The Flying Boat Mystery

by Franco Vailati

  But the communication was suddenly interrupted. Signora Maria Agliati was speaking into the void, and in some ways its emptiness scared her more....

  Luigi listened to Signora Agliati’s tale in total silence, and made no comment afterwards. He excused himself for having reminded her of the unpleasantness, and tried to calm the now very agitated banker’s wife down. When she had become more or less herself, he made his gallant exit from her suite.

  In Piazza Collegio Romano, at police HQ, he spoke very briefly with Superintendent Galbiati and asked him to call the Milan police and to request urgently all possible information about the most important business affairs happening between January and September 1917. But Renzi also added certain details which rendered their task far easier and swifter and, ultimately, successful.

  10-LOVE AND SHOPPING

  After Termini Imerese station, Vallesi entered the compartment where Marcella was sitting alone. He gave her a shy greeting, but she limited herself to a nod. She was too tired to express her desire for solitude.

  She was just too exhausted to make any sense of her very muddled feelings. She was tired, terribly so, and terribly sad. The trip to Palermo had dispelled all her previous hopes....

  She tried to forget the young man seated in front of her, but his anxiety ended by exasperating her, and at his very first words she couldn’t restrain herself:

  ‘Miss Arteni, I must—.’

  ‘You must just leave. At once!’

  Marcella was even irritated by her irritation. So she tried to justify her excessive outburst of anger:

  ‘You and your policeman friend.’

  ‘My policeman friend left on the two o’clock express.’

  ‘So why didn't you go with him? ’

  Giorgio looked at her in silence, then he whispered, in a clear tone which he hoped would be persuasive and penetrating:

  ‘My friend had guessed the reason for your trip to Palermo.’

  Marcella remembered Renzi on the deck of the ferry-boat. He was quiet and solemn, but spoke in a friendly voice when he had told her with a smile: “The friends of our friends are our friends, Signorina Arteni! ” And maybe he hadn’t been so wrong after all.

  ‘But he didn’t tell me anything, and when you disappeared in Palermo without a word, after our arrival, I didn’t know how to find you, so I permitted myself....’

  Marcella wondered why she let him talk so much. His words were dulled and darkened by a sort of grey mist, possibly created by her own lassitude. But at least she’d had the time to rearrange her feelings, and irritation and anger and tired apathy no longer occupied the first steps of her emotional staircase. Another memory sneaked insidiously into her mind, almost unnoticed at first: another train running in the dark, and she and Vallesi, with the same silence uniting them in the darkening solitude of a compartment in the growing dusk.

  Their first kiss was witnessed by the curtains of rain veiling the Gulf of Salerno. And Capri, where so many love stories are born in so many romantic novels, hid itself, mysterious and prudent, behind its veil of mist.

  For the tenth time, Giorgio anxiously awaited the arrival of the car in front of the terminal in Piazza Flaminio. For the tenth time he searched eagerly, and at last Marcella descended from the tenth Inner Circular Car.

  ‘Thank you for coming, my dear Marcella!’

  ‘You didn’t believe I would, did you?’ smiled Signorina Arteni teasingly.

  Giorgio answered with a look of joyful admiration and mock reproach.

  ‘In any case, I can't give you too much of my time today, Giorgio. That is, if you don’t want to be my courteous Cavalier in a very long and boring shopping trip.’

  ‘Your Cavalier is at your willing and obliging service, my lady! Actually, long and boring shopping trips are my specialty. Satisfaction guaranteed.’

  They headed towards the Ponte Margherita, and Marcella told him with cautious amusement about her trip home.

  Renzi had guessed correctly, the Arteni household was not a happy one. In the last few years, the marriage of Marcella’s parents had deteriorated, beginning with the not-too-improbable suspicions of the very jealous Gianna Arteni. But, as often happens, it was her husband’s own singular suspicion which caused the break. If they had been quiet and understanding people, they would have quickly been able to work out a solution. Instead, in the last three years Gianna Arteni had been running around Europe with a merry group of friends, whilst Marcella had remained in Rome with her father.

