Cape Cod caper

by Margot Arnold

  "Well, as I said, I'm off to see the Contessa in the morning," Toby said, with a great deal more confidence than he felt. "And I'll get in touch with you as soon as I can after. And, for God's sake, Penny, be careful."

  "I will, my dear," she soothed, "and thanks for the information—it will help to keep my policemen happy; they are beginning to look on me as something of a Jonah." The next morning Toby spruced himself up bright and early and, as the hour of 11 approached, fortified himself with a shot or two of local brandy, which proved to be terrible. Father Antonio appeared promptly and solemnly escorted him across the square to the peeling, closed doors of the palazzo, letting them in through the small wicket gate that was embedded in one of the larger doors.

  Through the cavernous, echoing entranceway they made their way into the courtyard, which spoke in mute eloquence of the palazzo's ruinous state; blocks of masonry and pieces of decorated cornice lay haphazardly around, with the gaunt skeletons of last year's wild flowers and weeds growing up in between them. Many of the windows that overlooked the courtyard were cracked or the glass gone entirely, and long green stains ran down the honey-colored inner walls like spreading blight from the choked and ruptured gutters and drainpipes. Father Antonio led the way through this maze of decay to a area in the back of the palazzo that looked a little less ruinous than the rest. "The palace was much damaged in the war," he apologized, "and since, I fear, there has not been the money to do anything about it. The Contessa has a suite in the garden wing at the back here." He threw open another large door on a completely empty hallway, which ran through the breadth of the wing to dusty, glass French doors at the opposite end; weak sunlight filtered through them and made faint patterns on the black-and-white tiled floor, and beyond, Toby could see the garden in riotous ruin of vegetation. A grand marble stairway reared itself upward to the shadows, and on the walls could be seen faint marks where large pictures had long since been removed.

  The priest opened a gilded door to the left and called out, "Contessa, it is I with the milord inglcse. May we come in?" A faint voice answered and he beckoned Toby to enter.

  They went into a large, cluttered room full of patched or broken antique furniture. The Contessa was seated in a high-backed armchair, one of the few seemingly intact articles of furniture in the place; there was a small table at her side with a dusty carafe of wine and two glasses on it.

  She did not rise to greet them, but extended a hand to Toby as he was led up and introduced by Father Antonio. Feeling acutely uncomfortable, he took the hand and bowed over it stiffly. A pair of brilliant dark eyes swept up at him out of a ravaged face. Though the Contessa had applied a lot of makeup there was no disguising the grayish tone of the skin or the lines that pain and dissipation had left upon it. Even the jet-black hair was streaked with white, which Toby knew to be unusual for an Italian. She waved him graciously to a seat and he perched his lanky frame gingerly on a frail-looking love seat "I hope you will take a glass of wine with me. Sir Tobias, to celebrate your visit," she murmured in the sweet melodious Italian which has been the hallmark of the Imolese since the time of Dante. Toby, who was no slouch when it came to honeyed accents, rumbled an equally melodious assent. "You may serve us. Padre, and then you may leave us—I would like to be alone with Sir Tobias," she ordered. The two men stared at her in surprise, Toby frankly aghast. The priest meekly did as he was bidden and then almost backed out of the room, muttering vague farewells.

  The dark eyes sparkled at Toby coquettishly over the rim of her glass as she sipped. "So we are alone, Sir Toby," she purred. "Now we can really talk."

  "Er, yes," Toby stammered.

  "I am told you are here on business." Her tone became crisper and harder. "Did he send you?"

  "He? Who?"

  "Why the great Rinaldo Dimola, of course—who else?" There was venom in her voice.

  "No he didn't"—Toby met her hard bold stare with innocent round blue eyes—"but I gather you do not care for him very much."

  "I hate him and everything about him," she hissed, "for what he has done to me and mine."

  "For marrying your sister, do you mean?" Toby said with continued innocence.

  She was silent for a moment and her eyes narrowed. "So you know about that."

  "Yes. I also know he was here two years ago. You saw him then, didn't you?"

