Epitaph for a Spy (11 page)

“For goodness’ sake,” interrupted his sister, “get on with it. What he’s trying to say, Mr. Vadassy, is that they all looked as if they were saying everything except the one thing they wanted to say.”

“That was,” Skelton cut in, “until somebody did say it. But we had to wait for that. I must admit that I was beginning to lose interest myself when suddenly they, at least the two men, began to raise their voices. You know how Italian sounds
from a distance—like a car with a choked carburetor. Well, suddenly, somebody pushes down the accelerator. Dewlaps was jabbering away furiously and waving his hand in the Major’s face. The Major had gone very white. Then Dewlaps stopped and half turned away as though he had finished. But just then he evidently thought of a really dirty crack because he turned back, said something and then put back his head and roared with laughter.

“The next moment I saw the Major bunch his fist and draw back his arm. Somebody yelped—that French girl, I think—then the Major let fly and caught Signor Dewlaps smack in the solar plexus. You ought to have seen it; it was a beauty. Dewlaps stopped laughing with his mouth still open, made a noise like bath water running away, staggered back a pace and sat down squoosh on the sand just as a spent wave was running across it. Mrs. Clandon-Hartley let out a scream, then turned on the Major and started shrieking at him in Italian. And he began to cough, of all things. He couldn’t seem to stop. Of course, by this time everybody, including us, had rushed over. The sailor who had been sitting in the boat hopped out and splashed over to help the young Frenchman with Dewlaps, while the Switzer and I fastened on to the Major. Mrs. Switzer and the French girl and Mary surrounded Mrs. Clandon-Hartley. The old boy with the beard just hopped round saying what a pity it was. Not that there was much for us to do, because the Major couldn’t do anything but cough and gasp ‘swine!’ and Mrs. Clandon-Hartley had started crying and saying in broken English that she was very sorry, and that her husband was a mad wolf. He didn’t look much like it to me. Dewlaps shook his fist and shouted a lot in Italian
when he had the breath and trailed off in his wet pants to the dinghy. The Major finally got over his coughing and they both became dignified and went upstairs. Now, aren’t you sorry you missed it?”

“You could have told us what it was all about,” said the girl wistfully.

But I was not thinking very much about what they were saying. I leaned forward anxiously.

“What time did all this happen?”

They both looked rather crestfallen. It must have seemed to them that I was not doing justice to the story.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Skelton impatiently; “about half past three, I should think. Why?”

“And did anyone stay down on the beach the whole afternoon?”

He shrugged a trifle irritably.

“I couldn’t say. There was a lot of coming and going. After all the excitement had blown over a bit, one or two went up to change into bathing suits.”

“I think Philo Vance has got a clue,” said the girl. “Come on, Mr. Vadassy, tell us what’s on your mind.”

“Oh, nothing,” I said feebly. “I just saw Major and Mrs. Clandon-Hartley going upstairs as I went down to the village. She had a handkerchief to her eyes. She must just have been crying.”

“Well, well, well! And I was afraid that you had the whole thing explained. Thank goodness you haven’t, because I’ve worked out a beautiful explanation.”

“We’ve
worked out a beautiful explanation,” supplemented her brother.

“All right—
we
. You see, Mr. Vadassy, we think that many years ago Mrs. Clandon-Hartley was just a simple southern Italian peasant girl living in a simple southern Italian village—you know, all baroque and whitewash and no main drainage—with her parents. She is promised to old Dewlaps, young and handsome then, the son of another brace of peasants. Then to the village comes the bold, bad Major twirling his mustachios. Stop me if you’ve heard this one. What happens? The Major, with his slick city ways and his custom-made suits, dazzles the simple peasant girl. To make a long story short, he carries her off to the big city and marries her.”

“Hey!” said Skelton, “that bit about marrying her wasn’t in the script.”

“Well, he
does
marry her. Maybe she’s not so simple after all.”

“All right. Let it go.”

“The years roll by.” She smiled at us triumphantly. “Meanwhile the young Dewlaps, embittered and disillusioned—that accounts for his face looking the way it does—has worked and prospered. Starting right from the bottom and working up and up and up, he is now one of the biggest shysters in Italy.”

“It seems to me,” put in her collaborator, “that this story ends all wrong. It ought to be Dewlaps who does the socking and the Major who gets his pants wet.”

