Rising up with infinite wariness until he could look over the wall near him, he saw four of them clambering over the higher wall to spread out through the trees. The chauffeur who had navigated the projectile descent of the cliff road still sat at the wheel of the big car, and not much farther was the broad sweat-stained back of Al Destamio himself, shouting orders to his advance pack of hoodlums. Everyone was actively oriented to the upward angles, apparently fully convinced that at that point they must have well outdistanced the Saint and need not bother to look for him below them.
The temptation to counter-attack from the rear was almost overwhelming, and if it had been only a matter of Destamio or his driver the Saint would have probably failed nobly to resist it. But the two together, spaced as far apart as they were, constituted just too much risk that any hitch in the taking out of the first might give the second a chance to raise an alarm that would reverse all the convenient preconceptions of the squad that expected the Saint to fall into their arms from above. Reluctantly, he decided that this was a case where commonsensical considerations should outweigh the superficial allures of grandstand glory.
He turned away, rather sadly remembering more juvenile days when he would have chosen otherwise, and melted silently down through the vineyard where he had landed.
2
He could count on a brief respite while the searchers above vainly combed the upper slopes where they seemed to think they had cornered him. With that preconceived idea, it would take them between half an hour and an hour to convince themselves that he had gone past them and not crawled into some undiscovered hole. Then the word would have to be passed to headquarters, and a more widespread search would have to be organized. This would be a blanket operation that would enlist the entire Mafia and all their sympathisers, who possibly comprised most of the island’s population. Every man’s hand would be against him; but he would know where he stood with any man.
The thought was briefly invigorating as he increased his pace. Staying out of the hot clutches of the Mafia might be the most difficult accomplishment of his checkered career; but if he could survive that cliche he might be able to outlast anything.
One stairwayed vineyard led down to another as his giant strides carried him through them towards the valley town. The contadini of the outskirts were already awake and scratching at their tiny allotments with medieval mattocks. They seemed to notice Simon only disinterestedly as he passed, as if their tenure under the very shadow of the Mafia allowed them only to observe when specifically called upon to do so. The sight of a hurrying man in a torn shirt coming from the direction of the Mafia mansion evoked no response but hastily averted eyes: they would remember his passage if the correct parties inquired later, but right now they would neither hinder nor help.
Simon dismissed them as ciphers in this desperate game, and made no stop or detour on their account until he reached the first outlying buildings of the town, where he paused briefly to do what little he could to make himself slightly more presentable.
One shirt-sleeve was unrepairable, split up almost to the shoulder. Ripping off the cuff, he used it as a band on which to roll up the remains of the sleeve. When he rolled up the other sleeve to match, the torn one was hardly noticeable. He brushed the dirt from his hands, dusted his slacks as best he could, and combed his hair with his fingers — wincing slightly when they touched the knot above his occiput, and making another mental entry in the ledger that would have to be balanced with Al Destamio’s account when they came to a final settlement. With that, he was as ready to go on as he would ever be.
The nameless town which he had to enter was already coming to life, since like any microcosm of the south it moved more quickly in the cool of the morning in order to doze better during the incinerating afternoon. Before finally entering a narrow alley that would surely lead to the main street, Simon checked backwards to see that his trail was still free of pursuers, and was rewarded with an unexpected and arresting sight. His downward path had widened his visual scope, and now he could see not only his recently deserted prison on the overhanging cliff but also a more distant mountain rising beyond and dwarfing it, a summit from which a think plume of smoke coiled lazily upwards.
Even the most superficial student of geological grandeurs could have recognized the symptoms of a dormant volcano; and since there is only one such on the island of Sicily, at the same time the highest in Europe and one of the largest in the world, Simon knew that he must be looking at Mount Etna. And aside from any casual vulcanological interest, it performed the important function of telling him exactly where he was.
To visualize a map of Sicily, as the Saint did, you might think of a piece of pie about to be kicked by the toe of a boot, which is the shape of the Italian peninsula. The resemblance is only in outline, and should not lead to any symbolic inferences. The top side of this pie-wedge is fairly straight and runs almost due east and west. The volcano of Etna is situated in the upper eastern corner of the triangle. Since the Saint was looking towards it, and the sun was rising behind it, the most rudimentary geographical acumen or even the basic training of a boy scout would have been enough to tell him that the road downhill from the unknown town he was entering must run north to join the coastal highway somewhere between Messina and Palermo. To some exigent critics this deduction might still have seemed to fall far short of pinpointing a position, but to Simon Templar it provided a fix from which he would have cheerfully set a course to Mars.
As he reached the central square of the town, he had a clear view of the valley road that bisected it and wandered on down to the now occulted sea. That trail of patched macadam, he knew, was a siren’s lure that beckoned only to his death. Though it looked open, it would be the first avenue to be watched, closed, or booby-trapped. The Mafia might not be overly concerned with Destamio’s personal problems, but they would be ruthlessly jealous of their own prerogatives, which the Saint had affronted with insulting levity. Therefore all their resources, spread like a spider cancer through the entire community, would be devoted to the simple objective of cutting him down. And the main thoroughfares would be the first and most obvious avenues for them to cover.
Across the square, in front of the town’s principal and possibly only hotel, an assortment of early-rising tourists were loading their luggage and their young into various cars. Two families of beaming Bavarians, complete with lederhosen and beer bellies, obviously travelling together in identical beetle-nosed Volkswagens; a middle-aged Frenchman with his dependable Peugeot and a chic chick who somehow looked a most unconvincing wife; and an oversized station wagon whose superfluous fins and garbage-can-lid rear lights would have revealed its transatlantic origin long before the red and black identification of the American forces in Europe could have been deciphered on its dusty license plate. The gaudy pseudo-Hawaiian shirt worn like a pregnancy smock outside the tired slacks of its proprietor was no disguise for a certain pugnacity of jaw and steeliness of eye which stamp a professional sergeant in peace or war.
Simon’s spirits rose another notch. With such a type, opportunity might not be exactly pounding at his door, but at least he could hear it tap.
He waited till the last suitcase had been jammed into the truck-sized rear deck, and the last squalling brat trapped and stowed amidships, and then he approached the near-side window just as the driver was settling in and turning on the engine.