by Ngaio Marsh
‘Taci!’
‘Shut up.’
A savage-sounding but muted exchange followed. Finally Giovanni gave a sharp ejaculation. Chair legs grated on the pavement. A palm was slapped down on the table. Alleyn, greatly stimulated, squatted behind the ruin of a velvet chair and heard them go past. Their footsteps died away and he came out of cover. Somewhere behind a shuttered window a man yawned vocally and prodigiously. Farther along the street a door opened. A youth in singlet and trousers lounged out, scratching his armpits. A woman inside the trattoria called with an operatic flourish, ‘Mar-cel-lo.’
The siesta was over.
It was a long time since Alleyn had ‘kept observation’ on anybody and like Il Questore Valdarno, he didn’t altogether object to an unexpected return to fieldwork.
It was not an easy job. The streets were still sparsely populated and offered little cover. He watched and waited until his men had walked about two hundred yards, saw them part company and decided to follow the Major who had turned into a side alley in that part of Old Rome devoted to the sale of ‘antiques’.
Here in the dealers’ occupational litter it was easier going and by the time they had emerged from the region Alleyn was close behind the Major, who was headed, he realized, in the direction of his small hotel where they had deposited him in the early hours of the morning.
All that for nothing, thought Alleyn.
The Major entered the hotel. Alleyn followed as far as the glass door, watched him go to the reception-desk, collect a key and move away, presumably to a lift.
Alleyn went in, entered a telephone booth opposite the lift and rang up Valdarno as he had arranged to do at this hour. He gave the Questore a succinct account of the afternoon’s work.
‘This Major, hah? This Sweet? Not quite as one supposed, hah?’ said the Questore.
‘So it would seem.’
‘What is your interpretation?’
‘I got a very fragmentary impression, you know. But it points, don’t you think, to Major Sweet’s connection with Ziegfeldt and in a greater or less degree with the Mailer enterprise?’
‘Undoubtedly. As for the premises—this Toni’s—Bergarmi conducted a search yesterday afternoon.’
‘And found—?’
‘Nothing. There was evidence of hurried proceedings but no more.’
‘The stuff they sold me was in a very small office near the main entrance.’
‘It is empty of everything but a cashbox, ledger and telephone directory. There is no lead at all so far as Mailer is concerned. We are satisfied he has not left Rome. As you know, I set a watch of the most exhaustive, immediately after you telephoned.’
If Alleyn felt less sanguine than the Questore under this heading he did not say so.
‘I think,’ Valdarno was saying, ‘we tug in this Giovanni Vecchi. I think we have little talks with him. You say he spoke of “arrangements”. What arrangements do you suppose?’
‘Hard to say,’ Alleyn cautiously replied. ‘I seemed to smell bribery. Of a particular kind.’
There was a longish silence. He thought that perhaps it would be tactful not to mention Major Sweet’s remark about himself.
‘And your next move, my dear colleague?’
‘Perhaps while your people have their little talk with Giovanni Vecchi, I have one with Major Sweet. And after that, Signor Questore, I’m afraid I’m going to suggest that perhaps—a close watch on the Major?’
‘Where are you?’
‘At his hotel. The Benvenuto.’
‘That will be done. There is,’ Valdarno confessed, ‘some confusion. On the one hand we have the trade in illicit drugs which is your concern. On the other the murder of Violetta which is also ours. And Mailer who is the key figure in both. One asks oneself: is there a further interlockment? With the travellers? Apart, of course, from their reluctance to become involved in any publicity arising out of our proceedings. Otherwise, between the murder and these seven travellers there is no connection?’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Alleyn said. ‘Oh, my dear Signor Questore, I wouldn’t say that, you know. Not by a long chalk.’
When he had explained this point-of-view he hung up the receiver and took counsel with himself. At last, by no means sure that he was doing the right thing, he went to the reception desk and sent up his name to Major Sweet.
III
It was hard to believe that this was the same man who, half an hour ago, had muttered away with Giovanni. The Major was right back on the form that Alleyn had suspected from the first to be synthetic. There he sat in his impeccable squarish light-weight suit, wearing an RA tie, a signet ring, brown brogues polished like chestnuts and the evidence of a mighty hangover in his bloodshot eyes. The hangover, at least, was not assumed. Perhaps none of it was assumed. Perhaps the Major was all he seemed to be and all of it gone to the bad.
