The Big Story

by Morris West

  “But you’re still in love with her, as she is with you?”

  “The question’s irrelevant,” said Ashley baldly.

  “Strike it from the record,” said Orgagna coolly. “Please go on.”

  “Every profession has its cynics and its profiteers. There are men with the power of healing in their hands who use it to kill the unborn or do mammary plastics on declining dowagers. There are judges who pervert justice and priests who pervert the gospel. There are also newsmen, big and small, who prostitute themselves in the twin temples of Policy and Circulation. But most of them, in their stumbling, purblind fashion, still believe that their function is to communicate the truth. They don’t own the channels of communication. They are forced quite often to shifts and stratagems to get the truth into print. Often they can’t print the whole truth, but they still believe in the right of the people to know the whole truth. They believe that the truth has a virtue of its own, a fruitfulness of its own, and that to stifle or distort it is to kill a source of life and destroy a promise of improvement. Tyranny flourishes in dark cellars. Corruption breeds in closed councils. And if a child dies of tuberculosis, as I have seen them die in the bassi of Naples, it is because the truth was hidden or told too late. That’s why I’m printing this story, Orgagna. Because the people have the right to know about you, before they put their future in your hands.”

  A long tube of ash dropped from his cigarette and fell soundlessly on the carpet. He made a little gesture of apology and stubbed out the butt in a silver ash-tray.

  “That’s the motive, Orgagna, as clear as I can make it. I admit the others too, but I think that’s the real one, the strongest of all. If I didn’t believe that, I’d hold you up here and now for a fat price, take Cosima with me and leave on the first plane from Rome to grow oranges in California.”

  “It might be cheap at the price,” said Orgagna smoothly. “How much?”

  “No deal,” said Ashley.

  “Will you sell me the photostats and print the rest of the story?”

  “No.”

  “Will you think it over for a day or two?”

  “It won’t make any difference.”

  Orgagna looked at him with a thin, subtle smile.

  “Wisdom is a slow growth, my friend, and I have learned to be patient. Think it over. Sleep on it.”

  He held out his hand.

  “Good-night, Ashley, sogni d’oro! Golden dreams!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE MOONLIGHT flowed in through the windows of his bedroom and lay in soft pools among the rose-petals on the floor. The heavy carved furniture made grotesque shadows in the angles of the room. The cherubs on the coffered ceiling were hidden in the high darkness. And Richard Ashley lay wakeful on the big four-poster bed, pondering his first day in the Villa Orgagna.

  There was profit and there was loss. The profit was in the new information he had gathered—the connection of the dead man with the Orgagna family; the rejection of Elena by Orgagna, her jealousy and despair; the knowledge that Tullio Riccioli could be bought; and that Cosima had not sold him out, but had lied to protect him; the fact that Orgagna feared him enough to attempt a bargain.

  The loss was less apparent, but more serious. There was now an open breach between himself and Orgagna. Orgagna would know, as he knew himself, that the stalemate could not last indefinitely. One or other must be destroyed in the end. His own safety depended on a lie. Orgagna believed he had the photostats. He could not fight too long from such slippery ground. He must either find the photostats or get himself out of Orgagna’s hands.

  The only person who might give him a clue to their location was Elena Carrese; but after the episode at the shrine, he thought that communication between them might be made more and more difficult.

  He stared up into the shadows and thought about Elena Carrese. A woman scorned, a woman of the South to boot, her first impulse would be to revenge herself on the man who had wronged her. The weapons lay ready enough to her hands. As Orgagna’s secretary, she would know the contents of the flies. She would know, too, the progress of Ashley’s own investigation. She would see clearly enough how to strike at Orgagna. She might reason further, to the financial profit which could free her from marriage to Tullio Riccioli and give her a dowry to marry a man of her choice.

  She could take the letters from the flies, pass them to her half-brother for photostatting and sale, then sit back and wait for the ruin of Orgagna. And all the while her little peasant soul would be torn between love and hatred for him, between despair and tenuous hope.

