You may trust him in all things. May will join you shortly.”
“The ambassador keeps things at arm’s length, it seems,” Kaz said after D’Arcy had left.
“Don’t be fooled,” O’Flaherty said. “When I first came to ask for his help, I thought the same thing. He said he didn’t want to know any details, and then called for his butler. I was about to storm out, but I stayed long enough to meet John May. The most artful scrounger you’ll ever come across. Sir D’Arcy also supplies us with large amounts of cash to buy food and pay those who shelter our people. In public, he can truthfully say he knows nothing of our operation.”
“Just who are your people?” I said. “Escaped POWs?”
“There are many of those, mostly British, but a fair number of Americans now, and a scattering of others from the Commonwealth countries. Even a few French colonial troops. This is why we had this little dinner party tonight, so I could brief you about a number of odd things you might stumble across.”
“Such as?”
“We’ve placed many escapees in Rome with families or in vacant buildings. But hundreds are within the Vatican. The Pope has a militia, the Palatine Guard, normally drawn from citizens of Rome. Their ranks are swelled by about three hundred Jews who escaped the roundup in October. They’re housed in the Swiss Guard barracks. We have Italian antifascists who escaped the Nazis and the Fascist secret police after Mussolini fell. Italian officers who fought the Germans before the king fled, and who now have a price on their heads. Jewish converts who thought they were safe, until the roundups began. Aristocrats and deserters, we have them all.”
“How do you feed them?” Kaz asked. “The food situation seems desperate.”
“We are dependent on money from many sources-the church as well as a number of wealthy supporters. We buy on the black market, where John works his magic. Tell me, do you have any idea when the Allies will reach Rome? Liberation is what we really need.”
“No,” I said. “The line around Monte Cassino is still holding, and the troops at Anzio are boxed in. Months, I’d guess.”
“Ah, that’s bad news. Well, nothing we can do about that. Now, how can I help you?”
“Do you have any idea why Monsignor Corrigan was killed?” I asked.
“If it had happened in Rome, outside these walls, I might suspect it had something to do with his other activities.”
“What other activities?” I asked.
“You don’t know? He was in contact with the OSS. His code name was Rudder.”
“Jesus,” I said, taking this in.
“Watch it, boy. That better have been a prayer to heaven. I don’t like to hear the Lord’s name spoken in vain.”
“Sorry. I’ve read reports from Rudder, but had no idea who it was.”
“It makes sense,” Kaz said. “It is a more logical explanation for why we were sent here.”
“Do you know who his contacts were? Did he have a radio?” I asked.
There was a discreet knock and two servants came in to clear away the dishes. One returned with coffee, but O’Flaherty waved him away and poured it himself.
“I only know that there is a radio team somewhere in the city,” he said. The coffee cups were delicate bone china. The coffee was the real thing, hot and bracing. “He’d be gone for a day whenever he had a message to send. They could be anywhere, close by or outside Rome.”
“But he confided in you,” I said. “Did he tell you anything else?”
“No. Two months ago he said he needed to limit his activities with the escapees. He said his other work made it too dangerous, and if the Gestapo got onto him, it could compromise us all. He told me about the code name in case he ever needed to get a message to me, but he never used it.”
“So for the past two months, he hasn’t been active with your organization?”
“No,” O’Flaherty said. “But we’d see each other almost every day, in the normal course of our work. We were friends. I miss his company terribly.”
“Monsignor Bruzzone as well? Is he part of your group?” Kaz asked.
“Yes, has been from the beginning. The three of us were on the first inspection tour of POW camps in the north, mostly around Genoa. We helped the bishop there with Jewish refugees flowing in from Vichy France. Bruzzone and Corrigan worked mainly with them, while I focused on the POWs.”
“That was when you were recalled,” I said.
“Yes,” O’Flaherty said with a grin. “I know I can be too enthusiastic at times. One of my many failings. I made the bishop who was in charge look bad. But that didn’t last long. Monsignor Montini sent us back to Genoa with money and false papers for the refugees.”
“Who is Montini?”
“The Minister of Ordinary Affairs in the Vatican State Secretariat. Ordinary meaning he has jurisdiction over affairs within the Vatican City State itself. But he is a favorite of His Holiness, and often acts in areas beyond his brief.”
“Where did the false papers come from?” I asked. “The OSS?”
“Strictly speaking, they were not false,” O’Flaherty said. “Vatican passports, baptismal certificates, all printed on official paper courtesy of the Vatican print shop.”
“So Corrigan had access to ready money and identity papers,” I said. “Vatican and OSS cash for refugees, plus the papers. A tempting target.”
“Walking around with thick stacks of lira is commonplace,” O’Flaherty said. “We dispense funds all over Rome. The papers, yes, they are valuable. The right identity papers are life itself. But it would be a simple matter to rob us on any back street. Why do so in Saint Peter’s Square?”
“Food is the currency of the day in any case,” John May said as he entered the room, a thick file folder under his arm. He sat at the table in the seat D’Arcy had vacated and poured himself coffee. I didn’t think butlers normally sat in their boss’s chair. Despite the veneer of English respectability, this was a place where the rules of polite society did not apply. “It’d be worth your life to carry bread in some Roman neighborhoods.”
“What do you think was worth Corrigan’s life?” I asked.
“I wish I knew,” May said. “But I have some information for you. This is the Gendarmerie file on Corrigan’s investigation. I have to return it within the hour, so look quickly. Do you read Italian?”
“I do,” Kaz said. He took the folder and handed me the photographs. They showed Corrigan’s body from several angles. There were knife wounds in his torso and slashes on his arms. It looked like it had been a sudden, ferocious attack, but an unskilled one. The murderer had stabbed Corrigan repeatedly until a thrust to the heart finished him.
“The killer is strong,” I said. “And determined, but not experienced.”
“What makes you say that?” O’Flaherty asked, looking at the pictures of his friend and shaking his head sadly.
“Multiple wounds,” I said. “He probably had never stabbed a man before, and struggled to find the right spot. Corrigan fought back, but the first thrust had already weakened him. It takes strength to keep stabbing a man. Killing a guy with a knife is hard work if you don’t know what you’re doing. Harder than you’d think.” I studied the pictures. There was a large, dark pool at the base of the steps. Not surprising, since the heart, or the major arteries leading to it, can pump out a lot of blood before the body gives up the ghost.
“Yes,” Kaz said, “the report states that there were numerous wounds, some superficial, others not very deep. The killer finally found his mark with a single penetrating wound between the ribs into the heart.”
“Even so, it appears Edward did not die immediately,” O’Flaherty said, pointing to a trail of blood on the steps.
“Right. It looks like he dragged himself up the steps to lie against the door.”
“Perhaps he was trying to get into the basilica,” May said.
“No,” O’Flaherty said. “That is the Door of Death. It is kept locked except for funerals. Edward knew that.”
“People do odd things in their last moments,” I said.
“Odd to those of us still full of life,” O’Flaherty said. “But I’d wager a man who knows he is in his last moments would not waste them on oddities.”
I had to admit he was right. I’d seen some strange last moments, at least the ones that weren’t sudden or