  Recently, based on her father’s words and her mother’s letters Marcella had glimpsed the possibility of a happier future. She had discovered that her mother would be stopping in Palermo on July 12th, and decided to take the chance of obtaining from her a first expression of regret, from which so many others might flow. She had no time to lose, however, and caught the plane before her father could prevent her. But after she had been forced to stop in Naples, her father had caught up with her, and she had been obliged to confess to him the reason for her flight. She had escaped again, however, and found her mother on Pellegrino Mountain. But her mother had no regrets at all and failed to pronounce the desired words. Despite that, her father seemed to Marcella to be far more affectionate and happy than in the past. Marcella fervently hoped it was a good omen.

  Her tale ended with a smile as they arrived in Piazza Cola di Rienzo:

  ‘And now for my shopping! The most important thing is a box of ping-pong balls!’

  ‘Do you play ping-pong?’ asked Vallesi with a smile.

  ‘And tennis, too! I’m an ace, you know!’

  ‘And with whom do you play?’ asked Giorgio.

  ‘I will confess only after a whole hour of hard shopping,’ laughed the girl, dragging him along via Lucrezio Caro.

  The Sisters Adamoli’s shop was a long, dark and narrow room almost completely filled with the colourful rubber animals that are the joy of baby swimmers. Two young boys were pushing their mother to buy a splendid yellow and blue duck with an enormous twisted neck.Marcella gaily rummaged through the rubber monster menagerie and she returned to Vallesi with a very long green and yellow crocodile.

  ‘Would you like this, as my present to you?’ She happily twisted it around Giorgio as a monstrous rubber belt and stood back to admire the startling result:

  ‘In a few years, you’ll have a big paunch like that and you won’t be as good-looking and lovable, my dear!’

  She put the crocodile back and selected a box of ping-pong balls instead. As she was about to leave, she noticed that Giorgio had picked up the crocodile again.

  ‘Really, if you want it that much....’

  But Giorgio wasn’t hearing her puzzled words, he was hearing Luigi talking about Agliati’s paunch. And just suppose the paunch had been false and made of rubber...?

  And so he arrived at a very odd solution to the impossible Flying Boat Mystery....

  Giorgio was a bit uneasy meeting Renzi, because he’d been back in Rome for twenty-four hours and hadn’t had time for even a very brief phone call. But his friend welcomed him cheerily:

  ‘Love can excuse and pardon everything.’

  ‘Listen, Luigi, I’ve discovered... everything!’

  And he narrated the visit to the via Lucrezio Caro shop, Marcella’s joke and his thoughts about Agliati’s paunch... The word had a magical effect on Renzi:

  ‘Heavens, you could be right.’ But he was very cautious, trying to not to get too excited by his friend’s theory. ‘That would mean he’s been wearing a false rubber paunch for ages!’

  ‘Why not? As a disguise, when he left Italy suddenly in 1917!’

  ‘Ridiculous! A false rubber paunch can’t modify your look that much, and it certainly wouldn’t render you unrecognisable! A pair of false whiskers would be a far better disguise!’

  But Vallesi wasn’t convinced and he tried to argue from a different angle with even greater energy:

  ‘Perhaps he disguised himself only when he arrived in Ostia. Nobody o
n the plane knew him.... ’

  ‘Nobody knew him,’ repeated Renzi, in an oddly impassionate way.

  Their demeanour reflected their very different temperaments. Giorgio walked nervously around the room with his fists jammed into the pockets of his jacket as if he wanted to measure it from wall to wall; Luigi, on the other hand, was deeply ensconced in his armchair as though he were freezing in that hot summer afternoon , barely moving his head from left to right as he mechanically followed his friend’s erratic wanderings. He was trying to reorder his own ideas after that alarm bell. They had found a small break in the case, and he was trying to enlarge its size. He was used to letting people talk and talk, whilst he, by contrast, was refining his own ideas. Renzi was a good talker, but an even better listener.

  ‘So, you think that the solution—.’

