“So, what are you doing in Paris?” asked Michele.
Carlo told him the story of recent months and after the third beer, he asked the question he had been mulling over ever since he had left Thérèse.
“It’s not really your area of expertise, but you have an excellent memory. Do you remember that a few months ago there was an accident in Rennes between a prison van and a train?”
“Of course,” answered Michele, “but it wasn’t Rennes, it was Nantes.”
“Ah, yes, of course! Well, do you remember that one of the prisoners got away? Do you remember his name? Was it perhaps Jean-Luc Benoit?”
Michele thought about it for a moment then he said with certainty.
“No. His name was Tenoy, Luc Tenoy. They looked everywhere for him, but they never found him.”
“Good!” said Carlo comforted. The idea that there was a dangerous prisoner running around, who could do Thérèse harm had been tormenting him.
“Still, that name…” said Michele suddenly, “Benoit, that sounds familiar. Let’s go to the newspaper.”
They paid for their beers and left for the newspaper offices. They went up to the first floor where the back numbers were held and began looking through them.
“Was he a friend of yours?”
“Who, Benoit? Not at all, I’ll tell you the whole story afterwards,” said Carlo.
“Here it is! I’ve found it, read this.”
… the locomotive crashed into a military truck transporting eight prisoners destined for hard labour in the Cayenne islands. Six of them were slightly injured, one was killed and the eighth managed to escape. A nationwide manhunt is underway.
The prisoner who escaped is a very dangerous criminal, Luc Tenoy, guilty of atrocious crimes. The prisoner who died was called Jean-Luc Benoit.
Carlo stared at the article in amazement, while Michele watched him curiously.
“Well…” Michele added a jumble of curious exclamations with an interrogative intonation, “… are you going to tell me what all this is about?”
Carlo told him about Thérèse and her husband and of her fears and added that he wanted to be quite sure it was the right Jean-Luc Benoit.
“Tomorrow I will go to Quai des Orfèvres, as a journalist I can ask for that kind of information, as you know. I’ll ask for confirmation… but in my opinion, your Madame Thérèse is… he waved his hands “…is now a widow. If you want I’ll be best man.”
“Best man?” asked Carlo.
“At your wedding! Anyone can see that you have got it badly. Aren’t I right?
Paris – April 25th 1930
It was half past eleven the next morning when Michele left Quai des Orfèvres, it had taken him some time, since he had entered at eight thirty, but in the end he had obtained the information he needed, plus a written declaration. He had it down in writing, with an official stamp and the clerk’s signature.
Carlo was waiting outside, he had been there for two hours and he had smoked half a packet of Gitanes.
Michele thrust the paper under his nose; Carlo read it and heaved a sigh of relief. It showed that the prisoner had been imprisoned in Lille and that he was certainly Jean-Luc Benoit.
The words of the expert at Drouot, Mr Janowski, crossed his mind. He had said that the coin was a sort of amulet in reverse. In effect, since Thérèse had got rid of it, things had taken a turn for the better. He hugged Michele and told him,
“If it’s a boy we’ll call him after you.”
Michele returned to his office, laughing and shaking his head.
Carlo turned towards rue de Richer. When he entered, Thérèse was surprised to see him because there were two important auctions and she had not expected him to come in until the following day.
Now that he was there, Carlo realised that he had no idea how to bring the topic up. He certainly couldn’t say, “…oh, by the way… have you heard? You are a widow!” nor could he simply hand her the certificate so that she could read the information.
So, he began by telling her that he had met Michele, a friend from his university days by chance and that they had drunk a few beers, for old times’ sake. After five minutes of empty chatter, Thérèse stopped him and asked what had happened.
“Here,” He said, hand her the paper. “This concerns your husband. You know, yesterday evening you told me you were worried and so…”
“Well?”
“…so I asked Michele, who is a journalist…”
“Sorry, but what has your friend the journalist got to do with that delinquent husband of mine?”
“Yesterday evening was the first time you told me your husband’s name. I thought it was familiar, so I asked Michele to check the back numbers of the newspaper, because I thought he had escaped from prison. I remembered reading about it.”
Thérèse paled and put a hand to her mouth.
Carlo shook his head.
“I was wrong. It was another prisoner who got away, a man called Luc Tenoy; a very similar name. A prison van was involved in an accident and he managed to escape.”
“Why are you telling me this?” asked Thérèse anxiously.
“Because during the accident another prisoner was killed and his name was the same as that of your husband.”
Thérèse stared at him open-mouthed, without speaking. Carlo handed her the piece of paper from the police and asked her, “Is it him?”
Thérèse glanced at the document, stumbled backwards and into a chair, then resting her elbows on the desk she began to cry.
Carlo went over to console her, he put his hands on her shoulders but she suddenly stood up, turned to him, grabbed his arms and kissed him with a passion that she had been holding back for too long.
