"Shut up," he said violently and gave her a little shake. "Listen to me: you play your cards according to the cards you hold in your hand. If you win you win; if you go down, you take it. Right now you and I have a straight flush. We have never been so well off. No d.a.m.ned American is going to make you or me chuck in a hand as good as a straight flush."
She pulled away from him.
"You stupid fool!" she said angrily. "I"ve been waiting for this. I knew sooner or later someone would get on to us. I knew it! We have had our run; now it"s time we got out. We"ve got to get away from here before the police move in! We could go to Buenos Aires."
Felix stared at her.
"Gould we?" He smiled unpleasantly. "Is that what you have been hopefully planning when you couldn"t sleep? It"s a charming thought. Can you imagine Alsconi"s delight when we announce we are leaving him?"
"Oh stop it!" Lorelli said angrily. "He wouldn"t know until it was too late to do anything about it."
Felix flicked his cigarette into the fire.
"Do you imagine he would shrug his shoulders and forget about us?" he asked. "You must be suffering from a touch of the sun, my beautiful nitwit. He would find us wherever we went. We wouldn"t have a moment"s peace, and when he did find us..." He shrugged his shoulders. "But for the sake of an argument, just suppose a miracle did happen and we did manage to lose ourselves in Buenos Aires. How long do you think we would remain unrecognized? He has agents in every country in the world. They would be hunting for us. And just in case it enters your pretty head to go without me, let me remind you that you would never feel safe for a moment. Every step you heard behind you would turn you cold with fear. Every man who looked at you would make your heart skip a beat. You should know as I do, the last thing Alsconi would do is to let any of his organization walk out on him. There have been other fools who have tried to break away - look what"s happened to them."
"So what are you going to do?" Lorelli asked, staring at him.
"I"m not going to panic," Felix said. "This American isn"t going to rattle me. If he looks dangerous, I"ll fix him."
"It might be too late."
"Now look," Felix said, "go to bed and relax. You"re worked up. Maybe he has an idea we are here, but he hasn"t found us yet. You seem to forget we"ll need some finding."
"So you won"t come away with me?" Lorelli asked, looking strangely at him.
"There"s no question of going away," Felix said curtly. "We"re in this to the end. You might as well make up your mind about that. Now go to bed."
"Are you going to tell Alsconi?"
"Not yet. I want some more information first."
She picked up her coat and moved to the door.
"Willie will be telephoning."
"Okay, I"ll stick around until he does."
When she had gone, Felix lit another cigarette and moved about the luxuriously furnished room, his brows drawn down in a frown.
If this American thought he was going to bust up a racket as good as this one, Felix thought, he had another think coming. Maybe the best thing to do was to move in quickly and wipe him out before he made any more of his clever discoveries. He was still pacing the floor when Willie came through on the telephone.
"I lost him," Willie said. "He wandered around the streets for a while, then he went back to Via Pantaneto where he had a car. That beat me. He headed out of the city."
"Get the car number?" Felix snapped.
"I got that," Willie said. "It"s registered in England." He gave Don"s car number and Felix wrote it down.
"So it doesn"t look as if he"s staying at any of the hotels?"
"He left the city," Willie said.
"Then find out from the agents if anyone has recently rented a villa. I want to know where this guy hangs out. It"s urgent."
"Can"t do anything until tomorrow morning," Willie said sulkily. He hated any form of work.
"Get something for me by tomorrow," Felix returned and cut the connection. He called the operator.
"Give me Museum 11066, London," he said.
A half an hour later he was speaking to Crantor.
"Find out who owns car number PLM 122," he said. "It"s urgent. Call me back as soon as you know."
Crantor said he would have the information in an hour.
As Felix replaced the receiver he heard the alarm bell in the hall start up. For a moment, he stood motionless, his hand still on the receiver, his heart hammering. The bell told him someone was in the grounds: someone who had no business to be there.
He jumped to the desk by the window, jerked open a drawer, s.n.a.t.c.hed out a .45!, then opening the cas.e.m.e.nt windows, he stepped out on to the terrace.
It was after eleven o"clock before Don returned to the Trioni villa. He had wandered the streets and alleys of Siena in the hope of finding Lorelli again, but finally, realizing the futility of such a hunt, he had returned to see if Harry and Cherry had had better luck.
He had been unaware of a small, swarthy man, dressed in shabby black with a black slouch hat pulled down over his eyes to shade his white, pockmarked face, who had followed him like a shadow wherever he went. He was still unaware of him when he had slid into the Bentley and had driven out of the city, leaving the pockmarked man glaring balefully after him.
