North From Rome

by Helen Macinnes

She stared at him. This was the first time he had identified himself openly. “And if I don’t go, what will you do? Kill me— like Tony Brewster?”

  His face tightened. “I am not a murderer. You know that. You know I would not even hurt you. But there are others who will.” He took a deep breath. “Don’t force me to telephone them, and admit that my plan has failed.” He stepped back into the hall, waiting. “Do I telephone? Or do you go with me?”

  Rosana, she thought worriedly, Rosana must surely have had the sense to lock herself securely inside the office, but she would need time. “Go—go where?” Anything to delay him, anything to let Rosana get that call through to Rome. How long did it take to get a call through, how long?

  “Among friends. There is a freighter waiting now, ready to take us to them.”

  “Where?” she insisted.

  He hesitated. Perhaps he was weighing the minimum truth he could tell her against a lie which would never be forgiven. Then, still evading a direct answer, “It will be a pleasant journey— through the Aegean, the Bosporus...” He was watching her face. “It’s only for a few months, darling. Then —we’ll come back.”

  “You’ll come back? To Italy?”

  “I’ll come back. Because I didn’t leave in defeat.” His confidence had returned. He had heard the worry, the uncertainty in her voice. He smiled, and held out his hand. Perhaps he never had any doubts about his power over a woman who had loved him, least of all when he loved her. Involuntarily, she flinched and took a step away from him. In that naked moment, he saw the contempt in her eyes. His smile faded as his hand dropped to his side. Grim-faced, he turned and moved to the door.

  “Stop him Alberto!” She ran into the hall. She caught the old man’s arm. “Rosana,” she whispered, “Rosana,” and she pointed across the courtyard. The old couple looked at each other: Anna-Maria, at least, began to understand something.

  Pirotta had halted abruptly outside. He stood, puzzled, frowning, watching the solitary figure who had come out of the doorway near the gates in the east wing that led to the office and the servants’ rooms.

  “Jacopone!” Anna-Maria screamed. “Jacopone, we’re here!”

  The old man pulled his felt brim farther over his eyes to shield them from the glare, and he started across the courtyard, his heavy boots scraping on the cobblestones. He had a rifle under one arm.

  Alberto shouted, pressing forward, “He’s taking away the Americana—he’s taking the car. He’s—”

  “Quiet!” Pirotta said angrily, pushing Alberto back into the hall. His eyes didn’t leave Jacopone, or the rifle. “Come here, you!” he told him. “What were you doing over there at the office?”

  The old man halted. “There was no one in the kitchen,” he said slowly, his eyes fixed on the doorway as if he were trying to see into the shadows of the hall. “So I came looking.” His voice drifted away uneasily.

  “For what?” Pirotta’s voice was alert.

  “Anna-Maria. Alberto. I went to their room.” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder.

  “Where’s Giovanni?”

  The old man shifted his feet. “Back there,” he said, and he gave a small smile.

  “Stop scraping your damned feet! And give me that rifle. You don’t carry a rifle around this house. Give me it!”

  “No!” Eleanor cried out, and tried to run into the courtyard. Pirotta reached out, caught her wrist, twisted it, and the knife fell from her hand. He kicked it aside.

  Jacopone looked at her. Then calmly, he aimed into the sky and pulled the trigger. The sharp crack of the rifle cut through the heavy warm air, a flock of startled pigeons rose and swept in a bewildered cloud over the courtyard.

  Pirotta stared at the old man, and then at Eleanor. He tightened his grip on her wrist. There was suspicion in his eyes, suspicion growing. Then he dropped her wrist and ran towards Jacopone.

  The old man was slowly reloading. Pirotta dealt him a savage blow, which sent him staggering, and wrenched the rifle from his hand. Eleanor raced across the short stretch of burning cobblestones. Behind her, she heard Alberto’s hoarse shout, Anna-Maria’s high scream; but in the blinding glare, she only saw Jacopone lying where he had fallen, and Pirotta standing menacingly over him. He caught her arm as she sank to her knees beside the old man, and pulled her up again to face him. “Where’s Rosana?” he asked harshly. “Where is she?” He dropped her arm. “If you have betrayed me—” There was no need to finish his threat. She knew, then, that he would kill her. He began to run towards the office.