  ‘Of course, Luigi, of course! I’ve disposed totally and completely of every impossibility! And it’s the only way it could have been done, believe me. If Agliati passed through the skylight....’

  ‘Just a moment, please. 32 centimetres by 39, let me see....’

  He cut out a paper rectangle of the same dimensions, pressed it against the window, and asked quietly:

  ‘Good. And then?’

  Vallesi looked at him in embarrassed astonishment.

  ‘And then?’ repeated the assistant commissioner. ‘Where is the body? If only we could find it!!! Even if we accept your solution, the easier explanation, the accident, is still absolutely impossible. The skylight is on the roof of a very small toilet, and, in order to fall from it, Agliati must first have pushed his body through it. He couldn’t have done it accidentally, that would be ridiculous!’

  ‘Yes, if he took off the false paunch, he could plan an escape, or a suicide!’

  ‘No, suicide is also impossible. I can admit that, in sudden panic, Agliati could envisage—.’

  Vallesi rushed to interrupt him, inspired by a sudden thought:

  ‘Of course, of course! Wonderful, perfect! On the plane, Agliati was very worried. He feared he had been followed, and suspected several of the passengers: the ex-convict, and his travel companions Sabelli and Marchetti. So, when I announced that there was a clandestine passenger in the cockpit, he became very fearful—.’

  ‘Allow me to speak, please! I admit that he may have been worried about the presence of a mysterious clandestine passenger, and I can admit that he could have lost his mind and wanted to commit suicide. If he had been at a fourth-floor window of a building, possibly he might have thrown himself from it, but from that skylight? No, it’s too ridiculous, he would never have contemplated such a bizarre and impractical suicide method. He would never have conceived such a complicated and difficult way of killing himself, even if he was inspired by a sudden fear... No, he found the opening too narrow, even if he removed his false paunch... and in the meantime the fear would have subsided and he would have tried to escape instead of killing himself!’

  ‘So, he escaped!’

  ‘Yes, he decided to escape, to disappear!’

  Renzi thought for a moment about this last theory: a deliberate disappearance! He had hinted at this very plausible solution to Boldrin when he had explained the points of the case to him, with a certain egotistic rhetorical self-conceit. But his inborn pragmatism pushed him to more simple and realistic problems:

  ‘Yes, but how could he escape? He couldn’t have had a parachute, it’s not so easy to hide as a false paunch, is it?’

  Vallesi seemed lost in thought:

  ‘Couldn’t he have found an easier way out through the luggage compartment? From the hatch on the roof....’

  ‘And if he had fallen during his daring escape?’

  ‘His fall would have been seen by the other passengers, from their windows. And you’ve already stated that the body hasn’t been found!’

  ‘That’s not so important. Even if the body had fallen near to the coast, because sea planes usually follow the land during their flight, it could easily take nine or ten days before it was found.’

  ‘But someone would have seen him fall from their window! The passenger cabin is behind the toilet, nearer to the tail. If Agliati’s fall was accidental.... ’

  ‘An accident following a deliberate and very odd escape,’ commented Renzi quietly.

  ‘Yes, but an accident is in some ways a natural cause, independent of human planning. So, how do you explain the murderous attack on Signora Agliati and her daughter?’

  ‘You have a point, and it’s not the only inexplicable circumstance.’ Renzi seemed quite shaken. ‘So, do you suspect murder, and not an accident independent of human planning?’

  He had let his friend talk in order to clarify his own ideas, but now, under the spotlight, Giorgio’s theory was becoming more plausible, far beyond Luigi’s expectations. But it wouldn’t be the first time a reporter had solved a case before the police... Gaining confidence, Vallesi elaborated on his idea:

  ‘For me, Agliati was escaping, and he feared someone on board, so his first impulse was to hide and then run away. If he had been thinking about killing himself, as you correctly said, he changed his mind at the first obstacle he encountered. But his fear and desire to escape his foes did not change. He removed the false paunch in order to escape through the skylight, the only possible way out. As he was crawling along the fuselage, the paunch fell down into the sea. He directed himself towards the only other opening, the hatch of the luggage compartment, easy to open even from the outside. He assumed the compartment’s wooden door would hide him from the other passengers... So he opened the hatch and found himself in the compartment with the mechanic!’

