Five minutes after Katerina was back I ordered another beer. A different waiter brought it to me and as he put it down he said, “Signore, prego!”
I looked up at him and, his back to the Vadarci table, he slipped me a folded piece of paper and winked.
I said, “Grazie. Pago ora per le due birre,” and fished for my wallet. When forced to it I had enough bad Italian, thanks to an earlier stint in the country, to get by with. I gave him a handsome tip and then went behind my paper to read the note. It was written in pencil on a page torn from a small diary, and said:
Darling. My heart went bump when I saw you. Don’t follow. Vadarci might remember from Melita. Tonight. Ten o’clock. Walled garden. Villa Sabbioni, Treporti. If I can make it. Love. K.
Love. K. I looked across at their table and she was at that moment laughing at something Siegfried had said and had her hand lightly on his wrist. I made a vow to myself never to go out without a blowpipe again. But the next moment I forgot all about that because, coming up to their table, was a man, bare-headed, his face full in the sunlight, a face which even if it hadn’t been vaguely familiar to me would have only needed the hooked pipe in his mouth and the slight limp from his built-up right shoe, to tell me who he was. He carried a long paper-wrapped parcel under his arm. Coming to the group, he made a deferential movement of his head, stood quietly in attendance like a good servant, and waited while the oldish man with the panama paid their bill. They moved off, limp-foot leading, under the shadow of the Campanile and right-handed into the Piazzetta San Marco, and I knew they were heading for the launch which was moored at the waterfront at the foot of the piazzetta. Severus was there, too, in his boat. Although I did not think he would have much luck, it was over to him for the time being.
I gave them five minutes’ grace and then left too. When I got back to our hotel Vérité was out. She had left a note for me:
Darling. Gone shopping, etc. Don’t wait lunch for me. Love. V.
It was my day for getting billets-doux.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BE A FLYING POST
Around about two o’clock there was a telephone call from Severus. He was waiting for me at the foot of the Via Garibaldi. Vérité was not back. I slipped out and walked down the Riva degli Schiavoni and found the launch moored in the same place with Severus stretched out in the stern, smoking.
I sat down beside him. He reached over the side and pulled up a flask of wine which he had dangling on a string in the water to cool. I shook my head.
“What happened?”
He filled a glass for himself, and said, “The launch went straight back to the Komira. Everyone went aboard except one man. The launch took him ashore at the Lido and then it went back to the Komira. I reckoned there was a lunch party aboard, so I tied up at the Lido and followed the man they’d put ashore.”
“Did he walk with a limp?”
“That’s the one.”
“What happened to him?”
“He went to the airport. He had a pass for the field, and he went over to a helicopter. It’s a commercial job that I’ve seen there before. He took off his jacket and started to help a mechanic work on it. I waited around a bit but he showed no signs of knocking off so I went back to the launch. Just in time, too.”
“For what?”
“To see the yacht party leaving in their launch. Same party, old woman, young woman, young man, old man – and they had another man with them. It’s a funny thing but I got the impression that this new man was being hustled a bit between the young man and the old man, but maybe I was wrong.”
“Where did they go?”
“I wish I could tell you. Their launch went off like a bat out of hell. It must have some engine. I just couldn’t keep up with them. The last I saw of it it was disappearing across the lagoon.”
“Ever heard of the Villa Sabbioni at Treporti? It’s not marked on any of the charts or maps you gave me. I want you to find out what you can about it, and meet me here at seven o’clock this evening. I’m going to make a call up there.”
He looked at me, obviously expecting more, but I let him go on expecting. He’d get it all in good time. Just at that moment I was thinking of the helicopter more than anything else.
I said, “You know about the girl with me?”
“Latour-Mesmin?” He grinned. “Yes. I checked the hotel reservations.”
“I want her to handle this helicopter thing. Have you got a contact over there?”
He fished out a fat wallet and selected one of a bunch of rather dirty visiting-cards and handed it to me.
“Tell her to see him. He’s an officer in the Dogana. He knows everything.” He winked. “You can pretend to her it’s a contact you’ve made on your own. I’ll phone him and put it right.”
“Did you get the registration of the helicopter?”
“Yes.” He took the card back from me and wrote down the registration letters and number on the back. Handing it back, he said, “Sure you won’t have some wine?”
“Not now – but bring it along with you
