I gave him the key, which he handed to Anoni. We moved out into the corridor. Anoni didn't come with us. He remained in the apartment.
As the three of us descended in the elevator, Carlotti said, "That car number you were inquiring about. It had nothing to do with la signorina?"
"I told you: this guy nearly clipped me. He didn't stop. I thought I had got his number correct, but apparently I hadn't."
I felt his eyes on my face. We didn't speak further until we got into my car, then he said, "Can you give me the names of any of la signorina's friends?"
"I'm sorry, I can't. I think I told you already: I scarcely knew her."
"But you have talked to her?"
The mildness of his tone put me on my guard.
"Of course, but she didn't tell me anything about her life in Rome. After all, she was my boss's daughter, and it didn't cross my mind to question her."
"Did you take her out to dinner at the Trevi restaurant almost four weeks ago?"
I felt as if someone had given me a punch under the heart. Just how much did he know? Someone must have seen us. I knew I didn't dare lie to him.
"I believe I did, come to think of it, I happened to run onto her, and as I was going to dinner, I asked her along."
There was a pause, then he said, "I see."
I swung the car into the street where I lived and pulled up outside my private entrance.
There was a pretty tense atmosphere in the car. My hear was bumping so heavily against my side that I was scared he would hear it.
"And that was the only time you took her out?"
My mind raced. We had gone to two movies; we had had at least two or three dinners together.
To gain time, I said, "What was that?"
I opened the car door and got out. He followed me on to the sidewalk.
Patiently, and without much hope in his voice, he repeated the question.
"As far as I can remember." I leaned into the car. "I won't be a moment," I said to Gina. "Wait for me, then we'll have dinner together."
Carlotti followed me up the spiral staircase. He was humming under his breath, and I could feel his eyes examining the back of my head.
I walked down the passage that led directly to my front door. I was half-way down the
passage when I saw the front door was standing ajar. I came to an abrupt stop.
"Hello … that's funny," I said.
"You shut it when you left?" Carlotti said, moving in front of me.
"Of course."
We reached the door together.
"Oh, damn! Looks like burglars," I said, and pointed to the smashed lock on the front door. I made a move into the hall, but Carlotti pulled me back.
"Please ... let me go first," he said curtly, and, moving silently, he stepped into the hall, crossed h with two quick strides and threw open the sitting-room door. I was right on his heels.
All the lights were on. We stood in the doorway and stared around the room that looked as if it had been struck by a hurricane.
Everything was in disorder. Cupboards stood open, a couple of chairs were overturned, all the drawers in the desk hung open, and all my papers were lying scattered on the floor.
Carlotti went swiftly into my bedroom. Then I heard him run down the passage to the bathroom.
I walked over to the desk. I looked in the bottom drawer in which I had locked the camera. The lock had been forced and, of course, the camera was gone.
PART SEVEN
I
It was ten minutes past eleven before I got rid of Carlotti and his mob of detectives who descended on my apartment, dusting everything for finger-prints, poking their noses in every nook and cranny, photographing the splintered door and generally raising all kinds of hell.
I had gone down to Gina, explained the situation and told her not to wait for me. She wanted to stay, but I wouldn't let her. I had too much on my mind to have her around as well as the police.
She said she would call me in the morning, gave me a worried look, and then went away in a taxi.
Carlotti listened to my explanation about the camera. I showed him where I had put it, and he examined the broken lock of the drawer.
I'm not sure if he believed what I was telling him. His face was expressionless, but I had an idea he was only maintaining his usual polite calmness by an effort
"This is an odd coincidence, Signor Dawson," he said. "You have the camera for only a few hours, then a thief breaks in and steals it."
"Yeah?" I said sarcastically. "And he not only steals the camera, but also goes off with my goddamn clothes, my cigarettes, my booze and my spare cash. I don't call that a coincidence."
One of Carlotti's men came over and murmured there were no finger-prints to be found except mine.
Carlotti gave me a thoughtful stare, then shrugged his shoulders.
"I shall have to report this to my chief," he said.
"Report it to the President if you want to," I returned. "Just so long as you get my clothes back."
"The camera is a serious loss, signor."
"I couldn't care less about the camera. That's your funeral. If you didn't realize until now that
it was important to you, you can scarcely blame me that it's been stolen. Grandi gave me the camera, and I signed a receipt for it. He told me neither you nor he wanted it. So don't look at me as if I've cooked up this robbery just to get you into trouble."
He said there was no need to get angry about such an unfortunate affair.
"Okay, so I'm not angry. Would you get your boys out of here so I can clear up and get some supper?"
