“Your husband has told me to make an investigation. That’s an order.”
“If you investigate her death as a murder, you are certain to uncover a whole series of unpleasant facts about her. I am sure she behaved in Rome as she has behaved in New York. It will be impossible to conceal these facts from my husband. He is completely convinced that Helen was a decent, clean-living girl. The facts you will have to tell him will shock him. He won’t forgive you for shattering his illusions about his daughter, nor is he likely to employ a man in the most important position on his newspaper who has shown him how completely fooled he has been about such a worthless degenerate as his daughter was. Now do you understand why I am asking you not to probe too deeply into this business?”
I reached out, picked up my glass and finished my whisky.
“How is it you know so much about Helen Chalmers?” I asked.
“I’m not blind and I’m not stupid. I’ve known her for some years. I’ve seen the men she associated with. Her behaviour was notorious.”
There was more to it than that: I was sure of it, but I didn’t say so.
“This puts me on a spot,” I said. “Mr. Chalmers has told me if I don’t uncover the facts, I won’t get the job. Now you tell me if I do, I still won’t get it. So what do I do?”
“Don’t uncover them, Mr. Dawson. Delay things. After a while, my husband will get over the shock of her death. At the moment he is furious and revengeful, but when he gets back to New York and is caught-up once more in his work, he will calm down. In a couple of weeks’ time you can safely report no progress. I can assure you he will let the matter drop. I can promise you, if you don’t start an investigation you will get the foreign desk, but if you do, I am sure my husband, when he learns the truth about Helen, will never forgive you.”
“So you suggest I sit back and do nothing?”
Just for a moment her fixed smile slipped. Into her eyes jumped a staring fear that startled me. It was there for a split second, then the smile came back, but I had seen her fear all right.
“Of course you will have to make out to my husband that you are doing your best, Mr. Dawson. You will have to send him reports, but no one can blame you if you don’t discover any worth-while information.” She leaned forward and put her hand on mine. “Please don’t check up on Helen’s life in Rome. I have to live with my husband. I know how he would react if he knew the truth about Helen. It was I who persuaded him to let her go to Rome, and he would blame me, so it’s not only for your sake I’m asking you to do this, it’s for mine as well.”
I was sitting facing the reception hall and I saw Chalmers come out of the elevator and go over to the reception desk. I pulled my hand from hers and got to my feet.
“Here’s Mr. Chalmers now.”
Her mouth tightened, and she turned to wave to Chalmers who came over. He carried a light overcoat on his arm and a despatch case in his hand.
“Hello, Dawson, did you want to see me?” he asked as he put down his case. “We haven’t much time.”
I had intended to tell him about the missing films and about the Renault that had followed me, but now, having listened to June Chalmers, I decided I needed some time to think over what she had said before I committed myself. I was suddenly stuck to explain what I was doing here.
But June wasn’t.
“Mr. Dawson brought Helen’s camera,” she said. For a moment I wondered how she knew the camera was Helen’s, but glancing at the case, I realized she had spotted Helen’s initials on it. All the same this show of quick-wittedness told me she was a lot smarter than I had imagined. Chalmers scowled at the camera.
“I don’t want it. I don’t want any of her things,” he said curtly. “Get rid of it.”
I said I would do that.
“Did you find anything up at the villa?”
I caught June’s anxious eyes. I shook my head.
“Nothing helpful.”
He grunted.
“Well, I expect results. We’ve got to find this punk fast. Get some men on the job. I expect to hear something by the time I get back to New York… understand?”
I said I understood.
He took from his pocket a Yale key.
“The police gave me this. It’s the key to her apartment in Rome. You’d better arrange to have her things collected and sold. I’ll leave it to you. I don’t want anything sent back.”
I took the key.
“We should be going, Sherwin,” June said suddenly.
He looked at his strap watch.
“Yeah. Okay. I’ll leave this to you, Dawson. Just find this punk and let me know the moment you’ve found him.”
He nodded, and, picking up his despatch case, he began to move out of the bar towards the reception hall.
June gave me a steady stare as she followed him.
I saw them into the Rolls.
“I want to know what you plan to do,” Chalmers said through the open car window. “Don’t be afraid of spending money. Get as many as you need on this. The quicker you clear it up, the quicker you’ll be working at the foreign desk.”
I said I’d do the best I could.
As the Rolls drove away June Chalmers looked back at me through the rear window. Her eyes were still anxious.
II
I reached Rome around six o’clock.
During the run I had looked out for the Renault, but I hadn’t seen it. Leaving the Lincoln in the parking lot, I walked up the private stairway that led directly to my apartment.
I unlocked the front door, carried my suitcase into my bedroom then, returning to the lounge, I mixed myself a whisky and soda and then sat down by the telephone. I put a call through to Carlotti.
After a little delay he came on the line.
“This is Dawson,” I said. “I’ve just got back.”
“Yes? Il signer Chalmers has returned to New York?”
“That’s right. The coroner seems satisfied it was an accident.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Carlotti said. “The inquest isn’t until Monday.”
