Assignment Sorrento Siren

by Unknown Author

  floor. There were only two lamps in the room, one on Apollio’s desk, the other on a table next to a leather chair. Cesare twisted the shade so it acted as a spotlight when, with a small flourish, he let the scrolls fly open, unrolling as they went, to drape against a long refectory table, glowing softly in the light.

  Apollio caught his breath and half rose from his chair. He was a collector of beauty, but he had forgotten how much beauty existed in these scrolls. He walked slowly around the desk to the splashing cascade of muted colors, ignoring Cesare’s crooked smile of contempt. For a moment, all was forgotten as he considered the paintings.

  The artist, Peng-yi Dwan, had indeed been a master of the brush. Soaring pinnacles merged with muted sky and road and twisting watercourse where two small pilgrims, dwarfed by nature’s immensities, paused to survey the intricate landscape. The seals and calligraphy of past emperors and Asian princes only served to add to the pattern of exquisite, sensitive design. Apollio moved toward a scroll, turned it back, considered the next, spreading the four-foot wide silk a few inches at a time as he studied the four Dwan Scrolls. The room was brightened and beautified by their presence, made somehow sacred by their reflected perfection. His resolution wavered.

  They were his, if he wanted them. No one would ever know. The suspicion now centered around Isola Filibano would fade away, in time. And he would have the rest of his life to bask in the beauties of these works, to cherish them in long hours of leisurely contemplation, alone and in privacy.

  Yes, it would be easy to change his plans and accept the scrolls here and now. The arrangements that Cesare had offered would still hold good. And where did the defense of one’s honor end, when honor and manhood were long lost to the enemy? It would be a surrender to this young man who had betrayed him with his wife; and yet to own the Dwan Scrolls might be victory enough. . . .

  He heard the sound of Cesare’s soft, contemptuous laughter and turned to look at the tall, dark man.

  “The collector’s greed makes your face ugly, Apollio,” Cesare whispered. “You have seen the paintings. Now I wish to see the money.”

  Apollio felt the other’s contempt like the shock of cold water thrown in his face. His wavering ended. He nodded, returned to his desk, and used an old brass key to unlock one of the lower drawers.

  The money was there. And the gun.

  He took the money out first, from its large brown envelope, and used a dagger, purported to be the work of one of Cellini’s students, to slit the seal. He put the knife aside and dumped the American currency over the top of the desk.

  Now it was his turn to watch greed and lust transform the other’s face.

  “Do you wish to count it?” he asked quietly.

  Cesare sneered. “You are a man of honor, they say. Is it necessary?”

  “The money is all there, as agreed. I would like you to count it, however, to assure yourself that the arrangements we made have been correctly consummated.”

  Cesare’s shrug was too casual. His conspiratorial eyes looked wet and shiny as he considered the pile of currency. “It must be pleasant to be so wealthy that you can indulge yourself this way—with money your family stole and squeezed from the fishermen, looted and ravaged from the Bellaria holdings long ago.”

  “We need not talk of that. The House of Apollio does nothing dishonorable.”

  “No? You buy stolen art. I am no worse a thief than you.” Apollio said quietly, “I do not steal another man’s wife.” He took the gun from the desk and rested his hand on the desktop. The gun was steady, pointing at Cesare’s belly.

  It was very quiet in the study. They might have been isolated from all the world, remote from all intrusion. In the light that showered in yellow brilliance from the desk lamp, Apollio’s handsome face looked different, as cold and static as his Heraculaneum marbles. Cesare started to jerk back, then froze. His dark glance jumped from the gun to Apollio’s face. He began to smile, his eyes gleaming; his handsome head was again cocked slightly to one side.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked quietly.

  “I intend to kill you,” Apollio said. “Your brother Bruno, long ago, took my manhood. You have already taken my wife. You do not deny it? No, of course not. And now you think to take my honor by turning me into a common thief.” “But you told Francesca you would give anything—you gave the impression you were in the market for the Dwan Scrolls, however they might come to you.”

  “Precisely.” “So you told her this to get her to conspire with me to steal the scrolls?”

