Street of the Five Moons

‘Then who is? You?’

‘That’s why I’m here,’ Smythe said, with ineffable contempt. ‘Despite my pleasing facade, I am in my heart of hearts a sadist of the worst sort. I like to strangle my victims personally. I haven’t quite decided whether to do it that way, or inflict some other, even more ghastly torture on you first, but – ’

‘All right; enough!’ I interrupted. ‘Of all the things I loathe about you, I think I loathe your nasty sarcastic tongue the most. You aren’t trying to imply that you are here because you quarreled with the mastermind on my behalf?’

Smythe didn’t answer. He wriggled slowly back until he could lean against the wall; and there he sat, his legs stiffly extended, the wineglass poised in his hand, his face a mask of cold fury. If he had been six years old, I would have called it a bad case of the sulks.

‘My hero,’ I said. ‘I have misjudged you. I am abject. I grovel. And of course my girlish heart is palpitating with rapture because you risked your life – ’

The wineglass smashed against the wall with a musical tinkle, and Smythe, turning, threw his arms around me and yanked me up against his chest with a force that drove the wind out of my lungs.

‘Will he kiss her or kill her?’ I gasped. ‘Tune in tomorrow and hear the next – ’

Smythe’s face broke up. He began to laugh. He didn’t release me, but his grasp relaxed, so that I was able to find a more comfortable position. We sat there side by side till he finished laughing. Then he said,

‘Suppose we declare a truce. I find your sense of humour as dreadful as you find mine; and I really don’t think this is the time or the place for banal jokes.’

‘Have you got a plan?’ I asked.

‘I was hoping you had one,’ was the discouraging reply.

‘I can’t plan till I know more. If you would care to confide in me – ’

‘In return for immunity?’ He cocked an inquisitive blue eye at me. What he saw in my face seemed to discourage him. He shook his head morosely. ‘All right, we’ll skip that question for now. Unless we get out of here, the problem remains academic. I’ll tell you as much as I can safely do.’

‘Safely for you?’

‘Of course.’

‘All right, then. Who is the mastermind?’

‘I don’t know. Honestly! Whoever he is, he is too smart to let his identity be known to the rank and file. I’m something of a commuting courier, as you might say, so I know a number of the people involved, but I have never seen or spoken to the boss. He writes little messages. Here in Rome the only people I know are Pietro and Bruno and Antonio, and a few of the old family retainers who act as hatchet men.’

‘And Luigi?’

‘Luigi is outside the structure of the organization,’ Smythe said. ‘You might say he is the organization. Without his talent, this business would never have begun.’

‘I’m sorry about him. I had hoped he was unwitting.’

‘Well, really, he’d have to be pretty stupid not to suspect what was going on,’ Smythe pointed out. ‘Luigi is not stupid. But in a peculiar way he is innocent. He doesn’t think of what he is doing as wrong. It’s a gigantic joke – ’

‘Luigi was the ghost,’ I exclaimed.

‘Obviously. Who did you think it was?’

‘You.’

‘I am incapable of such childish tricks,’ Smythe said, insulted. ‘Luigi has a child’s resentment of adults. Any trick perpetrated on a grown-up is fair in his book.’

‘It’s not surprising, when you see how his father treats him.’

‘I gather you have fallen for his pretty face,’ Smythe said nastily. ‘The maternal instinct springs up in the most unexpected places . . . He hates his father and finds poor old Pietro’s amours disgusting. According to his ethical code, fornication is only acceptable for the young.’

‘Then why is he cooperating?’

‘You figure it out. Perhaps because in this game he and the old man are equals. Actually, Luigi is more important than Pietro, and he is well aware of it, though he is so accustomed to being bullied by his father that he doesn’t take advantage of his position as much as he might.’

‘And what precisely is this game you speak of? I have an idea, but – ’

‘That is all you are going to have,’ Smythe said calmly. ‘I have no intention of telling you anything except what you need to know to help me get out of this place.’

‘You surely can’t imagine I’m going to keep quiet about – ’

‘You may talk all you like to whomsoever you like, darling. I will have taken my departure by then, to parts unknown, but if Pietro has an iota of common sense, he will have removed the evidence.’

‘Now, see here, Smythe – ’

‘That isn’t my name.’

‘What is your name?’

‘Never mind. You may call me John. That really is my name, believe it or not.’

‘I don’t care if it’s Rumpelstiltskin. Damn it, you can’t hope to walk away clean from this mess. It is a criminal conspiracy – ’

‘Oh, yes, but the law is so dull, isn’t it? I’m afraid you have a very medieval idea of right and wrong. Many people do. They still tend to punish crimes against property more severely than crimes against people. Now I support the old Robin Hood ideal,’ Smythe said, warming to his subject. ‘I honestly do not feel that anything I have done is reprehensible. Dishonest, no doubt, but not immoral. A simple redistribution of wealth, no more. No widows and orphans have been deprived, no struggling old couples have been robbed of their sole means of support, no one has been injured – ’

‘I don’t know about that,’ I said, interrupting this speech, which seemed to be developing into a lecture. ‘What about us?’

John’s face fell.

‘Nothing has happened yet,’ he said.

‘What about kidnapping me?’

‘That was Bruno. He’s the overseer of the servants – the muscle, as we say – and like all noncoms, he has an exaggerated idea of his intelligence. He is dedicated to the family and sometimes acts on his own initiative.’

‘What about the man in Munich?’

‘That really was an accident,’ John said, brightening. ‘He had a weak heart. We think a thief held him up, probably scared him to death, literally. He was a gentle soul . . .’

‘Kind to his aging mother, good to his parakeet,’ I said sarcastically. ‘I don’t really care about him except as a portent of things to come. You can’t avoid the question, John. Pietro, or someone else through Pietro, presented a scheme for dealing with me that met with your vehement disapproval – if I am to believe your story of why you are here with me. What was the proposal?’

‘He didn’t mean it,’ Smythe said.

‘You fail to convince me.’

‘He really didn’t. He was sweating and wringing his hands and uttering agitated little screams in Italian at the very idea.’

‘What idea?’

Suddenly the situation was too exasperating to endure; the two of us sitting cozily side by side, with Smythe’s arm draped casually over my shoulder as we talked about murder – my murder. I put my hands on his chest and shoved. I only meant to get away from him, stand up, pace, get some of my frustration out through physical action. I shoved too hard. His head banged against the wall and the second blow, on top of the first, was too much. He didn’t pass out, but his eyeballs rolled up till only the whites were showing, and he started to slide slowly sideways.

I caught his head before it hit the floor and eased him down till he was lying across my lap. After a while his eyes rolled back into place.

‘Remind me,’ he said feebly, ‘to throttle you when I get my strength back.’

‘I imagine that little matter will be taken care of for you,’ I said, absentmindedly running my fingers through