Mrs. Polllifax and the Second Thief

by Dorothy Gilman

  Farrell sighed. "Damn it, there wasn't even time to phone Ambrose Vica and tell him I'll return tomorrow, we've been so busy mingling, being shot at and finding this hill."

  "Yes, but Carstairs—"

  He said crossly, "I have to remind you that I'm here to search Raphael's study tonight for the Caesar document that will allow me to move back with Vica, who's our one link to Aristotle. It's not enough to have seen Aristotle, the guy has to be found, right? Before he shoots more people, not to mention you and me."

  "Yes," said Mrs. Pollifax, "but Carstairs—"

  "Have an orange, " Kate told him.

  Farrell absently accepted the proffered orange and dropped it to the ground. "What's more," he persisted, "once I'm back with Vica it isn't going to be easy to learn where Aristotle can be found, it's going to need time, and it's going to need that bloody signature of Caesar's, too."

  "I don't know why you sound so cross about it," said Mrs. Pollifax. "All I suggested was that Carstairs—"

  "I'm cross," he said angrily, "because I've had to sacrifice one day by spending it in hiding with an infected ankle, and I'm cross because Aristotle's seen and recognized you, as well as me, and your life's up for grabs, and maybe Kate's, too, and I don't like feeling helpless. It wasn't supposed to work out like this, it wasn't in my scenario."

  "It never is," she told him, "but you can't have it both ways. When we first met two days ago you wondered if you were chasing a phantom; now I've seen him here, too, and that doesn't please you either."

  Kate said brightly, "He's quite irrational, isn't he? For myself I think this is all extremely promising. You realize this assassin of yours was brought out of hiding just to follow and kill Farrell? Why else would they ever allow him out in public? I think someone is getting worried and wants to get the job done so they can get on with other matters. Except, of course," she added blithely, "no one figured on there being two of you now."

  "You call that promising?" growled Farrell. "They'll try again, and they know exactly where to find us now. At the Villa Franca."

  "Oh, Peppino won't let anyone in," said Kate serenely. "And they knew where we were, anyway."

  He regarded her with suspicion. "Sally Sunshine, aren't you! / think the Duchess should catch the next plane out of Palermo."

  "Sssh," hissed Mrs. Pollifax, "I hear a car."

  Farrell returned to his binoculars while she and Kate wriggled their way up to the second bush at the edge and peered through its screen of leaves. "Mercedes," murmured Kate. "Real class."

  Unfortunately the Mercedes did not stop until it had passed the two stone lions at the front of the house, and when it halted only the rear of the car was in view: it proved impossible to see whether it discharged a passenger or achieved one. After ten or fifteen minutes they heard it make its exit by an unseen road at the far side of the property. Shortly after this a man in workman's overalls emerged from a small cottage behind the house and collected a hose that had lain coiled in the garden. He too disappeared.

  Mrs. Pollifax, tired of kneeling, retreated further down the hill to lie on a sparse patch of grass. The sunset's afterglow was fading, it was growing dark and already she could see a few stars glittering in the sky. A faint breeze had sprung up, threatening a cold evening ahead. She wondered what Cyrus was doing at this minute, and after computing time-changes realized that he would be sleeping; she was glad, because otherwise he would be worrying about her. The lack of a telephone at Villa Franca was annoying, but Kate had mentioned a fax machine at the local post office. Tomorrow she really must send him a message and reassure him, she thought, except how to describe what a different world she'd entered? Actually two worlds, she reflected: that of the Villa Franca—mysterious perhaps, but fortified and safe—and the world of violence and threat they faced once they left its gates.

  Lest she fall asleep she sat up, and at that moment heard Kate say clearly, "We're not going to quarrel again, are we?"

  Farrell's voice was low, but the quickening breeze captured his reply and sent it downwind to her. She heard him say, "You know very well that we've not been quarreling, not really."

  "No?" said Kate. "What then?"

  "Sounding each other out. Taking soundings like two boats in deep water."

  "I avoid deep water," Kate said quickly.

  "I avoid it, too. Have avoided, did avoid. Until Erice."

  "Farrell, you're crazy."

  "Really? Move over here to my bush and I'll show you how crazy I am."