  “Yes.”

  “Deliberately offering yourself as a market?”

  “You are a clever young man.”

  “All that, just to get me up here tonight, at this moment, to kill me?”

  Apollio drew a small breath. “We come from devious people, you and I. Revenge that comes spontaneously is not enough. It must be planned and savored like fine wine, in advance. I could guess your scheme—to sell me the scrolls, and later, when you were safely far away, tip off the police that I had them in my possession, to dishonor me completely. Right?”

  Cesare smiled tightly. “Yes, that was my plan.”

  “I have guessed it all along—just as I knew of your affair with my wife, since it began.”

  Cesare’s voice lifted. “You’re no good to her—so why shouldn’t she find herself a lover?”

  “I would not have objected—had it been anyone but you.” “She loves me,” Cesare rasped.

  “She loves no one, I am sorry to say, except herself.”

  “You don’t know her,” Cesare said cruelly. “How can you guess what she’s like in bed? You never knew that.”

  “I could imagine it. I knew what it was like before the day that Bruno and I met in the courtyard here, just under this window. It was only a year after you were bom.”

  Cesare laughed. “I understand now. You couldn’t kill me appropriately, when I was in bed with Francesca. That would be scandalous, with your name in all the yellow rags printed in Rome. The House of Apollio would be made ridiculous. You couldn’t stomach that. So you planned to make a thief of me first, to get me here with stolen paintings in my possession; then kill me and tell some prefabricated story to the police to make you a hero recovering precious art treasures and unfortunately killing the thief when he approached you to fence the goods. No doubt you have it all arranged with the police, eh?”

  “Yes,” Apollio said. “All is arranged.”

  “And not a word in the papers about Francesca and me, the true reason for your murder.”

  “Precisely.”

  “You think Fran will keep silent?” Cesare asked.

  “Do you doubt it? She will have only me, after you are dead. She will try to face me with lies, but we will both know the truth. She will be a better wife, after tonight.”

  Cesare began to sweat suddenly. He no longer looked arrogant. The sweat made his face look slick, and small beads rolled down his cheeks around the corners of his eyes. Behind him, the Dwan Scrolls, tossed carelessly on the long table, glowed in silent splendor, filling the room with their magnificence. His tongue flicked at his Ups. He looked at Apollio’s gun.

  “So it was all a trap.”

  “Yes. Just as you planned to betray my possession of the paintings to the police, afterward.”

  “Well, then,” Cesare said hoarsely. “Go ahead and shoot me. If I am killed, Francesca will go to the Americans, or make a deal with Talbott, who stole the paintings first.”

  Apollio stood up, his movement fluid and graceful.

  “Go to the door, Cesare.”

  “No. Kill me here.”

  “Not in this room. The door, please. We will go to the courtyard.”

  Cesare knew he was very near death. His heart pounded, the blood thudded in his veins; there was a thin screaming of his nerves, a twisting in his belly. He had nothing to lose, he thought. He jumped for Apollio’s gun.

  As he leaped, his eyes fixed on the black Beretta,
it was as if time halted and he saw everything in infinite, slow motion; he saw Apollio’s finger jerk, the knuckles whiten. The muzzle flashed. The bullet hit him in the side, twisted him in midair, brought him down sprawling across the desk. A feeling of savage triumph filled him. The jeweled dagger still lay on the desk where Apollio had put it aside after opening the packet of money. Most of the money splashed to the floor as Cesare grabbed for the knife. He heard the gun crash again, but nothing touched him the second time. Apollio twisted, trying to get away from the desk, lifting the gun. Cesare had the knife. He lunged across the polished desk, seeing only his enemy’s body, soft and vulnerable to the shining steel.

  He heard Apollio gasp as the blade went in.

  It made a small thudding sound, and Cesare felt the heat and wetness of blood on his fist wrapped around the hilt. Apollio fell back and Cesare let go. He had plunged the knife deep into Apollio’s stomach, but Apollio did not fall. He dropped the gun, however. And both men stood swaying, their eyes locked with hatred.

