«Yes. I’m sure you know he died out here some years ago.»
The old man suddenly fixed me with a malevolent stare. «Who are you? What do you mean by bringing this volume here as though I were some horse-trader? What is the real reason for your visit, hm?»
He waved the photograph at me, his shrivelled mouth turning down into a snarl. «You want to bring all
«All what, sir?»
«Get out, sir! Out! Stint!»
He grabbed at the glass bell and rang it until I feared it would shatter.
I shot to my feet. «Forgive me, Sir Emmanuel, but I am convinced you are in grave danger»
«
The doors sprang open and the pale servant was framed there. «Sir?»
Quibble writhed in his chair, shaking his bulbous head till cowlicks of sparse hair tumbled from behind his ears and his book-tentacles rattled. «Show this
«Sir Emmanuel, please» I began.
Stint was at my elbow. «If you wouldn’t mind, sir?»
«I believe that a long-buried secret is threatening your life, sir, and that of a very noble friend of mine. Please, help me to find»
«
I was escorted through the gloomy corridors and shown out into the muggy night.
Well, that hadn’t gone very well at all, had it?
Old Stint shook his head mournfully. «I do beg your pardon, sir. I’ve never seen the master so upset.»
«Stint,» I said earnestly. «I have serious reason to believe Sir Emmanuel to be in danger of losing his life. Watch him carefully and contact me should you notice anything suspicious. Do you understand?»
He nodded.
«I am staying at the Hotel Santa Lucia.
I pushed open the protesting gate and made my way back on to the drive. Grateful for the comparative cool, I stretched and took a deep breath before setting off for the carriage.
As I moved off, however, there came the sound of a match being struck and then a tiny point of amber light glowed in the shadows as someone inhaled greedily on a cigarette.
Sidling up to the gates once more I was somehow unsurprised to find the servant Jackpot loitering there. He smiled and the cigarette in his lips poked upwards, the curling smoke causing him to narrow his very blue eyes.
«Hullo,» he muttered.
I touched my fingers to the brim of my hat and began to move off back towards the road.
Suddenly the boy pushed his face to the railings and, after briefly looking about, spoke in an urgent whisper.
«If you wanna see something of importance, Mr Box, meet me in town. Tomorrow. Midnight.»
«Meet
«Via Santa Maria di Costantinopoli. The house with the crimson light. You won’t regret it.»
Now it was my turn to smile. «Won’t I? And what could you possibly have that would interest me?»
His answer shocked me for a moment or two. For, stepping back a little from the railings, he suddenly thrust two fingers up at me.
Before I had time to react, he curled two fingers of his other hand into a semicircle and banged them against his palm. The penny dropped. Here was a «V» and now a «C».
I nodded.
The servant flicked his cigarette into the shadows. «Midnight tomorrow.»
And with that he was gone.
Next day, as arranged, I called on Miss Bella Pok at her hotel. The sunshine had completely deserted us and there was a squally feel to the weather, combined with a high, keening wind echoing banshee-like over the land. After breakfast, at Bella’s insistence, we took a two-wheeler along the coastal road until we reached the outlying plains of the great volcano, its peak scarcely visible in the yellowy fog. She had a yen, you see, to travel on the famous funicular railway that had been constructed with great ingenuity (and no little bravery) right up the slopes of the grumbling peak, terminating just short of the cone itself.
«I’m sure there are more interesting ways of passing the time,» I said, smiling my wide smile.
Bella touched a gloved hand to my arm. «But aren’t you fascinated by it, Lucifer? The boiling energy beneath our very feet? The fiery lava just waiting to erupt?»
Well, I was, of course. But just then it wasn’t Vesuvius’s fiery lava that was on my mind.
There was a station on the lower slopes that resembled nothing so much as a small desert fort, its flat roof thick with grey volcanic dust. I bought the tickets and we watched as the wind whipped balls of dust and old newspaper to worry at the feet of us travellers. A big clock struck two and we got aboard the cramped train carriage, watching the bleary sunlight glinting off the cable wires that stretched ahead up the slopes of the volcano.
The carriage — a curious thing built in a stepped arrangement like a mobile block of steps — was half-empty. Bella sat down on one of the steps, staring with animated curiosity out of the filthy windows. Next to us was an old woman with a bag of knitting and a couple of American boys in offensively loud checked suits and wide-awake hats, already loudly proclaiming the mountain’s incredible majesty, though all we could see so far was greasy ash. As we crawled up the sheer slope, great filthy clouds of sulphur billowed over the roof of the train, condensing on the windows like poisonous teardrops.
I suddenly noticed a young man sitting on the step above me. I received a quick impression of neat black suit and long auburn hair. His eyes were huge and brown, his nose slightly snubbed as though he had gently pressed it to a window-pane. He lifted his hat and smiled dazzlingly.
«You are impressed?» he asked.
I didn’t know if he meant by the volcano or himself.
«Very,» I said.
Bella glanced up and the stranger smiled.
«Please forgive me, you are Signor Box, yes?»
I nodded.
«My name is Victor,» he said, holding out his gloved hand. I gripped it firmly and introduced Bella.
He took Bella’s hand and kissed it gently. «Our mutual friend, Signor Unmann,» Victor continued, «expresses his regrets and begs that you accepted me as your guide in his stead.»
«Ah,» I said, losing all hope of useful information from my supposed man in the field.
«You know the mountain well?» asked Bella.
The young man took a deep breath of the frankly noxious air. «For me, Vesuvius is like a drug. I cannot help but travel up these slopes whenever I have the chance — even though I live here in Napoli.»
«Yes,» I coughed. «Intoxicating. Known Mr Unmann long have you?»
«Oh we are old… how do you say?
Bella began at once to itemise every last church in the place and I was slightly relieved when the guard called out «
Victor got nimbly to his feet and ushered us out of the train into a cloud of ash-filled steam. I wasn’t sure I wanted this little Eye-tie crowding my afternoon with Bella and made plans to get shot of him just as soon as we returned to the Funicular station.
We set foot on black volcanic soil. Bella looked down at her feet and lifted her boots.
«Are you all right, my dear?» I asked.
