The Venetian Affair

by Helen Macinnes

  Something always goes wrong, Rosie thought as he folded up the map of Venice, gathered together the sheets of paper on the table and began tearing them to shreds. Because people were people, not to be arranged like schedules. Such as this one he held in his hand. He studied it for the last time: nothing forgotten, nothing omitted. He tore it up and burned it with the rest of the scraps of paper.

  Arnaldi had come back into the room. “They have both gone,” he told Rosie. He was still upset. He didn’t even notice the black ashes. “The young lady—I thought she left under orders. I am sorry. It was my fault.”

  “The fault is mine. I didn’t give her orders to stay with you. Don’t worry, Vincente, we’ll find her. She’ll return. Keep her purse until she comes. Right?”

  We’ll find her, he repeated to himself as he stepped out into the alley. Will we? Good God, why did this have to happen? Her mission was accomplished with the delivery of the letter. By this time, Claire and Fenner ought to have been back at the Hotel Vittoria, enjoying a nightcap in the bar. That’s the way it should have been. The Hotel Vittoria... Ballard!

  I mustn’t forget him, Rosie reminded himself. He is safe enough in Fenner’s room with the door locked; a damned sight safer and happier than Fenner will be this twisted night. If we have a minute to spare before the fireworks start, I’ll get Marco to call the tourist police, tell them to pick up Ballard and take him to their station, keep him there until I can turn up. By that time, all going well, he will be free of Fernand—but for good.

  The end of the alley was in sight. Luigi had seen him. He gave no warning signal. All was well—so far. He passed Luigi silently, gave the boy a broad wink to make him feel better, and set out on his detour to the little piazza behind Ca’ Longhi. It wasn’t far away. Marco would already be there. Jules, too, perhaps. And Chris, with Fenner, should now be taking the water route.

  Cautiously does it, Rosie told himself, entering a long narrow street of closed shops, quiet and peaceful. Abandoning all worries, all thoughts, his mind only responded to each second, commanded only his ears and eyes.

  25

  They had left Arnaldi’s shop separately, Holland walking ahead, Fenner following at a little distance. Holland was leading him away from the direction of Ca’ Longhi, Fenner realised, but there was nothing he could do about it except hope that there was safety in this madness. They were almost back at the Piazza San Marco before Holland cut down toward the Grand Canal and reached a considerable cluster of gondolas. To Fenner’s further doubts and dismay, Holland stepped into the first gondola he reached. Once Fenner joined him, they were quickly away. Even so, it was a leisurely method to travel up the broad curve of water. Fenner looked at the vaporetti still bustling up and down the Grand Canal, cutting through its dark ripples with a steady, soft-sounding swish. He said nothing, just set his mouth more grimly. Holland was the expert, but damn his eyes all the same.

  Holland guessed his thought. “Festina lente,” he said quietly. “We can talk here without being noticed.” He looked at one of the water-buses, all lit up like a Christmas tree, passengers clearly visible inside its glass windows. “I thought you ought, first of all, to look at Ca’ Longhi from its canal side. Here is the setup briefly.” He began a clear, concise description of its immediate surroundings and entrances. And then he gave an exact account of its interior.

  “How did you get a man inside?” Fenner asked quickly. If one man had got in, he could.

  “We didn’t. The place is a citadel. Marco got the information.”

  “But how?” Fenner insisted.

  “Through the servants who were discharged. Lenoir brought his own.” Holland was scanning the right bank of the canal, studying the façades of the houses which formed a continuous row with occasionally a walled garden, a small indented piazza, the mouth of a rio, or a landing stage to break the line of buildings. The sparkling edge of hotels had been left behind. The houses were more sombrely lit, some almost in darkness except for the steady glow of lanterns at their water-washed front steps.

  “They are all so different, and yet so—” Not alike, certainly. A mixture of centuries, Holland thought. Perhaps it was their variety of detail that made it so easy to pass over one that was less distinguished, to travel beyond it. Suddenly, he nodded. “There it is!” He signalled to their gondolier to draw toward the left bank of the canal, opposite Ca’ Longhi.

