What led polite opinion here to speak of Mr and Mrs Eakin in terms of the proverbial chalk and cheese was not solely his age (although I’ll lay he wasn’t born this century), nor even the fact that he hails from Philadelphia, but rather his marked, his so painfully evident and unashamed fascination with Money.
Not-as with her-the spending of it on a million madcap projects and celebrations of every nature-no, Mr Joseph Eakin is one of Mammon’s truest and purest believers, worshipping Cash not obliquely, as a means of exchange, but for itself. Despite the fortune he has amassed by the manufacture of some product without which the human race is either unable or unwilling to do, he is meticulous in counting his change when buying a cup of coffee, while ‘How much did that cost?’ is the question most frequently on his lips.
In short, then, I had no reason to love Mr Joseph Eakin, and so when Mr Browning asked me if I would be prepared to go to Siena that afternoon and make some discreet enquiries concerning Mr Eakin’s whereabouts at the time of Isabel’s death, I found myself quite agreeably disposed to the idea.
‘You are intimate with the Eakins’ circle,’ Mr Browning explained, ‘and can easily find some pretext for asking the necessary questions without giving offence. Besides, I can ill spare the time, for there are one or two urgent matters which I must follow up here in Florence.’
Well, to be brief, I agreed, and it was with no small thrill that I handed Mr Robert Browning my card, and received in return his assurance of a personal visit the following afternoon to hear the results of my enquiries! That interview in Doney’s had left me more impressed than ever with his masterful manner, his sharp intelligence and knowledge of human nature, and that piquant and quirky manner of expressing himself-which I have endeavoured to set down verbatim in so far as I can recall it.
Indeed, there is even the glimmer of a notion stirring somewhere in the back of my mind …
But of that another time, if at all, for I am grown as cautious as an old fox. Enough to say that I went that very morning to the English bookshop, which is but two steps from Doney’s, and asked if they could supply me with any of his works. I knew vaguely that he had written plays, though I had never read any of them-or indeed seen a single copy. I was therefore both surprised and delighted when the assistant cried ‘But of course!’, and returned in a few moments carrying an armful of volumes which I seized avidly-only to discover that their author, although indeed of the genus Browning, was not the rare Robert but rather the common Elizabeth Barrett variety. I tried to explain the mistake, but the assistant was now engaged in selling someone a modern prose version of Dante’s Inferno, and merely waved me towards the shelves at the back of the shop, where after much searching I eventually unearthed-like uncut raw diamond-a single volume of verses by Mr Robert Browning, entitled Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, of which I promptly possessed myself.
As the weather bid fair to continue fine, I decided to eschew the advantages of modern civilisation-in the form of the railroad, the first in Italy, which the Englishman Stephenson has built the Duke-and drive to Siena along the old highway, not yet fallen into complete disuse, through the Chianti hills.
The road is of some forty miles, but steep in places, and the horse attached to the gig I had hired proved as weak as hireling beasts usually are. Moreover I was late leaving, having a number of matters to attend to in town, and compounded this by making a detour out by way of Bellosguardo and then stopping at an inn on the road for a country repast of bean soup, tough bread and roasted songbirds washed down with black wine, accompanied by the howling of a mad dog and the sullen prattle of the peasantry. The result was that by the time I reached Siena it was growing late, and I drove directly out to the villa where Mr Eakin’s ailing relative lives, on the hills to the west of the city.
If chronic invalidism should ever prove to be your lot, Siena has much to recommend it. Florence may have had its day, but that era seems almost contemporary with our own compared to that of its ancient rival. Here life and hope and striving are notions so long extinct that the Siennese turn up their noses at the mere words. The only really well-bred thing to do here is to expire gracefully, like the city itself, by exquisite degrees; which is precisely what Joseph Eakin’s aunt, along with many others of her sex and nation, is single-mindedly engaged in doing.
