“You do not like to talk about it, eh? I hear from Walter that there is a doctor in the Villa d’Este who is not very kind.”
“Yes. There was a doctor.” I stared at my drink, thinking of the tone in which Shirer had said Albergo Nazionale as he’d directed the taxi driver. “He was very like Shirer,” I murmured. And then suddenly I remembered. God! Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Upstairs amongst the files in my baggage I had a photograph of il dottore Sansevino. I’d liberated it from the files of the Instituto Nazionale Luce. Some perverse sense of the morbid had made me keep it. I got to my feet. “I have a photograph I would like you to see, Contessa,” I said. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and get it. I won’t be a minute.”
“No, please.” Her hand was on my arm. “I have to go in a moment and I did not come here to look at photographs.”
“I’d like you to see it,” I insisted. “It won’t take a second for me to get it.”
She started to argue, but I was already walking away from the table. I took the lift up to my floor and went down the corridor to my room. The next door to mine was open and I could see the maid making the bed. As I put the key in the lock of my door something banged inside. I entered to find that the windows to the balcony had blown open. The sudden through draught slid my papers across the table and on to the floor. I shut the door quickly, retrieved the papers and closed the windows again.
Then I stood stock still, remembering suddenly that I had closed them and locked them before going down to meet the Contessa. I turned quickly to my bags and checked through them. Nothing seemed to be missing and I cursed myself for being so jumpy. I found the photograph and shut my case again.
As I left my room the maid came out of the next door. She stopped and stared at me, mouth agape in astonishment. “Whatever’s the matter?” I asked her in Italian.
She stared at me stupidly and I was just going to go on down the corridor when she said, “But il dottore said you were ill, signore.”
The words il dottore brought me spinning round on her. “How do you mean?” I asked. “What doctor?”
“The one who come through this room when I am making the bed, signore.” She looked pale and rather frightened. “He say that the signore is not to be disturbed. But the signore is not ill. Please—I do not understand.”
I took hold of her by the shoulders and shook her in my sudden, intuitive panic. “What did he look like—the doctor? Quickly, girl. What was he like?”
“I do not remember,” she murmured. “He came in from the balcony, you see, and he was against the light so that—”
“From the balcony?” So that was why the french windows had been open. Somebody had been in my room. “Tell me exactly what happened?”
She stared at me, her eyes very large. She was frightened. But I don’t think she knew quite why she was frightened.
“What happened?” I repeated in a more controlled voice, trying to calm her.
She hesitated. Then she took a breath and said, “It was whilst I was making the bed, signore. I had opened the windows to the balcony to air the room and then this man came in. He frightened me, appearing suddenly like that. But he put his fingers to his lips and told me I was not to disturb you. He said he was a doctor. He had been called because you were taken ill, signore, and he had given you some medicine. He added that you had gone to sleep now and he had come out by way of the balcony because he was afraid the door might make a noise when he closed it and wake you.”
“And he said he was a doctor?”
“Sì, sì, signore. He was not the hotel doctor. But sometimes guests call in other doctors. Are you better now, signore?”
“I haven’t been ill and I didn’t call a doctor,” I told her.
She stared at me, her eyes like saucers. I could see she didn’t believe a word of it. Probably I looked pretty wild. I was in the grip of a horror that seemed to come up from right deep down inside of me. I had to fight all the time to keep myself under control. “Can you describe this man to me?” I asked her.
She shook her head. She was beginning to edge away from me. At any moment I felt she’d run away down the corridor. “Was he short or tall?” I persisted.
“Short.”
I suddenly remembered the photograph I was still holding in my hand. I covered the uniform with my hand and showed her just the head. “Was that the man?”
Her gaze slid reluctantly from my face to the photograph. “Sì, sì, signore. That is the man.” She nodded her head emphatically and then frowned. “But he do not have a moustache.” Her voice had become uncertain. “I cannot tell, signore. But it is very like him. Now, please, I must go. I have many, many rooms—” She edged away from me and then hurried off down the corridor.
