‘And so we can’t check on it, very good for him....’
‘Then he asked Marchetti to take his suitcase, and to wait for him in the hall of the railway station until half-past six. He had previously booked a berth by phone on the night express to Palermo. If he were to be delayed, Marchetti was asked to take Sabelli’s suitcase into the train compartment with him, before his train left from Naples to Rome.’
‘And so how did the grisly body parts end up in his own suitcase?’
‘He can offer many protests, but no explanation at all!’
‘Any clues in the suitcase?’
‘No. We found the victim’s coat and waistcoat wrapped in a corner, but unfortunately the pockets had been emptied with great care.’
‘Did you notice the blue airline label on the suitcase?’
‘No, but I can look for it, if you want. And you, Dr.Renzi? How did you fare in Palermo?’
‘Very badly, thanks. Tomorrow, very possibly, I will return to Rome.’
‘With a short stop in Naples?’
‘You know me too well, Galbiati. But for a single day only, I hope. Do you know that Signora Agliati is coming to Rome? Please, go to meet her, she’ll arrive tomorrow in the early afternoon, and I don’t think I can be there... Please try to question her immediately... saving her in the meantime from reporters’ curiosity!’
‘As you wish, sir. Don’t worry.’
‘Any news about her husband?’
‘Only that he lived in Italy until 1917, then he expatriated to Greece and founded the Italy & Greece Bank in Athens. In 1918, he became a Greek citizen....’
‘Good, and before his leaving for Greece?’
‘There’s no information about him whatsoever. Isn’t it possible that Agliati could be an alias, a name he assumed in Greece?’
‘And why would he have done such a thing?’
‘I don’t know, it’s only an impression, but his sudden leaving during the war, his immediate change of nationality... it sounds so mystifying, doesn’t it?’
‘Why not? Dear Galbiati, that’s something we have to investigate. Now, where was he staying during his last visit to Rome?’
‘At the D’Azeglio Hotel, but my investigation there yielded no results at all. He arrived at four p.m. on the eleventh and immediately ran some errands. He returned for dinner and remained in the hotel until the next morning, then departed again at half-past eight, leaving his luggage in reception with orders to send it immediately to the Port of Brindisi Marine Railway Station. He returned to the hotel at ten o’clock to settle his bill and collect the luggage shipment receipt. After, he—.’
‘Very good, Galbiati. Where is the airline bus terminal to Ostia?’
‘In Largo Tritone. The bus leaves at ten a.m.’
‘Please ask the Brindisi railway police for the luggage.’
‘Done. I asked them to send it to Boldrin, in Naples.’
‘Well done, dear Galbiati, well done! Did you follow my instructions about the crew? ’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘They will be grounded by SANA with no permission to leave?’
‘Grounded and collared as of yesterday evening, sir.’
‘Well then, I have really nothing more to ask. Goodbye, dear Galbiati.’
‘Good luck, sir.’
After the call, Renzi commented to Vallesi:
‘Galbiati is a good man, but even from him we have no news, no news at all!’
The following morning, he repeated the same depressing phrase to Vallesi. They were lunching in the railway station restaurant, after a very short visit by Renzi to Signora Antonini and her mysterious daughter.
Luigi had been introduced by an elderly maid in black-and-white into a vaguely Spanish sitting room. Vanna Ferrari entered the darkened room, clad in a violet dress, clearly cut to fit far older shoulders. Renzi immediately got to the point:
‘Signora Ferrari, you left your husband suddenly....’
Her tale was quite long and tempestuous, but luckily Renzi had a quiet ear, trained by years of experience, and he could calm and soothe her in the more heated and fierce passages. Signora Ferrari was not a wife. Her husband was quite a bad lot: jealous, violent, possessive, and ultimately unfaithful. Having had proof of his marital infidelity, she had faced his last brutal outburst of jealousy with a new confidence, during a very violent explosion of bridal resentment on the morning of the 12th. Her husband’s answer was, of course, no less violent and spiteful. She threatened to leave him for good, he defied her to do so, and she did it. The day before, she had been clad in a green-emerald evening dress and had left her pocketbook in the matching lizard-green bag. She grabbed it with a sudden total disdain for elegance and fashion and made her violent and spiteful door-slamming exit into via Tritone, where she immediately looked for a taxi, but saw instead the blue SANA bus stopped at the via Crispi corner. She thought that a flying boat would be a very swift and effective way to escape from an odious husband. Certainly, he would have searched for her everywhere, but a plane flight would have quite successfully eluded his mean and miserly imagination.