  “Wrong direction, Pirotta,” Bill Lammiter’s voice called. “I’m over here.”

  Pirotta swung round to face the north end of the buildings. Lammiter left the shadow of the corner doorway, and stepped into the brilliant sunshine.

  25

  There was a long moment of silence, of complete surprise. No movement, no sound, except from Lammiter as he began to walk slowly across the courtyard. This long moment was in his favour. Nothing else. The sun was in his eyes. Joe’s revolver was a .28, Belgian: he’d have to get at least twenty feet nearer. Against him, was a .22 one-shot rifle. He had heard that one shot fired as he stood in the deserted kitchen, but before he had been able to find a corridor that brought him out into the courtyard, there had been time for the rifle to be reloaded. Yes, it was loaded all right, judging by the way Pirotta faced him. One shot, then: he would drop flat on his face the moment Pirotta started raising that rifle above waist level, and fire from the ground. The books said it could be done. This was one time he hoped the books were right. At least, there was no one else within range.

  Pirotta had recovered from his surprise. He watched the American walking slowly, steadily, towards him. “Isn’t this unfair?” he asked with a smile. “You know so little about weapons, obviously. A man with a pistol never faces a man with a rifle.” He raised the rifle a little. “Do you want me to complete your education?” He lowered the rifle. And then, quickly, he swung it to his shoulder and fired. Lammiter dropped flat on the ground. But there was no crack from a bullet.

  It wasn’t loaded, by God, it wasn’t loaded, Lammiter thought, as the breath came painfully back into his body. And I was so damned busy hitting those cobblestones that I didn’t even fire back. He rose. He began to laugh.

  Pirotta looked with amazement at the rifle, and then at Jacopone. The old gamekeeper was rising to his feet, a broad grin on his wrinkled face. Pirotta flung the useless rifle at him, and turned to face Lammiter. The American began walking towards him again.

  “You are close enough,” Pirotta said contemptuously. “Or would you miss even at this distance?”

  “I might at that,” said Lammiter. Now he had time to glance at Eleanor. She was all right. She still had her hands clenched together at her lips in a kind of desperate prayer. Had that gesture been for him—or was it for Pirotta, even now? At that moment, she answered his thoughts: she dropped her hands, her eyes came to life again, and “Oh, Bill!” she said. That was all. But the way she said it was enough.

  “Maybe,” Lammiter told Pirotta, “I’d like to see you in a courtroom. Maybe I’d like to find out how many lies you can tell and still look noble.” Odd, he was thinking: this morning he had said he would kill Pirotta. But now, he was finding it impossible to fire on someone just standing there, watching him. He ought to have shot him the moment he dropped to the ground. Except, at that moment, every bone in his body had been jarred and he couldn’t hit an elephant.

  Jacopone had picked up his rifle, examined it to make sure it had not been damaged. Now, with the bullet he had kept clenched in his right hand, he was reloading, expertly, definitely. He looked at Lammiter, his toothless grin widening, and nodded. Then with his deliberate pace he walked over to the cars and stood there, on guard, his eyes on Pirotta. Thank God for the Jacopones in this world, thought Lammiter.

  Pirotta said derisively, “You can always shoot me in the back.” He turned round. He looked at Jacopone. Then at Alberto. “Unlock the gat
es!” he told Alberto. But the old man made no move.

  “You’ll have to find a better solution than that for your problems,” Lammiter said grimly. “But I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you—I’ll shoot you in the leg if you start running for the gates. We’ll just stay here until the carabinieri arrive. After all, I wasn’t the only one who heard that rifle shot.” He wasn’t wholly bluffing: Joe must have heard the shot, and he would send someone.

  “Rosana!” Eleanor called out, and everyone, even Pirotta, looked at the narrow doorway near the gate. Rosana was standing there, watching them all; and then, slowly, almost dejectedly, she stepped into the courtyard. “Rosana—” Eleanor began in alarm, “didn’t you—”

  “Yes,” Rosana said quietly. “The warning went through. To Perugia.” She looked away from Pirotta. She raised her voice. “I told them that the meeting was today at three o’clock. I told them to follow the two men who would arrive on the bus. I told them about Gubbio, about Venice.” She looked at Pirotta, and her voice dropped. “I told them everything Sabatini told you, Luigi.”

