Thus Was Adonis Murdered (16 page)

Dear Selena,

As I promised on the telephone, I am writing to let you know in more detail what has happened since my arrival in Venice. I hope, of course, that it will prove a wasted effort and that Julia will have been restored, before it reaches you, to the safety of Lincoln’s Inn; but I am afraid, as things stand at present, that that is optimistic. I am writing this, by the way, in the dining-room of the Hotel Cytherea—feeling that it might be sensible to see the place where everything is supposed to have happened, I decided, after ringing you, to have lunch here.

After I left you all on Saturday, there were various delays before the plane finally took off, and by the time we landed it was already dark. Instead of going by boat across the Lagoon, I took a taxi across the Causeway to the Piazzale Roma and went from there by
vaporetto
down the Grand Canal to Saint Mark’s, which is the nearest station to the Palazzo Artemisio.

I found I was feeling uneasy, almost apprehensive. I had forgotten how much darker Venice is at night than other cities. The darkness is broken here and there by the white silhouette of a floodlit church or palazzo; but its brightness is cold and disquieting—the building itself seems nothing but a clever lighting effect. Indeed, the whole city seems somehow illusory, like a stage set for a death-and-daggers melodrama. One feels the designer has overdone it rather—the water is too black, the alley-ways too narrow, the silence of the gondolas too improbably sinister for anyone to believe they are real. But I remembered that a man really had been murdered.

If Julia had still been in custody, I should have felt obliged to take some immediate step on her behalf, though what I could usefully have done at that time of night I have no clear idea. As it was, I felt justified in going straight to the Palazzo Artemisio. I was admitted by the housekeeper, who clucked round me very amiably, apologizing on Richard Tiverton’s behalf for his not being well enough to welcome me in person. The Palazzo itself, though, is not exactly what I would describe as comfortable. The late Miss Tiverton seems to have had a fancy, which I do not share, for living in a museum: I hardly dare move for fear of damaging something.

On the following morning, Richard Tiverton joined me for breakfast. He told me with many apologies that he did not yet feel able to give his mind to discussing his tax affairs. Having chosen to come to Venice by sea rather than air, he had found uncomfortably late that the sea did not suit his digestion: he was still feeling very unwell—looking it too, poor boy.

Wanting to begin as soon as possible to do something about Julia’s problems, I did my best to encourage him to a leisurely recovery.

“I was intending,” I said, “to add a few days’ holiday to the end of my stay in Venice. I should be quite happy, if you don’t feel I’m imposing on your hospitality, to take it at the beginning rather than the end.” I meant, of course, that the fee for my services would not be increased by the delay; but that is hardly something, even in these permissive days, which one can say outright to the lay client.

“Thank you,” said Richard, “that’s very kind.” Whether he understood the financial implication of my remark or had expected, on the basis of his memory of public school, that I would tell him to pull himself together and face up to the Finance Act like a man, I am not entirely sure.

Not wanting to disclose to him that there was any competing claim on my professional energies, I decided to make any telephone calls relating to Julia from the nearest bar rather than from the Palazzo, where the only telephone is just by the front door—not at all a convenient place from the point of view of privacy. After breakfast, therefore, I went out, saying that I intended to spend the day wandering round Venice.

It was a frustrating morning. I wanted, of course, to talk to Julia as soon as possible; but the travel agents had been unable to tell me exactly where she was staying in Chioggia. Graziella, obviously, would have known; but there was no answer from the number they had given me for her. The police, presumably, would also have known; but to telephone them without introduction and knowing nothing of the case seemed hardly calculated to impress them with my professional standing.

At last, through the emergency number for the British Consulate, I managed to track down a Signor Vespari, whose duties during the weekend had included receiving the news that one of those under the Consulate’s protection had been murdered and another was suspected of the crime.

