I was pretty busy for the next two hours.
I knew by now Chalmers would be back in his New York office and would be waiting impatiently to hear from me. I would have to get some sort of report to him during the day.
I called the International Investigating Agency and told them to send their best operator around. I said the job was confidential and urgent. They said they would send their Signor Sarti. Then I put a call through to Jim Matthews of the Associated Press. Matthews had been in Rome for fifteen years. He knew everyone who was likely to make news and a few who wouldn’t.
I said I’d like to have a word with him when he was free.
“For you, Ed, I’m always free,” he said. “Suppose you buy me a large and expensive lunch and let us talk?”
I looked at my watch. The time was just after twelve.
“I’ll meet you at Harry’s bar at one-thirty,” I said.
“Fine. I’ll be seeing you.”
I then made a few notes on a pad and did a little thinking, trying to make up my mind how much to tell Chalmers. His wife’s warning bothered me. I could see if I gave him the whole story he wasn’t likely to react favourably to me, and yet, it wasn’t going to be easy to keep much back. I was still brooding on I what I was going to tell him when the front-door bell rang.
I opened the door to find a short, fat elderly Italian, dressed in a shabby grey suit, standing on my doormat. He introduced himself as Bruno Sarti from the agency.
At first glance Bruno Sarti wasn’t particularly impressive. He hadn’t shaved this morning; his linen was grubby and he had the beginning of a boil under his right eye. He also carried with him a devastating smell of garlic that poisoned the atmosphere in my room.
I asked him in. He removed his shabby velour hat to show a balding head and a scurfy scalp and came in.
He sat on the edge of a straight-backed chair while I went over to the open window and sat on the sill. I felt in need of a circulation of fresh air.
“I want some information and I want it fast,” I told him. “The cost doesn’t matter. I’d be glad if your agency would put on as many men as they think necessary.”
His black, blood-shot eyes opened a trifle and he showed me several gold-capped teeth in what he imagined was a smile. It looked to me like the kind of spasm you see on someone’s face when they have a sudden stomach cramp.
“The information I want and the fact I am your client must be regarded as strictly confidential,” I went on. “You may as well know the police are also investigating the affair, and you’ll have to watch out that you don’t tread on their toes.”
His so-called smile faded and his eyelids narrowed.
“We are good friends of the police,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to do anything to annoy them.”
“You won’t do that,” I assured him. “This is what I want you to do: I want you to find out who were the men friends of an American girl who stayed in Rome for the past fourteen weeks. Her name is Helen Chalmers. I can give you some photographs of her. She stayed at the Excelsior hotel for bout days and then moved to an apartment.” I handed him a number of photographs I had got Gina to send over from our files, as well as the address of Helen’s apartment. “She had a number of men friends. I want all their names and where I can find them. I also want to know what she did with herself during the time she was in Rome.”
“La signorina died accidentally at Sorrento, I believe?” Sarti asked, looking at me. “She is the daughter of il Signor Sherwin Chalmers, the American newspaper owner?”
In spite of his unimpressive looks, at least he appeared to keep abreast with the news.
“Yes,” I said.
The gold teeth flashed. Obviously he now realized he was in with the big money and that pleased him. He produced a note book and a stub of pencil and made a few notes.
“I will begin immediately, signor,” he said.
“That’s the first job. I also want to find out who owns a dark green Renault with this registration number.”
I handed him a slip of paper on which I had jotted down the Renault’s number.
“The police tell me there is no such number registered. Your only hope is to watch out for the car and if you spot it either follow it or get a look at the driver.”
He made more notes, and then he closed his notebook. He looked up and asked, “The death of la signorina was not perhaps accidental, signor?”
“We don’t know. You needn’t bother your brains about that. Get me this information fast and leave the other angle to the police to handle.” I stood up. “Call me here as soon as you have anything. Don’t wait to give me a written report. I want this job cleared up in a hurry.”
He said he would do his best, suggested I might like to pay the usual retaining fee of seventeen thousand lire, took my cheque, assured me that he would have something for me before long, and bowed himself out of the apartment.
