Death of a Dutchman (7 page)

'No, no . . . that's plenty.'

The Marshal tried to withdraw his glass, his eyes still rolling over the young man's clothes. The shoes looked odd, being black, city shoes, some sort of absent-minded concession to the idea of dressing to come into town? Surely not; perhaps he changed when he got here. How old would he be? Much older than the Marshal had first thought when judging by the T-shirt and the childlike facial expression. Probably nearer forty than thirty. . .He was still talking, barely pausing to draw breath.

'There's my sister, of course, but once we're out in the country she thinks of nothing but her horses, and I've never been strong enough ..."

He was certainly too thin and very pale. The Marshal thought briefly of the escaped prisoner at the Pensione Giulia . . . was it only yesterday? His complexion had given him away . . .

The thing was, to get the talk back to the subject in hand. But the Marshal was reluctant to ask outright. He knew from experience that the phrasing of a question suggests the required answer, and he wanted an unbiased opinion.

'It's conversation that I like, and friends. Friends are very important. That's one of the reasons why I enjoyed school so much, despite the trouble I had with mathematics. Italian was my great subject. I remember Padre Begnini saying once . . .'

Although the evening outside was still bright and rosy, the light was fading in the vast room, making the shrouded furniture look even more ghostly. The high ceiling was a traditional Florentine one in dark wood, divided into deep-set squares, each with a carved red and gold rosette in the centre.

'I see you're admiring the ceiling. My mother prefers the frescoed ones on the next floor, they're supposed to be by Bonechi, but I like the wooden ceilings best. You see, I admire first-class craftsmanship more than third-rate art.'

'The man who died was a craftsman. The man you attended yesterday.'

'He was? Oh dear, and you wanted to talk about him, while here am I leading the conversation on to other things. You'll be thinking I'm the culprit!'

'The culprit?'

'I was only joking.
Of course, I have a perfect alibi!'

He made the last remark in English, and then began to laugh, an uncontrolled, high-pitched giggle.

'Forgive me,' he said at last, misinterpreting the Marshal's frown of incomprehension for one of disapproval. 'These are serious matters, grave matters, I know that. I've prayed for him, too, and for whoever did it.'

The Marshal's face remained expressionless, but his big eyes were fixed on the Count's as he spoke.

'What makes you think someone else did it? Rather, I mean, than that he wanted to kill himself?'

'But. . . well, he said, didn't he? I know he didn't say who did it, but he was trying to tell us that somebody or other didn't do it, surely you heard? He said, "It wasn't her." Naturally, one thought . . .'

Naturally. He could have been rambling, of course, thinking of something completely remote from his own death . . . and yet, he had just spoken to Signora Giusti, as if he were quite aware of where he was. The Marshal admitted to himself that he wouldn't-have made much of a detective. He had heard the Dutchman's remark, all right, but he hadn't wanted to interpret it that way because it seemed to discount the only person known to have been—or thought to have been—in the flat with him; seemed, as everyone else was inclined to agree, including the Substitute Prosecutor, to point either to suicide or an accident by absolving the only person who might come to be accused. He might even have been absolving his wife from blame, since they had quarrelled.

'It doesn't seem likely,' the Marshal said aloud, 'that if someone had tried to murder him he would have wasted his last breath telling us who didn't do it . . .'

'It may have been important to him to save someone from unjust suspicion.'

'Or he may have been lying.'

'On his deathbed!' The young Count was shocked.

'Perhaps you're right. Did anything else strike you, apart from his words?'

'His poor hands.' He clasped his own together tightly, as if to stem some imaginary bleeding. 'But mostly his words. I suppose, now you mention it, it was odd that he should only say who it wasn't, not very helpful . . . but I wasn't struck by it at the time. What struck me most at the time was that he sounded so surprised.'

CHAPTER 4

The Marshal had a bottle of vinsanto which he laid carefully on the back seat of his car next to the beribboned parcel of cakes that had been pressed on him by the bar owner, and a copy of
The Beauties of Florence
which had been presented to him by the printer as they came out through the storeroom between stacks of cut paper where strong smells of ink and metal and a rhythmic swish and clack of machinery came from behind frosted glass panelling.

