She had to be dead.
She couldn’t have survived that fall nor lie the way she was lying, with the sea covering her head, and not be dead, but I just couldn’t believe it.
“Helen!”
There was a cracked note in my voice as I yelled down to her.
“Helen!!”
My voice echoed back to me: a ghostly sound that set me shaking.
She couldn’t be dead, I told myself. I had to make sure. I couldn’t leave her there. She might be drowning even as I stared down at her.
I threw myself flat and edged forward until my head and shoulders were clear of the overhang. The height made me dizzy. From this point of view the drop was horrifying.
I looked feverishly along and down the chalk face to find some way that would take me down to her, but there was no way. It would be like trying to climb down the face of a monstrous wall. The only way to get down there would be to be lowered by a rope.
My heart was hammering, and there was cold sweat on my face as I edged forward a few more dangerous inches.
From this position I could see her more clearly. I could see that her face and head were completely submerged by the gently lapping sea, and as a shaft of light from the sinking sun lit up the sea, I saw there was a halo of red around her blonde hair.
She was dead all right.
I worked my way back on to the path and squatted on my heels, sick and shaking. I wondered how long she had been lying down there. She might have been dead for hours.
I had to get help. There would be a telephone in the villa. I’d call the police from there. If I
hurried, they might be able reach her before it became too dark to find her.
I stood up, took two uncertain, unsteady steps backward and came to an abrupt stop.
The police!
I suddenly realized what a police investigation would mean to me. It wouldn’t take them long to find out that Helen and I had planned to spend a month in the villa. It would only take a little longer for the news to reach Chalmers. Once I called in the police the whole sordid story would come out.
As I stood hesitating, I saw a fishing boat come slowly into the little bay below me. I immediately became aware that I was sharply silhouetted against the sky line. Although the crew down there were too far away to see my features, a wave of panic sent me down on my hands and knees out of sight.
This was it. I was in a hell of a jam. I had known all along at the back of my mind that I was walking into trouble by getting infatuated with Helen, and now I had walked into it.
As I crouched down, I imagined the expression that would come on Sherwin Chalmers’s heavy, tough face when he heard the news that his daughter and I had arranged to stay at a villa in Sorrento, and his daughter had fallen over a cliff.
He would be certain we had been lovers. He might even think I had got tired of her and had pushed her off the cliff.
This thought shook me.
There was a possibility that the police might think that too. So far as I knew, no one had seen her fall. I couldn’t prove the exact time I had arrived here. I had come out of the crowded train, just one among a hundred other travellers. I had left my suitcase with the station clerk, but he saw different faces every hour of the day, and it wasn’t likely he would remember me. There was no one else. I couldn’t recall meeting anyone on the long walk up from Sorrento. No one anyway who would be likely to swear to the exact time I had arrived on the cliff head.
A lot depended, of course, on the time when Helen died. If she had fallen within an hour or so of my arrival, and if the police suspected that I had pushed her over the cliff, then I would really be in a bad position.
By now I had worked myself into quite a state of nerves. My one thought was to get as far away from here as I could without being seen. As I turned to make my way down the path, I
stumbled over Helen’s camera case that I had dropped when I had caught sight of her.
I picked it up, hesitated, then made to heave it over the cliff, but stopped in time.
I couldn’t afford to make a single mistake now. My fingerprints were on the case.
I took out my handkerchief and wiped the case over carefully. I went over the case four or five times until I was satisfied I hadn’t left a trace of any prints. Then I tossed the case over the cliff.
Turning, I moved swiftly back down the path.
By now the light was fading. The sun, a great fiery ball, drenched the sky and sea in a red glow. In another half-hour it would be dark.
I kept on, barely glancing at the lone white villa I had seen on my way up, but noticing that lights were showing at three or four of the windows.
My panic subsided a little as I continued to hurry along the path. I felt bad about leaving Helen, but I was certain she was dead, and I told myself I had to think of myself.
By the time I reached the garden gate, I had got over the first shock of her death and my mind was functioning again.
