The Etruscan Net (11 page)

‘I’ve got a very simple mind,’ said the Commander. ‘I think Bronzini was up to something crooked. He wanted Broke out of the way. Very likely Milo’s being knocked down was an accident. It’s a dangerous stretch of road. Somebody identified the body, was afraid to tell the Police, but told the Professor, who saw his chance, and took it. All he had to do was to bribe someone to tell the Police they’d seen a car driving away and noticed the number, and send someone round with a hammer to smash Broke’s fog-lamp.’

The Sindaco listened to this in silence. Then he said, with a smile, ‘You realize that there is a third, and even simpler explanation. That Broke did it.’

When Commander Comber got home he picked up two letters which had arrived in his absence. One was from an old naval friend who had gone to New Zealand, and was so enthusiastic about it that the Commander suspected he was getting bored. The other contained a sizeable cheque with a compliment slip from a London newspaper. It was whilst he was putting this away that he realized that something was wrong.

The contents of his desk were as methodically arranged as all his other possessions. Someone had been through them, replacing them carefully, but not quite carefully enough. Also, the drawer of the desk had been opened with a key which did not belong to it, and the person who had opened it had only succeeded in partially re-locking it. Its contents, too, were out of order.

The Commander sat, for a long time, stroking his beard and considering the evidence. The look on his face was one of deep satisfaction. There had been moments that afternoon when he had been worried. He had distrusted Avvocato Toscafundi, and had, accordingly, discounted much of what he said. But the Sindaco he had liked, and his views on the case had had a disturbing ring of common sense about them. Now, however, all doubts were dispelled. The enemy was there all right. A smudge of smoke on the horizon, a blip on the radar screen, invisible to the naked eye, but undeniably and satisfactorily
there.

Wild Geese

On the morning of the third day after his arrest, Broke was moved, handcuffed, from the Questura to the town prison.

The Murate Jail, standing as it does at the east end of the Via Ghibellina, had suffered the full impact of the flood. Now, refurbished with a new set of wrought-iron grills on its windows, and with its woodwork freshly painted it looked, Broke thought, a good deal more agreeable than the grim Police headquarters in the town centre.

Here, on the afternoon of the third day, the Consul came to visit him.

He found Broke reading a battered copy of
Paradise Lost
.

‘It belonged to an Englishman,’ he said. ‘They had him here for six months, whilst they were trying to get up a case for false pretences. He translated three of the cantos into Italian hexameters. Some of it’s not bad at all.’

‘I trust they won’t keep
you
here for six months,’ said the Consul. ‘How are things going?’

Broke marked his place in the book with an old bus ticket, shut it carefully, and put it down on the bed. Then he said, ‘Toscafundi was here again this morning. He seems very anxious for me to plead guilty.’

‘On a lesser charge?’

‘The charge would be involuntary manslaughter. In view of the state of the lighting, and the bad reputation that road has got for accidents, the Court might accept the view that I’d hit Milo without realizing it. I’d still be legally responsible, but I’d get off a good deal more lightly than if they thought I’d hit him, realized what I’d done, and left him to die.’

‘And that’s the course that Toscafundi advises?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s reasonable. All the same, there’ll be three disappointed people if you do. Your friend Commander Comber, your daily help, Tina Zecchi – and my daughter Elizabeth.’

‘A formidable trio,’ said Broke, politely. ‘What is
their
idea of what happened?’

‘It’s a bit complicated. But as far as I can gather it goes something like this. Professor Bronzini is up to something. Possibly criminal, at least shady. He thinks you may be a danger to his plans. Therefore he has – I think the correct Americanism is “framed” you. If you are tucked away in jail awaiting trial you won’t be in any position to intefere with his schemes.’

‘I see,’ said Broke. ‘And why has he sent me his own lawyer? A fit of conscience, do you think? Or to disarm my suspicions? Or is the idea that if he can get me to plead guilty, he will be certain that I shall get some sort of sentence?’

‘The latter, I fancy.’

‘And how do they suggest that the frame-up was operated?’

‘They think that someone saw Milo lying in the gutter, recognized him, knew that the Professor was his patron, and telephoned him. Someone was then suborned to say they had seen your car at the scene of the accident. And, to add a little colour to the charge, your fog-lamp was broken during the night.’

‘Ingenious. It makes the Professor a positive Moriarty of crime. I don’t see him in that role, somehow. Do you?’

‘To be honest, I don’t believe a word of it.’

‘And what particular shady work do they suggest he’s up to?’

‘I don’t think they’ve quite worked that out yet. But it would be something to do with the sale of Etruscan relics.’