“Chalmers has talked to him. He has also talked to your boss,” I said, staring at the opposite wall.
“I wouldn’t know about that either,” Carlotti said.
There was a pause but as he seemed determined to act cagey, I went on, “There’s something you can do for me if you will. I want information about the registration number of a car.”
“Certainly. Let me have the number and I will call you back.”
I gave him the number of the Renault.
“I won’t keep you long.”
I hung up and settled myself more comfortably in my chair. I held my whisky and soda in my hand while I stared down at the swirling traffic that made circles around the Forum.
I sat like that for ten minutes, not thinking, letting my mind remain a blank until the telephone bell rang.
“Are you sure you haven’t made a mistake about that car number?” Carlotti asked.
That was one thing I was sure of.
“I don’t think so… why?”
“There’s no such number registered.”
I ran my fingers through my hair.
“I see.” I didn’t want to raise his curiosity. “I’m sorry about that, Lieutenant. Come to think of it, I could have made a mistake.”
“You have a reason for asking? It is something to do, perhaps, with la signorina Chalmers’s death?”
I grinned without any humour.
“It was a guy who ran me pretty close. I thought of reporting him.”
There was a short pause, then Carlotti said, “Never hesitate to ask for my help when you need it. It is what I am here for.”
I thanked him and hung up.
I lit a cigarette and continued to stare out of the window. This business was becoming complicated.
Although June Chalmers’s argument that Chalmers could rum on me if I showed him the kind of daughter he had been doting on made sense, I knew that she was
n’t thinking of me when she had asked me to lay off an investigation: she was scared something that would affect her would come to light.
I knew too, that if I did lie down on the investigation, Chalmers would know. He would get rid of me and put someone else on the job.
I knew also that if Carlotti suspected that Helen had been murdered, no one, let alone Chalmers, would stop him hunting for the killer.
I levered myself out of my chair and went over to the telephone.
I called Maxwell.
The operator told me there was no answer from the office, so I asked her to put me through to Maxwell’s hotel. The clerk told me Maxwell was out. I said I would call again and hung up.
I lit another cigarette and wondered what my next move was to be. It seemed to me that I had to go ahead with the investigation. I decided to go around to Helen’s apartment. There might or might not be something there that would give me a lead on this set-up.
I locked the camera away in a drawer in my desk, and then went down to where I had left the Lincoln. Not bothering to get my car from the garage, I used the Lincoln. It took me twenty minutes to reach Helen’s apartment block. I lugged her suitcases into the automatic elevator and then along with me to her front door.
As I took out the Yale key Chalmers had given me, I glanced at my watch. The time was twenty minutes to eight o’clock. I pushed open the front door and walked into the hall.
A very faint smell of her perfume gave me a spooky feeling as I crossed the hall and walked into the sitting-mom. It seemed only a few hours ago that she and I were talking together about our planned stay in Sorrento: only a few hours since I had kissed her for the first and only time.
I stood in the doorway and looked across the room to the desk where the ten cartons of films had stood, but they weren’t there. There had been a remote possibility that she had forgotten to have taken them to Sorrento. That they were not on the desk underlined the fact that someone had stolen them from the villa.
I moved into the room and looked around. After a moment’s hesitation I went over to the desk and sat down before it I opened one drawer after the other. There were the usual things you expect to find in the drawers of a desk: notepaper, blotting-paper, ink, rubber bands and so on. I found all these, but I didn’t find one personal paper, bill, letter or diary anywhere. It took me several moments to realize that someone must have been here before me, and had made a clean sweep of every used scrap of paper in the desk. Had it been the police or the same person who had stolen the films?
Uneasy in my mind, I went into the bedroom. It wasn’t until I had looked into the various closets and into the drawers of the bureau that I saw what a tremendous stock of expensive clothes Helen had owned. Chalmers had told me to get rid of all her things, but looking at the dozens of dresses, coats, shoes, three drawers full of underwear and a drawer crammed with costume jewellery, I saw the job was too big for me to tackle alone. I decided I’d have to get Gina to help me.
I returned to the sitting-room and called her on the telephone. I was lucky to catch her. She told me she was just going out to supper.
“Could you come over here?” I gave her the address. “I’ve a man-sized job for you to tackle. Take a taxi. When we’re through I’ll take you out to dinner.”
She said she would be right over.
As I hung up I noticed on the wall, near the telephone, a telephone number scribbled in pencil: I leaned forward to stare at it. It was scarcely visible, and it was only because I had switched on the table lamp that I had seen it. It was a Rome number.
It occurred to me that Helen wouldn’t have scribbled it on the wall unless it had been important to her, and a number she had called frequently. I had looked for a list of telephone numbers when I had searched her desk, but hadn’t found it. The fact there were no other numbers written on the wall seemed to me to be significant.
On the spur of the moment, I picked up the receiver and called the number I regretted my impulse as soon as I heard the burr-burr on the line. For all I knew this might be X’s number, and I didn’t want him to suspect I was on to him so early in the game. I was about to replace the receiver when I heard a click on the line. My ear-drum was nearly shattered by a voice that bawled in Italian: “WHAT DO YOU WANT?”
