The Art of Killing Well (16 page)

I have to find the right way to say it. And that isn't at all easy.

As he walked up and down the lawn, trying to prepare a speech that might seem both authoritative and courteous, Ispettore Artistico cursed the doctor.

Everything had been going well up until a few hours earlier. He had the guilty party, he had the motive, he had an almost perfect theoretical reconstruction of the crime. He was ready to go back home, have that good long sleep he had been dreaming about for two days, and go to the Commissioner the following morning with all the paperwork in his hand. Crime, investigation, solution, arrest. He was not too worried about proof: the photograph showing Agatina as she aimed at the baron's august back was more than enough.

But unfortunately Ispettore Artistico had discovered for himself that very night (some years, in other words, before the birth of a child named Karl Popper) that a correctly constructed theory is a theory that can be falsified. It does not matter how many elements there are in its favour: all it takes is a single, simple, really stupid counter-example and the theory falls to pieces.

The inspector was there at the billiard table, feeling quite clever, thinking over all the aspects of the affair as he played. The
case had been solved. The baron, that crafty old dog, trifles with the housemaid (who could blame him?) and unwittingly conceives an illegitimate child. The noble gentleman can deny it as much as he wants, but that's the long and the short of it. Having realised the gravity of the situation, the housemaid goes to the baron and asks for money. There is no way: the baron is already being measured by his tailor for new patches to his trousers, he is forced to deny money to his official sons, and now he has to give money to the housemaid? So the housemaid is sent packing – told in fact to go and do to herself what he has previously done to her. Agatina decides to take her revenge and do away with the baron. The first time, thanks to the designated victim's stomachache and Teodoro's greed, she misses her target in the most disastrous way possible. The second time, we all know about. Does that add up? Yes, it seems to me that it does.

As the inspector was making the ivory ball bounce off the cushion, putting it in position for a strike that would send the ball against three cushions one after the other, the doctor had entered the room.

“The baron is much better, it seems to me. His blood pressure had risen for a reason I cannot explain, given that he lost a fair amount of blood, but now everything appears to have gone back to normal.”

“Well, I'm pleased. And what about us?”

“I've brought you what you requested. My expert opinion, which is that the liquid in the glass found by the body contained the alkaloid known as atropine.”

Couldn't he be a little less pompous? He's clearly the kind of person who's determined to show us how many words he knows.

The inspector smiled like someone who, after poisoning his mother-in-law, receives news that the old lady isn't feeling well.

“In the liquid contained in the bottle, on the other hand, I did not find the slightest trace either of this or any other alkaloid.”

The ball hit by the inspector, after missing the yellow ball, described an elegant rhombus and ended in the hole.

“Wait. Stop. In the bottle no, but in the glass yes?”

“Precisely.”

“And how can you be so sure?”

“I added bismuth iodide and potassium to the solution after treating it appropriately, even though the wine, being acid by nature, did not require such a procedure. The liquid in the glass showed the formation of an orange-coloured precipitate, while …”

Instead of giving scientific explanations, the doctor could have justified his statement by admitting that, once the absence of toxin in the port had been verified, he had also empirically verified the organoleptic properties of the wine by knocking back a couple of glasses with a nice piece of sweet cake, and all things considered was still alive. But Dottore Bertini was one of those who consider that science must be listened to and give credence, full stop, even when a perfectly vulgar example would not come amiss.

“Spare me the scientific masturbation. Where did you get the idea for the iodide?”

“But my dear Ispettore, it's the procedure prescribed by
Dragendorff in his treatise on forensic chemistry,
Die gerichtlichchemische Ermittelung von Giften
”.

Ispettore Artistico was ready to question anything that was said by the doctor, but being very sensitive to the principle of authority and profoundly Italian in spirit, he did not feel that he was in a position to challenge the dictates of a book written by a luminary with such a sonorous name, and in German to boot.

“I understand.”

And, unfortunately, it was true.

Once the family had all gathered for breakfast (apart from the baron, who was still only so-so, the dowager baroness, who always had breakfast in bed, and Signorina Barbarici, who, since the baroness was still in bed, had gone to ground in the cellar with her beloved bottle of absinthe, given that benzodiazepines had not yet been invented), the inspector asked for permission to make a brief speech.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I'm truly sorry to have to inform you that you will have to bear my presence here for a little while longer.”

