The Flying Boat Mystery

by Franco Vailati

  But what value could the wife’s words have? Her reaction had been only a very understandable, indignant protest, apparently... Could such very vague words really have pushed the mysterious criminals to attempt a very dangerous and daring attack in a Rome street?

  Luigi was lost in thought and had completely forgotten his friend. He vaguely heard Giorgio in the nearby room, on the telephone. The first words he understood were certainly part of a phone call to Signorina Arteni... But Vallesi returned almost immediately to announce to his friend:

  ‘Goodbye, I’m going to Naples!’

  Luigi looked at him lazily:

  ‘Have a nice trip, and please return with the banker, dead or alive!’

  11-RENZI’S WALK

  After Vallesi had left, Luigi immediately phoned Chief Inspector Boldrin, then put on his hat and took a walk in the Rome streets, where the first lights were announcing the approaching dusk. He allowed himself to be dragged half-consciously by the crowds towards Piazza Colonna. Normally he very much liked Rome at that hour, and liked to watch the faces of the unknown passers-by, with the cautious and curious diffidence of an art critic at the personal showing of a new artist.

  But that evening he preferred the quieter and darker streets around Fontana di Trevi to Piazza Colonna and the animated via Tritone: via dei Crociferi, via dei Lucchesi, via dell’Umiltà, via della Pilotta, Piazza della Pilotta....

  Renzi let himself be guided by the regular rhythm of his steps. His mind was a tangle of fragments of words, splinters of theories, brief sparks of luminous and uncertain ideas, all tied together, and all sharply and neatly separated in a glorious confusion, like the pearls of a torn necklace he was desperately trying to reconstruct, random puzzle pieces of an abstract, indescribable mosaic.

  He let himself be absorbed by the mood: a flying boat in the air for ninety minutes from Ostia to Naples, with sixteen people on board at departure and only fifteen on landing....

  In his mind, he reconstructed the diagram of the inside of the plane, placing each actor at the appropriate spot. Larini and the pilots in the cockpit. Larini... his sudden departure, his anxiety to be on board the Dornier Do-Wal 134 could be suspicious, but his director Santini’s explanations had apparently let him off the hook. Certainly, Larini had never left the cockpit. Could Vallesi have been right when he asserted that Agliati’s fear was caused by a clandestine passenger, even though he couldn’t have seen anything of him through the glass doors: not his face, nor even his shadow?

  But Vallesi had also thought that the cause of Agliati’s fear could have been Pagelli, the ex-convict... Luigi thought that hypothesis far more plausible, even though the ex-convict, just like Larini, was travelling on the Dornier Do-Wal 134 for a perfectly valid business reason. Larini was actually even more suspect, because he had wanted to be on board that particular plane! Perhaps Larini’s guilt seemed less plausible only because Pagelli was an ex-convict, and thus a far more shady character....

  Two other shady actors in the drama were Sabelli and Marchetti, particularly since their grisly Naples adventure could perhaps be tied in some way to the banker’s disappearance. When he remembered those suspicious characters: the ex-convict, the clandestine teller, and the so-called corn tradesmen, Renzi had the odd feeling that their very presence on board the plane could have created a dark and menacing atmosphere of fear, murder and betrayal. Were they all partners in that menace? Were they all accomplices? Renzi would really have to reconstruct how the menacing atmosphere could have led to a mysterious murder on the Dornier Do-Wal 134.

  These melodramatic rhetorical questions surprised even Luigi himself, but his ironic smile reflected the reality of the situation: he just didn't know how the presence of those four strange passengers on board was darkly connected to the banker’s disappearance. A situation enhanced by contrast, if he remembered the other passengers in the cabin.

  The lady in red, consumed by her rebellious act, fearing yet hoping to hear her husband’s footsteps behind her....

  Marcella Arteni, perhaps not thinking too much about her sudden flight in quest of her mother, not daring even to hope for a highly unlikely reconciliation of her parents, and trying desperately to distract herself by following the route on the airline token map, looking at the landscape out of the window, and perhaps—why not? —looking surreptitiously at Giorgio....

