The Vivero Letter

by Desmond Bagley

  Halstead took the mirror from his wife. 'This is impossible. How can a reflection from a plane surface show a selectively variable pattern?' He held up the mirror and moved it before his eyes. 'There's nothing here that shows.'

  'It's not a plane mirror -- it's slightly convex. I measured it; it has a radius of convexity of about ten feet. This is a Chinese trick.'

  'Chinese!'

  'Old Vivero said as much. "... that stranger from the East which the Moors brought to Cordoba." He was Chinese. That stumped me for a bit -- what the hell was a Chinaman doing in Spain in the late fifteenth century? But it's not too odd, if you think about it. The Arab Empire stretched from Spain to India; it's not too difficult to imagine a Chinese metal worker being passed along the line. After all, there were Europeans in China at that date.'

  Fallon nodded. 'It's a plausible theory.' He tapped the mirror. 'But how the hell is this thing done?'

  'I was lucky,' I said. 'I went to the Torquay Public Library and there it was, all laid out in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I was fortunate that the Torquay Library is a bit old-fashioned because that particular item was dropped from later editions.'

  I took the mirror from Halstead and laid it flat on the table. This is how it works. Forget the gold trimmings and concentrate on the mirror itself. All early Chinese mirrors - were of metal, usually cast of bronze. Cast metal doesn't give a good reflective surface so it had to be worked on with scrapers to give a smooth finish. Generally, the scraping was done from the centre to the edge and that gave the finished mirror its slight convexity.'

  Fallon took a pen from his pocket and applied it to the mirror, imitating the action of scraping. He nodded and said briefly, 'Go on.'

  I said, 'After a while the mirrors began to become more elaborate. They were expensive to make and the manufacturers began to pretty them up a bit. One way of doing this was to put ornamentation on the back of the mirror. Usually it was a saying of Buddha cast in raised characters. Now, consider what might happen when such a mirror was scraped. It would be lying on its back on a solid surface, but only the raised characters would be in contact with that surface -- the rest of the mirror would be supported by nothing. When scraper pressure was applied the unsupported parts would give a little and a fraction more metal would be removed over the supported parts.'

  'Well, I'll be damned!' said Fallon. 'And that makes the difference?'

  'In general you have a convex mirror which tends to diffuse reflected light,' I said. 'But you have plane bits where the characters are which reflects light in parallel lines. The convexity is so small that the difference can't be seen by the eye, but the short wavelengths of light show it up in the reflection.'

  'When did the Chinese find out about this?' queried Fallon.

  'Some time in the eleventh century. It was accidental at first, but later they began to exploit it deliberately. Then they came up with the composite mirror -- the back would still have a saying of Buddha, but the mirror would reflect something completely different. There's one in the Ashmolean in Oxford -- the back says "Adoration for Amida Buddha" and the reflection shows Buddha himself. It was just a matter of putting a false back on the mirror, as Vivero has done here.' Halstead turned over the mirror and tapped the gold back experimentally. 'So under here there's a map cast in the bronze?'

  'That's it. I rather think Vivero re-invented the composite mirror. There are only three examples known; the one in the Ashmolean, another in the British Museum, and one somewhere in Germany.'

  'How do we get the back off?'

  'Hold on,' I said. 'I'm not having that mirror ruined. If you rub a mercury amalgam into the mirror surface it improves the reflection a hundred per cent. But a better way would be to X-ray them.'

  'I'll arrange it,' said Fallon decisively. 'In the meantime we'll have another look. Switch on that projector.' I snapped on the light and we studied the vague luminous lines on the screen. After a while Fallon said, 'It sure looks like the coast of Quintana Roo. We can check it against a map.'

  'Aren't those words around the edge?' asked Katherine Halstead.

  I strained my eyes but it was a bit of a blurred mish-mash nothing was clear. 'Might be,' I said doubtfully.

  'And there's that circle in me middle,' said Paul Halstead 'What's that?'

  'I think I've solved that one,' I said. 'Old Vivero wanted to reconcile his sons, so he gave them each a mirror. The puzzle can only be solved by using both mirrors. This one gives a general view, locating me area, and I'll lay ten to one that the other mirror gives a blown-up view of what's in that little circle Each mirror would be pretty useless on its own.'

  'We'll check on that,' said Fallon. 'Where's my mirror?'

  The two mirrors were exchanged and we looked at the new pattern. It didn't mean much to me, nor to anyone else. 'It's not clear enough,' complained Fallon. 'I'll go blind if we have much more of this.'

  'It's been knocked about after four hundred years,' I said 'But the pattern on the back has been protected. I think that X-rays should give us an excellent picture.'

  'I'll have it done as soon as possible.'

  I turned off the light and found Fallon dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief. He smiled at me. 'You're paying your way, Wheale,' he said. 'We might not have found this.'

  'You would have found it,' I said positively. 'As soon as your cryptographer had given up in disgust you'd have started to wonder about this and that -- such as what was concealed in the bronze-gold interface. What puzzles me is why Vivero's sons didn't do anything about it.'