  "Farrell—"

  "Scared?" His voice was sober.

  "Of course I'm scared, I'm absolutely determined not to care about you."

  "Not half as determined as I've been to not care about you. A pony-tailed CIA agent with freckles is the last thing in my scenario."

  "Scenario?" Kate sounded mocking. "Well, as Mrs. Pollifax pointed out, your scenario this afternoon was—Farrell, you mustn't—don't, you're supposed to be watching—"

  "Yes, but whenever I've been afraid of anything I find the only way to conquer the fear is to meet it. Don't you dare move, I'm going to kiss you."

  "Farrell—"

  A very long silence followed and Mrs. Pollifax, with a wicked smile and great tact, lay down to feign sleep for a few minutes. So this was what had been happening ever since Kate and Farrell met! Miss Whatshername indeed, she thought with amusement.

  Presently when she returned to her post at the top of the hill, Kate and Farrell had primly retired to their separate bushes and were giving every attention to the scene below.

  By ten o'clock three more cars had come and gone, their passengers unknown, and the house below was dark except for one light in an upstairs room, and another that illuminated the stone lions in the front. "It's time we go down," Farrell said, and drew from his pocket a gun and began loading it.

  It shone brightly in the darkness, puzzling Mrs. Pollifax. "I've not seen one like that before."

  Farrell grinned. "Courtesy of Kate's aunt, it's a Smith & Wesson .38 Special. Stainless steel. Neat, isn't it?" He inserted two final bullets into its cylinder. "Kate has a gun for you, too, but not loaded. I count on you for some well-placed karate strikes if necessary, but you can wave the gun around if there's trouble."

  "Can we be sure there's no one at home?"

  "That's what we go down to find out," he said, tucking the gun into his belt. "There could be lights on the other side." Pointing, he added, "That room on this corner is Raphael's study where I tackle the safe again. We'll head there as soon as we've reconnoitered. "

  Kate asked, "How long do you expect it will take to learn the safe's combination and open it?"

  "There's no combination, it's a very old safe that probably came with the house. Raphael had two special new locks welded into it—which he's no doubt had changed by now; I'd guess twenty minutes at the most, if they're new locks. While I'm working on it, Duchess, you stand guard at the door to the next room, which is the library. And, Kate, you make a search of the desk in the library."

  "How do we get in?" asked Mrs. Pollifax, warming to this new role as burglar.

  "The study window this time; I'll tape it with good old-fashioned flypaper, cut the glass, and the flypaper will keep the glass from falling out of its frame and noisily embarrassing us. Kate, you know' what we're looking for? It needn't be more than memo-sized, definitely on papyrus, possibly with a Roman seal, and any message—if there should be one—in Greek. It would be well wrapped, probably mounted."

  "Got it," nodded Kate. "Let's go."

  They crept along the rim of the hill and descended to the lawn at the rear. Farrell, pointing to a hedge, whispered, "Wait," and moved toward the house; once in its shadow he could dimly be seen checking the rooms on the farther end. When he returned he said, "No lights, only the one on the second floor over the study that we saw, and of course the light at the entrance. All set? Off we go."

  Leading them back to the side of the house they'd watched from the hill, they tiptoed up to th
e window of Raphael's study, at which point Mrs. Pollifax saw both Farrell and Kate draw out their guns and she thought with a smile, What a suitable couple they make, working together, and a team they definitely proved to be as Kate drew out a tiny flashlight and efficiently trained its sliverlike beam on the window. With equal efficiency Farrell taped and neatly cut out a pane of glass. Reaching inside he unlocked the window, climbed inside and helped them both over the sill.

  Here they stood in darkness until Kate switched on her light,

  illuminating the meager furnishings of the room they'd entered: there was the safe in a corner, two armchairs, a small television set and an elaborate stereo, no more. When Kate's light found the door to the next room she grasped Mrs. Pollifax's arm and led her to her assigned post, and handing her a gun she herself disappeared into the library.

  Now there was only silence and darkness until a narrow-beam of light flashed across the safe and she heard Farrell say in a low voice, "Damn."

  "What is it?" she whispered.

  "Three locks now, all new," he whispered back, and for a moment his light remained propped on his lap while he brought out a small kit of tools. Following this the light was extinguished.