Signor Vespari agreed to join me for lunch at Montin’s—the restaurant in the Dorsodouro which Ragwort likes. He told me what little he knew about the murder—that is, about the Finance Act and the unfortunate impression made by Julia’s denial of any acquaintance with the victim—and we discussed at some length the steps to be taken to protect her interests. We agreed that after I had seen her I should talk to the police officer in charge of the case—Signor Vespari undertook to arrange this for me. We both felt, at this stage, that the case against Julia was so slight that the police must be doubtful whether to pursue it.

After lunch he was kind enough to invite me back to his flat and to allow me to make my telephone calls to Julia and yourself. He is, perhaps, quite enjoying the excitement of having a murder on his hands—generally speaking, it seems, the British in Venice do nothing worse than get drunk in Saint Mark’s Square.

It was in a mood, therefore, of reasonable optimism that I took the
vaporetto
across the Lagoon to Chioggia. I made my way to Julia’s hotel and was greeted, as I approached the reception desk, with the familiar words, “Hello, Timothy, come and have a drink.”

Physically, at any rate, her recent difficulties seemed to have done Julia no harm. There has been, it is true, some increase in her customary dishevelment: she looks like one of Priam’s daughters after a more than usually trying rape—but one, all the same, who during the Siege of Troy has eaten well, slept well and done plenty of sunbathing.

The trouble was that she knew nothing about the murder. I mean not merely that she is innocent of any complicity, but that she had no idea how or when it was discovered, or why suspicion had fallen on herself. There she was, she said, peacefully eating spaghetti in the dining-room of the Cytherea, doing no harm to anyone, when she was summoned to the Manager’s office. The peremptory terms of the invitation led her to expect a rebuke of some kind; but she supposed it to have something to do with an episode earlier in the day, of which I gather she has already written to you, involving one of the waiters.

In the Manager’s office she found, in addition to the Manager himself, two police officers. This, she felt, was making altogether too much of the matter, since after all, she said, the waiter had been perfectly willing. It did cross her mind, however, that he might have been even younger than he looked and that she did not know precisely what age, under Italian law, was regarded as that of consent. When, therefore, the police officers told her that they were enquiring into the death by violence of Mr. Edward Watson, it was with some relief that she told them she knew no one of that name.

“That, Julia,” I said, “was rather a pity.”

“If you,” said Julia, “had recently shared a bed with a young man of ethereal beauty, would it occur to you that his surname was Watson?”

“The contingency,” I answered, “is in my case remote. I should have thought, however, that it was a perfectly respectable name, such as anyone might have.”

“Precisely so,” said Julia sadly.

It had not been until Graziella arrived that anyone made it clear to Julia who it was who had been murdered. Fortunately, Graziella had conceived of the duties of a courier as including the protection of her clients during any interrogation by the police. She had accompanied Julia to the police station and had remained with her while she was questioned by the Vice-Quaestor—that is the title of the officer in charge of the case. The questioning had continued until after midnight, delayed by occasional disputes between Graziella and the official interpreter about the precise shade of meaning to be attributed to Julia’s answers.

Following, I gathered, some rather forceful representations from Graziella, Julia was released, on terms, however, of surrendering her passport and remaining in the Veneto. She had spent the rest of the night on Graziella’s sofa.

The account she had given the police of Friday afternoon is the same as is contained in her last letter to you: there is no point in my repeating it. After hearing it, I still felt that the field of suspects was entirely open. Not only the Art Lovers but almost anyone else, it seemed to me, could have been in the annexe on Friday evening. In particular, though, I still thought there had been time, after Kenneth came back from Verona, for a short but violent quarrel between him and Ned.

I felt more troubled about the lowering effect which the affair had had on her spirits. She attaches great significance to the signs of nervousness displayed by Ned on the morning of his death, attributing them to a fear of a murderous attack. She is persuaded that he was relying on her presence to protect him, and concludes that she is much to blame for leaving him asleep and defenceless.

“My dear Julia,” I said, “no one in their senses would choose you as a bodyguard.”