Broke thought about this, riffling through the pages of
Paradise Lost
as he did so. It seemed as though he was anxious to get away from reality back to the Garden of Eden, to the mighty opposites of Good and Evil at warfare in the starry void. Sir Gerald had talked to many men in prisons in different parts of the world, but never to one so apparently uninterested in his own fate.

‘Though I don’t suppose there’s anything in that idea either,’ he added.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Broke. ‘There
was
one rather odd thing. When I drove out to the digging that afternoon, the Professor’s steward, Ferri, showed me round. He seemed quite knowledgeable about it. He said it was the clan tomb of a well-known Etruscan pirate, thought to be called Thryns. There was a picture of him, on his warship. He was wearing a very elaborate and distinctive helmet. Later on, when we were going out of the tomb, I wanted to look into one of the lesser chambers, on the other side of the central passage. Ferri didn’t seem keen on the idea. He hurried me past it. But I had my torch with me, and I did happen to see something in it. It was the same helmet that I’d seen in the picture.’

‘The helmet itself?’

‘That’s right.’

Sir Gerald thought this out. He said, ‘I don’t quite see–’

‘If Thryns was the man who owned the helmet, and he was head of the whole family or clan, the helmet would have been in
his
tomb. Easily the most important tomb in the whole complex. The treasure house. The thing they are meant to be still looking for.’

‘I see,’ said Sir Gerald. ‘You’re suggesting that they may already have found the important treasure, and are keeping quiet about it.’

‘Well, it’s one explanation.’

‘I
told
you so,’ said Elizabeth, ‘I
knew
there was something going on. We’ve
got
to do something about it.’

‘But, my dear old girl, even if Broke is right about the helmet, there’s no reason to suppose it had anything to do with his accident.’

‘There was a connection and we shall find it.’

The Consul sighed. He was very fond of his second daughter. He had watched her grow up from an amiable dumpling to a leggy equestrienne of twelve; from an intellectual snob of seventeen to a reasonably balanced young lady of twenty-four. She was no longer his daughter. He realized that. She was an independent person in her own right. The umbilical cord had been finally severed. But the habit of years was hard to break and he still worried about her sometimes. He had got over his earlier apprehensions that she would marry someone disastrous. He was now beginning to fear that she might not marry at all.

‘Don’t do it,’ said Elizabeth.

‘Do what?’

‘Sigh like that. I won’t involve you in anything undiplomatic, I promise you.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of myself,’ said Sir Gerald. ‘And to tell you the truth, I wasn’t thinking of you. I was thinking of Broke.’

‘You mean, if we thrash round, we may make matters worse for him.’

‘That’s exactly what I mean.’

‘That’s because, in your heart of hearts, you think he did it. You think he hit Milo when he was having one of those fits, and knew nothing about it. Admit it.’

‘I–’

‘Confession is good for the soul.’

‘I will not have opinions thrust upon me. I am too old to be bullied. I admit nothing.’

‘It’s what you think all the same, and that’s why you want to get him off as lightly as possible. I think he
didn’t
do it, and I want to prove it, and get him off altogether.’

The Consul sighed again.

Sostituto-Procuratore Antonio Risso laid down the folder, already pregnant with documents, upon the table of his official superior, the Procuratore della Republica and said, ‘The scientific evidence now available from our laboratories in Rome appears to me to be of a conclusive nature – the microphotographs particularly. You have studied the microphotographs?’

‘I have seen the microphotographs.’

‘I think we might almost regard the evidence as complete.’

‘I don’t agree,’ said the Procuratore. ‘The scientific evidence is convincing. It demonstrates beyond any question that Broke’s car struck Milo Zecchi. And there can be no reason, I agree, to suppose that anyone but Broke was driving it at the time.’

‘Then–’

‘The evidence of the woman Calzaletta. She states that she was walking along, on the other side of the road, further down, and that she heard a car coming fast. Then the squeal of its brakes – which made her turn round. She saw that the car had skidded, and come to a stop. Then,
after
a pause, it started up again, and came towards her. She was interested enough by now to take note of its number. And when the body was found, next morning, she very properly gave information to the Police.’

‘Very properly,’ agreed the Procuratore.

‘The skid marks and braking marks were still visible next morning, and entirely support her story.’

‘And she said that this happened at half past ten. How does she fix the time?’

‘She had been to visit her sister. She left the house at twenty-past ten and she knows that it takes her exactly ten minutes to reach the Via Canina.’

‘It is curious,’ said the Procuratore, ‘that people who are usually entirely vague as to what time it is, have only to become involved in criminal proceedings, when their memories become wonderfully exact.’

‘Have you any reason to doubt her story?’

