I had no doubt about that—if they fought man to man. But Metcalfe and Torloni could probably whip up every thug in Italy, and would do for a stake as large as this.
I said, ‘I want further guarantees. How do I know we won’t be double-crossed?’
‘You don’t,’ she said meagrely.
I decided to go in for some melodramatics. ‘I want you to swear that you won’t double-cross us.’
She raised her hand. ‘I swear that I, Francesca di Estrenoli, promise faithfully not to trick, in any way, Mr Halloran of South Africa.’ She smiled at me. ‘Is that good enough?’
I shook my head. ‘No, it isn’t enough. You said yourself that you were a dishonourable woman. No, I want you to swear on your father’s name and honour.’
Pink anger spots burned on her cheeks and I thought for a moment that she was going to slap my face. I said gently, ‘Do you swear?’
She dropped her eyes. ‘I swear,’ she said in a low voice.
‘On your father’s name and honour,’ I persisted.
‘On my father’s name and on his honour,’ she said, and looked up. ‘Now I hope you are satisfied.’ There were tears in her eyes again.
I relaxed. It wasn’t much but it was the best I could do and I hoped it would hold her.
The man from behind the counter came over to the table slowly. He looked at me with dislike and said to Francesca, ‘Is everything all right, madame?’
‘Yes, Giuseppi, everything is all right.’ She smiled at him. ‘Nothing is wrong.’
Giuseppi smiled back at her, gave me a hard look and returned to the counter. I felt a prickle at the back of my neck. I had the feeling that if Francesca had said that everything was not all right I would have been a candidate for a watery dockside grave before the week was out.
I cocked my thumb at the counter. ‘One of your soldier friends?’
She nodded. ‘He saw you had hurt me, so he came over to see what he could do.’
‘I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ I said.
‘You shouldn’t have come here. You shouldn’t have come to Italy. What is it to you? I can understand Coertze and Walker; they fought the Germans, they buried the gold. But I cannot understand you.’
I said gently, ‘I fought the Germans, too, in Holland, and Germany.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘That’s all right. As for the rest…’ I shrugged. ‘Somebody had to plan—Coertze and Walker couldn’t do it. Walker is an alcoholic and Coertze is all beef and no—subtlety. They needed someone to get behind and push.’
‘But why is it you who has to push?’
‘I had a reason once,’ I said shortly. ‘Forget it. Let’s get some things straightened out. What about the split?’
‘The split?’
‘How do we divide the loot?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that—it will need some thinking about.’
‘It will,’ I agreed. ‘Now, there’s the three of us, there’s you and there’s fifty of your friends—fifty-four in all. If you’re thinking along the lines of fifty-four equal shares you can forget about it. We won’t have it.’
‘I can’t see how we can work this out when we don’t know how much money will be involved.’
‘We work it on a percentage basis,’ I said impatiently. ‘This is how I see it—one share each for the three of us, one share for you and one share to be divided among your friends.’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘That’s not fair. You have done nothing about this, at all. You are just a plunderer.’
‘I thought you’d take that attitude,’ I said. ‘Now, listen, and listen damned carefully because I’m not going to repeat this. Coertze and Walker are entitled to a share each. They fought for the gold and they disposed of it carefully. Besides, they are the only people who know where it is. Right?’
She nodded agreement.
I smiled grimly. ‘Now we come to me whom you seem to despise.’ She made a sudden gesture with her hand and I waved her down. ‘I’m the brains behind this. I know a way of getting the stuff out of Italy and I’ve arranged a sale for it. Without me this whole plan would flop, and I’ve invested a lot of time and money in it. Therefore I think I’m entitled to an equal share.’
I stabbed my finger at her. ‘And now you come along and blackmail us. Yes, blackmail,’ I said as she opened her mouth to protest. ‘You’ve done nothing constructive towards the plan and you complain about getting an equal share. As for your friends, as far as I’m concerned, they are hired muscle to be paid for. If you don’t think they’re being paid enough with one-fifth between them you can supplement it out of your own share.’