  She began walking towards Lammiter.

  Pirotta looked at his watch. His indecision ended. He ran swiftly towards the narrow door beside the gate.

  “Rosana!” Lammiter yelled. “Get out of my way!” But she didn’t. And before he could move to get a clear aim, Pirotta was safely inside. She caught Lammiter’s arm as he started to follow.

  “Are you crazy! He’ll telephone his warning—” He pulled his arm free.

  “No! No!” Rosana said. “His call won’t go through.” She caught his arm again. “Let him telephone. Let him give the number of the meeting place. That is all Joe needs to find its address.” She turned to Eleanor, who had run over to Join them. “Joe has had a man sitting beside the operator all day, waiting for every call from this house. I didn’t have to telephone Rome after all.” Suddenly she smiled and kissed Eleanor’s cheek. “You and your funny old knife—you didn’t do so badly, both of you, after all.” Then the smile vanished, and she glanced across the courtyard at the door that led to the office. “Oh, I hate all this, I hate all this!” she burst out bitterly.

  “Who started it all, anyway?” Lammiter said quietly. “Not you, not Joe, not Brewster.”

  She looked at him. “I keep forgetting that,” she said. She drew away a little, her eyes once more on the door near the gate.

  Lammiter asked, “What about that mechanic? Did he carry a gun?”

  Rosana shook her head. “I told him if he didn’t stop trying to force the door to the office, I’d name him to the police. And just as he was thinking about that, Jacopone came looking for Anna-Maria and Alberto. Their quarters are next door to the office. He locked the mechanic into Anna-Maria’s bedroom.”

  “Joe heard the rifle shot, I hope.”

  “Yes. It was a signal he had prearranged.”

  “Damn it, I keep underestimating him.”

  “Who is he, Bill?”

  “A Sicilian.”

  “Yes, yes, but.”

  Eleanor looked at one and then at the other. There’s so much I don’t understand, she thought forlornly. There’s so much I haven’t been told. There’s only one thing I do know: Bill never stopped loving me. Perhaps that’s all I want to know, anyway. “The cobbles are hot,” she said suddenly. I’ll find my shoes, I think.” The excuse was real: now that the danger was over, she was aware, at last, of the pain in her burning feet. She tried to smile. Neither of them had heard her. They were listening for something else as they watched the door. I won’t watch, she thought: I won’t watch Pirotta come out. She turned towards the hall and ran. She heard Bill’s voice, “Eleanor, wait—” And then, as she reached the dark silence of the hall, the stone floor, cold as the water of a mountain stream, under her burning feet, she heard the gate bell ring. That will be the police, she thought, the police or the carabinieri. She didn’t know why she should be crying.

  She sank down on the bottom step of the staircase. She had suddenly no strength to climb towards her shoes. She sat, her head bowed, her hands covering her face. “If you have betrayed me—” he had said. Had she betrayed him? “You and your funny old knife,” Rosana had said. Betrayed him? And then she remembered Bill’s quiet voice back in the courtyard, “Who started it all, anyway?”

  “Eleanor!” Lammiter tried to stop her, but she was already running towards the hall. That might be a safer place than the courtyard: he still had the worry that Pirotta would come out with a gun in his hand. Or with Giovanni. Or with both. He just didn’t trust Pirotta. He started after Eleanor. “Wait for me!” He raised his voice. “Eleanor, wait for me in there!” And then he heard Pirotta’s footsteps. He swung round again, cursing the moment.

  Pirotta had come out from the doorway at the gate. He was alone and unarmed. For a brief moment, he had paused and looked at them all. Then it seemed as though they no longer existed, as though he had blotted out the whole picture of this courtyard from his mind. He began to walk towards the south wing of the house. The gate bell rang, but he paid no attention.

  “What’s over there?” Lammiter asked Rosana as he watched Pirotta’s determined pace. Pirotta passed the cars. Jacopone made no attempt to stop him, and Pirotta went on. He entered a doorway.

  “His own rooms,” Rosana said, and put a hand on Lammiter’s sleeve. “Don’t follow him, Bill.” She paused. She hesitated. And then, slowly, she said, “The gun room is over there, too.”