It took them a further half-hour to satisfy themselves that there were positively no clues left by the burglar, then finally, and with the greatest reluctance, they went away.
Carlotti was the last to leave.
"This is an awkward situation," he said as he paused in the doorway. "You should never have been given the camera."
"I know. I can see that. My heart bleeds for you, but I was given the camera and you've got my receipt. You can't blame me for what's happened. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to lose any sleep about it."
He started to say something, changed his mind, shrugged his shoulders and went away.
I had an idea at the back of my mind that for a couple of times, he would have accused me of staging the burglary myself just so he couldn't lay his hands on the camera.
I wasn't kidding myself. I was quite sure that, although most of my clothes, cigarettes, three bottles of Scotch and a few thousand lire were missing, the thief had broken in only for one purpose: to get the camera.
I did a little thinking while I hastily cleared up the mess in my bedroom and sitting-room. At the back of my mind I had the picture, of the broad-shouldered intruder I had seen creeping around the villa at Sorrento. I was willing to bet that he was the guy who had broken in here and had lifted the camera.
I had just finished tidying up my sitting-room when the front door bell rang.
I went into the hall, thinking Carlotti had come back with a flock of new questions. I slid back the bolt and opened the front door. Jack Maxwell stood outside.
"Hello," he said. "I hear you have had a burglar."
"Yeah," I said. "Come on in."
He looked at the broken lock on the front door with morbid interest, and then followed me into the sitting-room. "Lost much?"
"Just the usual things. I'm insured ... so what do I care?" I went over to the liquor cabinet. "Have a drink?"
"I don't mind having a brandy." He dropped into a chair. "Was the old man pleased with the way I handled the write-up about Helen?"
"He seemed to be. Did you have much trouble?"
"One or two of the boys started to ask smart questions, but I told them they'd better talk to Chalmers. They said they'd rather kiss a smallpox case. That guy certainly is one of the best loved in this world." He took the brandy I handed to him. "Has he gone yet or is he staying on?"
"He left on the thre
e-forty plane from Naples." I made myself a highball. "Hold everything for a moment. I want something to eat. I haven't had a thing since lunch."
"Well, come out. I'll buy you something."
"It's too late now." I picked up the telephone recover and called the hall porter. I told him to get me a chicken sandwich and bring it up pronto.
"Well, give us the dope," Maxwell said, when I had hung up. "Did you find what she was doing in that place all alone? How did she die?"
I was careful what I told him, I said it looked as if there was a man in the background, that the police weren't entirely satisfied that Helen's death bad been accidental, and that Chalmers had told me to stick around and watch his interests. I didn't tell him what June had said, nor that Helen had been pregnant.
He sat listening, sipping his brandy.
"So you're not going home right away?"
"Not for a while."
"I told you the old sonofabitch would want an investigation, didn't I? Well, thank my stars,
I'm not involved."
I said he was lucky.
"What's biting the police? Why aren't they satisfied?"
"Carlotti likes mysteries. He always turns molehills into mountains."
"Does Chalmers think it was an accident?"
"He's keeping an open mind about it."
"Do you?"
"I wouldn't know."
"This girl was a ripe little bitch. You don't think her boy friend shoved her over the cliff, do you?"
"I hope not. Chalmers would love a set-up like that."
"There's bound to be a man in this, Ed. She wouldn't have taken a villa in Sorrento if she hadn't a man to share it with. Any idea who he could be?"
"Not the vaguest, but never mind that, Jack. Tell me something: who's June Chalmers?"
He looked surprised, then grinned.
"She's a pippin, isn't she? But if you've got ideas about her, I'd forget them. You wouldn't get to first base."
"Nothing like that. I want to know who she is. Where does the come from? Do you know anything about her?"
"Not much. She used to be a torch singer at one of Menotti's night spots."
I stiffened. Menotti again.
"Is that how she and Helen met?"
"Could be: did they meet?"
"She told me she had known Helen for some years."
"Did she now? I didn't know that. I heard Chalmers met her at a party, took one look at her and practically married her on the spot. It was lucky for her that he did. The night club she was working at closed down when Menotti was knocked off. Although the certainly has a shape, she can't sing for dimes."
The night porter interrupted us by bringing my sandwich.
Maxwell got to his feet.
"Well, here are your victuals. I'll be pushing along. When's the inquest?"
"Monday."
"You'll go down, I suppose?"
"I guess so."
"Rather you than me. Well, so long. Will you look in at the office to-morrow?"
"I might. I'm leaving you to handle that end. Officially, I'm still on vacation."
"And having a wonderful time," he said, grinned and went away.
