I sat frozen, staring at him.
"Find Sherrard?" I repeated stupidly.
Chalmers nodded.
"That's right. Sherrard seduced my daughter, and now he's going to damn well pay for it. But we've got to find him first. That's going to be your job. You can have all the money you want and all the help too. You can hire a flock of private detectives. I'll have some sent out from New York if they're no good here. It won't be easy. It's obvious he wasn't using his real name, but somewhere along the line he must have left a clue, and once you find that, you'll find other clues, then you'll find him."
"You can rely on me, Mr. Chalmers," I somehow managed to get out.
"Let me know how you're going to tackle the job. I want to be kept informed of every move you make. If I think of anything, I'll let you know. The thing to do is to find him, and find him fast."
"What happens when we do find him?"
I had to ask that question. I had to know.
He looked at me, and there was an expression in his eyes that turned my mouth dry.
"This is the way I see it," he said "Helen met this punk soon after she arrived in Rome. It didn't take him long to seduce her. The doctor says she was eight weeks' pregnant. She arrived in Rome fourteen weeks ago, so he worked pretty fast. She probably told him what had happened, and like all the rats of his type, he started to fade out of the picture. I reckon Helen took this villa in the hope of winning him back." He turned his head to look around the lounge. "It's pretty romantic, isn't it? I guess she hoped the surroundings would soften him. From what that wop detective says, Sherrard or whatever he calls himself did came here, but he didn't soften."
I crossed my legs. I had to do something. I couldn't just shake a frozen dummy.
"Know what I think?" Chalmers went on, turning the full force of his big-shot personality on to me. "I think Helen's death was no accident. I think we have two alternatives: she either tried to scare him into marrying her by threatening to commit suicide, and when he told her to go ahead and jump, she jumped or else, to shut her mouth, he shoved her off the cliff."
"You can't believe that ... ?" I began. My voice sounded as if it were coming out of a tunnel.
"I don't think she jumped," he said, leaning forward, his face set and his eyes frightening. "I think he killed her! He knew she was my daughter. He knew sooner or later I'd hear what he had done to her. He knew if he tangled with me, he wouldn't, stand a chance. So he manoeuvred her up on to the cliff top and gave her a push."
"But that's murder," I said.
He showed his teeth in a mirthless smile.
"Of course it's murder, but you don't have to worry about that. All you have to do is to find him, then I'll handle it. Let everyone think it's an accident. That suits me. I'm not going to have any publicity on this thing. No one is going to snigger behind my back because she was pregnant. If this guy is arrested and tried for murder, the whole dirty story will come out, and I don't want it to come out, but that doesn't mean I won't make him pay for what he has done. I can kill him in my own particular way, and that's what I intend to do." His eyes were glaring now. "Don't think I'm going to murder him. I'm not that crazy, but I can make his life such a hell, in the end he'll be glad to blow his rotten brains out. I've got the power and the money to do it, and that's what I'm going to do. I'll go after the basic things of his life first. I can get him turned out of his house or apartment or wherever he lives. I can prevent him putting a car on the road. I can fix it he can't go into any decent restaurant. Small stuff, you think? Imagine how you'd like it. Then I can get after his money and wipe out his securities. I can make him lose his job, and I can make sure no one else ever employs him. I can hire thugs to beat him up from time to time until he's too damned scared to show himself on the streets at night. I can even fix it that be loses his passport. Then when he begins to think life's bad, I'll really start on him," He pushed his jaw at me, his face turning a dusty red. "Every so often I run into odd, tough characters: characters who are a little screwy. I know a guy who would blind this punk for a couple of hundred dollars. He'd tear his goddam eyeballs out, and think nothing of it." He smiled suddenly, a smile that chilled me. "I'll make him pay, Dawson, make no mistake about that." He tapped my knee with a thick finger. "You find him – I'll fix him."
II
In the cupboard of the sideboard that stood against one of the walls of the lounge, I found three bottles of whisky and two of gin. I broke open one of the bottles of whisky, found a glass in the kitchen and poured out three fingers of spirit.
I carried the drink out on to the balcony and sat down on the bench seat. I drank the whisky slowly, staring at the magnificent view without seeing it. I was shaking, and my mind was numbed with panic.
It wasn't until I had finished the drink that my eyes began to register again. From where I sat I looked down on the distant snake-back road that led down to Sorrento. I saw the big black Rolls that was taking Chalmers back to Naples, moving fast into the bends.
"It's all yours, Dawson," he had said as I walked with him to the car. "Keep in touch with me. Money's no object. Don't waste time writing. Telephone me. As soon as you discover anything, call me; no matter what time it is. I'll fix it from now on my secretary knows where I am all the time. I'll be waiting. I want this punk found fast."