  The hope would die, gradually, painfully, as she saw the ganglia of Orgagna’s information service reach out to touch the informer. She would know of the telephone calls from Rome to Naples and Sorrento and the Villa Orgagna, as His Excellency’s agents reported the movements and contacts of Garofano. She would know of the new, big offer tempting him closer to Orgagna’s hands. She would warn him, but he would not listen, for venality is a besetting sin of these poverty-stricken people.

  And when at last the hands closed round him, she would not know for certain who had killed him. She would not dare to know, because then her lover must be damned as a murderer, her father, too, perhaps. So for safety, she would settle the guilt on Ashley himself—the ignorant executioner.

  The more he thought on it, the closer he came to the conviction that this was the truth. He thought that even Captain Granforte might accept it, given the letters in his soft insinuating hands.

  Given the letters.…

  When they had talked at the hotel, Garofano had said they were close at hand—available if the price were met. Ashley thought that was probably the truth. Otherwise he would not have come to the interview. That meant they were somewhere in Sorrento, lodged in the bank perhaps, or with a trusted friend—except that informers had no friends and trusted no one.

  Then a new thought came to him, but before he had time to pursue it, the door of his room opened softly and Cosima came in.

  She was dressed for bed. She wore a dressing-gown of quilted satin. Her hair was caught back from her face and tied with a bow behind her neck. Her feet were soundless in soft, Florentine mules. She carried a towel and a bowl of water and a small flask of oil. Ashley sat up in bed and looked at her in amazement.

  “Cosima! Are you crazy?”

  “Your eyes, Richard. I saw them at dinner. They’re scarred and inflamed. I—I thought the least I could do was… this.”

  She walked to the windows and drew the heavy curtains, switched on the lights and set the things down on the bedside-table. Ashley watched her, wondering and cautious. When she came close to him, he made no move to touch her, but lay back on the pillows while she bathed his eyes carefully and dressed the inflamed tissues. Her hands were soft on his skin and her voice was gentle and regretful.

  “In that moment, Richard, I came as close as I have ever done to hating you. I could not understand that you should harbour thoughts like that against me. I could not believe that you could kiss me and hold me in your arms and turn something beautiful into a horrible lie. No, no! Don’t try to talk. Lie still and let me finish. Your eyes are terribly sore. Later, when I began to think about it, I understood how it must have looked to you: that I had lent myself to a plan to destroy you and save my husband. I—I don’t blame you now. I blame myself that I did not speak out and…”

  “I don’t blame you, either. On the beach I was trying to tell you I was sorry.” He chuckled grimly. “Only you wouldn’t let me finish. Will you kiss me now.?”

  She kissed him lightly on the lips and bent again to the last bathing of his eyes with the soothing oil. She wiped his cheeks and forehead with the towel, laid it on the bedside-table and sat down on the edge of the bed. He drew her down and kissed her again, but after a moment she disengaged herself and looked down at him with tender, troubled eyes.

  “Richard… what’s going to happen to us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “After
what has happened, I cannot go on living with my husband. I doubt whether he would want it, anyway. Once the elections are over, I shall be of no further use to him.”

  “Divorce?”

  “Italian law does not permit it.”

  “We could go away. You could divorce him in another country.”

  “Yes.”

  There was no conviction in her voice. Only the flat admission of a known fact.

  “You’re a Catholic, is that it? The Church condemns divorce and the remarriage of divorced persons.”

  “I—I have lived so long away from the Church, I suppose it makes no difference what I do now.”

  “I don’t belong to the Church, Cosima. It makes no difference to me how we’re married or by whom. I can understand that it might make a difference to you. Would you be happy that way?”

