North From Rome

by Helen Macinnes

  One of the greatest charms of Rome is the fact that it is still a living city—not just a collection of office buildings, business headquarters, and stores which all close down at night, leaving bleak lights in their windows for cleaners and watchmen. There, the streets were not suddenly emptied after the working day ends, to let the tourists wander around like dispirited ghosts searching through a graveyard. There, the people not only work but live. Round the corner from the main streets are always the little streets and little squares, with apartments and flats and rooms and houses. There are trees, and flowers, and gardens surrounding great villas, the green touch to keep a city from turning into a suffocating blanket of stone and plaster.

  Now, as Joe swung away from the noise and light, the car turned into a street where most people had already gone to bed. They abandoned the car there, leaving it beside others equally nondescript. For a moment, Lammiter had the impulse to run, to get to a telephone. But he wasn’t sure where he was, or in which direction to run, and a running man would attract attention. Besides, Joe’s quick eyes were expecting a little trouble. He nodded, as if congratulating Lammiter on his wisdom, as the American waited for him while he locked the car. Then, at a brisk pace, they cut through a small square, walked across a busy intersection where a large movie house was still open, and entered a long street of high-walled gardens surrounding large villas. There was little stirring, a few pedestrians, an occasional car. The noise of the city’s late pleasure traffic became a distant background to the peace of the night. It seemed warmer here, as if the trees and the flowers had trapped the hot sun and still fondled it in the moonlight. The air was heavy with the fragrance of jasmine and gardenias.

  They passed two villas, standing far back from the street, dark and mysterious in their nest of trees. (They looked quite empty, as though the owners had left for their summer places among the hill towns.) As they approached the third garden, Joe pulled a ring heavy with keys from his pocket. Ahead was the entrance to this villa, an enormous double gate of elaborately wrought iron, set into high stone walls, a polished brass bell at one side and a shield with a coat of arms above. They were passing the gates. Joe glanced into the gardens. He swore softly and his pace increased. Lammiter glanced, too.

  In that brief moment he saw a gatehouse, dark and empty, and then a villa, standing well back from the street, commanding a circular driveway. Its rooms were lighted, its handsome portico a blaze of hard brilliance. And he saw, too, the coat of arms over the gate, a wolf’s head quartered with three beehives. Wasn’t that the same coat of arms he had glimpsed in miniature today on the door of the princess’s car?

  Beyond the main entrance lay a small narrow gate, chained and padlocked, partly overgrown by a tangle of leaves and branches climbing along the wall. But someone had oiled the padlock and the hinges of this unused gate, for Joe unlocked it easily and swung it open soundlessly. Quickly, with a last glance along the quiet street, he pulled Lammiter inside the villa’s garden. Carefully, he closed the gate and secured it once more. They were standing in a stable yard at the gatehouse. The building, Lammiter now saw, was a garage, politely turning its honest utilitarian face towards the yards away from the painted elegance of the villa. (Once it had been a stable and coach house, for he passed a disused horse trough and pump as he followed Joe across the paved yard.)

  Joe unlocked a panel of the garage door soundlessly, swung it open a few feet, and beckoned him in. He stood in complete darkness as the door was closed. He could hear Joe fumbling against a wall. A click, and a bare light glared down at them from a high beam. In front of him stood a venerable and highly polished Lancia.

  “Quick!” Joe said, pointing to a rough flight of wooden stairs at one end of the garage. “And when you get to the top, wait. Or you’ll break a leg.”

  Lammiter left Joe at the light switch and passed three horse stalls, a heap of tyres, neatly stacked oilcans, an ancient carriage, bridles and harness hanging from hooks. Then he began climbing. At the top was a dark recess. He waited there. He had to. The light didn’t penetrate as far as that. Now Joe switched it off, and the blackness was complete again.

  The minutes seemed interminable. And then a wooden step gave a faint groan, a more solid piece of blackness stood beside him, and Joe grasped his arm. “One moment,” Joe said, edging past him, opening a narrow door. Beyond was an attic: a floor of bare boards cluttered with islands of trunks and boxes, all striped with the pale white light of stars and moon that came through the slatted shutters of the windows.