I stood there, staring at the photograph. Sansevino’s dark, rather small eyes stared back at me from the piece of pasteboard. It wasn’t possible. Damn it, Sansevino was dead. I’d seen him myself with his brains spattered from his head and the little Beretta gripped in his hand. But why should Shirer want to search my room? And then there was that story about being a doctor. In an emergency a man thinks up something that appears reasonable to him. Shirer wouldn’t have thought of calling himself a doctor. But Sansevino would. It would leap automatically to his mind as a perfectly natural excuse for his behaviour.
I felt a shiver run up my spine: a tingle of horror, of anticipation—an unholy mixture of glee and instinctive fear. Suppose it was Sansevino I’d met last night? Suppose.… But I discarded the idea. It was too fantastic, too horrible.
I turned and walked slowly along the corridor and down the stairs. But all the way back to the bar I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind. It would account for the man’s odd behaviour the night before. It would account, too, for my involuntary sense of fear. But I wasn’t afraid now. I had a feeling of exultance. Suppose it were Sansevino. Just suppose that it was Sansevino who had escaped from the Villa d’Este. Then I had him. Then I could repay all he’d done to me, repay the pain, the hours of mental torture waiting for the …
“What is the matter, Signor Farrell? Has anything happened?”
I had reached the table where I had left the Gontessa. “No,” I answered quickly. “Nothing has happened.” My glass was still half-full and I drained it at a gulp.
“You look as though you have seen a ghost,” she said.
“A ghost?” I stared at her. Then I sat down. “What made you say that?”
Her brows arched slightly at the abruptness of my tone. “Have I said something wrong? I am sorry. I am not good at idiomatic English. What I mean to say is that you look upset.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, wiping my face and hands with my handkerchief. “I get these attacks sometimes.” I was thinking of that time in Naples when I’d been waiting at the Patria for a boat to take me home. I’d had the same feeling of tightness inside my head. It had been like an iron band being slowly screwed down across the brain cells. I’d been two months in hospital then. Was I going the same way again? “Hell! I can’t be imagining it all.”
“What is that you say?” She was staring at me curiously and I realised I must have spoken aloud.
I called the waiter. “Will you have another drink?” I asked her. She shook her head and I ordered a double cognac.
“You should not drink so much,” she murmured.
I laughed. “If I didn’t drink—” I stopped then, realising that I was in danger of saying too much.
She reached out and her fingers touched my hand. “I am sorry,” she said softly. “I think something terrible has happen in your life.”
The waiter brought my drink and I gulped at it thirstily. “Do you recognise that man?” I asked and thrust the photograph across the table towards her.
She stared at it, her forehead wrinkling in a frown. “Well?” I said impatiently. “Who is it?”
“I do not understand,” she said. “He is in Fascist uniform.”
“And he has a moustache, eh?”
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She looked across at me. “Why do you show me this?”
“Who is it?” I asked.
“You know who it is. It is the man you meet last night.”
I knocked back the rest of my drink. “The name of the man in that photograph is Dottore Giovanni Sansevino.” I picked up the pasteboard and slipped it into my wallet.
“Sansevino?” She stared at me uncomprehendingly. “Who is Sansevino?”
I thrust my leg out. “He was responsible for that.” My voice sounded harsh and blurred in my ears. “My leg was smashed up in an air crash. He could have saved it. God knows, he was a good enough surgeon. Instead he did three amputations on it, two below the knee and one above—all without anaesthetics.” Anger was welling up inside me like a tide. “He deliberately sawed my leg to pieces.” I could see my fingers whitening as they tightened on each other. I had them interlaced and I was squeezing them as though they were closed around Sansevino’s throat. Then suddenly I had control of myself. “Where will I find Walter Shirer?” I asked her.
“Walter Shirer?” She hesitated. Then she said, “I do not know. I think he is not in Milano to-day.”
“He’s staying at the Albergo Nazionale, isn’t he?”