The girl looked thoughtful.

“Maybe.” She looked at me. “I guess you must think we’re being cheap over this. But, you see, the whole thing was so very unpleasant really that we should be feeling depressed if we didn’t laugh about it.”

I did not know quite what to say.

“I see,” I mumbled, “that the yacht has gone.”

“Yes, it went about an hour ago,” said Skelton gloomily.

At this moment the Vogels appeared at the top of the steps. There was a subdued air about them. They paused at our table.

“The young people have been telling you of this afternoon’s affair?” he said to me in German.

“Yes, I have heard something of it.”

“An unfortunate business,” he said gravely. “My wife gave Frau Clandon-Hartley some smelling salts, but I do not think they will help much. Poor man. His wife says that he was wounded in the war and that it has affected his brain. He is not, it seems, responsible for his actions. The man from the yacht had, it appears, landed to purchase some wine from Köche’s cellar and beg some ice. Frau Clandon-Hartley recognized in him an old friend. That was all. The poor Major misunderstood.”

They went on up to the hotel.

“What did he say?” said Skelton curiously.

“He said that, according to Mrs. Clandon-Hartley, the Major was badly wounded in the war and that he’s not quite right in the head.”

They were silent for a moment. Then I saw the girl’s forehead pucker thoughtfully.

“You know,” she said to neither of us in particular, “I don’t feel that that can be quite true.”

Her brother snorted impatiently.

“Well, let’s forget it, anyhow. What are you drinking, Mr. Vadassy? Dubonnet
sec?
Good. That makes three. I’ll toss you who goes up to get them.”

I lost.

As I went up to order the drinks I saw Monsieur Duclos talking excitedly to Köche. He was demonstrating a fierce uppercut to the jaw.

T
he Clandon-Hartleys did not come down to dinner.

I was interested in them in spite of myself. So Mrs. Clandon-Hartley was an Italian! That explained a lot. It explained the Major’s use of the word
“apperitivo”
when he had been talking to me the night previously. It explained his wife’s forbidding silence. She was shy of speaking broken English. It explained why “my good lady” was “a bit religious.” It explained her un-English appearance. And Clandon-Hartley himself was a shell-shock case not responsible for his actions. I remembered Mary Skelton’s doubt of that. Well, if their account of the incident on the beach were accurate. I was inclined to doubt it too. It sounded as if there had been more to the affair than a mere neurotic outburst. But, it was no affair of mine. I had more important things to think about. This wretched business of the Clandon-Hartleys had rendered the Skeltons useless from my point of view. There had been “a lot of coming and going.” That presumably had taken place while I was in the village. It was hopeless.

Dinner was nearly over when Köche came on to the terrace and announced that a ping-pong table had been erected under the trees in the garden and that guests were invited to make use of it. By the time I had finished my dinner I could hear that the invitation had been accepted. I wandered towards the sound.

An electric light fixed in the branches above the green-topped table shed a hard light on the faces of the players. They were Skelton and the Frenchman, Roux. Sitting on a stone rockery watching them were Mademoiselle Martin and Mary Skelton.

Roux played crouching in an attitude of fierce concentration, his protuberant eyes watching the ball as if it were a bomb on the point of exploding. He leaped about a great deal. In contrast, Skelton’s easy, lazy play looked wooden and ineffective. But I noticed that he seemed to gain most of the points. Mademoiselle Martin made no effort to disguise her chagrin at this, uttering loud cries of despair every time Skelton won. A Roux victory was received with corresponding jubilation. I saw that Mary Skelton was watching her with interest and amusement.

The game ended. Mademoiselle Martin cast a malevolent glance at Skelton and wiped her perspiring lover’s forehead with his handkerchief. I heard her assuring him that his failure made no difference to her affection for him.

“What about a game?” said Skelton to me.

Before I could reply, however, Roux had bounded to the other end of the table, flourishing his bat, and announced with a flashing smile that he wanted his revenge.

“What does he say?” muttered Skelton.

“He says he wants his revenge.”

“Oh, all right.” He winked. “I’d better see that he has it.”

They started to play again. I sat down beside Mary Skelton.

“Why is it,” she said, “that I can’t understand a word of what that Frenchman says? He seems to have a very peculiar accent.”