It was like handing me a razor and telling me to hurry up and cut my throat.
He had gone on to say that I might as well examine the villa in detail while I was up here, and check up on the place where Helen had died.
"Use her car. When you're through with it, sell it and give the money to some charity. Sell all her stuff in there. I don't want it. I'll leave it to you. I've fixed to have her body flown home." He had shaken my hand, his rain-coloured eyes on my face. "I want you to find this guy, Dawson."
"I'll try," I said.
"Look, you'll do more than try: you'll find him." His chin pushed out at me. "I'll hold the foreign desk open for you until you do find him ... understand?"
Which was just another way of saying if I didn't find him, I wouldn't get the foreign desk.
The whisky did me some good. After the second drink, I was able to shake off my panic and begin to think.
I didn't believe for one moment that Helen had been murdered or that she had committed suicide. Her death had been accidental. I was sure of it.
I hadn't been her lover. It was something I couldn't prove, but at least I knew it. Chalmers had told me to find Sherrard whom he believed was her lover. I was Sherrard, and I wasn't her lover, therefore it followed that there was another man involved. If I were going to save what was left of my future, I had to find this guy and prove he had been her lover.
I lit a cigarette while I let my mind work on this thing.
Was this man I had to look for the intruder I had spotted in the villa? If he wasn't, then who was the intruder? What was he looking for? Certainly not the box of jewels. That had been on the dressing-table and he couldn't have failed to have teen it. Then what had he been looking for?
After thinking around it for five minutes and getting nowhere I decided to shelve it for the moment and try some other angle that might yield dividends.
Helen had lived in Rome for fourteen weeks. During that time she had met this man X who eventually became her lover. Where did she meet him?
I realized then that I knew nothing about Helen's activities in Rome during those weeks. I had taken her out a few times, been to her apartment twice and met her once at a party, but apart from that I had no idea how she had passed her time.
She had stayed at the Excelsior hotel, and then had rented an expensive apartment off the Via Cavour. Chalmers probably had paid the hotel bill: giving her a little luxury until she had settled down in Rome. It was probable that after staying at the hotel a few days, she was to move into one of the university hostels. Instead, she had moved into an apartment that must have soaked up nearly all of her sixty dollars a week allowance.
Did
this mean that she had met X at the Excelsior, and he had persuaded her to take the apartment, probably paying for it?
The more I thought about it, the plainer it became that I should have to start this hunt for X in Rome. I knew of a firm of private investigators who had a reputation for thoroughness. It wouldn't be possible for me to dig into Helen's past back-ground without help. My first move would be to consult them. I got to my feet and wandered into Helen's bedroom. I had only glanced into the room previously, but now I examined it in detail.
I looked at the double bed and felt a little qualm. She had planned this for both of us. I must not lose sight of that. It was obvious to me that her affair with X had petered out and, looking for a new lover, she had selected me. Had she been in love with me or had she been looking for a father for her unborn child? The thought was unsettling, but it was something that was a waste of time to brood on. Only Helen could tell me that, and she was dead.
Then another idea dropped into my mind. I remembered what Maxwell had said about Helen. She makes a play at arty-thing in trousers. The trouble she gets a guy into! Suppose X had still been in love with her, and she had grown tired of him? Suppose he had found out she had taken this villa and was planning to live here with me? He might have come down to even the score. He might even have thrown' her over the cliff.
This would be a sweet theory to lay before Chalmers, who was obviously convinced that Helen was a thoroughly decent girl. I couldn't lay it before him without involving myself.
With this idea nagging at the back of my mind, I spent an hour going through her three suitcases. It was a waste of time, because I knew both Carlotti and Chalmers had been through them and had found nothing. Her clothes carried a faint smell of an expensive perfume that made her memory very alive to me. I was feeling pretty depressed by the time I had completed repacking the suitcases, ready to put in the car when I left.
I looked over the whole villa, but I found nothing that'd tell me what she had done from the time the village woman had left her arranging the flowers to the time she had died.
I carried the suitcases down the steps and loaded them on the back seat of the convertible. I returned to the villa and gave myself another drink.
I told myself that my search must begin in Rome. Here I had found nothing, and as I thought about that, I got another idea. I stood thinking for a moment, then I crossed to the telephone and asked to be connected with Sorrento police headquarters. When I got through, I asked for Lieutenant Grandi.
"This is Dawson," I said. "I forgot to ask you: did you have that film processed? The film in Signorina Chalmers's cine camera?"
"There wasn't a film in the camera," he said curtly.
"No film? Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
I stared at the opposite wall.
"If there was no film in the camera, she wasn't using the camera when she died," I said, speaking my thoughts aloud.