  “Quiet!” warned Joe angrily. For the pale light was deceptive: Lammiter, on his way over to the nearest window, had misjudged a shadow and stumbled against a pile of harness. There was a smell of dry leather, the feeling of grit under his feet, the sound of a bat’s steady whirr as it circled under the low rafters. He reached the window. It was, more accurately, an oblong for ventilation, tucked into the shade of the pink-tiled roof, with only the slatted shutters for covering. But the view was excellent. He could see the driveway, with the villa far to his right; slightly to his left, almost below him, were the front gates.

  “The princess goes to bed late,” he said softly. Joe had no need to tell him to keep his voice almost to a whisper. From the garden the gentle splash of water in some hidden fountain came so clearly into the attic that he needed no reminder that all noise was amplified by the stillness around him or that these ventilation windows were unglazed.

  Joe began talking, very quietly, in Italian. Lammiter swung round, almost falling over a couple of leather bags and a typewriter. He stood staring at Joe, who had not taken leave of his senses but was using all of them, in a long complicated conversation over a telephone. In this attic of ancient and abandoned possessions, the small black telephone was a strange intrusion. It had been installed in the wooden frame of the door itself, inside a panel cut in the jamb.

  Joe had been talking about his car, probably (he spoke too quickly for Lammiter to be sure) giving its location. There was something about number plates, and a change; something about watching a garage. And then Joe began talking about Lammiter, for he looked across at the American for a quick moment and then dropped into a dialect. Sicilian possibly, which was completely unintelligible. This part was brief. Very unflattering, Lammiter thought with a smile. It was the first smile he had felt like giving for a long time. A telephone was a great help to morale.

  Joe hooked back the receiver into the inside of the panel and swung it shut.

  “My turn,” Lammiter said.

  “I must wait for a call.”

  “I must make one! Or shall I start heaving a few trunks around and give an Apache scream? That’s worse than a rebel yell. I’ve all kinds of sound effects ready to use.”

  “I believe you would,” Joe said. But he was almost smiling, and he swung the panel open again. So Lammiter at least had been declared friendly. He stepped carefully over the typewriter case, looked down and exclaimed, “Hey, that’s mine!” but kept on moving as quickly as possible to the telephone. Joe might change his mind.

  “I told you they’d be safe,” said Joe. “You should trust me more.”

  “I trust as much as I’m trusted.” Lammiter reached in his pocket. “I need some light,” he said angrily, trying to make out Camden’s writing. Was that an eight or a three? He felt for a match.

  “Shield it,” came Joe’s quick warning.

  Lammiter obeyed, put through the number, and waited. “I gather you aren’t supposed to be here.”

  “Only when I’m working on the Lancia. I lock up, hand the key in at the house, get the gates locked behind me. There was a burglary at the villa last year, so now everything is locked and—”

  “Sh!” Lammiter said. It was an American voice speaking at the other end of the line. “Camden, please. Bill Lammiter speaking.” Joe had moved across to the ventilation slats. He seemed to be watching the villa, but he was listening. Lammiter was sure of that.

  “Oh, yes,” the voice said as if
that was no surprise.

  “There’s been trouble tonight. Can I reach Camden himself?”

  “Just a moment. Here is where he can be reached meanwhile.” A number, vaguely familiar, was rattled off. “Got it?” It was repeated. It was Eleanor Halley’s number.

  “That’s enough!” Joe’s urgent whisper came across the still attic. But Lammiter had already got the number. “Shut up!” he said, to silence Joe’s steady stream of fine Sicilian curses: “Bunny? There’s bad news.”

  “So I’ve just heard.” Camden’s matter-of-fact voice was a real slice of comfort. “It’s breaking fast. Must be more of an emergency than we guessed.” He paused. Then he said, “There’s trouble here, too, Bill.”

  “Something has happened to—” He couldn’t finish. He hadn’t expected that news. And he hadn’t expected the news to hit him this way, either.

  “Take it easy. She isn’t here.”

  “Isn’t there?” he asked blankly. And then, savagely, “Where the hell is she?”

