"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 nit-wit. 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, snatched out a .45!, then opening the casement 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, pock-marked 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 pock-marked 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 nigger 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 nigger white-washed," Harry said. "Cor! What a size he is. The way he worked through that icecream made Cherry's eyes pop. I wouldn't like to have a scrap 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 tell-tale headlights, Don drove up the straight road that climbed steadily, passing 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 grass 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 passed 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 passed 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 grass verge to deaden the sound of his footfalls.