“You must introduce me to your sources,” Holland said. “They sound more accurate than mine.”
“Is he all right?”
“He is all right. He escaped the second attempt on his life, too.”
“There was another one?”
“We can talk about that later.” Holland stared at his cigarette stub, let it drop into the ashtray with distaste. His thoughts had drifted on to something unpleasant. He tried to pull them away from it, said, “Now, about your message, Claire—” He was half-lost in his own thoughts again.
Claire looked astounded. She exchanged a puzzled glance with Fenner. “Yes,” she said, “I was beginning to wonder if it had fallen flat on its funny little face. There were three questions in it. We haven’t even finished with the first one. Rooms to be changed. How? That isn’t easy, without warning Comrade Wahl that we are suspicious.”
Holland said, a little sharply, “That’s your problem, old girl.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Fenner said quietly. “What was the second point in your note, Claire?” The sooner Claire’s note was dealt with, the more quickly he’d learn about Vaugiroud. There was something wrong. That, he could sense.
Claire was watching Holland curiously. “It dealt with the coat of arms on the gondola that collected Sir Felix Tarns.”
Holland was in control of his thoughts again. He even produced an unexpected smile. “You describe the coat of arms as either a crocodile rampant or a sea horse sitting on its tail, with either a thin pineapple or a fat palm tree in support.”
“Well,” Claire said, “I only had a quick glimpse. You know how gondolas float away.”
Fenner looked at her blankly. He hadn’t paid any attention to the coat of arms. He had been too busy thinking, as they stood on the Vittoria’s landing stage, what a damned silly piece of nonsense it all was, following Tarns out there.
“Crocodile and palm tree,” Holland was saying, “the most useful piece of information we’ve had today.” He seemed to enjoy the expression on Fenner’s face. He explained, with some slight amusement, “We lost Lenoir and Fane last night, after they arrived at Lido Airport. Their launch behaved very much in the way that Pietro is steering our boat at present; most erratic, very difficult to follow. They vanished somewhere in Saint Mark’s Basin; never docked at the Danieli, where we expected them to stay. And since then, there’s been a bloody flap. Not a clue where they were until”—he gave Claire a nod of approval—“your crocodile and palm tree reached us. After that it was easy, of course.”
“Of course,” said Fenner. “A crocodile and palm tree, after all.”
“It’s the coat of arms of the Longhi family, who own a retiring little palazzo known as Ca’ Longhi just off the Grand Canal,” Holland clarified. “It was leased for the summer—the Longhi family is down to one survivor and none of the cash it made in Near Eastern trade three centuries ago—to an American, who calls herself—” He broke off, and then murmured apologetically, “I’m afraid she went back to using your name, old boy.”
“What?”
“Yes. Mrs. William Fenner. She has almost as much impudence as Wahl. Or perhaps it was another of his comic touches. I suppose her old passport was easy to bring up to date for the agent who leased the place last May. So, crocodile and palm tree saved us a lot of time, a lot of investigation.”
“You’d have tracked down Ca’ Longhi—” Claire began. She was taking her small triumph well, Fenner thought. There hadn’t been even a flicker of an eyelash in his direction saying “See?”
“Yes,” agreed Holland. “With some co-operation from the Italians, we would have. But even with all hands on deck, Ca’ Longhi might have taken a full day’s work to uncover. Instead, we could set up a close watch on the place early this afternoon. Most rewarding. There has been a series of visitors for Fernand Lenoir since our noble Sir Felix left him at half-past two.” Holland’s voice was icily contemptuous for that one reference. He dropped Tarns there. “It seems as if the briefing session has begun at Ca’ Longhi,” he said, watching Fenner.
“Already?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t get it,” Fenner said worriedly. Sandra would deliver the letter and make her escape, tomorrow evening, well ahead of either the attempted assassination or the big lie. She had told Rosie that the crisis could be. expected by Friday. And here was Lenoir, meeting his contacts today. “I’d have thought the later Lenoir left that briefing session, the safer for them all. Or is he just preparing the ground before he starts planting the lies?”