  Halstead said thoughtfully, 'Both branches of the family regarded these things as trays and not mirrors. Perhaps Vivero's rather obscure tip-off just went over their heads. They may have been told the story of the Chinese mirrors as children, when they were too young to really understand.'

  'Could be,' agreed Fallon. 'It could also be that the quarrel between them -- whatever it was -- couldn't be reconciled so easily. Anyway, they didn't do anything about it. The Spanish branch lost their mirror and to the Mexican branch it was reduced to some kind of a legend.' He put his hands on the mirror possessively. 'But we've got them now -- that's different.'

  II

  Looking back, I think it was about this time that Fallon began to lose his grip. One day he went into the city and when he came back he was gloomy and very thoughtful, and from that day on he was given to sudden silences and fits of absent-mindedness. I put it down to the worries of a millionaire -- maybe the stock market had dropped or something like that -- and I didn't think much about it at the time. Whatever it was it certainly didn't hamper his planning of the Uaxuanoc expedition into which he threw himself with a demoniac energy. I thought it strange that he should be devoting all his time to this; surely a millionaire must look after his financial interests -- but Fallon wasn't worried about anything else but Uaxuanoc and whatever else it was that had made him go broody.

  It was in the same week that I met Pat Harris. Fallon called me into his study, and said, 'I want you to meet Pat Harris -- I borrowed him from an oil company I have an interest in. I'm fulfilling my part of the bargain; Harris has been investigating Niscemi.'

  I regarded Harris with interest although, on the surface, there was little about him to excite it. He was average in every way; not too tall, not too short, not too beefy and not too scrawny. He wore an average suit and looked the perfect average man. He might have been designed by a statistician. He had a more than average brain -- but that didn't show.

  He held out his hand. 'Glad to meet you, Mr. Wheale,' he said in a colourless voice.

  Tell Wheale what you found,' ordered Fallon.

  Harris clasped his hands in front of his average American paunch. 'Victor Niscemi -- small time punk,' he said concisely. 'Not much to say about him. He never was much and he never did much -- except get himself rubbed out in England. Reform school education leading to bigger things -- but not much bigger. Did time for rolling drunks but that was quite a while ago.
Nothing on him in the last four years; he never appeared on a police blotter, I mean. Clean as a whistle as far as his police record goes.'

  That's his official police record, I take it. What about unofficially?'

  Harris looked up at me approvingly. 'That's a different matter, of course,' he agreed. 'For a while he did protection for a bookie, then he got into the numbers racket -- first as protection for a collector, then as collector himself. He was on his way up in a small way. Then he went to England and got himself shot up. End of Niscemi.'

  'And that's all?'

  'Not by a hell of a long way.' said Fallon abruptly.

  'Go on, Harris,'

  Harris moved in his chair and suddenly looked more relaxed. There's a thing you've got to remember about a guy like Niscemi -- he has friends. Take a look at his record; reform school, petty assault and so on. Then suddenly, four years ago, no more police record. He was still a criminal and still small time, but he no longer got into trouble. He'd acquired friends.'

  'Who were , . .?'

  'Mr. Wheale, you're English and maybe you don't have the problems we have in the States, so what I'm going to tell yon now might seem extraordinary. You'll just have to take my word for it. Okay?'

  I smiled. 'After meeting Mr. Fallon there's very little I'll find unbelievable.'

  'All right. I'm interested in the weapon with which Niscemi killed your brother. Can you describe it?'

  'It was a sawn-off shotgun,' I said.

  'And the butt was cut down. Right?' I nodded. That was a lupara; it's an Italian word and Niscemi was of Italian origin or, more precisely, Sicilian. About four years ago Niscemi was taken into the Organization. Organized crime is one of the worse facts of life in the United States, Mr. Wheale; and it's mostly run by Italian Americans, It goes under many names -- the Organization, the Syndicate, Cosa Nostra, the Mafia -- although Mafia should strictly be reserved for the parent organization in Sicily.'

  I looked at Harris uncertainly. 'Are you trying to tell me that the Mafia -- toe Mafia, for God's sake! -- had my brother killed?'

  'Not quite,' he said. 'I think Niscemi slipped up there, he certainly slipped up when he got himself killed. But I'd better describe what goes on with young punks like Niscemi when they're recruited into the Organization. The first thing he's told is to keep his nose clean -- he keeps out of the way of the cops and he does what his capo.....his boss -- tells him, and nothing else. That's important, and it explains why Niscerni suddenly stopped figuring on the police blotter.' Harris pointed a ringer at me. 'But it works the other way round, too. If Niscerni was up to no good with regard to your brother it certainly meant that he was acting under orders. The Organization doesn't stand for members who go in to bat on their own account.'

  'So he was sent?'

  There's a ninety-nine per cent probability that he was.' , This was beyond me and I couldn't quite believe it. I turned to Fallon. 'I believe you said that Mr. Harris is an employee of an oil company. What qualifications has he for assuming all this?'

  'Harris was in the F.B.I.,' said Fallon.

  'For fifteen years,' said Harris. 'I thought you might find this extraordinary.'

  'I do,' I said briefly, and thought about it. 'Where did you get this information about Niscemi?'