“Yes, but—” Her fingers were on my hand again. “You should learn to forget the past, signore. People who think too much of the past—” She shrugged her shoulders. “Every one has things inside them that are better forgotten.” Her eyes were looking beyond me, not seeing the details of the room.
“Why do you say that?” I asked her.
“Because you are all tense inside. Walter reminds you of the man in that photograph and you are bitter.” She sighed. “I also have the past that I must forget,” she said softly. “I have not always been dressed like this, you see. Life has not been easy for me. I was born in a slum off the Via Roma in Napoli. You know Napoli?” She smiled as I nodded. It was a wry, hard smile. “Then you know what that means, signore. Fortunately I can dance. I get to know a man at the San Carlo and he gets me into the Corpo di Ballo. After that it is much better. Now I am a Contessa, and I do not think too much of the past. I think I should go crazy if I think too much of what my girlhood is like.” She leaned towards me and her eyes were fixed on mine. They were large eyes—pale brown with flecks of green and the whites were not quite white, more the colour of old parchment. “Think of the future, signore. Do not live in the past.” Her fingers squeezed my hand. “Now I must go.” Her voice was suddenly practical as she reached for her handbag. “This afternoon I go to Firenze.”
“How long will you be in Florence?” I was thinking it was a pity she was going. She was exciting, unusual.
“Not long. I stay two nights with some friends and then I motor to Napoli. I have a villa there. You know the Palazzo Donn’Anna on the Posillipo?”
I nodded. It was a huge medieval building, the base of its stone arches planted in the sea just north of Naples.
“My villa is just near the Palazzo. You will come and see me I hope when you are in Napoli. It is called the Villa Carlotta.”
“Yes, I should like to,” I said.
She had risen to her feet and as I escorted her to the entrance hall, she said, “Why do you not take a holiday? It would do you good to lie in the sun and relax yourself.” She glanced at me with a swift lift of her brows. “Milano is not good for you, I think. Also I should like to see you again. We have something in common, you and I—our pasts.” She smiled and gave me her hand.
I watched her as she went out and got into the car that was waiting for her. Then I turned and went back into the bar. Milano is not good for you, I think. What had she meant by that? And why had she come to see me? I realised then that she had not given me any really satisfactory reason for her visit. Had she come by arrangement with the man who had searched my room?
What did it matter anyway? The bug eating into my mind was Shirer. The idea that he was really Sansevino clung with a persistence that was frightening. I had to know the truth. I had to see him again and make certain. The thing was ridiculous, and yet … it was the sort of thing that could happen. And if it were Sansevino.… I felt anger boiling up in me again. I had another drink and phoned the Albergo Nazionale. Signor Shirer wasn’t there. He wasn’t expected back till the evening. I rang Sismondi at his office. He told me Shirer had said something about going out of town.
I had lunch then and after lunch I called on various firms. I didn’t get back to the hotel till nearly eight and by then the whole idea seemed so fantastic that I discarded it completely. I had a quick dinner and then went into the bar. But after a few drinks, I began to feel I must see him and make certain.
I got a taxi and went straight over to the Nazionale. It was a small and rather luxurious hotel almost opposite La Scala. There was an air of past grandeur about it with its tapestried walls and heavy, ornate furnishings. In this setting the lift, which was caged in with a white-lacquered tracery of wrought-iron, seemed out of place whilst at the same time adding to the expensive impression already given by the furnishings, the deep-piled carpet and knee-breeches uniform of the servants. I went over to the hall porter’s desk and asked for Shirer.
“Your name, please, signore?”
“Is Mr. Shirer in?” I repeated.
The man looked up at the sharpness of my tone. “I do not know, signore. If you will please give me your name I will telephone his suite.”
I hesitated. Then some devil in me prompted me to say, “Just tell him a friend of Dr. Sansevino wishes to see him.”