I opened another window, and then left the apartment myself to keep my date with Matthews.
I found him drinking Scotch and crushed ice at Harry’s bar: a tall, thin, hard-faced man with grey, steady eyes, a hooked nose and a jutting jaw.
We had a couple of drinks, and then went into the restaurant. We began our meal with bottarga, which is a kind of caviar made of mullet roes, followed by polo in padella or chicken cut up and cooked with ham, garlic, marjoram, tomatoes and wine. We talked of this and that and enjoyed the meal. It wasn’t until we were eating the famous Roman cheese, ricoita, sprinkled with cinnamon, that I got down to business.
“I want some information from you, Jim,” I said.
He grinned at me.
“I’m not such a mug as to think you bought this meal for me because you love me,” he returned. “Go ahead - what is it?”
“Does the name of Myra Setti mean anything to you?”
His reaction was immediate. The pleased, relaxed expression on his face slipped away. His eyes became intent.
“Hello, hello,” he said. “Now this could be interesting. What makes you ask that?”
“Sorry, Jim, I’m not giving reasons. Who is she?”
“Frank Setti’s daughter, of course. You should know that.”
“The gangster?”
“Oh, come on, you’re not all that wet behind the ears.”
“Don’t be superior. I know something about Setti, but not much. Where is he right now?”
“That’s something I’d like to know myself. He’s somewhere in Italy, but just where he’s holed up I don’t know and the police don’t know either. He left New York about three months ago. He arrived by boat at Naples, and registered with the police, giving the hotel Vesuvius as an address. Then he vanished, and the police haven’t been able to trace him since. All we know is that he hasn’t left Italy, but just where he’s got to, no one knows.”
“Not even his daughter?”
“She probably does, but she isn’t talking. I’ve had a word with her. She’s lived in Rome for the past five years, and she says her father hasn’t made contact with her; not even written to her.”
“Tell me something about Setti, Jim.”
Matthews leaned back in his chair.
“You wouldn’t like to buy me a brandy, would you? Seems a pity not to finish such a good meal correctly.”
I signalled to the waiter, ordered two large Stocks, and when they arrived, I offered Matthews a cigar I had been keeping on ice for such an occasion.
He examined it dubiously, bit off the end and set light to it. We both watched it burn a little anxiously. When he had satisfied himself that I hadn’t sold him a pup, he said, “There’s not much I know that you don’t know about Setti. He was boss of the Bakers’ and Waiters’ Union. He’s a tough and dangerous thug who stops at nothing to get his own way. He and Menotti were sworn enemies, both of them wanting to be the head man. You probably know that Menotti had a load of heroin planted in Setti’s apartment. He then tipped off the Narcotic Squad, who moved in, grabbed the load and arrested Setti. But it was a clumsy job, and Setti’s attorney didn’t have much trouble in shooting holes in the D.A.’s case. Setti was found not guilty, but there was such a yell from the press, who were gunning for him, that he was later charged as an undesirable alien and deported. He had always kept his Italian nationality, so the Italian authorities couldn’t stop him from landing here. They were busy trying to find some excuse to get rid of him when he vanished.”
“I hear the police think he engineered Menotti’s killing.”
“That’s more or less certain. Before he left, he warned Menotti he would fix him. Two months later, Menotti was killed. You can bet your last buck that Setti arranged it.”
“How did it happen? Didn’t Menotti take the threat seriously?”
“He certainly did. He never moved a yard without a bunch of gunmen surrounding-him, but Setti’s killer got him in the end. Menotti made a fatal mistake. He used to go to an apartment once a week regularly to spend the night with his girlfriend. He thought he was safe in there. His boys took him there; they searched the apartment. They waited until the girl arrived, then, after Menotti had bolted himself in, they went home. In the morning, they arrived outside the door, identified themselves and escorted Menotti back to his home. On this particular night, they went through the usual routine, but when they came to collect Menotti the following morning, they found the door open and Menotti dead.”
“What about the girl? Who was she?”
Matthews shrugged.