Paris – May 1930
Thérèse had confided the latest developments to Madame Antonelli, who had nodded happily and smiled, as if to say ‘I told you so’.
Madame was very pleased with the way things had turned out, but she had also taken on the role of substitute mother and she had become, if possible, even more severe with regard to Carlo’s visits to Thérèse, which were allowed only in her presence.
The moments of intimacy the couple shared were very chaste, also because the space available in the office was limited and anything more would have required the athletic qualities of two well-trained gymnasts.
At the end of the month, Carlo received a telegram from Professor Bertrams, asking him to meet in Milano, where the professor was holding a conference the following week.
Thérèse preferred not to go since the city would inevitably remind Carlo of sad times and she did not want their blossoming affair to be affected in any way.
Carlo found an unexpected travelling companion in his friend Eugenio, who had planned a business trip to the Lombard capital around that time. He was happy to have his company, because it would offer him the support and the opinion of a person he considered extremely practical and not at all gullible.
The professor was more spectral than ever. His excessively white skin contrasted with his black hair (Carlo was certain that it was the result of hair dye) and with the black of his garments.
The dream about the burning house and the people who died there tormented him every night. He was convinced that the answer lay in that ill-starred coin and he was equally certain that it was hexed.
He was in Milano not only for the conference, but also because he wanted, he told them, to visit a small town called Masserano. Both Carlo and Eugenio started in their seats, because they knew that this was the town where the coin had been minted.
The professor told them how, after lengthy negotiations and after showing letters of presentation to the Podestà of Milano, he had been able, in the company of the sceptical and worried mayor, to wander from church to church to search through the registers of births and deaths for mention of persons who had died in a fire. Many registers were lost or illegible and in any case, they did not mentio
n the reason for the death, only the date. He also searched the archives at the palace of the Ferrero princes, but there was no trace of fires, perhaps because these events were mentioned only when they involved a noble house, certainly not the houses of the common people. Altogether, he had found nothing and now he saw the coin as his only resource.
He asked, or rather, he begged, Carlo to sell it to him, but Carlo refused because it did not belong to him. In fact, it now belonged to the company he had formed with Thérèse, but even so, he considered it too dangerous an object to pass around.
Eugenio was very much impressed by the meeting with that strange personage, who on the one hand was a pitiful figure and on the other, quite terrifying.
Still, although he was in principle very sceptical about every irrational manifestation, on the train from Milano back to Locarno, he continued to repeat to Carlo what he had already confided on a previous occasion and that is, that reality was often more surprising than anyone could possibly imagine.
Before leaving them the professor, who was on the point of tears, managed to make Carlo promise that he would ask Thérèse for permission to use the coin one last time. This time it would be a séance to call up, through a well-known medium, the spirit that made the coin so evil. As soon as she had given her consent, he would organise the event on the French Riviera, in Nice, where he was planning a conference for the end of June.
Nice – June 26th 1930
Carlo was wearing a lightweight cream linen suit, two-tone shoes and a large panama hat, which his friend the tenor Lucas Cortes had given him some years ago.
Thérèse, following the latest fashions, was wearing a lightweight pyjama suit in a pale blue. It looked a bit like an Eastern dancer’s trousers, and she was wearing a huge white canvas hat with a trailing blue ribbon.
They had arrived a couple of days before the date foreseen for Professor Bertrams’ appearance and they were taking advantage of the opportunity to enjoy a short holiday, happy to be able to have some time to themselves, but above all… some space, since they had so little in Paris.
They were strolling along the Promenade des Anglais in the company, since the world is a small place, of some acquaintances of Carlo’s from Locarno. To avoid gossip he had introduced Thérèse as Madame Fantone.
“Do you mind?” asked Carlo.
“Of course not, sooner or later I will have to get used to it,” she answered with a smile.
As they were passing before the casino La Jetée, a large building on pillars that stood beside the sea like a sort of floating Kremlin, they decided to return to their room at the Hôtel Ruhl, which stood almost facing it and overlooked the Albert Ier gardens.
The professor had preferred the Hôtel Ruhl to the worldlier Negresco because, as he said, the Ruhl offered more privacy and elegance.
The conference was foreseen for the next afternoon and would be followed in the evening by a spiritual séance with about twenty carefully selected guests.
The professor had invited a young Italian friend of his to take part, who it appeared was particularly sensitive, although he refused to say his surname, which was that of a well-known family from Torino. He was introduced simply as Signor Aldolfo.
Nice – June 27th 1930
They spent the morning on the beach and Carlo, who had previously only encountered the sea when he oversaw the unloading of goods in the port of Genova, had equipped himself suitably and was now enjoying swimming in the waves.
He was pleased with the experience and he was admiring, with discreet sideways glances, the various bathing beauties. At the same time, he was annoyed that all those people were admiring Thérèse in her bathing suit.