‘None at all. But then, have we reason either to doubt the story of the keeper of the cemetery? What is his name?’ The Procuratore was leafing through the pile of documents on the table in front of him. ‘Carlo Frutelli.’

‘Frutelli is, in my view, an unreliable witness.’

‘Oh! Why?’

‘He is old, and stupid. And, I suspect, more than a little deaf.’

‘He says, quite definitely, that
he
heard a car driving down the road.
He
heard the squealing of brakes, and the sound of a car skidding. And he is quite certain that this happened at half past
eleven.
How do you explain that?’

‘Quite simple. He was right about what he heard, but wrong about the time.’

‘And yet,’ said the Procuratore maliciously, ‘he too seems able to fix it with commendable accuracy. Curiously enough he, too, had been visiting his sister. He says that he left her house at eleven o’clock and that it takes him exactly thirty minutes to walk from there to his lodge inside the cemetery gate.’

‘Then he is mistaken as to the time he left his sister’s house.’

‘Have you confirmed that by questioning his sister?’

‘I had not thought it necessary.’

‘Then do so. It is a mistake, in cases of this sort, to pursue only the evidence that tells in favour of the case one is pursuing.’

‘I hope I know my duty.’

‘My dear Antonio, I am certain you know your duty. And I am certain you are doing it admirably. But we must have
all
the facts.’

The Commander studied the small scale map, and looked at his watch. It was five o’clock. He had about four hours of daylight left and he reckoned he was going to need them all.

The list which Tina had made out for him contained the names of twenty-six families in the Arezzo area allied by ties of blood to the Radicellis. The map was based on a pre-war survey. Most of the roads, and many of the houses, had been built since the war. A less resolute man would have despaired. The Commander ran his fingers through his beard, ticked off one more name (a deaf farmer with a paralysed wife and four suspicious dogs) and got on with it.

It was shortly after six when he turned into the muddy track which, according to a board nailed to a tree, led to a farm called San Giovanni. The surface of the track was so unpromising that he hesitated. Then he saw that one other car at least had been that way. There were the marks of a set of new Michelin all-weather tyres in the road.

‘If he can do it, I can,’ said the Commander. Five bumping and skidding minutes later he had corkscrewed round the last corner and arrived at the farmhouse. He rang the bell, rehearsing the story he had already used fourteen times that afternoon. The door was opened by a very old lady in black.

The Commander explained that he had been sent by the Ministry of National Insurance to speak to Labro Radicelli about certain irregularities in his employment record.

Most of this went clear over the old lady’s head, but she got the part that mattered.

She said, ‘You wish to speak to Labro?’

The Commander’s heart leapt up. He said, ‘Yes, yes. That is correct. To speak to Labro.’

‘I will see. You are an Englishman?’

‘Yes.’

‘In the war we had an English soldier here. He came from Australia.’

‘Did he though,’ said the Commander.

‘He had been a prisoner-of-war, you understand. He promised to marry my grand-daughter.’ The old lady laughed disconcertingly.

‘And did he?’

‘He went back to Australia. I think he was married already. I will see if Labro is finished talking to the other gentleman.’

She scuttled off. Twenty minutes passed. The other gentleman had not finished. The Commander examined the photographs on the wall. There were twelve of them, and they were all weddings. He hoped that the Radicelli grand-daughter had found an acceptable substitute for her unfaithful Australian. There were footsteps in the passage, the door opened, and a middle-aged, red-faced man came in, kicking the door shut behind him.

‘Are you Labro Radicelli?’

‘I have that impression.’

When he got near enough, the Commander could smell the drink on him. He said, ‘Then I have a proposition to make to you.’

‘On the subject of National Insurance,’ said Labro, with a smile which showed his brown and broken teeth.

‘That was a subterfuge.’

‘It was unnecessary. I know precisely why you are here.’

‘That will save trouble.’

‘Your name is Comber.’ Labro made quite a creditable effort at the name. ‘I wrote a letter to you. You are a Captain in the British Navy.’

The Commander accepted the promotion without comment. There was something in Labro’s manner which disturbed him and he wanted to get to the bottom of it.

‘I wrote to you because you are a friend of the other Englishman, the one who is in prison, for killing Milo Zecchi. For knocking him down and leaving him lying in the gutter. Correct?’

The Commander’s beard came forward a few inches, but still he said nothing.

‘Now you want my help. Before, I offered him my help. If he had taken it, who knows? None of this trouble might have happened. But he would have none of it. He turned up his English nose. Now, I fear you are too late. The offer is withdrawn.’ He slapped his hand down on the table. The Commander’s silence was disconcerting him. He wanted to fight, and could find no opponent except himself.