Free Some Bitter Taste by Magdalen Nabb

not even a shadow of one, but he wanted to go through her papers this morning and find both her brother and her lawyer without delay. He realised that he had as yet told no one about the bag-snatching episode, which would suggest that a stranger might have had her keys, rather than that she had opened the door to her killer.
    ‘Marshal?’
    ‘Yes. There’s something I should have mentioned—when the victim came to me, she reported having had her bag—’
    ‘It’s your case. Tell the prosecutor. He’ll be at the Hirsch flat in fifteen minutes and wants you to check on the two shops below before you join him—but I’d like you to postpone your visit to Sir Christopher rather than give it up. I’ll make your excuses myself and get the fingerprinting done this morning. I’d send somebody else but he’d take it very badly, you know, and I wouldn’t like there to be any repercussions … Guarnaccia?’
    ‘Yes. Yes, I’ll do as you say, of course.’
    ‘Is there a problem?’
    ‘No … I think. If we move fast on this Hirsch case, we can get to the bottom of it. She led such a confined life that—’ He was amazed at himself. He was no detective. What was he thinking of to claim he could solve a case he knew nothing about yet? The captain would wonder what had come over him. It was embarrassment which made him so far forget himself as to say whatever came into his head so long as it changed the subject. ‘You haven’t told me … this business of Sir Christopher. Are we just obliged to put up a good show for an important foreign resident? I’m sorry, I was just wondering, because in that case I only need to make a courtesy visit, as brief as possible. You see what I mean. To tell you the truth, since they haven’t a hope of recovering the stuff and have warned us off accusing any of the staff, I don’t see why they called us at all. These people must think we’ve nothing better to do.’
    ‘They do think that, if they think about it at all, which I doubt. I’ll be frank with you, Guarnaccia. Of course it began as a matter of courtesy and I’ve told you why I came along. Pay him the courtesy of the visit he’s asked for, however brief, if not out of respect for the uniform we wear then out of respect for his sickness and his age. You have always had more patience with age and loneliness than anyone I know.’
    ‘And this good man, too… ’
    ‘Yes. He’s not old, though.’
    ‘No, I suppose by today’s standards … and they say he’s ill but he could go on for years with the best care.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘No? He told you more about his illness? Despite being embarrassed about it?’
    ‘No. He didn’t tell me much but he wasn’t embarrassed about it at all. No, no … he’s dying and he knows it.’
    ‘He said that?’
    ‘No.’ No, no, no! The marshal wanted to be let off. The Hirsch murder, with its background of Sdrucciolo de’ Pitti, with the Rossis and the local shopkeepers as witnesses, he could deal with. He might not solve it—not a scrap of evidence had come to light yet—but he knew where he was, he knew what to do. Why couldn’t the captain send some smart young officer to the villa, one of those military academy types from a good family who would drink tea with the Englishman and not fall over his own boots in the flower garden.
    And this good man, too. Willlseeyou again?’ That sad, almost pleading look before Sir Christopher turned away.
    What did people want, what did they expect of him?
    ‘You’ll really come and see me as you promised?’ Signora Hirsch’s frightened eyes. He wanted to concentrate on her now but it was a bit late, wasn’t it? He had forgotten her for days.
    ‘And this good man, too …’ Sir Christopher would die. That’s a road we all have to travel alone. What help could he possibly be?
    ‘Guarnaccia?’
    ‘I’ll go as soon as the prosecutor can spare me.’
    He got up, put on jacket and holster, lifted his hat from its hook, checked with