Chapter Thirty-Nine
It was a nobler, more thoughtful Inspector Pluck who glided into the interview room next morning. Both Bartoff and Enid seemed to sense something different, maturer, about him. He bowed to the one, kissed the hand of the other, with an unruffled ease which was new to him. When he sent Larry to summon Signora Genevra Bergamaschi to be interviewed, they secretly expected a more civilised order of interview than they’d seen heretofore.
Genevra entered, in baggy trousers from which drips of paint had been inexpertly washed, and a strange jacket with many pockets, greeted them all formally, and sat down. Enid pondered the artist’s appearance, while Pluck examined his notes: the firelight, playing upon her, softened her features, revealing a refined femininity, as a sculpture fully formed in Michelangelo’s marble, beneath. And yet, there, still, was her manly way of carrying herself: her shoulders thrust back, her trousered legs well apart, her stoical frown. It was over this alloy of features that Enid’s glance ranged, admiringly and confusedly.
Pluck, on the other hand, remembered his duty.
“I submit,” he began, “that you had nothing whatever to do with the murder of Gary Snede Bill.”
“You are correct.”
“Further, I submit that you never planned to kill him, never wished to kill him, never conceived of killing him, at any point in your life.”
“That’s it exactly.”
“And that to waste time attempting to establish some dubious motive derived from, say, a misunderstanding of semantics would be just that—a waste of time, with no progress made toward the aim of this investigation.”
“I am of the exact same mind.”
“Good. Then we are agreed.” Pluck stood. “Please send in your companion, Signora Rosella. Thank you for your co-operation.”
“My pleasure.” Genevra rose, looked at him, with a surprise identical to that on the faces of Enid and Bartoff, and left. The door then opened, and Poor Larry stood on the threshold, bearing a jug of water.
“You asked for more water, Inspector?” he asked meekly.
“I did. Please come in. And dust the table while you’re at it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Larry came in. A moment later, Rosella entered, and with her, a fragrance of roses.
“Thank you for coming, signora. Please sit down.”
She did so, without a word.
Pluck looked through his papers. “I cannot seem to find a surname for you in these lists, signora.”
“I have no surname. I am legally monoymous.”
“Ah. Well, there you are. One learns something new every day. To proceed: Signora Rosella, I submit that you had nothing at all to do with the murder of Bill Snarry.”
“That’s right.”
“And that to prolong this interrogation would be a scandalous waste of your time and ours.”
“Yes.”
Rosella’s flesh, so thin as to be practically transparent, and so glossy as to look like wax, seemed, in the firelight, to be melting, Enid remarked (purely internally). The flames flickered behind the model, creating an optical effect of her skin undulating, slowly and sensually, as if kneaded by reverential palms. Her face, strange and sketch-like, half-finished, as it was to Enid’s mind, yoked to her body, with its ethereal, acalephan flesh, evoked in her a palpable pang. It was a pang she did not immediately recognise, but she felt it, and thought on it, and dismissed it, but could not stop herself from, unaccountably, savouring it, and defining it, in the absence of any other notion, as envy. But why? Was it her young, supple, unaged body, that, if time were, as her flesh seemed to suggest, merely a whimsy, would never die? That must be it. And so her meditation drifted, as mediations do, to the subject of her own mortality. Her mind overlaid the theme of death on the body of Rosella before her: death and desire, all jumbled up.
“Are you all right, Miss Trojczakowski?” It was Pluck, who’d turned to her.
“Yes, yes, of course. Carry on.”
Pluck shrugged. “I have nothing further to add. Signora Rosella—you are in the clear.”
“You’re innocent!” Bartoff screamed violently.
“Thank you.” Rosella nodded her head and stood up, about to go, when Pluck detained her with:
“Oh, just one more thing, please. There’s just one more thing to be done.” He stood up, turned around to view Larry dusting the snacks table, and threw himself murderously upon him. His blows were vicious and bestial; Larry, too surprised and frightened to put up a defence, curled up on the floor under the assault. Enid and Bartoff had to drag Pluck off him, and hold him in a chair, where he panted and wheezed and glared hatefully at the bellhop.
“Why did you do that?!” Enid wondered.
“What?! What?!”
“Why?!”
“Why what?! Speak plainly, woman!”
“Why did you attack Larry?!”
“Oh—that.” Pluck became thoughtful. “In truth, I couldn’t tell you why. Sometimes in life, Miss Trojczakowski, you’ll find yourself faced with an instinct, an instinct you neither welcome nor understand, and, rather than chase it away, you embrace it—ride it, like you’d ride a manic, wild horse with red death burning in its eye—and cling on for dear life. That, put simply, is what I’ve just done.”
On that note, Larry was taken, snivelling pathetically, to calm down, and the others broke for tea.