“Yes.”
They were at the heliport, and a flight was about to leave, the vanes of the ’copter swishing lazily around. But the Saint wanted to be sure that his message would get through. As he levered himself out of the bucket seat, he stopped with the door still open and pulled out the sheaf of crisp greenery that Destamio had given him, fanning the leaves under her nose while he ostentatiously peeled off one of them.
“Tell him, I liked these samples. The only thing wrong is, there weren’t enough of them. Show him this so he knows what you’re talking about. Tell him it’s going to cost a lot more now, because of the ‘Gopher’ business. Do you think you’ll get that straight?”
She nodded placidly.
“Congratulations,” said the Saint.
He shut the car door, and leaned over it. There was one final touch he could not forego, vain as it might seem. Although it should certainly help to make his point.
“And if you want to find out whether he’s jealous, tell him I did this,” he said.
He bent further and kissed her on the lips. They tasted like warm paint.
2
The helicopter leaped skywards, and Simon’s spirits soared with it. What had begun as the most trivial happenstance, sharpened by a curt sequel in the newspaper, had grown into the adumbration of a full-scale intrigue.
He had some of the sensations of an angler who was expecting to play with a sardine and instead has hooked a tuna. What he would do with the tuna on such a flimsy thread was something else again; and no one but Simon Templar would have made such a point of setting the barb so solidly. But it was one of the elementary tricks of fishing to make the fish work for you, and the Saint felt cheerfully confident that his fish would not waste much time sulking on the bottom. As soon as the ‘Gopher’ barb sank in...
To share that optimism, some readers may have to overcome the limitations of a sheltered life, and be informed of its connotations in some circles where they may not ordinarily revolve. In some of the far-fetched variations of American slang, a gopher (aside from his primitive zoological determination to be a small rodent of retiring but horticulturally destructive habits) can also be a bumpkin, a ruffian, or a toady. These are general terms, not confined to the so-called “under”-world with which Destamio must have had some illustrious connections. But in the idiom of that nether clique, a ’gopher’ is either an iron or steel safe, or the technician who specializes in blowing open such containers in order to obtain illegal possession of their contents.
This was the idiomatic detail which gave the lie to everything Destamio had tried to sell him, and which had to connect with the sudden demise of James Euston, Esquire, a former bank clerk. And the certainty of it added no little brilliance to Simon’s esthetic appreciation of the golden afternoon clouds gathering behind Ischia.
When the helicopter landed at the Naples harbor station, he remained in his seat until the pilot came and said courteously: “This is the destination of your ticket, signore.”
“I’ve decided to go on to Capodichino.”
“Then there is an extra charge.”
“How much?” Simon asked carelessly.
He was not nearly so concerned about being branded an arrogant plutocrat, which he could survive, as about being caught in an even swifter riposte by Al Destamio, which he might not. Even in the few minutes for which he had been airborne, Lily could have returned to the villa, Destamio could have picked up a telephone and contacted henchmen on the mainland, and the Naples heliport might be no safer than a booby-trapped quagmire.
On the other hand, an arrival at Capodichino might confuse the Ungodly still more, and possibly leave them standing flatfooted.
Once he had decided on that detour, Simon realized that he had no need to return to Naples at all. His baggage had been rendered practically worthless anyhow, and from a phone booth at the airport he promised to come back later for whatever was worth salvaging. There was anguished disbelief in the manager’s voice when Simon guaranteed that he would take care of the bill at the same time; but the Saint allowed his heart to be hardened by the thought of how much more joyfully surprised that entrepreneur would be when the payment actually arrived.
A kiosk sold him a book about the glories of Sicily, after some argument, for very little more than the price printed on the cover, and left him just enough time to catch the evening plane to Palermo.
Palermo was even hotter than Naples, and there are few airconditioned hotel rooms in Sicily, despite the suffocating need for them; but by a combination of seasoned instinct, determination, good luck, and extravagant bribery, the Saint succeeded in securing one. This involved staying at a hotel with the hideously inappropriate name of The Jolly, which was anything but. However, it gave him a restful night, and he was able to console himself for the cost with the reflection that it only made a small dent in Al Destamio’s advance donation.
In the morning, after a leisurely breakfast, a shave with a cut-throat razor borrowed from the valet, and in relatively clean and spruce linen by courtesy of the ingenious manufacturers of wash-and-wear synthetics, he strolled over to the local office of the City & Continental Bank (Foreign Division) Limited, to which the hotel porter had only been able to direct him after his memory was refreshed by a reasonable honorarium. In fact it was such a modest building, evidently maintained principally as a convenience for touring clients, that there was barely room for its impressive name to spread across the frontage.
A dark-haired girl with Botticelli eyes smiled up at him from behind the counter and asked what she could do for him, and it required some discipline not to give her a truthful answer.
“I’m trying to contact one of your employees,” he said. “It’s several years since he worked here, so he may have been transferred.”
“And his name?”
“Dino Cartelli.”
“Madre mia!” the girl gasped, rolling her doe eyes and turning pale. “One moment—”
She went over and spoke to a man working at another desk, who dropped his pen without even noticing the splotch of ink it made on his ledger. He gave Simon a startled suspicious look, and hurried behind a partition at the rear of the office. In another minute he came back to the Saint.
“Would you like to speak to the manager, sir?”
Simon wanted nothing more. He followed the clerk to the inner sanctum, where he was left to repeat his question, feeling rather like the man in the Parisian story who has a note in French that no one will read to him. This time the reaction was less exaggerated, except for the altitude to which it raised the manager’s eyebrows.
“Did you know Dino Cartelli well, sir?”
“I never even met him,” Simon admitted cheerfully. “An old friend of his, James Euston, whom you might remember, told me to look him up when I was in Sicily.”
“Ah, Yes. Mr. Euston. Perhaps that explains it.”
The manager stared gloomily at his hands folded on the desk. He was a very old man, with wispy gray hair and a face that had almost abdicated in favor of his skull.
“That was so long ago,” he said. “He couldn’t have known.”
“What couldn’t who have known?” Simon demanded, feeling more and more like the man with the mysterious note.
“Dino Cartelli is dead. Heroically dead,” said the manager, in the professionally hushed voice of an undertaker.
“How did he do that?”
“It happened one night in the winter of 1949. A tragic night I shall never forget. Dino was alone in the bank, working late, getting his books in order for the following day. The bank inspectors were coming then, and everything had to be brought up to date. He was a very conscientious chap. And he died for the bank, even though it was to no avail.”