‘Come here,’ he grunted. ‘No, not you, signorina, you stay where you are. You, Smythe. Take him.’
John advanced slowly. Bruno snarled.
‘Avanti, avanti! Come, little coward, I will not hurt you. Take the master. Be careful. Do not drop him.’
John received Pietro’s limp form with all the ardour of a man embracing a large sack of fertilizer. His knees buckled as the weight dropped into his embrace, but Bruno’s growl encouraged him to keep his feet.
‘I said, do not drop him! Put him down, cretino; why are you standing there like a fool? Put him on the blankets – gently, gently. Do not hurt him.’
With an eloquent glance at me, John obeyed.
‘Bene,’ said Bruno. ‘Take care of him. If he comes to harm . . .’
‘Don’t you worry, Bruno, old chap. I’ll tend him as if he were my own.’
Bruno grunted and withdrew. John put his ear to Pietro’s chest, flipped up his eyelid, took his pulse. Then he sat back on his heels.
‘Drugged.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’
‘Oh, yes. Just look at him.’
Pietro looked like a sleeping baby, or a small pink piglet with a moustache. His lips were curved in a sweet smile. John loosened his silk cravat, tucked a blanket over him, and got to his feet.
‘Nothing we can do for him. He’ll have to sleep it off.’
‘Do you suppose he objected to The Boss’s plans for us?’
‘Possibly. A lot of good it did him.’
‘John, he must know who The Boss is. We’ve got to wake him up and talk to him.’
‘No chance. He’ll be out for hours. Besides, what makes you suppose he would tell us? He’s in no danger. The Boss probably tossed him in here to cool off. He tends to become hysterical in a crisis, but when he wakes up and looks at the situation sensibly, he will realize that he has to go along with whatever The Boss decides to do.’
John leaned up against the wall, his hands in his pockets, but he no longer appeared lazy and helpless. Even his voice had changed. It was quick and crisp, with no trace of the irritating drawl.
‘Look at it this way,’ he went on, in the same incisive voice. ‘Pietro can’t risk going to the police. He’s in this scheme up to his fat little neck. He can’t run away and establish a new identity; he’d have to give up everything he possesses, and somehow I can’t see him making a successful career as an honest tradesman. He’s not vicious, but he is weak. He had been drinking heavily tonight, and I expect he lost his nerve and started talking wildly. But tomorrow . . . He’ll simply turn his back, Vicky. We will be handed over to another arm of the organization, and Pietro will never know what happened to us. He won’t ask.’
‘Well, you are a cheery soul,’ I said glumly. ‘I think I preferred you in your giddy mood.’
‘So did I,’ said John, with a sigh. ‘You have no idea how I dislike coming to grips with cruel reality. But when my precious skin is at stake . . . I think we had better make our move immediately. They may decide to deal with us while Pietro is unconscious – present him with a fait accompli. That would relieve his miserable little conscience. Yes, I think that’s quite probable.’
‘Move?’ I gaped at him. This new personality had me baffled. ‘What move?’
John was bending over Pietro, removing the blanket, arranging the lax body into a twisted position.
‘You saw how concerned Bruno was about his master. Unless I miss my guess, he’s hanging about somewhere outside. I’m going to bang on the door and scream. When he comes in, you start flipping Pietro around. Make it appear as if he’s having a convulsion.’
He looked up, saw my stupefied expression, and said irritably, ‘Come on, girl, get with it. Something along these lines.’ And he began to shake Pietro’s arms and legs, the way you might pretend to animate a large stuffed doll. It did look convincing. If you didn’t know what he was doing, you would think he was trying to restrain the thrashing limbs of a man in an epileptic seizure.
Pietro’s round head rolled back and forth, but his fixed smile never altered.
‘Make sure your body hides his head,’ John added, with a disgusted look at poor Pietro. ‘I can’t do anything about his silly face.’
He stood up, dusting the knees of his trousers, and I took his place.
‘I thought you were too weak to tackle Bruno,’ I said, practicing. The game had a bizarre fascination. Pietro was so nice and plump and roly-poly.
‘I am. But at least this gives me a fighting chance, while he is off guard and thinking of other things. Don’t be afraid to pitch in, darling, if you see me getting the worst of it.’
He didn’t give me time to reply, but went at once to the door and started kicking and pounding.
‘Help, help!’ he bellowed. ‘Aiuto! Avanti! Catastrophe, murder, sudden death. The master is dying. The count is dead. Help, help, help . . .’
Bruno must have been right outside the door. Bolts and chains jangled in an agitated fashion. I started shaking Pietro, keeping a wary eye on the door. So far the scheme seemed to be working.
It almost failed in its inception, however. Bruno was so upset he threw himself against the door, and John let out a yell of pain as the heavy panels smashed him against the wall.
After that, things got confused. I slid out of Bruno’s way as he came rushing towards me like a mother buffalo protecting her calf. He flung himself down on his knees and reached for Pietro. I stood up and clasped my hands together. If John was out of action, it was up to me. I planned to hit Bruno on the back of the neck, the way detectives do on TV, but I wasn’t awfully optimistic about what would happen. The back of his neck looked like a chunk of granite.
Then John came staggering out from behind the door. His hand hid the lower part of his face and his eyes were swimming with tears. I don’t know whether Bruno heard him, or whether he realized that his master was no worse off than before; something alerted him, at any rate, and he looked up at me with a scowl darkening his ugly face. Still on his knees, he reached out for me. I skipped back. Rumbling like an earthquake, Bruno began the monumental task of heaving himself to his feet. He was halfway up, still off balance, when John lowered his head and ran straight at him.
I have never seen – or heard – anything like it. Every bit of breath in Bruno’s lungs went out of them, in a single explosive sound like a singing kettle under full steam. His arms flew out, his head jerked forwards. He hit the wall and slid down to a sitting position. His eyes were still half open.
John straightened up and rubbed his head. His other hand covered his nose.
‘I think I fractured my skull,’ he said in a muffled voice.
‘At least your precious hands are intact,’ I said callously. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘Tie him up,’ John said, indicating Bruno.
I looked dubiously at Bruno. I would just as soon have approached a semi-conscious grizzly bear.
‘Cover me,’ I said.
‘What with?’ John took the tip of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and wriggled it gently. ‘I guess it isn’t broken. It just feels like it. Come on, don’t stand around arguing, we’ve got to get moving.’
We tied Bruno up with strips of blanket, using his own knife to cut the fabric, and gagged him with another sizable scrap. He was beginning to stir and mutter by the time we finished. Pietro had not so much as wriggled. He must have been having lovely dreams, though. His smile had become positively seraphic.
In addition to the knife, we found another useful item in Bruno’s pockets – a box of matches. It was the only light we had, once we had closed the cell door. The corridor was black as pitch. I lighted one of the matches while John restored the bars and chains to their position.