16 - The Splintered Sunglasses Affair Page 11

  "Be my guest!" Solo said, putting away his wallet and accepting the long, thin paper bags.

  Out in the street, they discovered that the prognostications of Illya and the post office porter concerning the weather had been justified. Rain had begun to fall and in the warm desk street lamps trailed streamers of light through shop window reflections on the wet pavements. They were unable either to congratulate the porter, however, or question him on his memory of the murdered man, for the post office was closed and he had gone home.

  The wider of the two ladies in the flower shop was nevertheless able to confirm that the unfortunate gentleman had in fact been wearing dark glasses; and her leaner cousin in turn corroborated this. By the time Solo had bought some cigarettes from the kiosk across the road and heard once more that Leonardo was in sunglasses "as usual'', their theory looked like being confirmed.

  "Oh—and I'll have a box of matches too, please," the agent said as he paid.

  The fat man who ran the kiosk leaned forward across the counter. "If you do not mind, signore," he said, "you can get them from the blind man beside you—there, just at the foot of the steps to the post office."

  The agent raised his eyebrows.

  "It is unusual, I agree," the man explained. "Especially as here in Italy the sale of cigarettes and matches remains—as it does in France—a government monopoly, issued to the public only through licensed tabacci." His shoulders heaved up in an immense shrug. "But what would you do? The poor man must earn a living. Officially, for the books, he is an employee of the kiosk. The local police are good fellows and they turn a blind eye to the fact that he sits physically outside it."

  "How apposite of them," Solo murmured as he moved across to the stairway.

  The matchseller sat with his back against the column flanking the flight and his feet stretched out in front of him. There was a grey stubble on his wizened face and his eyes were hidden behind the circular lenses of a pair of old fashioned steel-rimmed sunglasses. Below his tray, a cardboard notice announced that he had lost his sight in the service of his fatherland in North Africa and that he had no other means of support.

  "Buona sera," Solo said. "Mi dia scatola di fiammiferi, per favore."

  "Si, signore. Quanti ne vuole?"

  "Me ne dia due di questi." He picked up two of the miniature boxes and dropped some coins into the man's seamed and dirty hand. As he turned to leave, he stumbled clumsily against Kuryakin and one of the boxes spun out of his grasp towards the blind man's face. Instinctively, involuntarily, one of the peddler's hands darted up protectively, was arrested in mid-flight, and then gently lowered again.

  Solo retrieved the matchbox from the ground and moved away. "That's all I wanted to know," he murmured. "You stay here, Illya, while I fetch the car. If luck's with us, you won't have to take off again alone!"

  And luck was with them. For when Solo drew the Fiat up alongside the sidewalk fifty yards down the street, Kuryakin was still lounging at the cafe-bar with one eye on the match-seller.

  It was another hour before the taxi called to take the man home and they could slip into the traffic stream and follow him to a suburb on the road to Susa and Moncenis on the city's western outskirts. There was a pantomime of finding change and getting out of the cab, and then the blind man tapped his way along a brick path and up to a door in a small cottage between a baker's shop and an apartment building.

  He fumbled for his key, twisted it in the lock, and opened the door. Once inside the musty smelling hallway, he felt to make sure the curtains were covering the window, and then threw aside his stick, switched on the light, and took off his dark glasses.

  Leaning against the wall at the far end of the entrance was Napoleon Solo. And the Berretta in his hand was pointing straight at the matchseller's heart.

  The man gave a hoarse cry of alarm. His hand flew to his jacket pocket, and his eyes darted wildly from side to side.

  "I wouldn't, if I were you," Kuryakin said softly from behind him. "Mr. Solo is an awfully good shot—and even if he missed, there's still me."

  The wizened features twisted into a grimace of fury. "Who the devil are you?" he protested shrilly, whirling round to face the Russian. "What right have you to come bursting into a private house

  "All right!" Solo rapped. "Cut it out! We've rumbled your nasty little game, so let's take it from there. And, in passing, of all the mean, low, despicable schemes, faking blindness to feather your own nest really is—"

  "He steals, too," Kuryakin interrupted. "I watched while you were getting the car. He's in a marvelous position there, at the bottom of the steps. Women leave their shopping baskets on the ground while they put coins in the stamp machines; they leave their bags down while they check their mail... who's going to suspect a poor blind man, even if they do miss things at once? I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't pick a few pockets on the side, too."