The porter picked up the telephone. He gave my message. There was a pause and then he was talking fast, looking at me all the time, and I knew he was describing me to the person at the end of the line. At length he put down the receiver and called one of the pages. The boy took me up in the lift to the top floor, along a heavily carpeted corridor and rang the buzzer of a door marked B. It was opened by a manservant, or it might have been a secretary. It was difficult to tell. He was neatly dressed in a lounge suit and his small button eyes were quick and alert. “Please to come in, signore.” He spoke English in a manner that suggested he hated the language.
He took my hat and coat and then showed me into a large, surprisingly modern room. It was decorated in white and gold, even the baby grand was white and gold, and it was lit by concealed lighting. The floor was carpeted in black. The effect was startling in contrast with the rest of the hotel. “So it’s you, Farrell.” Shirer came forward from the fire, his hand held out in greeting. “Why in the world didn’t you say who you were?” His voice was irritable, his face pale and his eyes searching my face.
I looked past him and saw Zina Valle in a big armchair by the electric fire, her legs curled up under her and a sleepy, rather satisfied smile on her face. She looked somehow content and relaxed, like a cat that has been at a bowl of cream. “A friend of Dr. Sansevino.” Shirer patted my arm. “That’s rich coming from you.” He caught the direction of my gaze and said, You know the Contessa Valle, I think.”
“Yes,” I said. And then as Shirer took me towards the fire I said to her. “I thought you were in Florence.”
She smiled. “I could not go to-day. I shall go to-morrow instead.” Her voice was slurred and languorous.
“Queer running across you again like this,” Shirer said. “It takes me back to things I’d rather forget. I guess you’d rather forget them, too—eh? Sorry about last night. Afraid you caught me off balance. It was just that I wasn’t expecting to find you there. Care for a drink?”
“Thank you,” I murmured.
“What will it be? Whisky and soda?”
“That’ll do fine.”
He had turned to an elaborate cocktail cabinet. “I had no idea you were in Milan. I suppose you’re here on business. Sismondi never entertains any one unless there is some business behind it.”
He was talking too fast—too fast and with a sibilance that did not belong to Shirer. The room, too. Walter Shirer had been an ordinary, si
mple sort of person. Maybe he’d reacted against his environment. He’d been a coal miner. But even then the room didn’t seem to fit and I was filled with uneasiness.
He handed me my drink. Then he raised his glass. “Up she goes!” I remembered Shirer in agony over those gas blisters raising a glass of filthy medicine to his lips and saying “Up she goes! “He’d always said that as he drank.
An awkward silence developed. Zina Valle had closed her eyes. She looked relaxed and almost plump. A clock on the mantelpiece ticked under a glass case. “How did you know I was at the Nazionale?” Shirer asked.
“Oh—somebody told me,” I replied.
“Who?”
“I’m not sure.” I couldn’t tell him I’d overheard him give the address to the taxi-driver last night. “I think perhaps it was the Contessa, this morning when she came to see me.”
He turned quickly towards her. “Zina. Did you give Farrell my address this morning? Zina!” She opened her eyes. “Did you tell Farrell I was at the Nazionale?”
“I heard you the first time, Walter,” she replied sleepily. “I don’t remember.”
He gave an impatient shrug of his shoulders and then turned back to me. “Well now, suppose you tell me why you’re here?”
I hesitated. I wasn’t really sure. I wasn’t sure about anything, the room, the man himself—it was all so strange. “I’m sorry,” I murmured. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have come. It was just that I didn’t want to leave it as it stood between us last night. I quite realise how you must feel. I mean— well, at the time I thought you’d understood. I stood two of their damned operations, but the third—” My voice trailed away.
“Forget it,” he said.
“But last night.… I felt—”
He didn’t let me finish. “I was surprised, that’s all. Damn it, Farrell, I don’t bear you any grudge for what happened. It wasn’t your fault. A guy can stand so much and no more. I wouldn’t have stood up to even two of that little swine’s operations.” He said that little swine’s operations so easily that I found myself relaxing.
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