‘I’ll do anything I can,’ I said. I was completely under the spell of her urgency.
‘And you will go to speak with this Sismondi?’
‘Yes.’
S7 ‘Thank you. As soon as I hear you are the Dick Farrell who is a friend of my father’s I know you will help.’ She leaned suddenly closer. ‘Where do you think he is? What do you think has happened?’
I didn’t say anything and when she saw I had nothing to tell her she bit her lip. Then she got quickly to her feet. ‘I would like a drink please, Alec.’
They went through into the bar. She didn’t say anything to me as she left. She kept her face turned away. I think she didn’t want me to see how near she was to breaking point.
CHAPTER THREE
I had all afternoon to think it over. And the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. What they’d asked me to do was to let Sismondi think I’d got whatever it was he wanted and by that means to find out what he knew about Tucek’s disappearance. It doesn’t sound much. But then remember, this was Italy, a country where real life crosses the footlights to merge with melodrama. Last time I’d been in Milan I’d seen the mutilated bodies of Mussolini and his mistress strung up by the heels for the public to jeer at. A bloodthirsty mob had cut the woman’s heart out. And the farther south you get the cheaper life becomes. Moreover, it was very different from the wartime Italy. I’d been very conscious of that since I arrived. There was none of that sense of security induced by the constant sight of British and American uniforms.
I had dinner early and went to the bar. I thought if I had a few drinks I shouldn’t feel so unhappy about the whole business. But somehow they seemed to have the reverse effect. By nine o’clock I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. I called a taxi and gave the driver Sismondi’s address, which was Corso Venezia 22.
It was raining and a cold, damp smell hung over the streets. A tram was the only thing that moved in the whole of the Vittor Pisani. The atmosphere of the city was very different from the morning when I’d sat in the sun in the public gardens. I shivered. I could feel one of my fits of depression settling on me. The stump of my leg ached and I wished I could go back to the hotel, have a hot bath and tumble into bed. But there was no turning back now.
In a few minutes the taxi had deposited me at Corso Venezia 22. It was a big, grey house, one of several that ran in a continuous line facing the Giardini Pubblici. There was a heavy, green-painted wooden door with a light showing through a fanlight. I watched the red tail light of the taxi disappear into the murk. The wind was from the north. It came straight off the frozen summits of the Alps and was bitterly cold. I climbed the half-dozen steps to the door. There were three bells and against the second was a small metal plate engraved with the name Sg. Riccardo Sismondi. Evidently the house was converted into flats. I rang the bell and almost immediately a man’s voice said, ‘Chi, e, per favored The door had not opened. The voice seemed to come from somewhere up by the fanlight. I realised then that I was faced with one of those electrical contrivances so beloved by Italians. ‘Mr. Farrell,’ I said. ‘I’ve come to see Signer Sismondi.’
There was a pause and then the same voice said, ‘Come in, please, Signer Farrell. The second floor.’ There was a click and a crack of light showed down one side of the door. I pushed it open and went in to find myself in a big entrance hall with a hothouse temperature. The heavy door swung to behind me and locked itself automatically. There was something final and irrevocable about the determined, well-oiled click of that lock. Additional lights came on in the narrow Venetian chandelier that hung from the ceiling. Thick pile carpets covered the tiled floor. There was a big grandfather clock in one corner and on a heavily carved table stood a beautiful model of an Italian field-piece in silver.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor. The air of the place was suffocatingly hot and faintly perfumed. The door of the flat was open and I was greeted by a leathery-faced little man with dark, rather protruding eyes and a glassy smile. He gave me a thick, podgy hand. ‘Sismondi. I am so glad you can come.’ The smile was automatic, entirely artificial. His almost bald head gleamed like polished bone in the light from the priceless glass chandelier behind him. ‘Come in, please, signore.’ There was no warmth in his tone. I got the impression that he was upset at my unexpected arrival.
He shut the door and hovered round me as I removed my coat. ‘You like a drink, yes?’ He stroked his hands as though smoothing down the coarse black hair that covered the backs of them.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
The lobby led into a heavily furnished lounge where my feet seemed to sink to the ankles in the thick pile of the carpets. Dark tapestries draped the walls and the furniture was ornate and carved. Then he pushed open a door and we went through into a softly-lit room full of very modern furnishings. The contrast was staggering. A fat pekinese got up from a silk-covered pouff and waddled towards me. It sniffed disdainfully at my trousers and returned to its couch. ‘My wife like those dogs very much,’ Sismondi said. ‘You like dogs, signore?’
I was thinking how very like the dog he was himself. ‘Er — yes,’ I said. ‘I’m very fond—’ And then I stopped. Reclining on the piled-up cushions of a big couch was a girl. Her figure merged into the green of the silk cushionings. Only her face showed in that soft lighting — a pale, madonna oval below the sweep of her jet black hair. The eyes caught the light and shone green like a cat’s eyes. The lips were a vivid gash in the pallor of her skin. I thought I knew then why Sismondi had given me such a glassy smile of welcome.
He bustled forward. ‘Signer Farrell. The Contessa Valle.’
I bowed. The girl didn’t move, but I could see her eyes examining me. I felt the way a horse must feel when it is being appraised by an expert. Sismondi gave an uncertain little cough. ‘What can I give you to drink, Signer Farrell? A whisky, yes?’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
He went over to an elaborate modern cocktail cabinet that stood open in the corner. The girl’s silence and immobility was disturbing. I followed him, very conscious of the drag of my leg.
‘I am sorry my wife is not ‘ere to welcome you, signore,’ he said as he poured the drink.
‘She have — how do you call it? — the influenza, eh?’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It is the weather, you know. It has been very cold here in Milano. You like seltz?’
‘No, I’ll have it neat, thank you,’ I said.
He handed me a heavy, cut-glass goblet half-full of whisky. ‘Zina? You like another benedictine?’
‘Please.’ Her voice was low and slumbrous and the way she said it the word became a purr. I went over and got her glass. The tips of her fingers touched mine as she handed it to me. The green eyes stared at me unblinking. She didn’t say anything, but I felt my pulse beat quicken. She was dressed in an evening gown of green silk, cut very low and drawn in at the waist by a silver girdle. She wore no jewellery at all. She was like something by one of the early Italian painters — a woman straight out of the medieval past of Italy.
When I took the drink back to her she slipped her legs off the couch. It was one single movement, without effort. Her body seemed to flow from one position to the next. ‘Sit down here,’ she said, patting the cushions beside her. ‘Now tell me how you lose your leg?’