‘But it will be so little for them,’ she said.
‘Little!’ I said, and was shocked into speechlessness. I recovered my breath. ‘Do you know how much is involved?’
‘Not exactly,’ she said cautiously.
I threw discretion to the winds. ‘There’s over £1,500,000 in gold alone—and there’s probably an equal amount in cut gem-stones. The gold alone means £300,000 for a fifth share and that’s £6,000 each for your friends. If you count the jewels you can double those figures.’
Her eyes widened as she mentally computed this into lire. It was an astronomical calculation and took her some time. ‘So much,’ she whispered.
‘So much,’ I said. I had just had an idea. The gems had been worrying me because they would be hot—in the criminal sense. They would need recutting and disguising and the whole thing would be risky. Now I saw the chance of doing an advantageous deal.
‘Look here,’ I said generously. ‘I’ve just offered you and your friends two-fifths of the take. Supposing the jewels are worth more than two-fifths—and I reckon they are—then you can take the lot of them, leaving the disposal of the gold to the three of us. After all, gems are more portable and easily hidden.’
She fell for it. ‘I know a jeweller who was with us during the war; he could do the valuation. Yes, that seems reasonable.’
It seemed reasonable to me, also, since I had been taking only the gold into my calculations all the time. Coertze, Walker and myself would still come out with half a million each.
‘There’s one other thing,’ I said.
‘What’s that?’
‘There’s a lot of paper money in this hoard—lire, francs, dollars and so on. Nobody takes any of that—there’ll be records of the numbers lodged with every bank in the world. You’ll have to control your friends when it comes to that.’
‘I can control them,’ she said loftily. She smiled and held out her hand. ‘It’s a deal, then, as the Americans say.’
I looked at her hand but didn’t touch it. I shook my head. ‘Not yet. I still have to discuss it with Coertze and Walker. They’ll take a hell of a lot of convincing—especially Coertze. What did you do to him, anyway?’ She withdrew her hand slowly and looked at me strangely.‘Almost you convince me that you are an honest man.’
I grinned at her cheerfully. ‘Out of necessity, that’s all. Those two are the only ones who know where the gold is.’
‘Oh, yes, I had forgotten. As for Coertze, he is a boor.’
‘He’d be the first to agree with you,’ I said. ‘But it means something different in Afrikaans.’ I had a sudden thought. ‘Does anyone else know what you know—about Alberto’s letter and all that?’
She started to shake her head but stopped suddenly, deciding to be honest. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘One man, but he can be trusted—he is a true friend.’
‘O.K.,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to be sure that no one else will try to pull the same stunt that you’ve just pulled. The whole damn’ Mediterranean seems to be getting into the act. I wouldn’t tell your friends anything you don’t have to—at least, not until it’s all over. If they are criminals, as you say, they might get their own ideas.’
‘I haven’t told them anything so far, and I’m not going to tell them now.’
‘Good. But
you can tell them to watch for Torloni’s men. They’ll be keeping an eye on Sanford when they get round to finding where she is.’
‘Oh, yes, Mr Halloran; I’ll certainly tell them to keep a watch on your boat,’ she said sweetly.
I laughed. ‘I know you will. When you’ve got things organized drop in and see us anytime—but make it quick, there’s a time limit on all this.’
I got up from the table and left her. I thought she might as well pay for the breakfast since we were partners—or, as she had put it, ‘in association’.
IV
She came that afternoon, accompanied by a man even bigger than Coertze, whom she introduced as Piero Morese. He nodded civilly enough to me, ignored Walker and regarded Coertze watchfully.
I had had trouble with Coertze—he had taken a lot of convincing and had reiterated in a bass growl, ‘I will not be cheated, I will not be cheated.’