I knew the right thing to do was to call the police. I told myself that if I made a clean breast of it, admitted I was going to live with the girl for a month, and explained how I had come upon her body, there was no reason why they shouldn’t believe me. At least, they couldn’t catch me out in a lie. But if I kept quiet, and by some unlucky chance they got on to me, they would be justified in suspecting that I was responsible for her death.
This reasoning would have convinced me if it were not for the new job: I wanted to run the foreign desk more than I wanted anything else in this world. I knew I wouldn’t get the job if Chalmers learned the truth. I would be mad to throw away my future by telling the police the truth: that way I had everything to lose. If I kept quiet, and had some luck, there was a good chance I would get away with it.
It wasn’t as if there had been anything between us, I told myself. I wasn’t even in love with the girl. It had been a stupid, irresponsible impulse. She had been more to blame than I. She had encouraged me. She had arranged everything. According to Maxwell, she was a practised siren. She had a reputation for making trouble for men. I’d be a fool not to try and save myself. Having got all that off my chest, I calmed down-Okay, I thought, I’ve got to make certain no
one ever knows I’ve been here. I’ve got to establish an alibi for myself.
By now I had reached the gate that led through the garden to the villa. I paused there to look at my watch. The time was half-past eight. Maxwell and Gina believed right now that I was in Venice. There wasn’t a hope of getting from here to Venice to-night. My only chance to establish an alibi was to get back to Rome. With any luck, I could get there by about three in the morning. I would go to the office early the following morning, and make out I had changed my mind about going to Venice and, instead, had stayed in Rome to finish a chapter of a novel I was writing.
It wasn’t much of an alibi, but it was the best I could think of at the moment. The point was that it would be easy for the police to prove that I hadn’t been to Venice, but impossible for them to prove that I hadn’t spent all day in my pent house apartment. I had a private stairway to the apartment and no one ever saw me enter or leave.
If only I had brought my car! It would have been simple to get to Rome if I had the car. I didn’t dare take the Lincoln convertible which I could see as I rounded the bend in the garden path.
The village woman whom Helen had hired to run the villa was certain to know Helen had brought the car. If it were missing, the police might jump to the conclusion that Helen’s death hadn’t been accidental.
I would have to walk to Sorrento, and then try for a train to Naples. I had no idea what time the last train left Sorrento for Naples, but I thought it more than likely that by the time I had covered the five long miles on foot, the last train would have gone. I knew there was an elevenfifteen from Naples to Rome, but I had still to get to Naples. Once again I looked at the Lincoln convertible. I fought down the temptation to take it. Whatever I did, I must not complicate this set-up more than it was already.
As I moved around the car and towards the drive, I looked back at the dark, silent villa and I got a shock.
Had I imagined the flash of light that had appeared from within the lounge?
Moving quickly and silently, my heart hammering, I crouched down behind the car.
I stared at the lounge windows for a long moment, then I saw again the gleam of white light which immediately disappeared.
I waited, breathing hard, as I peered over the hood of the car.
Again the light appeared. This time it remained on longer.
Someone was in the lounge with a flashlight!
Who could it be?
Not the woman from the village. She wouldn’t need to creep around like this in the dark. She would have turned on the lights.
I was now really rattled. Keeping low, I moved away from the car, across the tarmac, away from the villa until I reached the comforting cover of a huge hydrangea shrub. I got behind this, then peered back at the villa.
The light was moving around the lounge as if the intruder in there was searching for something.
I wanted to find out who it was. I was tempted to creep in there and surprise whoever it was: probably some sneak thief, but I knew I had to keep out of sight. No one must know I had been to the villas. It galled me to watch the light moving around the room and to know I couldn’t do anything about it.
After five minutes or so, the light went out. There was a long pause, then I became aware of a tall figure of a man who came through the front door. He paused for a moment at the head of the steps. It was now far too dark to see more than his shadowy outline.
He moved softly down the steps, went over to the car and peered inside. He turned on his flashlight. His back was turned to me. I could see he was wearing a black slouch hat and the width of his shoulders was impressive. I was glad now that I hadn’t gone in there and surprised him. He looked big enough to more than take care of himself.
The light went out and he moved away from the car. I crouched down, expecting him to come towards me and make for the exit at the bottom of the drive. Instead, he went swiftly and silently across the lawn, and I just managed to see that he was heading for the path that led to the distant garden gate before he was swallowed up in the darkness.