As Don pulled up outside the villa, the front door jerked open and Harry came down the steps to meet him.
"Any luck, sir?" Harry asked.
Don could tell by the tone of his voice he had had more success than he had.
"Nothing really," Don said, entering the lounge with Harry at his heels. "Where"s Cherry?"
"Gone to bed, sir. That n.i.g.g.e.r nearly walked him off his legs". He led us a proper dance all over the city. He takes about three times the normal stride and Cherry had to run most of the time to keep him in sight."
Don went over to the bar, poured two beers and gave one to Harry.
"Where did he go?" he asked, sitting on the arm of a chair.
Harry took a long pull at his beer, sighed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Well, sir, after taking enough exercise to tire a horse, he got into a Citroen and belted off. Even if I had had the car, I couldn"t have followed him without giving the game away. The road was straight for miles, and that was "a bit of luck. I watched his headlights for a couple of miles, then he suddenly turned off the road, and it"s my bet he turned into the drive of a house. How would it be if we took the car now and investigated? I"m pretty certain I could find the spot where he turned off."
"Right," Don said, finishing his beer. "Come on; let"s go then."
They went down to the car, Don slid under the driving wheel.
"I"m still trying to make up my mind if I dropped a brick tonight," he said, as he drove down the drive to the lane. "I was fishing for information. I thought that bookseller fellow might have some knowledge about old man Vaga. His reaction was most odd. I had an idea I scared the life out of him. He wanted my name and where I was staying. Maybe I"m getting too suspicious-minded, but it struck me il signor Pedoni might not be such a white-washed lily as he looks."
"Well, you can"t call that n.i.g.g.e.r white-washed," Harry said. "G.o.d! What a size he is. The way he worked through that ice cream made Cherry"s eyes pop. I wouldn"t like to have a sc.r.a.p with him."
"Nor would I. He didn"t spot you?"
Harry shook his head.
"He never looked around once. He just kept on walking like he was exercising himself. He certainly exercised Cherry. Turn left here, sir," he went on as Don drove through the old gateway of the city. "That"s where he parked his car, under those trees. He went up that road on the right."
Using his fog lights in preference to his telltale headlights, Don drove up the straight road that climbed steadily, pa.s.sing on his left the Franciscan monastery. Beyond the monastery they came to hilly, open country.
About a mile further on, Harry said, "It can"t be far off now, sir. Would it be an idea to leave the car and walk?"
Don nodded and pulled on to the gra.s.s verge. He turned off the lights and leaving the car, they started up the hill on foot. The road continued without a sign of any building, and after walking ten minutes, Harry said, "We couldn"t have pa.s.sed it, could we? I didn"t think it was this far ahead."
"It"s hard to judge from where you were. Let"s go on for another mile," Don said. "I"m sure we haven"t pa.s.sed any side road."
A few minutes later, Harry said, "Here it is. Look, just ahead."
In the bright light of the moon, they could see a narrow lane that made a T-joint with the main road. It went straight for a hundred yards or so, and then disappeared around a curve into a wood.
"No sign of a house. Looks as if we"ve still got some walking to do," Don said and moved on, keeping to the gra.s.s verge to deaden the sound of his footfalls.
Harry followed him, and in single file they walked to the curve in the lane and into the wood.
It was almost pitch dark in the wood, but Don kept going, moving more slowly, just able to see the dim outlines of the tree trunks.
Ten minutes" walking brought them out of the wood to the foot of a hill, and ahead of them, seeming to rise out of ground to confront them was a ma.s.sive stone wall, some fifteen feet high that ran along the edge of the lane and out of sight into the darkness.
Clear of the trees, the bright moonlight lit up the wall as if it were daylight. Don paused. Some fifty yards further on he could see double iron-studded wooden gates set in a ma.s.sive stone archway. The gates were closed.
"I bet this is the place," he said. "Looks right out of the Middle ages, doesn"t it?"
Harry stared up at the high wall "Can"t see much from here. Shall I give you a leg up, sir?"
"That"s the idea." Don moved close to the wall. He put his foot in Harry"s hand and Harry heaved him up towards the top of the wall. Don"s clutching fingers got a grip, and another heave from Harry gave him a safer purchase. He hooked his leg over the wall and clung on, balancing himself, keeping low so as not to be seen against the skyline. He looked over the tops of the trees to where he could see a big Gothic-style building set in a wide expanse of closely cut lawn.
"Looks like an old palace," he said and leaned down, offering his hand. "Catch hold. I can heave you up."
Harry gripped his wrist and he pulled him up. After a moment"s struggle, Harry got his leg over the wall. He too stared across the garden at the building.