'We printed it here so they sent me a few copies—take it, take it! No compliments! You can take it back to Sicily to show your family. Sicily's beautiful, too, I don't doubt it, I don't doubt it, but Florence . . .'

The young Count's farewells had been less exuberant, despite the present of the vinsanto.

'You might want to talk to me again,' he had said hopefully.

'I don't think . . .'

'You mustn't think that because we're in the country you can't reach me. If it's something important, my father—I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll come down tomorrow, just in case you need to talk to me. I'll be here all afternoon . . . they wouldn't like it if I weren't there for lunch, you understand, but I can say that you might want to see me sometime in the afternoon? I could say that?'

'Yes, I suppose you could say that . . .'

All down the marble hallway, there had been half-moon tables with gilded lamps on them, alternating with elaborately carved oak chairs. Some of the rooms they had passed through were almost empty of furniture. They had passed a small, concealed door let into the wall on the left, and the Marshal had time to glimpse a single bed with a dark blue linen suit thrown across it before the Count hurriedly shut the door.

'I'll leave you here.'

The Marshal had been out on the first-floor landing when the Count made this abrupt remark.

'Then, goodbye and thank you . . .'

But by the time he turned, the door had shut and he was alone.

There were still two hotels to be visited. The Marshal was tired and not at all sure, thinking about it as he drove along by the river, whether his visits to the Brothers had been useful or not. They hadn't turned up any concrete facts that he could present to an officer, and the Brothers of the
Misericordia,
although acceptable as reliable and experienced witnesses, were not officially expert ones. And the expert ones weren't going to give their findings to him. Unless . . .

The Marshal pulled up at a bar, went in and asked for a telephone token. If there was one thing his last visit had done it was to make him more determined. Perhaps it had been the deserted-looking room with its dust-sheeted furniture which had brought the deadened images to life. After all, if somebody did kill the Dutchman, what a cold-blooded, sinister killing it had been. The meeting must have been arranged since the man only went there once or twice a year, and nobody goes about carrying enormous doses of sleeping pills . . .

Waiting for the token, he glared about him at the milling tourists buying ice-cream and evening aperitifs. Somewhere in the city ... it could be any of these people, anyone . . . dressed like any other holidaymaker . . .

A middle-aged German couple, unnerved by the hostile glare discernible even behind his dark glasses, left their drinks unfinished and hurried out.

'Is something the matter?' asked the barman, handing over the token.

'What? What should be the matter?" growled the Marshal. He paid and strode to the telephone.

The barman looked apprehensively after him and then at his waiter, who shrugged. 'None of our business, I suppose . . .'

'Let's hope not. I don't want any shoot-outs with terrorists taking place in my bar, thanks.'

And he, too, began to scan the innocent-looking tourists.

'Rubbish! That sort of thing only happens in Rome.. .'

But both of them touched the metal edge of the counter to ward off evil, and the barman, dropping ice-cubes into three Camparis for an outside table, kept an eye on the Marshal's broad back.

'Di Nuccio? What? I can't hear, this place is packed . .. Well, get what details you can and send them over with the daily sheet—Lorenzini will have to sign it, I'm going to be late ... I shall be at the Medico-Legal Institute and then ... let me see, the Pensione Annamaria and the Albergo del Giardino, those are my last two. If I'm not back—and I don't think I will be—you'll have to stay in, or if you want to eat at the mensa, go in relays. Don't leave Gino in on his own, he's too young to cope. Anything else? Till later, then . . .'

He drove fast out to Careggi. The traffic was already thinning slightly with the advance of summer. By August there would only be the tourists and the people who serviced them left in the city. Out on the wide avenues the trees were tinged with gold in the evening light, the sky slightly pink.

