by Peter Leslie
"Mr. Kuryakin?"
The girl's voice had come from behind him. Illya swung round to see a tall, slender brunette in a tan shirt and turquoise silk trousers. She was standing in the shade of the awning over the main entrance and she was holding a scrap of paper.
"Mr. Kuryakin?" she said again. She had a cool and pleasant voice and a wide smile. "I have a message for you from Mr. Solo."
"Oh... Nothing wrong, I hope?"
"Not at all. Just an annoyance—but an exasperating one even so. Mr. Solo's car has broken down... I'm afraid our transport people must have allotted him one that was in need of a service... and since he couldn't get here in time himself, and I was up in the city anyway, he asked me to meet you instead and give you a lift to where he's staying."
"That's extremely kind," the Russian said. "Where is he, then?"
"It's not far. About 45 kilometer along the road to Milan."
"You mentioned 'our transport people'. You will forgive me, but are you connected with the ...?"
"I can't tell you here," the girl cut in. "The car's just across the road there, in the park. Let's go. It'll be cooler, anyway, once we get started." She led the way to a neat little Lancia Flavia convertible, put Illya's case and coat on the narrow back seat, and drove expertly back towards Turin.
"You were going to ask was I connected with the S.I.D.," she resumed as soon as they were clear of the airport. "The answer is in the affirmative—but I must ask you please, to be most discreet about—"
"Of course, of course. Naturally."
"I take it the situation now is that Mr. Waverly has this hologram, and Mr. Solo and you are left with the task of finding whatever it was that was used to make it?"
"You must forgive me again," Kuryakin said uncomfortably, "but I think it would be better if we left any discussion of the assignment until after I have seen Mr. Solo."
The girl glanced in the driving mirror. A white Fiat 1500 which had been heading for the airport was impatiently trying to interrupt city-bound traffic to execute a U-turn and return the way it had come. "Just as you like," she said indifferently, "but since I have been helping Mr. Solo, to backtrack on poor Leonardo's movements before he was shot, and I understand you will be helping us on the same deal, I thought it might save time if I told you what has happened so far here. And you can tell me the latest developments from your end."
"Oh, I see. I didn't realize you—er—knew quite so much about it. Miss...?"
"Eriksson," the girl said. "Lala Eriksson."
"Miss Eriksson. But if you are in fact one of us, so to speak..."
"Hold on a moment. We're just coming to the Pedaggio, the pay station at the beginning of the Autostrada. I have to stop and take a ticket."
"This is the Turin-Milan Autostrada, I presume. How far along it do we go?"
"We take the fifth exit road—between Santhia and Buronzo. Mr. Solo's staked out near the place where Leonardo got his list." Lala Eriksson flicked a glance over the tail of the open car at the vehicles behind her. There was an old Alfa Romeo, a Simca with a French registration, and then a white Fiat 1500. There was nothing to show that it was the one they had seen doing the U-turn. There were thousands of them about. Nevertheless, the girl kept one eye fairly constantly on her driving mirror during the short journey along the motor road. "It's true, what Mr. Solo told me?" she asked after a little. "It's absolutely impossible to decipher this hologram without the glass or whatever it was that Leonardo used?"
"I'm afraid so," Illya said.
"That puts quite a heavy responsibility on us, then, doesn't it? Did Mr. Waverly specify the line he wanted us to take before you left?"
Kuryakin looked sideways at her. Her profile was lifted slightly and there was a smile playing around her lips. A lock of hair rose and fell irregularly as the air streamed over the windshield and fluttered the curls at the nape of her neck. "He doesn't work that way," he said. "I should have thought Napoleon would have told you."
"Mr. Solo has told me many things," Lala Eriksson said evasively. "But remember, he doesn't even know who it was that... snatched him, do you say? Have you made any progress on that in New York?"
"Not much. A little, perhaps. Trevitt—that's the policeman who is working with us on that end of the assignment—told me before I left that they had some hopes of getting a lead from the kidnap car."
"They hadn't materialized by the time you left, though?"
