The Etruscan Net

by Michael Gilbert

  Professor Bronzini was facing Mercurio across his writing-room table. They had been sitting there since two o’clock and now it was nearly four. The argument had gone round in circles, like the leaves in the gutter. Mercurio said, ‘You’re dodging the issues. If you know nothing about it, what are those two men doing in this house? I know they’re here. I’ve seen Arturo taking them food. I’ve listened outside the door, and heard them talking.’

  ‘They are friends of Danilo Ferri.’

  ‘They are criminals – Mafiosi – wanted by the Police. A telephone call would bring a police car out here in five minutes. They would be removed. Are you afraid of them?’

  ‘Certainly not. But Danilo–’

  ‘Where is Danilo?’

  ‘He went to Switzerland, on business, early this morning. He will be back tonight.’

  ‘What business?’

  ‘Private business.’

  ‘His own, or yours? Is he your servant or your master? Is it you who dances to his piping? Does he crook his little finger and you come running?’

  The Professor looked very old, and very tired. The cheerful Silenus look had gone, and had been replaced by a mask, with sunken holes for eyes and sagging parchment for cheeks. Looking at him, Mercurio felt an unexpected twinge, of pity. He leaned forward across the table and said, without any hint of his previous mockery, ‘Listen to me, please. I have not perhaps been very grateful to you in the past. I have sometimes behaved badly.’ The old man made a timid gesture with his hand, but said nothing. ‘Now perhaps I can repay you, if only with advice. Go to the authorities. Tell them everything. They say there is a new man here, from Rome. He has charge of the investigation. Go to him before he comes to you.’

  There was silence in the little room, broken only by the sound of the wind outside, coming now in gusts with some force behind them.

  Mercurio said, ‘What have you to lose? You have had some beautiful Etruscan objects manufactured for you. But you have not yet sold them. It may be suggested that you intended to do so. But intention is no crime.’

  ‘There were others in the past.’

  ‘Certainly. But who will trouble their heads about them. Suspicion may be cast on them, but their owners will not be anxious to have their collections doubted. They will be the last people to attack you. Danilo Ferri must be given up to justice. For he is the true criminal. He, the quiet man, the steward, the organizer. It was he who brought these men to Florence. It was he who gave them their instructions. Did he consult you? Did he tell you what he was doing?’

  The Professor hesitated, and then shook his head.

  Mercurio said, triumphantly, ‘I thought as much. Then how can you be blamed? It was he who organized the whole conspiracy. It was he who caused the death of old Milo, and the accusation to be made against the Englishman. Why should you shoulder the blame for something you have not done? Tell me that?’

  The Professor said nothing.

  ‘There is a difference between artistic faking – and murder.’

  Mercurio let the last two words hang, and then brought them out with deliberate brutality.

  The Professor said, ‘I know nothing of that. I was promised that there would be no violence. The death was an accident.’

  ‘And the death of Dindoni? Was that an accident? Did he break his own neck and place himself on the bonfire?’

  The old man shuddered. Mercurio, seeing his advantage, pressed it home. ‘You shall make your choice,’ he said. ‘The production of Etruscan relics. That is, perhaps, a minor matter for the civil courts. But a double murder! Will you accept the responsibility for what these animals have done? Animals, hired and paid behind your back, by your own steward. Well?’

  ‘If I speak, it will involve Milo Zecchi also. He had a part in it. And he is no longer here to speak for himself.’

  ‘Do you imagine that they will dig up his bones and hang them in the gibbet for carving a few bronzes on your instructions?’

  ‘His family survive, and will be shamed.’

  ‘That is true. It is an argument which I accept. But if his family themselves, his widow and his daughter, tell you with their own lips that they would rather the truth came out, what then?’

  The question was answered by a low rumbling of thunder. The old man was silent. His thoughts were a long way away. Many centuries away. He was walking again on the Etruscan hills, at the dawn of the first civilization, when men and women moved unencumbered, and the gods walked beside them; when life was wonderful and death only a pleasant postcript.

