'Some chance you've got to find a nice blonde in Siena,' she said.
'Well, okay, I'll settle for a brunette. Come on: change your mind.'
'Don't tempt me, please,' Marian said firmly. 'I intend to finish this tonight.'
Shaking his head, Don went down to the garage and got out the car. Harry came out of the darkness and looked hopefully at him.
'You're out of luck, Harry,' Don said. 'I can't take you with me.'
Harry rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.
'Okay, sir; just as you say.'
'Go and play gin-rummy with Cherry. You might win some money off him.'
Harry snorted.
'Some hopes,' he said in disgust. 'He's got that sword stick out and he is cutting and thrusting like someone on the movies. I told the old goat if he didn't watch out, he'd have a stroke.'
Don laughed.
'Leave him alone, Harry. He has an adventurous spirit. He did damn well last time he produced that sword stick.'
He drove down the drive and out into the lane. A mile of moonlit road brought him to the Porto Camollia over which was the inscription in Latin: Siena opens her heart still wider to you.
Leaving the car, Don walked towards the Piazza del Campo. It was just after half-past nine, and the narrow streets were already thronged with people aimlessly walking, filling the night air with the sound of their voices, moving aside indifferently as the cars with an impatient bep-bep on their horns forced their way through the solid crowd.
Don found his way to the Campo and over to a cafe where he sat down.
A brilliant scene lay before him. The shell-shaped Campo around which, twice a year, the Patio was raced for, was floodlit. The twelfth-century Palazzo Pubblico with its three hundred foot tower formed an impressive Hollywood-like background to the piazza.
Looking at this scene, Don thought how easy it was to put the clock back in Siena. He wouldn't have been the least surprised to see men in helmets and breastplates, arquebusiers and halberdiers, march into the piazza.
* A harassed waiter, carrying a laden tray, paused to take his order for a coffee espresso.
While waiting, Don glanced at the people sitting around him. There was the inevitable quota of American tourists, a number of Italians discussing politics at the tops of their voices, and two tables from him, a gigantic negro.
The negro held Don's attention. He had never seen a man built on such a colossal scale. He was a Michelangelo creation carved from ebony with a muscular development much larger than life.
Although he was seated, he was a good foot higher than the waiter who was placing before him an enormous pile of pink icecream. His bullet-shaped head grew out of shoulders as wide as a barn door without any apparent neck to join one to the other. There was a brutish, alert expression on his face that made Don think of a gorilla. His bloodshot eyes were constantly on the move. They flickered in Don's direction, ran over him with an insolent, inquisitive stare, passed on and came back to him and repeated the stare.
Don stared back and the negro shifted his glance. He picked up a spoon that seemed like a toy in his enormous hand and began to shovel ice-cream into his thick-lipped mouth.
What a beauty! Don thought. My goodness! I wouldn't like to tangle with him. He's the stuff nightmares are made of.
He lit a cigarette and shifted his attention from the negro to the slow-moving crowd walking to and fro across the Campo.
He was worried. Nothing had been achieved yet, and he had now only four more days before Dicks sent his report.
Somewhere, he was positive, in this ancient city, was the headquarters of the Tortoise. So far the books he and Marian had been studying had yielded no clue. Was he going about this search the right way? he asked himself. Should he take a risk and make some direct inquiries? Whom should he ask? If he went to the police, he would have to explain why he wanted the information, and he could imagine the reaction he would get. There was Pedoni, the bookseller. While Marian and he had been choosing books, they had talked with the old bookseller. He had told them he had lived in Siena all his life. He might be the man to consult.
Don finished his coffee. He glanced towards the negro who had suddenly risen to his feet. As he raised his great bulk to its full height of over seven feet, he seemed to enjoy the sensation he caused. The party of American tourists all stopped talking to stare at him. Even the Italians paused in their wrangling to gape. Slowly and with a jeering expression, the negro put a white slouch hat on his massive head, shot the cuffs of his cream silk shirt and strolled off into the crowd.
Head and shoulders above the crowd, it was easy to watch him cross the Campo until he disappeared through one of the dark archways that led into the labyrinth of the city's streets. Don signalled to the waiter, and while he was paying for his coffee, he asked casually, 'Who was that negro? He looked like a prize fighter.'
'For six months now,' the waiter said, 'every night without fail, he comes here to eat ice-cream. He works at one of the villas, so I am told. Some American perhaps employs him. He never speaks and I take care not to ask questions. To me he is a bad man.'
Don grinned.
'You could be right,' he said and got to his feet.
Deciding to explore the back alleys of the city, he left the Campo. He wandered through the narrow, crowded streets for an hour or so; aware that he was wasting time and that he should return to the villa and finish the book he was reading, but he was reluctant to leave the fascination of the pinched alleys, the massive Gothic-styled
