He must not let the allure of her sweet, sad beauty get the better of him, De Vincenzi commanded himself. Since he was still young then, almost a novice—the horrifying crime with which he was concerned was his first important case—his reaction was inevitably strong, and the tone of his questions strained.
“Tell me the story of this doll.”
“Why do you believe there’s a story to it?”
Mary Alton Vendramini answered quietly, her voice sweet and full of childish notes. There was great candour in her and in her violet eyes, so deep and velvety.
“Your husband is an officer in the English army?”
“He was. He died two weeks ago.”
“Why did you come to Italy?”
“Because I’m Italian.”
“Do you have family in Milan?”
“No. My family has nothing more to do with me. I haven’t come back for my family!”
“Did you know Douglas Layng?”
The woman stared at De Vincenzi without speaking.
“Answer me.”
“I did not know him.”
“Why, then, did you come to this hotel and why did you arrive this very day?”
She trembled. “I’m cold,” she murmured. Holding crossed arms with long, white, diaphanous hands, she shivered, squeezing the doll ever more tightly against her breast.
De Vincenzi noted that Room 12 was small, and filled almost entirely by the large double bed. It was overheated. He was sweating.
“Signora, the crime committed against that young man is one of the most atrocious imaginable!”
“I’ve been here alone since yesterday morning.”
At the foot of the bed was an armchair. The woman—so tiny, fragile and blonde—fell into it. Her legs sparkled under the transparent silk covering them. She continued to look at him, but he couldn’t get a handle on her. De Vincenzi had to struggle to overcome a sort of vertigo. For more than three hours he’d been exhausting his brain power in the delicate game of seeking the end of a thread to guide him. He was worn out, exasperated. Anyone he’d interrogated could have given him that thread, and instead they were all hiding it. Novarreno, Bardi, the hunchback, Flemington and his wife… and now this one here. What had he found out by now? Nothing! A doll on an iron bed—on the top floor—in the dark—and now another, similar doll in the arms of this woman who was hiding behind her innocence in order not to say anything. Nothing at all. Or was it the same doll? Absurd! Cruni was on guard upstairs. No one could have gone up there. He grabbed a chair and practically threw it onto the floor in front of the armchair. He sat down.
“Look, Signora, we cannot go on like this! Tell me why you came to this hotel. Why you have a doll like that one there… Tell me how you are linked to the tragedy that’s taken place here, that’s still unfolding…” He was answered by silence. “It isn’t possible for you to keep silent. Sooner or later, I will know why. No one is leaving here until I find out.” Silence. He looked resigned. “You must answer me, Signora. I’m prepared to go on with my questioning for hours, until you are exhausted by the very sound of my voice. Tell me about your husband. He died two weeks ago, you tell me. Where?”
“In Sydney.”
“Of what illness?”
“He was old, my husband, and he’d had an adventurous life in the colonies. A hard life.”
“Where?”
“South Africa.”
“Where did you meet him?”
A smile. “What do you know about me?”
“Nothing. But don’t delude yourself. By tomorrow I’ll know everything. It’s pointless lying or keeping quiet. I’ll find out everything about you.”
“I know it’s pointless. However… You think I don’t wish to speak because I have something to hide, something compromising. Something a person can’t confess, is that right?”
“I don’t think anything. Answer me.”
She shook her golden head. “No, no, it’s not that. I’m afraid. I can’t speak!” Her voice remained quiet and low, but she wasn’t lying. She was afraid. Like Novarreno, like Bardi the hunchback, like Mrs Flemington, like the lawyer Flemington—underneath his posturing and aggressive sarcasm.
Of what? And of whom?
“Do you know Julius Lessinger?”
She jumped to her feet. She’d gone so white as to look nearly blue. Thus bloodless, her features appeared even more delicate, evanescent, indistinct. But she didn’t waver. De Vincenzi didn’t feel the need to reach out, for fear that she’d fall. She was afraid but she wouldn’t faint. She was pale, but her violet eyes were as dark as a stormy sky.
“Who told you about… about him?”
She realized she was still holding the porcelain doll, which was completely pink, too pink, with those rosettes flaming high on both cheeks. She went to the chest of drawers—one step and she was there, so small was the room—and put it down. The doll lay with its hands in the air and its legs askew. Mary then turned round and sat down in the armchair. She pulled her petticoat over her knees and sat with her feet together, composed, almost rigid. Her chest heaved a little, beating against the snug silk of her dress.
“I’ll tell you what I know. In the meantime—” she shook her head, forlorn and discouraged—“fate!”
“Did you really arrive in Milan this morning?”
“There’s a stamp from border control on my passport. You can check it. This morning… In any case, it was for tomorrow only.”
“What was?”
“Right, you don’t know! No one has told you.”
“Which of those in this hotel could have told me?”
“You’ll meet them.”
“Who? Give me their names.”
