and Harlow’s now highly attuned hearing could distinguish the soft sound of footsteps fading away. Harlow sat up, rubbing his chin in puzzled indecision, then left his bed and took up his ‘vantage point by the window.’ A man, this time clearly identifiable as Jacobson, had just left the house. He crossed the street and as he did so a dark car, a small Renault, rounded the corner and stopped almost directly opposite. Jacobson stooped and talked to the driver, who opened the door and stepped out. He removed his dark overcoat, folded it neatly — there was an unpleasant and rather menacing certainty about all his movements — placed it in the back seat, patted his pockets as if to reassure himself that nothing was missing, nodded to Jacobson and began to cross the street. Jacobson walked away.
Harlow retreated to his bed, where he lay with his black-jacked right hand under his pillow, facing the window, his eyes fractionally open. Almost at once he saw a shadowy figure, his features indistinguishable because he was illuminated from behind, appear at the window and peer in. He brought up his right hand and examined what it held: there was nothing indistinguishable about this, it was a large and very unpleasant looking pistol, and as Harlow watched he slid back a catch on the side. It was then that Harlow saw that the gun had a lengthy cylindrical object screwed on to the end of the muzzle. A silencer, a piece of equipment designed to silence a shot for a fraction of a second and Harlow for ever. The figure disappeared.
Harlow left his bed with considerable alacrity. A blackjack, as compared to a silenced gun, had its distinct limitations. He crossed the room and took up position against the wall about two feet from the hinged side of the door.
For ten long seconds, which even Harlow found rather wearing on the nerves, there was total silence. Then there came the barely audible creak from a floor-board — the villa didn’t go in much for deep-piled carpeting — in the passageway outside. The door handle depressed with almost millimetric stealth then slowly returned to position as the door, very very smoothly and gently, began to open. The gap between the door and jamb widened until it was about ten inches.
Momentarily, the door ceased to move. A head began to poke its way cautiously through the gap.
The intruder had a thin swarthy face, black hair plastered close to his narrow head and a pencil-line moustache.
Harlow leaned back on his left leg, raised his right leg and smashed the heel of his right foot against the door, just below the key-hole, from which the key had been thoughtfully and earlier removed. There was a muffled half- cough, half-scream of agony. Harlow jerked the door wide open and a short, thin dark-suited man stumbled into the room. Both hands, the right still clutching the gun, were clasped to the blood-masked shattered middle of his face. The nose was certainly broken: what had happened to cheekbones and teeth were, at the moment, a matter for the most idle conjecture.
It certainly didn’t concern Harlow. His face was entirely without pity. He swung his blackjack, none too lightly, and brought it down over the intruder’s right ear. Moaning, the man sank to his knees. Harlow took the gun from an unresisting hand and ran his free band over the man’s body. At his belt he discovered a sheath knife, which he withdrew. It was six inches long, double-edged, needle-pointed and razor-sharp. Gingerly, Harlow slipped the knife into his outside leather jacket pocket, changed his mind, switched over gun and knife, entwined his hand in the man’s black greasy hair and pulled him ruthlessly to his feet. Equally ruthlessly, he pressed the blade of the knife into his back until he was sure the tip had penetrated the skin.
Harlow said: ‘Outside.’
With the knife pressing ever deeper into his spine, Harlow’s would-be killer had little option.
The two men emerged from the villa and crossed the deserted street towards the little black Renault. Harlow pushed the man into the front seat while he himself got into the back. ‘
Harlow said: ‘Drive. Police.’
When the man spoke it was, understandably, with some muffled difficulty. He said: ‘No can drive.’
Harlow reached for his black-jack and struck the man with approximately the same force as before but this time Over the left ear. The man sagged wearily against the wheel.
Harlow said: ‘Drive. Police.’
He drove, if his performance could be called driving. It was, understandably, the most erratic and harrowing journey Harlow had ever experienced. Apart from the fact that the man was barely conscious, he had to drive with one hand only, having to take his hand off the wheel to change gear, using the other hand to hold a blood-saturated handkerchief against his shattered face.