  Just once she heard a rustle of movement as he moved from a crouch to a kneeling position but other than this the silence was so pronounced that when the drone of a refrigerator resumed its cycle in a distant room it caused her to jump. A glance behind her into the library showed her Kate's beam of light dancing across walls and then focusing on a desk as one drawer after another was inspected. Five minutes passed . . , ten minutes . . , fifteen . . . Kate's light was once again roaming around the walls of the library—quite like Tinker Bell, thought Mrs. Pollifax, repressing a sudden urge to laugh. The beam of light fell to the floor and moved nearer. "Nothing there at all," whispered Kate, touching her arm, and aimed her light at Farrell beside the safe, his fingers occupied in delicately inserting a tool into a lock, his ear pressed to the safe.

  Kate's hand on her arm tightened as the safe door swung open with a creaking noise. He was about to reach inside when Mrs. Pollifax heard the distinct sound of movement in the library behind them. "Someone's coming," she whispered to Kate.

  Someone was indeed coming, for a larger flashlight was sweeping the walls of the library behind them. "Tell him—he doesn't know," she whispered urgently to Kate. "I'll stay at the door and keep you covered." No sooner had Kate left her than an overhead light was snapped on in the library, bathing that room in brightness.

  "Is someone there?" a woman called out sharply. "Is someone there?"

  Mrs. Pollifax, still in shadow and guarding the study doorway, suddenly found the woman almost at her elbow, and looking into her face she was astonished to find it familiar.

  She heard Farrell shout, "Let's GO!" and as the woman in the doorway fumbled for a light switch on the wall of the study, Mrs. Pollifax ran. She was the last to reach the window; the study lights were turned on just as Farrell helped her over the sill.

  "Don't go!" she told him urgently, and pointed into the lighted room. "Take a good look and see who it is."

  He glanced back impatiently and his jaw dropped. He gasped, "But that's Mrs. Davidson—that's Aristotle's wife! This is where he's been hiding, not with Vica but with Raphael?"

  IN LANGLEY, VIRGINIA, IT WAS STILL EARLY AFTER-noon. The coup in Africa had been achieved without inordinate bloodshed, the autocratic and ailing President had fled the country, the capital was calm and Bartlett had survived the coup only a little the worse for wear from spending a night shivering in a baobab tree on the outskirts of the city. The name of the country would undoubtedly be changed again, causing grief for the mapmakers, but Bartlett was safe, the President had not been a very good president and the young rebel leader showed signs of being an improvement, at least for the moment.

  This left Bernard of the Sûreté to deal with, and Carstairs was now fielding still another indignant phone call from Paris. "I'm telling you again, Bernard, that three of my agents are involved in this," he reminded him, "and you've got to give me time to hear from them and pull them off the job. I can tell you only that Aristotle's been sighted on an island off Italy: if I name the island you'll have your men swarming all over it, my three agents could be killed and Aristotle could get spooked and vanish again."

  He glanced at Bishop seated across the desk from him and shrugged expressively. "Yes, Bernard," he said, resuming his end of the conversation, "Yes I do realize it's your prison he left, and your country that's responsible for this—er—monumental error—but it's my agents who spotted him—or feel sure they have—and there's been no confirmation yet, and it's placed them in a very tricky and dangerous situation . . . Where are they? At the moment I frankly don't know, which is why—" He stopped to listen impatiently, and then, "What I suggest, Bernard, is that you station your men in Italy, ready to make a move once the situation's been clarified. I need twenty-four hours, Bernard, I insist on twenty-four hours for the sake of my people . . . Yes, I know how many islands there are . . . Place your men near an airport, have a plane ready, put them on alert, and give me my twenty-four hours."

  He hung up with a sigh. "He's agreed. Reluctantly."

  "You're banking on the three of them being still alive, then."

  "Until proven otherwise, yes, and we have to give them time. Obviously they've stirred up a hornet's nest, which has to mean they've been on Aristotle's trail."

  "And he on theirs?"

  "Yes," Carstairs said, and seeing the red light blinking ferociously on his phone he picked up the receiver. "Carstairs here."