“Their names? How many? I don’t know. It’s the truth—I don’t know. Everyone who has an interest in hearing Major Harry Alton’s will.”
“And you, his widow…”
“Yes, me. His widow, however, will perhaps be the only one not to inherit.”
“Go ahead. Tell me.” De Vincenzi was feeling impatient. By now, he was afraid himself. He had the impression that every minute lost could make this tragedy worse.
“My husband is dead. He’d turned seventy-four… When he went to the Cape, which was then Transvaal and Orange, he was under thirty. That was 1880.” She paused.
“And?”
“I don’t know… don’t know. I’m ignorant of everything that happened down there. I know that Harry went there fairly poor. He had his army pay, and it was then that he started his career.” She wrung her hands. “When he died in Sydney—two weeks ago—he left a legacy of five or six hundred thousand pounds.”
“And Douglas Layng?”
“Not yet, not yet! Yes, Douglas Layng… but don’t rush things.” She stopped. “Why did you mention Julius Lessinger? Is he really in Milan too?” She bowed her head, talking to herself: “And who’d have killed Douglas Layng like that if not him?”
“Do you know Julius Lessinger?”
“Know him? No. I know his reputation—it’s unspeakable. But what did he do to earn it? Not one of those who fear him today knows him any more. Julius Lessinger was with my husband in Transvaal as one of his soldiers.”
“Just a moment,” growled De Vincenzi. He got up and stared at her, his voice clipped: “Who was down there in Transvaal with your husband?” He held his breath for her reply. Whom would she name?
The woman felt the gravity of his question, and the importance of her reply. Her pallor, if anything, had increased. Slowly she said: “Major Alton commanded a light battalion. He had two officers with him.”
“Names!” hissed De Vincenzi.
“—William Engel—”
He was not startled, but asked in an icy voice, “How is that possible? A German?”
“An Englishman of German origin.”
“Go on!”
“—Dick Nolan—”
“Who else?”
“The soldiers… a hundred or so, and Julius Lessinger was one of them.”
“Fine,” said De Vincenzi, suddenly calm. He sat down again. He was tranquil now. “Go on.”
Mary paused for some time. When she began to speak again, it seemed as if she were reciting a lesson—or, more likely, recounting a fable. Even her voice was the same: monotonous.
“The Vaal crocodiles, between Kimberley and Johannesburg…” She raised her violet eyes to De Vincenzi, as if expecting him to interrupt. But the inspector did not speak. “It’s a story about crocodiles!”
“Go on.”
The woman slowly rose. She went to the corner where she’d put her suitcase on a small table. She looked around for the key, rummaging in the drawers of the dresser, and found it in her handbag inside the wardrobe. She opened the suitcase. Silk, see-through linens. Soft colours. A silver box, the silver tops of bottles kept in place against the lid with leather straps… She took out a letter from under folded linens. The oversized envelope bore franked blue and red stamps; on the back, a large impression in black sealing wax. She held it out to the inspector.
De Vincenzi read the woman’s name and London address. He looked at the postmark: Sydney.
“Read it,” and she fell back into the armchair.
The letter was typewritten—in English, of course—on a large sheet of heavy paper which bore the signature of Harry Alton. A military man’s signature—large, firm, with rounded, exaggerated capital letters and a great flourish on the N of Alton. My little Mary… Yet after that affectionate phrase, the tone changed and became terse, almost angry.
My little Mary,
There’s no further need for you to consider joining me in Australia. I’m about to leave. It’s true! The doctor, whom I ordered not to lie to me, has given me one or two months to live at most. In any case, my ongoing suffering is such that I will cut things short myself. I’m writing to the lawyer, Flemington, to give him all the information necessary to look after things when I’m gone. He’ll invite you and a few others somehow linked to my fate to gather in Milan in a certain hotel I have specified and which Flemington in any case knows. There you’ll learn your destiny; by which I mean the financial destinies that await you.
I have nothing against you. In the five years during which you’ve been my wife, I have had to recognize in you the great virtue of adaptability. You accepted the hand of an old man for personal profit, but you have loyally maintained our agreement. I, for my part, intend to maintain my family, and I’m taking every precaution so that someone I know does not frustrate my wishes after my death.
Don’t be surprised at the journey you must make or the people you’ll meet in Milan. It’s necessary for everyone to convene in that city and in that hotel.
I don’t want to tell you anything else. Anyway, life’s only interest is in the surprises it has in store for us, and I have reserved one for you that’s not the least bit banal. When you learn the other, less edifying details of the life of old Harry, you’ll just say that all men are swine, fighting each other to get their snouts in the trough.
This was followed by his signature and a postscript written in pen:
You must take the porcelain doll with you on your journey.
De Vincenzi sat holding the sheet of paper for several moments. The woman raised her head to look at him. An unhealthy fear continued to preoccupy her, and it was exhausting her. The inspector looked at the porcelain doll on the dresser.
“How does Julius Lessinger come into this?”