The hospital city was an almost self-contained world with its own rhythms. There was a large and busy roundabout in the centre where kiosks sold newspapers, flowers and fruit, and signs pointed out the road to take to the different hospitals, clinics and convalescent homes and to the various specialist centres. Streams of people were going in the main doors of almost all the hospitals, carrying paper-wrapped flowers.

The Medico-Legal Institute forms part of the School of Medicine of the University of Florence, and it was at the main entrance used by students that the Marshal parked his car, avoiding the wing that housed the police laboratories and its adjacent car park. Inside, a broad tiled corridor led to the viewing rooms and the main lecture theatre. The place was deserted except for the porter's lodge where a grey head came into view above a newspaper.

'What can I do for you?' Then he spotted the Marshal's uniform. 'Go out the front door again, round the block, second on your left.'

'Actually, I was hoping for a word with Professor Forli, if he's still about.'

'He's still here. Rarely leaves before nine.' He turned to his switchboard. 'What name shall I give?'

'No! There's no need to disturb him . . . nothing urgent, you know. I'll wait a while and if he comes out I'll have a word. If not, it'll do some other time. I wouldn't want to disturb him if he's busy . . .'

'He's that all right. Rush job on this morning and then all these drug deaths . . .'

'Well, I'll wait a bit."

'Suit yourself.'

Was the rush job the Dutchman? It was more than likely. And where would he be now in this great building. . . lying in some bleak, refrigerated compartment with his abdomen perfunctorily sewn back together . . . ?

It reminded the Marshal of the slide lecture long ago in training school when they had had to look at road accidents. He hadn't fainted but the boy next to him had. All of them had felt ill for the rest of the day and no one had touched the slightly congealed lasagne that had been served up for lunch.

How would he broach the reason for his visit to the Professor, if and when he appeared? He had no clear idea. He only knew that once the Professor got talking it was almost impossible to stop him; he was famous for it. The only problem, the Marshal mused as he wandered along the marble corridor, was to get him started before he thought to ask who the Marshal was and why he should be there.

It turned out not to be a problem at all.

The Professor came into view, striding down the corridor with the jacket of his white linen suit slung round his shoulders and a briefcase in his hand. The Marshal had no opportunity to open his mouth; the Professor called out as soon as he spotted him:

'It's already gone, if it's the Dutchman you're here for! You asked for priority and got it, despite the fact that I've got another drug death and two road accidents on my hands, and we're short staffed as usual . . .'

When he reached the Marshal he said: 'Surely it was one of your own men who collected it shortly after I telephoned ..." He made to go and check with the porter, but the Marshal put in quickly:

'Yes, no problem, I'm sure they did—I've been out all afternoon and was going back this way so I called just in case it hadn't gone. I'm obviously out of touch. It doesn't matter . . .'

'Interesting case, very interesting. Did it myself with one or two promising students—kept them awake, plenty to think about. One of them was on to it right away. Got the connection as soon as we'd established the time of death and the stomach contents. Heart business complicated it, naturally, kept them guessing. Now the
first
thing to look for in a case of this sort . . .'

The Marshal hadn't misjudged his man. The Professor's severe good looks and almost excessive sartorial elegance gave him an aloof appearance totally at odds with his true character. He was a born teacher who, once he began to expound some theory, went ahead like a steam engine. They had been walking along the corridor towards the exit but now, every two or three steps, the Professor stopped to bombard the Marshal with technical information, nose to nose, and to fire questions at him which he then answered himself.

'Now!
You've established the amount of barbiturate absorbed into the bloodstream. You've established the contents of the vomit containing food
and
coffee
and
barbiturate
but the stomach contains coffee and barbiturate
only!
And
that
has only got as far as the duodenum. What's that telling you?'

'I . . .'

'It's telling you that there were two doses, the first dose following immediately on a meal. He's had ham, he's had bread, he's had gorgonzola, he's had a peach. He's then had coffee. The coffee contains the barbiturate. He absorbs some of it. He digests part of his meal. Then he vomits. Why?'