  Apollio looked down at the knife in his stomach. Cesare watched incredulously as the older man smiled. Was it a smile of triumph? Of final success? He felt dazed. There was a numbness spreading in his side where the bullet had gone in.

  Turning, in silence, Cesare walked rigidly and very carefully from the room.

  chapter twenty

  DURELL found Apollio fifteen minutes later. The gates to the palazzo grounds stood open, and the tall figure of the count was just emerging as Durell came up the road. Apollio carried a rifle in the crook of his right arm. His left hand was pressed tightly against his stomach. In the moonlight, the man’s face looked pinched and waxen. The eyes lived only like glittering dark coals.

  Behind Apollio, a cluster of whispering, agitated servants crowded the gate. Apollio turned and ordered them back in a harsh, brittle voice. They retreated a step or two, but did not vanish as he demanded. Then one of them—-the old man, Lombardo—saw Durell and cried out and Apollio’s gun came up quickly, then lowered.

  “Signor Durell. I did not know you were in Filibano.”

  “I’m looking for Cesare,” Durell said flatly.

  “He was here. He is gone, now.”

  “And the girl—Signorina Padgett.”

  “I do not know her.”

  “Was anyone following Cesare?”

  “No. But come with me, please. We must find him. We have some business to settle. You came for the paintings?” Apollio smiled thinly. “Cesare tried to sell them to me. We had—an argument. It was stupid of me. But your scrolls are safe, upstairs in my study. You need not worry about them now. You say you are looking for a young lady?”

  “If Cesare was not being followed . . .”

  “At least I didn’t see anyone. . .. Have you seen my wife?” “Francesca is all right,” Durell said flatly.

  “Come, then. We will follow Cesare.”

  Durell thought for a moment that the man was merely ill. Apollio had put on a light-weight cotton jacket, with large pockets designed for cartridges and hunting materials. He said, “Do you know where Cesare will go?”

  “I know his favorite place. He used to hide there as a boy. I think he will be going there. I wounded him, but he is still on his feet. I am usually a good marksman,” Apollio said slowly. “But I did not do so well tonight. You have hunted mountain lions, signor?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “Then you know what a wounded animal of that sort is like. He must be found at once. Come, we have not much time.”

  Apollio turned and again ordered his servants back into the courtyard. They retreated reluctantly. Then he turned and walked to the left, onto a footpath that seemed to cut straight across the low scrub of the mountainside. Durell followed, not relieved by the knowledge that Talbott had taken Deirdre and was probably stalking Cesare this very minute. The moonlight made the rocky landscape unreal, as if created by the daubs of a surrealist painter. The porous boulders looked like giant bones invaded by wormholes. He thought he heard a faint shouting and barking of dogs from the palazzo behind them; but an upthrust of rock cut off his view when he turned his head. He could see only a few faint lights from the fishing village below. A cool salt wind blew over the island and brushed his face.

  “Apollio, are you sure you know where he has gone?” “There is a place the Bellarias still own—another ruin, but smaller than that where they live. Once, as a boy, Cesare hid there. The villagers helped to find him. And I helped, too. It was an ordinary act of kindness to help. Matters were quiet between the Bellarias and me, then. He will have gone there, like a wounded animal. It is where the underground gathered before you Americans came and destroyed Mussolini. There are old walls, a few cellars—it was a Norman castle once, and before that the Moors used it as a stronghold.” “You sound strange.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure you shot him?”

  “I am sure.”

  “Did he—what did he do to you?”

  “It does not—matter.”

  They were almost to the mountaintop when Apollio collapsed. Afterward, Durell wondered at the man’s endurance to go so far and fast with the knife wound in his stomach.

  They were in a desolate place, out of sight of any lights. Tall volcanic crags soared up on either hand, and the path had led into a narrow crevice, like a rock chimney lifting to the island’s summit. From all around came the bubbling of hot springs. The smell of sulphur was strong in the night air, and now and then wisps of steam, as if created in some red underworld, drifted across the ledges and crannies in their path.