  'From the Detroit police -- that was his stamping-ground.'

  I said, 'Scotland Yard is interested in this. Are the American police collaborating with them?'

  Harris smiled tolerantly. In spite of all the sensational stuff about Interpol there's not much that can be done in a case like this. Who are they going to nail for the job? The American law authorities are just glad to have got Niscemi out of their hair, and he was only small time, anyway.' He grinned and came up with an unexpected and parodied quotation.' "It was in another country and, besides, the guy is dead."'

  Fallon said, 'It goes much further than this. Harris is not finished yet.'

  'Okay,' said Harris. 'We now come to the questions: Who sent Niscemi to England -- and why? Niscemi's capo is Jack Gatt, but Jack might have been doing some other capo a favour. However, I don't think so.'

  'Gatt!' I blurted out. 'He was in England at the time of my brother's death.'

  Harris shook his head. 'No, he wasn't. I checked him out on that. On the day your brother died he was in New York.'

  But he wanted to buy something Tram Bob.' I said. 'He made an offer in the presence of witnesses. He was in England'

  'Air travel is wonderful,' said Harris. 'You can leave London at nine a.m. and arrive in New York at eleven-thirty a.m. -- local time. Gatt certainly didn't kill your brother.' He pursed his lips, then added. 'Not personally.'

  'Who -- and what -- is he?'

  'Top of the heap in Detroit.' said Harris promptly. 'Covers Michigan and a big slice of Ohio. Original name, Giacomo Gattini -- Americanized to Jack Gatt. He doesn't stand very tall in the Organization, but he's a capo and that makes him important.'

  'I think you'd better explain that.'

  'Well, the Organization controls crime, but it's not a centralized business like, say, General Motors. It's pretty loose, in fact; so loose that sometimes pieces of it conflict with each other. That's called a gang war. But they're bad for business, attract too much attention from the cops, so once in a while all the capos get together in a council, a sort of board meeting, to iron out their difficulties. They allocate territory, slap down the hotheads and decide when and how to enforce the rules.'

  This was the raw and primitive world that had intruded on Hay Tree Farm, so far away in Devon. I said, 'How do they do that?'

  Harris shrugged. 'Suppose a capo like Gatt decided to ignore the top bosses and go it on his own. Pretty soon a young punk like Niscemi would blow into town, knock, off Gatt and scram. If he failed then another would try it and, sooner or later, one would succeed. Gatt knows that, so he doesn't break the rules. But, while he keeps to the rules, he's capo -- king in his own territory.'

  'I see. But why should Gatt go to England?'

  'Ah,' said Harris. 'Now we're coming to the meat of it. Let's take a good look at Jack Gatt. This is a third-generation American mafioso. He's no newly arrived Siciliano peasant who can't speak English, nor is he a half-educated tough bum like Capone. Jack's got civilization; Jack's got culture. His daughter is at finishing school in Switzerland; one son is at a good college in the east and the other runs his own business -- a legitimate business. Jack goes to the opera and ballet: in fact I hear that he's pretty near the sole support of one ballet group. He collects pictures, and when I say collects I don't mean that he steals them. He puts up bids at the Parke-Bernet Gallery in New York like any other millionaire, and he does the same at Sotheby's and Christie's in England. He has a good-looking wife and a fine house, mixes in the best society and cuts a fine figure among the best people, none of whom know that he's anything other than a legitimate businessman. He's that, too, of course; I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't one of your biggest shareholders, Mr. Fallon.'

  'I'll check on it,' said Fallon sourly. 'And how does he derive his main income? The illegitimate part?'

  'Gambling, drugs, prostitution, extortion, protection,' reeled off Harris glibly. 'And any combination or permutation. Jack's come up with some real dillies.'

  'My God!' said Fallon.

  'That's as maybe,' I said. 'But how did Niscemi suddenly pitch up at the farm? The photograph of the tray only appeared in the Press a few days before. How did Gatt get on to it so fast?'

  Harris hesitated and looked at Fallon enquiringly. Fallon said glumly, 'You might as well have the whole story. I was upset at Halstead's accusation that I stole the Vivero letter from him, so I put Harris on to checking it.' He nodded to Harris.

  'Gatt had men following Mr. Fallon and probably Halstead, too,' said Harris. This is how it came about.

  'Halstead did have the Vivero letter before Mr. Fallon. He bought it here in Mexico for $200. Then he took it home to the States -- he lived in Virginia at the time -- and his hous
e was burgled. The letter was one of the things that were stolen.' He put the tips of his fingers together and said, The Way I see it, the Vivero letter was taken by sheer chance. It was in a locked briefcase that was taken with the other stuff.'

  'What other stuff?' I asked.

  'Household goods. TV set, radios, a watch, some clothing and a little money.'

  Fallon cocked a sardonic eye at me. 'Can yon see me interested in second-hand clothing?'

  'I think it was a job done by a small-time crook,' said Harris. The easily saleable stuff would be got rid of fast-there are plenty of unscrupulous dealers who'd take it. I daresay the thief was disappointed by the contents of the briefcase.'