North from Rome (22 page)

“The American wants to speak with his friend,” Joe said into the phone and handed it amicably over to Lammiter. Then he walked back to the window.

Camden’s voice said, “I think that’s settled a lot of things.”

“Where can I give you that snapshot?”

“Rocco has all the instructions.”

“But, look—”

“This isn’t our country, fellow,” Camden said gently. “Let Bevilacqua and his boys handle this.”

“And we do
nothing?”

“Oh, we’ll help when and if needed.”

“Bunny—” he tried to talk calmly, “any guesses about Eleanor? Any evidence—any—”

“Not yet. But Bevilacqua is definitely interested. Brewster’s murder makes all these problems very much his business.”

“Where’s Pirotta?”

“Seems to have left town.”

“When?”

“I’m told he left his house around nine-thirty, with luggage. He was driving. Just before ten o’clock his car was seen outside Rome, on the Via Flaminia, heading north. Looks as if he’s the advance guard for Perugia.”

Lammiter didn’t speak. Just before ten o’clock he had been saying goodbye to Eleanor.

“Take it easy, Bill,” Camden’s calm voice said once more. “We’ll get all these bastards, every God-damned one of them. See you tomorrow. Follow instructions.” He hung up.

Lammiter swore and tried to recall the number. Joe, at the window again, said quietly,
“Basta, basta!
Finish! Stop!” He beckoned urgently.

Lammiter took a deep breath, a slow deep breath. He hung the telephone receiver on its cradle, and closed the panel back into place. Slowly, he went over to the window. He felt suddenly tired, tired and defeated. Joe, on the contrary, was a man full of restored confidence, a man who looked as if he were sure of the road he was following. Lammiter asked bitterly, “How about that phone call you were expecting?”

“Oh, forget it,” Joe said, friendly now and smiling, too. So it had been Bevilacqua whom Joe had wanted to contact. Lammiter’s wishful guessing had been right, after all, but that fact gave him no comfort at the moment. “How good is Bevilacqua?” he asked. Good enough to find Eleanor long before three days were over?

“Look, will you? Look!” said Joe. Lammiter looked.

In front of the villa, slowly descending its steps, was a man dressed in a dinner jacket. Beside him, a white scarf over her shoulders, was the princess. Their voices carried over the garden in the still air, but they were still too far away to be clearly understood. They were speaking in English, the man protesting politely “...no need...” The princess was equally polite, “... no trouble at all.” An elderly woman, short and fat, dressed in unrelieved black, came hurrying after them with a cloak for the princess. Then they began walking towards the gate, the woman in black keeping a discreet distance behind her mistress and the departing visitor. The voices became clearer. And now, too, Lammiter could recognise Bertrand Whitelaw. The Englishman was no longer quite so amused or amusing as he
had been yesterday at Doney’s. He even looked uncomfortable, ill at ease. He was trying to explain his late visit, and a man who makes excuses is vulnerable.

The princess, of course, was enjoying herself. “It’s
always
delightful to see you, Bertrand. Even at midnight.” She had lost little of her incisive charm. “Now don’t apologise again. I
like
to walk by moonlight. It’s so good for one’s memories. At my age, Bertrand, that is what I live on.”

“Principessa—” He glanced back at the maid and hesitated.

“Maria and I have been together for fifty-four years. Nothing surprises her. Besides, most conveniently, she knows not one word of English. You were saying—?”

“Principessa—where is Luigi? I’ve been trying to find him, but he has left Rome.”

Lammiter, at the mention of Pirotta’s name, stopped watching the scene with a casual eye. He was really listening now.

“Ah!” the princess said with drama to match the moonlit garden. “So you came to ask about Luigi, and all the time I was flattering myself that you were worried about me.”

“But I was. When you didn’t appear at Sylvia’s dinner tonight—”

“Oh, I was suddenly tired of enormous dinner parties. And of Sylvia. She is
so
correct. How did she like my telegram?”

“She didn’t read it to us.”

“How very disappointing! Of course, telegrams aren’t the politest forms of refusal. Don’t you want to know what I said?”

“Of course,” Whitelaw said patiently.

“Impossible to be with you. Lies will follow.”

“It sounds much better in its original French.”

“Bertrand, you know everything! Yes, I suppose it does. But I’ve always wanted to use it. The French have such a knack for the cynical phrase. Don’t they?”

