Chalmers was sitting forward, his eyes intent. He reminded me of some beast of prey.
“The road to Amalfi is also the road to this villa?”
“Yes. There is a branch road.”
“My daughter died at eight-fifteen?”
“Yes.”
“And this fella took a taxi in a hurry around ten o’clock?”
“Yes.”
“How long would it take to get from this villa to Sorrento?”
“About half an hour by car, or walking, it’d take well over an hour and a half.”
Chalmers brooded for a moment.
I sat there breathing through my half-open mouth and feeling pretty bad. I expected him to come out with some devastating discovery after these questions, but he didn’t. Instead, he suddenly hunched his shoulders and said, “She wouldn’t commit suicide. I know that. You can put that theory right out of your mind, Lieutenant. It is obvious: she fell off the cliff while using this camera.”
Carlotti didn’t say anything. Grandi moved uneasily and stared hard at his finger-nails.
“That’s the verdict I expect to hear,” Chalmers went on, his voice harsh.
Carlotti said smoothly, “It’s my business to give the facts to the coroner, Signor Chalmers. It is his business to find the verdict.”
Chalmers stared at him.
“Yes. Who is the coroner?”
“Il signor Giuseppe Maletti.”
“Here - in Naples?”
“Yes.”
Chalmers nodded.
“Where is my daughter’s body?”
“At the Sorrento mortuary.”
“I want to see her.”
“Of course. There will be no difficulty. If you will let me know when, I will take you there.”
“You don’t have to do that. I don’t like people following me around. Dawson will take me.”
“As you wish, signor.”
“Just fix it with whoever is in charge that I can see her.” Chalmers took out a new cigar and began to peel off the band. For the first time since I had entered the room, he looked at me. “Is the Italian press covering this business?”
“Not yet. We’ve been holding up on it until you came.”
He studied me, then nodded.
“You did right.” Then he turned to Carlotti. “Thanks for the facts, Lieutenant. If there’s anything else I want to know between now and the inquest, I’ll get in touch with you.”
Carlotti and Grandi got to their feet.
“I am at your service, signor,” Carlotti said.
When they had gone, Chalmers sat for a moment, staring down at his hands, then he said quietly and savagely, “God damn wops.”
I thought this was the time to unload the box of jewels Carlotti had entrusted in my keeping. I put the box on the table in front of Chalmers.
“These belonged to your daughter,” I said. “They were found in the villa.”
He frowned, reached forward, opened the box and stared at the contents. He turned the box upside down, letting the jewels spill out on to the table.
June got to her feet and crossed over to stare over his shoulder.
“You didn’t give her those, did you, Sherwin?” she asked.
“Of course not!” he said, poking at the diamond collar with a thick finger. “I wouldn’t give a kid stuff like this.”
She reached over his shoulder and made to pick up the diamond collar, but he roughly pushed her hand away.
“Leave it!” The snap in his voice startled me. “Go and sit down!”
Slightly shrugging her shoulders, she returned to her seat by the window and sat down.
Chalmers scooped the jewels back into the box and shut the lid. He handled the box as if it were made of egg shells.
He sat motionless for a long time, staring at the box. I watched him, wondering what his next
move was to be. I knew he would make a move. He was getting his big-shot atmosphere back.
His wife, staring out of the window, and I staring down at my hands, were pigmies again.
“Get this Giuseppe whatever his name is on the telephone,” Chalmers said, without looking at me. “The coroner fella.”
I turned up Maletti’s number in the book and put through the call. While I was waiting for the connection, Chalmers went on, “Give the news to the press: no details. Tell them Helen, while on vacation, fell off a cliff and was killed.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Be here to-morrow morning at nine o’clock with a car. I want to go to the mortuary.”
A voice said on the line that this was the coroner’s office. I asked to be put through to Maletti. When he came on the line, I said to Chalmers, “The coroner.”
He got up and came over.
“Okay, get busy, Dawson,” he said, as he took the receiver from my hand. “Mind - no details.”
As I went out of the room I heard him say, “This is Sherwin Chalmers talking…”
Somehow he made his name sound more important and more impressive than any other name in the world.
PART FIVE
I
At nine o’clock the following morning I was outside the Vesuvius hotel with the hired Rolls as instructed.
The Italian press had given Helen’s death quite a coverage. Every paper carried her picture: showing her as I had first known her with her horn spectacles, her scraped-back hair-do and wearing her intellectual, serious expression.
As soon as I had left Chalmers the previous evening, I had called Maxwell. I gave him instructions to go ahead and break the story.
“Play it down,” I said. “Make it sound commonplace. The story is she was on vacation in Sorrento, she was using a cine camera, she got absorbed in what she was taking and she fell off the cliff.”
“Who do you imagine is going to swallow a yarn like that?” he demanded, his voice excited. “They’ll want to know what she was doing alone, living in a villa that size.”
“I know,” I said, “but that’s the story, Jack, and you’re stuck with it. We’ll tackle what comes next when it comes. This is the way the old man wants it, and if you want to keep your job, that’s the way it’s got to be.” I hung up before he could argue further.
I handed it to him when I saw the morning’s papers. He had followed out my instructions to the letter. The press carried the story and a photograph, and that was all. No smart alec had an opinion to express. They just stated the facts as known, soberly and without hysterics.
Around nine-ten, Chalmers came out of the hotel and climbed into the back of the Rolls. He had a bunch of newspapers under his arm and a cigar between his teeth. He didn’t even nod good morning to me.
I knew where he wanted to go, so I didn’t waste time asking him. I got in beside the chauffeur, told him to drive to Sorrento and to snap it up.
I was a little surprised that June Chalmers hadn’t come along far the ride. From where I sat I could get a good view of Chalmers in the driving mirror as he read the newspapers. He went through them quickly and searchingly, dropping one after the other on the floor of the car as he finished reading what he wanted to read.
By the time we reached Sorrento he had got through all the papers. He sat smoking his cigar, staring out of the window, communicating with the only god he would ever know — himself. I directed the chauffeur to the mortuary. When the Rolls pulled up outside the small building, Chalmers got out and, motioning me to remain where I was, he went inside.
I lit a cigarette and tried not to think of what he was going to look at, but Helen’s smashed, bruised face was in my mind and had been in my dreams last night, and it haunted me. He was in there for twenty minutes.