What?

“New details have emerged which make further investigation necessary.”

“Ispettore, is this a joke?”

“I never joke in the exercise of my duty, Signorino Lapo. I must therefore ask you and your guests to be available for—”

“But this is outrageous! I shan't allow you to keep these people hostage! You have done your work, you have browned all of us off,
and now you want to continue? What is it, are you intending to work on the cook?”

While Lapo was speaking, Gaddo kept his gaze fixed on his plate.

“Signorino Lapo, I have asked you in the most civil manner possible to detain your guests. I could have done so with the full weight of my authority.”

“Lapo, I think the inspector is right. Our duty—”

“Shut up!”

And Lapo accompanied this command, as he often did, with an open-handed slap on the back of his brother's neck. This was where he made a mistake.

“Ispettore!” he said, rising to his feet. “Following a criminal incident, we consented to accommodate you.”

He made a mistake because sometimes even the weak and the cowardly, when they are humiliated in public and in front of people they respect, find the strength to react.

“Following the precepts imposed on us by our rank, we have listened to you and have allowed you to carry out your investigation among our family and servants. Now will you do us the pleasure—”

What pleasure Lapo hoped to obtain from the inspector was not to become clear, however, because while the arrogant young fellow was making his triumphant speech, Gaddo had picked up a plate of the finest Wedgwood, and now, after weighing it carefully and appreciating its manufacture, ground it into his brother's gums with a graceful but resolute gesture.

There was silence for a moment.

As Gaddo again brought his gaze to rest on his own plate, Lapo lifted his right hand to his mouth and took out a bloodstained fistful of fragments of porcelain and assorted front teeth.

A fight ensued.

“I asked to see you, Ispettore, to apologise for the shameful behaviour of my grandsons, and to ask you to draw over the pitiful scene you witnessed an equally pitiful veil.”

Standing in the bedroom of the dowager baroness, who seemed the only person to have remain impassive and impervious to all the terrible things that had happened, the inspector listened in silence.

“I realise that you are only doing your duty, and I ask you to take into account the effort that we, too, are making, some more than others, to assist you. We are not accustomed to this kind of thing.”

“Nobody is accustomed to having crimes committed in their houses, Baronessa.”

“That is not what I am referring to, Ispettore. We are not accustomed to having to account to anyone for our conduct. We are barons, and we do not normally defer to anyone below the rank of count.”

Ispettore Artistico forced himself not to smile.

“When he was small and had got up to some mischief or other, my son was in the habit of hiding in the most inaccessible places. He would disappear, and could not be found for days.
Then, one day, the estate manager discovered where he was hiding, and told my husband, the late baron. My son was punished: he had done something stupid, after all, and was sent to bed without dinner. The following morning, while the estate manager was saddling his horse for him, my son looked at him and said, ‘In a few years, Amidei, I'll be Barone. Bear that in mind from now on.'”

The inspector said nothing.

“Do you understand?” the baroness went on after a few moments. “We have been raised in a state of impunity, in our own world of which we were either masters or would become masters. This certainty has always cradled us. We have never made an effort to see what was beyond the cradle, or even thought to wonder if there was anything. And my son is no exception.”

A few more seconds passed. The baroness sighed, while the inspector remained silent.

“Well, Ispettore, we have detained you far too long. I think it is time for you to get back to your work.”

“I am most grateful to you. My respects, Baronessa.”

“Are you going out, Signor Artusi?

“Oh, Ispettore. Yes, in fact I was about to go for a stroll in the woods.”

“Not to escape our surveillance, I hope.”

“What do you mean? Oh, no, Ispettore, not at all. The fact is, it has rained quite a lot lately, and we are near a chestnut wood. So I thought of looking for mushrooms and making them into an
omelette when I return home.”

As well as getting out of this madhouse, said Artusi's eyes to the inspector, who understood.

“Well, I can't see any harm in that. In fact, if you don't mind, I'll keep you company.”

“I'd be delighted. Will you take a basket?”