Read Death in Autumn for Free Online

and it would be pretty well impossible to find it. The cheque-book was no doubt inside it along with her keys which had not been found either. He made a note to check all the banks in the city where she might have had an account and then replaced the letter receipts in their envelopes.
    Next he examined a police permit which was up to date and which gave Hilde Vogel's place of residence as Grcve in Chianti, not the Riverside Hotel in Florence. The next thing he picked up offered an explanation. It was a plastic folder containing a thick stack of contracts for the rent of a country villa near Greve in Chianti. Hilde Vogel was the owner and the villa was, as all the identical contracts stated, her only property and place of residence in Italy. The place had been rented over the past ten years to dozens of tenants for periods of one month to two years for tourist purposes only. The conveyance documents contained in the same folder showed that Hilde Vogel had inherited the property from her father twelve years previously. But if she had been staying at the Riverside Hotel for fifteen years then she had never lived in it.
    The Captain selected those contracts still current and then locked all the rest of the documents back in his drawer. Someone would have to go out and take a look at that villa tomorrow. Hilde Vogel might never have lived there but it would be worth taking a look at whoever was there now. The only trouble was that he had no idea how he could spare anyone to do the job.
    'Well, at least it's stopped raining,' muttered the Marshal to himself as he took the left fork towards Greve in Chianti, under a soft blue autumn sky. It was all very well, but by the time the Captain had called him that morning he was already breaking his head over the daily orders because two of his men were on duty over at the assize courts. But all he had said on the telephone was: 'I'd better go myself, sir. The only two lads I could spare are too young and inexperienced.'
    'I hope I'm not causing you difficulties?'
    'No, no...' And he had buckled on his holster and fished out the sunglasses he was forced to wear because his eyes were allergic to sunshine.
    He stopped at the Garabiniere Station at the bottom of the sloping piazza in the village of Greve to get exact directions for finding the villa, and perhaps some information about the tenants.
    'A right funny bunch,' the Marshal of Greve told Guarnaccia over a quick coffee at the bar nearby. The shoppers passing in front of the open door looked busy and cheerful, perhaps because of the sunshine. There was a smell of fresh bread and wood smoke mingling with the aroma of the coffee. 'But we've never had any trouble with them. Do you want me to come with you?'
    'No, no. I shan't do more than take a look at the place and find out if any of the tenants know the owner. You don't know her? A Signora Vogel, German.'
    'I knew the previous owner, he was German, but he died long since. The villa's let through an agency—you can see their offices across there under the colonnade between the baker's and the newsagent's. Do you want me to have a talk to them?'
    'If you're not too busy?'
    'We don't get many crime waves in Greve. I've got to visit an old dear who reports her next-door neighbours for one reason or another every day, but I can call at the agency after that. Come and see me on your way back. It's a beautiful place, that villa, but you'll see it's been neglected.'
    It was a beautiful place. The Marshal got out of his car, took a deep breath of warm air and looked about him. The villa had large gardens around it, and beyond that it was surrounded by a mature oak wood where brilliant autumn colours contrasted strongly with the misty hills that stretched to the horizon, but a lot of the ochre-washed stucco had crumbled from the villa's facade and one of the peeling shutters on the first floor was hanging askew. Although it wasn't more than five or six minutes' drive from the village there was