  ‘The mechanic?’ repeated Luigi in astonishment.

  ‘A very corrupt one, as we know only too well. So Agliati could easily bribe him from his well-padded wallet. Franceschi was easily persuaded to help the banker escape.... ’

  ‘And suppose he murdered Agliati for his well-padded wallet?’

  The reporter reflected for a moment:

  ‘And threw the body from the hatch? In order to steal the banker's money?’

  ‘Yes... and possibly for another reason,’ murmured Luigi, possibly just to provoke his friend to see his reactions.

  ‘I really don’t think that Franceschi murdered Agliati in cold blood. He certainly couldn’t have anticipated that the banker would escape through the toilet by removing a false rubber paunch and crawling along the roof so as to get into the luggage compartment! Of course, he could have killed on a sudden impulse out of sheer greed and thrown the body into the sea through the hatch, even if it is odd that nobody heard their fight, or that no clue could be found in the compartment. But, after the plane landed, both the mechanic and the plane were fully searched and nobody found the money or the rings or the watch of the murdered banker! And I really don’t think that Franceschi could be a sadist, killing bankers purely for pleasure!’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘And so, I remember very well the mechanic first coming out of his lair in the luggage compartment, just a few minutes after Agliati went into the toilet. No, really, I don’t think he had the time to kill him and throw away the body! Ah, I’m beginning to see!’

  ‘What?’

  Giorgio was very pleased with himself:

  ‘Everything! Franceschi took a parcel from the cockpit!’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And what did it contain?’

  ‘Some bread and some fruit, his usual lunch.’

  Vallesi had a self-satisfied smile:

  ‘No, I’ll tell you what it contained: a mechanic’s overalls!’

  Luigi was really surprised:

  ‘A mechanic’s overalls? What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure my deductions up to this point are correct, but it still remains to be explained how Agliati could escape from the plane after it landed. The mechanic was his accomplice, but he certainly couldn’t have stolen one of the pilots’ parachutes from the cockpit. So Francesco Agliati was obliged
to wait until the landing in Naples. And he found the right moment, the right opportunity, to disappear: even though everyone’s attention was focused on the breaking down of the door and the activity around the toilet, someone would have noticed a passenger climbing out through the luggage compartment hatch. And, since the wharf was under strict surveillance, there would have been nowhere to go. But nobody would have noticed a mechanic leaving the luggage compartment in his customary blue overalls. Who would ever have thought to stop him for questioning?’

  This classic rhetorical question ended his explanation. Giorgio was very pleased with himself.

  Luigi reflected in silence on the theory, pushing his critical mind to try to find any possible hole in it.

  ‘So, you think that the banker is still alive?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘So how do you explain the attempted murder of his wife?’

  ‘I admit I haven’t really tried to explain it,’ smiled Vallesi. ‘Certainly, Agliati had enemies, as his escape proves. Perhaps his foes wanted to kill his wife as well.’

  ‘I could understand it if they’d tried to kidnap her, but to kill her....’

  And at that very moment, Renzi had a sudden intuition of the truth. It was a mistake to consider the attempted murder as an isolated, self-contained incident. No, it was strictly tied to the attempted blackmail of some hours before, and this connection could explain both acts very easily. It’s highly unusual for a blackmailer to attempt to kill the person he is trying to blackmail; he would prefer to scare her into accepting his conditions. But the mysterious assailant had certainly tried to murder her, and certainly he was the same person who had tried to blackmail her before. He was menacing her to reveal her husband’s past. That would explain the logic of the murderous attack: the killer didn’t have any revelations to make, instead he feared the revelations she could make! The phone call was a shot in the dark, to ascertain what she knew about her husband’s Italian past. Her protests had scared her husband’s foes, and they had decided to strike immediately.