It was the most violent, undisciplined voice I had ever heard or ever want to hear over a telephone line.
I held the receiver away from my ear and listened. I could hear the faint sound of music: some throaty tenor was singing E lucevan le stelle, probably over the radio.
The man who had answered the telephone shouted, “HELLO? WHO IS IT?”
His shattering voice was more than life-size. I flicked my finger-nail against the mouth-piece of the receiver to hold his attention.
Then I heard a woman say, “Who is it, Carlo? Must you shout so?” She spoke with a strong American accent.
“No one answers,” he returned in English and in a slightly lower tone of voice.
There was a violent click as he slammed down the receiver.
Very carefully I hung up. I stared out of the window. Carlo… and an American woman. It could mean something or nothing. Helen must have made a lot of friends during her stay in Rome, Carlo could have been just a friend, but the telephone number on the wall was puzzling. If he were just a friend, why the number on the wall? He might have given it to her, of course, over the telephone, and not having any scratch pad near, she had scribbled it on the wall. That could be the explanation, but somehow I didn’t think so. If this had happened, she would surely have rubbed it out, after entering it in her telephone book.
I jotted down the number on the back of an envelope, then, as I was putting the envelope into my wallet, the front-door bell rang.
I let Gina into the apartment.
“Before we talk,” I said, “come in here and look at all this stuff. Chalmers wants me to get rid of it. He said to sell it, and give the money to some charity. It’s going to be quite a job to handle. There’s enough stuff here to stock a shop.”
I took her into the bedroom and stood back while she looked into the closets and drawers.
“This won’t be difficult to get rid of, Ed,” she told me. “I know a woman who specializes in good second-hand clothes. She’ll make an offer for everything and take it all away.”
I sighed with relief.
“That’s fine. I hoped you’d have the solution. I don’t really care what she offers so long as she takes everything and we can get this apartment off our hands.”
“La signorina Chalmers must have spent a great deal of money,” Gina said, examining some of the dresses. “Some of these have never been worn, and they were all bought at the most
expensive houses in Rome.”
“Well, she didn’t get the money from Chalmers,” I said.
“I guess someone must have financed her.”
Gina lifted her shoulders and shut the closet door.
“She didn’t get all these things for nothing,” she said. “I don’t envy her.”
“Come into the other room. I want to talk to you.”
She followed me into the lounge and dropped into a chair.
“Ed, why did she call herself Mrs. Douglas Sherrard?” she asked.
If the walls of the room had suddenly fallen in on me I couldn’t have been more shaken.
“What? What did you say?” I asked, staring at her.
She looked at me.
“I asked you why she called herself Mrs. Douglas Sherrard. Obviously I shouldn’t have asked that. I’m sorry.”
“How did you know she called herself that?”
“I recognized her voice when she called up just before you left on your vacation.”
I should have known that Gina would have recognized Helen’s voice. She had spoken to Helen twice on the telephone when Helen had first come to Rome and she had an uncanny memory for voices.
I went over to the liquor cabinet.
“Have a drink, Gina?” I s
aid, trying to keep my voice steady.
“I’d like a Campari, please.”
I took out a bottle of Campari and a bottle of Scotch. I fixed myself a stiff drink, and a
Campari and soda for Gina and brought the drinks over.
I had known Gina for four years. There had been a time when I had imagined I had been in love with her. Working with her day after day, most times alone together, had offered temptations to get intimate with her. It was because of this that I had been careful to keep our relations more or less on a business footing.
I had seen a number of newspaper men, working in Rome, who had got too friendly with their secretaries. Sooner or later, the girls either got out of hand or a visiting big-shot had spotted what was going on, and there had been trouble. So I had been strict with myself about Gina. I had never made a pass at her, and yet there was a bond between us, unspoken and unadvertised, that convinced me that, no matter what the emergency might be, I could completely rely on her.
I decided as I fixed the drink to tell her the whole story, not holding back a thing. I had a lot of faith in her opinions, and, knowing the mess I was in, I felt it was time to get an unbilled, outside opinion.
“Would it worry you if I made you my mother confessor, Gina?” I asked, sitting down opposite her. “I have a lot on my mind that I’d like to share with someone.”
“If there’s anything I can do…”
The sound of the front-door bell cut her short. For a long moment we stared at each other.
“Now, who can this be?” I said, getting to my feet.
“Perhaps it’s the janitor wanting to find out who is in here.” Gina said.
“Yeah: could be.”
I crossed the room and went out into the hall. As I reached for the door knob, the bell rang again.
I opened the door.
Lieutenant Carlotti stood in the corridor. Behind him was another detective.
“Good evening,” Carlotti said. “May I come in?”
III
Seeing him there made me understand for the first time what a criminal must feel like when he is suddenly confronted by the police. For a second or so, I stood motionless, staring at him. My heart seemed to miss several beats, and then began to race so violently I had difficulty in breathing. Had he come to arrest me? Had he found out somehow that I was Sherrard?
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