  Apollio went to his knees beside one such sulphur pool with shocking abruptness. The rifle fell from his hands and clattered on the stone. Durell saved it from falling into the hot, steaming water and knelt beside the gasping man.

  “I apologize, signor. The loss of blood . . .”

  “Where did Cesare get you?” Durell rasped.

  “My own knife—in the stomach—no, do not touch me!’’ Apollio shouted violently.

  “What really happened?”

  “I planned to turn him over to the police, as a thief. It would be the end of the Bellarias. It took many weeks to plan it—to tell Francesca I would buy the scrolls. I am a little ashamed of the scheme now. . . .”

  “You’re bleeding badly,” Durell said. “You need a doctor.”

  “Do not touch me!” the man gasped.

  “Do you want to die right here?”

  “I would rather die—here, alone—yes . . .

  “I don’t understand. I’ve got to stop the bleeding.”

  Apollio could not resist. Durell ripped open his coat, unbuttoned his shirt, undid the fine leather trousers belt and tugged gently away from the wound, exposing the man’s stomach and loins. Apollio fought him with feeble hands. Durell had seen worse knife wounds, but he was not a doctor, so he could not tell how serious the internal damage might be. It was not the wound that made him freeze, that halted his pulse.

  Apollio lay still now, eyes closed, his face death-like in the moonlight. All around them, the mountain was quiet except for the ugly bubbling of the sulphur springs.

  Durell’s voice was shocked as he looked, just once, at the dark scar between the man’s legs that marked emasculation.

  “You’ve been mutilated.”

  “Yes.” Apollio’s whisper was a hiss of spiritual pain. “It happened—during the war, at the end, when the underground rose up and drove out the Fascisti. They came for me, naturally. I had done what I thought best and worked with the regime. One loses perspective during troubled times. Bruno Bellaria led the underground. They burned and pillaged and sabotaged, all through the war. I had ordered some of his friends shot. But it was a long time ago.”

  “It was Bruno who did this to you? This is what really lay between you? It was not the old feud, the old vendetta at all.” “Yes. Bruno did it. The old rivalry was a romanticism that died long ago. Then Bruno did this. They were going to hang me. And one nigh
t he—he came to the cell. He ordered me tied, hand and foot. And stripped. He had a woman with him—she is dead now. It does not matter. The—the woman helped him. But he used the knife. And laughed at me when I begged him to kill me. He had won for the Bellarias after all, you see. There are no more men in the Apollio family. There never will be more.”

  “You must be pleased that Bruno is dead.”

  “It does not please me. I would have liked to kill him myself.”

  Durell tore the man’s fine linen shirt into bandage strips and worked rapidly to stanch the flow of blood from the knife wound. He did not look at the man’s scar again.

  “Yet you married,” he said quietly. “You married Frannie Smith.”

  “Francesca. I made her my countess.”

  “Why?”

  “Perhaps I was lonely,” Apollio whispered.

  “Did she know?”

  “I told her—immediately afterward. It was an agreeable arrangement for her. She was free, as long as my honor was publicly maintained. I trusted her. She never divulged my shame to anyone. She wanted money. She is a simple creature. In bed, I could do nothing for her, and this was understood, naturally. She was discreet until she—she met Cesare. . .

  “No man could blame you,” Durell said softly, “for whatever you’ve done.”

  “It was foolish. One grows maddened by grief, by self-pity—and by love, too. . ."

  “You loved Francesca?”

  “I still do.”

  “Are you in pain now?” Durell asked abruptly.

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Good. If you don’t move—if you don’t try to crawl or walk and start the bleeding again—you’ll be all right. But I have to leave you now.”

  “I understand. I will tell you the way. It is worse than a goat’s path, and very dangerous. Cesare knows it, and a few fishermen. No one goes to the old ruins any more. The villagers think the place is accursed.”

  “How do I get there?” Durell asked.

  Apollio told him in a few brief words. There would be moonlight for several more hours. He felt a momentary reluctance to leave the wounded man, but an image of Deirdre in Jack Talbott’s hands spurred him to his feet. He took Apollio’s rifle with him when he left.