  Giorgio, thinking and looking only at her, but absorbing semi-consciously the disturbing, menacing atmosphere all the same....

  Maria Martelli, possibly experiencing some doubts and fears about her expedition, but greedily attracted by the coveted stocks and shares waiting for her in Palermo, after an expensive and dubious trip decided after so much hesitation....

  Her husband, following her in silence, not daring even to think....

  Those were the actors in the passenger cabin.

  Behind the wooden door, in the luggage compartment, the mechanic, so suspect according to Vallesi’s theory. Possibly an accomplice, or even a dark leading villain of the piece. But Luigi had immediately noticed a tiny detail which completely demolished his friend’s case. He had phoned Naples to verify it, and Boldrin had confirmed his doubts, but he was still waiting for the definitive confirmation. But if Giorgio’s theory was destroyed, how then to explain the leading actor’s movements; how to explain Francesco Agliati’s vanishing act? Why extract the banker so easily from the toilet through the now comfortable skylight, only to leave him afterwards, lost and desperate on the flying boat’s fuselage, without a direction to take, a goal to reach?

  Luigi tried another approach: he methodically laid out a chronological reconstruction of the various actors’ movements on stage before the shocking climax of the piece, the first announcement of Agliati’s possible disappearance.

  TIMETABLE

  1. Sabelli goes to the toilet and comes out almost immediately.

  2. Vallesi goes to the cockpit and returns, announcing the presence of a clandestine passenger.

  3. Agliati goes to the toilet, where he locks himself in and vanishes.

  4. Franceschi, the mechanic, goes into the cockpit and returns to the luggage compartment with a parcel.

  5. Marchetti tries to go to the toilet and finds the door locked. He knocks and, receiving no answer, gives the alarm.

  With these five points firmly established in his mind, Renzi decided to leave the dark and quiet streets around Trevi and head for the Prati Borough. He was tired and would have preferred to expunge everything about The Flying Boat Mystery from his thoughts, but in his half-asleep state the disparate, clashing elements of the case were continuously whirling in his mind, and continued to do so even whilst he was in bed. They continued all through the dreamless night and into the busy morning after....

  ‘Telephone, Dr. Renzi. A call from Naples.’

  Luigi had hoped to speak with Boldrin, but instead it was Giorgio:

  ‘I'm calling you because I’ve possibly found a trace... A man looking very much like our friend took a cab near to the port at about one o’clock, that same day.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Sheer chance, a lucky strike, if you like. I found the driver, and he picked up a passenger no more than two-hundred metres from Beverello Wharf. The man wore an overcoat and was completely muffled in a scarf and felt hat. In July, under the Naples sun, just imagine!’

  Luigi answered in an impassive, emotionless tone. It was his poker voice, one might say:

  ‘Where was he headed?’

  ‘Mergellina Station, where I am now. A ticket clerk seems to remember a fellow buying a first-class ticket to Rome, a few minutes after one o’clock. He remembers being surprised because it was a slow-moving train, used only by locals....’

  ‘That’s quite a coup. Did he have any luggage with him?’

  ‘I didn’t ask, but I can if you want. I’m on my way to Rome now.’

  ‘I thought that might happen!’

  ‘Let me speak, please. I’m on my way to Rome, but
I won’t arrive until four o’clock. I have two hours to wait before my train, so I called you so you could start making enquiries in Rome.’

  Renzi’s poker voice didn’t change:

  ‘Very good. See you later, then!’

  Five minutes later, he received another call from Naples. It was Chief Inspector Boldrin at last. After a very brief conversation, Luigi looked at his watch: it was half-past ten, and he could reach the Flora Hotel in a twenty-minute walk. By eleven o’clock he could, very conveniently, be received by Signora Agliati.

  He waited for a quarter of an hour in the foyer, but scarcely paid attention to the slow motion of the hands on his watch. He frowned as he thought of his fruitless chase after the elusive fragments of the case. He permitted himself the ghost of a smile as he imagined his friend in Naples, in a cloak-and-dagger pursuit of cab-drivers, ticket clerks and muffled murderers in overcoats.

