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‘But you see, I know Mr Coertze and Mr Walker,’ she said. ‘The heavy and clumsy Mr Coertze has been to Italy quite often. I have always known about him and I always had him watched.’ She smiled. ‘He was like a dog at a rabbit hole who yelps because it is too small and he cannot get in. He always left Italy empty-handed.’
That did it. Coertze must have shown his hand on one of his periodic trips to Italy. But how the devil did she know Walker? He hadn’t been to Italy recently – or had he?
She continued. ‘So when I heard that Mr Coertze was returning with Mr Walker and the unknown Mr Halloran, then I knew that something big was going to happen. That you were ready to take away whatever was buried, Mr Halloran.’
‘So you don’t know exactly what we’re after?’
‘I know that it is very valuable,’ she said simply.
‘I might be an archaeologist,’ I said.
She laughed. ‘No, you are not an archaeologist, Mr Halloran; you are a boat-builder.’ She saw the surprise in my eyes, and added, ‘I know a lot about you.’
I said, ‘Let’s quit fencing; how do you know about whatever it is?’
She said slowly, ‘A man called Alberto Corso had been writing a letter to my father. He was killed before the letter was finished, so there was not all the information that could be desired. But there was enough for me to know that Mr Coertze must be watched.’
I snapped my fingers. ‘You’re the Count’s little daughter. You’re … er … Francesca.’
She inclined her head. ‘I am the daughter of a count.’
‘Not so little now,’ I said. ‘So the Count is after the loot.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Oh, no. My father knows nothing about it. Nothing at all.’
I thought that could do with a bit of explanation and was just going to query the statement when someone jumped on deck. ‘Who is that?’ asked the Contessa.
‘Probably the others coming back,’ I said, and waited. Perhaps there were to be some more surprises before the evening was out.
Walker came down the companionway and stopped when he saw her. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I hope I’m not butting in.’
I said, ‘This is the Contessa di Estrenoli – Mr Walker.’ I watched him to see if he recognized her, but he didn’t. He looked at her as one looks at a beautiful woman and said, in Italian, ‘A pleasure, signora.’
She smiled at him and said, ‘Don’t you know me, Mr Walker? I bandaged your leg when you were brought into the hill camp during the war.’
He looked at her closely and said incredulously, ‘Francesca!’
‘That’s right; I’m Francesca.’
‘You’ve changed,’ he said. ‘You’ve grown up. I mean … er …’ he was confused.
She looked at him. ‘Yes, we’ve all changed,’ she said. I thought I detected a note of regret. They chatted for a few minutes and then she picked up her shoes. ‘I must go,’ she said.
Walker said, ‘But you’ve only just got here.’
‘No, I have an appointment in twenty minutes.’ She rose and went to the companionway and I escorted her on deck.
She said, ‘I can understand Coertze, and now I can understand Walker; but I cannot understand you, Mr Halloran. Why are you doing this? You are a successful man, you have made a name in an honourable profession. Why should you do this?’
I sighed and said, ‘I had a reason in the beginning; maybe I still have it – I don’t know. But having come this far I must go on.’
She nodded, then said, ‘There is a café on the waterfront called the Three Fishes. Meet me there at nine tomorrow morning. Come alone; don’t bring Coertze or Walker. I never liked Coertze, and now I don’t think I like Walker any more. I would prefer not to talk to them.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll be there.’
She jumped lightly on to the jetty and swayed a little as she put her shoes on. I watched her go away, hearing the sharp click of her heels long after the darkness had swallowed her. Then I went below.
Walker said, ‘Where did she come from? How did she know we were here?’
‘The gaff has been blown with a loud trumpeting noise,’ I said. ‘She knows all – or practically all – and she’s putting the screws on.’
Walker’s jaw dropped. ‘She knows about the gold?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I’m not going to talk about it till Coertze comes. No point in going over it twice.’
Walker protested, but swallowed his impatience when I made it clear that I wasn’t going to talk, and sat wriggling on the settee. After half an hour we heard Coertze come on board.
He was affable – full of someone else’s cooking for a change, and he’d had a few drinks. ‘Man,’ he said, ‘these Italians can cook.’
‘Francesca was here,’ I said.
He looked at me, startled. ‘The Count’s daughter?’
‘Yes.’
Walker said, ‘I want to know how she found us.’
‘What did the stuck-up bitch want?’ asked Coertze.
I raised my eyebrows at that. Apparently the dislike between these two was mutual. ‘She wants a cut of the treasure,’ I said bluntly.
Coertze swore. ‘How the hell did she get to know about it?’
‘Alberto wrote a letter before he was killed.’
Coertze and Walker exchanged looks, and after a pregnant silence, Coertze said, ‘So Alberto was going to give us away, after all.’
I said, ‘He did give you away.’
‘Then why is the gold still there?’ demanded Coertze.
‘The letter was incomplete,’ I said. ‘It didn’t say exactly where the gold is.’
Coertze sighed windily. ‘Well, there’s not too much damage done.’
I fretted at his stupidity. ‘How do you suppose we’re going to get it out with half of Italy watching us?’ I asked. ‘She’s been on to you all the time – she’s watched you every time you’ve been in Italy and she’s been laughing at you. And she knows there’s something big under way now.’
‘That bitch would laugh at me,’ said Coertze viciously. ‘She always treated me like dirt. I suppose the Count has been laughing like hell, too.’
I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. ‘She says the Count knows nothing about it. Tell me about him.’
‘The Count? Oh, he’s an old no-good now. He didn’t get his estates back after the war – I don’t know why – and he’s as poor as a church mouse. He lives in a poky flat in Milan with hardly enough room to swing a cat.’
‘Who supports him?’