Since, however, she seemed unconvinced of this, I thought I had better change the subject by telling her of the professional reasons for my being in Venice: the idea of anyone incurring a £400,000 tax liability which could be avoided by a simple change of domicile was sufficiently shocking to divert her mind. There is, I think, nothing else in our conversation which needs to be reported to you.

This morning, taking breakfast again with my client, I was as sorry as circumstances permitted to find him not yet fully recovered. I am not, I suppose, taking quite so firm a line with Richard as my instructing solicitor would hope. Well, the Italian lawyer dealing with his great-aunt’s estate is joining us for dinner this evening—that will be soon enough to begin making him realize the seriousness of his position.

Having arranged with Signor Vespari that I would call at the Consulate at ten o’clock, I found when I arrived that he had already made an appointment for me to see the Vice-Quaestor later in the morning. He had also telephoned Graziella, to tell her of my being in Venice: this had the agreeable result that she had offered to meet me at the Consulate and to act as my interpreter in the interview with the Vice-Quaestor.

Graziella spoke indignantly on the way to the police station, of the absurdity of suspecting “the little Signorina Julia.” There being nothing in their relative sizes to justify the epithet—Graziella is delicately built—I take it to be a term of endearment.

“The little Signorina Julia,” she said, “is of course a most charming girl, most intelligent and serious”—Julia’s attentiveness to her lectures on the Gothic and the Byzantine has evidently made a good impression—“but as for committing murder—no, Signor Shepherd, she would not know how to.”

Graziella shrugged her shoulders, as if admitting some minor defect in an otherwise admirable character—she herself, no doubt, would, if she thought it necessary, commit a very competent murder. “To stab a man—if one has seen the Signorina attempting to slice a peach—”

I agreed that Julia’s dexterity would be tested to its limit by such a task.

“I have tried,” said Graziella, “to explain this to the Vice-Quaestor. But he will take no notice, because he wants everyone to say how clever he is when there is a murder to catch the murderer ten minutes afterwards. So he has continued to question the little Signorina half the night, hoping she will say something foolish. Finally I have explained to him that we are not living in a police state, thank God, and that it is not permissible for him to do this. So at last he has agreed that I shall arrange for the Signorina to stay in Chioggia, but he will not let her go home to London.”

“Julia told me,” I said, “how kind you had been.”

“It is nothing,” said Graziella. “But you will understand, Signor Shepherd, that perhaps the Vice-Quaestor will not be so very pleased to see me again.”

The Vice-Quaestor, a man of sad and operatic appearance, did indeed give the impression, when we were shown into his office, of being a police officer who had his troubles and did not find them alleviated by the reappearance of Graziella. “My own English is poor,” he said—with, as it turned out, undue modesty—“but I have two officers both very competent to interpret. The Signora need not have troubled herself.”

“It is no trouble, Signor Vice-Quaestor,” said Graziella serenely. “I am most happy to assist Signor Shepherd in anything he can do to help the little Signorina Julia.” Looking round his office, she evidently found it wanting in neatness and elegance. Before accepting the chair offered to her, she carefully dusted it with a paper handkerchief. Then, seeing that I was about to sit down without any similar precaution, she jumped up again, saying “Excuse me, Signor Shepherd, just a moment—” and dusted my chair as well. The Vice-Quaestor began to look harassed.

But in spite of the psychological advantage of making the Vice-Quaestor feel that his office was a pigsty, it was in the course of this interview that I first began to feel seriously worried about Julia’s position. It became clear, you see, that he really does think she did the murder.

It seemed at first that what impressed him was simply the sequence of events: Julia had been with the young man in his room; she had left alone; two hours later he had been found dead there—if there were an innocent explanation, it was for her to offer it.

“With respect,” I said, “that is a little unreasonable. It is precisely on the assumption that she is innocent that she will not be able to offer an explanation.” Graziella translated this with approval; but the Vice-Quaestor looked as if he thought it a piece of sophistry. “If she had any motive,” I continued, “then the circumstances might appear suspicious. But what conceivable reason could she have for doing such a thing?”