  The arrival of the slender Signora Agliati shook him out of his reverie.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you again, but—.’

  The woman waved away his apologies. Luigi looked in silence at her smooth, serene face. She didn’t seem overly hungry for news of her disappearing husband. Possibly she was too young and beautiful for a fiftyish banker.

  ‘Do you have any news about....? Have you found him? ’

  ‘Just a few more clues, and I have something more to ask....’

  She made a gesture of surprised acceptance.

  ‘Do you really not know why your husband left Italy for Greece? Nor what his business was before founding the Italy & Greece Bank? When he suffered those heavy losses you told me about yesterday?’

  ‘I’ve answered your question, and it’s the only answer I can give you, Dr. Renzi....’

  He moved his chair closer to her armchair:

  ‘Really, I wouldn’t insist, if it weren’t strictly necessary...Your husband’s disappearance is directly linked to the attack on you, I’m afraid, and it seems probable that the explanation for both crimes could lie in your husband’s past.’

  ‘I understand that perfectly well, but I can’t tell you what I don’t know,’ she replied with the shadow of a smile.

  ‘The attack on you and your daughter was both logically and chronologically preceded by the phony reporter’s call, a call quite possibly instigated by the same criminals who organised and executed your husband’s disappearance. They tried to blackmail you about your husband’s activities in Italy before his emigration to Greece, and it’s easy to surmise that the criminal gang we are fighting was formed and headed by a person or persons linked to your husband’s Italian past, possibly even the same business partners who caused the heavy losses your husband suffered.’

  In the young woman’s eyes Renzi could read only a quiet and patient, almost indifferent waiting. Slightly irked by it, he continued his questioning more forcefully:

  ‘I’m at a loss to understand how the few words you uttered in response to the phony reporter could have motivated such a daring and risky attack on you. How they could be so frightened by your very vague negative answer. You can readily understand the importance of any possible detail you may have neglected to tell me. If you could only suggest a name to whom we could direct our investigations....’

  But Renzi realised at once that his efforts were in vain. If the answer could be really found in Agliati’s past, he would have to wait for news from the Milan police.

  At half-past four on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 19th, eight days after Francesco Agliati’s disappearance, Giorgio Vallesi arrived in the Rome Termini Station from Naples.

  He phoned Marcella to invite her to dinner that evening and then rushed to police HQ. Unfortunately Renzi wasn’t there, having visited his office at about three o’clock, solely for the purpose of taking a police car to Ostia. Vallesi was quite surprised and wondered whether his friend was questioning the two pilots and the mechanic again. But he had to contain himself, with Marcella’s help, until he managed to reach Luigi by phone, later that evening.

  His friend arranged for him to be accompanied by two detectives the following morning, during a long, tiring and utterly futile series of enquiries at Termini Station. Meanwhile, Renzi stayed home, to read with great attention the dossier on Agliati, which had just arrived from Milan.

  At a few minutes past noon, Vallesi made a visit to Piazza Collegio Romano. In the absence of Renzi, he was received by Superintendent Galbiati, who asked him with a malicious smile on his impassionate, official face:

  ‘Have you read Il Messaggero?’

  ‘I didn’t have time.’

  ‘Of course, due to your inquiries at Termini Station... I suggest you read it now.’ Another mysterious smile. ‘It’s very interesting. The reporter attaches great importance to the false rubber paunch and to the possibility of a deliberate disappearance.’ Noticing Vallesi’s worried surprise, he again put on his air of official seriousness. ‘Don’t fret yourself, it was only a joke, he never thought to consider such a fantastic hypothesis!’

  The headlines blared:

  THE FLYING BOAT MYSTERY.

  AFTER A WEEK OF INVESTIGATIONS,

  WHAT ARE THE POLICE DOING?

  OUR SOLUTION TO THE MYSTERY

  Rome, July 20th.

  Banker Francesco Agliati disappeared more than a week ago, and after a week of unsuccessful investigations, we can only ask what the police are doing to throw some light on this dark, obscure mystery.

