"What's happened?" demanded Farrell.
Franca, listening, turned and shouted back to them, "The boy Giovanni says he and his father drove through the back gate with a load of hay—" She stopped to hear more, and shouted, "This man was hiding in the hay. The boy found him, the father ran to get Peppino, Giovanni ran to the bell, the women surrounded and caught the man."
"But who is it?" called Mrs. Pollifax, wondering who could possibly have breached the defenses of the Villa Franca.
The women drew apart, and Mrs. Pollifax was literally stunned at seeing the man they confronted.
It was Aristotle.
MRS. POLLIFAX, RECOVERING FROM HER astonishment, said quickly, "Search him!"
"But who is he?" asked Franca.
"A dangerous man," Farrell told her. "Very. Kate, you've got him covered with your rifle?"
"You bet I have."
Franca turned aside to translate for the others what had been said in English and the women eyed Aristotle with curiosity; he, however, kept his face expressionless and his eyes fixed on the hill above them, not even glancing at Peppino, who began a thorough search of his person for weapons.
"Nothing," called Peppino. "No gun, no knife."
"This has to be a trick of some kind," protested Farrell.
"Yes, but we can't stand here all day."
Mrs. Pollifax nodded. "Kate's right. Definitely we must recover from shock and take him somewhere private. Franca, do you mind—your house?"
Franca looked amused, and it struck Mrs. Pollifax how very little seemed to startle her. "Why not?" she said with a shrug, adding dryly, "He looks catatonic to me, but if he's really dangerous Igeia knows where there is rope to tie him up. Peppino, go with them and find out what this is all about, I'll join you in a few minutes. I want to thank Giovanni, he rang the bell so beautifully—and so quickly, too!"
Kate positioned herself behind Aristotle, her rifle prodding him in the spine, and the five of them made their way slowly up the hill in single file. Marching through the garden they passed Igeia, still standing by the door; they entered the kitchen and it was now that the irony of the situation occurred to Mrs. Pollifax: after all, Farrell had gone to great lengths to find Aristotle, the three of them had been pursued and shot at, and suddenly he had been delivered to them in—of all things—a wagon of hay.
They neither offered Aristotle a chair, nor did any of them sit down; he was prodded into a corner while they faced him at a distance of some six or eight feet.
"Well?" said Mrs. Pollifax.
He said stiffly, as if each word caused him pain, "I didn't know where else to turn, I need help."
"Help?" echoed Farrell blankly. He looked bereft of further speech, which seemed unproductive to Mrs. Pollifax, who quite understood his reaction but felt the occasion needed something more.
She said in a kindly voice, "What do you mean 'help'?"
"Help," he repeated.
"Why?" asked Kate, looking bewildered.
"They're after me. Men. One of them's named Raphael."
"Peppino," Mrs. Pollifax said in a low voice without removing her gaze from Aristotle, "you had better double the guard at both gates."
Peppino shouted words to Igeia outside. "She will see to it," he said. "Ah, here is Franca—good!"
Franca halted in the doorway, watching.
"What is it they want of you?" Mrs. Pollifax asked Aristotle.
He spat out his reply. "They have a list—a long one."
Mrs. Pollifax said pleasantly, "A list of people for you to kill? But you've killed so many already, and you nearly killed me too yesterday."
His glance was scornful. "You think you'd be alive now if I'd aimed to kill you?"
Mrs. Pollifax regarded him thoughtfully, but Farrell, recovering, said sharply, "He's up to something, watch out."
"I am watching," Mrs. Pollifax told him, "but he didn't come armed and he came alone, and Aristotle—Mr. Bimms, isn't it?—why are you here?"
"I told you, I need help," he said indignantly. "They're after me. These—these S.O.B.'s have taken me over."
"They've 'taken you over'—you mean they want you to kill more people?"
He nodded.
She said reasonably, "But you do have quite a reputation as an assassin, is that so surprising? You've killed a shocking number of valuable people and caused many tragedies."