"It"s big enough, isn"t it? Shall we hop down and have a look-see?"
"I"m going, but you"re staying here," Don said. "If I have to leave in a hurry, I"ll want you up here to heave me up and over."
"How would it be if I went, sir?" Harry asked, hopefully. "I"m a bit more used to moving in the dark than you are."
"That"s what you like to think," Don said, grinning, and holding on to the wall, he lowered himself as far as he could, then dropped.
"Watch your step, sir," Harry called softly.
Waving to him, Don set off towards the house. The first two hundred yards were easy as all he had to do was to follow a path through flowering shrubs that afforded plenty of cover, but when he came to the edge of the big lawn, he paused.
He looked to right and left, reluctant to cross such an expanse of ground without any cover. Anyone looking out of one of the windows couldn"t fail to see him cross in the hard light of the moon.
Keeping to the shrubbery, he went around in a half circle in the hope of finding cover on the far side of the house. He moved silently, and it was as well that he did, for suddenly ahead of him he saw a movement, and he hurriedly ducked down behind some bushes.
Out of the shrubbery, not thirty yards ahead of him, came a thick-set man, an automatic rifle under his arm, and walking at his side, a ferocious-looking wolfhound.
Don felt the hairs on the nape of his neck p.r.i.c.kle at the sight of the dog. The big brute was on a chain that encircled the man"s wrist. It slunk along, the moonlight accentuating the rolling muscles under its glossy coat.
Don remained motionless, watching these two as they walked quietly on, and until they had disappeared into the darkness.
He drew in a breath of relief, thinking that if he had taken the risk and had crossed the lawn, the dog would have been savaging him by now.
He looked again towards the house, reluctant to retreat, but baffled as to how he could get near it without being seen.
Refusing to give up, he started forward, moving this time much more cautiously and examining every yard of the ground before leaving cover to dart to another shrub. Moving in this way, it took him some minutes to get around to the east side of the house. Here the lawn narrowed, and the shrubs encroached. There was only forty yards or so of open ground to the house. Keeping behind a tree, he looked up at the house. On this side, all the windows were in darkness, but he couldn"t tell if someone was in a dark room, looking down on the lawn.
A wide, ornate terrace with a marble bal.u.s.trade and wide marble steps leading to the garden ran the length of this side of the house. Don saw that he would not only have to cross the lawn, but would also have to run up the steps on which fell the light of the moon if he were to get close to the house.
If it were not for the wolfhound, he would have gone ahead, but the thought of the dog made him decide against taking the risk.
The next step was to find out who owned the house. It shouldn"t be difficult. The great thing was not to show his hand before he was ready.
Crouching, he began to make his way through the shrubbery to where he had left Harry. He hadn"t gone more than thirty yards or so when looking back, he saw something that pulled him up short.
Standing on the edge of the lawn was a wolfhound, looking directly at where Don crouched. The dog"s ears were p.r.i.c.ked and its head was on one side as if it were listening.
Don remained motionless, his heart thumping. Had the dog heard him? The slight breeze was blowing from the dog to Don: it was unlikely the dog had picked up his scent.
He saw the dog lower its head and come forward slowly until it reached the middle of the lawn, then it stopped.
Don felt a trickle of sweat run down his face, but he was careful not to move. He and the dog remained motionless for at least a minute, and it seemed to Don to be an hour.
Then from out of the shadows around the house, the thick-set man with the automatic rifle under his arm appeared. He came out into the moonlight and paused, watching the dog.
The dog looked back at him and whined, took a couple of steps forward, then stopped to look back again.
"Come here!" the man shouted roughly. He spoke in Italian.
The dog hesitated, then turning it slunk towards the man who snapped on the chain to its collar.
Don watched the man walk away towards the west side of the house, the dog obediently slinking at his heels.
When they were out of sight, Don began to move again. He was now anxious to get out of these dangerous grounds, and he increased speed. He didn"t realize that as he moved from one shrub to another he had stepped on a concealed metal plate that touched off the alarm bell in the house.
He kept on, looking for the path along which he had come, but not finding it. He paused to check his position, knowing that the path had to be somewhere close by. It was then that he heard the alarm bell ringing. The sound came to him faintly, but it was unmistakably an alarm bell.
He straightened up and looked to right and left, guessing that somehow he had touched a hidden connection that had set off the alarm. Then he saw the gigantic negro coming across the lawn and he caught the glitter of a knife the negro held in his hand.
The sight of the negro, moving across the moonlit lawn with the speed of a black panther, would have unnerved most people, but Don refused to give way to nerves. He ducked down behind a shrub and waited.