The Marshal at the Villa Torrini Read Online Free PDF Page A

time I mentioned it.'
    A pause. His mind was going like a steam engine, you could almost hear it. He was intelligent all right, but they were the ones who in the end always talked themselves into trouble. The stout denial of the most stupid criminal was much more effective, but a chap like this one couldn't keep it up. The temptation to run rings round a bunch of none-too-bright policemen was always too great, and sooner or later the brilliant story that explained everything would be concocted. Still Forbes was being cautious—or the hangover was saving him.
    'I remembered when you said it. That . . .'
    The Marshal didn't help him. He sat very still and hardly appeared to be interested even. His ear was cocked to Fusarri's fast rattling accent with its slurred Milanese S. He would have filled the entire house by this time with the pungent blue smoke of his tiny cigars which he chain-smoked. He'd be sure to get on well with Signora Torrini. A vehicle drew up outside. Doors slammed and someone gave an order.
    The Marshal sighed and his heavy, black uniformed torso made an almost imperceptible movement forward. The other man flinched and drew back.
    'That will be the ambulance. Do you want to see your wife before they take her away?'
    Forbes dried his brow quickly and swallowed hard.
    'What's happened to her?'
    It was so calculated, so infantile, so blatantly false that the Marshal, thinking of a still young woman lying dead and alone for hours while he snored in a drunken stupor, could have hit him. Someone else in his place might have done just that and perhaps saved himself a lot of time and trouble since the man was clearly a moral and physical coward. But the Marshal didn't move.
    'I don't know,' he said, and waited.
    But Forbes only narrowed his eyes and then dropped his head once again into his hands.
    'Oh God : . . My head!'
    It was useless. The headache and nausea were more pressing than any need to save himself from accusation. Besides which, it could well turn out after the autopsy that there was nothing to accuse him of. After all, there was no getting away from the fact that he had been found asleep next door to his dead wife when he had a car and a current passport at his disposal. At any rate, it was useless to try and do much with him until he recovered. The Marshal got to his feet and again Forbes made that slight cringing movement which he covered by opening the bedside cabinet.
    'Christ almighty, I need some aspirin . . .'
    There were a few boxes of pills in the cupboard.
    'If your wife was in the habit of taking sleeping pills or tranquillizers of any sort I'll need to take them with me.'
    Forbes swept everything out of the cupboard on to the floor in a fury. 'Shit!'
    'In the bathroom, are they?'
    The man flung himself back against the crumpled pillows and started weeping loudly again.
    'Did she?' insisted the Marshal.
    'Did she what? Oh God! Oh God . . .'
    Take sleeping pills?' But what was the use? The Marshal stooped and picked up the tablets, checking each label. Mineral salts, throat pastilles, a tube of liniment for sprains and bruises, capsules for relief from colds. Nothing. He put them back and closed the cabinet door. As he stood up he noticed a little screw of paper in a flowered ashtray by the bedside lamp. Picking it up, he gave a sideways glance at the sobbing figure on the bed. Forbes again had his hands over his face and was burrowing into the pillows as though he hoped they might envelop him completely. The Marshal unscrewed the twist of paper. There were two red capsules in it.
    'Are these sleeping pills?'
    Forbes didn't even look up.
    'Oh God, my head . . .'
    I'll need to take them away. You'll be given a receipt.'
    Fusarri's voice called from the bathroom. By the sound of it, they were starting to remove the body.
    'Are you sure you don't wish to see your wife before they take her away?'
    His only response was to curl in on himself, drawing up his knees in a foetal position. The Marshal