The Saint in Europe (20 page)

It was a quaintly professorial and almost pedantic speech, even to the Latin quotation at the end, of the type that frequently made Mr Inverest an easy butt for the more ribald type of political heckling, but his handling of it gave it an austere dignity.

Inspector Buono shrugged helplessly.

They went into an office. The Saint’s personal belongings were returned, and a paper was drawn up.

“Your Excellency will have to sign this,” Buono said, with ill-concealed disapproval. “I have to protect myself. And I hope your Excellency knows what he is doing.”

“I accept full responsibility,” Inverest said, taking out his pen.

Simon watched the signature with the feeling of being at an international conference.

“You’re a really big man, sir,” he said, with a sincere respect which came strangely from him. “Not many people would be capable of giving a ready-made devil like me his due, in a situation like this. Certainly not the average smallнtime cop.”

Buono scowled.

“Damnant quod non intelligunt,” Inverest said wryly. “It’s part of my job to be some sort of judge of human nature. Besides, I have access to special information. I checked on your record in Washington by telephone while we were waiting for you to come to. I talked to the man who was in charge of the OSS section you worked for during the last war.”

“Hamilton?”

“He gave you quite a remarkable reference.”

Simon lighted a cigarette. He had almost forgotten the throbbing in his head, and his brain was starting to feel normal again.

“I wish I could be some use to you now,” he said symнpathetically. “I liked your daughter a lot… If I’d only had the least idea who she was, I might have been a little on guard. But there wasn’t any reason for me to be suspicious of anyone who came near us. How come she was running around on her own like that, without any kind of protecнtion? Or does that question embarrass Inspector Buono?”

“A special escort was provided for Miss Inverest,” Buono said coldly. “But she gave them the slip. Deliberately, I am told.”

“There was a young fellow detailed by the Embassy to take her around, too,” Inverest said, “and she stood him up. Sue’s always been like that. She hates the VIP treatment. Getting away from Secret Service men and all that sort of thing is just like playing hookey from school to her. She says she just wants to get around on her own and see things like any ordinary girl. I can’t really blame her. I couldn’t be telling her all the time what special danger she might be in.”

“Do you have some idea what the special danger might be right now?” Simon asked.

“Unfortunately, I do. In fact, I know it.”

Inverest took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. That mechanical movement was the first break in his spartan selfcontrol, the first outward betrayal of the desparate anxiety that must have been eating his insides.

“Does the name Mick Unciello mean anything to you?”

“I read all the crime news,” said the Saint, with a slight smile. “He was the official executioner of the Midwestern crime syndicate. The FBI finally got the goods on him, and he was sentenced to the chair some time ago.”

“His final appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected last week.”

“The Supreme Court can collect a bouquet from me.”

“Now, do you remember the name Tony Unciello?”

“Yes. He was the vice lord in the same syndicate. The FBI didn’t do so well with him, but they were able to get him deported-I think that was in 1948.”

“Mick Unciello, of course, is the younger brother of Tony. And Tony is here in Italy.”

“It begins to figure,” said the Saint quietly.

“Nothing can save Mick Unciello’s life now except the personal intervention of the President,” Inverest said in his dry schoolmasterish voice. “That, of course, is unthinkable. But it may be quite another matter to convince Tony that my influence would not be enough to bring it about.”

“Is this something more than a fast guess on your part?”

“Oh, yes,” said the Secretary wearily. “I’ve already had a telephone call from a person claiming to be Tony Unciello, and I have no reason to doubt its authenticity. He said that unless Mick Unciello is reprieved, Sue would die too-but more slowly.”

Simon Templar drew at his cigarette, holding it with finнgers that were almost selfconsciously steady. The naturally devil-may-care lines of his strong reckless face might never have known laughter. He faced the set-up in all its naked ugliness. A memory of Sue Inverest’s gay clean-limbed conнfident youth slid across his mind, and his stomach curled again momentarily.

Then his eyes went to the sleek Inspector.

“But if it’s as open as all that,” he said, “why haven’t you picked up Tony Unciello?”