"Not firmly, no. They thought they might be able to trace the driver."
"Mr. Solo thinks it was some organization... a rival to Thrush, perhaps... which was responsible. Is that what you think?"
The Russian was noncommittal. "Maybe."
They had been driving at between 140 and 150 kph. Now the girl slowed imperceptibly until the Lancia was cruising at only 110. The white Fiat, which had been half a kilometer or more behind them all the way, did not for some reason catch them up, although the average speed of the main traffic stream was 15 or 20 kph faster than they were going. After a few minutes, Lala Eriksson speeded up again and soon they were repassing cars which had recently overtaken them. This time, however, the Fiat seemed to have no desire to match their speed and by the time they took the slip road leading to the pay station it was lost in the press of cars behind.
"How do you think we should start, then? Looking for this piece of glass, or whatever it is?" the girl asked conversationally as she handed her ticket to the attendant and searched her purse for the 650 lira he demanded.
"Oh... I should think Napoleon would be the best one to answer that," Kuryakin replied vaguely. "He knows the terrain, after all."
"I suppose so," Lala Eriksson said, engaging bottom gear and moving off down a country road signposted to Buronzo.
"Don't you think this pastoral kind of countryside is restful after all the usual southern dramatic stuff? You can certainly see why they're called Lombardy poplars, can't you!"
They were traversing a shallow valley with thickets of bamboo cane making a windbreak at either side of the road when Illya became aware of the noise from behind. The road was twisty and the high banks of vegetation cut off all rearward vision beyond the immediate corner, but it sounded like a car being driven to the limit in the intermediate gears. He tilted his head towards the Lancia's tail to hear better Yes! He could almost be sure that he heard the squeal of tires overriding the mechanical racket.
The girl had heard it too. She had gone rather pale. She changed down and trod hard on the accelerator, hurling the Lancia into a right-hander as though she had one lap to go and the World Championship was at stake!
Illya seized the dashboard grab-handle and hung on grimly as they slithered through a double S-bend, flashed over a bridge crossing a stream, and scraped through a closing gap between a tractor and the hedge. Another sharp bend, a climbing turn to the left, and they were screened by the bamboo once more on a short, straight stretch. The agent was staring at the girl in astonishment. Her knuckles had whitened on the polished wood rim of the wheel and she stabbed ever more frequent glances at the mirror.
The noise behind them rose to a crescendo. As Kuryakin swung round in his seat, the white Fiat sailed into view round the last corner, its front wheels scrabbling for purchase on the dusty road. The car lurched wide, sent up a puff of dust as it clipped the grass verge, slewed back to the near side, and thundered up to the Lancia's rear.
A moment later, the saloon drew level with a crackle of exhaust and began slowly to forge ahead.
For seconds the two cars jockeyed for position on the narrow roadway. And then the Fiat began remorselessly to crowd the convertible towards the palisade of canes. The, girl swore viciously and stamped on her brakes.
Shuddering, the little Lancia lost way—and then the wheels locked, there was a scream of tortured metal as the offside front wing sheared along the Fiat's nearside quarter, and the convertible spun across the road to stall with its battered tail wedged deep in the bamboo.
Kuryakin had been thrown
against the padded facia. As he struggled to recover his breath, he was astonished to find his own raincoat thrown over his head while Lala Eriksson vaulted over the side of the car and vanished into the thicket. Spluttering, he fought his way free and was about to leap after her into the waving canes when the driver of the Fiat, which had stopped on the far side of the road, sprinted across, a Berretta automatic in his hand.
"Forget it!" he called. "Bringing her in's not so important as getting you out"
It was Napoleon Solo.
CHAPTER TEN
Finding Out The Facts
Because—in spite of his name—Leonardo had in fact been of Dutch nationality, Solo and Illya found that his murder was being handled by a special branch of the Turin police allied with the S.I.D. In the evening of the day on which Solo had rescued the Russian from a fate worse than death at the home of Carlsen and Lala Eriksson, they sat talking to a very fat and friendly member of its hierarchy.
