Street of the Five Moons (17 page)

“No,” I said. “I was here.”

“The principessa asked about you,” Smythe went on slowly. “Pietro said you had gone to Rome for the evening — you had a date.”

“I had a date, all right. With Bruno.”

“In Luigi’s studio? Pietro told me, later. He put on a good act at dinner, but as soon as it was over he called me into the study and told me what had happened. He was quite upset. You forced his hand, you know. He had to act at once, to prevent you from telling anyone about the workshop; but he is a rotten criminal. He hates violence.”

“You aren’t trying to tell me it was Pietro who hit me and put me here?”

“No, no, he wouldn’t sully his hands with that sort of thing,” Smythe said contemptuously. “But you must have suspected that you have been watched whenever you left the villa. Bruno was the man in charge of you today. He had sense enough to snatch you as soon as you came out of the studio.”

“And after ordering Bruno to lock me up in this den, Pietro contributed nice soft blankets and veal Marsala. He’s a little inconsistent, isn’t he?”

“Not really. If it were up to Pietro, you wouldn’t have a thing to worry about.”

Silence fell — a pregnant, unpleasant silence.

“You mean Pietro is not the one who is going to decide what happens to me?” I suggested.

“You’ve got it.”

“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 splashed 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 humor 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 he 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 his hair. “Wasn’t that the suggestion — to silence me permanently?”

He sighed and turned his head slightly, so that my hand was against his cheek.

“Perhaps I had better tell you exactly what happened.”

“That would be nice,” I said, trying to free my hand.

“Don’t do that, it hurts my head…. That’s better. You see, when Pietro told me he had received orders to deal with you, I remonstrated. No, don’t thank me; my motives were purely selfish. I signed up for a spot of larceny, not for murder. I had, and have, no intention of being caught in the act, but if something should go wrong, there is quite a difference between ten years with time off for good behavior, and the gallows.”

“Do they hang people in Italy?” I asked.

“I have no idea. I carefully refrained from looking it up. But they have reinstituted the death penalty in dear old England, under certain conditions. I prefer not to meet those conditions. Don’t interrupt, it’s difficult enough for me to think coherently with my head aching as it is…. Where was I?”

“You remonstrated.”

“Oh, yes. Well, Pietro agreed with my reasoning, but he is in abject terror of his boss. That’s what he calls him, by the way. The Boss. Curious, isn’t it?”

“Maybe The Boss is American. Or English.”

“Don’t start getting ideas. I am not the master criminal. So, after an inconclusive argument, I went banging out of the library, leaving Pietro gibbering. I went into the gardens. I wanted to walk, think what I ought to do. He must have telephoned the big cheese as soon as I left, and received further instructions. I hadn’t been outside for more than a quarter of an hour before Bruno and one of his friends caught up with me.”

“I see. Well, it’s all terribly interesting, but, I’m afraid, not very helpful. Er… was any specific method of extermination mentioned? I mean, it makes a difference whether they are going to flood the cellar and drown me, or pump in poisonous gas, or put something in the food, or—”

“Good Lord, you have a lurid imagination,” Smythe said, grimacing. “I don’t really see that it matters, since there is nothing we can do to prevent any method from being carried out, including the ones you have mentioned.”

“Do you have any idea what part of the cellar we are in?”

“No.” John closed his eyes.

“You aren’t being much help.”

“I’m thinking.”

“No, you aren’t. You’re getting ready to go to sleep. Not on me, if you please.”

“I
am
thinking.”

“Prove it.”

“Have you explored this unwholesome den?”

“Yes. There are two other rooms, more or less like this one, but even less comfortable. No visible door or window. Stone wall, stone floors, except in the third room, which has a dirt floor.”

“You seem to have done a very thorough job,” John said agreeably. “No point in my going over the same ground.”

“I doubt if you would see anything I missed,” I said. “What I want you to do is stand up and start exercising. Get yourself limbered up.”

“Why, for God’s sake?”

“So you will be in condition to jump Bruno the next time he comes in.”

That roused him. He opened his eyes as far as they would go without actually popping out of his head.

“That is the most idiotic suggestion I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s our only hope of getting out of here. You can hit him with the tray.”

“Why don’t
you
hit him with the tray?”

I would hate to tell you how long this sort of thing went on. That man will debate with the devil when he comes to carry him away. (If he hasn’t sold his soul, it is only because Old Nick isn’t ready to meet his price.) Eventually I got John on his feet, not because he was convinced by my arguments, but because my shouting in his ear made him uncomfortable. The exercise did him good. After a few artistic stumbles and staggers he gave up trying to convince me that he was wounded unto death, and he regained his normal strength quite quickly. He even went so far as to investigate the other two rooms. He had to agree that there was no more practical method of escape than the one I had proposed.

It was not really all that practical, for we had no weapon. The tray and utensils were of silver, and although the tray was heavy enough to raise a bump on a normal skull, it was large and unwieldy. Besides, as John was quick to point out, Bruno’s skull was a good deal thicker than normal.

“I might only irritate the fellow,” he said. “And I would hate to do that.”

“What’s wrong with your fists?” I inquired.

“I might break a bone in my hand. Would you ask Rubinstein to hit a villain?”

“No. He’s ninety years old.”

“That is irrelevant.”

“Besides, he plays better than you.”

“In another sixty years or so, assuming I live that long, I expect to improve.”

Ah, well. As John said, it passed the time. We had nothing else to do. But we had not prepared ourselves for action of any kind, and the now-familiar rattle at the door caught us off guard. I jumped up and gestured frantically.

“Get behind the door!”

“I’m not ready,” said John, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. “I’m still giddy. By morning I’ll be in better shape. Let’s wait till the next time.”

“There may not be a next time. How long do you think — oh, damn!”