“No one seems to know. There was no sign of her when they found Menotti and no one has seen her since. She didn’t live at the apartment. She was there waiting for Menotti when he and his boys arrived. None of them ever got a look at her. She would stand looking out of the window while they searched the apartment. All they can say is that she was a blonde with a good shape. The police couldn’t trace her. They thought she must have let the killer in, because the door wasn’t forced. I think it’s pretty certain she sold Menotti out.”
I brooded over this for a moment, then asked, “Do you know a big, broad-shouldered Italian, with a white zigzag scar on his face whose first name is Carlo?”
Matthews shook his head.
“He’s a new one on me. Where does he fit in?”
“I don’t know, but I want to find out. If you ever get a line on him, Jim, will you let me know?”
“Oh, sure.” He tapped the ash off his cigar. “Look, tell me, what is all this sudden interest in Setti about?”
“I can’t go into that right now, but if I turn up anything that you can use, I’ll let you know. Sorry, but that’s as far as I can go at this stage.”
He pulled a face.
“I hate a guy going secretive on me,” he said, then shrugged. “Well, okay, after all, the lunch wasn’t so bad.” He pushed back his chair. “If you haven’t any work to do this afternoon, I have. Anything else you want to know before I get back to the treadmill?”
“I don’t think so, but if I do think of anything, I’ll call you.”
“That’s the idea. Don’t be scared to pick my brains.” He got to his feet. “You don’t happen to know where Setti’s hiding, do you?”
“If I did, I’d tell you.”
He shook his head sadly.
“Yeah, I know: like I’d tell my wife my secretary has a chest like Jane Russell. Well, so long, handsome. If I don’t see you before then, I’ll be at your funeral.”
I watched him go, then for the next ten minutes, I turned over in my mind what he had told me. I hadn’t learned a great deal, but what there was of it had been worth the money I had paid out on the lunch.
By the time I had got back to my apartment, I had mapped out in my mind what I was going to tell Chalmers. My best plan I told myself, anyway for the moment, was to be as noncommittal as I could: there were angles to this business that had to be investigated before I could even think of giving Chalmers a glimmer of the truth.
I left the Lincoln outside the building and hastily climbed the private staircase to my apartment. As I was walking down the passage, I saw the figure of a man loitering outside my front door.
My heart skipped a beat when I recognized the short, broad-shouldered form of Lieutenant Carlotti.
He turned at the sound of my footfalls and gave me a long, steady stare that was meant to be disconcerting and succeeded in being disconcerting.
“Hello, Lieutenant, you haven’t been waiting long, have you?’’ I said, trying to sound breezy.
“I have only just arrived, he said. “There was something I wanted to ask you.”
I fetched out my latchkey, opened the front door and stood aside.
“Come on in.”
He walked into the lounge the way an undertaker walks into the room where the body is laid out. He placed himself with his back to the window so that, if I faced him, the full light from the window would fall on my face.
I wasn’t willing to give him this advantage, so I went over to my desk that stood in a corner out of the light and sat on it, making him turn to face me.
“What’s bothering you, Lieutenant?” I asked, lighting a cigarette and trying to keep calm.
He looked around, found a chair that would put him in fine with me and sat down.
“I regret it is now no longer possible to advise the Naples coroner that la Signorina Chalmers’s death was accidental,” he said. “There are several points that are suspicious. We intend to make a full investigation.”
I kept my face expressionless.
“And so… ?” I said, meeting his cold, searching stare.
“La Signorina had a number of men friends,” he said. “We find she has been free and easy with her favours.”
“That’s very tactfully put, Lieutenant. You’re telling me she led an immoral life?”
He nodded.
“I am afraid so.”
“That is something Chalmers won’t welcome. You’re sure of your facts?”
He made an impatient movement.
“Of course. We think it is more than possible that one of her men friends killed her. This is now a murder investigation. I have already collected the names of a number of men she knew. Your name is among them.”
“Are you suggesting I had immoral relations with her?” I said, forcing myself to meet his eyes. “Because if you are, I’ll take a lot of pleasure in suing you.”
“I am making no suggestions, signor. You knew her. I am trying to clarify the position. We feel satisfied that a man she knew killed her. Perhaps you would be kind enough to help me. Can you please tell me where you were on the day of her death?”