  The matchseller's face was contorted with rage. "Get out of here!" he snarled. "I'll have the police on you! I'll show you—"

  Solo strode across the hall. He grasped the man's greasy lapels. "No," he said quietly. "I'll show you!... Let's have a look at your sneaky little face... I see. A partial cataract in one eye and perfectly good sight in the other. So you have to capitalize on it. Charming." His knuckles bunched in the cheap material of the man's suit as he raised him off the ground and thrust his face within inches of the bloodshot eyes. "All right," he hissed. "What have you done with the dead man's sunglasses?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about!" the matchseller blustered.

  "When he fell, his head came to rest just by you, didn't it? And in the general scuffle you either picked the glasses off the ground or actually took them from his nose, wasn't that it?"

  "You're mad, both of you! I tell you I don't—"

  Solo hurled the man from him so that he crashed against the wall and slid to the floor. "Don't give me that!" he barked. "Illya—do we have the generator in the car? I think a little electrical treatment is indicated here."

  "Certainly. It'll be a real pleasure," Kuryakin said, picking up his cue and moving towards the door.

  "In the meantime..."Solo bent down and slapped the rat-like face once, twice, three times, four times, forehanded and backhanded, as he hauled the man to his feet. "I'll make a start. We have all night to spend if necessary."

  "How many clips do you want?" Illya asked from the door. "Half a dozen will do, I should think. Greasy skin's a good conductor."

  "All right, all right, all right!" The bluster changed all at once to an abject whine. "There's no need to get all dramatic over a miserable pair of sunglasses. What did you want to go and get violent for?" Eyes glared at them malevolently over black-rimmed nails as he felt his unshaven jaw to see if it had been damaged.

  "So you do have them?" Kuryakin demanded.

  "Of course I do, if it's so important to you. I don't see the harm in it: he wasn't going to need them any more. If I'd left them, the police'd only have pinched them. They were a nice pair too. Would've done a treat on me."

  "Would have?"

  "Yes, would have. The silly bastard must have caught them on something as he went down. One of the lenses is splintered to hell," the little man said viciously.

  "How inconsiderate of him! What else did you steal from his body? ... Do you know the penalty in Italy for violating the dead. Napoleon?"

  "Whatever it is, it's not enough. Come on, you. We want an answer."

  "There was nothing else. I swear..."

  Solo moved in menacingly. The man backed off, his hands raised, his lips curled back in a snarl. "Oh, very well, curse you. There was a pocket book... it was falling out of his hip pocket. The police would have—"

  "We quite understand. Of course there was no money in it."

  "No, there was not. And nothing you can do will prove there was."

  "Go and fetch it. And the sunglasses."

  "I tell you there wasn't any Not even a hundred lira."

  "Strange
and unbelievable as it may seem to you, we are not interested in the money—or the lack of it. Go and fetch them. Now!"

  Sullenly, the man walked through into a squalid bedroom.

  Beyond the tumbled grey sheets on the bed, a cheap veneer dressing table was piled with watches, belts, ties, wallets, purses, a couple of women's handbags, cameras, even a pair of binoculars. He pulled open the top drawer and rummaged around inside it. Eventually he fished out a black calf pocket book, nearly new, and a pair of sunglasses in expensive tortoise-shell frames. The left-hand lens was, as the man had said, cracked, the smoked glass finely starred and splintered, though none of it had fallen out.

  Solo held out his hand and took them. He slid the Berretta back into his pocket and opened the door. "That's all for now," he said. "You're lucky. But there is one thing... I should hate to find you still outside that kiosk tomorrow, cashing in on people's sympathy, if I happened to pass."