"So you see, Commendatore," Solo said after he had explained the events leading up to their presence in the city, "exactly why it is so important to us to find out all we can about the killing of Signor Leonardo—and why we should welcome... I correct myself: why we should prostrate ourselves to receive!... all the help we can get in the matter of unravelling his final actions."
The Commendatore wore a beautiful sharkskin suit over his white shirt. He had changed every stitch he wore one hour previously. But it had been a hot day even for Torino, and he wished at all costs to avoid giving offense to these gentlemen from that hygienic paradise across the sea. He took out a large silk handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead, which was beaded with perspiration, stole a surreptitious glance below the arms of his jacket, which was not, and hoped for the tenth time that his men had not been too perfunctory in their enquiry. If only someone had said that the wretched Dutchman had been employed by this high-powered international organization....
He brushed the handkerchief across the ends of his luxuriant black moustache—which somehow seemed to give him more reason for having taken it out—and picked up a folder from his desk. He cleared his throat importantly.
"Alora, the facts of the case, gentlemen, the facts," he said, "are that Mynheer Leonardo was shot down by a marksman with a rifle. And what a marksman! He was standing by a window of the fifth floor landing on the emergency staircase of a block of flats. Behind the block is a vacant lot surrounded by board fences. And beyond the lot is the Corso Alessandro, where finds itself the post office branch in front of which he was assassinated."
"That's beyond doubt, is it—the locale?" Solo asked.
"Si, si. There are three cartridges, spent, on the floor of the landing. .303, probably, the experts tell me, fired from an English target rifle called the P14. And this checks because two bullets have enter his head, poor man, and a third have make a chip in the doorway of the post office on the Corso Alessandro."
"I suppose nobody saw him in the apartment block... on the stairs or anything?"
"But no. The block he is unfinished—that is to say he is finish, but nobody live there yet. All the flats are empty and the doors to the entrance are not yet being installed."
"I see. Anyone could have got in, in fact. What about witnesses to the shooting itself? You have many people who saw him fall?"
"Many, many people. The two ladies in the flower shop. The man and his wife who operate the tobacco kiosk. The blind seller of matches beside. The girl—Ah, signori! That girl!—who has the tie shop. The newspaper vendor. Passers-by. Many people."
"Witnesses, I suppose," Illya put in, "to the fact that he fell down and died in the street outside the post office? Presumably nobody actually heard, still less saw, the shot itself?"
"Aha!" the Commendatore was delighted. "But you are wrong, Signor Kuryakin! Wrong! There was one witness who happened to be looking towards the new block and observed the three puffs of smoke. He was confident enough, our killer, not to use smokeless powder!—and then. Just as Mynheer Leonardo fell to the sidewalk, remarked the noise of the shots. Otherwise—and I am honest with you, gentlemen!—we might still be looking for the place where the shots were fired. There are many tall buildings around, and he spun as he fell so we could not have told from which direction the shots come."
"And the witness?" Solo prompted.
"A lady. She was descending the steps of the post office as the murdered man was about to ascend. That is how we know he was entering and not leaving or just passing by."
"He was actually on the steps. I see. But he didn't have anything at all with him? No packet fell? There was no letter, no piece of paper, no cable form? Nobody could have approached the body and taken anything?"
"No to all questions," the Commendatore said.
"I guess he was going to send a cable in code, telling Waverly what he had used to make the Hologram, and he'd memorized the code," said Illya.
"I expect you're right. This piece of glass, Commendatore... no doubt you realize this is as important to us as finding out who killed our colleague?"
"Evidently."
"He must have put it somewhere, somewhere safe. Because he would have known that we must have it—that it must therefore be easily reached and available to us—and yet hidden from others."
"Clearly. Yet we found nothing. Nothing at all in his apartment, his car, his pockets—even a safe deposit box that we have traced."
"You have been unbelievably efficient," Solo said. "Naturally we do not wish to cover the same ground that your men have so painstakingly investigated. Yet—purely so that we can inhale, as it were, the atmosphere, the ambience of Leonardo's life and surroundings—we should very much like to spend a short while... a half hour at the most... in his apartment, if possible. Would it be trespassing too much on your already over-strained kindness to ask you to arrange this?"