‘Glad you looked in, Alleyn,’ he said. ‘I hoped to have a word with you.’
‘Really?’
‘Only to say that if I can be of use I’ll be delighted. Realize you’re in a difficult position. Treading on foreign protocol corns, what? Don’t suppose there’s much I can do but such as I am—here I am. Services ought to stick together, what?’
‘You’re a Gunner, I see.’
‘Was, old man. Was. Retired list now but still good for a spell of duty, I hope.’ He gave a sly comradely laugh. ‘In spite of the other night. Mustn’t judge me by that, you know. Bad show. Rather fun once in a while, though, what?’
‘You’re not a regular patron of Mr Mailer’s then?’
A fractional pause, before Major Sweet said, ‘Of Mailer’s? Oh, see what you mean. Or do I? Can’t stomach the feller, actually. Picked him for a wrong ‘un straight off. Still, I must say that show was wellrun even if I did look on the wine when it was red, but let that go.’
‘I wasn’t talking about alcohol. I meant hard drugs. Heroin. Cocaine.’
‘I say, look here! You’re not telling me they’ve been pushing that rot-gut at Toni’s Pad! I mean regularly.’
‘And you’re not telling me you didn’t know.’
The Major took an appreciably longer pause before he said with quiet dignity, ‘That was uncalled for.’
‘I would have thought it was obvious enough.’
‘Not to me, sir. Hold on, though. Wait a bit. You’re referring to that ghastly youth: Dorne. Sorry I spoke. Good lord, yes, I knew what he was up to, of course. You brought it all out next morning. Very neatly done if I may say so, though as a matter of fact I dozed off a bit. Didn’t get the hang of all that was said.’
‘This isn’t your first visit to Rome, is it?’
‘Oh no. No. I was here on active service in 1943. And once or twice since. Never got hold of the lingo.’
‘How long have you known Giovanni Vecchi?’
The beetroot ran out of the Major’s carefully shaven jaw leaving the plum behind but only in this respect could he be said to change countenance. ‘Giovanni how much?’ he said. ‘Oh. You mean the courier fellow.’
‘Yes. The courier fellow. He’s in the drug business with Mailer.’
‘Good lord, you don’t say so!’
‘I do, you know. They’re tied up,’ Alleyn said, mentally taking a deep breath, ‘with Otto Ziegfeldt.’
‘Who’s he?’ asked the Major in a perfectly toneless voice. ‘Some dago?’
‘He’s the biggest of the drug barons.’
‘You don’t tell me.’
‘I don’t think I need to, do I?’
‘What you need to do,’ said the Major and his voice jumped half an octave, ‘is explain yourself. I’m getting sick of this.’
‘Ziegfeldt imports morphine from Turkey. The usual route, by diverse means, is from Izmir via Sicily to the USA. During the past year, however, an alternative route has developed: to Naples by a Lebanese shipping line and thence by Italian coastal traders to Marseilles, where it is converted to heroin. Ziegfeldt established an agent in Naples wh
ose job was to arrange and supervise the trans-shipments. We believe this man to have been Sebastian Mailer.’
Alleyn waited for a moment. They sat in the deserted smokingroom of the hotel. It smelt of furniture polish and curtains and was entirely without character. Major Sweet rested his elbow on the arm of his uncomfortable chair and his cheek on his hand. He might have been given over to some aimless meditation.
‘It appears,’ Alleyn said, ‘that at one time Mailer was married to the woman Violetta. Probably she acted for him in some minor capacity. Subsequently he deserted her.’
‘Now,’ said the Major into the palm of his hand, ‘you’re talking. Threatened to expose him.’
‘Very likely.’
‘Killed her.’
‘Highly probable.’
‘There you are, then.’
‘Ziegfeldt doesn’t at all care for agents who help themselves to goods in transit and then set up on their own account.’
‘Dare say not.’