‘When I arrived at my mother’s home,’ she concluded triumphantly, ‘I found two cables from him, asking after me, and you can imagine my mother’s intervention on his behalf.’ She smiled with a sort of acrid, ironic tenderness and then sealed her scarlet lips. Luigi returned her ironic and tender smile, sure as he was that a sudden arrival of Ferrari to Palermo would very easily have the requested results.
Her mother’s moral persuasion would have no need at all to be exerted! So Luigi could return to his investigation, and to his failure.
Giorgio and Luigi were walking again on a station platform. Very unusually they were silent, having really nothing to say. They were both so baffled by the mystery that they were waiting in desperate hope of a break.
‘Are you staying in Palermo?’ asked Renzi at last.
‘I will leave at half past five this afternoon.’
Renzi had one foot on the carriage steps:
‘OK, have a nice trip and give my love to Marcella!’
7-A BODY AND TOO MANY SUITCASES
Renzi saluted Chief Inspector Boldrin warmly as he entered his bureau:
‘Here we are again, sooner than we thought!’
Boldrin lifted himself up from his chair with the usual tired exertion, and shook hands with a marked lack of enjoyment. He tried not to fall over the many items of luggage encumbering the room. Renzi thought about asking jokingly if he had put in for a transfer to a better bureau, but Boldrin’s gloomy face caused him to drop the idea.
‘Have you found the two other suitcases?’ he asked instead, more solemnly.
‘They found them the other morning on the train from Naples to Brindisi.’ He read the obvious question in Renzi’s eyes and nodded grudgingly. ‘Yes, with the usual grisly remains in them....’
‘Same victim, of course? ’
‘Of course. The train police couldn’t give us a single clue. I think that someone left the suitcases on the train at Naples station.’
‘When did it leave Naples?’
‘At 7.55 p.m.’
‘So, exactly one hour and twenty-five minutes after the Palermo express.’
‘And the suitcases were left on the train only a few minutes before departure. The Brindisi express experienced a long delay, due to minor repairs in one of the carriages, apparently.’
Renzi examined the four similar suitcases. Boldrin helped him, dividing them in three lots:
‘Look, this is the one you found on the Palermo express, and these are the two found in Brindisi.... ’
Renzi opened the Sicilian suitcase. Inside, it still had traces of sawdust and blood, but amongst all the bloodstains the famous mysterious numbers were still a remarkable sight:
8615915252241285 1519
He had not noticed them on the night of the eerie discovery, but he was reassured to see them again and smiled with a sort of satisfaction. But he
smiled with even more satisfaction when Boldrin confirmed one of his predictions:
‘I have something very odd to show you, Dr. Renzi... It’s about those wretched numbers.... ’
He picked up one of the Brindisi suitcases, opened it and pointed to the lid. Inside, near to the hinges, with ironic neatness, someone had written a series of numbers with a violet pencil:
8615915252241285 1519
Boldrin studied Renzi’s face without noticing the least trace of the highly anticipated astonishment. Instead, the other was smiling with a vague irony at the ominous finding. He examined the two Brindisi suitcases—more on the outside than on the inside, curiously enough—and, when he stood up, seemed quite satisfied with his own mysterious and secretive thoughts.
‘What does Marchetti say about the new suitcases?’
‘Nothing at all. He denies everything. He denies having bought them in Naples, he denies having bought them in Rome, he denies having taken them with him on the plane.’
Renzi quite approved of both Marchetti’s desperate defence and Boldrin’s energetic accusations:
‘Certainly he did it! It can’t be otherwise! There’s no doubt whatsoever, who else could it have...? Of course, he wasn’t alone, he couldn’t have....’