I sat down and munched my sandwich. I did some heavy thinking at the same time. I had hoped to have found a list of telephone numbers or an address book among Helen's papers that might give me a lead on her friends. If she had kept such a list, then someone had taken it. The only clue I had so far was Carlo's telephone number. There was a girl I knew who worked on the Rome telephone exchange. She had once won a beauty competition, and I had given her a write-up. One thing had led to another, and for a couple of months we had been more than friendly. Then I lost sight of her. I decided I'd look her up in the morning and persuade her to get me Carlo's address.
Apart from Carlo, who else was there.
I dug down into my mind to recall anything that Helen had said during our various meetings that would give me a lead on her other friends. It wasn't until I was about to give up and go to bed that I suddenly remembered she had once mentioned Giuseppe Frenzi, who wrote a
political column for L'ltalia del Popolo and who was a good friend of mine.
When Frenzi wasn't writing his column, he was going around with women. He claimed that an association with a beautiful woman was the only true meaning of life. Knowing Frenzi, I was pretty sure that he and Helen had been a lot more than just friends. Frenzi had a technique of his own, and if I was to believe Maxwell, Helen wasn't the kind of girl to say no.
I thought Frenzi might be an important lead.
I looked at my watch. The time was twenty minutes to midnight: the beginning of a day for Frenzi, who never got up before eleven o'clock in the morning and never went to bed before four.
I picked up the telephone receiver and called his apartment. There was just a remote chance that he would still be there.
He answered immediately.
"Ed? Well, this is something," he said. He prided himself on his American expressions. "I was about to call you. I've only just read the news about Helen. Is it true? Is she really dead?"
"She's dead all right. I want to talk to you, Giuseppe. Can I come around?"
"Of course. I will wait for you."
"I'll be right over," I said, and hung up.
I left the apartment and ran down the staircase to where I had left the Lincoln.
It was raining, as it will do suddenly and unexpectedly in Rome. I ducked into the car, set the windscreen wipers in motion; started the engine and backed out of the parking space.
Frenzi had an apartment on Via Claudia in the shadow of the Colosseum. It wasn't more than a six-minute drive from my place to his.
There wasn't much traffic and, as I accelerated, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a car that was parked nearby suddenly turn on its parking lights and, a moment later, it swung out into the road and came after me.
As it passed under the glare of a street light I saw it was the Renault.
II
It isn't often that I lose my temper, but when I do, I have a field-day. The sight of the Renault gave me a rush of blood to my head.
I became determined to find out who the driver was, and what he was playing at. So long as the car was behind me, there wasn't much I could do about it. Somehow I had to get him in front of me, then I could crowd him into the kerb, force him to stop and get a look at him. If he wanted to play it rough, I was in the mood to hang one on his jaw.
I drove around the Colosseum with the Renault fifty yards in the rear. When I reached a dark patch in the road, I slammed on my brakes, swung the car to the kerb and pulled up.
Taken by surprise, the driver of the Renault had no chance to stop. The car shot past me. It was too dark to see whether the driver was a man or a woman. The moment the car had passed me, I let in my clutch and went after it, sending me Lincoln forward with my foot squeezing the gas pedal to the board.
The driver of the Renault must have guessed what I planned to do. His reaction was quicker than I expected. In his torn, he trod on the gas, and the Renault surged forward. It went streaking down Via dei Fori Imperiali like a bullet from a gun.
For a moment I thought I was going to catch him. My front bumper was only a foot off his rear fender, and I was ready to swing the wheel over and hit him, but he began to pull away.
We were travelling now at around eighty miles an hour. I heard a shrill, indignant police whistle blasting somewhere in my rear. I saw beyond the speeding Renault the Piazza Venezia looming up. I saw the slow-moving traffic ahead, and my nerve faltered. I knew I couldn't roar into the piazza at this speed without hitting a car or killing someone. My foot went down on the brake pedal and I slowed.
The Renault kept away from me. Its horn gave a long, warning blast, and men the car went screeching into the piazza, missing two cars by inches, and forcing another to skid to a standstill. Only slightly slackening it's mad speed, the Renault; its horn blaring, stormed across the piazza, and disappeared into
the darkness and towards the Tiber.
I heard the police whistle shrill again. Anxious not to have an argument with the law, and pretty certain I had been travelling too fast for any policeman in this light to have taken my number, I swung into the Via Cavour, slowed down to a respectable speed and took a long circular run back to the Colosseum.
I was rattled that the Renault had got away, but I would rather he escaped than for me to attempt to compete with his kind of driving. At least, I had the satisfaction of knowing I had given him a scare.
You Find Him – I'll Fix Him Page 12