  Back in their hotel room, they examined their prizes. There was very little in the pocket book. The money would have vanished within minutes of the theft and the pickpocket would no doubt have plenty of blackmarket contacts for the sale of driving license, identity papers, check book and so on—the absence of which had been remarked on by the police when the body was brought in. There was, however, a miniature diary, a tiny volume with a pencil lodged in its spine and a calf cover en suite with the pocket book itself. And there was a collection of visiting cards, restaurant bills, stamps and other scraps of paper.

  Solo glanced briefly through them and put them aside. "All these seem to be documentary evidence to support the poor guy's expense account," he said. "It's things like that which make you realize..." He broke off and shook his head.

  Kuryakin hadn't heard him. He was staring at the last entry in the diary. "Listen to this," he said slowly. "Leonardo seems to have used this just as a kind of movable memorandum pad. He doesn't put down dates and times every day, like an engagement book. He doesn't fill it in afterward like an ordinary diary."

  "It would hardly do, in our business, would it?" Solo asked drily.

  "... But what he does do—he makes cryptic little notes to remind him of things. You know. Rent due tomorrow. Replace lamp in chandelier. Buy birthday card for G. Meet X at 3:15. Check dentist's appointment. That sort of thing."

  "So?"

  "So the last entry, for the day he died, reads simply: Send glasses to W for repair..."

  "W for Waverly? Is that what you mean?"

  "It does rather suggest itself, Napoleon."

  Solo gave a low whistle. "If that's so, then he was on his way to send a signal to Waverly telling him the glasses were arriving, and what they were for, when he was shot," he said. "Exactly. And presumably he was intending to pack up the glasses and send them off by another route, from another post office, later in the day."

  "I wonder if the Thrush people knew how lucky they were, getting him when they did?"

  "I imagine not. They'd hired these local toughs to bump him off as quickly as possible, as soon as they discovered the list had been copied and realized it must be him—and that was the first chance they got."

  "Yes... I hate to tell you this, Illya, but they stopped using the phrase 'bump him off' several decades ago."

  "Rub him in, then, or whatever. But there's one other thing that's odd. Napoleon: an operative of Leonardo's experience really does not need to have a written reminder to send vital information back to his headquarters, does he?"

  "No, I guess he doesn't at that. That doesn't tie in with your knowledge of the man's M.O.?"

  "He was a very experienced, a very reliable, man. And he was working directly for me on this job. I'm certain, absolutely certain, he would only have put such an entry in that book because he meant it to be seen—by one of us."

  "You mean he was covering himself? He thought something might happen?"

  "Something can always happen. Napoleon. I think he put it there as a tip-off that the glasses were the medium he'd used to make the hologram... just in case. And unfortunately for him, his precautions turned out to be necessary."

  Solo, picking up the sunglasses and turning them over, saw just a pair of expensive spectacles with rather large lenses, one of which was cracked. He grinned. "I hope they're classy enough to have exactly the same curvature on both lenses," he said. "Otherwise, if he happened to have used the one that's got damaged, we'd be back to square one again!"

  "You're convinced, then?" Kuryakin asked.

  "Oh yes; I'm sure you are right, Illya. There's no doubt about it. We've found the treasure. All we have to do now is get it back to New York!"

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Tables Are Turned

  Giovanna del Renzio had agreed to take Solo and Illya to the airport. The evening before, they had decided to celebrate a little and she had accompanied them to Angelo's for dinner; this time without seeing either Carlsen or the bulky man in grey! Now she was outside the hotel waiting for Illya to bring the Fiat round from the garage while Solo made a farewell telephone call to the Commendatore.

  It was still raining, though there was blue sky over towards the mountains. The girl was wearing a dazzling white vinyl raincoat, with white patent knee boots and an absurd orange umbrella. Beneath this creaking armor of leather and plastic, she was dressed in a simple jersey suit of navy and white which set off the racy lines of her body to perfection. Her hair was set high to keep it up under the umbrella out of the rain.

