“It should be easy enough to prove,” Simon said calmly, speaking to Cirano as if this were a private matter between them. “All you have to do is take Al’s fingerprints and ask the Palermo police to check them against the record of Dino Cartelli. No doubt you have a contact who could do that — perhaps the maresciallo himself? Cartelli, of course, is supposed to be dead, and they would be fascinated to hear of someone walking around alive with his identical prints. It would call for an urgent investigation, with the whole world looking on, or it might pop the entire fingerprint system like a pin in a balloon. But I’d suggest keeping Al locked up somewhere while you do it, or a man at his time of life might be tempted to squeal in exchange for a chance to spend his declining years in freedom.”
Destamio’s face turned a deeper shade of purple, but he had more control of himself now. He had to, if he was going to overcome suspicion and maintain his contested margin of leadership. And he had not climbed as high as he stood now through nothing but loudness and bluster.
“I will gladly arrange the fingerprint test myself,” he said. “And anyone who has doubted me will apologize on his knees.”
It was the technique of the monumental bluff, so audacious that it might never be called — or if it was, he could hope by then to have devised a way to juggle the result. It was enough to tighten the lips of Cirano, as he felt the mantle of Don Pasquale about to be twitched again from hovering over his shoulders.
“But that will not be done in these two minutes,” Destamio went on, pressing his counter-attack. “And I tell you, he is only trying to distract you for some minutes, perhaps until more soldiers or police arrive—”
His black button-eyes switched to a point over the Saint’s shoulder and above his head, widening by a microscopic fraction. If he had said anything like “Look behind you!” Simon would have simply hooted at the time-worn wheeze, but the involuntary reaction was a giveaway which scarcely needed the stealthy creak of a board from the same focal direction to authenticate it.
The Saint half turned to glance up and backwards, knowing exactly the risk he had to take, like a lion-tamer forced to take his eyes off one set of beasts to locate another creeping behind him, and glimpsed on the dimness of a staircase disclosed by the light that spilled from the room a fat gargoyle of a woman in a high-necked black dressing-gown trying to take two-handed aim at him with a shaky blunderbuss of a revolver — the wife or housekeeper of Cirano or Skullface or Scarface, whoever was the host, who must have been listening to everything since the dining-room door opened, and who had gallantly responded to the call of domestic duty.
In a flash Simon turned back to the room, as the hands of the men in it clawed frantically for the guns at their hips and armpits, and flung the grappa bottle which he still held up at the naked light bulb. It clanged on the brass shade like a gong, and he leapt sideways as the light went out.
The antique revolver on the stairs boomed like a cannon, and sharper retorts spat from the pitch blackness which had descended on the dining room, but the Saint was out in the hall then and untouched. He fired one barrel of the shotgun in the direction of the dining-room door, aimed low, and was rewarded by howls of rage and pain. The pellets would not be likely to do mortal damage at that elevation, but they could reduce by one or two the number of those in condition to take up the chase. He deliberately held back on the second trigger, figuring that the knowledge that he still had another barrel to fire would slightly dampen the eagerness of the pursuit.
Another couple of shots, perhaps loosed from around the shelter of the dining-room door frame, zipped past him as he sprinted to the front door and cleared the front steps in one bound, but respect for his reserve fire-power permitted him to make a diagonal run across the garden to the gate without any additional fusillade.
Outside the gate he stopped again, listening for following footsteps, but he did not hear any. He could have profited by his lead to run on down the road in either direction, leaving the Ungodly to guess which way he had chosen; but that would also have left them one avenue of escape where he could not hinder them or see them go. Now if two of them came on foot, he worked it out, he would have to slug the nearest one with his gun barrel and hope he would still have time to fire it at the second; if there were three or more, the subsequent developments would be very dicey indeed. On the other hand, if they came by car, he would have to shoot at the driver and hope that the glass was not tough enough to resist buckshot.
He waited tensely, but it seemed as if the pursuers had paused to lick their wounds, or were maneuvering for something more stealthy.
Then he heard something quite different: a distant sound of machinery rumbling rapidly closer. It was keyed by the throaty voice of the Bugatti, but filled out by an accompaniment of something more high-pitched and fussy. Lights silhouetted the bend from the village and then swept around it. The Bugatti, with Ponti at the wheel and Lieutenant Fusco beside him, was plainly illuminated for a moment by the lights of the following scout car, before its own headlights swung around and blinded him. Simon ran towards them, holding both hands high with the shotgun in one of them, hoping that it would stop any trigger-happy warrior mistaking him for an attacking enemy.
The Bugatti burnt rubber as it slowed, and Simon side-stepped to let it bring Ponti up to him.
“You took long enough,” he said rudely. “Did I forget to show you how to get into top gear?”
“Lieutenant Fusco would not abandon his scout car, and I had to hold back for them to keep up with us,” said the detective. “Did you have any luck?”
“Quite a lot — and in more ways than one.” Simon thought the details could wait. “There are at least six of them in that house behind the walclass="underline" four live ones, big shots, a guard whom I may have killed, and a woman who would make a good mother to an ogre.”
Fusco jumped out and shouted back to his detachment: “Report to the Major where we are and that we are going in after them, then follow me.”
“A good thing we’re not trying to surprise them,” Simon remarked. “But they already know they’re in trouble. The only question is whether they will surrender or fight.”
They went through the gate and up the short driveway together. The three soldiers from Fusco’s scout car followed, their boots making the noise of a respectable force before they fanned out across the lawn.
Ponti produced a flashlight and shone it at the front door which Simon had left half open.
“Come out with your hands up,” he shouted from the foot of the steps, “or we shall come in and take you.”
There was no answer, and the beam showed no one in what could be seen of the hall.
“This is my job,” Ponti said, and shoved Simon aside as he ran up the steps.
Fusco ran after him, and Simon had to recover his balance before he could get on the Lieutenant’s heels. But no shots greeted them, and the hall and staircase showed empty to the sweep of Ponti’s flashlight. A flickering yellow luminance came from the door of the dining room, however, and when they reached it they saw Skullface and Scarface lying on the floor groaning, while the woman of the house tried to minister to their bloodstained legs by the light of a candle.
Cirano also lay on the floor, but he was not groaning. There was a single red stain on his shirt, and his eyes were open and sightless. His magnificent nose stood up between them like a tombstone.
Ponti bent over him briefly, and looked up at the Saint.
“Did you do this?”
Simon shook his head.