“There wasn’t a film in the camera,” he said curtly.
“No film? Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
I stared at the opposite wall.
“If there was no film in the camera, she wasn’t using the camera when she died,” I said, speaking my thoughts aloud.
“That doesn’t follow. She could have forgotten to put a film in, couldn’t she?”
I remembered that the indicator on the camera had shown that twelve feet of film had been run off. I knew a little about these cameras, and I knew that when you put a film in, there is a catch that opens the film gate through which you thread the film, and as the gate opens the indicator is automatically set back to zero.
“I suppose she could,” I said. “Did Lieutenant Carlotti think anything of it?”
“What’s there to think about?” Grandi snapped.
“Well, thanks. Just one other thing: there wasn’t anything taken from the villa, was there? Besides the jewels, I mean.”
“We didn’t take anything.”
“Have you finished with the camera and the case? I’m collecting la signorina Chalmers’s things now. If I drop by, can I have the camera?”
“We don’t want it any more.”
“Okay, I’ll be along then. So long, Lieutenant,” and I hung up.
The footage indicator on the camera had shown twelve feet. That meant there had been a film in the camera, and it had been removed by someone who wasn’t familiar in handling this type of camera. The film had been forcibly removed, ripping the length of film out of the gate without releasing the gate lock. It meant too that the film had been ruined by taking it out this way, so it followed whoever had taken it out hadn’t wished to keep the film. The only purpose for removing the film was to destroy it.
Why?
I gave myself another drink. I was suddenly excited. Could this be the clue Chalmers had said I would find, and having found this one, I’d find another?
Helen wouldn’t have ripped the film out of the camera. That was certain. Then who did?
Then the second clue dropped into my mind the way a leaf floats off a tree.
I remembered her showing me ten cartons of cine film when I had called at her Rome apartment. I remembered chaffing her about buying so many, and I remembered she had said she intended to use most of the film in Sorrento.
And yet there wasn’t one carton of film in the villa or m her luggage.
There wasn’t even a film in her camera. The police hadn’t taken the films. Grandi had said they had taken nothing from the villa.
Was this the explanation of the intruder I had seen creeping around in the villa? Had he found and taken them? Had he ripped the film from the camera, and then tossed the camera down the cliff face?
To make absolutely sure, I went over the whole villa again, searching for the cartons of film, but I didn’t find them. Satisfied, I locked up the villa, dropped the keys into my pocket, and then, leaving the Lincoln where it was, I walked down the garden path, through the gate and along the path to the cliff head.
By now it was just after midday and the sun blazed down on me as I walked. I passed the inaccessible villa below. This time I paused to look more closely at it.
On the terrace, in the shadow of a table umbrella and lying on a lounging chair, I could see a woman in a white swim-suit. She appeared to be reading a newspaper. The edge of the umbrella prevented me from seeing much of her. I could just make out her long, tanned shapely legs, part of the swim-suit and a tanned arm and hand that held the newspaper.
I wondered vaguely who she was, but I had too many things on my mind to take any interest in her, and I kept on until I reached the place where Helen had fallen.
Methodically, I searched the path, the rough grass and the surrounding rocks within a thirtyyard radius. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I thought it might pay dividends to do it.
It was hot work, but I kept at it. I found one thing that might or might not mean something. It was a half-smoked Burma cheroot.
As I stood in the hot sunlight, turning the butt over between my fingers, I had a sudden and unmistakable feeling that I was being watched.
I was pretty rattled, but I was careful not to look up. I continued to study the butt, my heart beginning to thump. It was an eerie feeling, being up there on this dangerous path, knowing that someone was close by in hiding and watching me.
I slid the butt into my pocket and straightened, moving away from the edge of the cliff head.
The feeling of being watched persisted. Casually, I looked around. Dense shrubs, and about fifty yards away, the thick wood, showed me that anyone could be hidden and watching me without a hope of my spotting them.
I started back down the path to the villa. All the way back to the garden gate, I felt eyes boring into my back. I had to exert a lot of will power not to look over my shoulder.
It wasn’t until I had got into the Lincoln convertible and was driving fast along the snakeback road to Sorrento that I began to relax.
III
My first move when I reached Sorrento was to hand the keys of the villa to the estate agent. I settled the rent that was owing and gave him my Rome address in case any mail came for Helen at the villa. I told him to forward it to me.
He said it was very sad that such a beautiful girl should have had such a terrible accident. He said he had written to the owner of the villa advising him to have the path fenced in. I wasn’t in the mood for a chit-chat about fences. I made a grunting noise, shook hands with him and went back to the car.
I drove to the police staion where I collected the cine camera and its case. Grandi kept me waiting outside his office, for a quarter of an hour, then sent a sergeant out with the camera. The sergeant got me to sign a receipt for it.
I left the police station and crossed over to the car, carrying the camera in its case slung over my shoulder. I got into the car, started the engine and drove slowly into the traffic-congested main road.
The experience I had had on the cliff head had made me alert. I noticed in the driving mirror, a dark green Renault pull out from behind another parked car and drift after me.
If I hadn’t been certain that someone had been watching me up on the cliff head, I wouldn’t have thought anything of this move, but now I was suspicious. The fact that there was a dark blue sun shield covering the windscreen of the Renault making it impossible to see who was driving, added to my suspicion.
I headed for Naples, driving at a moderate speed, and from time to time glancing in the driving mirror. The Renault kept a respectful hundred yards behind me. I kept going, driving at
a steady forty miles an hour, and the Renault kept after me.
It wasn’t until I reached the entrance to the autostrada that I decided to see if the Renault was really following me of if it was a coincidence that it hung in my rear.
I eased the speed of the Lincoln up to sixty. The Renault still remained a hundred yards behind me. I pushed the gas pedal down to the floorboards. The Lincoln surged forward. It had plenty of speed and snap, and in a minute or so the speedometer needle was swinging up to eighty-seven miles an hour.
The Renault had fallen back, but it had also increased speed. As I watched it in the driving mirror I saw it was closing the gap again, and I was pretty sure now that I was being followed.
There was no hope of shaking it off on this fiat, straight autostrada. The time to try tricks would be when I reached Naples.
I slackened speed to seventy miles an hour, and drove steadily to the end of the autostrada.
The Renault hung on, keeping its hundred yards distance, but as I slowed to hand my ticket to the official at the exit of the autostrada, the Renault, as if the driver realized that once I was in Naples traffic I would be much more difficult to follow, moved up and closed the gap between us. I took the opportunity to memorize the car’s number. As I drove into the thick Naples traffic there were only twenty yards or so between us.