  “Zitty!” Joe warned from the window. “Sh!”

  “Take it easy, Bill,” Camden was saying. “She left a note for the maid. She says she’ll be back on Monday.”

  “Monday—” Today was Thursday... No—Friday, now. “And where has she gone?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “Did she take any clothes—any—”

  “It’s difficult to judge. The bedroom’s in a state of eruption.”

  “She was packing. Going home tomorrow. Look, Bunny, stay there. I’ll be right around.”

  “You stay here!” said Joe, looking angrily over his shoulder.

  “No, don’t come around,” Camden’s voice said. “That gains nothing. The case is in good hands.”

  “What happened? For God’s sake, Bunny, tell me what’s been going on?”

  “I got in touch with that Englishman I mentioned. He was definitely interested. He wanted to talk to Miss Halley. We telephoned. No answer. I thought we’d better go round to her place and see her. We kept knocking at her door. No answer. So I telephoned the police, they wakened the porter downstairs, and we all got in. There was a lot of packing interrupted and dirty dishes. But no girl. No photographs, either.”

  “But—”

  “Have you still got that snapshot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Where are you?”

  “In a loft, guarded by a watchdog called Giuseppe Rocco.” There was a quick rush of light footsteps behind Lammiter.

  “Giuseppe Rocco?” Camden’s voice repeated. Joe’s hand forced its way between the receiver and Lammiter’s mouth. It was not a happy gesture. Lammiter was never in a mood to be gagged, least of all now. He kicked sideways and aimed the hardest blow he could manage with his free hand at Joe’s chin. “Don’t do that, don’t you ever do that to me!” he said in sudden fury as Joe’s grip was forced off his lips.

  Joe’s hand was in his pocket, his balance regained, his knees slightly bent, crouched, ready. His lips were narrowed with an anger that matched Lammiter’s.

  “What’s going on there?” Bunny’s voice was suddenly alarmed. “Wait—put Rocco on the phone—here’s a friend of his—Bill, put Rocco on the phone!”

  “For you,” Lammiter said, holding out the receiver. Joe straightened his body slowly. His right hand was still in his pocket. His eyes were wary and never left Lammiter, but he took the receiver.

  Lammiter sat down on a trunk. There was sweat on his brow. He took out his handkerchief, and inside it he felt the small negative and its print. There was still one piece of identification left about Evans, still one photograph. But Eleanor could identify the man even better. Eleanor... Now a cold sweat broke over his brow.

  Whoever was talking to Joe had authority, information, and—finally—instructions to give. Whatever he was saying had a noticeable effect: Joe’s face was astonished, but it was no longer troubled. He even smiled and nodded encouragingly over to Lammiter. Now, thought Lammiter wryly, all I have to worry about is Eleanor.

  He waited impatiently for the first sign of the end of Joe’s instructions. But Joe gave his own brief report, in his very best Italian, before the call seemed near an end. Probably he had been on the telephone no more than five minutes all told, but to Lammiter they seemed an hour. He signalled as Joe was giving his final “Si, si, capo,” and held out his hand.

  “The American wants to speak with his friend,” Joe said into the phone and handed it amicably over to Lammiter. Then he walked back to the window.

  Camden’s voice said, “I think that’s settled a lot of things.”

  “Where can I give you that snapshot?”

  “Rocco has all the instructions.”

  “But, look—”

  “This isn’t our country, fellow,” Camden said gently. “Let Bevilacqua and his boys handle this.”

  “And we do nothing?”

  “Oh, we’ll help when and if needed.”

  “Bunny—” he tried to talk calmly, “any guesses about Eleanor? Any evidence—any—”

  “Not yet. But Bevilacqua is definitely interested. Brewster’s murder makes all these problems very much his business.”

  “Where’s Pirotta?”

  “Seems to have left town.”

  “When?”

  “I’m told he left his house around nine-thirty, with luggage. He was driving. Just before ten o’clock his car was seen outside Rome, on the Via Flaminia, heading north. Looks as if he’s the advance guard for Perugia.”

  Lammiter didn’t speak. Just before ten o’clock he had been saying goodbye to Eleanor.