I was received not by this lady herself, who was ‘indisposed’, but by a youngish man whose relationship to her-as indeed his name, race and other details-remained nebulous. I introduced myself as a friend of Mr Eakin’s, who had been the subject of a bizarre and disturbing experience which I hoped my visit could resolve. I had been strolling past the Cathedral in Florence (I said) at about five o’clock on Sunday afternoon, when I caught sight of my old friend Joseph Eakin walking towards me. Much surprised-for I had believed him to be in Siena for the weekend-I hastened to greet him. To my astonishment and chagrin he had cut me dead, walking on without so much as pausing in his stride, as though I were a complete and utter stranger! I was quite naturally astounded and hurt by this behaviour, but above all anxious to learn the reason for it. Had I unwittingly done or said something to offend him? Had someone been spreading malicious gossip? Having learned that he was now in Siena, I was come thither in hopes of finding him and resolving this misunderstanding.
The young man replied with slightly insolent politeness, in an accent I could not quite place, that Mr Eakin had unfortunately returned to Florence by the midday train. However, he assured me that I must have been mistaken, since he could vouch for the fact that on the afternoon in question Joseph Eakin had not been in Florence, but sitting in the very room in which we were presently talking-a gesture indicated the chair which had supported the plutocratic posterior during this period.
This seemed final, but to ensure that there was no mistake I pressed the point. Was my informant really quite certain? The resemblance had been quite astonishing; I scarcely thought it possible that I could have been mistaken. Was it not possible that Mr Eakin had absented himself for a few hours and returned to Florence? But the young man was not to be shaken: Eakin had spent the whole of Sunday afternoon at the villa, first with his aunt and subsequently with her personal doctor, one McPherson.
There was nothing more to be done that evening, so I put up at an inn which Murray’s Guide accurately described as ‘very indifferent’, where I fell asleep over Mr Browning’s verses-this implies no criticism of the latter, which pleased me, but I was exhausted from my long drive and all the shocks these last days had sprung upon me.
This morning I was up betimes, and in an hour was on the road back to Florence, having verified Mr Eakin’s alibi by applying to Doctor Alistair McPherson: a lean sliver of upright Aberdeen morality as out of place in these accommodating climes as an Italian cupola astride a Presbyterian kirk. Here was a man whose every feature proclaimed his utter probity, and when he assured me that he had been with Joseph Eakin at the hour in question, then I knew that Mr Browning’s convenient theory would no longer serve.
The weather at this time of the year is notoriously capricious, and by the time I arrived back in Florence early this afternoon the wind was rising and the sky streaky with clouds. As I drove at a snail’s pace through the town, where twice as many carriages as in Boston are crammed into streets that are less than half the size, I heard myself hailed, looked around, and saw none other than the man who had formed a shadowy third with Browning and me the night before-Cecil DeVere, instantly recognisable amid the mob of slouch-hatted locals with cloaks draped operatically over their shoulders.
He was going home, and although it was out of my way I offered him a lift, which he was glad to accept. As we drove along we talked about poor Isabel’s death, and I was surprised to discover that this event seemed to have hit DeVere very hard — he spoke of it in a manner unusually agitated for one normally so suave, and then abruptly changed the subject, as though the matter was too painful, and told me a very interesting story.
It seemed that the previous m
orning he had driven up to the villa at Bellosguardo to offer his condolences to Mr Eakin. As the latter had not yet returned from Siena, DeVere left his card and was leaving, when he noticed someone prowling about the garden in a suspicious skulking manner at the very spot where Isabel’s body had been found!
DeVere promptly walked out and around the side of the villa to investigate. When he reached the garden, however, the mysterious figure had disappeared, despite the fact that the only two other ways out-the gate at the end of the garden, and the large glass doors leading into the villa-both proved to be locked.
I was careful not to betray to DeVere my extreme interest in this incident, and changed the subject in my turn, asking my passenger when he had last seen Mr and Mrs Browning. He appeared utterly bewildered by my remark.
‘The Brownings?’ DeVere replied. ‘Why, I hardly know them-and don’t really care to know them better. All Literature and Liberalism, from what I hear, and each in rather more substantial quantity than appeals to me, to be perfectly honest.’
