Read Online The Marshal's Own Case by Magdalen Nabb - Free Book Online

have you worked on?’
    ‘Three altogether. Unsolved like this one will be, I suppose, but we have to go through the motions. I’ll call the clinic tomorrow. They have to go back there, you see, every so often. It’s not a one-off job like their faces. You noticed their faces?’
    ‘No . . .’ The Marshal had barely noticed anything, he’d been so embarrassed.
    ‘Noses and cheekbones have to be fined down. That they get done here in Florence; there’s a very good plastic surgeon they almost all patronize. Now, there’s Paoletta whose real name is Paolo Del Bianco, supposed to have gone home to Sicily for granny’s funeral, and this other one . . . where is it . . . Giorgio Pino—another Gigi who, they say, has transferred his operations to Milan. Our chaps up there will know. That leaves Carla. I know Carla, she’s all right. Carlo Federico, said to have the ’flu. Only two minutes away from you if you want to go and have a word.’
    The Marshal didn’t want, but he had to be seen to be doing something. He couldn’t leave everything to Ferrini, much as he would have liked to. So he said, ‘All right’ and was relieved that soon after that Ferrini seemed to think they’d had enough for one night.
    He knew, when he got home at half past five in the morning, that Teresa was only pretending to be asleep. But if she noticed that he spent an inordinate amount of time under the shower, scrubbing away at himself as if he’d fallen into a midden, she made no comment. He slept peacefully enough until his usual time of waking, then passed a few uncomfortable hours trying to sleep through the noises of morning, achieving only troubled dreams and a sweaty, aching back. He had another shower.
    At four that afternoon, when he presented himself at the appropriate number in Via de’ Serragli and rang the bell marked Federico, he was strapped and buttoned tightly into his uniform as if it might protect him from what he had to face. When the door clicked open he went in holding his breath.
    ‘First floor,’ directed a man’s voice, thick with sleep.

Four
    W hatever he had been bracing himself against, it wasn’t the pale shiny face, devoid of make-up and a little red about the nose, which peered at him round the door upstairs.
    ‘Federico?’
    ‘That’s right. Come in.’
    He took his hat off. ‘Marshal Guarnaccia.’
    ‘I was expecting you. A friend of mine telephoned me. Sit down, will you? I have to make myself a cup of coffee, I’ve only just woken up and I feel wretched. Chinese ’flu. Have you had it?’
    ‘Not yet.’
    ‘It’s lousy. I won’t be a minute.’
    The Marshal sat himself down on the edge of an armchair. The sitting-room was small but nicely furnished and very clean and tidy. Two canaries were singing in a cage near the open door to the kitchen where he could see Carla moving about, getting the coffee on. The room was filled with pale November sunlight.
    ‘Do you want a cup?’
    ‘No . . . no, thanks.’
    Carla came back, stirring a glass of colourless liquid. ‘You’ll have to excuse the dressing-gown and slippers. I’ve been so ill I haven’t got dressed for three days and I can’t face washing my hair because I’ve still got a bit of fever.’ It was tied back loosely with a scrap of ribbon and some of the dark brown locks had escaped to fall on the pale smooth cheeks.
    ‘Sugar and water,’ Carla said, indicating the glass and then draining it. ‘My blood pressure’s so low . . . the doctor says it’s the hormones. Last time it got so low he gave me injections for it but I hate injections, don’t you?’
    ‘They’re not pleasant,’ the Marshal agreed.
    ‘That’s the coffee coming up. I’ll be right back.’
    The Marshal was baffled. He couldn’t connect Carla with the wild, theatrical band of last night, and what was more, if it hadn’t been for the voice he wouldn’t even have been able to tell . . . He felt disorientated.
    Carla reappeared with a tiny cup and the