  "If you are not from him or his brood, how do you know so much about him and his movements?" Her tone was suspicious.

  "I am investigating for a friend." Toby was treading very carefully. "Business connected with a friend of hers which she feels has its roots in the visit Dimola paid here two years ago."

  "So you are an investigator. How odd!" It was almost a sneer, but again the coquettish note crept into her voice. "Perhaps then you could investigate something for me." Her tone sharpened and there was both fear and hope in it. "This friend of yours is not by any chance a friend of Lorenzo's?"

  "Lorenzo?" Toby was puzzled.

  She made a little impatient gesture with her hand. "Lorenzo—my son."

  "Oh. I had understood he was, er, called Lorenzetto." She gestured again. "Oh, that is what the villagers have always called him, to distinguish him from my Lorenzo, my husband." The dark eyes challenged.

  "Ah, I see, from his father," Toby said primly. "No, my friend knows nothing of him."

  She said nothing but stared unblinkingly at him. "As I said," he went on, "I am deeply involved with my friend's business, but if there is anything I can do for you in connection with your son I should be happy to try, particularly if you can give me any assistance on Dimola's visit here. Rinaldo did come to the palazzo, didn't he?"

  "Oh, yes, he was here"—she gave a scornful laugh— "the great successful millionaire was here. How he must have enjoyed seeing me like this!" She made an angry gesture at the ruin around her. "And that fool of a maid I had then letting him in " She checked herself suddenly, as if she had said too much.

  "And what is the nature of your problem with Lorenzo?" Toby asked patiently.

  "Always so thoughtless—the wretched boy!" She tried to achieve lightness but failed miserably. "Not a line from him in months. I don't know where he's got to!"

  "So you'd like me to try and find him? I could certainly try. Do you have a recent picture of him? I would need that." Toby tried not to sound eager. "Or identifying marks —had he any broken bones or anything distinctive?"

  Again she stared at him searchingly. "Why do you ask that? Do you swear on your honor you are not working for Rinaldo?"

  "I do indeed. I have never encountered either him or his family in any way, nor probably will I ever," Toby assured her.

  Her eyes still fixed on his, her hand went toward a small drawer in the table by her side; she opened it and withdrew a picture in a tarnished silver frame. Silently she offered it to Toby. The somber-faced young man in it was short and of but medium build, but there was no mistaking the face —it was the face of Rinaldo Dimola. Toby said nothing, but withdrew the teleprinted photo from his inside pocket and put the picture of the young soldier by the side of Lorenzo's and handed them to her. "So that was it?" he said. "And Rinaldo never knew until he came back here two years ago?"

  "No, damn him to hell!" There was a savage glee about her. "My one, my only, triumph over him —and he never would have known about Lorenzo if that fool of a maid had not let him in here before I got to this." She clutched the framed photo to her breast. "Not that it did him much good—I saw to that! I wouldn't tell him where Lorenzo was, only that he had gone away and that he would never see his son—never!"

  Suddenly her face crumpled and she cried out, "Oh, for God's sake help me! Get Lorenzo back! I don't know how Rinaldo did it, but somehow the demon must have found him. I don't see how, he wasn't even using his own name " She broke off and a great sob welled up, shaking the emaciated frame. "But I'm sure Rinaldo did find him. When Lorenzo was here eight months ago he was up to something—oh, how well I know it!—a demon just like his father!
And not a word from him since." She rose, and to Toby's horror came over to him and sank to her knees, grasping at his hands with her own feverish ones. "I'm not such a fool as they think I am. I know I haven't long to live. Afterwards Rinaldo can have him—that's what Lorenzo will be after, the money, the power, because there is no love in him, none—they'll deserve one another. But get him back for me now! He's all I have, all I've ever had. It will only be for a little while. But get Rinaldo to let me have him back, if there is any mercy at all in his heart..."

  Toby, although he was overwhelmed with pity for her, was reduced to stuttering embarrassment. "Contessa, you must realize that Rinaldo has no claim on him, or he on Rinaldo. He is yours." He was as certain now as Penny was that Lorenzo was long past any human claims on him, but he knew this was no time to break such news to the dying woman before him; now was the time for comfort.

