I had to wait until half-past eleven o’clock before the call came through. By then I was fit to strangle her.
There was a waspish note in her voice when she told me that the subscriber was a woman.
“Okay, so it’s a woman,” I said. “You don’t have to get worked up. It had to be either a man or a woman, hadn’t it? You wouldn’t expect it to be a dog, would you?”
“You don’t have to shout at me,” she said. “I have no business to give you this information.”
I counted up to five mentally before I could trust myself to speak, then I said, “Look, let’s have it. This is strictly business. How many times do I have to tell you?”
She said the subscriber lived at villa Palestra, viale Paolo Veronese, and her name was Myra Setti.
I wrote down the name and address.
“Thanks a lot,” I said, staring at the scribble on the pad. “Setti? S-e-t-t-i? Is that right?”
She said it was.
Then the nickle dropped.
Setti!
I remembered the New York police had believed that Frank Setti, Menotti’s gangster rival, had been responsible for Menotti’s death. Was Myra Setti connected in some way with him — his wife, his sister or even his daughter? Was there some hook up between this woman, Menotti’s murder, Frank Setti and Helen?
I became aware that my late girl-friend was talking. Her high-pitched voice slammed against my ear-drum, but I couldn’t be bothered to listen to what she was saying.
I dropped the receiver back on to its cradle, my heart bumping with excitement.
Setti!
This might be the clue I had been looking for. I remembered Maxwell had said that Helen was thought to be mixed up in the Menotti killing, and that was the reason why she had come to Rome.
If Setti had really engineered the killing…
I decided it might pay off to take a look at the villa Palestra.
The telephone bell rang. My late girl-friend was possibly wanting to know why I had hung up on her.
I settled further down in my chair and let the telephone bell ring.
PART EIGHT
I
I was pretty busy for the next two hours.
I knew by now Chalmers would be back in his New York office and would be waiting impatiently to hear from me. I would have to get some sort of report to him during the day.
I called the International Investigating Agency and told them to send their best operator around. I said the job was confidential and urgent. They said they would send their Signor Sarti. Then I put a call through to Jim Matthews of the Associated Press. Matthews had been in Rome for fifteen years. He knew everyone who was likely to make news and a few who wouldn’t.
I said I’d like to have a word with him when he was free.
“For you, Ed, I’m always free,” he said. “Suppose you buy me a large and expensive lunch and let us talk?”
I looked at my watch. The time was just after twelve.
“I’ll meet you at Harry’s bar at one-thirty,” I said.
“Fine. I’ll be seeing you.”
I then made a few notes on a pad and did a little thinking, trying to make up my mind how much to tell Chalmers. His wife’s warning bothered me. I could see if I gave him the whole story he wasn’t likely to react favourably to me, and yet, it wasn’t going to be easy to keep much back. I was still brooding on I what I was going to tell him when the front-door bell rang.
I opened the door to find a short, fat elderly Italian, dressed in a shabby grey suit, standing on my doormat. He introduced himself as Bruno Sarti from the agency.
At first glance Bruno Sarti wasn’t particularly impressive. He hadn’t shaved this morning; his linen was grubby and he had the beginning of a boil under his right eye. He also carried with him a devastating smell of garlic that poisoned the atmosphere in my room.
I asked him in. He removed his shabby velour hat to show a balding head and a scurfy scalp and came in.
He sat on the edge of a straight-backed chair while I went over to the open window and sat on the sill. I felt in need of a circulation of fresh air.
“I want some information and I want it fast,” I told him. “The cost doesn’t matter. I’d be glad if your agency would put on as many men as they think necessary.”
His black, blood-shot eyes opened a trifle and he showed me several gold-capped teeth in what he imagined was a smile. It looked to me like the kind of spasm you see on someone’s face when they have a sudden stomach cramp.
“The information I want and the fact I am your client must be regarded as strictly confidential,” I went on. “You may as well know the police are also investigating the affair, and you’ll have to watch out that you don’t tread on their toes.”
His so-called smile faded and his eyelids narrowed.
“We are good friends of the police,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to do anything to annoy them.”
“You won’t do that,” I assured him. “This is what I want you to do: I want you to find out who were the men friends of an American girl who stayed in Rome for the past fourteen weeks. Her name is Helen Chalmers. I can give you some photographs of her. She stayed at the Excelsior hotel for bout days and then moved to an apartment.” I handed him a number of photographs I had got Gina to send over from our files, as well as the address of Helen’s apartment. “She had a number of men friends. I want all their names and where I can find them. I also want to know what she did with herself during the time she was in Rome.”
“La signorina died accidentally at Sorrento, I believe?” Sarti asked, looking at me. “She is the daughter of il Signor Sherwin Chalmers, the American newspaper owner?”
In spite of his unimpressive looks, at least he appeared to keep abreast with the news.
“Yes,” I said.
The gold teeth flashed. Obviously he now realized he was in with the big money and that pleased him. He produced a note book and a stub of pencil and made a few notes.
“I will begin immediately, signor,” he said.
“That’s the first job. I also want to find out who owns a dark green Renault with this registration number.”
I handed him a slip of paper on which I had jotted down the Renault’s number.
“The police tell me there is no such number registered. Your only hope is to watch out for the car and if you spot it either follow it or get a look at the driver.”
He made more notes, and then he closed his notebook. He looked up and asked, “The death of la signorina was not perhaps accidental, signor?”
“We don’t know. You needn’t bother your brains about that. Get me this information fast and leave the other angle to the police to handle.” I stood up. “Call me here as soon as you have anything. Don’t wait to give me a written report. I want this job cleared up in a hurry.”
He said he would do his best, suggested I might like to pay the usual retaining fee of seventeen thousand lire, took my cheque, assured me that he would have something for me before long, and bowed himself out of the apartment.