  “Happy?” She looked away from him and began twisting the rings on her finger. “I don’t know what happiness means, Richard. In the old days, I thought I was happy with you. I found it wasn’t enough. I thought I would be happier with what Orgagna could give. That wasn’t enough either. Now…I don’t know. Perhaps it is never enough.”

  Ashley looked at her, puzzled.

  “What are you trying to tell me, Cosima? That you don’t love me?”

  “How can you say that?”

  “I’m not saying it. I’m asking you. Do you want me to take you away and marry you? I’m willing to do it, provided it makes you happy. Do you want to leave your husband and live with me, without benefit of clergy? We can do that, too, though there’s not much profit in it for either of us. There’s only one thing I can’t do, sweetheart.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Come to terms with your conscience. No lover in the world can do that, and we’re both old enough to know it. I’m afraid it’s up to you, Cosima. Barkis is willin’.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He grinned and ran his hands through his cropped hair.

  “It’s an English phrase. It means you’ve got a bridegroom, but it’s the bride’s privilege to name the day.”

  She was silent a moment. She looked down at her hands, twisting the rings upward on her finger so that he could see the indentations where they had worked themselves into the white skin.

  “Richard, there’s something I want to say.”

  “Say it.”

  “I—I think we could be happy together. I think, perhaps, the Church will not miss one stray soul who has wandered a long way already. But there is one thing I cannot do. I cannot build my happiness on the ruin of a man who, after all, is my husband, and who, for all his ruthlessness, has been kind to me. That, it seems to me, would be a sort of final denial of the little good that is left in me.”

  “Up on the mountain you told me to print the story,”

  “I know… I know.” Her voice was low and miserable. “Up on the mountain, I was drunk with the joy of meeting you, with the taste of—of something I had given up as lost. I know now that it was an illusion. I cannot do it. I will marry you, Richard. I will live with you, whichever is open to us. But I want you to give up this story. I want you to suppress it, kill it. You have reason enough, God knows. Then, I think, there might be a chance for both of us.”

  And there it was, bald and breath-taking, the same bargain that Orgagna had put to him an hour before. They would sell anything, these people—their souls, their bodies, the folk who loved them—to preserve the last shreds of outworn honour. He looked at her with loathing and disgust and she shrank back, as if from a blow.

  “Get out! Go back to your husband! Tell him I liked the proposition better when he gave it to me him self. Tell him I’m not interested. I can buy it cheaper in the back streets of Naples, where at least the girls are honest!”

  Wide-eyed and horror-stricken, Cosima stared at him. The colour drained from her face and the hand that she held to her lips trembled as if with the ague. Her voice was a terrified whisper.

  “You… you say that…”

  “In God’s name, get out!”

  Slowly, like a woman in a trance, she gathered up her things from the table and walked away. Half-way to the door she turned and looked at him. Her face was tragic. Her voice was steady but full of heart-breaking grief.

  “I am sorry for you, Richard. I am more sorry for you than I am for myself. You are so eaten up with pride that you cannot see the truth when it is thrust under your nose. Nothing will stand in your way. Not love, nor pity, nor—nor even death. Your fine words are a mockery. Your big story is a sham because you proclaim truth to feed your ambition and clamour for justice to feed the hate in your heart. God help you, Richard. Nobody else can!”

  She turned away, a bowed, defeated figure. The door dosed behind her like the door of a lost paradise from which he was now shut out eternally. He switched off the lights and lay staring up into the darkness. He knew now that he must finish the story at whatever cost, though the taste of it would be like ashes on his tongue. After a while, he fell asleep, tossing and muttering, tumbling the bed into disorder, winding the sheets about him like a shroud.

  Sometime after midnight, he woke, sweating and startled. He sat up. The room was dark and quiet as a tomb, but his whole body was prickling with fear.

  Then he heard it: a soft, muffled scratching, like a mouse skittering in the wainscot. He called softly :

  “Who’s there?”

  The sound stopped. He reached up to the light-cord, pressed the switch. The room was flooded with light, dazzling him. He blinked and looked about him. The room was empty. The curtains hung, heavy and un-stirring over the casements. He looked at the door.

