A Rich Full Death Read Online Free PDF

of unreflecting joy waned, deserting me altogether as I approached the Guidi palace. I had set off thither without much thought of the difficulties of my enterprise, but as I drew nearer to my goal these became only too evident. What did I think I was about, setting off thus blithely to pay a morning call on Mr Robert Browning? Even assuming that this gentleman was prepared to receive me at such an hour, it would almost certainly be impossible for us to discuss what had happened the previous night, since his wife was bound to be present. Moreover, I realised, it was more than likely that I featured in whatever story Browning had dreamed up to account for his late return home—the servant to whom I had handed in the note had recognised me, and this would have had to be explained. To blunder in and attempt to improvise my part in this domestic comedy was to risk my entire standing here. At one stroke I might become a social leper, persona non grata wherever I turned, the man to whom no one would ever again be at home!
    On the other hand, the fact remained that I absolutely had to know the outcome of Browning’s interrogation and the police enquiries into Isabel’s death; and since an approach through a third party might equally give rise to embarrassing questions my informant could only be Mr Browning himself.
    The only solution which occurred to me was to wait until Mr Browning left home, and then approach him in the street. I accordingly made my way to a small café on the other side of the Rome road, ordered a large dish of coffee and settled down to read the morning paper—keeping a careful watch on everyone who emerged from the Palazzo Guidi.
    I had not been there very long when I became aware that I was not the only person thus employed: in the doorway of a church opposite stood a man lounging in a painfully self-conscious fashion, whom I recognised with a shock as one of the policemen who had been at the villa the night before!
    For a moment I assumed that the fellow was spying on me , but I soon realised that his attention too was fixed on the building opposite. This naturally redoubled my curiosity, but I was obliged to contain myself in patience for the best part of an hour before I spied the stocky figure of Robert Browning emerge from the cave-like entrance to his lair into the strong sunlight and deeper shadows of Via Maggio.
    I had devoted some thought to what the police agent might do at this juncture, and what my best course would be if—as indeed proved to be the case—he were to follow Browning. To have two of us dogging the poet’s footsteps was manifestly absurd, yet now Browning had emerged I did not wish to risk losing him. I therefore crossed the road and dashed down a side-street opposite, past mangy cats and beggar brats—for though the Brownings face the Grand-Dukes’s palace, the alleyways behind are plebeian in the extreme—to the next street, where I turned right and continued my headlong course, lungs bursting—thank heaven they are fully mended now, and can support this kind of exercise!—as far as the Trinity bridge. Thanks to my exertions, however, I arrived at the bridge before Mr Browning, and was leaning over a parapet contemplating the turbid waters of the Arno when he passed by—at which moment I turned and greeted him with as convincing a show of natural surprise as I was capable of.
    ‘You are followed,’ I told him, indicating with a nod the spy who had just hove in sight at the end of the bridge, struggling to keep up with the foreigner’s brisk pace.
    A look of deep dismay crossed Browning’s features.
    ‘Have you time for a coffee?’ I enquired without pause. ‘I would like to hear how last night’s little drama ended.’
    ‘All the time in the world,’ he replied.
    And indeed all his earlier haste, his sense of purpose and bustle, had quite evaporated. Where had he been headed so urgently, I could not help wondering, that he would not go now he knew himself to