  “Which?” Fenner asked. Over there, he could see a narrow waterway joining the Grand Canal, with large houses rising on both corners. Gothic, or Renaissance with nineteenth-century restoration? His eyes, accustomed to the dark half-lights of the canal, picked out the house that seemed more closed than the others. Not a light from any window, no lamp on its solid wall. “That one,” he said softly. “Three floors above the water line, four attic windows jutting up from its roof. No front entrance.”

  Holland nodded. So he did listen to me, he thought in relief. He called back to the gondolier, “Slowly, slowly! We want to admire the architecture.”

  “Venice is the place for architects,” the man shouted back. “They have not lived until they see Venice.”

  “How true. Perhaps we could stop for two minutes? Let us see the view?”

  The gondolier swung them expertly out of the way of traffic, brought them close to the left bank and rested in the dark shadow of a large palace-museum.

  “Keep looking at the whole sweep of the canal,” Holland advised Fenner, “not just at one house. That’s the idea. And let’s go over the interior of Ca’ Longhi again. First the cellar—” He paused, waiting.

  “Partially submerged, not in use any more. Above that, the first floor, with three entrances: one, at the side, on that small canal over there; one at the back, on a narrow street; one a service entrance, near a small piazza linked to the canal by the narrow street. The hall is circular, with pillars...” His voice went on with the quiet recitation, floor by floor, particular by particular, and ended with “—Then the attic. Four small rooms, once occupied by servants, now used as storerooms.”

  Yes, he had listened, thought Holland. He is ready and fit to go along with us: his mind is working, his emotions are in control.

  “How many men have they got?” Fenner asked. He was studying the façade of Ca’ Longhi, its second-floor balconies, its upper-floor decorations. If I could get in—by one of those windows—

  “Two men servants—one is now a colonel in Intelligence,” and, remembered Holland, well trained by the old MVD. But he didn’t mention that. “Kalganov slipped him in.”

  “He doesn’t even trust Lenoir?”

  “He trusts nobody. Then there is the cook—a woman, but she could be counted as a man—a Kalganov agent, just to keep an eye on the colonel, no doubt. And there are the two men who abducted Claire. And there is Lenoir’s visitor, unless he has left. And Lenoir himself. That makes possibly seven, certainly six, inside the house. Outside, they have two on patrol—one near the side canal, one on the small square. We’ve spotted them. We’ll deal with them before we make our first move. Seen enough?”

  “Almost.” Fenner’s eyes were studying the roof of the adjacent house. “The next house—its back overlooks the little piazza? And do some of the houses on that square run up to it? The roofs are continuous?”

  “Yes”—Holland was watching him curiously—“with some ups and downs, of course.”

  “But no gaps? That house, adjoining Ca’ Longhi, really forms one side of the little square?”

  “Bill,” Holland said worriedly, “this isn’t in our plans. Better stick to—”

  “It could be done,” Fenner said softly. From some house top on that small piazza, he could reach Ca’ Longhi’s neighbour. It could be done. The roofs had varied pitches, but all of them were sloped gently. The tiles would be fluted. There were wide chimneys, decorated gutters to help block any fall. “There is some kind of a balcony in front of the attic windows, isn’t there?”

  “Only a ledge—”

 
“But with a fairly high balustrade. It’s safe enough, Chris.”

  “Not so easy. It looks simpler from here—”

  “The moon’s just right.” A quarter-moon, its light not too strong, but sufficient. Clouds were small, dimming the moon only briefly. Above the vagrant clouds, the sky was dark and clear with bright stars.

  “Have you a head for heights?”

  “I’ll manage. I’ve done some rock-climbing.”

  Damn, thought Holland, and searched for another reason to dissuade Fenner. “We can’t really have anyone clambering around the front of that roof, being seen from the Grand Canal. Can we? And we certainly are not going to have anyone skittering over the roof, raising any alarms in that house to give them warning of trouble to come. The only alarm is the big one. Throw them completely off balance. Without that—”

  “Calm down. I won’t raise any alarm. I’ll get up there and wait. Until half-past eleven. That’s the zero hour, isn’t it? Then I’ll go in. Okay?”