"Of course," he said impatiently, "it's why I was in prison."
Taken aback at this she began again. "Well, then, tell us how you got here."
"Stole their car—one of them," he said, and with a jerk of his head, "It's still out there behind the wall. Was going to climb the wall but that hay wagon came along so I hid in it and sneaked in. Under the hay." He said firmly, "They're after me, I didn't know where else to go."
"But what do you want of us?" she asked.
"I want to go back."
"Back where?" demanded Farrell. "I thought you just left."
Mrs. Pollifax gave Farrell a reproachful glance. "Back where, Mr. Bimms?"
"I told you. To prison. I never asked to be taken out."
"You want to go back to prison?" Farrell asked dazedly.
Aristotle gave him a cold glance. "I always work alone, you know that. Make a contact, find out who's to be ciphered, the rest is up to me. No interference, no more contact—never see them again—money paid into a Swiss account when the job's done. These rich bastards are all over me with advice, telling me how and when. Questions, questions, talk talk talk."
"You'd rather be in prison?"
"It's what I'm telling you," he said peevishly. "Always worked everything out for myself. Carefully. But these fools, these S.O.B.'s—" Mrs. Pollifax thought he would have spit on the floor to show his contempt if he'd been anywhere but in a strange house.
Farrell said with equal scorn, "I suppose you'll next say you've been rehabilitated and are tired of killing people and filled with remorse?"
Aristotle gave him an icy glance. "Go to hell."
Farrell nodded. "That sounds more like you."
Mrs. Pollifax, having never before had the opportunity to converse with a killer, was curious. "You actually prefer prison?"
He shrugged. "They leave me alone. " He added savagely, "I don't like people. This bunch of bastards are trying to control me. They crowd me, think they own me, I want to go back."
Kate said angrily, "How can we even think of helping a professional assassin?"
Mrs. Pollifax nodded. "It does put us in a rather strange position, doesn't it? Yet he only—apparently—asks to be taken back to France and to prison."
"No, he's asking us to save his life, " Farrell said indignantly. "He's told us they'll be after him, he stole their car, didn't he?"
"Which," said Mrs. Pollifax, "ought to be hidden at once."
"And," continued Farrell, "I hope you heard him imply that he'd be happy to kill again if he could do it without interference and being hassled. This is a trick, I tell you, he hopes to gain our sympathy, steal Franca's car and escape the island."
"Not," said Mrs. Pollifax, "if he can be tied up and hidden here until the authorities and Carstairs can be notified." She added pointedly, "You wanted nothing more than to find him, Farrell, you've been searching for him and here he is."
Farrell made a face. "1 didn't expect this."
Kate grinned. "Not in your scenario?" And to Aristotle, "What about your wife? Aren't you leaving her in the lurch— abandoning her?"
He gave her a malevolent glance. "Her! She helped them get me here. She'll get by, she always does. Money money money!"
"We really must hide him," said Mrs. Pollifax. "That is, if a place can be found for him here. If Franca gives us permission." Turning to her she said, "He's dangerous, how do you feel about this? Is it possible? Can you spare a bedroom?"
Kate shook her head and said sharply, "He could be found in one of the rooms here, Franca, or in any obvious place. Someone might get in—or he go out."
&
nbsp; Peppino, seeing the look she gave her aunt, said flatly, "No, Kate!"
No what? wondered Mrs. Pollifax.
Kate said to Franca, "It has to be a terribly safe place, where he's not dangerous to us and can't be found by people searching for him. When the police come for him he can be moved, he needn't he found there."
"Caterina," growled Peppino, "you ask too much. Look at all these people hearing you."
Hearing what? wondered Mrs. Pollifax, thoroughly puzzled and curious now.
There was a long silence as they all turned to Franca and waited. She in turn appeared to be thinking, her glance resting first on Aristotle, then on Kate. "Peppino," she said at last, "they have already seen the studio."
"The devil they have!"
"And each has given a pledge of silence."