It occurred to him that his friend Michele was right, “I really have got it badly!”
It was now six in the evening and the conference was drawing to a close. After the applause and the thanks from the professor, the auditorium slowly emptied as the audience moved contentedly towards the cocktails offered by the hotel management.
Bertrams looked tired and, if possible, even paler than before, despite the fact that he had arrived on his yacht. Worried, they approached to ask whether he felt strong enough for the séance. He insisted with a pained air that it was not a question of wanting to hold it, but of a duty.
The twenty guests invited, all curious and excited, had been sitting for some time on the chairs arranged around a small, round, three-legged table that stood in the centre of the hotel ballroom.
The ballroom had been closed and prepared in the morning and no one had been allowed in, until the professor personally opened the door, punctually at eight forty-five.
The door was closed again and locked from the inside by the professor’s own hand, then, he turned off the electric lights, leaving only six candlesticks with three candles each lit. It was sufficient to see what was happening.
Three persons where chosen by casting of lots amongst those present and invited to form a chain of five people with the professor and the young Signor Adolfo.
Carlo and Thérèse had decided beforehand that they would not take part in the draw.
The professor carefully extracted from its case the gold coin portraying the Duke Vittorio Amedeo of Savoy and placed it reverently in the centre of the table.
Three hundred years of history, often with cruel and sad events, shone in the centre of the dark wooden table.
The professor got up and gave those present some last instructions: under all circumstances and whatever might happen, they were to remain silent and absolutely still until he personally declared the séance concluded.
He looked round the room, asking for the consent of all those present then took his place, asking them to complete the chain; that is to put their thumbs together and to reach out to touch the little finger of the person next to them.
Then silence fell.
A few minutes passed in an embarrassing silence then a voice was heard from the mouth of one of the spectators.
“What do you want from me, now?”
Silence.
“I am speaking to you, bloody baron. What do you want?”
“To know who you are, what is your name?” This time it was young Adolfo who spoke.
“I wasn’t speaking to you. It is he who must answer me.”
“Who are you spirit?” asked the professor in a small voice.
“Ohhh! About time, too. Have you lost your tongue? Has it been cut out? Once upon a time, you talked, too much, even!”
“But… but… but… who are you?
“Are you getting old, don’t you recognise me? I am Alfonso Benassi. I see you still have one of my coins with you. They were really a fine piece of work!”
“Do you mean that the coins belonged to you?”
“No, you dotard! I mean that I made them! When I was at Masserano, do you recall? You ordered them from you, you swine. After that, you burnt down my house with me and my wife inside it,” the voice cracked for a moment. “May God strike you down; you also took my son away!”
The voice fell silent.
In the total silence, the coin rose slowly from the table, seeming to remain suspended in the air for an interminable moment. Twenty pairs of eyes stared at it in amazement. Then it moved, very slowly, it stopped an inch above the flame of a candle.
“Do you want it?” thundered the voice, “take it, it is yours!”
As if it had been shot from a catapult, the coin struck the professor in the chest and without caring that it was scorching hot, he caught it before it could fall to the ground. He gave a shout of pain.
“Does it burn?” said the voice with a gloomy chuckle. “Do you feel it burn? Do you feel it? Do you feel…” the voice faded away into silence.
A few minutes passed before Adolfo broke the silence, asking the professor if he felt all right.
There was no answer, he turned to him and saw that the chair was empty. Someone turned on the electric light, the profe
ssor had disappeared.
Thérèse, on the other hand, as white as a sheet was still staring at Carlo, paralysed with fright.
First of all everyone now turned towards Carlo who, thinking that he had fallen asleep, asked, “What, what? Was I snoring?”
No one answered, only Thérèse, worried but gentle, asked him,
“Did you really not know what was happening?”
“Why, what happened?”
Nice – June 27th 1930
The next morning Carlo woke with a thundering headache. The noise of the surf coming through his bedroom window had woken him. He turned with a pained smile to see Thérèse who was just waking up and was asking him how he felt.
He sat on the edge of the bed beside Thérèse and took her hand, asking,
“Did that voice really come from me?”
“Yes, I swear it and it was not your voice, it was completely different. It spoke Italian, but with a strange inflection. I didn’t understand everything the voice said, but I understood that it was very angry with a certain baron: I thought that was the professor.”
“I knew nothing about it. What I know I heard from Signor Adolfo. He told me the whole story. What a strange young man.”
“At first I thought it was one of the professor’s tricks. I didn’t realise that you were speaking.”
“Who knows where he is now? I don’t think he set up all this business to run off with a coin, no matter how precious it is. What do you think?”
Carlo got up and went onto the balcony.
“Come out here, my dear, it looks like a beautiful day, there must have been a storm last night and it has blown away yesterday’s clouds.”
A Bad Coin Always Turns Up Page 11