This was a question I had been waiting to be asked for what seemed a long, long time.
“Do you think I killed her?” I asked in a voice I scarcely recognized as my own.
“No, I don’t think so. I am making a list of all the names of the men who knew her. Against each name, I am putting the whereabouts of this man at the time of her death. In this way, I shall save a considerable amount of time. I need only investigate those men who can’t account for their movements at that time.”
“I see.” I drew in a long, slow breath. “You want to know where I was four days ago?”
“If you please.”
“That won’t be difficult. It was the day I began my vacation. I had intended to go to Venice. I forgot to book a room and, finding I had left it too late, I stayed here, working on my novel. The following morning…”
“I’m not interested in what happened on the following morning,” Carlotti said. “I just want to know what happened on the 29th.”
“Okay. I was right here working on my novel. I worked all the afternoon and evening up to three o’clock the following morning. I didn’t move out of here.”
He looked down at his highly polished shoes.
“Perhaps someone called on you?” he asked hopefully.
“No one came near me, because I was thought to be in Venice.”
“Perhaps someone telephoned you?”
“No one did, for the same reason.”
“I see.”
There was a long, awkward pause while he stared at his shoes, then he suddenly looked up. Meeting his eyes was like having a blow-lamp across my face.
“Well, thank you, signor,” he said, and got to his feet. “This is a complicated business. It is only by making inquiries and asking questions that we shall eventually arrive at the truth. I am sorry if I have taken up too much of your rime.”
“That’s okay,” I said, aware that my hands were clammy and my mouth was dry.
“If there is anything that I think you can help me with, I’ll be in touch with you again.” He moved to the door. Then he paused to look at me. “Is there anything you would wish to add? Anything that may have slipped your mind that might help me?”
“My mind’s not all that slippery.”
He stared at me.
“I don’t think you should treat this matter flippantly, signor. It is, after all, a murder investigation. Perhaps you will think about it. Some idea may occur to you.”
“Sure. If it does, I’ll call you.”
“I’d be glad if you would.”
He nodded and, opening the door, he went into the hall. I was feeling so shaken I didn’t trust myself to escort him to the front door. He found his own way out. When I heard the front door shut behind him, I stubbed out my cigarette and, getting to my feet, I walked over to the window.
I watched the traffic swirling around the Forum. There were a few dark clouds creeping up behind the stark outline of the Colosseum: a sure sign that it was going to be a wet night I saw Carlotti get into the police car and drive away.
I remained motionless, my mind crawling with alarm. I might have known Carlotti wouldn’t have missed the significance of the missing films. This was something I couldn’t keep from
Chalmers.
I had a sudden feeling of urgency. I had to find this mysterious X before Carlotti found me. I didn’t underrate him. Already he was getting too close to me for comfort.
The telephone snapped me out of my mood. I picked up the receiver. It was Gina.
“You said you would call me yesterday,” she said. “I’ve been waiting. What is happening, Ed?”
I did some quick thinking. I couldn’t confide my troubles to her now Carlotti had told me this was a murder case. She might get hooked in as an accessory if she knew I was Douglas Sherrard.
“I’m right up to my ears at me moment,” I said. “I’m on my way out. Give me a couple of days, and you’ll hear from me.”
“But, Ed… what was it you were going to tell me? Can’t we meet to-night?”
“I’m sorry, Gina, but not to-night. I can’t stop now. I’ll call you in a couple of days. So long for now,” and I hung up.
I waited a moment, then put a call through to New York. The operator said there was a twohour delay.
There was nothing for me to do but to sit down and mull over the information I had got from Matthews and to consider the threat that was beginning to develop from Carlotti. After a while I got tired of frightening myself and turned on the radio. Maria Meneghini Callas was giving a recital of Puccini’s songs. Her dark, exciting voice carried me out of my troubles for the next hour. She was in the middle of Sola perdma, Abbandonata, and making my hair stand on end, when the telephone bell rang and I had to cut her short.