Peppino's eyes narrowed; he looked long and searchingly at Mrs. Pollifax and then at Farrell, and shrugged. "As you say, Franca."
Franca nodded. "Then come."
"Come where?" asked Farrell.
"Never mind," Franca told him, "just come."
Once again they formed a procession as Franca led them down the hallway, Farrell at her side followed by Mrs. Pollifax, Aristotle, Kate with the rifle, and Peppino bringing up the rear.
They passed the living room, several closed doors, the bathroom, Farrell's room, Mrs. Pollifax's room, the office where the Correggio had been seen, and halted at the door to Franca's studio.
Drawing a scarf out of the pocket of her robe Franca handed it to Mrs. Pollifax. "You will please blindfold this man with the Greek name."
Mrs. Pollifax approached the startled Aristotle and secured the scarf around his head, after which Franca opened the door and they grouped themselves just inside the studio; removing another key from her pocket Franca unlocked the door to the closet.
Except it was not a closet, as Mrs. Pollifax had assumed, nor was it a repository holding fake Greek vases; it concealed six steps down to a landing, where more steps turned sharply to the left. Franca paused to light a lantern that waited just inside the door—of course, the generator isn't working, thought Mrs. Pollifax—and then Franca led them down, holding the lantern high. Mrs. Pollifax could hear muffled complaints from Aristotle stumbling along in the rear; ahead, at the bottom of the stairs gleamed the light of another lantern that presently illuminated a very startled Nito holding a lantern in one hand and a pistol in the other.
What is this, she thought in alarm.
"It's all right, Nito," Franca reassured him, "there is a man to hide. Not a good man, but even worse men look for him. We must hide him until the polizia come to collect him."
At the base of the staircase Farrell had stopped in astonishment, so that it was necessary for him to be prodded out of the way, and then Mrs. Pollifax stepped from the last stair and stopped in astonishment, too.
She gasped, "But—is that a mine shaft? You have a mina down here?" She was aware of a large generator off to her left in the basement, and a huge storage tank of fuel, as well as piles of lumber and stacks of bricks but what she was staring at was the basement wall facing the stairs. There was a large gap in that wall, its opening framed and shored up by timber. A lantern just inside it illuminated a ceiling and earthen walls supported by beams, a narrow scaffolded passageway, the silhouette of a ladder and beyond this darkness. A mine, surely.
"No," said Franca calmly, "there is a two-thousand-year-old village buried under this house; we discovered it when the first generator was brought in and the wall began collapsing."
"My God," gasped Farrell, "the pre-Hellenic vases are real?
She looked at him in amusement. "Yes, Farrell, they are quite real."
"Those seven men with shovels!" gasped Mrs. Pollifax. "I saw them my first morning here—your whole village is involved?"
"Of course," said Franca, "but I think we do not speak any more of this down here." She whispered words in Nito's ear and at once he dug out a canvas from the bricks and hung it over the excavation's entrance to conceal it. She nodded. "Guard him, Nito, until we bring down rope and a chair for him. You can remove his blindfold now, too."
Aristotle said defiantly, "I need nothing. No rope, no chair."
"You will have both," Franca told him firmly. "We go."
Still somewhat stunned they were led up the stairs by Franca, through the studio and down the long hall to the kitchen, where Igeia gave them accusing glances as she poured coffee, muttering under her breath.
Ruefully Mrs. Pollifax said, "Franca, we have completely disrupted your life."
Franca only shrugged. "What happens, happens; who can complain? The gods test us."
"But it's exciting," Farrell said, thoroughly recovered now. "What a find, Franca! I hope you'll let us see the—they're called digs, aren't they? Except"—he frowned—"it's a very delicate process, excavating, isn't it? Aren't you afraid the workers will step on something, crush an artifact, be clumsy?"
Franca smiled at Peppino. "It was a very small generator, that first one, remember Peppi? All I could afford at that time. The vibrations shook the wall and it crumbled, but when we discovered what lay behind it and below us—what a moment! —we had a meeting, the whole village. It was decided that Peppino must go to Syracuse to learn about such matters, and so for a year he worked as laborer with an archaeologist, and when he came back he taught the rest of us."