  “Locked?” he asked quickly. “Surely it’s locked?”

  “The princess told Alberto to unlock it. Those were the orders.”

  “What?” He stared at her. He started towards the south wing, but Rosana’s hand tightened desperately on his arm.

  “Do you want to stop him?” She shook her head. “What other solution is there?”

  “But—” He hesitated. He didn’t know what to do.

  “What else?” she said fiercely. There were tears in her eyes. “What else? The princess is right. He has lived badly. Let him die well.”

  The gates were being opened. He pocketed Joe’s revolver. “I just don’t trust him,” he said slowly.

  Her tears changed to shocked anger. “Not even now? He’s defeated. He knows it. He knew it when his telephone call didn’t go through!” She looked at him almost accusingly. Then she pointed to the elderly captain and two boys in dark green uniforms who were coming through the gates. “They are in charge now, anyway.”

  “Suits me,” he said. “I’ll find Eleanor.”

  “And leave me to face the captain by myself?”

  “Explain to him I’m a foreigner, can’t speak the language.”

  He turned towards the hall. This first meeting with Eleanor— it would be difficult. Odd, how easy it could have been five minutes ago, when she had called out “Oh, Bill!” and looked, as if she would run straight into his arms. But Pirotta had been there, still undefeated, still dangerous. And now—how did you hold her and kiss her when you were listening for a shot from the gun room? Pirotta was still between them.

  Rosana said, “Bill, what shall I tell him?” She was frightened. She made no move to go over to the captain and his two men.

  Lammiter halted, and glanced at the little group moving away from the gate. Alberto and Anna-Maria had begun a long recital, no doubt making everything abundantly incomprehensible. Jacopone had added his stalwart silence to their story. “Tell him

  Jacopone was showing me how his rifle worked.”

  “And nothing else?”

  “That’s all he needs to know.” And there I go, he thought savagely, starting to hush things up, just like the princess, just like Alberto.

  “I suppose so.” She wiped the tear marks from her cheeks. She added, pathetically, “It’s so hard to remember what some know and others don’t, and how much they can be told and can’t be. Bill, I didn’t say anything to Eleanor about Luigi’s other—other organisation. The narcotics one. I just told her about the politics. I thought that w
as—that was enough.” She shivered and looked round the sunlit courtyard. “Strange that it should be here that everything was really decided. Not in Perugia. Here...”

  Somehow, his worry grew as he watched the genial captain’s stately progress slowed by that ancient mariner Alberto. Everyone was being so damned tactful and correct. Very serious were the two fresh-boys, and very impressed by the princess’s Casa Grande. Yes, everyone was being so polite, so relieved that there was no ugly trouble to be found in this pleasant place after all. Decent, kindly people, trusting, ignorant. They had not one idea of the evil that had walked through this courtyard today. He looked at the south wing of the house. I still don’t trust him, he thought.

  Rosana, watching the captain approach her, said suddenly, “I—I don’t think they’ve come to arrest me after all.” She almost laughed in her relief. “That was the plan: Luigi was going to take Eleanor with him, but I was to be—”

  “Rosana,” Lammiter said urgently, “does this house all connect? Each wing leads into the other?”

  She stared at him. “Bill!” she called out. But he was already racing across the short stretch of cobblestones towards the main door. He was pulling out the revolver again. He was running, she thought in amazement, not to the south wing, not towards the gun room, but straight for the hall. Eleanor, she suddenly remembered, he’s worried about Eleanor. Quickly she signalled the astounded captain, and they began to run, too.

  “Eleanor!” It was Luigi Pirotta’s voice, far away, calling her, calling her urgently.

  Or was he near, and the voice was low? It came again. “Eleanor!”

  She raised her head from her hands. She half-rose, turned slowly round. Outside, in the sunlit courtyard, there were footsteps and voices. Here, in the shadowed silence of the hall was Pirotta. Somewhere in the hall, there was Pirotta.

  She drew back, shrinking against the stone wall, and looked up the long flight of steps. He was standing there, at the head of the staircase, quite still. For a long moment, he stood looking at her. He raised the revolver he had held by his side.