  At once his face changed; to Bishop he said quickly, "It's Henry Guise," and Bishop reached over and turned on the recording machine and picked up a set of headphones.

  Henry Guise sounded even more aggrieved today than on his previous call; he was saying, "This Pollifax looked such a gentle, harmless little lady, you didn't tell me she was violent."

  Bishop cut in eagerly to say, "You've found her? She's safe? She's all right?"

  "That," said Carstairs coldly, "was my assistant speaking. Are you telling me, Guise, that you found Mrs. Pollifax?"

  "Found her!" he said indignantly. "She hit me over the head and knocked me out. If Mr. Vica hadn't walked his guest to the front gate and found me I'd have frozen to death by morning. What kind of person is this dame, anyway?"

  "Accomplished," said Carstairs dryly. "Where did this hap-pen?

  "You told me to check out Mr. Vica's house—and a real palace it is, too, I can tell you. So I hung around there for hours, keeping my eye out for her and the Rossiter girl and for the man they collected in Erice. I was about to give up—nearly midnight, you see—when darned if I didn't see two people casing the place. The man climbed a balcony and went inside, the woman looked in windows, and I could see it was Pollifax."

  Bishop chuckled, but given a reproachful glance from his superior he made no comment.

  "Go on," said Carstairs.

  "As instructed, I kept my eye on Mrs. Pollifax, and when she headed for the driveway I followed. I lost sight of her down near the gates, I walked past a hedge and—pow, I got clobbered."

  "By Mrs. Pollifax?"

  "By her, yes. Just a glimpse, see, but it was her shape, and then I was out like a light. When I came to I was in a bed and it was daylight. It seems this Mr. Vica heard me groan when he walked past—and a good thing I did!—and it was one of his beds I woke up in, but where Pollifax and her friend went I don't know."

  "Nevertheless, we're very glad to hear that she's alive and operative," Carstairs said crisply, "and it's urgent that you find her again because we've fresh information that she and Rossiter and their companion must be told. This is vital. She's obviously not at Vica's home. I want you to next try a place near Cefalù called the Villa Franca."

  "Oh God," said Guise with feeling, "will she knock me out again if I find her?"

  "It's karate, Guise, karate, she's taken lessons for years." />
  "Brown belt," put in Bishop happily.

  "Oh God," he said again.

  "Cheer up," Carstairs told him, "this time you can identify yourself—"

  "If she'll give me the chance," he said gloomily.

  "—because it's become a life-and-death matter now, and she absolutely must be warned—her companions, too—or next time she may not be found. Hold on a minute . . . Bishop, the address Rossiter left for contact?" Bishop handed him the slip of paper. "Here we are—there's no telephone so you'll have to get directions from the post office in Cefalù, roughly forty miles east of Palermo. No address, just Villa Franca, it's where Rossiter was staying on holiday, and it's how we contacted her earlier, through the post office."

  Guise sighed heavily. "All right: post office, Cefalù, Villa Franca. And if I find her there's a message?"

  "Yes, ready? . . . Good . . . Message as follows: ARISTOTLE NO LONGER IN FRANCE, RELEASED FROM PRISON, URGENT YOU CONTACT ME AT ONCE." With a twist that he hoped she and Farrell would appreciate he said, "Add to that SOS MAYDAY MAYDAY. Got that?"

  Guise read it back to him and it was pronounced accurate. "But she had no right to knock me out," he said reproachfully.

  "No, but she didn't know who you were," Carstairs reminded him. "Let's hope you find her before she gets into any more trouble."

  The connection severed, Carstairs shook his head. "Poor Guise, I suppose we should have warned him, but who would have thought it would have led to this?"

  Bishop grinned. "Emily must be reaching black belt status by now, wouldn't you say?"

  "No doubt, but I'd like to know what she was doing at midnight peering into windows at Vica's estate, and who the man was who climbed onto the balcony."

  "Farrell?" suggested Bishop.

  "Doubtful, highly doubtful. After all, Farrell's working for Vica, he'd be living there, not climbing balconies and burglarizing the place." His phone rang again and he picked up the receiver. "Yes?" and then, "Oh damn." To Bishop he said, "It's Cyrus—Cyrus Reed."