Death of an Englishman by Magdalen Nabb

(22. - 1205.) Death of an Englishman by Magdalen Nabb (1981) - Marshal Guaranaccia is summoned from his sickbed to the apartment of A. Langley- Smythe. It is just before Christmas and he is worried he will be sick with the flu in Florence instead of being with his family in Sicily. Langley-Smythe, a man about 60, is dead, shot in the back.

The Marshal continues to suffer from an eye condition. In sunshine he “weeps”. Black sunglasses help.

The Marshal, while “large and fat”, is a precise man. He “drank half a litre of red every day with his evening meal, never more not less, and a drop of vinsanto on Sundays”.

Chief Inspector Lowestoft and Inspector Jeffreys are dispatched by New Scotland Yard to Florence to aid in the investigation and prevent unpleasant publicity for the victim’s sister’s husband is a man “of some influence”.

With City hotels filled up the pair are staying with the Vicar of the English church.

With the Marshal driven to bed the investigation continues with the Captain and Carabiniere Bacci. The well-to-do residents of the Englishman’s building have neither seen nor heard anything except for a young girl, Giovanna, who insists she heard two loud bangs at 2:45 in the morning with the first being a door bang and the second a gun bang. The huge outside doors also close with a loud bang.

Miss White, an English lady in her 60’s, is devoted to a dead English poet, Walter Savage Landor. She does not speak Italian and her swiftly spoken English stream of consciousness befuddles the Captain and Carabiniere Bacci.

The English library of Florence has an unpleasant combination of mould and damp. Its patrons, which include the Englishman, are eccentric.

The police determine that the Englishman ate alone every night at his table in the modestly priced Casalinga restaurant. He would have his 1-2 courses, drink quite a bit of wine and read his newspaper. He was always alone.

The investigation turns to antiquities and the pace accelerates.

The English Chief Inspector clearly thinks the English are superior to Italians. The Captain has equal disdain for the British visitors. 

During the night the Marshal’s fever breaks and he joins the investigation after attending the funeral of the wife of the cleaner of the building where the Englishman had his apartment.

Without having seen and interviewed anyone it is the Marshal who solves the case having reflected on the person everyone has overlooked. As in the best mysteries his insights were open to all but I never deduced the killer. 

The motive is as sad as any I have read in crime fiction and all too believable.

Nabb is great at building interesting characters and giving them convincing voices. Her Florence is a place of culture whose streets buzz with Christmas shopping and anticipation. The mystery is deftly done. And it takes but 172 pages.

I regretted that the flu laid low the Marshal for over half the book. I will need to read another to fully appreciate him.