"Perfectly. That is to say... you only have to ask," the Italian smiled.
"You are more than kind," Kuryakin said, taking his cue from Solo.
Later, as they left the building armed with a list of the names of witnesses and their addresses, the key to Leonardo's apartment, and a transcript of all the evidence so far taken, Illya said; "The last time I left a building to interrogate a witness to a crime, some kind gentlemen almost put an end to my career with a bomb as I crossed the road!"
"And just when was that?" Solo asked with a grin. "And what was the crime?"
"It was less than a week ago, Napoleon," the Russian said as they waited to cross the road. "Here... we have plenty of time before that bus comes. And the crime, you ask? It was nothing less than your own kidnapping!"
"Good Lord!" Solo said. "I had no idea my snatch was so important! You must brief me some time on the New York end of this particular comedy. I'm just a little hazy about what happened before I woke up here in Italy—"
His words were torn from his lips as Kuryakin seized his arm and literally hurled him against the side of a delivery truck that was drawn up on the far side of the street. Solo crashed against the steel panels with his shoulder, staggered, and sat down abruptly in the road. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kuryakin rolling over and over in the dust as the big closed car roared past in low gear, missing them both by inches.
"If we needed any proof that your kidnapping and my assignment are related," Illya gasped as Solo helped him to his feet, "that was it! Trying the same trick twice is a little naughty, though... even if it was with a different weapon.
They dusted each other off, politely refused offers of assistance and descriptions of the car that had nearly run them down, and pushed through the crowd of passers-by who had witnessed the affair. They were about to enter an alleyway leading to the square where Solo's car was parked when a girl stepped out of a recessed doorway and blocked their path.
"You were quite right not to waste time with witnesses," she said. "The number plate was undoubtedly false—and there are a very large number of big secondhand American cars of that type in Torino."
Solo looked at her. It was an agreeable task. There was a burnt-orange shantung dress, with a taut, full figure underneath it; black patent shoes with square toes and block heels; a matching handbag and white kid gloves. From the wide-set collar of the dress, the girl's shoulders and neck emerged flower-like to support a head reminiscent of a dark and slightly petulant Madonna. "I'm sorry," he said, smiling, "and I wish I had reason to mean this another way... but I'm afraid you have the advantage of me!"
"Of us," Illya Kuryakin corrected.
In her turn, the girl smiled. There was a great deal of make-up on her eyes, lovingly applied; none at all on her mouth or on the flawless planes of her cheeks. "A branch of the Defense Department labelled S.I.D.," she explained in a low voice.
Solo looked up at her from under his brows. "I find it goes against the grain to question a lady," he said, "and I can hardly ask you to produce secret credentials in the street. But nevertheless... "
The girl laid a gloved hand on his arm. "Understood, Signor Solo; but perhaps I can set your fears at rest without an exchange of papers!.... After my colleague Rossi was delegated to furnish you, yesterday, with clothes, papers, money, a Berretta and a Giulietta—the 1300 ex. decapolable one—I was instructed to keep what my chief calls a 'benevolent watching' brief on you! I have since then observed the following:
"You are staying at the Hotel Europa on the Via Pascal. Last night you retired early after eating in the hotel. You drove out to see Colonel Rinaldi this morning. While you were at the research station, somebody tampered with the braking system of your car and you had an accident on the way back to the Route 24, leading to Susa. The car was spoiled, but you were fortunately not."
"Thank you very much," Solo said drily. "I take it your brief doesn't extend to issuing warnings or lending a hand?"
"Ah, you mock me! But I am watching with binoculars from the other side of the valley. There is a bergerie there and I am inside it. But there was nothing I could do at the time So. You climb back up to the Colonel and you borrow a Fiat 1500 from him—one that has been slightly gonfie, as the French say, which is to say in English, converted. She is very fast, but you are still too late to meet your friend here at the airport.
