that room? Without waiting for him to repeat his words, Mary sat down and put her hands in her lap, her blond head tilted towards her shoulder. She seemed relaxed, but also to be waiting for something resignedly. De Vincenzi wrote another name in his notebook and handed the page to his officer to give to Sani.

  “Mrs Flemington—” He paused.

  The woman grew still paler. Her husband took a step towards her as if to defend her.

  “Mrs Flemington,” De Vincenzi repeated respectfully and courteously, “would you mind telling me your maiden name?”

  “Layng,” replied the woman in a firm voice. Immediately she threw a beseeching look at her husband.

  Flemington nodded in consent and when he turned back to the inspector he said confidentially, “Miss Layng, and she was born in Australia.”

  “Thank you.” De Vincenzi turned on his heel and made for the door. He wanted the lawyer to understand that there was nothing more to say on the subject, and that he attached no importance to Mrs Flemington’s having been Harry Alton’s lover and the mother of Douglas Layng.

  He waited at the door. When Pompeo Besesti arrived, he moved out of the way.

  “Come in!”

  The owner of the Bank of Pure Metals had lost all his pride. His face, usually round and ruddy, was now pale and drawn, and his golden beard was no longer impeccably tidy. His hair was dishevelled and his blue eyes were swimming in terror and confusion. He’d come down without his fur coat, and since his tie had shifted and almost entirely come out of his waistcoat, the huge diamond on it was twirling and throwing its glorious rays around. When he saw Flemington, he perked up somewhat.

  “Mr Flemington!” and he ran towards him as if seeking protection. “Ah, Mr Flemington!”

  The lawyer sneered in his typical way.

  “Mr Besesti! Your Lessinger has finally made himself known.”

  The phrase was a body blow, and Besesti wavered and stopped mid-step.

  “What are you saying? What in the world are you saying?”

  “Didn’t he swear to revenge himself, Julius Lessinger? Wasn’t it you he announced it to? Wasn’t it you who took the news to Harry? Happy news, which from that moment made his existence truly pleasant!”

  “But it can’t be him. It can’t be Lessinger!”

  “Then who? Who could have killed Douglas? Who could have wished the death of Carin Nolan?”

  “Miss Nolan—killed?” The question came as a strangled scream.

  “That’s right, Miss Nolan. If he didn’t kill her, it was close.”

  “Oh!” He waved his arms in the air and then brought them to his throat, as if he were about to suffocate.

  De Vincenzi had gone over to the window where he was almost hidden by the curtain, and stood listening to the two men, staring at them and not missing a move. Signora Alton looked at Besesti with curiosity, as if asking herself what this new character had to do with anything. But only for an instant before she became listless again, a condition that isolated her, rendering her almost non-existent.

  Flemington laughed. De Vincenzi told himself that the nightmare would continue for as long as he had to keep hearing that laugh.

  “And now, look over there at the table. There’s the letter Lessinger wrote to me!”

  “To you? Lessinger?” He grabbed the piece of paper and quickly scanned it. He began rereading from the top. His terror was making him weak and jerky. He looked around desperately for some escape, and found none. “No! No!”

  He was spluttering. Just then he saw the whisky bottle and the upturned glass. He grabbed the bottle with one hand, the glass with the other and poured the liquor until it was overflowing. He drank it down in one, and was revived by the alcohol. Taking his silk handkerchief out of his breast pocket, he wiped his mouth, then adjusted his tie. He touched his diamond.

  “It’s very strange!”

  De Vincenzi came forward. “Why is it so strange, Signor Besesti?” He stared at Besesti, who returned his gaze in wonderment, surely noticing the inspector only then.

  “I left Lessinger in America.”

  “What year?”

  “In ’13, I think. ’13.”

  “You haven’t come across him since then?”

  “Not once.”

  “Would you recognize him if you saw him?”

  Once more, Besesti acted as if there were a ghost in front of him. He threw his hands out in defence.

  “It’s not possible!”

  “But actually, Mr Besesti, why don’t you want to admit that Lessinger wanted to take his revenge, since you knew that better than anyone else? Why shouldn’t he be in Milan, if he wrote that letter to Mr Flemington from Hamburg? And why not him—and only him—if Layng’s body was hung from a rope, as they did to Donald Lessinger? After Douglas, Carin Nolan… Dick Nolan’s niece. The boy’s body was put upstairs where Vilfredo Engel would have to see it! Isn’t all of this enough to indicate that Lessinger is the murderer—and that it could only be him? Why don’t you believe it? Why? Why?”

