By now I had got over my first shock. I returned to my chair and sat down.
“You’ll have to be careful,” I said. “If Carlotti passed on what you tell him to Chalmers, you’d still be in trouble.”
“Yes, I realize that.” He finished his brandy, got up and refilled his glass. “But do you think I should do it?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t. I think you should wait until the police are sure it murder. You don’t want to rush into this thing. You can’t afford to. You must wait and see how it develops.”
“But suppose they find out she and I were lovers. Suppose they think, because I had a motive, that I killed her?”
“Oh, talk sense, Giuseppe! You can prove you were nowhere near Sorrento when she died, can’t you?”
“Well, yes. I was right here in Rome.”
“Then for the love of mike, don’t be dramatic.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“You are right. So you think I should say nothing to the police!”
“Not yet. Chalmers suspects there’s a man involved. He’s like a mad bull right now. If you came forward, he would jump to the conclusion that you were the man and he’d go for you. You may as well know the facts: Helen was pregnant.”
Frenzi’s brandy glass slipped out of his fingers and dropped to the floor. The brandy made a little pool on the carpet. I gaped at me, his eyes widening.
“Was she? I swear it wasn’t me,” he said. “My goodness I’m damned glad I didn’t go to the police before I talked to you He picked up his glass. “Look what I’ve done!” He went into the kitchen to find a cloth. While he was gone, I had time to do some thinking. If Carlotti believed and could prove that Helen was murdered, I knew he would make every effort to trace the mythological Sherrard. Had I covered my tracks well enough prevent him finding me?
Frenzi came back and mopped up the spilt brandy. Squatting on his heels, he practically voiced my thoughts by saying, “Carlotti is very thorough. I’ve never known him to fail on a murder case. He could get on to me, Ed.”
He could get on to me, too.
“You have an alibi he can’t upset, so relax,” I told him. “Chalmers has given me the job of finding the man who might have killed her. Maybe you can help me. Could he have been the American newspaper man you were telling me about?”
Frenzi shook his head.
“Not a chance. I was talking to him on the afternoon she died.”
“Then who else is there? Any ideas?”
“No,’ I’m afraid not.”
“There is a man she knew whose first name is Carlo. Do you happen to know anyone of that name?”
He thought for a moment, then shook his head.
“I don’t think so.”
“Did you ever see her with any man?”
He rubbed his jaw, looking steadily at me.
“I saw her with you.”
I sat very still.
“Did you? Where was that?”
“You were coming out of a movie together.”
“Chalmers wanted me to take her around,” I said. “I did take her out once or twice. Apart from me, is there anyone else you can remember?”
I knew he was too shrewd to be fooled by my attempt at casualness, but he was also too good a friend to embarrass me more than he had done already.
“I did see her with a big, dark fellow at Luigi’s once. I don’t know who he was.”
“How big?”
“He was impressively big: built like a prize-fighter.”
My mind jumped to the intruder I had seen in the villa. He too had been impressively big: he too had shoulders of a prizefighter.
“Can you give me a description of him?”
“I’m pretty sure he was an Italian. I should say he was around twenty-five or six; dark, blunt featured, good looking in an animal kind of way, if you know what I mean. He had a scar on his right cheek: a white, zigzag mark that could have been an old knife wound.”
“And you have no idea who he is?”
“None at all, but he’s easy to recognize if you ever see him.”
“Yes. No other ideas?”
He shrugged.
“This isn’t even an idea, Ed. This fellow was the only man, apart from you, I ever saw her with, but you can be sure, she was always going around with men. I wish I could be man helpful, but I can’t.”
I got to my feet
“You have been helpful,” I said. “Now look, relax, do nothing and say nothing. I’ll try to find this guy. He may be the one I’m looking for. Ill keep you informed. If Carlotti does happen to get on to you, you have a cast-iron alibi. Remember that and stop worrying.”
Frenzi smiled.
“Yes, you’re right. I rely on your judgment, Ed.”
I said it was the thing to do, shook hands with him and went down to where I parked the Lincoln.
As I drove back to my apartment, I felt I hadn’t wasted my time. It seemed to me I had now found the reason why Helen had died at the foot of the cliff. It wasn’t something I could explain to Chalmers, but at least, it gave me a clue: someone, as Frenzi had said, did not blackmail, easily and Helen had died.
My next obvious move was to find Carlo.
III
It took me until four o’clock the following afternoon before I could contact my ex-girl friend on the Rome exchange telephone.
She made the usual difficulties that a girl who has been dropped and now discovers you’re interested in her again will make, and I had to exercise a lot of patience and tact before I could get around to what I wanted to ask her.
When she understood I Wanted the name and address of a Rome telephone subscriber, she said promptly that it was strictly against regulations and by obliging me she could lose her job. After a lot of aimless talk which nearly drove me crazy, she finally suggested we might discuss the matter over a dinner.
I said I would meet her at Alfredo’s at eight o’clock and hung up. I knew there would be more to it than a dinner, so I bought a powder compact for seventeen thousand lire that looked showy enough to have cost three times that price as a make-weight if she raised further difficulties.
I hadn’t seen her for three years, and I didn’t recognize her when she entered Alfredo’s. I wondered how it had been possible for her ever to have won a prize in a beauty competition. Three years can make quite a dent in the shape and size of any Italian woman if she doesn’t watch her diet, and this girl, apparently, hadn’t watched anything since last I met her. She was really something to see.
After a lot of talk, hedging and wrangling, and not before I had slipped her the compact, she finally agreed to get me the name and address of the subscriber of the telephone number I had found scribbled on Helen’s lounge wall.
She promised to call me the following morning.