I said wearily, ‘O.K. The gold is up in those hills somewhere; you know where it is. Why don’t you go and get it? I’m sure you can fight Torloni and Metcalfe and the Contessa and her cut-throats single-handed; I’m sure you can bring back the gold and take it to Tangier before April 19. Why don’t you just go ahead and stop bothering me?’
He had calmed down but was not altogether happy and he rumbled like a volcano which does not know whether to erupt again or not. Now he sat in the cabin looking at the Contessa with contempt and the big Italian with mistrust.
Morese had no English so the meeting came to order in Italian, which I could understand if it was not spoken too quickly. The Contessa said, ‘It is all right to speak in front of Piero, he knows everything that I know.’
‘I know you: you were with Umberto,’ said Coertze in mashed Italian.
Morese gave a quick nod but said nothing. The Contessa said, ‘Here is where we talk seriously.’ She looked at me. ‘Have you talked this over?’
‘We have.’
‘Do they accept the terms?’
‘They do.’
‘Very well, where is the gold?’
There was a growl from Coertze which I covered with a quick burst of laughter. ‘Contessa, you’ll be the death of me,’ I said. ‘I’ll die laughing. You don’t suppose we’ll tell you that, do you?’
She smiled acidly. ‘No—but I thought I would try it. All right, how do we go about this?’
I said, ‘First of all, there’s a time limit. We’ll want the gold delivered to Rapallo by the 1st of March at the latest. We also want a place where we can work undisturbed with this boat; either a private boat-shed or a boatyard. That must be arranged for now.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why the 1st of March?’
‘That is of no consequence to you, but that is the way it must be.’
Morese said, ‘That does not leave much time. The first of the month is in two weeks.’
‘True,’ I said. ‘But that is the way it must be. The next thing is that only the five of us here will go to the gold. There must be no one else. We will unseal the place where it is hidden, pack what we want into strong boxes and move it out. Then we will seal the hidden place again. After that, and only after that, will we need the help of anyone else, and even then, only for lifting and transport to the coast. There is no need to have too many people knowing what we are doing.’
‘That is well thought of,’ said Morese.
I said, ‘Everything will be brought to the boat-shed—everything, including the jewels. We five will live together for one month while my friends and I do what we have to do. If you want the jewels valued you must bring your valuer to the jewels—not vice versa. The final share-out will be decided when the stones have been valued, but will not take place until the boat is in the water.’
‘You talk as though you do not trust us,’ said Morese.
‘I don’t,’ I said bluntly. I jerked my thumb at the Contessa. ‘Your friend here is blackmailing us into all this, so I don’t see where the trust comes in.’
His face darkened. ‘That is unworthy of you.’
I shrugged. ‘Say, rather, it is unworthy of her. She started all this and those are the facts.’
The Contessa put her hand on Morese’s shoulder and he subsided. Coertze barked a short laugh. ‘Magtig, but you have taken her measure.’ He nodded. ‘You’ll have to watch her, she a slim meisie.’
I turned to him. ‘Now it’s up to you. What will you need to get the gold?’
Coertze leaned forward. ‘When I was here last year nothing had changed or been disturbed. The place is in the hills where no one goes. There is a rough road so we can take a lorry right up to the place. The nearest village is four miles away.’
‘Can we work at night?’ I asked.
Coertze thought about that. ‘The fall of rocks looks worse than it is,’ he said. ‘I know how to blast and I made sure of that. Two men with picks and shovels will be able to get through in four hours—longer at night, perhaps—I would say six hours at night.’
‘So we will be there at least one whole night and probably longer.’
‘Ja,’ he said. ‘If we work at night only, it will take two nights.’
The Contessa said, ‘Italians do not walk the hills at night. It will be safe to have lights if they cannot be seen from the village.’
Coertze said, ‘No lights can be seen from the village.’
‘All the same, we must have a cover,’ I said. ‘If we have to hang around in the vicinity for at least one day then we must have a sound reason. Has anyone got any ideas?’