Puzzled and uneasy, I stared after him, then realizing that time was going, and that I had to get back to Rome, I left my hiding-place and hurried down the drive, through the wrought-iron gates and on to the road.
All the way to Sorrento I puzzled about this intruder. Had he been a sneak thief? Or was he connected in some way with Helen? The question remained unanswered. The only comfort that
I could get from this mysterious situation was that I hadn’t been seen.
I reached Sorrento at ten minutes past ten. I had run, walked and run again, and I was pretty near bushed as I walked into the station. The last train to Naples had left ten minutes ago.
I had five minutes over the hour to get somehow to Naples. I got my suitcase from the leftluggage office, taking care to keep my head bent so the clerk couldn’t get a good look at me, then I went out into the dark station yard where a lone taxi waited. The driver was dozing, and I got into the cab before he woke.
“I’ll give you double fare and a five thousand lire tip if you get me to Naples station before eleven fifteen,” I told him.
There is no wilder, madder or more dangerous driver in the world than an Italian. When one gives him a challenge like this, the only thing to do is to sit right, close your eyes and pray.
The taxi driver didn’t even turn around to look at me. He stiffened to attention, sank his thumb into the starter button, threw in his clutch and tore out of the station yard on two wheels.
The road out of Sorrento for twelve miles or so is shaped like a coiled snake. There are hairpin bends, tight corners and only enough room for two buses to pass if they stop, and the drivers lean out of their windows and then take it dead slow.
My driver went along this road as if it were as flat and as straight as a foot rule. He kept hi3 hand on his horn and his headlights gave warning of his coming, but there were moments when I thought my last hour had arrived. It was pure luck that we didn’t meet the hourly local bus, otherwise we couldn’t have avoided a smash.
Once on the autostrada to Naples it was plain sailing, and I could relax a little. At this hour there wasn’t much traffic, and the taxi kept up a roaring, snarling eighty-five miles an hour for a little more than half an hour.
We got into the outskirts of Naples at five minutes to eleven. This was the crucial moment of the drive, for the traffic of Naples at all times is notoriously heavy and slow. It was then that my driver proved to me that he wasn’t only a dangerous and mad driver, but he was also completely indifferent to human life and limb.
He cut through the traffic the way a hot knife slices through butter. The fact that other Italian drivers were intimidated underlined his ferocious ruthlessness. No Italian driver will ever give way willingly to another driver, but in this case, they seemed glad to give way, and the whole route to the station was punctuated with the screaming of tortured tyres as cars braked violently,
the honking of horns and the yells of fury.
I was surprised the police didn’t take action. Maybe it was because the taxi was out of sight before they could get their whistles to their mouths.
We arrived at the station at five minutes after eleven, and as the driver slammed on his brakes and came to a skidding standstill he turned around to grin at me.
I had my hat pulled well down over my eyes and the interior of the cab was dark. I knew he wouldn’t recognize me again.
“How’s that, signor?” he asked, obviously delighted with himself.
“Terrific,” I said breathlessly, as I shoved a handful of dirty thousand lire notes into his hand, “Well done, and thanks.”
I grabbed my suitcase, left the taxi and sprinted across the sidewalk into the station. I bought a ticket and legged it along the platform to where the train was waiting.
Four minutes later, alone in a dirty third-class carriage, I watched the lights of Naples fade in the distance.
I was on my way to Rome!
Gina’s large blue eyes opened to their fullest extent when she saw me standing in the doorway.
“Why, Ed!”
“Hello.”
I closed the door and came over to sit on the edge of her desk. It was a relief to be back on my home ground. There was a feeling of security in this neat, well-ordered office.
I had spent a horrible six hours sweating it out in my apartment. Being alone with Helen’s death on my mind had been bad.
“Is there anything wrong?” she asked sharply.
I wish I could have told her just how wrong things were.
“Why, no: there’s nothing wrong,” I said. “I couldn’t get a room in Venice. I called the Travel Association and they said I hadn’t a dog’s chance of getting in anywhere at short notice, so I decided to let Venice go. Then I thought I might put a little work in on my novel. I got so engrossed with my own cleverness I didn’t stop working until three o’clock this morning.”