  ‘Well?’ said Mercurio impatiently. ‘If I do this, will you agree?’

  ‘Shall an Etruscan lucumone betray his own servant to the magistracy?’

  The thunder rolled out again, on the left, a menacing drum beat of sound. It was as though Thor, the Lord of Thunder, had himself answered the question.

  Mercurio got up, and moved across to the door. Still the Professor sat on in silence, unmoving. The look on Mercurio’s face as he went out was one almost of pity.

  He crossed the hallway of the silent house, opened the front door, and walked out into a world which was cowering before the coming fury. The light was pearly. So far only a few lazy drops of rain had fallen, but the strong wind which runs before the storm had bent the tops of the cypress trees, like acolytes bowing all in line. Mercurio got into his car and ran down, through empty streets, to Florence.

  As he reached the Zecchi house the storm broke in a fury of rain, driven horizontally down the street. In the few seconds that he had to wait for the door to be opened, he was soaked right down to the waist.

  The two women were both there. Tina chirruped like a bird when she saw him, standing there, dripping. Annunziata, more practical, bade him take off his coat and shirt and gave him a towel to dry himself. Then she found a clean shirt which had belonged to Milo and popped it over him. Regardless, for once, of his appearance, Mercurio sat down in their kitchen, his head, crowned with a mop of tousled hair, sticking through the collarless neck of the flannel shirt. Whilst the storm raged outside, he talked. And as he talked, both women drew nearer to him, to hear, over the rolling and rattling of the thunder, exactly what it was he had to say. When he stopped speaking, Annunziata’s piled white crown of hair and Tina’s sleek black head were nodding in unison.

  When Mercurio left them, more than an hour later, the two women sat in silence for some moments. It was still raining, but steadily, and without ferocity.

  Annunziata said to Tina, ‘That boy is growing up.’

  At four o’clock the giant Arturo made a tour of the Villa Rasenna, carefully closing all open windows and fastening shutters and doors. He saw Mercurio depart in his car, and then stood at one of the windows, watching the rain advance like an army with spears.

  The storm did not disturb him. He had seen many summer thunderstorms break over the house, and pass on their way leaving the world fresher and brighter. This one was exceptional only in its violence. He was sorry for the flowers in the garden, which would be beaten to the ground and lose their blooms. But other flowers would grow.

  When he came to consider the matter afterwards, he had no real idea how long he had stood there looking out when he was disturbed by a crack of thunder not louder than those which had gone before, but different in quality, and seeming to come from inside the house.

  He decided that he must have been mistaken, but made a tour of the ground floor to see whether, perhaps, a shutter had been blown off its hinges. Finding everything in order, he returned to his post. But he was still disturbed. Something was amiss. The noise had come from so far under his feet that it suggested some disturbance in the very lowest part of the house.

  Arturo considered the matter. His mind worked slowly, but methodically. If this alarming noise had originated somewhere below the ground-floor level, there were four places it might have come from. There was the boiler-room; and the coke store; there was the storage cellar, where wine and olive oil were kept; and there was the sa
cred room, the room of mysteries.

  On balance, the most likely place seemed to be the boiler-room or the coke store and Arturo went there first. All was in order. In the cellars he found that some water from the recent deluge had made its way through one of the gratings and formed a pool on the floor. It would have to be mopped up. The only remaining possibility was the sacred room. Arturo had no key for this, and, in any event, was chary of entering it without his master’s orders. Pausing outside it, he noticed that the door, usually so tightly shut, was standing very slightly ajar.

  Arturo put out his hand, and pushed it open.

  The explanation of the noise he had heard was at once apparent. The door of the wall-safe had been blown off its hinges, and the air in the unventilated room was pungent with the fumes of explosive.