Coertze shrugged. ‘I dunno. Maybe she does – she can afford it. She married a Roman count; I heard he was stinking rich, so I suppose she passes on some of the housekeeping money to the old boy.’
‘Why don’t you like her?’
‘Oh, she’s one of these stuck-up society bitches – I never did like that kind. We get plenty in Houghton, but they’re worse here. She wouldn’t give me the time of day. Not like her old man. I get on well with him.’
I thought perhaps that on one of his visits to Italy Coertze had made a pass at her and been well and truly slapped down. A pass from Coertze would be clumsy and graceless, like being propositioned by a gorilla.
I said, ‘Was she around often during the times you were in Italy?’
He thought about that, and said, ‘Sometimes. She turned up at least once on every trip.’
‘That’s all she’d need. To locate you, I mean. She seems to have a circle of pretty useful friends and apparently they’re not the crowd you’d think a girl like that would mix with. She picked up Metcalfe’s signals to the Mediterranean ports and interpreted them correctly, so it looks as though she has brains as well as beauty.’
Coertze snorted. ‘Beauty! She’s a skinny bitch.’
She had got under his skin. I said, ‘That may be, but she’s got us cold. We can’t do a damn’ thing while she’s on our necks. To say nothing of Metcalfe, who’ll be on to us next. Funny that he hasn’t shown his hand in Rapallo yet.’
‘I tell you he’s scared off,’ growled Coertze.
I let that pass. ‘Anyway, we can’t do any heavy thinking about it until we find out exactly what she wants. I’m seeing her tomorrow morning, so perhaps I’ll be able to tell you more after that.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Coertze instantly.
‘She wants to see me, not you,’ I said. ‘That was something she specified.’
‘The bloody little bitch,’ exploded Coertze.
‘And for God’s sake, think up another word; I’m tired of that one,’ I said irritably.
He glowered at me. ‘You falling for her?’
I said wearily, ‘I don’t know the woman – I’ve seen her for just fifteen minutes. I’ll be better able to tell you about that tomorrow, too.’
‘Did she say anything about me?’ asked Walker.
‘No,’ I lied. There wasn’t any point in having both of them irritated at her – it was likely that we’d all have to work closely together, and the less friction the better. ‘But I’d better see her alone.’
Coertze growled under his breath, and I said, ‘Don’t worry; neither she nor I know where the gold is. We still need you – she and I and Metcalfe. We mustn’t forget Metcalfe.’
III
Early next morning I went to find the Three Fishes. It was just an ordinary dockside café, the kind of dump you find on any waterfront. Having marked it, I went for a stroll round the yacht basin, looking at the sleek sailing yachts and motor craft of the European rich. A lot were big boats needing a paid crew to handle them while the owner and his guests took it easy, but some were more to my taste – small, handy sailing cruisers run by their owners who weren’t afraid of a bit of work.
After a pleasant hour I began to feel hungry so I went back to the Three Fishes for a late breakfast and got there on the dot of nine. She wasn’t there, so I ordered breakfast and it turned out better than I expected. I had just started to eat when she slid into the seat opposite.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said.
‘That’s O.K.’
She was wearing slacks and sweater, the kind of clothes you see in the women’s magazines but seldom in real life. The sweater suited her.
She looked at my plate and said, ‘I had an early breakfast, but I think I’ll have another. Do you mind if I join you?’
‘It’s your party.’
‘The food is good here,’ she said, and called a waiter, ordering in rapid Italian. I continued to eat and said nothing. It was up to her to make the first move. As I had said – it was her party.
She didn’t say anything, either; but just watched me eat. When her own breakfast arrived she attacked it as though she hadn’t eaten for a week. She was a healthy girl with a healthy appetite. I finished my breakfast and produced a packet of cigarettes. ‘Do you mind?’ I asked.
I caught her with her mouth full and she shook her head, so I lit a cigarette. At last she pushed her plate aside with a sigh and took the cigarette I offered. ‘Do you know our Espresso?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I know it.’
She laughed. ‘Oh, yes, I forgot that it must have penetrated even your Darkest Africa. It is supposed to be for after dinner, but I drink it all the time. Would you like some?’
I said that I would, so she called out to the waiter, ‘Due Espressi,’ and turned back to me. ‘Well, Mr Halloran, have you thought about our conversation last night?’
I said I had thought about it.
‘And so?’
‘And so,’ I repeated. ‘Or more precisely – so what? I’ll need to know a lot more about you before I start confiding in you, Contessa.’
She seemed put out. ‘Don’t call me Contessa,’ she said pettishly. ‘What do you want to know?’
I flicked ash into the ashtray. ‘For one thing, how did you intercept Metcalfe’s message? It doesn’t seem a likely thing for a Contessa to come across – just like that.’
‘I told you I have friends,’ she said coldly.
‘Who are these friends?’
She sighed. ‘You know that my father and I were rebels against the Fascist Government during the war?’
‘You were with the partisans, I know.’
She gestured with her hand. ‘All right, with the partisans, if you wish. Although do not let my friends hear you say that – the Communists have made it a dirty word. My friends were also partisans and I have never lost contact with them. You see, I was only a little girl at the time and they made me a sort of mascot of the brigade. After the war most of them went back to their work, but some of them had never known any sort of life other than killing Germans. It is a hard thing to forget, you understand?’
I said, ‘You mean they’d had a taste of adventure, and liked it.’
‘That is right. There was plenty of adventure even after the war. Some of them stopped killing Germans and started to kill Communists – Italian Communists. It was dreadful. But the Communists were too strong, anyway. A few turned to other adventures – some are criminals – nothing serious, you understand; some smuggling, some things worse, but nothing very terrible in most cases. Being criminals, they also know other criminals.’
I began to see how it had been worked; it was all very logical, really.