  De Vincenzi hammered out the words. He advanced towards Besesti as he spoke, peering into the depths of his eyes. But madness was the only thing he saw burning
in them.

  “But no! No! It’s impossible!”

  “Who else could it have been then?”

  This obvious question, laying out a simple problem which was unavoidable and logical after his obstinate denial, seemed to recall him to reason. The change was visible. All his features loosened, as if they’d relaxed. He crinkled his forehead and set his mouth, making a considerable effort to ponder the question, to concentrate.

  “Who? Who can it have been?”

  “And who is it, still here in this hotel… and who will keep killing, right to the end, if we don’t stop him?”

  Besesti held on to the table and stood up straight, apparently recovering something of his self-confidence.

  “How should I know? You’re the one who’s supposed to find him!”

  “Yet you, Besesti, don’t allow that it could be Lessinger! What reasons do you have for not believing it’s him? That’s what I want to know.”

  Flemington, too, had come closer in order to watch Besesti. Mrs Flemington’s low groans of suffering could be heard.

  “I said it wasn’t him because I can’t imagine how he could have got here. Because I haven’t seen him since.” He was searching for reasons, panting. It was pitiful to watch him trying to hide behind his quibbling. He seized on a logical point and shouted: “And because he would have killed Harry Alton, first of all. He wouldn’t have left him to die a natural death!”

  “Who says Harry died a natural death? His illness was a mystery. He knew he was dying and there was no doctor who could save him. Why? No one has ever said what Harry died of. He could have been poisoned.”

  All of them shivered. Diana Flemington moaned desperately. De Vincenzi rushed towards the widow. It was she who had spoken in her melodious voice. The look on her face was unchanged and her cheeks remained pale. Flemington instinctively reached out and grasped the revolver on the table. Besesti drew his right hand across his forehead, sliding it right down to his cheek. He was trying to understand. He looked back and forth. The pent-up silence—anxious, terrified—continued for only moments, but it seemed an eternity.

  “It’s true, Signora. No one knows how your husband died.”

  De Vincenzi had turned cold again.

  “However, before long we’ll know at least if Lessinger is really here.” He called his officer and whispered in his ear outside the door. The officer ran up the main staircase and De Vincenzi turned back to the blue room. “Let’s sit down. The others are coming now.”

  Flemington wouldn’t let go of the revolver. Still gripping it, he went to sit on the sofa beside his wife, whose face was wet with tears; she stopped moaning when she saw him next to her.

  The first to enter was Da Como, and behind him, with curved shoulders, lumbered the elephantine Vilfredo Engel. He’d put his overcoat over his pyjamas and was wearing his red slippers. Da Como looked around, smiled and greeted everyone with the sweep of his hand. Engel was puffing and panting. He was pale and his pupils, always small, seemed two bright dots in the middle of the unhealthy swelling of his eyes. His brain must have been foggy with alcohol, but he managed to reach Flemington; he shook his hand and bowed to his wife. Then he sat down, huge and grotesque, on a chair too small for his bulk.

  “You sit down too.”

  Da Como saw a chair near the table. He went to get it and moved it away into the corner. He sat there as if to signal his detachment from everyone else.

  “Mr Flemington, you may now read the will.”

  “This man,” the lawyer immediately objected, pointing to Da Como, “was not summoned, so—”

  “It doesn’t matter!”

  “And also missing—”

  “Douglas Layng and Carin Nolan. I know.”

  “Not just those two. The three dolls aren’t here.”

  “You’re right!”

  De Vincenzi turned to Engel.

  “Where have you put yours, Mr Engel?”

  “In the second drawer of the dresser,” he pronounced in his deep, hoarse voice. “Here’s the key.” He drew it from his overcoat pocket.

  De Vincenzi took it from him, went into the lobby and sent the officer to the third floor to get the doll. He called Cruni, who was sitting on the wicker sofa beside a thin and jaundiced old man with his hand at his mouth, biting his nails.

  “Sir, that man is the old owner of this hotel.”

  “Right,” said De Vincenzi. “Go and stand at the door to the blue room and don’t take your eyes off the people in there, not even for a moment.” He went and sat down in Cruni’s place.

  “Signor Bernasconi—am I right?”

  The little man took his hand from his mouth. “That’s me, and I am really angry, my dear inspector. I was in bed! I have nothing more to do with what happens in my hotel. It’s rented! This is not good manners. Why did you have me come here? I’ve always been a Swiss subject, and I am entitled to your respect.”