‘Of course. The Brindisi suitcases were left on the train after Marchetti had already left for Rome almost an hour earlier!’
‘So it was a premeditated, very well-organized crime, committed by two or more accomplices!’
‘And these people,’ smiled Luigi, ‘must have also had prior knowledge of the sudden stop at Naples, when the plane was grounded and ended its flight.... ’
‘... because of the mysterious banker Agliati’s disappearance!’ concluded Boldrin.
‘So the two cases are very connected... but it’s better that this connection be totally unknown to reporters and their adoring readers!’
‘I have taken very effective measures, don’t worry. Reporter interference is and will be banned and forbidden.’ But Boldrin was anxious to return to the trail, almost fearful of losing his thread on the way: ‘Don't you think that the connection between Sabelli’s murder and Agliati’s disappearance could be quite helpful?’
‘Meaning it could clear up the vanishing banker case? Possibly, but not the way, the means actually used for the trick; just its form.’
‘Its form?’
‘This disappearance can only have three possible forms: murder, suicide, or accident. If Sabelli’s killers were able to effectively predict the plane’s stop in Naples in order to plan their crime, then two of our forms are certainly excluded, because it’s impossible to forecast a suicide or an accident: an accident is, by definition, an unforeseen event, and a suicide is usually dependent on a sudden, depressing whim... human will is very variable, flighty and spontaneous, I’m afraid....’
Boldrin was immediately grasping and employing the logical terminology of his superior:
‘So there remains the third form, murder!’
‘But we never counted, possibly erroneously, a fourth hypothetical form, and it’s a quite easily predictable one, because of its same wilful inevitability: the premeditated, extemporaneous or definitive disappearance of a running subject. In plain words, his escape or flight or fugue.’
The very theatrical exposition was followed by a brief silence:
‘Do you think then that Agliati had intended to escape during the flight? ’
‘It's only a hypothesis, nothing more, dear Boldrin. I really don’t know how or why Agliati could have so effectively and mysteriously performed his vanishing act. I’ll never forgive myself if you take my random, blindfolded long shot seriously. Very possibly my hypothesis is very, very wrong. So we must leave our beautiful mystery novel rational reasoning about a very irrational and not so reasonable disappearance, and return to the more sordid and matter-of-fact reality of the Sabelli murder case. So we are, alas, passing from splendid, abstract theory to prosaic, ordinary and commonplace reality. We have duly handcuffed and jailed a very plausible if prosaic culprit who, unfortunately, has no intention whatsoever of confessing and admitting his heinous crime!’
Boldrin ignored Renzi’s ironic amusement and quietly answered:
‘That’s where things stand. There’s no doubt about his guilt, you’re perfectly correct. No doubt whatsoever.’
But Renzi asked ironically:
‘So, how we can reconstruct the murder, following the usual procedures, including means, opportunity, possible complicities, motives, alibis, and of course the extraordinary scene of the crime?’
Boldrin hesitated for a moment, then looked his boss in the eye, weighing his seriousness. After a brief hesitation, he decided to answer in a more serious and officious tone:
‘I think that the crimes were organized and perpetrated by a powerful and numerous gang, possibly ruled, aided and abetted by the Italy & Argentina bank managers. Haven’t we found a managing director’s phone number in two of the infamous suitcases? ’
Luigi nodded and Boldrin continued his train of thought more confidently: ‘Our friend Marchetti was, of course, a gang member, and poor Sabelli too, even if he was possibly only a minor legman. I’m not seeing too clearly Pagelli-Bertieri’s role, and very likely the bank teller Larini has no part at all in the whole affair, being only a casual bystander.’
He paused for a moment, but his superior made no comments or objections, so Boldrin continued:
‘And, of course, Sabelli and Marchetti were on the plane in relation to Agliati’s disappearance.... ’
‘Are you talking about a cause and effect kind of relationship? And, if so, how did it work, please?’
The poor chief inspector's thoughts were a bit shaken by the interruption, so Luigi dismissed it with a sweeping gesture of his hand:
‘Very well, we can talk about that later... Please, continue.’