Fortunately, the streets were deserted and the police station only ten minutes away.
Harlow half-pushed, half-carried the unhappy Italian into the station, deposited him not too gently on a bench, then went to the desk. Behind it were two large, burly and apparently genial policemen, both in uniform, one an inspector, the other a sergeant. They were studying with surprise and considerable interest the man on the bench who was now in a state of almost, complete collapse, holding both hands to his blood- ‘ smeared face.
Harlow said: ‘I want to lodge a complaint about this-man.’
The inspector said mildly: ‘It looks more to me that he should be lodging a complaint against you.’
Harlow said: ‘You will be requiring some identification.’ He pulled out his passport and-driving licence but the inspector waved them away without even looking at them.
‘Even to the police your face is better known than that of any criminal in Europe. But I had thought, Mr. Harlow, that your sport was motor racing, not boxing.’
The sergeant, who had been studying the Italian with some interest, touched the inspector on the arm.
‘Well, well, well,’ he said, <If it isn’t our old friend and true, Luigi the Light-fingered. Difficult to recognize him, though.’ He looked at Harlow. ‘How did you make his acquaintance, sir?’
‘He came visiting me. I’m sorry there was some violence.’
‘Apologies are out of order,’ the inspector said. ‘Luigi should be beaten up regularly, preferably once a week. But this one should last him a couple of months. Was it — ah —
necessary—?’
Wordlessly, Harlow produced the knife and gun from his pockets and laid them on the counter.
The inspector nodded. ‘With his record, a minimum of five years. You will press charges of course?’
‘Please do it for me. I have urgent business. I’ll look in later, if I may. Incidentally, I don’t think Luigi came to rob me. I think he came to kill me. I’d like to find out who sent him.’
‘I think that could be arranged, Mr. Harlow.’ There was a grim-faced thoughtfulness about the inspector that boded ill for Luigi.
Harlow thanked them, left, climbed into the Renault and drove off. Apart from the fact that he had no compunction in the world about borrowing Luigi’s car, it was highly unlikely that its owner would be in any fit state to use it for quite some time to come. It had taken Luigi ten minutes to drive from the villa to the police station. It took Harlow just under four, and then less than another thirty seconds to be parked fifty’ yards away from the big roller door of the Coronado garage. The door was closed but bars of light could be seen on either side of it.
Fifteen minutes later Harlow stiffened and leaned forward. A small side door let into the main door had opened and four men emerged. Even in the negligible street lighting provided for the rue Gerard, Harlow had no difficulty in recognizing Jacobson, Neubauer and Tracchia. The fourth man he had never seen before: presumably he was one of Jacobson’s mechanics. Jacob-son left the closing and locking of the door to the others and walked quickly up the street in the direction of the villa. As he came abreast on the other side of the street, he didn’t as much as glance in Harlow’s direction. There are thousands of small black Renaults on the streets of Marseilles.
The other three men locked the door, climbed into a Citroen and drove off. Harlow’s car, lightless, pulled away from the kerb and followed. It was to be in no sense a chase or pursuit, just two cars moving at a leisurely pace through the suburbs of the city, the one following the other at varying but always discreet distances. Only on one occasion did Harlow fall well back and switch on his side-lights at the sight of an approaching police car, but he had no difficulty in making up the lost ground.
Eventually, they came to a fairly broad tree-lined boulevard in an obviously well-to- do area.
Large villas, hiding behind exceptionally high brick walls, lined both sides of the road. The Citroen rounded a right-angled corner. Fifteen seconds later Harlow did the same and immediately switched on his side-lights. About 150 yards ahead the Citroen had pulled up outside a villa and a man — it was Tracchia — had already left the car and was advancing towards the gates with a key in his hand. Harlow pulled out to overtake the parked car and as he did so he saw the gates swing open. The other two occupants of the Citroen ignored the passing Renault.
Harlow turned into the first side street and parked. He got out, pulled on Luigi’s dark coat and lifted the collar