“Frankly,” Holland said, watching Fenner with growing interest, “I don’t get it either. Unless—as you say—the ground needs a good deal of preparation. Tell me, how much do you think we can trust Sandra Fane?”
Fenner hesitated. He phrased his answer carefully. “At present—I think we can.”
“But in the long run—not at all?” Holland asked quietly. He was a sharp character, Fenner decided. The question had been only rhetorical: the unspoken agreement spared Fenner an answer. Strange, he was thinking, that Claire is the only one with whom I’ve discussed Sandra quite willingly. He looked at Claire, and Holland noticed it. (What have we here? Holland wondered: whatever it is, I don’t think I like it; nor will Rosie.) Quickly, he said, “About that third point in your message, Claire: the man in the brown suit. Not to worry. He has been noted. So have the others. We have marked them all, once they showed an interest in you.”
Fenner was amused. “So we’ve been watched by your experts, too?” To Claire, he said, “You know what we are? A couple of lambs staked out for the tigers.”
Holland almost smiled. “Cheer up, chum. You’ve been very useful. Rosie sends his thanks.”
“Is Rosie here?” Claire asked, suddenly grave.
“Arrived an hour ago.”
“But why—?”
“Rosie wants you both to play things very loose indeed. No strain. Just get through the next twenty-four hours as normally as possible. Leave the problems to us. Except the change of rooms. You’ll do that right away?”
“First thing,” Fenner assured him.
“Good. I remember, in Budapest, we had the same situation. Bloody balcony connecting several rooms. We lost a good man that way.” He glanced out through the glass panel in the cabin’s rear door, opened it, signalled to Pietro, who, if he couldn’t make high speed, had at least been having a merry time crisscrossing the lagoon’s Sunday traffic, mingling and disentangling skilfully from various groupings. of boats. “Ten more minutes and then up to the Giudecca Canal,” Holland shouted. “Drop me at San Sebastiano.”
Pietro nodded, shouted back cheerfully. Holland shut the door, pulled its curtains securely together. In fact, Fenner noted, all the windows around Holland were thoroughly screened.
“We are getting close in,” Holland said. “Keep together, you two. Don’t look at me. Look as if you were chatting only to each other. Any further problems?”
Fenner shook his head.
“Then we can talk about Vaugiroud.” He would make as good a bridge passage as any, Holland thought. His voice became quite emotionless. “Just around noon yesterday, when that bomb went off in the Café Racine, Vaugiroud’s flat was entered and searched. Rather violently. The concierge says her husband allowed a man to go upstairs to the flat. She thinks it was the same man who loitered in front of the house on Friday afternoon. Her husband has been arrested; so far, he is sticking to his story. He swears he allowed only a telephone repairman to go upstairs. Once we get Aarvan, of course, and have a little confrontation scene, the husband may decide it’s wiser to tell the truth.”
Holland pulled a folded sheet of newspaper out of a jacket pocket. He unfolded it slowly, spoke rapidly. “So, with all this attention on Vaugiroud, we expected there might be another attempt on his life. We announced he was being transferred from one hospital to another, and sent out an empty ambulance to make that journey. A truck smashed into its rear. Truck driver jumped, was caugh
t, pleaded brakes had not worked properly. Ambulance a mess.”
“I hope its driver jumped, too,” Fenner said to Claire.
“He is one of our very best jumpers,” Holland said dryly. “Here’s the newspaper story. We thought it a good idea to announce that Vaugiroud had been killed. Saves us a lot of bother in the next few days.”
“Where is he?”
“Much hidden.” Holland handed over the unfolded sheet to Fenner, and Claire changed her seat to read, too. “It’s from the early-morning edition. Rosie brought it with him. I circled the paragraph for you.”
“Vaugiroud’s friends are going to be in an uproar,” Fenner said, after he and Claire had read a brief but highly vivid account of the accident.
“For a few days,” the calm voice said. “There will be a retraction, a plea of mistaken identity, a blushing apology and general thanksgiving.”
“And what does the poor journalist do who wrote these immortal lines? Cut his throat?”