’He has them, as a general practice, bumped off. By another agent. He sets a spy upon them. Sometimes the spy is too greedy. He extorts a pay-off from—say—Giovanni? On consideration that he will not betray Giovanni and Mailer to his master. And then, unless he is very clever indeed, he is found out by his master and he too gets bumped off.’
A little bead of sweat trickled down Sweet’s forehead and got hung up in his eyebrow.
‘The Gunners were not in Italy in 1943. They arrived in ’44,’ said Alleyn. ‘Where do you buy your ties?’
‘—slip of the tongue, ‘forty-four.’
‘All right,’ Alleyn said and stood up. ‘How many times can a man double-cross,’ he asked of nobody in particular, ‘before he loses count? What’s your price?’
Sweet raised his head and stared at him.
‘I wouldn’t try to bolt either. You know your own business best, of course, but Otto Ziegfeldt has a long arm. So, for a matter of fact, have Interpol and even the London Police Force.’
Sweet dabbed his mouth and forehead with a neatly folded handkerchief. ‘You’re making a mistake,’ he said. ‘You’re on the wrong track.’
‘I heard you talking to Giovanni Vecchi in the Eremo caffè at a quarter to four this afternoon.’
A very singular noise came from somewhere inside the massive throat. For the first time Sweet looked fixedly at Alleyn. He mouthed rather than said: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I have the advantage of you, there. I do know what you and Vecchi were talking about. Come,’ Alleyn said. ‘You’ll do yourself no good by keeping this up. Understand me. I’m here in Rome to find out what I can about Otto Ziegfeldt’s operations. I’m not here to run in his lesser agents unless by doing so I can carry my job a step further.’ He thought for a moment and then said, ‘And of course, unless such an agent commits some action that in itself warrants his immediate arrest. I think I know what you’ve been up to. I think you’ve been sent by Ziegfeldt to spy upon Mailer and Giovanni Vecchi and report on their side-activities in Italy. I think you’ve double-crossed Ziegfeldt and played along with Mailer and Giovanni and now Mailer’s disappeared you’re afraid he may put you away with Ziegfeldt. I think you threatened to betray Giovanni to Ziegfeldt unless he pays you off in a big way. And I think you plan to clear up and get out while the going’s good. You haven’t a hope. You’re in a pretty ugly situation, one way and another, aren’t you? The safest thing for you, after all, might be for the Roman police to lock you up. The Roman streets won’t be too healthy for you.’
‘What do you want?’
‘A complete list of Ziegfeldt’s agents and a full account of his modus operandi between Izmir and the USA. Step by step. With particular respect to Mailer.’
‘I can’t. I don’t know. I—I’m not—I’m not as deeply committed—’
‘Or trusted? Perhaps not. But you’re fairly far in or you wouldn’t have been given your present job.’
‘I can’t do it, Alleyn.’
‘Giovanni is being questioned.’
‘Give me time.’
‘No.’
‘I want a drink.’
‘You may have a drink. Shall we go to your room?’
‘All right,’ said Sweet. ‘All right, God damn you, all right.’
IV
When Alleyn got back to his hotel he found a note from Lady Braceley under his door and a message that ‘Fox’ had rung from London and would ring again at six. The time was now 5.15. Lady Braceley wrote a large, mad hand that spilled all over the paper.
‘Must see you,’ said the note. ‘Terribly urgent. Desperate. Please, please come to this apartment as soon as possible. If you see K. say nothing. S.B.’
‘This,’ Alleyn said to himself, ‘is going to be the bottom. Bullying a phoney Major is a pastoral symphony compared to the tune Lady B.’s going to call.’
He tore up the note and went to the apartment.
She received him, predictably, on a chaise-longue, wearing a gold lamé trouser suit. A hard-featured maid let him in and withdrew, presumably into the bedroom.
Lady Braceley swung her feet to the floor and held out her hands. ‘Oh God!’ she said. ‘You’ve come. Oh bless you, bless you, bless you.’
‘Not at all,’ Alleyn said, and glanced at the bedroom door.
‘It’s all right. Swiss. Doesn’t speak a word of English.’
‘What is it, Lady Braceley? Why do you want to see me?’