  “You’ll have to clear it with Marco. He’s in charge of this operation.” Holland was both annoyed and sympathetic. And in a way, he even liked the idea. If it didn’t raise any bloody alarm, he thought. He tried again. “Why aim for the attic? There are plenty of closed rooms in that house. The ones on the ground floor—” He caught himself in time. If Lenoir had time to eliminate evidence, a body could be dropped very simply into the dark waters of the canal, only six feet below those ground-floor windows. “They may be holding Claire down there. It’s logical.”

  “If they expected attack, which they don’t,” Fenner said. His eyes were still studying the roofs, as if he were already choosing his route across them.

  Holland called softly to the gondolier, who had been back-oaring gently to keep the gondola close to the museum’s wall without scraping against it, “Take us across to the other side. No, not that rio opposite! Take us to the one just above it.” And we can walk from there in one minute to that small piazza, Holland thought as he glanced at his watch. They were in good time: not too early, not late. To Fenner, he said gloomily, “You’ll end up in the canal, old boy. One glissade, and I’ll have to fish you out. Miss all the fun.”

  Fenner didn’t answer. He was staring up at the attic windows. “Thought I saw a light. Just a thin sliver—a crack in the shutters.”

  Holland looked quickly. There was nothing to see.

  Their gondola was slowing up to avoid the rush of water from a vaporetto on its quick way up the canal. Sharply, there sounded a warning hoot from its siren. Floating down toward the water-bus, in the middle of the canal, was an island of gay lights and music. The water-bus altered course slightly, with a last pay-attention blast on its siren, and passed the two decorated gondolas, roped together, crowded, their three-piece orchestra throbbing into O sole mio under a canopy of coloured lights and flowers. See Venice by night. Indeed, yes. Fenner watched the shimmering drift of the linked gondolas, listened to the music as it floated along, looked back at the attic window. I’m going in that way, he decided. How strong are the shutters?

  “Bellissimo!” their gondolier shouted to encourage everyone’s enjoyment, and began his rhythmical sway once more on the flat-topped stern, judging the backwash of the vaporetto skilfully, rowing his way in earnest now across the canal.

  “Bellissimo!” Holland agreed, tactfully. He started as Fenner’s arm grasped his. Fenner was staring up at the roof of Ca’ Longhi.

  Holland looked, too. He saw a thin edge of light from the second attic window. Then it vanished.

  “Watch!” Fenner told him.

  The light came on again. It went off. On again. Off. On.

  Their gondola was drawing closer to the bank, up canal. They could no longer see the attic window.

  That might not be Claire, Holland thought. It could be Sandra Fane. But all he said was, “That’s what I like about women. They never give up, do they?” He added, “You’ll have company on the roof. Two of Marco’s specialists.”

  Fenner looked at him swiftly.

  “Did you notice those nice big Renaissance chimneys, filled with soot? No, don’t ask how they’ll do it. Just guess. You’ll come near enough the truth.”

  They both half-smiled, fell silent.

  Had that been Claire, Holland wondered again, or Sandra? He was too old a hand at this kind of work to hope for anything: you did your best, made the most of every small advantage, and that was that.

  It was Claire, thought Bill Fenner, it was Claire.

  Claire drifted out of the black sleep of unconsciousness into blind suffocation. She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t breathe. Her hands went up to her face, pushing, pulling, and she came free of the long dark cloak that had been twisted around her.

  She was lying on a narrow bed in a square-shaped room with a light, one naked bulb dangling from the ceiling, setting her head throbbing as she looked up at its knife-sharp gleam. She looked away, to the other side of the room. It was filled with a mass of old furniture, trunks, crates. She pulled the cloak’s cocoon-like wrapping away from her thighs, freed her legs, and sat up slowly. The thin straw mattress crackled; the rickety bed creaked and trembled. From the cluttered side of this boxlike room came the scrabble and skitter of mice back into the wainscoting. If I frightened you, you frightened me, she told them silently; and rose unsteadily. Wooden floor, dusty. One door, very closed, in the centre of the wall that faced the window. A single window stoutly shuttered on the outside. And silence. Silence complete. Where was she? At Ca’ Longhi? It was only a guess: she had no way of knowing. She had seen nothing, heard nothing, since she had come down the bridge on to the quay to talk to Zorzi, waiting half-asleep in his gondola.