  She drew back from him and a mocking light came into her eyes. She got up and resumed her seat in the high-backed chair. "So you don't understand," she said dully, "any more than anyone else has ever understood. How could they since it is something only Rinaldo and I would and could know. Lorenzo is Rinaldo's son, but he isn't mine—he is Christiana's."

  "Good God!" said Toby.

  Penny returned from an early morning conference with the police in a somewhat dazed state, stemming from all the detailed reports they had hurled at her. She felt disinclined for some reason to go back to the Langley cottage, and instead made her way through the pale spring sunshine to the porch of the Grange house, where her friend and fellow body finder, the orange cat, was awaiting her. She fed him absentmindedly and then went to sit on the steps of the front porch in the sun to try and sort things out.

  No dramatic discovery had been made. The police had interviewed all the servants and all the Dimolas about their whereabouts at the time of Wandas murder; most of the servants had solid alibis, being in one another's sight at some time in the vital period, but the stories of the Dimolas were more nebulous and, while seemingly perfectly innocent and imderstandable, were almost impossible to prove or disprove. One of them was lying—but which?

  Annette, who since her husband's illness had occupied a separate room, had, according to her, slept late and had not risen until about 9 o'clock. No one had seen her before that.

  Inga had taken over from one of the servants who kept the night watch on Rinaldo at 8 o'clock and claimed she had been in the sick room the whole time. No one had seen her.

  Maria said that she and Inga had parted after breakfasting together and that she had gone for a walk on the marsh alone. Again, no one had seen her.

  Steven had been late to breakfast, had stated he had risen at 7:30 and then had put in some time in his study on notes he had wanted to finish before eating breakfast. A servant had seen him coming out of his study at some time after 9, but, since the study had a sliding glass door opening on the seaward terrace, he could have entered and exited by it without anyone being the wiser.

  Alexander's account had been the most interesting. According to him, he and Wanda had got up together at 7:30. This was unusual for her, but he had thought it part of their newfound "togetherness." She had showered first, and by the time he had showered and shaved she had gone from their room. He had assumed she had breakfast in the morning room but, not finding her there, had thought she had skipped it as she often did, and after grabbing a hasty cup of coffee himself (seen by a servant) had gone up to his father's study and had worked on business papers there until the call from the police had arrived. A servant had seen him going into the study but could not be pinned down as to the time; Alexander claimed that it was around 8:30.

  The police were much concerned as to how Wanda and her murderer had come to the Grange house. There were no fresh tire tracks in the wet earth of the glade, no evidence that any of the Dimola cars had been used that morning. Wanda had had on walking shoes on which sand and pine needles had been found and, while the detective who did the lab examinations would not commit himself before he had examined his finds under a microscope, he had expressed the opinion that some of the sand was beach sand, so at some point Wanda had walked along a beach on her journey to her ill-fated rendezvous.

  That's something to check on. Penny thought, I must find how she came. If she did come on the sand, maybe there'll be traces of whoever followed her as well. She got up and looked around to get her bearings. It would be in the opposite direction from the bog, that was certain. She crossed over to the other side of the glade and searched around; there seemed a myriad of little footpaths leading off on that side, but the one farthest to the left, she reasoned, should be the one most nearly adjacent to the beach.

  She started along the thick carpet of pine needles, searching the ground carefully; the path kept veering to the left, and in one sandy patch she suddenly spotted something—it was the track of a bicycle wheel. With mounting excitement she traced it as the sandy patches became more frequent as she neared the beach. Rounding a comer suddenly she let out a little yelp of fright as a figure loomed on the path ahead.

  "Good morning. Dr. Spring," Officer Birnie said with a faint smile, "I see we're on the same track today," and chortled at his own joke.

  "You've followed the bicycle from the house?" she asked eagerly. "I don't see how it could have got off the isthmus the house stands on without going through the main gate."

