person, he will send the police. You see, I am more clever than you thought!’
His young face beamed with pleasure. My brain knew this handsome, charming boy was a killer, but my emotions just wouldn’t take it in.
‘You are clever,’ I said. ‘Yes; that was my idea. But I won’t – ’
‘Make your call.’ The gun dipped towards a low table that held a telephone. ‘Go on, make it. You will be very careful. You will say all is well. And to be sure you are careful – ’ He turned. ‘Bruno! Bring him in here.’
I looked at the principessa. She raised slim shoulders in that ineffable Italian shrug.
‘Fat lot of help you are,’ I said bitterly.
The door through which Luigi had come was still open, the draperies flung back. I heard footsteps, very slow and dragging. Then John appeared, supported by Bruno. His face was bruised, and he had the makings of a magnificent black eye.
‘I was questioning him,’ Luigi explained simply. ‘I wanted to know where you were hiding, with the information he had given you.’
John and I contemplated one another across the length of the room. He was leaning heavily on his captor. I couldn’t read his expression, his face was too battered, but his first words left me in no doubt as to his state of mind.
‘You’ve really mucked it up this time, haven’t you?’
‘You might have warned me,’ I said, stung to the quick. ‘You knew – damn it, that’s why you looked so funny, in the apartment, when I said – ’
‘Warned you! I didn’t have time to take a deep breath with those gorillas battering at the door. I have heard of stupid heroines in my time, but you are the prize. I risk my life and limb to save you from violent death, and you turn right around and walk back into – ’
Luigi, who had been listening with a disapproving frown, put an end to John’s tirade – which I had to admit had some justice behind it – by pointing the gun at him.
‘Enough,’ he snapped. ‘That is no way to talk to a lady, especially when she has risked herself to save you. You should be ashamed.’
I thought for a minute John was going to laugh, and I made a horrible grimace at him. Luigi seemed to be very sensitive about being ridiculed.
‘You are right,’ John said, after a moment of struggle. ‘I apologize. Maybe we ought to try something more in keeping with this hideous farce we seem to be involved in. How about this? Oh, darling, how brave and how foolish of you! Don’t you know I would rather die a thousand deaths than see a single hair of your silly little head in jeopardy?’
‘But, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t go on living if your unfortunate habit of reticence had cost you your life. I had to come, if only to die with you.’
John had that effect on me anyway, but there was some method in our madness – at least, there was in mine. Maybe if we stalled long enough, Luigi would forget about the telephone call. It was an awfully dim chance. Even if Schmidt called the police promptly at five, it would take them a long time to get rolling, and even longer to extract an admission from Pietro that the principessa was one of the conspirators. In fact, the chance was so dim as to be nonexistent. If I could have thought of any sensible alternative, I would have tried it.
John had launched into another speech. I turned my wandering wits back to him in time to catch the last part of it.
‘. . . the memory of your courage and unthinking devotion. Fear not, my dearest, we will not die in vain. The minions of the law will avenge us, and as my last request I would like to compose a suitable epitaph, which I feel sure our gallant adversaries will have carved on our tombstones. “They were lovely and beautiful in their lives, and in their deaths – ”’
I might have known he would get carried away and go too far. Luigi finally caught on that he was being kidded. His face darkened ominously.
‘You mock me!’ he exclaimed.
‘Impossible,’ said John. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t dream of it, Luigi.’
‘The telephone,’ said Luigi. ‘Call. Bruno – ’
Bruno let go of John, who promptly collapsed onto the floor. Luigi snapped out an order; Bruno picked John up and dumped him into a chair. Luigi pressed the gun to John’s forehead.
‘Do watch your words, love,’ said John. There was nothing for it but to place the call. With the perversity of things in general, this one went through as smoothly as silk. I didn’t even have to penetrate the impenetrable wall of Gerda’s chitchat. Schmidt answered the phone himself.
‘Ah,’ he squeaked, as soon as I had identified myself. ‘There you are, Vicky. Gerda told me you had called. I am sorry I was not here. What is the emergency?’
‘Oh, it’s still here,’ I said heartily, wishing Schmidt’s voice wasn’t quite so shrill and penetrating. I wondered whether Luigi knew any German. The principessa probably spoke it quite well.
‘You don’t understand me,’ Schmidt said. ‘I hear you quite well; can you not hear me?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said, laughing hysterically. ‘I can hear you just fine. But I’m afraid you can’t understand me.’
‘But it is an excellent connection.’
‘Oh, no, it isn’t,’ I said.
‘How is the case proceeding?’
‘Not too well. You might even say disastrously. At the moment, that is.’
‘I am so sorry,’ Schmidt exclaimed. ‘But I have great faith in you, Vicky. You will solve it; I know you will.’
I felt like biting the telephone. I had been as direct as I dared. I thought of referring obliquely to Herr Feder of the Munich police, but I was afraid to risk it; the principessa might know who he was, and Luigi was already uneasy; he was mouthing suggestions at me from across the room, and the muzzle of the gun was pressed so hard against John’s head that it dented the skin. John didn’t dare move, not even his lips, but his eyes were eloquent.
‘It’s all right,’ I said feebly. ‘I – goodbye, poopsie. Auf Wiedersehen. I hope.’
The phone clattered as I put it back onto the stand. My hands were shaking.
‘Poopsie?’ Luigi repeated incredulously.
The principessa stirred.
‘It is the name given to him by his intimates,’ she said.
It took me a minute to realize what she had said, and what it meant. She met my surprised stare with a slight shake of her head. Her back was to Luigi. Her lips silently shaped a word.
I put a hand to my forehead.
‘Oh,’ I said weakly. ‘I feel so strange. I think I’m going to faint.’
It wasn’t all an act. My knees were getting very shaky. I couldn’t see what good this was going to do, but at least Bianca was on our side. Maybe she had something in mind. Mine was an absolute blank.
I fluttered lithesomely onto the sofa, and Bianca bent over me.
‘She is ill,’ she exclaimed. ‘My smelling salts, Luigi – in my bathroom cabinet. And fetch a blanket from the closet, she is in shock, I think.’
‘Bruno – ’ Luigi began uncertainly.
‘No, I will not have that ape touching my things! Give him your gun, if you don’t trust me.’
I didn’t dare open my eyes, but my ears were tuned to their highest pitch. After a suspenseful moment Luigi trotted out of the room; his light, athletic footsteps could not be mistaken for anyone else’s. As soon as he was gone, the principessa began to speak soothingly, as if she were trying to bring me out of my faint. But she spoke German.
‘There is only one hope. We must fetch the count here. He is at the palazzo, in Rome. Think.’
I groaned artistically, and muttered in the same language,
‘The boy hates his father. What good – ’
‘These thugs – there is another man, in the hall – they will obey their master. All this happened last night after I had drugged Pietro. It was a mistake, I admit it; but they were willing to take orders from me until the boy defied me. It is a feudal feeling, you understand. He is the heir. If we can reach Pietro, he will not – ’
In her distress she slipped, and mentioned a name.