“It is not so easy,” Buono said stonily. “Unciello has dropped out of sight since several days. You understand, there was nothing against him here, so he is not watched all the time. Now, he cannot be found. We look for him, of course, but it is not a simple matter of going to his apartнment. He is hiding.”

“And you haven’t any idea where to look.” “It is not made easy for us.”

“What Inspector Buono isn’t saying,” Inverest put in, “is that the Unciellos are both members of the Mafia. Tony himself is reputed to be one of the very top men. Perhaps you don’t know what a stranglehold that terroristic secret society has on this country. Nobody knows how many memнbers there are, but at least three-quarters of the population are scared to death of them. If a man of Unciello’s class wants to disappear, there are thousands who would help to hide him, and literally millions who wouldn’t betray him if they knew where he was.”

The Saint took another long drag at his cigarette. He tilted his head back and exhaled the smoke in a trickle of seemingly inexhaustible duration, watching it with rapt lazy-lidded blue eyes.

“Just the same,” he said, “I think I know how to find him.”

3

It was as if he had hit them with a paralysis ray out of some science-fiction story. Hudson Inverest stiffened where he sat. Inspector Buono made one sharp jerky movement and then froze.

“Do you mean you know more about this man than you’ve told us?” Inverest said.

Simon nodded.

“Funny things happen when you’re knocked out,” he said. “I was hit on the head, and I went down like a wet rag. But I didn’t black out all at once. My eyes must have gone on working for several seconds, like a camera with the shutter left open, before I passed out completely. And then, when I first recovered consciousness, I’d forgotten all about what I saw. Now it’s suddenly all come back-as if the film had been developed. I know I can find Tony Unciello.”

“What did you see?” Buono demanded.

Simon looked him in the eyes.

“I can’t tell you.”

“I do not understand you, signor!”

“What I saw happens to be something that wouldn’t be any use at all to anyone else. I’m the only man in the world who could use it. So I shall keep it to myself-until I’ve found Tony. I don’t think it’ll take very long,”

“That is absurd!” Buono insisted waspily. “I insist that you tell us how you propose to do this.”

The Saint turned to Inverest.

“I will tell you, sir, in private, and let you be the judge. But I’m quite sure you’ll agree with me. You see, what I know has some really shocking political complications. If it leaked out, the international repercussions would be bigger than an atom bomb. If you knew what I know, you’d be the first to order me to keep my mouth shut.”

Inspector Buono bounced to his feet.

“It is against the law to conceal information about a crime from the police,” he said furiously. “This alters everyнthing. I shall refuse to release you!”

Inverest gazed at the Saint intently from under lowered brows.

“He has already been released,” he pointed out at length. “Furthermore, as regards anything that has transpired since then, I must inform you that Mr Templar has just been appointed a special attache to the American Embassy, and therefore claims diplomatic immunity.” He stood up. “I shall communicate with you later, Inspector, if 1 decide that Mr Templar’s information should be disclosed. Come, Mr Templar.”

He gestured with his shiny top hat towards the door, and Simon went and opened it.

The Secretary of State stalked out without a backward glance, but Simon Templar could not resist turning to give the baffled Inspector a mocking bow before he followed.

Uniformed guards outside saluted them into a waiting black limousine with CD plates and the Stars and Stripes fluttering from a little mast on the hood. It was the finest exit the Saint had ever made from any police station, and he would treasure the remembrance for the rest of his life- however long that might be.

“The driver is an Italian,” Inverest said. “Better wait until we’re alone.”

Simon nodded, and said nothing more until the door had closed behind them in the office at the Embassy which had been placed at the Secretary’s disposal.

“Well, Mr Templar,” Inverest said, dropping his hat and gloves on the desk, “you’ve placed me in a most peculiar position. Unless you have something extraordinary up your sleeve, I might well deserve to be impeached. All that talk of yours about international complications, of course, was arrant nonsense.”

“You realized that, did you?”

“I’m not completely naive.”

“After what you said about the Mafia,” Simon explained, “I couldn’t take any chances. Not even in police headquarters. It’d only take one tiny leak to blow the whole works. And that’d mean goodbye to Sue.”