Chalmers came on the line after only a two-minute delay. “What have you got?”
Even at that distance I could hear the iron in his voice.
“I’ve just had Carlotti here,” I said. “He’s now decided it looks like murder, and he’ll tell the coroner so.”
There was a pause, then Chalmers said, “How did he got on to it.”
I told him about the camera and the missing films. I told him how I had taken the camera, had found the scrap of film in it and how the camera had been stolen before I could hand it back to the police.
The news seemed to stun him, for he was hesitant when he began to talk again.
“What are you going to do, Dawson?”
“I’m trying to get a list of Helen’s men friends,” I said, and told him I had got an inquiry agency on the job. “Carlotti’s working on the same angle. He seems to think your daughter had a number of men friends.”
“If he tries to stir up a scandal about the girl, I’ll break him!” Chalmers snarled. “Keep in touch with me. I want to know what you’re doing… understand?”
I said I understood.
“And talk to this coroner fella. He promised me he’d fix this pregnancy business. I don’t want that to come out. Get tough with him, Dawson. Throw a scare into him!”
“If this turns out to be a murder case, Mr. Chalmers,” I said, “there’s nothing we can do about the verdict.”
“Don’t tell me what we can’t do!” he bawled. “Talk to this punk. Call me back to-morrow at this time.”
I said I would, and hung up.
I put a call through to coroner Maletti. When he came on the line I told him I had been talking to Chalmers, who was anxious to be assured that the arrangements he had made would stand. Maletti was full of oil and soft soap. Unless further evidence came to light, he said, il Signor Chalmers need not disturb himself about the verdict.
“You’ll be the one who’s disturbed if the verdict’s the wrong one,” I said, and slammed down the receiver.
By now it was dark and rain showed on the windows.
It was time, I decided as I went into my bedroom to get my raincoat, to pay a visit to the villa Palestra.
I left my car in the parking lot at the Stadium and walked up viale Paolo Veronese until I came to double wrought-iroN gates, set in an eight-foot high stone wall that surrounded the acre or so of garden in which the villa Palestra stood.
By now it was raining hard, and the long street was deserted. I pushed open one of the gates, moved into a dark driveway, screened by cypress trees and flowering shrubs.
Moving silently, I walked up the drive, hunching my shoulders against the rain. Fifty yards of driveway brought me to a bend, and around the bend I caught sight of the villa, a small, twostorey affair with a Florentine overhanging roof, white stucca walls and big windows.
There was a light on in one of the tower rooms, but the rest of the villa was in darkness.
The neatly kept lawns that surrounded the villa offered no cover. I moved around its edge, keeping close to the shrubs until I was facing the window of the lighted room. The curtains hadn’t been drawn, and I could look into the room, which was only about thirty yards from where I stood.
The furnishing was modern: the room was large. I could see a girl standing by a table, occupied in looking through a black evening bag.
I assumed she was Myra Seta and looked closely at her. She was quite something to see. Around twenty-five or six, tallish with chestnut-coloured hair that reached to her shoulders, she was in a white evening dress that fitted her like a second skin, and then flared out just below her hips into a waterfall of tulle and glittering sequins.
After she had rearranged her bag, she picked up a mink stole and slung it carelessly over her shoulders. Then, pausing to light a cigarette, she crossed the room, flicked off the lights and left me looking, at an expanse of black glass that reflected the swiftly moving rainclouds and pointed cypress trees.
I waited.
After a minute or so, I saw the front door open and she came out, sheltering under a large umbrella.
She ran down the path to the garage. A light sprang up at she pushed open the double doors. I could see a white and bottle-green Cadillac in the garage, about the size of a trolley car. She got into the car, leaving the umbrella against the wall. I heard the engine start up, and she drove out, passing within tea yards of where I was crouching. The headlights of the car made a white glare of rain, grass and shrubs.
I remained where I was, listening. I heard the car stop at the end of the drive, there was a long pause while she opened the gates, then the sound of the car door slamming, and the sound of the engine accelerating told me she had gone.