There was a silence and suddenly Walker spoke for the first time. ‘What about a car and a caravan? The English are noted for that kind of thing—camping and so on. The Italians don’t even have a word for it, they use the English word. If we camp out for a couple of nights we’ll be only another English crowd as far as the peasants are concerned.’
We all thought about that and it seemed a good idea. The Contessa said, ‘I can arrange for the car and the caravan and a tent.’
I started to tick off all the things we would need. ‘We want lights.’
‘We use the headlights of the car,’ said Coertze.
‘That’s for outside,’ I said. ‘We’ll need lights for inside. We’ll need torches—say a dozen—and lots of torch cells.’ I nodded to Morese. ‘You get those. We need picks and shovels, say four of each. We’ll need lorries. How many to do the job in one haul?’
‘Two three-tonners,’ said Coertze with certainty. ‘The Germans had four, but they were carrying a lot of stuff we won’t want.’
‘We’ll have to have those standing by with the drivers,’ I said. ‘Then we’ll need a lot of timber to make crates. The gold will need re-boxing.’
‘Why do that when it’s already in boxes?’ objected Coertze. ‘It’s just a lot of extra work.’
‘Think back,’ I said patiently. ‘Think back to the first time you saw those boxes in the German truck. You recognized them as bullion boxes. We don’t want any snooper doing the same on the way back.’
Walker said, ‘You don’t have to take the gold out, and it wouldn’t need much timber. Just nail thin pieces of wood on the outside of the bullion boxes to change their shape and make them look different.’
Walker was a real idea machine when he wasn’t on the drink. He said, ‘There must be plenty of timber down there we can use.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘We use new wood. I don’t want anything that looks or even smells as though it’s come from a hole in the ground. Besides, there might be a mark on the wood we could miss which would give the game away.’
‘You don’t take any chances, do you?’ observed the Contessa.
‘I’m not a gambler,’ I said shortly. ‘The timber can go up in the trucks,’ I looked at Morese.
‘I will get it,’ he said.
‘Don’t forget hammers and nails,’ I said. I was trying to think of everything. If we slipped up on this job it would be because of some insignificant item which nobody had thought important.
; There was a low, repeated whistle from the dockside. Morese looked at the Contessa and she nodded almost imperceptibly. He got up and went on deck.
I said to Coertze, ‘Is there anything else we ought to know—anything you’ve forgotten or left out?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’
Morese came back and said to the Contessa, ‘He wants to talk to you.’
She rose and left the cabin and Morese followed her on deck. Through the open port I could hear a low-voiced conversation.
‘I don’t trust them,’ said Coertze violently. ‘I don’t trust that bitch and I don’t trust Morese. He’s a bad bastard; he was a bad bastard in the war. He didn’t take any prisoners—according to him they were all shot while escaping.’
‘So were yours,’ I said, ‘when you took the gold.’
He bridled. ‘That was different; they were escaping.’
‘Very conveniently,’ I said acidly. It galled me that this man, whom I had good reason to suspect of murdering at least four others, should be so mealy-mouthed.
He brooded a little, then said, ‘What’s to stop them taking it all from us when we’ve got it out? What’s to stop them shooting us and leaving us in the tunnel when they seal it up again?’
‘Nothing that you’d understand,’ I said. ‘Just the feeling of a girl for her father and her family.’ I didn’t elaborate on that; I wasn’t certain myself that it was a valid argument.
The Contessa and Morese came back. She said, ‘Two of Torloni’s men are in Rapallo. They were asking the Port Captain about you not ten minutes ago.’
I said, ‘Don’t tell me that the Port Captain is one of your friends.’
‘No, but the Chief Customs Officer is. He recognized them immediately. One of them he had put in jail three years ago for smuggling heroin; the other he has been trying to catch for a long time. Both of them work for Torloni, he says.’
‘Well, we couldn’t hope to hide from them indefinitely,’ I said. ‘But they mustn’t connect you with us—not yet, anyway—so you’ll have to wait until it’s dark before you leave.’
The Golden Keel / The Vivero Letter Page 12