  Lying in front of it was a brown manila envelope. The sound he had heard was the noise of it being thrust under the edge of the door and along the tiles. He leapt out of bed and picked up the envelope.

  When he opened it, the contents slid out into his hand—six photostat copies of the Orgagna letters!

  For a long moment he stared at them, hardly understanding his good fortune. The big story was complete. With the evidence he had gathered at the Villa Orgagna, he could convince Captain Granforte of his own innocence and of the involvement of Orgagna and his household in the death of Garofano. If the Captain proved difficult, he could demand to be taken into custody pending the arrival of the American Consul. Tomorrow the triumph would be complete. Tomorrow…! He remembered that there were hours of the night and the day to pass before he could communicate with Sorrento and have himself removed from the Villa Orgagna. Until then, he must find a safe hiding-place for the photostats. To carry them on his person would be a needless risk.

  He set the chain-bolt on the door so that no one could enter from the passage. He went to the windows and closed them, locking them carefully and drawing the heavy curtains. Then he looked about the room.

  There was enough furniture in it to fill a small hotel, but none of it was safe from dusting and cleaning and from the prying fingers of the servants—curious as jackdaws about the possessions of a foreign visitor. The mattress was a classic hiding-place, of course. But a tear in the ticking would show and anything unusual might be reported to the major-domo, Carlo Carrese.

  Then his eyes fell on the old Florentine bridal chest, with its ornate carvings and its heavy worm-pocked wood. It sat flush on the floor. He doubted if it had been moved in years. He walked over to it, bent down and heaved up one corner with his shoulder. It was heavy as iron, but it lifted a finger’s height and he saw that the tiles underneath were covered with dust and fluff. Good enough. He slipped the envelope underneath and lowered the corner of the chest. A small cloud of dust fluffed out. He wiped it up carefully with his handkerchief

  It was done. The photostats were safe against casual search.

  Now he might address himself to the question of where they had come from and why.

  The answer seemed obvious enough—Elena Carrese. She had promised to ally herself with him. She had handed over the photostats as evidence of good
faith. More than this, their safety must have been jeopardised by the happenings in the orange-arbour in front of the shrine. Her father would suspect her of collusion with the foreigner. Orgagna would take it as a certainty. There was sound reason for getting them out of her possession as soon as possible.

  How had she come by them in the first place? That, too, was ridiculously simple, now he knew more about her relationship with Garofano. The little informer would have come to the hotel early, well before the time of his appointment. He would have delivered the photostats to Elena to hold for him until after the bargaining.

  When the bargaining failed and he had taken himself off, he would not have been too much concerned. The material was in safe hands. He could return and collect it at a less embarrassing time. But he had never come back. Why? Ashley knew that if he could answer that question, the chain of evidence against Orgagna and Carrese would be complete. What had happened to Garofano between the time he left the hotel and the moment when he was tossed out into space and under the wheels of a speeding car?

  Granforte might fund the answer to that if he set his boys digging about Sorrento, questioning this one and that, checking times and movements. Ashley smiled to himself at the thought of the moon-faced Captain sorting out the embarrassing evidence and regretting the promotion he would never get.

  After a while, sleep claimed him and whirled him off into a nightmare in which he stood alone in the middle of a sunlit desert and heard Cosima crying out for him. But whichever way he turned, he could not see her, because she was lost to him for ever.

  He woke early, haggard and unrefreshed. His body ached and his skin was slack and dry. When he opened the curtains, the raw sunlight hurt his eyes. His tongue was coated and bitter in his mouth.

  He shaved quickly, slipped into trunks and a dressing-gown and headed down to the beach for a swim.

  The air was still fresh and the orange leaves were shining with dew. There was the smell of the earth and the piping of the morning birds and the distant, rhythmic clouting of an axe on wood.