Vendetta for the Saint. (9 page)

“Only the same attractions that bring
thousands of other tourists here,” answered the Saint, relax
ing guardedly. “Which of course did not
include
having one of
your problem
paisani
try to knife
me.”

“Ah, poor Italy—and poorer Sicily! Many
are in
want here and
turn to crime to fill their stomachs.
Though of course that is no excuse. Be assured that
justice will be done. We ask you only to be
avail
able to support
your charges.”

“With pleasure. But there seems to be
some dif
ficulty.”

“Difficulty?” Ponti’s eyebrows
lifted elaborate
ly. He
turned back to the desk and riffled through the papers again. “Everything
looks in order to me
—is
that not right,
maresciallo?”

The
officer shrugged.

“No difficulties. I was only asking a
few ques
tions.”

“Ebbene!
Then I suggest that you, Signor
Templar, give us the name of your hotel—but
you
have already
done that, I see in your statement. That is all we need for now. We will notify
you
when the case
appears before the
giudice instruttore
,
the magistrate. Unless the
maresciallo
has
anything more to ask?”

The
maresciallo
could not have lost
interest more
completely. A gesture that combined
a shrug, a
small throwing-away motion of the
hands, and a
regal tilt of the head,
conveyed that he was fin
ished,
bored, and only wished to be spared further
tedium.

“And you, Signor Templar, have nothing
more
to say here?”

Ponti’s eyes looked directly into the
Saint’s, and for an instant the engaging boyishness no longer
seemed to be the dominant characteristic of
his
face. Instead,
there was only an intense and urgent
seriousness. As clearly as if the lines in his forehead
had spelt it out in capital letters, it changed his
words, for Simon’s reception only, from a
question
to a command.

“Nothing
more,” said the Saint steadily.

His acceptance of the silent order was in
stinctive. Whatever had been going wrong
before,
Ponti’s arrival
had temporarily diverted it, and Simon Templar was not one to scorn a lifeboat
until
unfathomed
waters closed over his head. Besides which, he sensed an essential difference
between
Ponti’s implied warning and the kind
that had
menaced him a little earlier. But
the questions
which it raised would
have to wait. For the present,
the
opportunity to leave the police station was sat
isfaction enough. He was already suffering some of the feeling of
claustrophobia which was inclined to
afflict
him in places that had a direct connection
with prisons.

Ponti’s
 
ready smile returned as he retrieved
Simon’s passport and handed it to him.

“I’m sorry we have kept you so long,” he said.
“It must be already past your accustomed
lunch
hour. I hope it will only
improve your appetite for
our
Sicilian cooking.”

“Where would you recommend me to try
it?” Simon asked.

“The
Caprice is near by, and they have the first
eggplant of the season. You should not leave
Palermo without trying their
caponata di melanzane
.
And
a bottle of Ciclope dell’Etna.”

“I
can taste it already,” Simon said.
They shook hands again, and one of the
stoical
carabinieri
opened the door for him.

After the suffocating atmosphere of the
police
station the
fresh air was revivifying, even as redo
lent as it was of the rich effluvia of
Palermo. The
Caprice, which
Simon found without much dif
ficulty,
was a cool cavern of refuge from the
cascade of
glare and heat outside, and he entered
its
depths gratefully, selecting a strategically lo
cated table with a wall behind and an unobstructed
vista in front.

“The
signore
would like an
aperitivo?”
queried
the nonagenarian waiter.

“Campari-soda. With plenty of ice and a
twist of
lemon.”

“And
afterwards?”

“I will order presently. I am waiting
for a
friend.”

The Saint was as sure of this as he could be
of
anything. He could not
imagine for a moment that
Investigator
Marco Ponti had taken the trouble to recommend this restaurant for no reason
but pure gastronomic enthusiasm. And as he sipped the
astringent coolness of his drink, he hoped
that this
private meeting
would throw some light on the
knife
attack and the peculiar antipathy of the
maresciallo.

Very shortly the street door opened again;
but it
was not the
expected form of the detective that stepped in. This, however, proved to be no
disap
pointment to
the Saint at all.

It was a girl
…
if the writer may perpetrate one
of the most inadequate statements in contem
porary literature.

There seems to be a balance of nature in
Italy
which
compensates in advance with extraordinary
youthful beauty for the excessive deterioration
which awaits most of her women in later years.
Long before middle age, most of them have suc
cumbed to superabundant flesh expanded in the
dropsical mould that follows uncontrolled mother
hood,
and for which their tent-like black dresses
are
perhaps the only decent covering; and their
faces tend to develop hirsute adornments which
would be envied by many a junior Guards officer.
But the perfection of face and form which a com
passionate fate may grant them before that has
been observed by most modern movie-goers. And this
specimen was astounding proof that the nets of
pandering producers had by no means scooped all
the cream of the crop.