“But you’re supposed to be on vacation,” Gina said. There was a worried, puzzled expression in her eyes that warned me she wasn’t sure if I were telling her the truth. “If you’re not going to Venice, where are you going?”
“Don’t bully me,” I said. I found it difficult to use a bantering tone and I realized that perhaps it was a mistake to see Gina so soon after Helen’s death. I’ve said before that Gina had a knack of knowing to a certain extent what was going on in my mind. I could see as she stared up at me that she suspected something was badly wrong. “I thought I might take the car and go to Monte Carlo. You have my passport somewhere, haven’t you? I can’t find it in the apartment.”
At this moment the door opened and Maxwell came in. He paused in the doorway and gave me a curious stare. His eyes became hostile.
“Why, hello,” he said, then moved into the room, closing the door behind him. “Can’t you keep away from this joint or don’t you think I can handle the job?”
I was in no mood to take anything from him.
“You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think you could handle it,” I said curtly. “I’ve looked in for my passport. I tried to get fixed up in Venice, but all the hotels are full.”
He relaxed a little, but I could see he didn’t like my being here.
“You’ve taken enough time to find that out, haven’t you? You want to get organized. What were you up to all day yesterday, for the love of mike?”
“Working on my novel,” I said, lighting a cigarette and smiling at him.
His face hardened.
“Don’t tell me you’re writing a novel.”
“Certainly, I am. Every newspaper man is supposed to have a good book in him. I’m hoping to make a fortune out of it. You should try: I’m not scared of competition.”
“I’ve better things to do with my spare time,” he said shortly. “Well, I’ve got work to do. Have you got your passport?”
“Which is another way of saying I’m in the way and will I please scram,” I said, smiling at him.
“I’ve some letters to dictate.”
Gina had gone to a filing-cabinet. She came back with my passport.
“I’ll be ready for you in five minutes, Miss Valetti,” Maxwell said, making for his office. “So long Ed.”
“So long.”
When he had gone into the inner office and had shut the door, Gina and I exchanged looks. I winked at her.
“I’ll be getting along. I’ll give you a call when I’ve found a hotel.”
“All right, Ed.”
“I won’t be going for a couple of days. I’ll be at my apartment until Thursday morning. If anything blows up, you’ll know where to reach me.”
She looked sharply at me.
“But you’re on vacation. Nothing will blow up that Mr. Maxwell can’t handle.”
I forced a grin.
“I know that, but all the same, should you want me, I’ll be at my apartment. So long for now.”
I left her staring blankly after me and went down to my car.
I wasn’t sure if it had been wise to have given Gina this hint, but I knew sooner or later the news would break about Helen’s death. The police, once they found out who she was, were bound to contact the office, and I was anxious to be in on the investigation from the beginning.
I returned to my apartment.
I wasn’t in the mood to work on my novel Helen’s death lay on my mind like a pall. The more I thought about her, the more I realized what a fool I had been. I had been swept off my feet by her physical attractions. I discovered now I hadn’t ever been fond of her. Her death, apart from the worry it caused me as to its repercussion on my life, meant little to me. I realized, too, that I shouldn’t have run away as I had. I should have had the courage to have called the police and told them the truth. Until the inquest was over and the verdict of accidental death recorded, I knew I wasn’t going to have an easy moment.
There was bound to be an inquiry about the mysterious Douglas Sherrard. Helen had said that she had rented the villa in that name. The estate agent was certain to give the police that information. Questions would be asked: who is Douglas Sherrard? Where is he? Maybe the police wouldn’t get too curious. They would learn that Helen wasn’t Mrs. Douglas Sherrard. They would guess she had arranged an affair with some man and the man hadn’t shown up. Would they be content to drop that side of the investigation? Had I covered my tracks well enough to remain undiscovered if they did search for Sherrard?
I sat in my big lounge that overlooked the Roman forum and sweated. When, around four o’clock the telephone bell rang, I could scarcely force myself out of my chair to answer it.
“Hello?” I said, aware that my voice sounded like the croak of a frog.