All this, as you may imagine, has done nothing to diminish my impatience to see Mr Browning again-I expect him at any moment.
But what do you make of it all? Could Isabel’s death really have been murder, as Mr Browning claims? Or is there some detail we have overlooked, or some other way of arranging the known facts which would make matters look quite different? The police should surely be trusted in these affairs, and they apparently see no evidence of foul play.
And supposing they are wrong, whom are we to suspect now that Joseph Eakin’s innocence is proven? Where can we begin to look? What about the mysterious woman who called at the villa shortly before Isabel’s death? But could a woman have done such a deed?
And what of DeVere’s name, which keeps cropping up in this affair with the most inexplicable frequency? Yes-might not the solution to our problems lie in that direction?
The bell! It is he!
Ever yrs affectionately,
Robert N. Booth
5
Friday 10th
Dear Prescott,
It is over! Thank God, we have come out of it safely, and if so terrible an affair can be said to have ended well, then this has. This has ended, and another has begun-one as full of light as that was of darkness, as rich in promise and the hope of worthy achievement as that was heavy with terror and despair and sinful sordid squalor. You may imagine which I had rather make my theme-but the bad news must be told first, for as I close that door the other opens. But guard this letter well, Prescott! It is intended for no eyes but yours, for it contains secrets which must be buried with those they concern, as you will appreciate once you have read it.
I ended my last letter just as Robert Browning called on me following my return from Siena. Subsequent events have necessarily coloured my view of much of what was said at that meeting, but nothing can dim or diminish the memory of my feelings when at four o’clock precisely my door-bell mixed its humble strains with the majestic chimes of Santa Maria Novella and-was it real? was I dreaming? No! — there was Mr Robert Browning, in person, walking in at my door, standing on my carpet, looking down from my windows and commenting on the scene in the square below! I could hardly believe my eyes.
Sitting, it must be said, looking remarkably subdued; and considerably readier to comment on the scene in the piazza, where the little steam-tram was hissing and clanging off on its way to Prato, than to tell me what had happened. That something had happened became ever more painfully apparent, in direct proportion to Browning’s evident unwillingness to broach the subject.
Meanwhile I filled the gaping silence by describing my expedition to Siena, reporting my conversations with Doctor McPherson and the fragile aunt’s gigolo, and concluding with a statement to the effect that Mr Joseph Eakin’s innocence had apparently been established beyond any doubt.
At this, without the slightest warning, Mr Browning threw his head back and broke into deafening peals of laughter, which then abruptly subsided again, leaving for all trace the smallest of ironical smiles-like the gentle swell of the ocean when the storm has blown over.
‘I don’t need you to tell me that, Mr Booth,’ he said quietly. ‘No, no-I found that out the hard way!’
And at length the whole story emerged.
That day-we are speaking of last Monday, following our conversation at Doney’s and my departure to Siena-had initially seemed auspicious for Mr Browning. First of all, a stroke of fortune had enabled him to succeed where the police remained baffled, and identify the woman who had called on Isabel shortly before her death-or rather, she had identified herself, for it was none other than Miss Isa Blagden, the doyenne and mainstay of our little community here, and one of the Brownings’ closest friends.
She lives in a villa on Bellosguardo hill not far from the one the Eakins’ were renting, and had in a very short time become intimate with Isabel, partly perhaps by the accident of sharing the same Christian name (as do Mr Browning and I, it just occurs to me; may that augur well!). She had therefore hastened to share with the Brownings her horror at the tragedy which has shocked us all so deeply, and communicate to them the particularly ghastly thrill with which she had learned that she had been the last person to see poor Isabel alive.
‘She had called at the villa,’ Browning explained, ‘as dearest Isa always does everything-on a sheer wild whim of kindness, and with as little thought of formality as the bird that comes to perch on your window-sill-and found Mrs Eakin all alone in the house. Instead of relishing the prospect of company, however, as one might have expected, her hostess seemed oddly distraite and ill at ease-indeed I gathered that her reception had been what a nature less sweet than Isa’s might have simply called rude. After twenty minutes of desultory and inconsequential chat, therefore, Isa left Mrs Eakin to the solitude which she seemed so anxious to resume.