Her hair was stygian midnight, a shining
metallic
black that
wreathed a delicate oval face with the
texture of magnolias, full-lipped and kohl-eyed.
The simple silk confection that she wore offered
more emphasis than concealment to the form it
covered but could scarcely contain. It was obvious
that no trickery of supporting
garments was
needed or was used to
exploit the burgeoning figure, rounded almost to excess in the breasts above
and the flanks below, yet bisected by a waist of
wasp-like delicacy. To complete the entrancing in
ventory, Simon allowed his gaze to slide down the
sweet length of leg to the small sandalled feet and
drift appreciatively
back up again.

Whereupon he received a glance of withering
disdain of the kind that had obviously had
much
practice in
shrivelling the presumptuous and freez
ing the
extremities of the lecherous, and which
made
it depressingly apparent that like many other
beautiful Italian girls she was also impregnably re
spectable. Only the Saint’s unjustified faith in
the purity of his admiration enabled him to meet the
snub with a smile of seraphic impenitence until
it
was she who looked away.

The cashier nodded to her in beaming recog
nition, and after a brief exchange of words
picked
up the
telephone. Simon realized with regret that
the girl had not come in to eat, but to ask
for a taxi
to be called—a
common enough method in those
parts
where the quest for a public phone can be a
major project.

After another word of thanks she started out
again, and an entering customer stood aside
and
held the door
for her. She swept past him, accept
ing the service as if it were hers by divine right, and
he had to content himself for reward with the
pleasure of watching her
all the way into the cab,
which
providentially was an old-fashioned one
with a high step. It was only after Simon had
shared this treat with him,
and the man finally let
the
door close and came towards him, that the
Saint noticed who it was.

“Marco Ponti—what a surprise,” he
murmured,
with no
visible sign of that reaction. “Will you join
me in a mess of eggplant? Although I can’t
com
pete as an attraction with
what you were just leer
ing
at.”

Ponti made the classic gesture, hands spread
at
shoulder level, palms up,
with which an Italian can
say
practically anything—in this case, combined
with a slight upward roll of the eyes, it
signified
“Who wouldn’t leer at something
like that? But
what a waste of
time”—and sat down.

“I fear the Swiss convent where she has
been re
ceiving her
final polish has chilled her southern
blood for a while,” he said. “But one day it will be warmed again.
I have been hoping to make her ac
quaintance
since she returned, but Gina Destamio
and I do not rotate in the same social circles.”

”
What
did you call her?”
Simon asked with un
concealed
astonishment.

“The name
means something to you?”

“Only if she is related to a certain Al
Destamio, whose dubious hospitality I enjoyed on Capri yes
terday.”

The
detective’s smile was mask-like again, but
behind it Simon could sense a stony
grimness.

“She is his
niece,” Ponti said.
  

4

The
Saint had received so many shocks lately that
he was becoming habituated to absorbing them
without expression.

“After all, it’s a small country,”
he remarked.
He looked down
into the rhodamine effervescence
of his aperitif,
and beckoned the waiter. “Would you like one of these before we eat?”

“With your permission, I will have a
brandy.
Buton Vecchio,
since that is their most expensive—
as an underpaid public servant I have few op
portunities to enjoy such extravagance.”
Ponti
waited until
the waiter had shuffled off before he
said:
“What was your business with Destamio?”

The question was asked in the same casual
tone,
but his eyes bored into the Saint
unblinkingly.

“I’ve been wondering about that
myself,” Simon
replied
coolly. “We met completely by chance the
other day, and we seem to have rather
quickly de
veloped some
differences of opinion. So radical, in
fact, that I wouldn’t be surprised if he was
respon
sible for
Tonio’s attack on me this morning.”

The other considered this carefully, before
his smile flashed on again.

“I have heard many stories about you,
Saint,
some
undoubtedly false and perhaps some of them
true. But in all of them I have heard
nothing to
suggest that
your relations with these people would
be likely to be cordial. But it would have
been in
teresting to
hear precisely what the differences were
that you refer to.”

At this moment the waiter tottered back with
the
brandy. Before
he could escape again, Simon
seized
the opportunity to order their lunch, or rath
er to let Ponti order it, for he was quite
content to
follow the lead
of the counsellor who had directed
him here.

By the time the waiter had retired again out
of
earshot, the Saint was
conveniently able to forget
the
last implied question and resume the conversa
tion with one of his own.

“Would you mind telling me just what you
meant by ‘
these people’?”
he
asked.

“The
Mafia,” Ponti said calmly.

This
time, Simon allowed himself to blink.