  The gondola had certainly been Zorzi’s. From the bridge above, she had seen about two thirds of it clearly and recognised the brightly polished dolphins that held up its black side cords, the black leather cushions with their bobbed red fringes, the red rug at the feet on the two upright armchairs. She ran down the steps and saw Zorzi stretched along the stern under the shadow of the bridge, resting gondolier-style on his back, knees raised, one leg dangling over the other, hands behind his head, hat tilted over his brow. But it wasn’t Zorzi.

  The man had a ready explanation as he rose and came forward to where she stood by the side of the gondola. Zorzi’s little boy was ill: Zorzi had asked him to take his place tonight. As she quickly searched in her purse to give the man some lire and ease the broken appointment, she heard quiet footsteps behind her. And sensed danger. She had snapped her bag shut, turned to see who this was—two men, pleasant-faced, smiling. But across the quay, in a dark doorway, were standing two other men, one looking along the lighted street, raising his hand. As a signal? Before she could scream, the gondolier behind her had struck a sharp blow against the back of her neck. She had dropped her bag as she felt the pain, the paralysis that turned the scream into a moan. And then blackness complete. And nothing more.

  Where was she?

  She walked over to the casement window. It opened inward, showing a deep recess between it and the shutters. No problem there. But the broad shutters were another matter. They were sturdy, unpainted, weathered by age. They met together tightly, as if sealed by sun and rain. And they were most definitely secured: a combination of hasp over staple was clinched by a padlock. The hasp and staple were of black iron, antique in design, massive. The padlock was new, small, made of steel. She looked at it in dismay. Then she noticed the contrast between the large staple, made for some heavy ancient lock, and the padlock’s slender link. There was a lot of room to spare there, enough to give the hasp some free play.

  She reached up, across the deep stone sill, and pulled the hasp toward her as far as the padlock would allow. This would permit the shutters—if she could force them apart—to open for at least one inch. One good inch of view. That was all she needed. She would know where this window faced—a courtyard, a canal, a street. She could scream for help. Her throbbing head might split open, b
ut she would like to scream right now. Useless, though; unless she knew there were other houses, other people near enough to hear her cries, she would only give warning to her captors that she had to be gagged and bound.

  But she couldn’t force the shutters apart. She pulled and tugged. They should open inward, obviously, judging by the depth of the stone sill. But they didn’t move. She could get no grip, no fingerhold on their closely met edge. They were jammed. Warped? Too long unopened? She stepped back, letting her tired arms rest, easing the hard pressure of the sill against her waist. She stared at the shutters helplessly. And in that moment, she felt her complete loneliness.

  Where was Bill? Was he safe? The two men in that dark doorway had made no move toward her—only signalled that the lighted street near them was clear, that no one was about to reach the bridge. Had they been sent to deal with Bill? Would they have taken him, too? Or left him there in some dark corner? Was he lying somewhere near that alley?

  Rosie, Chris, Marco, the Frenchman they called Jules—where were they? Had her handbag been found? She didn’t even know if it had fallen on the quay or been kicked into the canal in the quick scuffle. If it had been discovered, and she must believe it would be or else she’d be paralysed by helplessness, the search was on. Her optimism was qualified, though: the first search must be for Sandra Fane. Her escape was vital if Kalganov was ever to be tracked down. When Ca’ Longhi was raided (and Marco had plans all made and ready, hadn’t he? That was when she had been asked to leave them in peace while they talked, to make coffee—tactful Chris...), Lenoir would certainly be caught. But Kalganov, where was he to be found? So Rosie and Chris—they had to concentrate on Sandra, free her, protect her, get her tongue unlocked, find Kalganov before he could change his plans again, perhaps even pull a victory out of threatened defeat.