“That’s understood,” Inverest said brusquely. “I took the risk of backing you up. But what is it that you know?”

Simon took out a cigarette and placed it between his lips. Then he took out his lighter and held it poised.

“Nothing.”

He lighted the cigarette.

Hudson Inverest’s features seemed to crumple from inнside, as if he had received a physical blow. He sank slowly into a chair.

“Good God, man,” he cried shakily. “What are you saying?”

“I don’t know a thing. I haven’t a clue. I was knocked cold on the spot, and that was the end of it. But,” Simon went on quickly, “nobody knows that except you and me.”

Inverest clasped his hands together as if to steady them.

“Go on.”

“If there’s a leak in the police department,” said the Saint, “so much the better. It’ll make the story that much more convincing when it gets to Tony. But we’re not going to gamble on that chance alone. I want you to call in your public relations boys and tell them to see that every newsнpaper in Rome gets the story. Let ‘em be as mysterious as they like, but sell it big. Then we’ll know for sure that Tony Unciello will hear it. His men already know that they slugged a guy who was with Sue, but they didn’t know who it was. My name’ll hit them with a big bang. I think it’ll make ‘em believe almost anything.”

“But if they do believe it,” Inverest said, “what good will it do? They’ll just shoot you down in the street.”

Simon shrugged.

“That’s quite a possibility. But I’m betting on the angle of curiosity. I don’t think a man like Unciello could bear never to know what this one thing was that I had on him. So I think he’ll want me taken alive.”

“Even so,” Inverest protested, “if they catch you and take you to him-what would you be able to do?”

“I’ll try to think of that when the time comes.” Simon stood over the older man, very lean and straight, and someнthing like the strength of a sword invested him. “But it’s the only chance we’ve got of finding your daughter. You’ve got to let me try it.”

The statesman blinked up at him, trying to dispel a ridiculous illusion that a musketeer’s feather tossed above that impossibly handsome face.

“It might still cost you your life,” he said.

“For a gal like Sue,” said the Saint lightly, “I wouldn’t call that expensive.”

4

Simon Templar came out of the front gates of the Emнbassy and stood on the sidewalk for a while, gazing idly up and down the Via Vittorio Veneto, like a man trying to make up his mind where to go. What he wanted was to be sure that anyone who might already be watching for him outside would not be left flat-footed by too sudden a deparнture.

Presently he walked a few steps to the entrance of the Hotel Excelsior, which was only next door. He paused inнside to give the lobby a leisurely survey, and at the same time to give the population of the lobby plenty of time to survey him. Then he crossed to the porter’s desk.

“Do you have any messages for me?” He added, very clearly: “The name is Templar-Simon Templar.”

“Your room number, sir?”

“Six-seventeen.”

The porter examined his pigeonholes.

“No, Mr Templar.”

“Thank you. Where is the cocktail bar?”

“On the left, sir, down the stairs.”

That ought to take care of anyone who might be waiting to pick him up at the hotel.

He went down the stairs. The room was filling up, the hour being what it was, but he found a place at the bar and ordered a Dry Sack. He was aware of other people filtering in after him-at least two couples, and a single man who sat at the far end of the bar and started reading a newspaper. But Simon paid none of them any direct attention. He watched more carefully to see the bottle taken off the shelf and his drink poured without any legerdemain. After all, he reflected, the Borgias were Italians, and any bartender would be a likely candidate for the Mafia.

The general level of conversation, he was pleased to note, was pitched discreetly low.

He said to the bartender, just loudly enough for anyone who cared to overhear: “Tell me, I hear there are two restaurants claiming to be the original Alfredo’s-the place that’s famous for fettucini. Which is the real one?”

The bartender grinned.

“Ah, yes, they make much propaganda against each other. But the real one, the old one, is in the Via della Scrofa.”

“Then I must have been taken to the imitation last night. Tonight I’ll have to try the old original.”

“You will have a good dinner.”

And that should be plenty of help to anyone who picked up the trail late, or who wanted to make plans ahead …