  He jerked his head back over his shoulder. "There's a footbridge from the house over the inlet just inside the fence. I've followed the track from there, and there's a shed full of bicycles some distance from the house. The tracks go to the glade?"

  She nodded. "I thought so," he said. "Well, now we know how the murderer got there."

  "How do you know it wasn't Wanda? The murderer could have taken the bike away with him."

  He shook his head. "No, I'm pretty sure I've found where she walked on the beach away from the house and then cut back into the pines. Come, I'll show you." He led the way until they got in sight of the footbridge spanning the small tidal creek. Then he stopped and looked curiously at her. "By the way," he said, "there's something I haven't put in any report yet, but it's a bit of information which I think it would be safer for you to know. You know I said I went to Eagle Smith's at 8? Well, Carson Grange was supposed to be there to meet me. He didn't turn up until 8:30. He'd have had time, you know."

  Penny looked at him with a worried frown. "But that wouldn't make any sense in view of all the rest of it—it would have no possible motive."

  He stared out across the gray-green tumbling waters of the bay. "People can be bought, you know," he said heavily, "especially when money is no object to the buyers."

  CHAPTER 18

  She got back to the Langley cottage to find a state police car parked in front of it and a young trooper she had not seen before leaning on the hood and smoking a quiet cigarette. He dropped it hastily at the sight of her and said with some relief, "Dr. Spring? We've been looking all over for you. A Professor Glendower called us from Italy; seems he has been trying to contact you all morning with important information, and he's worried about you. Could you call him right away?"

  Penny glanced doubtfully at the cottage. She really did not want any long-distance call going through the main house exchange at this juncture, and her heart failed at the thought of trying to get through at the booth at Chase's Variety Store. "Could I make the call from your station?" she asked. "I'll gladly pay."

  "It'll mean going clean over to South Yarmouth," he said reluctantly. "Why not call from here?"

  "Young man, there is a killer up at the mansion and a listening post at the exchange there," Penny said severely. "I very much doubt whether Detective Eldredge would want me to make a call from here any more than I'd want to."

  "Oh, all right," he agreed, and drove them in gloomy silence the fair distance to the state police post in South Yarmouth. There the gods were with her and in a very short time she was connected with Toby, who was literally hanging by the phone a
t his end in a state of acute anxiety.

  "You all in one piece?" he enquired immediately, and on being assured she was he continued in an aggrieved fashion. "Well, while sniffing around after the murderer you might at least have given a thought to me. You knew I was going to see the Contessa."

  She soothed and apologized and he rumbled on excitedly about the amazing fruits of his labors. She listened in growing amazement "End-so, and-so, la-la-la," she said suddenly. "So that was what he was trying to say!"

  "What on earth are you babbling about?" Toby, halted in mid-sentence, said vexedly.

  "Rinaldo! He was trying to say 'Lorenzo,' and presumably 'Anna' or 'Christiana' too. Oh, 111 explain later! Go on!"

  Then as he got to the end of his narrative she said, "Yes, I see that clears it all up, barring one fact— why did it take Lorenzo so long to get here?"

  'T still don't know that. I'd been doing fine and then rather blew it at the end. / was upset to see her so upset, so I let slip that Rinaldo had had this stroke and was out of action. When she heard that she just went off into peals of laughter. I thought she'd never stop—it was ghastly! Talk about 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'! After that she shut up entirely. Either she didn't know or wouldn't say. But before that I had got a couple of interesting facts out of her. Number one was that Lorenzo did suffer a broken wrist falling from a horse when he was thirteen, and second, he did not always use the name of Amalfi, he sometimes used Salas, apparently the partisan leader's name, and sometimes Lucca, which indicates to me that perhaps he was mixed up in crooked business of some kind and may have a record. Anyway, this should give the police at your end something to go on. He may have had a passport under one or other of the names so they should be able to track down his port of entry. It would be between eight months ago when his mother—or rather, his aunt—last saw him and six months ago when presumably he was murdered. So that should give them a narrow time period to work with and 1 may be able to pin it down still more."