Free A Rich Full Death by Michael Dibdin Page B

inundate the city (as it did to such disastrous effect in ‘44); or more usually a drab and uninspiring waste of murky water, thick with all the filth of the city and the rank ooze of the tanneries and cloth finishers upstream, split into a maze of tiny channels winding through the banks of silt, torn-up trees and rubble washed down from the mountains. A damned ditch, Dante called it—and such it remains to this day.
    The glass doors on to the balcony stood open, and Browning led me outside. The first thing I noticed was that the railing was broken in half, the right-hand section leaning out over the river at a crazy angle. I approached the edge of the terrace with care, and looked down. On a mud-flat below the house a small group of men were standing in a circle around a formless heap covered with a blanket. I saw several policemen, as well as some of the poor fellows called sandmen, who scrape a living sieving for that commodity in the same way the Californians do for gold. As for the sinister object in their midst, Browning informed me that it was the lifeless body of Cecil DeVere.
    Although the subsequent examination of the body indicated that death had occurred at some time during the night, the corpse had lain undiscovered until shortly after eight o’clock, when one of those same sandmen had come upon it in the course of his work, and raised the alarm. Knowing what I now know, I have no compunction in pointing out the irony: the vain DeVere had once held forth to me at some length upon Beau Brummel’s definition of elegance, which was also his: dressing in such a way as not to excite attention. By this criterion his toilet had remained impeccable to the last, for his body had lain there for several hours not twenty yards from the busiest bridge in Florence, without being noticed by anyone.
    But my immediate considerations were quite different, for you must remember how vital DeVere had been to our hopes of solving the murder of Isabel Eakin. Now those hopes appeared to have been extinguished for ever. I asked Browning if it was yet known how DeVere had come to fall to his death. He pointed to the broken railing.
    ‘That rail has apparently been defective for some time, and DeVere had repeatedly spoken of having it repaired. The authorities’ view would seem to be that he has now paid the price of his procrastination.’
    Browning’s voice was bland—too much so.
    ‘And is that view also yours?’ I queried.
    For all answer, he turned away and led me back inside.
    The living-room bore all the marks of its late occupier’s good taste and long purse. Tapestries, pictures, statuary, old books and musical instruments, primitive crucifixes, classical antiquities and suchlike abounded on every side. In the centre of the room, beneath the inevitable chandelier, stood a highly-polished inlaid walnut table, at which I had sat with other guests a score of times, sipping the excellent aleatico dessert wine which DeVere obtained from a local marquis for whom he had done some favour—the story of which invariably circulated with the decanter, for DeVere was one of those who never seem to know when they have told a tale before.
    Upon the table lay two very different objects. The more immediately striking was a golden locket in the shape of a heart. It was open, revealing an incised inscription consisting of the letters O, V, and A, almost hidden amidst a profusion of curlicues and tendrils, like the figure in a carpet. Beside the locket lay an object as different from it in every respect as can well be imagined—yet if anything even more interesting. It was a dirty, crumpled, torn scrap of cheap paper, bearing the name Joseph Ernest Eakin in a well-formed flowing hand.
    At that moment we heard a sound of footsteps and voices on the stairs, and to my astonishment Browning picked up the scrap of paper and put it in his pocket. The next instant the door was opened, and in walked a group of three men, headed by the dapper