‘It’s in deadly confidence. Deadly. If Kenneth knew I was telling you I don’t know what he’d say to me. But I just can’t take this sort of thing. It kills me. He won’t come in. He knows I always rest until six and then he always rings first. We’re safe.’
‘Perhaps you’ll explain—’
‘Of course. It’s just that I’m so nervous and upset. I don’t know what you’re going to say.’
‘Nor,’ Alleyn said lightly, ‘do I. Until I hear what it’s all about.’
‘It’s about him. Kenneth. And me. It’s—oh, he’s been so naughty and stupid, I can’t think what possessed him. And now—if you knew where he’s landed us.’
‘What has he done?’
‘I don’t follow it all. Well, first of all he behaved very badly in Perugia. He got into a wild set and ran out of money, it appears, and—oh, I don’t know—sold something he hadn’t paid for. And that wretched murderer Mailer got him out of it. Or said he had. And then—when we were in that ghastly church, Mailer spoke to me about it and said the police—the police—were making a fuss and unless he could “satisfy” them it would all come out and Kenneth would be—imagine it!—arrested. He wanted £500 paid into some bank somewhere. All I had to do was to write an open cheque and he would—what’s the word—negotiate the whole thing and we could forget it.’
‘Did you write this cheque?’
‘Not there and then. He said he would hold the police off for two days and call for the cheque at midday today. And then, of course, there was this thing about his disappearing and all the murder horror. And then Giovanni—you know?—rather sweet, or so I thought. Giovanni said he knew all about it and he would arrange everything only now it would be more expensive. And he came in here after lunch today and said the situation was more difficult than he had understood from Mailer and he would want £800 in lire or it might be easier if I let him have some jewellery instead. And I’ve got rather a famous tiara thing my second husband gave me only it’s in the bank here. And quite a lot of rings. He seemed to know all about my jewellery.’
‘Did you give him anything?’
‘Yes. I did. I gave him my diamond and emerald sunburst. It’s insured for £900, I think. I’ve never really liked it frightfully. But still—
‘Lady Braceley, why are you telling me all this?’
‘Because,’ she said, ‘I’m frightened. I’m just frightened. I’m out of my depth. Kenneth behaves so oddly and, clearly, he’s got himself into the most hideous mess. And although I’m awfully fond of
him I don’t think it’s fair to land me in it, too. And I can’t cope. I feel desperately ill. That place—I don’t know whether you—anyway they gave me something to turn me on and it wasn’t anything like they tell you it’ll be. It was too awful. Mr Alleyn, please, please be kind and help me.’
She wept and chattered and dabbed at him with her awful claws. In a moment, he thought, she’ll take off into the full hysteria bit.
‘You’re ill,’ he said. ‘Is there anything I can get you?’
‘Over there. In the drinks place. Tablets. And brandy.’
He found them and poured out a moderate amount of brandy. She made a sad botch of shaking out three tablets. He had to help her. ‘Are you sure you should take three?’ he asked. She nodded, crouched over her hand, gulped and swallowed the brandy. ‘Tranquillizers,’ she said. ‘Prescription.’
For a minute or so she sat with her eyes closed, shivering. ‘I’m sorry. Do have a drink,’ she offered in a travesty of her social voice.
He paid no attention to this. When she had opened her eyes and found her handkerchief he said, ‘I’ll do what I can. I think it’s unlikely that your nephew is in danger of arrest. I’ll find out about it. In the meantime you mustn’t think of giving anything else to Giovanni. He is blackmailing you and he will certainly not carry out any negotiations with the police. But I don’t think he will come. It’s highly possible that he himself is under arrest. I’ll leave you now but before I go tell me one thing. Your nephew did meet Mailer that afternoon by the statue of Apollo, didn’t he?’
‘I think so.’
‘To collect his drugs?’
‘I think so.’
‘For any other purpose, do you know? Did he tell you?’
‘I—think—he’d seen Mailer talking to me and he’d seen I was upset. And—I think he wanted to find out if—if—’
‘If you’d agreed to pay up?’ She nodded.
‘When your nephew appears,’ Alleyn said grimly, ‘will you tell him I want to see him? I will be in my room, 149, for the next hour. And I think, Lady Braceley, you should go to bed. Shall I call your maid?’