“He’s probably a provincial. Even Parisians can’t understand some provincial French.”

“Well, that’s comforting. You know, I think that if he goes on playing much longer his eyes will drop right out.”

I forget what I replied, for I was trying, for my own satisfaction, to identify Roux’s accent. I had heard another like it, and quite recently. I knew it as well as I knew my own name. A loud cry of delight from Mademoiselle Martin brought my thoughts back to the game.

“Warren can be a very convincing loser when he likes,” said the girl. “He lets me win a game sometimes, and I always feel that it’s my good play.”

He was convincing enough to lose by a very narrow margin of points, though not without having to referee a spirited argument between Roux and Monsieur Duclos, who had arrived on the scene halfway through the game and insisted on keeping the score. Mademoiselle Martin was triumphant, and kissed Roux on the lobe of the ear.

“You know,” murmured Skelton, “that old so-and-so with the white beard is a menace. I’ve seen him cheating at Russian billiards, but I didn’t think he’d try and cook other people’s ping-pong scores. I was keeping count myself. I was five points down, not two. If we’d gone on any longer he’d have won the
game for me. Maybe he’s got some sort of inverted kleptomania.”

“And where,” the subject of this comment was demanding sportively, “are the English major and his wife this evening? Why are they not playing ping-pong? The Major would be a formidable opponent.”

“Silly old fool!” said Mary Skelton.

Monsieur Duclos beamed at her blankly.

“For goodness’ sake shut up,” said her brother; “they might understand you.”

Mademoiselle Martin, dimly comprehending that English was being spoken, said “Okay” and “How do you do?” to Roux, dissolved into laughter, and was rewarded with a kiss on the nape. It was evident that nobody had understood. Monsieur Duclos buttonholed me and began to discuss the affair on the beach.

“One would not have thought,” he said, “that in this cold military officer there was so much passion, so much love for this Italian woman, his wife. But the English are like that. On the surface, cold and businesslike. With the English it is always business, one thinks. But below, who knows what fires may slumber!” He frowned. “I have seen much of life, but one can never understand the English and the Americans. They are inscrutable.” He stroked his beard. “It was a beautiful blow, and the curious noise made by the Italian was very satisfactory. Straight to the chin. The Italian fell like a stone.”

“I heard that the blow was in the stomach.”

He looked at me sharply.
“And
to the chin, Monsieur.
And
to the chin. Two magnificent blows!”

Roux, who had been listening, intervened.

“There was no blow struck,” he said decidedly. “The English major used jiu-jitsu. I was watching closely. I am myself familiar with the hold.”

Monsieur Duclos put his pince-nez on his nose and glowered.

“There was a blow to the chin, Monsieur,” he said sternly.

Roux threw up his hands. His eyes bulged. He scowled.

“You could not have seen,” he said rudely. He turned to Mademoiselle Martin. “You saw,
ma petite
, did you not? Your eyesight is perfect. You have no glasses to confuse you like this old gentleman here. It was undoubtedly jiu-jitsu, was it not?”

“Oui, cheri.”
She blew him a kiss.

“There, you see!” jeered Roux.

“A blow to the chin, without a doubt.” Monsieur Duclos’s pince-nez were quivering with anger.

“Bah!” said Roux savagely. “Look!”

He turned to me suddenly, grasped my left wrist, and pulled. Instinctively I drew back. The next moment I felt myself falling. Roux grasped my other arm and held me up. There was amazing strength in his grip. I felt his thin, wiry body stiffen. Then I was standing on my feet again.

“You see!” he crowed. “It was jiu-jitsu. It is a simple hold. I could have treated this Monsieur here as the English major treated the man from the yacht.”

Monsieur Duclos drew himself up and bowed curtly.

“An interesting demonstration, Monsieur. But unnecessary. I can see perfectly well. It was a blow to the chin.”

He bowed again and strode off towards the hotel. Roux laughed derisively after him and snapped his fingers.

“An old cretin, that one,” he said contemptuously. “Because we pretend not to notice when he cheats, he thinks we see nothing.”

I smiled noncommittally. Mademoiselle Martin began to compliment him on his handling of the situation. The two Skeltons had begun a game of ping-pong. I wandered down to the lower terrace.