‘We both agree that Agliati’s disappearance was organized by the gang which stopped the plane so very effectively in Naples. The gang predicted and very possibly provoked the stop. Other members of the gang had been previously called to Naples. But during our questioning a totally unpredictable discovery disrupted their very carefully laid plans.’
‘We found and correctly read the numbers on the suitcase’s inner lining.’
‘Correct. So we can only guess at their own trouble and dismay. Sabelli, I think, was only a minor accomplice who had no knowledge at all of the overall plan. When he eventually understood it, he became scared about it. He feared for his safety and possibly thought about a little blackmail of his own. So he fought bitterly and violently with his accomplices, who were then obliged to take the grisly measures we have seen afterwards.’
Renzi reflected in silence on the situation as Boldrin had described it.
‘Certainly we are fighting against desperate and resourceful people, no doubt about it,’ he murmured, almost to himself. ‘How do you think Sabelli was murdered?’
Boldrin seemed a bit hurt and surprised by this superfluous, embarrassing question:
‘Marchetti and the gang lured him into a trap, of course.’
Renzi didn’t ask him where, but he was soon to get the dramatic, unrequested answer.
‘They had an argument and Sabelli was killed ... It was a premeditated action, or possibly they tried to scare him off; he reacted with unexpected violence and the fight had a tragic and brutal ending. The problem was then how to hide the body and any other clues very quickly. They had Sabelli’s and Marchetti’s suitcases, and they bought another pair.... ’
‘Completely identical,’ added Renzi.
‘Of course. They sawed up the body and put the parts in the sawdust-filled suitcases. To divert suspicion, they booked a berth on the wagon-lit to Palermo, using Sabelli’s name. As a cynical touch, Marchetti put his friend’s suitcase on the Palermo train, inventing a phony errand requested by the man partially contained in his own luggage. The train conductor immediately read Sabelli’s name on the su
itcase tag... Afterwards, Marchetti quietly took the Rome train with his own suitcase. The other two were left by his accomplices on the Brindisi train, almost an hour later.’
Luigi waited for the echo of the chief inspector’s words to die out, then observed:
‘Dear Boldrin, there are a couple of holes in your reconstruction of the murderers’ plan, possibly because the plan itself was flawed. Even though they were very resourceful and skilful killers, don’t forget... Two were technical errors, and the third, far more serious and less explicable, was psychological. Beginning with the first two mistakes, you correctly noted that the four suitcases were completely alike: same factory, same kind of model... Twins of birth, twins of fate. But a single circumstance can divide them in two pairs: Sabelli’s and Marchetti’s suitcases were on the plane, and still have a memento of their flight: a blue airline tag pasted on the side. But the killers, thoughtful as they were, didn’t think to make them disappear, even though they’d had the clever idea of writing on one of the newly-bought suitcases the same mysterious numbers we had found in Sabelli’s, and of applying to their phony Sabelli’s suitcase a leather tag with his name on it. And the blue labels’ tiny clue can allow us to reconstruct very effectively the complex adventures of the two pairs of suitcases in Naples: the blue-labelled suitcases coming here by plane with their owners, and the new, unlabelled fakes by other means.’
Luigi paused for a moment, allowing poor old Boldrin the opportunity to absorb this very confusing luggage merry-go-round. When the chief inspector had at last grasped the meaning of Luigi’s dissertation, he appeared quite disappointed, as if he was utterly denying its importance. But he didn’t express his scepticism and merely limited himself to asking for the rest of the explanation.
‘If you permit,’ smiled Luigi, ‘I will reconstruct only the last phase of their meanderings in Naples, just to make a point: the real suitcases, the original luggage coming to Naples by plane, were left on the Brindisi train and ended up in the beautiful port of Apulia. The pair bought in Naples on Wednesday the thirteenth had a different fate: one was driven to Rome by Marchetti and was sequestered by the police when he was arrested; the other one was disguised as Sabelli’s suitcase by the tricks of the pencil-written numbers and of the name on the leather tag, and afterwards Marchetti himself took it on the Palermo train. But the clever illusion was destroyed by the blue labels on the original suitcases.’
The Flying Boat Mystery Page 8