At the window above, Lammiter shook his head. The princess had such a knack for confusing an issue. Not much was left, now, of Whitelaw’s simple question about Luigi Pirotta.

But Whitelaw had not given up altogether. “I heard tonight that there seems to have been some kind of trouble—between Luigi and Miss Halley.”

“Trouble? Oh, he and his little American have decided not to get married. Young people are
so
changeable.”

“I can’t understand it.”

“Who has ever understood people in love? But I’m sure our friends at dinner did their best to find an explanation for everything. What did they say—the American has had five husbands, and Luigi likes young boys?”

“No one was being malicious.”

“How odd! Or perhaps they hadn’t had enough warning.”

“Tivoli was blamed, however. It seems the trouble started there, two or three nights ago.”

“Now really, Bertrand—how completely ridiculous!”

“One of the guests at dinner was a friend of Miss Halley. She lunched with her on the day after Tivoli. She insisted that the quarrel was not at all serious. And certainly, today at Doney’s, I didn’t notice anything wrong. It really is so—so inexplicable. I’m a little troubled. After all—” He hesitated.

“You
are
Luigi’s friend,” the princess finished for him, with a touch of amusement.

Upstairs, Lammiter stood rigid. His anxiety was rising as steadily as a bead of mercury at noon. How many people had been at that dinner party? How many servants? Ears listening,
tongues repeating. Tivoli. Tivoli. Throw one small stone into a pool, and the ripples spread out and out.

The princess had moved to the gates. In Italian, she gave Maria the command to unlock them.

“Would you tell Luigi I’d like to get in touch with him?” Whitelaw asked.

“Why do you keep thinking I shall see Luigi?” The princess’s voice was sharp with annoyance. “He never asks my advice.”

“Perhaps not. But he always takes your help.”

“Why should I give it?” she demanded. “This morning, I wished he were—he were dead. That shocks you?”

“If you want me to be shocked—yes.”

“Good night, Bertrand.”

He still hesitated. “Principessa—I don’t want to alarm you, but as I rang at the gate tonight for Maria to let me in, I noticed two men in your garden—walking around the side of the villa.”

“Servants.”

“They seemed to vanish so quickly when they saw me.”

“Naturally. They know very well that they are not supposed to walk in the garden. Good night.” She offered him her hand in a very final gesture.

He kissed it. “If you need help, do call on me. At any time. And I’m sorry I troubled you so needlessly—”

She laughed again. “I do believe you want to protect me, Bertrand! I am touched, indeed I am—Maria, open the gate!— No car, Bertrand? Did you
walk
?”

“I prefer to walk,” Whitelaw said stiffly and went into the street. Maria locked the gates behind him.

“Come, Maria,” the princess said clearly in Italian. “Let us look at the gardenias, and so to bed.”

* * *

Lammiter straightened his back and stretched his shoulders. What had brought Whitelaw visiting at this hour? Some talk at a dinner party? Or had the Englishman heard something more than gossip? Then Lammiter began wondering about Whitelaw himself. He ought to have asked Camden about Whitelaw, but he had forgotten. Or rather, other questions had pushed that one to the back of his mind. “Joe—” he began, but Joe made a sign for caution. Something in the garden was holding his attention.

The princess had not gone to look at the gardenias. She was standing quite motionless in a patch of moonlight on the driveway, looking towards her house. Waiting? Suddenly the lights over the door of the villa were switched off. A man hurried from its steps, cutting across the paved garden which the driveway encircled. Lammiter’s body stiffened abruptly. The running man was Luigi Pirotta. He was now reaching the princess. He said, angrily, “I thought he’d never go! What did he want?”

The princess lifted a hand in warning. “Voices carry,” she reminded him.

“What did he want?” he repeated, more quietly.

She said coldly, “You cannot leave yet. Bertrand is on foot. Walking slowly. And the street is very long.” She looked away from him, wrapping the cloak around her more closely. It was a gesture of separation.

“I have still some things to explain,” he said gently. “Maria—”

“She will not listen.”

“No? Come into the garage. She can’t hear us there.” He entered the courtyard. She hesitated. “Maria,” she called
softly to the woman still at the gate. “Keep watch!” Then she followed Pirotta.