  "Well if we ever needed an argument in favour of Italian holidays, you're definitely it," Kuryakin said enthusiastically if ungrammatically as he loaded their two cases into the boot. Giovanna smiled warmly. "Be careful," she said. "If your precious piece of glass is in one of those..."

  Before the Russian could reply. Solo had come out and was shaking hands with the girl. "I've said our goodbyes to the Commendatore," he reported. "And I've also spoken to Rinaldi, my dear. He'll be quite happy if you return the car to him tomorrow. I must say it's terribly kind of you to offer to take it back. It'll save me so much trouble."

  "Not at all," Giovanna said politely. "I think we ought to be on our way if you want plenty of time for the plane. The road to Caselle is very busy and it's still quite wet. Will you drive, Napoleon?"

  "Okay," Solo said. "Let's go!"

  They had just passed the turn-off to the Milan Autostrada when Giovanna leaned forward from the back seat and said: "This little pickpocket you told me about last night—the matchseller outside the post office: was he a member of this Thrush organization, do you think?"

  "Absolutely not," Solo said. "He was just a smalltime chiseler who happened unknowingly to have picked up something other people wanted." He changed down and urged the Fiat past a huge truck and trailer that were spraying muddy water up from the wet road.

  "But in that case," the girl protested, "why did he take your piece of glass or whatever it was from the body of Leonardo? The pocket book I can understand; but a piece of... You never did get around to telling me just what he used to make that hologram! What did you take off the pickpocket last night?"

  Kuryakin turned round in the front passenger seat and grinned at her. "Just that," he said vaguely. "A piece of glass... "

  "Illya!" Solo called out, peering through the streaming windshield. "I missed the sign because of that blasted motor bus! Do we take the left or the right fork here for Caselle?"

  The Russian wiped condensation away from the glass with his sleeve. "Right, I think," he said, staring in his turn. "No! No, I'm wrong. The left!"

  "You were correct the first time," the girl said from behind.

  "No, no. It is the left. You can see the airport sign pointing that way."

  "It's the left for Caselle, yes. But we are not going to the airport. Take the right fork and then turn right again on the road labelled Leini and Cigliano." There was a sudden coldness and hardness in the girl's voice that made Kuryakin swing round again and Solo flick a glance at his driving mirror.

&nbs
p; She was sitting very erect on the edge of the seat and there was a gun in her hand.

  "You'd better do as I say," she snapped. "I know how to use this."

  Obediently, Solo hugged his nearside and took the right hand fork, steering the Fiat immediately afterward on to the secondary road the girl indicated. He sighed. "I don't know about the pickpocket," he said, "but I suppose you really are a member of what you called 'this Thrush organization'?"

  "Naturally. It is relatively easy for us to penetrate such loose systems as S.I.D. and M.I.6... to say nothing of the C.I.A." The girl's voice was scornful.

  "Well, congratulations! You really are a master—perhaps I should say, rather, a mistress—of deceit and treachery!" Kuryakin said bitterly.

  "Your old fashioned moral strictures leave me cold," Giovanna del Renzio said indifferently. "But I'd rather do without the noise of you talking." Coolly, she raised the muzzle of the gun until it was level with the Russian's neck and pulled the trigger.

  There was a sharp, coughing explosion, not very loud, and Kuryakin jerked forward and slumped against the dashboard. As though in reflex, Solo had stamped on the brakes as the gun fired. The Fiat slewed momentarily and almost stopped, sending him lurching forward against the wheel, and then resumed its course as he released the pressure on the pedal.

  "I shouldn't do that again if I were you," the girl said grimly. "You have no need to worry. It's only a sleep dart, similar to those you use yourselves. He'll be back with us in less than an hour."

  "You've made me break my glasses," Solo said reproachfully. He felt his chest where it had struck the steering wheel and drew out a pair of sunglasses from his breast pocket. They had tortoise-shell frames—and one of the lenses certainly was cracked.

  "Put them back. You won't need them where you're going."

  "And that is? Back to Mr. Carlsen's place, I presume?"

  "Yes. By minor roads in case of trouble on the Autostrada. As you see, we're already in open country. Straight over this crossroads here."