“Is that you, Ed?”
I recognized Maxwell’s voice.
“Sure, it’s me. Who else do you think it is?”
“Will you come over right away?” He sounded excited and flustered. “My God! I’ve got a hell of a thing dropped into my lap. The police have just phoned. They say they’ve found Helen Chalmers… she’s dead!”
“Dead! What happened?”
“Come over, will you? They’re arriving at any moment, and I want you here.”
“I’ll be right over,” I said, and hung up.
This was it. It had started a little sooner than I had expected. I crossed the room, poured out two fingers of Scotch and drank it. I noticed my hands were unsteady, and when I looked at myself in the mirror over the Liquor cabinet, I saw my face was the colour of tallow and my eyes looked scared.
I left the apartment and went down to the underground garage. By the time I had driven out into the heavy traffic the whisky was beginning to bite. I didn’t feel quite so scared. I finally got rid of my shakes as I pulled up outside the Western Telegram building.
I found Maxwell and Gina in the outer office. Maxwell looked bad. His face was white as a fresh fall of snow. Gina looked worried too. She gave me an uneasy stare as I came in, and then moved into the background, but I felt she continued to watch me.
“Am I glad to see you!” Maxwell exclaimed. His hostility and smoothness had gone. “What’s the old man going to say when he hears? Who’s going to break the news to him?”
“Relax,” I said sharply. “What happened? Come on! Let’s have it!”
“They didn’t give me any details. They just said she had been found dead. She fell off a cliff at Sorrento.”
“Fell off a cliff?” I was acting hard now. “What was she doing in Sorrento?”
“I don’t know.” Maxwell nervously lit a cigarette. “This is just my luck to have a thing happen like this on my first trip out here. Look, Ed, you’ll have to tell Chalmers. He’ll shoot his top.”
“Take it easy. I’ll tell him. What I can’t understand is why she was at Sorrento.”
“Maybe the police know. My God! This would happen to me!” He pounded his fist into the palm of his hand. “You’ve got to handle it, Ed. You know what Chalmers is like. He’ll want an inquiry. He’s bound to want an inquiry. He’ll expect…”
“Oh, pipe down!” I said. “Stop working yourself up. This isn’t our fault. If he wants an inquiry, he can have one.”
He made an effort to pull himself together.
“It’s all right for you to talk. You’re his white-headed boy. But he hasn’t much use for me…”
At this moment the door opened and Lieutenant Itola Carlotti of the Rome Homicide Department came in.
Carlotti was a short, dark man with a tanned, wrinkled face and pale, penetrating blue eyes. He was nudging forty-five, but looked thirty. I had known him for two or three years, and we got along well together. I knew him for a smart, conscientious policeman without any genius
for his job. He got results by careful, painstaking plodding.
“I thought you were on vacation,” he said, as he shook hands with me.
“I was about to leave when this broke,” I said. “You know Signorina Valetti? This is Signor Maxwell. He’s taking my place while I’m away.”
Carlotti shook hands with Maxwell and bowed to Gina.
“Let’s have it,” I said, settling myself on Gina’s desk and waving him to a chair. “Are you sure it’s Helen Chalmers?”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” he said, planting himself before me and making no move to take the chair I had indicated. “Three hours ago I had a report from Naples headquarters that the body of a young woman had been found lying at the foot of a cliff, five miles from Sorrento. It was thought she had fallen off a path on the cuff. Half an hour ago, I was told she had been identified as Signorina Helen Chalmers. Apparently she had rented a villa close to where she had fallen. When the villa was searched it became apparent from the contents of her luggage who she was. I want someone from your office to come with me to Sorrento to identify the body.”
I hadn’t expected this. The thought of going into the morgue to identify what remained of Helen’s loveliness turned me sick.
Maxwell said hurriedly, “You’ve met her, Ed. You’ll have to go. I’ve only seen pictures of her.”
Carlotti said, looking at me, “I’m going down there right away. Can you come with me?”
“I’ll come,” I said, and slid off the desk. Turning to Maxwell, I went on, “Hold everything until I call you. It may not be her. I’ll call you as soon as I know. Stick around until you hear from me.”
“What about Chalmers?”