“He was overdescriptive for a man who didn’t arrive on the scene until the two bodies were taken away,” Holland said coldly. As Claire looked at him, he added, “Keep your attention on Fenner! And for bodies, read dummies.”
Claire addressed Fenner obediently. “What’s wrong?” she asked frankly. Chris was usually good company, with a string of bright remarks. He could turn any situation, however grim, into comedy. Normally, he would have taken Bill’s gruesome joke and expanded it to something really hideously funny. “Chris—” She was inexplicably, and deeply, worried.
“I circled another paragraph, too,” he said, “on the next page.”
Fenner turned over the sheet quickly. He heard Claire’s sudden gasp as she saw the ten lines of close type, headed FATAL ACCIDENT ON PARIS–ZAGREB EXPRESS. She drew back from him, her body rigid. Fenner stared at the lines. He knew, before he read them. He knew, and he didn’t want to read. But he read.
Last night, Emile Daubenton and Jean Lacordaire, cousins, both from the village of Darcey, discovered the body of a man lying beside the railway line over which the Simplon Express had passed less than one hour previously. From the contents of his pockets, the man has been identified as John McNally of New York City, travelling to Milan. It is thought that M. McNally slipped, or fell, from the express, about eleven kilometres east of Les Laumes, as it travelled at highest speed before starting the ascent through the Cöte-d’Or. M. McNally was travelling alone, and his tragic accident was unobserved.
Claire’s face had bleached white under its sun tan as she watched Fenner. At last she said, “It’s about Neill, isn’t it?” She held out her hand for the paper. She read it, her face masked; and when the reading was over she let the sheet of newspaper drop. She rose, looking at neither Fenner nor Holland, abruptly opening the small door that led to the prow of the boat.
“Let her be,” Holland’s quiet voice said, stopping Fenner as he rose, too. Claire was sitting, numbed and still, on a wooden bench, her body half-turned away from the cabin.
Fenner came back to his armchair. The two men faced each other grimly. Holland said, “We have been able to calculate the time of Neill’s death: I glanced at my watch when I saw him walking through the dining car, and the engine driver could give us the exact time the train passed eleven kilometres east of Les Laumes. It’s a lonely spot, just before the line starts climbing the Cöte-d’Or hills. If it hadn’t been for a couple of poachers taking a short cut along the rails, we’d still be searching for Neill.” He paused, frowning down at the spilling ashtray.
“When was he killed?”
“Soon after he left the dining car. Who followed him into that goods van—did you see?”
The freight car, with its opened side door, with the cold wind rushing past... “Jan Aarvan.”
“You are sure?” Holland asked quickly.
Fenner nodded. “Didn’t you recognise him?”
“From where I sat, I could only see his back. I didn’t know he was on the train. Neill had made no contact with me at all. That was our arrangement: raise no suspicion, no alarm. It seemed safer—for everyone.”
For us, Fenner thought, for Claire and me and our innocent journey. But not for Neill Carlson. “He must have warned someone that he had seen Aarvan. I noticed some plain-clothes police board the train at Dijon.”
Holland nodded. “Neill did get a message through to Rosie, just before the train pulled out of the Gare de Lyon. He told Rosie to alert the Sûreté that he would be waiting for its agents on board the train at Dijon. He could identify Aarvan for them.” Holland frowned again. “I saw them get on the train. And wondered. And could do nothing—not even identify myself.” He looked at Fenner. “Jan Aarvan didn’t know you had recognised him?”
“I think not.”
“I hope not,” Holland said softly. “Be alert, will you, Fenner? At any other time, I’d be amused by the situation. Of all the people we’ve got here in Venice, you’re the only one who could pick out Jan Aarvan in a crowd without any hesitation.” He remembered Claire’s remarks about Aarvan. Worriedly, he asked, “When did you tell Claire about Aarvan?”
“When we were well clear of the raft. I’m not such a fool as that, Holland.” He looked toward Claire. “I’m not going to leave her alone out there,” he said, and started to rise.
“Wait—what are your plans for this evening?”
“A drink at Florian’s around six-thirty. Then dinner at Quadri’s. At ten, we take a gondola ride with an old friend of Claire’s—his name is Zorzi. He parks his gondola at the bridge near your camera shop.”
