on this case by il Signor Chalmers. I think you mentioned that the fee would be a substantial one. I wish to be of service to you. It is by being useful to one’s clients that one keeps them.”
“That is a sterling thought,” I said. “Then you will see what you can arrange?”
“Immediately, signor. I should have news for you in a few hours. Will you be at your apartment at one o’clock?”
I said I would.
“Then I will be able to tell you if I have been successful or not.”
He got to his feet, gave me a mournful bow and waddled across the room and out of my sight.
I had no doubt that il Signor Veroni didn’t exist and that Sarti had been hired by someone to watch Helen. Nor had I any doubt, if I were going to pay up, the ten million lire would go directly into Sarti’s pocket.
There wasn’t much I could see that I could do about this. There might be a way out, given a little time to think of one. It depended if I could gain time.
I returned to my apartment and waited.
Sarti didn’t telephone until two o’clock. By then I was pacing the room and sweating.
“The arrangement we spoke about has been successfully concluded, signor,” he said when I answered the telephone.
“Would Wednesday morning be convenient for you to settle the conditions?”
“I can’t do it before Thursday,” I said. “It will mean selling…”
“Not over the telephone, signor,” Sarti said, sudden agony in his voice. “It is always unwise to discuss anything of this nature over an open line. Thursday would do. Our associate has asked me to deal with you. I will call on you at midday on Thursday.”
I said I would be expecting him and hung up.
II
I spent the next hour chain smoking and viewing the whole set-up from every angle.
I couldn’t be in a bigger mess if I had deliberately set out to look for trouble. I was not only heading to be arrested for murder, with enough evidence against me to make a conviction certain, but I was also being blackmailed by two unscrupulous thugs.
With this hanging over me, I made a discovery. I found I no longer cared whether I had the foreign desk at Western Telegr
Thinking about the way I had handled this thing, I realized what a fool I had been not to have called the police when I had found Helen’s body. If I had done so, Carlo wouldn’t have had time to alter Helen’s watch or rig the rest of the evidence against me. If I had gone back to the villa to call the police I would have found the note I had left for Helen before Carlo had got there.
I told myself it was up to me to get out of this mess. I had been fool enough to get into it, now I had to be smart enough to beat these two thugs at their own game.
I didn’t have much time. I had to hand over every cent of my savings to Sarti on Thursday unless I had thought of some way to fix him. I would have to take the consignment of dope to Nice on Friday unless I could pin Helen’s murder on Carlo.
I thought about Carlo. I had very little evidence against him. I had two cheroot butts; one that I had found on the top of the cliff head, the other I had found in his room. That wouldn’t be enough to convict him of murder. What else was there? I had proof from the telephone number scribbled on the wall that Helen knew Myra Setti, and it could follow from that that she also knew Carlo, but that wasn’t strong enough to convince a jury. Frenzi would swear he had seen Helen and Carlo together, but as she went around with a number of other men while she was in Rome, that didn’t amount to much either.
I took out of my wallet the T.W.A. air ticket that I had found in Carlo’s desk and examined it. Was this of any value to me? Carlo had been in New York three days before Helen had left Rome. Maxwell had hinted that Helen had left for Rome because she was involved in Menotti’s murder.
I suddenly sat bolt upright. Both Maxwell and Matthews, who should know, had said it was practically certain that Setti had ordered Menotti’s death. Had Carlo been sent to New York to do the job? Was he Setti’s gunman? Menotti had been killed on the night of June 29th. According to the air ticket, Carlo had arrived in New York on the 26th and had left for Rome on the 30th. The dates fitted. What was more, Helen had also left on the 30th, and within four days she was apparently friendly with Carlo. It had puzzled me how she could have got to know him so quickly, unless she had met him in New York.
Was that the hold Helen had on Carlo, always assuming that she had been blackmailing him? Maxwell and Matthews had mentioned a mysterious woman who had sold Menotti out. Maxwell had said it was believed that woman had been Helen. Again this made sense. Suppose Carlo had known Helen was a drug addict, and on his arrival in New York had contacted her. He might have offered her a sum of money or a free supply of drugs to sell Menotti out. She would have let him into her apartment. Later, thinking about it, she may have realized how easy it would be to put pressure on him for more money or more drugs. What better hold could she have had to blackmail him than the threat of the electric chair?
I got to my feet and began to pace up and down. I felt I was at last getting somewhere.
I went over in my mind the conversation I had had with Carlo. He had admitted that he was in Sorrento at the time Helen died. Why had he been there? I couldn’t believe he had gone there deliberately to kill Helen. If he had wanted to kill her he could have done it in Rome instead of going all the way to Sorrento. With my mind working like a buzz-saw, I continued to pace up and down. It was several minutes before I remembered the photograph I had seen in Myra’s lounge of her in a white swimsuit and which had looked vaguely familiar to me. It was then that I remembered the lone, inaccessible villa built into the cliff face I had seen when I had been looking for Helen. I remembered I had seen a girl, half-hidden by a sun umbrella, who had been sitting on the terrace of the villa. I was sure now that the girl had been Myra Setti.
If Myra owned the villa, Carlo would probably go down there quite often, and that would probably account for the fact that he had been there when Helen had arrived.
I told myself I’d take another look at this villa, after I had attended the inquest.
Feeling I had got as far as I could with Carlo, I aimed my attention to Sarti. There was only one way to make; him hold off, and that was to throw a scare into him, but I didn’t kid myself I could do it. If anyone could throw a scare into him, Carlo could, and I suddenly grinned. It seemed to me to be a good idea to play Carlo off against Sarti. It was in Carlo’s interest for me to keep clear of the police.
Without hesitation, I dialled Myra’s number. Carlo answered the call himself.
“This is Dawson,” I said. “I want to talk to you in a hurry. Where can we meet?”
“What’s it all about?” he demanded, his voice suspicious.
“Our arrangement for Friday can blow up,” I said. “I can’t talk over an open line. We’ve got competition.”
“Yeah?” There was a snarl in his voice that I wished Sarti could hear. “Okay. Meet me at the Pasquale Club in half an hour.”
I said I would be there and hung up.
I looked out of the window. It was raining again, and as I put on my raincoat the telephone bell rang.
“There’s a call for you from New York,” the operator told me. “Will you hold on?”
I guessed it was Chalmers and I was right.
“What the hell’s happening?” he demanded when he came on the line. “Why haven’t you called me?”
I was in no mood to take anything from him right at this moment. It was because he hadn’t bothered to keep any kind of control over his rotten little daughter that I was in this jam.
“I haven’t time to keep calling you,” I snapped back. “But now you’re on the line, you may as well know that we’re heading for a scandal and a stink that even you won’t be able to keep off the front pages of every paper except your own.”
I heard him draw in his breath sharply. I could imagine his face turning purple.