“I’ll handle him,” I said; then, turning to Carlotti, I went on, “Okay, let’s go.”
I patted Gina’s shoulder as I followed Carlotti out of the office. We didn’t say anything until we were driving fast towards the Rome airport, then I said, “Any idea how it happened?”
He gave me a stolid stare.
“I told you: she fell off a cliff.”
“I know what you told me. Is there more to it?”
He lifted his shoulders as only an Italian can lift them.
“I don’t know. She rented a villa under the name of Mrs. Douglas Sherrard. She wasn’t married, was she?”
“Not as far as I know.”
He lit one of those awful Italian cigarettes and puffed smoke out of the car window.
“There are a few complications,” he said after a long moment of silence. “Signor Chalmers is an important man. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Nor do I. He’s not only an important man, but he’s also my boss.” I eased myself down in the car seat. “Apart from calling herself Mrs. Douglas Sherrard — what other complications?”
“Do you know anything about her?” His cold blue eyes searched my face. “For the moment no one except you and I and the Naples police know about this, but it won’t be possible to keep it quiet for long. It looks as if she had a lover.”
I pulled a face.
“Chalmers will love that. You’ll have to be careful what you tell the press, Lieutenant”
He nodded.
“I realize that. From what I hear, she rented the villa in the joint names of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Sherrard. Do you think she was secretly married?”
“She might have been, but I don’t think it likely.”
“I don’t think so either. I think she was on an unofficial honeymoon in Sorrento.”
Again he lifted his shoulders expressively, “It happens. Do you know anyone called Douglas Sherrard?”
“No.”
He tapped ash off his cigarette.
“Grandi, who is handling the case, seems satisfied it was an accidental fall. He has only asked me to check with him because il Signor Chalmers is such an important man. It is unfortunate that there is a lover involved. If there was no lover, it would be pretty straightforward.”
“It might not be necessary to mention him,” I said, looking out of the car window.
“That is possible. You wouldn’t know for certain if she had a lover?”
“I know practically nothing about her.” I felt the palms of my hands turn moist. “We mustn’t jump to conclusions. Until we have seen the body, we don’t know for certain it is her.”
“I am afraid it is her all right. All her clothes and her luggage carry her name. There were letters found in her luggage. The description fits. I don’t think there’s a doubt about it.”
We said nothing further until we were on the plane for Naples, then suddenly he said, “You will have to explain the position to il Signor Chalmers. The fact that she rented the villa under another name is bound to come out at the inquest. You understand there is nothing we can do to hush it up.”
I could see he was worried about getting tangled with Chalmers.
“Oh, sure,” I said. “That’s not your funeral nor mine.”
He gave me a sidelong look.
“Il Signor Chalmers has a lot of influence.”
“He certainly has, but he should have used some of it with his daughter before she got tied up in a situation like this.”
He lit another of his awful cigarettes, sank further down in his seat and went off into a coma of brooding. I went of into one of my own.
I was surprised he hadn’t said more about Douglas Sherrard. This made me a little uneasy. I knew Carlotti. He moved slowly, but he also moved thoroughly.
We reached Naples around noon. There was a police car waiting. Lieutenant Grandi of the Naples Police was standing by the car, waiting for us.
He was a middle-sized bird with a hatchet face, dark solemn eyes and an olive complexion. He shook hands with me, looking just beyond my right shoulder. I had the impression he wasn’t overjoyed to have me in the party. He manoeuvred Carlotti into the back seat and me into the front seat beside the driver. He got in alongside Carlotri. During the long, fast drive to Sorrento, I could just hear his rapid Italian as he talked continuously, his voice barely above a whisper.
. I tried to listen to what he was saying, but the noise of the wind and the roar of the car engine made that impossible. I gave up, lit a cigarette and stared through the wind shield at the unwinding road as it rushed continuously towards us, thinking of the previous night’s ride that had been so much quicker and so much more dangerous.
We reached Sorrento. The police driver took us around the back of the railway station to a small brick building that served at the town’s morgue.
We got out of the car.
Carlotti said to me, “This won’t be pleasant for you, but it is necessary. She has to be identified.”
“That’s all right,” I said.