‘Nothing they said appears to shed any light whatever on what happened so soon afterwards-but one very important point did nevertheless emerge. Isa repeated several times that Mrs Eakin appeared to be very nervous, starting and looking out of the window at every sound. One way in which this nervousness apparently betrayed itself was by her continual fingering of a gold locket she was wearing.’
The significance of this point can hardly be overstated, for when Isabel’s body was laid out on the table in the kitchen no such locket had been visible.
‘I had an opportunity to question the maid, Beatrice, about this,’ Browning went on. ‘She at first absolutely denied that her mistress had ever possessed such a piece of jewellery, but when I showed her I knew she was lying she changed her story quite dramatically. There was such a locket-and, significantly, it was not kept with the rest of Mrs Eakin’s jewellery, but hidden in a chest containing items of clothing. Beatrice, sensing some intrigue, had examined it one day, and found that it opened, and that the inside was inscribed with the initials O.V.A.’
This seemed indeed to be an important clue, although its utility is unfortunately considerably diminished by the fact that these initials do not seem to correspond with any name that either Browning or I know of here in Florence. At all events, in an attempt to solve the other puzzle-namely, what had become of this locket-Browning decided to go and search the garden of the villa once more.
Once again, he was in luck, for he found-not the locket, but something so infinitely more damning that it put all thought of the locket out of his head: a folding pocket-knife, engraved with the name Joseph Ernest Eakin!
‘While I was examining this object with a degree of excited attention which you may well imagine,’ Browning continued, ‘my attention was attracted by the appearance of Mr Eakin himself, who enquired heatedly who the devil I was and what I was doing in his garden. In other circumstances I might have been flustered or embarrassed at being thus surprised by the object of my suspicions, and on his own land. But not after finding that knife! With no great effort to be conciliatory I identified myself and explained that there were several unusual cir
cumstances surrounding his wife’s death, and I should be grateful if he could help to throw some light on them.
‘Mr Eakin’s eyes narrowed-suspiciously, I thought-as he enquired frigidly what those circumstances might be. I then attempted to explain them, as I did to you yesterday in Doney’s. But-well, some of the points appear to have little enough weight, taken in isolation, while the matter of the table, which ties and binds all together, is really quite tricky to expound clearly and simply to such a totally unsympathetic listener. In short, it no doubt all sounded rather confused and impertinent, and enabled Eakin to make a cutting remark at my expense. This stung me, so to clinch the matter I produced the knife I had just found and challenged the man to deny that it was his.
‘It did not for a moment enter my head that he would be able to brazen it out: his name was on the handle and I had found it lying where his wife had been found hanged from a piece of rope cut with a knife. Imagine my dismay, then, when he took the thing from me, examined it long and coolly, gave it back with an untrembling hand, looked me straight in the eye and declared in a level tone that he had never seen it before in his life!
‘Well, it was a superb opportunity to put me in my place, and Mr Eakin did not allow it to go to waste. With a highly effective combination of wounded dignity and scrupulously controlled rage, he proceeded to remind me that the subject under discussion was the death of his wife, whom he had loved dearly, and of whose loss he had been informed only that morning. “Your feelings for your wife, Mr Browning, are famous,” he went on, while I stood there biting my lip. “Please try to remember that even ordinary mortals, their hands soiled by commerce, may be capable of feelings which are none the less real and painful because they lack your skill in expressing them. I neither know nor care where you obtained that knife, or what your object was in trying to discountenance me with it, or in telling me these absurd tales of tables and holes in the ground. I will say only this-my wife’s death is my personal tragedy, and if you wish to play the amateur police detective I suggest you avoid doing so at others’ expense. I bid you good morning, Mr Browning, and goodbye.” With which he turned on his heel and strode back to the house, while I slunk off the premises like a poacher.’
A Rich Full Death Page 4