no right to be in the garden and Alsconi could charge him with unlawful entry. He said we had no proof that he was in the house. Finally, he went out to the house. He wouldn't let either Cherry or me go and we had to wait at the police station. They came back after a while. Rossi said the house had been thoroughly searched and Mr Micklem wasn't there. He then had the nerve to suggest Mr Micklem might be suffering from amnesia and he might be wandering about the countryside. He then went back to Rome, leaving the local police to look for Mr Micklem. They don't seem to be looking very hard, and that's as far as We've got at the moment.'
'If Don has been kidnapped,' Marian said, 'the kidnappers would have had plenty of time to take him somewhere far from this house, wouldn't they?'
'Yes, but I don't think they did. I think he's still in the house,' Harry said.
'But if the police searched it...'
'You want to see the place. It's just the kind of joint that would have underground passages, secret panels and hidden rooms. It's my bet he's there.'
Marian looked across at Cherry.
'What do you think, Cherry?'
'I don't know what to say, madam,' Cherry said miserably. 'I should have thought they wouldn't have kept him in the house.'
'You haven't seen the place either,' Hairy put in. 'Wherever he is, we've got to find him and we've got to start looking somewhere.'
'Yes,' Marian said. 'What are you thinking of doing?'
'Well, miss, this is a job we can't tackle alone. We've got to have help. If the police won't play, we'll have to look elsewhere.
Let's get hold of Giuseppe. He's the boy who can help us. We'll ask him to collect a bunch of his gondolier pals to come here. We could then bust into the house and if Mr Micklem is there, we'd find him.'
'But, Harry, you don't know for certain he is there. You can't break in on the off chance. You'll only be arrested and that won't help Don,' Marian said. 'I'm sure that's not the way to handle it. The Tortoise is an extortioner. He won't pass up_
the chance of getting money out of Don. I think it is more likely we'll get a ransom note before long. I think we should wait until the ransom note arrives and then take action. I agree we must have help. I'll see if I can get Giuseppe. He may be at the palazza now.'
'Well, all right,' Harry said, reluctantly. 'I don't like sitting here doing nothing. I'm pretty sure if we had a bunch of Giuseppe's pals we could bust in and find Mr Micklem.'
'We'll get Giuseppe first,' Marian said, and crossing to the telephone she put a call through to Don's palazza in Venice.
Giuseppe Spinolo was Don's gondolier, and while Don was not in residence, Giuseppe also acted as caretaker to the small palazza Don owned on the Grand Canal. Marian was lucky to contact him and she told him briefly what had happened.
'Harry wants you here,' she went on. 'If you can bring some of your friends...'
'I will come at once,' Giuseppe said, 'and I will bring my friends. Do not worry, we will find ilsignore. We will be with you some time tonight.'
'He's coming,' Marian said as she hung up. 'Now, Harry, I would like to see this house. Let's get the car out and explore. We'll want to know what the roads and the country are like before Giuseppe comes...' she broke off as Harry suddenly jumped to his feet.
Seeing he was staring past her, she looked quickly over her shoulder.
Standing in the doorway, a .25 automatic in her hand, was Lorelli.
The mid-afternoon sun blazed down into the garden of the Trioni villa and Willie, sitting with his back to a tree where he had a good view of the villa, struggled to keep awake.
He had seen Marian arrive, and he had been told that within an hour Lorelli would be coming to the villa to deliver the first instructions concerning Micklem's ransom.
Felix had said to him: 'Your job is to cover Lorelli. Keep out of sight, but be ready to move in if they try any tricks. Use your gun if you have to.'
Willie took out a dirty handkerchief and wiped his sweating face. He would have given a lot to be able to shut his eyes and have a refreshing sleep, but he knew that was more than he dared do. He looked at his strap watch. She should be here any moment now. He pulled a .38 automatic from his hip pocket and checked the clip. He balanced the gun in his hand while he looked at the villa, wishing he was in there and out of the burning sun. It seemed to Willie that he had spent all his life wishing for something. His main passions in life were women and high-power cars. Women shunned his pock-marked face and stunted body and he never seemed able to earn enough money to buy the car he wanted.
At the age of fourteen he had started life as a porter to a small disreputable hotel in Genoa. His feeble attempts to make money by stealing from the hotel's clients had eventually landed him in jail. He had spent most of his forty years in and out of prison, and it was only when Alsconi had taken him into his organization that his prison sentences ceased.
Although he was now reasonably well paid, he still could not indulge himself in the car he wanted, and women were still out of his reach. He hankered for more money. No matter how ugly a man was, he argued, women would favour him if he had money: not the kind of money he earned, but big money, and he ached to have it. If there was one thing he ached for more than anything else it was Lorelli. She bewitched him. He knew she was Felix's woman and that it would be disastrous for him if Felix knew what was in his mind. He knew too Lorelli wouldn't look at him. His face, his physique and his lack of money presented far more formidable barriers than Felix's fists. Up to now he had accepted the position, but he never gave up hoping. He
dreamed of Lorelli and hoped. Without his dreams or his hopes life wouldn't be worth living. For forty years he had lived on dreams. Sooner or later, he kept assuring himself, his dreams must turn to reality.
He was brooding about Lorelli when, looking up, he saw her.