As the garage door scraped on the cement floor, Joe moved swiftly away from the window towards the door, using the sounds below to cover his own light footsteps. Lammiter had not moved quickly enough. He was caught half-way across the wooden floor. He didn’t trust either its loose boards or the treacherous light. He tested a trunk lying flat on the floor beside him. It seemed solid enough. He sat down. That way, there would be no danger of any sound from him. Joe had opened the attic door about two inches. He looked across at Lammiter and nodded; then he bent his head, listening.

The voices came up to Lammiter faintly from the dark garage. The lights had not been switched on down there. The garage door must be open. The voices were hushed, talking in Italian, sibilant and energetic, but too quick for Lammiter to understand. And somehow he was relieved. He did not have to listen. He had had enough of the uncomfortable feeling of eavesdropping. He would be no good at this kind of business, he thought as he watched Joe. He rested his head in his hands, trying to get his own problems balanced. He had to fight hard to keep down a rising impulse to walk right downstairs, confront Pirotta, and drag him to the nearest police station. Yet it wouldn’t solve anything. Joe would be doing exactly that, right now, if it was the answer. Joe was in command here. “Follow instructions,” Camden had said. Yes, sir, I’m following instructions, sir, Lammiter thought. He was sitting on a battered trunk in a disused attic, sweating out instructions. Had Camden thought of that? Or of the sound of Pirotta’s voice, so gentle and suave? The princess had been
sharp and angry at first. No longer. Pirotta was a persuader.

Then he suddenly thought, Pirotta is here; he hadn’t been leaving Rome just before ten o’clock, travelling north on the Via Flaminia. He was in Rome when Eleanor vanished. Had she gone with Pirotta?

Lammiter rose to his feet, but even as he moved to the door, the car’s engine started. Joe’s look of warning changed to amazement, and his signal for silence froze in the air. Caution was unnecessary, anyway, at this moment: the Lancia’s drone smothered all sounds.

Lammiter stood in the recess at the top of the stairway, looking down into the empty garage. He was too late. Or Pirotta had been too quick. The car was already in the yard, swinging towards the driveway. The princess was standing very still at the door of the garage. Maria was beside her, anxious. “I opened the gate,” Maria said. The princess said nothing. “The gates are open,” Maria repeated, raising her voice. In the driveway, the car’s engine was running smoothly, softly, then faded to nothing.

“Yes, yes,” the princess said wearily. But she did not move away. “Maria, did I do right? Did I?” Her voice broke, and her head dropped. Her hands went to her face to conceal it.

Lammiter heard a light rustle of movement behind him. Joe had moved away from the door, back to the window. What had drawn his interest there? And now Lammiter heard the car once again: it was still here in the grounds. It hadn’t left, not yet. As he reached the window, he saw it start from the front of the villa to sweep down the driveway. It slowed for a brief moment at the open gates. Then it was through, turning left, travelling fast.

“No one drives that car but me.” Joe’s low voice was bitter. “How do you like that, eh? That’s one thing I’d have sworn— Why, she’s always worrying about one little scratch, and he drives like a crazy man.” Then he looked at Lammiter. “Don’t worry, my friend,” he said gently. “I heard all their talk. It’s in here.” He tapped his forehead and grinned widely. “The princess said she would telephone Alberto to expect Pirotta. There’s only one Alberto she would telephone. He’s the caretaker of her house up in the hills. Don’t worry, we know where he’s taking the girl.”

“Girl?”

“Sure. His girl. He picked her up at the villa. That’s why the car stopped there. What’s wrong? Don’t—” His voice changed and his arm shot out. But Lammiter dodged.

“That’s my girl, too, Joe.” And he started downstairs.

Lammiter slipped into the courtyard. Maria was coming away from the front gates, heading in his direction as if she would now attend to the garage doors. She didn’t catch sight of him until he had reached the corner of the building. She gave a hoarse little scream; and the princess, walking very slowly towards the house, halted and turned round.

Lammiter stepped into the driveway. “Good evening,” he said to the frightened Maria, “Or good morning, perhaps.”

“Oh!” the princess said. For once, she had nothing else to say. But as Maria rushed to her side (whether to defend or to be saved, Lammiter was not quite certain), the princess took command. “Quiet, Maria! Go to the house.” And then, as Maria retreated unwillingly, the princess said, “Good morning it is, Mr. Lammiter.” Maria, more reassured, covered another ten feet towards the villa, but there she stood, loyally disobedient, her face masked in peasant suspicion.