“I know nothing, or very little about Harry’s life. I know only that Julius Lessinger was a soldier with him down there in 1900, during the Boer War, and that afterwards Major Alton was afraid of him.”
“Flemington was the major’s lawyer?”
“Yes, but more than that, a friend. They shared many interests.”
“And some inadmissible secret?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Flemington also fear Lessinger?”
“How did you know?”
“Flemington is in Milan, in this hotel.”
“Oh! Then—” But she stopped herself.
“Well?”
The woman shrank still further into the chair, shaken with trembling, which couldn’t have been from the cold.
“And?”
“And now Douglas Layng is dead!”
“Are you saying that things are going differently from the way your husband intended?”
“Flemington will know.”
“Who was Layng? How did he figure in this story—which seems as if it’s been going on for years—the poor kid? He’d hardly begun to live!”
“Flemington must know.”
“And you?”
“No.”
“How long ago did your husband leave for Australia? Why didn’t he take you with him?”
“The major left a year ago. He had a lot of business there.”
Her reply was vague and reticent.
“Was he facing some danger in England?”
“The lawyer, Flemington, will be able to tell you.”
“Was it because of this danger that he went on his own, leaving you behind in London?”
“What more can I tell you? I don’t know—I don’t know anything either. I’ve tried to understand, to find out. But why go on now? Five days ago Flemington gave me notice to leave for Italy, to come to this hotel and wait for his arrival. The meeting with all the people Major Alton mentioned will take place on 6 December, or so the lawyer told me.”
“Today.”
“Yes.”
De Vincenzi looked at his watch. It was about four in the morning, and he’d told himself he’d solve the puzzle before dawn.
“Did you know that a doll just like this one is in the possession of a man in this hotel? A man called Vilfredo Engel?”
She opened her eyes and batted her eyelashes. “No.”
“Do you know Vilfredo Engel?”
“No.”
“And yet you know that one of your husband’s officers had that name.”
“William Engel, yes. But I never met him.”
“You say he’s English?”
“I believe he is.”
“Tell me the story of your porcelain doll.”
“My husband had it when he married me.”
“Since we’re on the subject, how did you meet Major Harry Alton?”
“It was in London, in 1914. I was dancing in a music hall.”
De Vincenzi looked at the woman, who now more than ever had an air of ethereal innocence and fragility. How different she was from Stella Essington. Perhaps more dangerous, however. In any case, she had succeeded in marrying a major. Tomorrow she would be inheriting five or six hundred thousand pounds. Would she, though? What the devil could be the meaning of this meeting in Milan at The Hotel of the Three Roses? Would the reading of the will contain some surprises for her as well as for the others gathered here? Who were the others? Layng—who’d been killed, probably to get him out of the way… And then there was Nolan, Carin Nolan, maybe the daughter of the officer who’d fought with Alton in the Transvaal… And then there was Vilfredo Engel. How close a relation was that burly, panting piquet player, friend of Carlo Da Como, to the officer William Engel?
De Vincenzi knew he’d made great progress since he’d entered Room 12, but there was plenty more for him to do, and even when he’d managed to understand the details of this fantastical, knotty story he’d still be a long way from arresting the killer. Unless… unless it was true that the series had just begun and the killer would find it necessary to give another terrible sign of his presence.
“So that’s how you married Harry Alton.”
“It was he who asked me, insisting on his terms. I hadn’t hidden anything about my past from him.”
“Did you know the major was rich?”
“Your question is at the very least discourteous, Inspector. But I will answer you. My life had not been happy. If I was reduced to dancing in music halls and touring the cities of Europe and America—”
“You’ve been in America?”
“Yes.”
“Where? Which cities?”
There was an almost imperceptible hesitation, but it didn’t escape De Vincenzi.
“Several. New York for sure… and… and others. I was telling you that I did not like the life I had to lead. Yet I wouldn’t have wanted to live miserably with my parents in Italy, either. That’s why I left home. But in London, Paris… New York… and other places…” She shivered, almost twitched in the armchair. All at once she got up. “Well, when Major Alton offered his hand in marriage, I accepted, because I knew he was rich and that life with him would be easy and calm. There you have it!”
“And now?” De Vincenzi asked ruthlessly, although he knew that Signora Alton’s cynicism was above all the result of the tense situation in which she found herself.
But he couldn’t wait for her reply. Quick steps could be heard in the corridor and Sani was shouting loudly, “Where is the inspector?” He didn’t have time to get to the door before Sani appeared at it, followed by the officers.
“What’s going on?”
“I was in the lobby downstairs when I heard a thud overhead, like that of a body falling. The noise seemed to come from one of the first rooms near the garden, Number 5 or 6.”
“Let’s go,” De Vincenzi said laconically. He turned to the widow as he was leaving. “Get some rest, Signora. I’ll come back to you tomorrow. You haven’t told me the story of your doll yet.”