But it wasn’t all right. I was sweating, and I knew I must have lost colour. I didn’t have to worry about my appearance. Anyone could have looked the same in such circumstances.
I followed him through the door of the building, down a tile-lined corridor and into a small, bare room.
In the middle of the room stood a trestle table on which lay a body, under a sheet.
We moved forward up to the table. My heart was beating sluggishly. There was a sickness inside me that made me feel faint.
I watched Carlotti reach forward and turn back the sheet.
It was Helen all right, and, of course, she was dead.
Although someone with a practised hand had cleaned her up, and had made her as presentable as possible, her face still bore the marks of the awful fall she had taken.
It was pretty unnerving to stand there and look down at the dead, shattered face. I turned away, feeling bad. Grandi, who bad come up behind me, put his hand on my arm as Carlotti pulled the sheet back into place.
I jerked away from Grandi and walked out into the corridor. The fresh draught of air coming in through the open doorway did a lot to help me pull myself together.
The two detectives came out silently, and the three of us walked slowly back to the car.
“Yes, if s her,” I said, as we reached the car. “No doubt about it.”
Carlotti lifted his shoulders.
“I have been hoping that there might be a mistake. This is going to be troublesome. There will be a lot of publicity.”
I could see he was still very worried about Chalmers. He knew Chalmers had enough influence to lift him right out of his job if he put a foot wrong.
“Yeah,” I said. I wasn’t sorry for him. I had too much on my mind at that moment to be sorry for anyone except myself. “I’ll have to send him a cable.”
Carlotti lit another of his awful cigarettes. As he flicked away the burning match, he said, “We’ll go to the station now. You can use the telephone there.”
We got in the car: Carlotti and Grandi behind and I with the driver. No one said anything while we drove through the traffic-congested main street to the police station. By the time we got there, I was feeling a little more like my old self, although I was still pretty shaken. They left me in an office while they went off to another office for a conference.
I put a call through to Maxwell.
“There’s no doubt about it,” I said, when he came on the line. “It’s Helen all right.”
“Sweet grief! What do we do now?”
“I’m going to send a cable to Chalmers. I’ll give him three hours to get over the shock, then I’ll call him on long distance.”
I could hear him breathing like an old man with asthma.
“I guess that’s all you can do,” he said after a long pause. “Okay, if there’s anything I can do…”
“Look after the job,” I said. “It doesn’t mean that because Chalmers’s daughter falls off a cliff, the job stands still.”
“I’ll look after it if you’ll look after Chalmers,” he told me. “There’s no need for me to shove my oar into this, Ed. You’re fitted for the job. He likes you. He thinks you’re sharp. He hasn’t much use for me. I’ll take care of the work here: you take care of Chalmers.”
“Okay. Put Miss Valetti on the line, will you?”
“Sure. Hang on a moment.”
The relief in his voice was almost comic.
A moment or so later, Gina’s cool voice came on the line.
“She’s dead then, Ed?”
“Yes. She’s dead all right. Have you got your book? I want you to send a cable to Chalmers.”
“Go ahead.”
That’s something I have always admired about Gina. No matter how big the emergency is, she never got rattled.
I dictated a cable to Chalmers. I told him his daughter had met with an accident I regretted that she was dead. I said I would call him at his house at 16.00 hours European time with the details. That gave me three hours in which to get the details and find out how much the police had discovered. It would also give me time to cook up my end of the tale if it seemed necessary to cook up a tale.
Gina said she would get the cable off right away.
“Do that,” I said. “There’s a chance Chalmers will call before I call him. If he does, you don’t know a thing - understand? Don’t get tangled up in this, Gina. You don’t know a thing. Tell him I’ll call him at four o’clock sharp.”
“All right, Ed.”
It was good to hear her calm, matter-of-fact voice. I dropped the receiver on to its cradle and pushed back my chair. As I did so, Carlotti came in.
“I am going to look at the place where she died,” he said. “Do you want to come?”
I stood up.
“Sure, I’ll come.”
As I followed him out of the office, I saw Grandi was waiting in the corridor. Maybe I was suffering from a guilty conscience, but I had an uneasy idea that the look he gave me was full of suspicion.