  “You have every right, my dear Bernasconi. But I need some information.”

  “And you couldn’t wait for it? Does this seem a Christian hour to you, seven in the morning?”

  “You were running the hotel yourself in ’14?”

  “Of course I was. And it was going better than this, I can tell you! I knew how to choose my guests, I did. I’d hardly have taken in—”

  “Listen to me,” the inspector interrupted brusquely.

  Bernasconi brought his hand to his mouth and started biting his nails again.

  “Do you remember a young woman with an Italian name and a somewhat older Englishman, Major Harry Alton, who stayed in your hotel that year? The young woman’s name was Mary Vendramini.”

  Bernasconi continued nibbling the ends of his fingers while looking straight at the inspector.

  “Do you remember? They got married while they were staying in your hotel. The ceremony was at the Protestant church in Piazza Missori.”

  He didn’t speak, but removed one hand and started stripping the nails from the other.

  “Well?”

  “Yes, I remember them. She was blonde. He was tall and angular, with thick grey hair. There was another Englishman with them. All three left together.”

  “Do you remember anything else?”

  “What else should I remember?”

  “Did the signora arrive first?”

  “Yes.” The little man became nervous and squirmed on the sofa.

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “So much time has passed!”

  “But you have a good memory. No! Stop that. You can continue biting your nails in a moment. For now, talk!”

  “What manners!” the old man stuttered. Then he talked. “I don’t have anything to do with this. Why do you want to know all this from me?”

  “Tell me. The information is just for me. You don’t have to make a statement. I give you my word that you won’t be questioned by the investigating magistrate, either.”

  “Well, that hunchback, Bardi, was also in the hotel. He too could tell you.”

  So Bardi had been lying when he’d said he didn’t know anything or remember anything else about Mary. Because there was undoubtedly something else that he could have told him.

  “Fine. I’ll question Bardi as well. But you can talk now!”

  “That lady had been to this hotel three times before, at regular intervals—starting in 1912, I think, or before.”

  “Alone?”

  “No. A man always arrived at the same time. But they each took a separate room.”

  “Did they arrive together?”

  “Yes. They also ate together.”

  “Was the man young?”

  “More or less her age.”

  “So—young.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And the last time she was here—when she married the old man?”

  “The other man was here too. Naturally, as soon as the Englishman arrived, the two of them made a show of not knowing each other. But the old man wasn’t so dumb. He saw right
through people.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The major asked me about the young man. He wanted me to talk. He put a gold coin in my hand.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Me? Nothing. I’m hardly stupid! But he asked the servants, everyone he could. He even bought a watch from the hunchback to make him talk.”

  “Thank you. That’s all for now. I understand.” De Vincenzi stood up.

  Bernasconi was baffled. He’d got going now and he wanted to continue.

  “Well?” he said. “Can I go home?”

  “Of course. And thank you.”

  The old man toddled to the door and slipped into the courtyard.

  “Here’s the doll, sir.”

  De Vincenzi took her. Holding her in his hands, he looked at her briefly, noticing that she was an old doll. A bit of the porcelain on her neck had actually peeled off and her cheeks had faded, so that only the two rosettes on them remained vivid. How many years had this doll been alive? The three sisters… the Vaal crocodiles… Of course! The pink gauze skirt was new. But Engel’s doll was the same as the one that belonged to Mary—“it’s mine!”—and had the same pink gauze skirt. Who had re-dressed them, those two?

  He passed Cruni and went back into the blue room. Everyone shuddered when they saw him with the doll—everyone except Mary Alton, who said in her melodious voice, “My doll! Did you go and get it?”

  “It’s not yours, Mrs Alton.”

  He took it to Engel, who grabbed it awkwardly with his enormous hands. Not knowing what else to do with it, he put it on his lap, its mouth hanging open and its arms out as if it were drowning.

  “Now, Signora, you can go and get yours, and also Carin Nolan’s, if you please.”

  The widow stood up. “I’m going,” she said.

  She started walking. How fragile she was, and how beautiful! She didn’t have time to leave the room before Cruni stepped away from the door, and on the threshold appeared a red-haired woman in green and yellow pyjamas. She was smoking through a long ivory cigarette-holder. Her eyes were shining, lit by hundreds of flickering lights. She took the cigarette-holder from her mouth and twisted her lips in a look of disgust. She was terribly pale, and there were several russet-coloured marks on her forehead and neck.