Death in Autumn Read Online Free PDF Page B

chair. What can you tell me?' Galli had never been known to produce notebook and pencil during an interview, but although he always appeared to be mildly drunk he made fewer mistakes than any of his colleagues.
    'How much do you know already?'
    'Plenty. I've had a chat to a friend of mine who works at the Medico-Legal Institute and I've been to the Riverside Hotel.'
    'Sometimes I think you must follow me round all day.'
    'Sometimes I do.'
    'And when do you find time to write?'
    'When you've gone to bed.' Galli grinned happily. 'I should be able to get this article into tomorrow's late edition.'
    The Captain gave him the relevant points from the autopsy and details of the dead woman's identity.
    'Suspicions?'
    'I can't give you anything on that yet. It's too soon.'
    'Well, this will be enough. The main thing is that we'll publish first, pull one over on the lot of them. Thanks a lot, Captain.' And, sticking another cigarette into his mouth, he went off cheerfully into the rainy night.
    The Captain took the envelope full of personal documents from the drawer and tipped its contents onto the desk. Then, remembering his hunger and that he might well have to work far into the night, he got up and went to get himself a sandwich and a glass of wine from his quarters.
    The lights had gone out down in the recreation hall. On his way back to his office he paused to look in on the men in the radio room since theirs was the only light burning on that floor.
    'Everything all right?'
    'All quiet, sir. There's nobody out on a Monday night in this weather—except us.'
    Back in his office the Captain began to sort through the documents, picking up the grey passport first as he was curious to see a photograph of Hilde Vogel when she was alive. Probably it wasn't a good likeness, passport photographs rarely are, but it was evident from the fineness of the features that she had been very good-looking when young. Not pretty, the face was too severe for that, but certainly elegant and attractive. There was a hint, too, of the ironic smile mentioned by some of the hotel staff.
    'So what were you up to,' murmured the Captain to himself, looking back into the cold bright eyes, 'to come to such a sticky end . . .?' But the face was secretive and told him nothing. He put the passport aside.
    There were some share certificates which he was unable to read but which he could guess were in a German steel company. These he placed in a separate folder to be translated and checked as to their value.
    A diary, leather bound and bearing the label of a well-known Florentine papermaker, told him little of interest. Hilde Vogel visited a hairdresser in the city centre once a week. She occasionally wrote herself a reminder to buy tights and other small items. The hairdresser's number was in the alphabetical list along with that of a doctor whose surgery was in Via Cavour and a lawyer whose offices were in Piazza della Repubblica. There was no German address to which she might have written those letters once a month. But the letters had been registered. The Captain searched through the pile of papers until he found what he was looking for: an envelope containing the brown printed carbon copies, receipts for the monthly letters. They were divided into years and the twelve receipts for each year paperclipped together. But the ones for the current year only went up to July, a date which did not coincide with one of her trips or with the brief visit of the man described by Querci, the night porter. The recipient's name was H. Vogel and the address was a bank in Mainz, West Germany. The sender was H. Vogel, Villa Le Roveri, Greve in Chianti. Whose address was that? Could she have been sending herself money to be deposited in a German account? There was no cheque-book among the papers, but then, the Captain realized, they hadn't found a handbag in the room, apart from those wrapped in polythene in the wardrobe. Probably the attacker had thrown that into the river, too,