  We are ready to admit that they took resolute action when they promptly arrested Giovanni Marchetti for the murder of Giuseppe Sabelli, another passenger of the unlucky Dornier Do-Wal 134. But they had very damning and concrete evidence against him, and his arrest could not in any way help the other investigation, The Sabelli Murder Case being a completely separate criminal episode,having no connection whatsoever with Agliati’s disappearance. Nor could it be of any help in the investigation into the notorious attempted murder of Signora Agliati, a crime executed very possibly by a gang of blackmailers trying to exploit Signora Agliati’s difficult and uneasy position after her husband’s disappearance.

  The same gang, headed by a phony reporter calling himself Marietti, had tried to blackmail the poor woman, and was very likely responsible for the attack on her in via del Muro Torto afterwards. Signora Agliati had shown strength by promptly rejecting the blackmail threat, and the thugs very probably thought they could scare her, thus demonstrating a total disdain for a possible investigation, fully consistent with a daring and well-organized criminal gang.

  We can inform the public about its existence, without any possible fear of hampering the other investigation, because our theory is shared by the police and we know that they have taken all possible measures for unmasking them and blocking any attempt to escape justice. But, unfortunately, the first and most important mystery remains without solution.

  Our readers will remember that we presented from the very first day the only possible, clear, patently simple solution: Francesco Agliati had committed suicide. Now we shall again demonstrate that it is the only true solution of The Flying Boat Mystery. As the mathematicians say, we shall proceed ad absurdum. If it was not a suicide, it must have been an accident or a murder. Murder is materially impossible. There is no trace whatsoever of a deadly trap set in the small toilet before Agliati’s arrival, and when he did enter he locked himself in, thus excluding any possible contact with anybody on board. Nobody went into the toilet after him, as all witnesses have confirmed, and as demonstrated by the intact lock and bolt still blocking the door when it was broken down. An accident is equally impossible, as the only egress from the toilet is a skylight in the roof which nobody could reach accidentally, but would be very comfortable for a person contemplating suicide.

  Vallesi tore his eyes angrily from the printed page. Why had Galbiati asked him to read this rubbish which added nothing new to the mystery?

  ‘Why are you wasting your time reading this stupid string of platitudes?’

  Gal
biati looked at him with his customary official gravity:

  ‘Superior orders... Dr.Renzi thought it was the best material they have written about the case, and he must have had his reasons.’ Once again, his forced gravity seemed to contain a tiny speck of irony. Once again, there was the ghost of a smile: ‘I can’t do otherwise than share his opinion with you.’

  Vallesi was beginning to suspect his leg was being pulled, and didn’t know whether to be angry or to answer one silly joke with another.

  Luckily the phone rang and spared him a decision. Galbiati answered, and commented to Vallesi afterwards:

  ‘That was Dr. Renzi himself. He asked me about your plans for the afternoon.’

  ‘I don’t know, as yet. I hope to be very occupied this evening....’

  Again Galbiati had a very curious smile:

  ‘Of course,’ he gravely sympathized.

  ‘And in the afternoon I wanted to return to the station, even if it seems that the phantom passenger who came that Tuesday from Naples.... ’

  ‘Another mysterious disappearance, I see.’ Galbiati’s sphinx-like smile was becoming utterly unnerving. ‘Dr. Renzi would be very pleased if you could be here, in the bureau, at about six o’clock. If you really can’t make it, you can always phone, but it would be better if you could come personally. You can also invite Signorina Arteni, if you should happen to meet her.’

  ‘Signorina... do you mean Marcella?’

  ‘I believe that is her name, yes. Dr. Renzi suggests that it would be appropriate if she would wear an overcoat, and be wrapped and muffled. A drive in an open car in the evening can be awfully refreshing, even in this season.’

  ‘In an open car?’

  Vallesi was not very original with his questions when he was surprised.

  ‘An Alfa Romeo, I presume.’ Galbiati was clearly, albeit unofficially, amused by the reporter’s dumbstruck expression. He continued cordially: ‘Permit me to point out that you did not give proper attention to the brilliant example of journalism I had offered for your not-so-patient perusal. Possibly you didn’t read the last few lines.’