  “Take it easy, Bill,” Camden’s calm voice said once more. “We’ll get all these bastards, every God-damned one of them. See you tomorrow. Follow instructions.” He hung up.

  Lammiter swore and tried to recall the number. Joe, at the window again, said quietly, “Basta, basta! Finish! Stop!” He beckoned urgently.

  Lammiter took a deep breath, a slow deep breath. He hung the telephone receiver on its cradle, and closed the panel back into place. Slowly, he went over to the window. He felt suddenly tired, tired and defeated. Joe, on the contrary, was a man full of restored confidence, a man who looked as if he were sure of the road he was following. Lammiter asked bitterly, “How about that phone call you were expecting?”

  “Oh, forget it,” Joe said, friendly now and smiling, too. So it had been Bevilacqua whom Joe had wanted to contact. Lammiter’s wishful guessing had been right, after all, but that fact gave him no comfort at the moment. “How good is Bevilacqua?” he asked. Good enough to find Eleanor long before three days were over?

  “Look, will you? Look!” said Joe. Lammiter looked.

  In front of the villa, slowly descending its steps, was a man dressed in a dinner jacket. Beside him, a white scarf over her shoulders, was the princess. Their voices carried over the garden in the still air, but they were still too far away to be clearly understood. They were speaking in English, the man protesting politely “...no need...” The princess was equally polite, “... no trouble at all.” An elderly woman, short and fat, dressed in unrelieved black, came hurrying after them with a cloak for the princess. Then they began walking towards the gate, the woman in black keeping a discreet distance behind her mistress and the departing visitor. The voices became clearer. And now, too, Lammiter could recognise Bertrand Whitelaw. The Englishman was no longer quite so amused or amusing as he had been yesterday at Doney’s. He even looked uncomfortable, ill at ease. He was trying to explain his late visit, and a man who makes excuses is vulnerable.

  The princess, of course, was enjoying herself. “It’s always delightful to see you, Bertrand. Even at midnight.” She had lost little of her incisive charm. “Now don’t apologise again. I like to walk by moonlight. It’s so good for one’s memories. At my age, Bertrand, that is what I live on.”

  “Principessa—” He glanced back at the maid and hesitated.

  “Maria and I have been together for fifty-four years. Nothi
ng surprises her. Besides, most conveniently, she knows not one word of English. You were saying—?”

  “Principessa—where is Luigi? I’ve been trying to find him, but he has left Rome.”

  Lammiter, at the mention of Pirotta’s name, stopped watching the scene with a casual eye. He was really listening now.

  “Ah!” the princess said with drama to match the moonlit garden. “So you came to ask about Luigi, and all the time I was flattering myself that you were worried about me.”

  “But I was. When you didn’t appear at Sylvia’s dinner tonight—”

  “Oh, I was suddenly tired of enormous dinner parties. And of Sylvia. She is so correct. How did she like my telegram?”

  “She didn’t read it to us.”

  “How very disappointing! Of course, telegrams aren’t the politest forms of refusal. Don’t you want to know what I said?”

  “Of course,” Whitelaw said patiently.

  “Impossible to be with you. Lies will follow.”

  “It sounds much better in its original French.”

  “Bertrand, you know everything! Yes, I suppose it does. But I’ve always wanted to use it. The French have such a knack for the cynical phrase. Don’t they?”

  At the window above, Lammiter shook his head. The princess had such a knack for confusing an issue. Not much was left, now, of Whitelaw’s simple question about Luigi Pirotta.

  But Whitelaw had not given up altogether. “I heard tonight that there seems to have been some kind of trouble—between Luigi and Miss Halley.”

  “Trouble? Oh, he and his little American have decided not to get married. Young people are so changeable.”

  “I can’t understand it.”

  “Who has ever understood people in love? But I’m sure our friends at dinner did their best to find an explanation for everything. What did they say—the American has had five husbands, and Luigi likes young boys?”

  “No one was being malicious.”

  “How odd! Or perhaps they hadn’t had enough warning.”

  “Tivoli was blamed, however. It seems the trouble started there, two or three nights ago.”