"That doesn't follow. She could have forgotten to put a film in, couldn't she?"
I remembered that the indicator on the camera had shown that twelve feet of film had been run off. I knew a little about these cameras, and I knew that when you put a film in, there is a catch that opens the film gate through which you thread the film, and as the gate opens the indicator is automatically set back to zero.
"I suppose she could," I said. "Did Lieutenant Carlotti think anything of it?"
"What's there to think about?" Grandi snapped.
"Well, thanks. Just one other thing: there wasn't anything taken from the villa, was there? Besides the jewels, I mean."
"We didn't take anything."
"Have you finished with the camera and the case? I'm collecting la signorina Chalmers's things now. If I drop by, can I have the camera?"
"We don't want it any more."
"Okay, I'll be along then. So long, Lieutenant," and I hung up.
The footage indicator on the camera had shown twelve feet. That meant there had been a film in the camera, and it had been removed by someone who wasn't familiar in handling this type of camera. The film had been forcibly removed, ripping the length of film out of the gate without releasing the gate lock. It meant too that the film had been ruined by taking it out this way, so it followed whoever had taken it out hadn't wished to keep the film. The only purpose for removing the film was to destroy it.
Why?
I gave myself another drink. I was suddenly excited. Could this be the clue Chalmers had said I would find, and having found this one, I'd find another?
Helen wouldn't have ripped the film out of the camera. That was certain. Then who did?
Then the second clue dropped into my mind the way a leaf floats off a tree.
I remembered her showing me ten cartons of cine film when I had called at her Rome apartment. I remembered chaffing her about buying so many, and I remembered she had said she intended to use most of the film in Sorrento.
And yet there wasn't one carton of film in the villa or m her luggage.
There wasn't even a film in her camera. The police hadn't taken the films. Grandi had said they had taken nothing from the villa.
Was this the explanation of the intruder I had seen creeping around in the villa? Had he found and taken them? Had he ripped the film from the camera, and then tossed the camera down the cliff face?
To make absolutely sure, I went over the whole villa again, searching for the cartons of film, but I didn't find them. Satisfied, I locked up the villa, dropped the keys into my pocket, and then, leaving the Lincoln where it was, I walked down the garden path, through the gate and along the path to the cliff head.
By now it was just after midday and the sun blazed down on me as I walked. I passed the inaccessible villa below. This time I paused to look more closely at it.
On the terrace, in the shadow of a table umbrella and lying on a lounging chair, I could see a woman in a white swim-suit. She appeared to be reading a newspaper. The edge of the umbrella prevented me from seeing much of her. I could just make out her long, tanned shapely legs, part of the swim-suit and a tanned arm and hand that held the newspaper.
I wondered vaguely who she was, but I had too many things on my mind to take any interest in her, and I kept on until I reached the place where Helen had fallen.
Methodically, I searched the path, the rough grass and the surrounding rocks within a thirtyyard radius. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I thought it might pay dividends to do it.
It was hot work, but I kept at it. I found one thing that might or might not mean something. It was a half-smoked Burma cheroot.
As I stood in the hot sunlight, turning the butt over between my fingers, I had a sudden and unmistakable feeling that I was being watched.
I was pretty rattled, but I was careful not to look up. I continued to study the butt, my heart beginning to thump. It was an eerie feeling, being up there on this dangerous path, knowing that someone was close by in hiding and watching me.
I slid the butt into my pocket and straightened, moving away from the edge of the cliff head.
The feeling of being watched persisted. Casually, I looked around. Dense shrubs, and about fifty yards away, the thick wood, showed me that anyone could be hidden and watching me without a hope of my spotting them.
I started back down the path to the villa. All the way back to the garden gate, I felt eyes boring into my back. I had to exert a lot of will power not to look over my shoulder.
It wasn't until I had got into the Lincoln convertible and was driving fast along the snakeback road to Sorrento that I began to relax.
III
My first move when I reached Sorrento was to hand the keys of the villa to the estate agent. I settled the rent that was owing and gave him my Rome address in case any mail came for Helen at the villa. I told him to forward it to me.
He said it was very sad that such a beautiful girl should have had such a terrible accident. He said he had written to the owner of the villa advising him to have the path
fenced in. I wasn't in the mood for a chit-chat about fences. I made a grunting noise, shook hands with him and went back to the car.
I drove to the police staion where I collected the cine camera and its case. Grandi kept me waiting outside his office, for a quarter of an hour, then sent a sergeant out with the camera. The sergeant got me to sign a receipt for it.
I left the police station and crossed over to the car, carrying the camera in its case slung over my shoulder. I got into the car, started the engine and drove slowly into the traffic-congested main road.
You Find Him – I'll Fix Him Page 9