  But Arturo had no eyes for it. His attention was concentrated on the thing which swung by a short length of rope from a hook in the ceiling; a thing with bloated face, exploded eyes and protruding blackened tongue; a thing which had once been his beloved master, Professor Bruno Bronzini.

  3

  Arturo

  There was a high stool lying on its side underneath the body. Arturo stood it up again, clambering on to it, and raised the body with one arm. Then he reached up with his free hand and unknotted the rope from the hook.

  He climbed down, and laid the old man’s body tenderly on the stone shelf which ran along one side of the room. As an after-thought, he took the clean white handkerchief out of the Professor’s top pocket, and spread it over the distorted face.

  Then he stood for a moment, thinking. His eyes flickered over the safe door, hanging forlornly from one hinge, and over the empty shelves behind. The sight seemed to determine his next move for him.

  He walked back to the boiler-room, his actions still slow, but purposeful. From the rack inside the door he selected a steel bar, eighteen inches long, flattened and slightly curved at one end. It was used for opening the dampers at the bottom of the boiler.

  From the end of the basement passage shallow concrete steps led up to a landing. On one side, a door opened out on to what was known as the small courtyard. Here, under a lean-to, stood a jumble of garden equipment, the bicycles of the kitchen boys, and, at the far end, the van in which Arturo did the household shopping.

  The inner side of this landing gave on to a second flight of stairs, which led directly up to the top storey of the house, where the domestic staff had their rooms.

  It was up these stairs that Arturo had, for the last two days, been carrying meals to the two strangers in the room at the end of the corridor.

  As Arturo climbed the stairs, he was thinking about them. He had no doubt that both of them carried guns. He thought, however, that in an emergency, they would rely on their knives.

  He knew enough about Sicilians to be certain that two of them, armed with knives, and knowing how to use them, would be too much for him. At the first warning of danger they would separate, and would come in from opposite sides. He might kill one. The other would most certainly kill him.

  The door of the room had always been locked when he had brought them their food, and would be locked now. If they were still there. He stooped to listen. There were sounds of movement from inside the room. Something was being dragged across the floor, and one of the men was speaking.

  Arturo considered the position. No doubt he could break down the door with a single kick, but this would give the men just those seconds of advantage which he could not afford. The safest plan would be to wait until they opened the door to come out. There had to be weighed against this the chance that, at any moment now, the alarm might be raised, and surprise lost. He decided on a straightforward course. He knocked on the door.

  All movement inside the room ceased. Then a voice, which he recognized as belonging to the stout man, said, ‘Who is there?’

  ‘Arturo.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘We have trouble in the house.’

  ‘Trouble?’ The voice sounded much closer. The stout man had moved to the door. ‘What sort of trouble?’

  ‘It is the Police. They are asking for my master. He cannot be found. Also–’ Arturo purposely dropped his voice ‘–they seem to have some knowledge of you. I thought–’ As he dragged the sentence out, he heard the click of the lock being turned, and the door was opened.

  Arturo threw his weight against it, and jumped into the room.

  The swing of the door going in had knocked the stout man off balance, but not off his feet. Arturo ignored him. Gripping the steel bar, he made straight for the thin man, who had been kneeling beside an old leather suitcase, strapping it shut.

  The thin man flung himself sideways, steadied himself with one hand on the floor, and with the other, went for his knife. These reactions to the unexpected attack were smooth, automatic, and dispassionate. They were also a fraction of a second too late. Arturo did not risk a downward swipe, which might have missed the moving head. He swung the steel bar sidewise, in a chopping sweep, which landed just above the shoulder, at a point where the angle of the jaw ran into the neck. The force of the blow was such that it broke jaw and spine simultaneously.

  If the stout man had been on balance when Arturo started his bull-like rush, he would have had his knife in the big man’s back by now. As it was, when Arturo whirled round, he was already coming for him, knife held left-handed and low.

  Arturo knew that to hesitate would be fatal. Despite his great strength, the odds against him were too high for deliberate manoeuvring. He simply threw himself at his opponent, using his own big body as a missile, twisting sideways at the last moment.

