“What little bird?” I asked.
“It was Andrews who, as you know, has his ear right to the ground. He usually knows what he is talking about. Maybe he was wrong this time. All I do know is that she used to go around with Menotti. She left for Rome soon after Menotti was killed. The janitor of the apartment block in which Menotti was strangled gave Andrews a pretty good description of the woman in the case: the description fitted Helen Chalmers like a glove. Our people closed the janitor’s mouth before the police got to him, so it never came out.”
“I see,” I said.
“Well, if you haven’t anything juicy to tell me about her while she’s in Rome, it looks as if
she has had a scare and is at last behaving herself.” He grinned. “Frankly, I’m disappointed. To tell the truth when I heard I was going to take your place, I thought I might have a try at her myself. She’s really something. As you were told to look after her, I was hoping to hear by now that you and she were more than old friends.”
“Do you imagine I’d be such a pea brain as to fool around with Chalmers’ daughter?” I asked heatedly.
“Why not? She’s worth fooling around with, and when she handles this kind of situation, she takes good care the old man will never find out. She’s been fooling around with men since she was sixteen, and Chalmers has never found out. If you haven’t seen her without her specs and that awful hair-do, you haven’t seen anything. She’s terrific, and, what’s more, I hear she is very, very keen. If she ever makes a play at me I’m not going to stop her.”
Somehow I got him off the subject of Helen and back on to business. After another hour of his company, I took him back to his hotel. He said he would be in the office the following morning to tie up the loose ends and thanked me for entertaining him.
“You really are a lucky guy, Ed,” he said as we were parting. “The foreign desk is about the best job in the business. There’re guys who would give their left arms to have it. Me — I wouldn’t want it. It’s too much like hard work, but for you…” He broke off and grinned. “A guy who can let a babe like Helen slip through his fingers — well, for heaven’s sake! What else could you do except hold down the foreign desk?”
He thought it was a good joke and, slapping me on the back, he went off laughing towards the elevators.
I didn’t think the joke was so good. I got into my car and drove through the congested traffic until I reached my apartment. During the drive I did some thinking. The information I had from Maxwell about Helen shocked me. I didn’t doubt that what he had told me was true. I knew Andrews was accurate in any story he had to tell. So she had been mixed up with Menotti. I suddenly began to wonder who she was mixed up with here. If she had acquired the taste for dangerous racketeers in New York, she might have continued to cultivate the taste here. Was that the explanation of her high style of living? Was some man financing her?
By the time I had undressed and got into bed, I was asking myself if I were really going to get on that tram to Sorrento. Did I want to mix myself up with a girl of this type? If I were really going to get the foreign desk, and I was pretty sure Maxwell wouldn’t have broken the news unless he was certain of his facts, I would be crazy to take the slightest risk of the job coming unstuck. As he had said, it was the plum job on the paper. I knew if Chalmers found out that his daughter and I had become lovers that would be that: I’d not only lose this job, but I’d be out of
the game for good.
“No,” I said aloud as I turned off the light. “She can go to Sorrento by herself. I’m not going. She can find some other sucker. I’ll go to Ischia.”
But two days later I was on the local train from Naples to Sorrento. I was still telling myself that I was a fool and crazy in the head, but no matter how much I talked to myself, telling myself not to go ahead with this, it made no difference. I was on my way. The train couldn’t move fast enough for me!
II
Before I caught the train to Naples, I had looked in at the office around ten o’clock for a final check and to see if there were any personal letters for me.
Maxwell was out, but I found Gina sorting through a stack of cables.
“Anything for me?” I asked, sitting on the edge of her desk.
“No personal letters. Mr. Maxwell can handle all this,” she said, flicking the cables with a carefully manicured fingernail. “Shouldn’t you be on your way? I thought you wanted to leave early.”
“I’ve lots of time.”
My train to Naples didn’t leave until noon. I had told Gina I was going to Venice and I had had trouble in preventing her booking a seat for me on the Rome-Venice express.
The telephone-bell rang at this moment and Gina picked up the receiver. I leaned forward and began to look idly at the cables.
“Who is that speaking?” Gina said. “Mrs. — who? Will you hold on a moment? I’m not sure if he is in.” She looked at me, frowning, and I could see a puzzled expression in her eyes. “A Mrs. Douglas Sherrard is asking for you.”
I was about to say I had never heard of her and didn’t want to speak to her when the slightly familiar sounding name suddenly rang a clear alarm-bell in my mind. Mrs. Douglas Sherrard! That was the name Helen had said she used when renting the villa at Sorrento. Surely this couldn’t be Helen on the line? Surely she couldn’t be so reckless as to call me here?
Trying not to show my consternation, I reached forward and took the receiver from Gina’s hand. Half-turning my back so she couldn’t watch my face, I said cautiously, “Hello? Who is that?”
“Hello, Ed,” It was Helen all right. “I know I shouldn’t be calling you at the office, but I tried your apartment and there was no answer.”
I wanted to tell her she was crazy to call me here. I wanted to hang up, but I knew Gina would wonder what it was all about. “What is it?” I asked sharply.
“Is there someone listening?”
“Yes.”
To make things more complicated, the office door jerked open and Jack Maxwell breezed in.
“Good grief! You still around?” he exclaimed when he saw me. “I thought you were on your way to Venice by now.”
I waved him to silence, said into the mouthpiece: “Is there something I can do?”
“Yes, please. Would you mind bringing me down a Wratten number eight filter for my camera? I find I need it and I can’t get it in Sorrento.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll do that.”
“Thanks, darling. I’m so impatient for you to get here. The scenery is too marvelous….”
I was afraid her low, clear voice might reach Maxwell’s ear. He was obviously listening. I cut in on her.
“I’ll fix it. Good-bye for now,” and I hung up.
Maxwell stared inquisitively at me.
“Do you always treat your lady callers like that?” he asked as he glanced through the cables on the desk. “That was a trifle abrupt, wasn’t it?”
I tried not to show how rattled I was, but I was aware that Gina was looking at me, puzzled, and as I moved away from the desk, Maxwell was also staring at me.
“I just dropped in to see if there were any personal letters for me,” I said to him, lighting a cigarette in the effort to hide my confusion. “I guess I’ll get off now.”
“You want to learn to relax,” Maxwell said. “If you weren’t such a stolid, well-behaved newspaper man, I’d say from your furtive expression that you were up to some form of mischief. Are you?”
“Oh, don’t talk crap!” I said, not being able to restrain the snap in my voice.
“Hey! You’re a bit sour this morning, aren’t you? I was only kidding.” As I said nothing, he went on, “Are you taking your car?”
“No. I’m travelling by train.”
“You’re not travelling alone?” he asked, looking slyly at me. “I hope you’ve got some nice blonde laid on to
