You Find Him, I'll Fix Him

“Is that you, Ed?”

I recognized Maxwell’s voice.

“Sure, it’s me. Who else do you think it is?”

“Will you come over right away?” He sounded excited and flustered. “My God! I’ve got a hell of a thing dropped into my lap. The police have just phoned. They say they’ve found Helen Chalmers… she’s dead!”

“Dead! What happened?”

“Come over, will you? They’re arriving at any moment, and I want you here.”

“I’ll be right over,” I said, and hung up.

This was it. It had started a little sooner than I had expected. I crossed the room, poured out two fingers of Scotch and drank it. I noticed my hands were unsteady, and when I looked at myself in the mirror over the Liquor cabinet, I saw my face was the colour of tallow and my eyes looked scared.

I left the apartment and went down to the underground garage. By the time I had driven out into the heavy traffic the whisky was beginning to bite. I didn’t feel quite so scared. I finally got rid of my shakes as I pulled up outside the Western Telegram building.

I found Maxwell and Gina in the outer office. Maxwell looked bad. His face was white as a fresh fall of snow. Gina looked worried too. She gave me an uneasy stare as I came in, and then moved into the background, but I felt she continued to watch me.

“Am I glad to see you!” Maxwell exclaimed. His hostility and smoothness had gone. “What’s the old man going to say when he hears? Who’s going to break the news to him?”

“Relax,” I said sharply. “What happened? Come on! Let’s have it!”

“They didn’t give me any details. They just said she had been found dead. She fell off a cliff at Sorrento.”

“Fell off a cliff?” I was acting hard now. “What was she doing in Sorrento?”

“I don’t know.” Maxwell nervously lit a cigarette. “This is just my luck to have a thing happen like this on my first trip out here. Look, Ed, you’ll have to tell Chalmers. He’ll shoot his top.”

“Take it easy. I’ll tell him. What I can’t understand is why she was at Sorrento.”

“Maybe the police know. My God! This would happen to me!” He pounded his fist into the palm of his hand. “You’ve got to handle it, Ed. You know what Chalmers is like. He’ll want an inquiry. He’s bound to want an inquiry. He’ll expect…”

“Oh, pipe down!” I said. “Stop working yourself up. This isn’t our fault. If he wants an inquiry, he can have one.”

He made an effort to pull himself together.

“It’s all right for you to talk. You’re his white-headed boy. But he hasn’t much use for me…”

At this moment the door opened and Lieutenant Itola Carlotti of the Rome Homicide Department came in.

Carlotti was a short, dark man with a tanned, wrinkled face and pale, penetrating blue eyes. He was nudging forty-five, but looked thirty. I had known him for two or three years, and we got along well together. I knew him for a smart, conscientious policeman without any genius

for his job. He got results by careful, painstaking plodding.

“I thought you were on vacation,” he said, as he shook hands with me.

“I was about to leave when this broke,” I said. “You know Signorina Valetti? This is Signor Maxwell. He’s taking my place while I’m away.”

Carlotti shook hands with Maxwell and bowed to Gina.

“Let’s have it,” I said, settling myself on Gina’s desk and waving him to a chair. “Are you sure it’s Helen Chalmers?”

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” he said, planting himself before me and making no move to take the chair I had indicated. “Three hours ago I had a report from Naples headquarters that the body of a young woman had been found lying at the foot of a cliff, five miles from Sorrento. It was thought she had fallen off a path on the cuff. Half an hour ago, I was told she had been identified as Signorina Helen Chalmers. Apparently she had rented a villa close to where she had fallen. When the villa was searched it became apparent from the contents of her luggage who she was. I want someone from your office to come with me to Sorrento to identify the body.”

I hadn’t expected this. The thought of going into the morgue to identify what remained of Helen’s loveliness turned me sick.

Maxwell said hurriedly, “You’ve met her, Ed. You’ll have to go. I’ve only seen pictures of her.”

Carlotti said, looking at me, “I’m going down there right away. Can you come with me?”

“I’ll come,” I said, and slid off the desk. Turning to Maxwell, I went on, “Hold everything until I call you. It may not be her. I’ll call you as soon as I know. Stick around until you hear from me.”

“What about Chalmers?”

“I’ll handle him,” I said; then, turning to Carlotti, I went on, “Okay, let’s go.”

I patted Gina’s shoulder as I followed Carlotti out of the office. We didn’t say anything until we were driving fast towards the Rome airport, then I said, “Any idea how it happened?”

He gave me a stolid stare.

“I told you: she fell off a cliff.”

“I know what you told me. Is there more to it?”

He lifted his shoulders as only an Italian can lift them.

“I don’t know. She rented a villa under the name of Mrs. Douglas Sherrard. She wasn’t married, was she?”

“Not as far as I know.”

He lit one of those awful Italian cigarettes and puffed smoke out of the car window.

“There are a few complications,” he said after a long moment of silence. “Signor Chalmers is an important man. I don’t want any trouble.”

“Nor do I. He’s not only an important man, but he’s also my boss.” I eased myself down in the car seat. “Apart from calling herself Mrs. Douglas Sherrard — what other complications?”

“Do you know anything about her?” His cold blue eyes searched my face. “For the moment no one except you and I and the Naples police know about this, but it won’t be possible to keep it quiet for long. It looks as if she had a lover.”

I pulled a face.

“Chalmers will love that. You’ll have to be careful what you tell the press, Lieutenant”

He nodded.

“I realize that. From what I hear, she rented the villa in the joint names of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Sherrard. Do you think she was secretly married?”

“She might have been, but I don’t think it likely.”

“I don’t think so either. I think she was on an unofficial honeymoon in Sorrento.”

Again he lifted his shoulders expressively, “It happens. Do you know anyone called Douglas Sherrard?”

“No.”

He tapped ash off his cigarette.

“Grandi, who is handling the case, seems satisfied it was an accidental fall. He has only asked me to check with him because il Signor Chalmers is such an important man. It is unfortunate that there is a lover involved. If there was no lover, it would be pretty straightforward.”

“It might not be necessary to mention him,” I said, looking out of the car window.

“That is possible. You wouldn’t know for certain if she had a lover?”

“I know practically nothing about her.” I felt the palms of my hands turn moist. “We mustn’t jump to conclusions. Until we have seen the body, we don’t know for certain it is her.”

“I am afraid it is her all right. All her clothes and her luggage carry her name. There were letters found in her luggage. The description fits. I don’t think there’s a doubt about it.”

We said nothing further until we were on the plane for Naples, then suddenly he said, “You will have to explain the position to il Signor Chalmers. The fact that she rented the villa under another name is bound to come out at the inquest. You understand there is nothing we can do to hush it up.”

I could see he was worried about getting tangled with Chalmers.