“Zorzi,” Holland repeated. “I’ll let Rosie know.” He glanced out of the window. “Better bring Claire inside before we start cruising up the Giudecca. And take a look at the Soviet freighter that is docked there. She’s supposed to sail on Thursday.” Holland studied his hands. “She has been loading all day.”
“You think Sandra—” Fenner hesitated. A clever act put on for Rosie’s benefit in the Tuileries. A trick, a trap? “More lies?” he asked quietly.
“Not altogether. There must be some truth in her warning. Why else would Aarvan want to stop Neill from reaching Venice?”
Yes, there was that. But couldn’t Sandra tell the whole truth, honestly, just once in her life?
“Aarvan—” began Holland, and stopped. He was beginning to sound emotional, and that wouldn’t do, that wouldn’t do at all. We’ll get him yet, Holland thought, we’ll get him. He stared impassively ahead.
“How did Aarvan murder Neill before he threw him off the train? With a bullet in the back?”
Holland’s quiet mask slipped. He looked at Fenner. “Yes,” he said, watching the American with a new respect.
It would have to be a bullet, or a knife, in the back. Carlson hadn’t been the type to be pushed off a train, Fenner thought as he stepped through the door to reach Claire.
The motorboat was leaving the lagoon, making one last sweep around the small island of San Giorgio before it cut up the Giudecca Canal. He took Claire’s hands between his and sat down beside her. She had been crying silently, sitting so still, her face turned blindly toward the roofs of Venice. “Come,” he said gently, “back into the cabin. You’ll be frozen.” She didn’t seem to hear him. “Please, Claire,” he said very softly. At that, she looked at him, the tears ignored. When he pulled her to her feet, she didn’t resist. He steadied her with his arm firmly around her waist, and she didn’t notice. The broad waters of the Giudecca stretched before them. At its long quay, backed by antique houses, he could see the liner safely docked. And beyond it, a freighter, large, clean, efficient. And it was still loading.
He brought Claire into the cabin before they reached the freighter. Holland, making ready for his quick exit, only signed his approval. He had shredded the sheet of newspaper, and dropped it along with his cigarette stubs into the canal. His hand was on the rear door, his eyes watching the quay. “Change those rooms,” he reminded Fenner again, as his parting word.
; Fenner nodded. Whatever had happened in Budapest had really seared itself into Holland’s mind. “Does Sir Felix shoot people in the back, too?”
“He does everything short of pulling the trigger. That,” Christopher Holland said bitterly, “would be against his principles.” His eyes were still on the quay. The freighter was safely passed.
I’ll take that warning about Tarns, Fenner thought, watching the freighter, too. Claire noticed nothing. She hadn’t even heard their voices.
As the boat curved around into a small canal, Holland pulled the door open. “Goodbye,” he told them, “good luck!” He was out. “Quick as you like!” he said to Pietro as he climbed onto the broad stretch of quay. The boat backed into the Giudecca, pointed to the lagoon again, gathering the speed that delighted Pietro. Chris Holland was already out of sight.
They swept around the island of San Giorgio again, and entered the Grand Canal, slowing down for the increased traffic. Fenner looked at Claire anxiously. He couldn’t bring himself to remind her that they’d have to land in a few minutes, all smiles and general jollity, a happy couple returning from an afternoon in the sun. “There’s the Vittoria,” was all he said.
She nodded, opened her handbag, stared at a small mirror, combed her hair. Her normal colour had partly returned to give some life to her face. The pitiful bleached look had gone. She added lipstick. She looked up at him. “Will this do?” she asked bitterly.
“Very well,” he said gently. He remembered to pick up the swimsuits. Nothing else left, except his five cigarette stubs. “Ready?” he asked, and handed her out of the cabin.
“I’ll go straight to my room, do you mind?”
“No you don’t. You stay with me. I’m going to have the rooms changed immediately. We pack together. We keep together.” I can take a warning, he thought. And Chris Holland gave me several in his own quiet way.
The Venetian Affair Page 26