'I don't know . . .' The Marshal wasn't far from vomiting himself; there was a faint odour of formaldehyde in the corridor. They had turned and were walking in again.

'Because the dose is too big! People talk very glibly about neurotic women taking just so many sleeping pills, enough to create a fuss but not to kill themselves—even a doctor would have some difficulty judging a dose like that, or, if it comes to that, a dose that would surely kill. Why would he?'

'I . . .'

'Reason number one, the individual organism, that has to be taken into account; reason number two, tolerance, and this is where most suicide attempts go wrong. Drugs, many drugs, upset the stomach. Take a massive dose of sleeping pills and what happens? An hour later, or even less, you vomit the lot and you're back to square one— that's if you don't drown in your own vomit which our man came very near to doing, there were slight traces of vomit in his lungs. Three: habit. Someone who regularly takes sleeping pills is likely to make a success of the job by taking a large-ish dose of a drug she and her stomach are used to, combined with alcohol.'

The Professor strode ahead and then spun round dramatically, smacking the palm of his left hand with his right index finger.

'Now, what do we know about our Dutchman, eh?'

This time he didn't even wait for the Marshal's confused mumble but began immediately counting off points of information on his fingers.

'He's in good general health, we've seen that; the problem with his heart's a plumbing fault, not electrical. Weakened valves probably caused by a fever in childhood. Liver sound as a bell, he didn't drink much. Lungs fine, he smoked now and again but not much. He exercised, outdoors. His job was an indoor one but his skin's healthy, he's had plenty of fresh air and his muscles are in good tone despite his job being largely sedentary. Now what
is
his job?'

'He was a—'

'Where's the first place you're going to look for information?'

'His hands . . .' ventured the Marshal, remembering the young Count's words:
They must have been important
to him.

'Well done! Right! Good! He's a craftsman. He uses small metal tools regularly and he works with precious metals. He's a watchmaker or he's a silversmith or jeweller. Your lab tells me they found traces of diamond dust under his cuticles. I found tiny burns just above his wrists, the sort your wife gets when she's careless taking things out of the oven. We find faint scars of earlier burns all of the same shape and all more or less in the same place. So he's not a watchmaker, is he?'

'He's not ... ?'

'Obviously not. He's a silversmith, a jeweller, and one with plenty of business—he has a smelting kiln or an enamelling kiln maybe, and he's loading it again before it's anywhere near cool. Asbestos gloves protect his hands, of course, but he's catching himself each time just above the wrists on the lower front bricks. Right?'

'Well I'll be damned . . .' murmured the Marshal, quite forgetting himself.

'In a city full of artisans, it's no problem distinguishing those things, but let's look at this particular jeweller: he's prosperous, he's doing well; the clothes we sent over to your lab were good clothes, his socks were silk, so was his shirt. He hardly drinks, which is saying something for a northerner, he doesn't smoke too much, he's married, wears a ring, and happily married, carries a photograph of his wife; his heart trouble's not that serious, he only knows it as a murmur he's had for years, if it deteriorates as he gets older he can have a plastic valve fitted, but it's not likely because he looks after himself. He's a happy,, generally healthy, prosperous man, a craftsman who does satisfying work that he likes so much that he goes on working when he could probably just run the business and let others do the work. He takes plenty of exercise. He's no sort of candidate for sleeping pills. Right?'

'Yes,' said the Marshal, 'that's just what I felt . . .'

'So what's wrong with him?'

The Marshal was stunned. 'What's . . . but nothing. . .'

'But there was! Remember his hands!'

'The cuts? But surely he didn't deliberately . . .'

'Cuts, cuts! That comes later. His fingers. His fingers don't match his lungs. His lungs tell me he smokes an occasional cigarette, or even a cigar, to be sociable in company. But his fingers were deep yellow with nicotine! The fingers of the right hand, all of it new, nothing ingrained. He'd been chain-smoking for hours before he died. Yet his lungs are barely touched. My guess is that he was lighting up one cigarette after another out of nervousness and letting them burn away in his hand. Something was worrying him.'