A green and black cab followed after him when he turned into the Via A Falcone, while the driver expounded the advantages of his cool upholstery and dazzling speed over the dusty travail of walking under the noonday sun. Simon succumbed with only token resistance and climbed in; but he was not so blinded by the shady interior that he failed to notice the 300 lire already registered on the meter, nor too proud to draw the driver’s attention to the undoubted oversight. After a brief verbal brannigan during which certain special charges were mentioned, so special indeed that they could not be found in the quadrilingual list of complicated tariffs posted inside the cab, a decision was reached that perhaps the meter should be readjusted; and the chauffeur launched his vehicle through the lunatic traffic with an emotional abandon which suggested that only homicide or suicide would salve his injured feelings.
Simon called a premature halt to the ride at a leather-goods shop which he spotted within sight of the Hotel Excelsior. There he bought a handsome gold-bound pigskin cigar case, making no more attempt to stint on quality than a man with his quarry’s evident tastes would have done. To him it was only another investment, like the solvent which had opened the doorman’s impermanently sealed lips.
He took the case and the same attitude to the Sale e Tabacchi a few doors farther on. On some other occasion it might have amused him to engage the tobacconist in a long and profound debate over the selection of a package of salt, which for reasons which may remain eternally obscure to non-Italians is a monopoly of the same government-licensed stores. But that morning he was driven by too much impatience to waste time on anything but the purchase of two of the very best cigars, and the shopkeeper who sold them at the inflated official price never knew what torment he had been spared.
Simon put the cigars in the case and kept the case in his hand as he entered the ornate lobby of the Excelsior, and located the desk of the concierge.
“I believe this belongs to one of your guests,” he said. “Would you see that he gets it?”
The attendant examined the case which Simon had laid on the counter, with the olympian detachment befitting his office, which is believed by all concierges to be only slightly inferior to that of the managing director.
“Do you know which one?” he inquired, with a subtle suggestion that his responsibility covered not merely thousands but tens of thousands, and that anyone who did not realize it was probably a peasant.
Simon shook his head.
“I’m afraid I don’t. I just happened to see him getting into a cab, and heard him tell the driver to come here, and then I saw the case on the ground. I picked it up and yelled at him, but the cab was driving off and he didn’t hear.”
“What did he look like?”
“Heavy set — about sixty — a little gray hair, but mostly bald — wearing a very fancy gray silk suit — diamond pin in his tie — star sapphire cuff-links — a gold ring with a huge emerald...”
The functionary, who like all his brethren of that unique European order could be counted on to know everyone who had a room in the caravanserai during his tenure, and almost as much about their activities as God, listened with a concentration that progressed from the condescendingly labored to the tentatively perspicacious to the final flash of connection.
“Ah yes! I think you mean Signore Destamio.”
The Saint’s pause was imperceptible.
“Not — Carlo Destamio?”
“No. The name is Alessandro Destamio.” The case disappeared under the counter. “I will take care of it for him.”
“Now, just a minute,” Simon said amiably. “Why not call his room and ask if he did lose a cigar case? I didn’t actually see him drop it, you know. It might have been lying there all the time.”
“I cannot ask him at once, sir. He left yesterday afternoon.”
“Oh, did he?” Simon did not bat an eyelid. “That’s too bad. It was yesterday when I picked it up, of course, but I’ve been too busy to come by before this. Where did he go?”
“He did not tell me, sir.”
It was apparent that the concierge did not warm to that type of interrogation, from the darkening of his face which was quickly masked with a sneer.
“I will ask him when he comes back, sir. He is not a tourist — he keeps his suite here all the time. If you would like to leave your name and address, I will send you back the case if it does not belong to him.”
And, the impeccable manner implied, if there’s any question of a reward, don’t worry, I’ll see that you get it; you probably need it.
“Don’t bother,” said the Saint airily. “If it turns out not to be his, you keep it. Just be careful how you light the cigars, in case some practical joker planted the whole thing.”
It was not, he felt, an entirely discreditable exit; and it left interesting vistas for future speculation.
Besides which, the visit had produced all that he had any right to expect, if not more: a name.
Alessandro Destamio.
3
A hard core of literate Americans who can still read the printed word when they get their eyes un-gummed from the nearest television set would be capable of distinguishing the name of Alessandro Destamio from all the synonyms who have gone down in windrows before the movie cameras. It was a name that had become familiar through much repetition in news reports and popular articles, even to a vast number of people who still had only the vaguest idea of what he actually did. Al Destamio was a member of “The Syndicate”, a nebulous and to most readers still semi-mythical organization which controlled all the lucrative rackets in the United States and a shocking percentage of local politicians. He had not been one of its chief executives, at the rarifled elevation of a Luciano or a Costello, but he was at least what might be called a minor cabinet minister — one of those names which can be regularly flagellated by columnists without fear of libel suits, which are intermittently rousted by federal officers, and which nevertheless appear seldom or never on a roster of penitentiary inmates, and when they do it is usually because of some technical flaw in their income tax returns.
Al Destamio, Simon clearly recalled, had been one of those unlucky ones a few years before, and had been deported back to his native land after a year’s cure in Leavenworth which only cost the US Government a few thousand dollars more than he was already alleged to have short-changed them.
And yet, back here at home, he was apparently suffering from no shortage of pin-money, and his aura could still inspire terror or loyal compliance among restaurant and hotel employees. An unappreciative Uncle Sam might have given Alessandro the boot, but back in his homeland he was manifestly not washed up. Far from it. In fact, he seemed to command a respect which might have been envied by the Prodigal Son.
At this point the Saint felt that some reliable local briefing on such mysteries might be helpful. Unfortunately there was not a single resident of that city in his slim but strategically indexed address book. Then he recollected that his old friend Giulio Trapani kept a villa at Sorrento, which couldn’t be more than a couple of hours away, to which he retreated for a vacation every summer. Simon could find nothing in the telephone book which he consulted in his garage, and decided at once it would be faster to drive there and conduct inquiries on the spot than to do battle with the Information Service of the Italian telephone system. In less time than he could have initiated a phone call, he was in his car and heading for the famous Amalfi Drive.