  The knife went into the upper part of his right arm, but the twist jerked it out of his opponent’s hand.

  Then his hands closed round the stout man’s throat. The strength was ebbing from his right arm, but one of those great hands was sufficient for the job. As the stout man’s knees buckled, he fell on top of him, never for a moment releasing his grip.

  Minutes later Arturo got to his feet. The blood had been running in a steady stream from his arm and out at the wrist. A lot of it had dripped on to the stout man, who lay with his distorted face almost touching the feet of his long companion.

  Arturo took no further notice of them. He had first to attend to his own hurt. He opened one of the two suitcases that stood, ready packed, beside the bed, and dragged out a silk shirt. He tore this into three strips, using his teeth, folded one of the strips into a pad, and bound the other two lightly round it, staunching the flow of blood. He would have liked to fashion a sling, but there was work for which both arms would be needed.

  He went to the door, and listened. Then he padded down the stairs to the courtyard door and opened it cautiously. The thunder was still rolling round the hills, and the rain was coming down steadily. The only windows overlooking the court were closed and shuttered.

  He went out, got into the van, and backed it up to the door. The next bit was going to be dangerous, but there was no way of avoiding it. He had to make three trips. On the first two he carried a body, slung easily over his left shoulder. On the third he carried two suitcases in his right hand, and under his left arm, a heavy wooden tea-chest, corded and nailed. There had been no need to force it open. He knew very well what was in it.

  The tea-chest went into the back of the van, on top of the bodies. Still he had not finished. He walked back to the lean-to, blessing the rain which was soaking him to the skin, the rain which was keeping all other members of the household indoors, the rain which was washing away all traces from the stones of the courtyard. From the back of the lean-to he selected two black twenty-litre petrol drums, and carried them to the van. They were wedged in place beside the tea-chest, between the thin man’s legs.

  Arturo drove out of the court, down the long drive, and on to the high-road.

  The side flaps of the driver’s cab were misty talc. The wind-screen was running with rain, with a single clear patch under the wiper. Arturo
was happy. If anyone else on the road noticed the van, they would certainly not be able to identify the driver.

  His course took him steadily uphill.

  Short of the Borgo San Lorenzo turning he left the main road, for the secondary road leading to Pratolino. A little further on he turned left again and was now on a minor road, hardly more than a farm track, which led up, in a series of zigzags, over the shoulder of the mountain, served two farmhouses, and then descended again to rejoin the secondary road.

  The going, difficult in ordinary weather, now demanded all Arturo’s skill and attention. About a kilometre further on, with the track still rising, he came to a point where he could go no further. The torrential rain of the last few hours had swollen a mountain stream, which had overflowed the path washing the outer half of it away.

  Here he stopped. On the right the ground ran down sharply, almost precipitously, to a tangle of rocks in the stream-bed, covered now with white frothing flood water. Anything sliding over the edge might tumble into the river-bed, or might crash into, and be held up by, one of the trees or rocks in the path of its descent.

  Arturo dismounted. The next moves had to be made with great care.

  First, he took out the petrol drums, which had already leaked a little in the racketing of the journey, unscrewed the caps, and emptied them, slowly and methodically, into the back of the van, covering the bodies, the suitcases, the tea-chest; soaking the seats, forming puddles on the floor. He replaced the empty cans in the back of the van, but without their tops.

  Next, he moved round to the driver’s seat, and restarted the engine. Then he dismounted, and crouching by the open door on the uphill side held down the clutch with one hand and put the car into first gear. Still keeping the clutch depressed, he opened the hand throttle until the engine was racing, then released the clutch.

  The van lurched forward on to the broken section of the path, then, its wheels spinning, slid to the right, hesitated for a moment, and toppled off the path, turning right over twice, cracking into a large rock, which held it for an instant, then toppling over this, and coming to rest just above the stream-bed.