Death of an Englishman by Magdalen Nabb

Some sort of business deal that went wrong …'
    'Yes … I wonder if we couldn't save some time by sending your Inspector upstairs along with Carabiniere Bacci to have a word with Miss White. I'm afraid she's unlikely to have seen or heard anything, being on the top floor, but we ought to make sure … And if then Carabiniere Bacci would come down and do a little interpreting for us …'
    'Quite, yes. Good idea … Jeffreys, would you mind … ?' He was grateful for the Captain's tact. They were going to have to have a talk and the sooner the better. Things were much more serious than the Chief had expected and no tactfully cosmetic report was going to cover this lot up. He would just rather Inspector Jeffreys were not around while he decided what should be done. As the younger men left he sat down heavily in the chair where the Marshal had once sat down heavily, and reached automatically for the pipe in his mac pocket, gazing thoughtfully out through the french windows into the courtyard.
    After their recent chat, Carabiniere Bacci felt able to admit as they climbed the stairs: 'My English wasn't good enough. She's quite strange, this lady.'
    'This Miss White? Well, these old dears often are.' Jeffreys was the eldest of seven children, and though always in trouble with his superiors he would go out of his way to help younger men without giving it a thought or doing anything more than wink solemnly when the younger man got the credit. 'The thing to remember is, first, that a lot of what they tell you is likely to be gossip—they'll say anything to get a bit of self-importance or to get back at a neighbour, just because they're lonely. You've got to be patient, give them some attention, be willing to have a cup of tea with them—I should say coffee in your case but it's the same thing. These stairs are a bit much—how much farther?'
    'I beg your pardon?' Carabiniere Bacci was too nonplussed by the first part of this speech to catch the tail-end of it.
    'How much higher?' he pointed up.
    'Oh yes. The next floor.'
    'Right. Then, secondly, they're frightened.'
    'Frightened?'
    'Criminals, crime, they live alone, they're frightened of anything coming back on them.'
    'I don't think …' But Carabiniere Bacci's vocabulary, a genteel survival of pre-war Florence, didn't run to a description of Miss White, whose footwear alone was enough to confound him. 'This door here.'
    It was open again but they rang the bell.
    'Come in, come in! No charge for admission!' The invisible tenant encouraged them.
    Carabiniere Bacci watched Jeffreys's face.
    'Is it some sort of museum?' whispered the Inspector uncertainly as they stepped into the terracotta hallway.
    'I think so, yes. She says—'
    'Ah! Ahal Just the thing! More visitors to help us out—can you take photographs? It's one of those automatics so it doesn't matter if you can't—you still can, if you see what I mean. Oh, it's you again, nice to see you, and brought another friend— plain clothes, another first! Plain clothes detective, just like Scotland Yard, you'll have to put that in the book—detective, I mean, not Scodand Yard—never had anybody from there, not that said, anyway, but of course you never know, I suppose they keep quiet about it—not much point in going about in plain clothes and then telling everybody you're a policeman— now, come through here and meet Mr MacLuskie, marvellous man, wants a photograph of himself in the house next to a portrait of Landor, but he'd like me to be in it—can't think why—so if you wouldn't mind holding the camera, here you are, press that, that's all you have to do, press— can't tell you in Italian, been here fifteen years and can't speak a word.' She had thrust the camera at Jeffreys. She had other plans for Carabiniere Bacci. 'We'll have you in the picture with your uniform—you don't mind him being in the picture do you? You can send me a copy.'
    'Don't mind at all, ma'am. It would be a pleasure.' The visitor, a large