"But this is amazing," said Mrs. Pollifax. "And to realize the Greeks were living under you two thousand years ago."
Farrell looked at Kate with interest. "You've known this?"
She nodded. "Of course."
"There hasn't been much excavating done in Cefalù," Franca added, "but it's known that it was once an ancient Sikel city named Cephaloedium. It's first mentioned in a 396 b.c, treaty by that name, and it's known that later it was captured by Dionysius of Syracuse in 307 b.c. Kate has been such a help researching the area, not here in Sicily, of course, but in the United States."
"Oh?" said Mrs. Pollifax. "To keep it secret, I suppose?"
Kate said with feeling, "Just to survive here Franca has "Kate!"
"Well, why not say it? There aren't just taxes but—well, certain extra payments—so no one will be too curious."
Mrs. Pollifax said matter-of-factly, "The word is bribe, I believe."
"Contributions," Franca said politely.
Mrs. Pollifax didn't ask if private excavations on the island were legal; legal appeared to be a word that was not familiar to Franca at all. Instead she said firmly, rising from her chair, "I think it's time we find that telephone and put in a call to Carstairs about Aristotle in the basement. I'd like to cable Cyrus, too."
"Oh dear, I'm still in pajamas," lamented Kate. "I'll get dressed and fetch the car, but will it be safe? Do you think they followed Aristotle here? He wasn't at all clear about that. Perhaps I should make the call and the two of you stay here."
Farrell grinned. "No one—but no one, my dear Rossiter—is going to deprive me of telling Carstairs what's happened. We'll take guns with us and chance it. Carstairs has to be notified or Aristotle will put down roots and grow mold in Franca's cellar. He's got to be removed—let's go!"
Cefalu was full of sun and people and the sea was blue and the sky cloudless; Mrs. Pollifax thought it an absolutely delightful seaside town to explore but for the moment she could only be grateful that they'd left the Villa Franca without being seen, although each of them knew they might not be so fortunate on their return. They parked at a hotel near the promenade and smuggled Farrell into the lobby, standing guard beside him while he made his call.
It was the middle of the night in Virginia, but in Baltimore Jennie was at the switchboard and said at once that she'd connect Farrell with Carstairs at his home. "Although he may be a bit cross, he usually is when woken up."
Carstairs was not at all cross, however. "Thank God you're alive and safe," he said with feeling, "and if you've found Aristotle as well, that's incredible. I won't ask how, there's no time, it'
s been difficult protecting you from the French, who have wanted to take over, or bring in Interpol; I've advised Bernard at the Sûreté to position his men in Milan all set to move. If they're in place by now they could be in Sicily in a matter of hours unless they run into clearance problems. Now tell me precisely where you are, I'm going to contact Bernard immediately . . ."
Putting down the phone, Farrell was puzzled. "He was certainly fervent about learning we're alive and safe. He seemed to know a great deal of what's been going on here, but there wasn't time to ask how. It's the French—or Interpol—who will be coming."
"Not so loud," cautioned Kate.
"Well, it's a French prison he returns to," Mrs. Pollifax pointed out sensibly, and claimed her turn at the phone. Feeling that an actual conversation with Cyrus would take too much time, as well as reveal too much to alarm, perplex and distract him she reduced her message to a cable that read simply ALL WELL STOP HOPE TO JOIN YOU SOONEST STOP LOVE EMILY. There seemed no point in confiding to him that she and Farrell had met with Aristotle again, had been waylaid by hoodlums, or that she had added burglary to her list of experiences.
They were able to return successfully to the Villa Franca, and —lest Aristotle remain upset—she thought he would appreciate learning that his hours in the cellar were limited and that he would presently be restored to prison, an ambition that seemed to her extremely odd, and about which she admitted some skepticism despite his obvious sincerity at six o'clock that morning.
Mrs. Polllifax and the Second Thief Page 12