I remained where I was, looking towards the dark villa. I stayed motionless for several minutes. No light showed. I decided it was safe to explore. Turning up my collar against the rain, I walked around the villa. There were no lights to be seen in any of the rooms. I found a window unlatched on the ground floor. I eased it open, took out the flashlight I had brought with me and inspected a small, luxury kitchen beyond. I slid over the double sink and dropped noiselessly on to the riled floor. Closing the window, I made my way silently out of the kitchen, along a passage and into the hall.
A curved stairway on my left led to the upper rooms. I went up the stairs to a landing and inspected the four doors that faced me.
Turning the handle of the door that lay to the far right, I pushed the door open and looked in. This was obviously Myra’s room. There was a divan bed with a blood-red cover. The walls were of quilted grey satin. The furniture was silver. The carpet blood red. It was quite a room.
I nosed around without finding anything to interest me. There was a jewel box on the dressing-table. The contents would have made the most hardened burglar’s mouth water, but it left me cold. But it did tell me that she had plenty of money to burn or else she had a host of besotted admirers who were showering these baubles on her.
It wasn’t until I reached the last room, which appeared to be a spare bedroom, that I found what I had vaguely wondered I might find.
Against the wall were two suitcases. One of them lay on its side, open. In it were three of my best suits, three bottles of my favourite brand of whisky and my silver cigarette box. For a long moment I stood staring down at the suitcase, the beam of my flashlight unsteady. Then I knelt down and opened the second case. That too was full of the things that had been stolen from my apartment: everything was there except Helen’s camera.
Before I had time to consider the significance of this discovery, I heard a sound downstairs that made me practically jump out of my skin.
It was the kind of sound a hunter in the wilds of an African jungle who has been stalking some comparatively harmless animal hears that warns him a rogue elephant has arrived on the
scene.
The disturbance in this still, dark villa was of the violence of an earthquake.
There was a crash: someone had unlocked the front door and flung it open so that the door smashed against the wall.
Then a man’s voice bawled, “MYRA!”
When I was a kid, and back home, I had once been taken to a hog-calling contest. I had been tremendously impressed by the colossal volume of sound that had come from the leathery lungs of the hog callers. This sound that came up the stairs and reverberated around the dark, still room was as violent. It froze me, making the hairs on the nape of my neck stand up and making my heart skip a beat.
There was another crash that shook the house as the man below slammed the front door shut. Then the horrible, undisciplined voice yelled again: “MYRA!”
I recognized that voice. I had heard it on the telephone. Carlo had arrived!
Moving silently, I slid out of the bedroom. The lights were on in the hall. I went to the banister head and cautiously looked over. I couldn’t see anyone, but there were lights now on in the lounge.
Then the raucous voice began to sing.
It was the voice of a hooligan: a tuneless, obscenely loud, ruthlessly vulgar sound. You couldn’t call it a song: it was something out of the jungle: a sound that made me sweat.
I waited there because there was no way out of this villa except by way of the downstairs exits. So long as Carlo was there, I wasn’t taking any chances of showing myself.
I remained in the shadows, a foot away from the banisters where I couldn’t be seen. It was as well, for I suddenly saw the figure of a man standing in the lighted doorway of the lounge.
I edged back into the deeper shadows. It was the same broad-shouldered figure I had seen creeping around in the villa at Sorrento. I was sure of it.
There was a long, nerve-racking pause while Carlo remained motionless, his head cocked on one side as if he were listening.
I held my breath, my heart slamming against my ribs and I waited.
He moved slowly into the middle of the hall. Then he stopped, his hands on his hips, his long legs apart, facing the stairs.
The light from the overhead lamp fell fully on him. He was as Frenzi had described him: a bull-necked, blunt-featured, handsome animal He was wearing a black turtle neck sweater, black trousers, the ends of which were tucked into a pair of highly polished Mexican boots. He had a small gold ring in the lobe of his right ear, and he looked as big and as strong as a fighting bull.
For a long moment he stared up at the exact spot where I was standing. I was sure he couldn’t see me. I didn’t dare move in case the movement drew his attention to me.
Then suddenly he bawled, “Come on down or I’ll come up and fetch yah down!”