Аврам Дэвидсон - Ellery Queen’s Double Dozen

Then the trust was betrayed. Over the years one had learned to live with Il Duce, but when the Germans came to Rome, the Resistance of a generation ago reawoke. Sabotage, spying, a hidden press turning out leaflets which told the truth about Il Duce and his ally. Many said it was useless, but Vito Levi, the butcher, and a few others continued their secret efforts, knowing they had nothing to lose. Jews were being deported now, were being shipped to the Nazi slaughter pens in carloads. What else to do then but join some of their Gentile neighbors in the Resistance?

“Ask him,” said Noah to Carlo, “if Ezechiele Coen was one of the Resistance,” and when Carlo translated this, the butcher shook his head.

Only once was the doctor called on to help. Three leaders of the Resistance had managed to get into Rome from the mountains — to help organize the movement here, to give it leadership. They were hidden in a cellar in Trastevere, across the river, one of them badly wounded. The doctor’s son, only a boy then, no more than fifteen years of age, was a courier for the partisans. He had brought his father to attend the wounded man, and then, soon after, the three men together were captured in their hiding place by the Germans. They had been betrayed by the honest, the noble, the righteous Ezechiele Coen.

“Ask him how he knows this?” Noah demanded of Carlo. “Was there a confession?”

There was no need for one, as it happened. There was no need for any more evidence than the money case of Major von Grubbner.

Noah silently cursed the tedious process of translation. Carlo Piperno was the kind of interpreter who richly enjoys and intends to get the maximum effect from his role. It took him a long time to make clear who and what Major von Grubbner was.

The major was one of the men assigned to the Panzer division quartered along the Tiber. But unlike the German officers around him, Major von Grubbner was cunning as a fox, smooth in his manner, ingratiating in his approach. Others came with a gun in their hands. He came with an attaché case, a black leather case with a handsome gold ornament on it, a doubleheaded eagle which was a reminder of the great name of his family. And in the case was money. Bundles of money. Packages of lire, fresh and crisp, a fortune by any estimate.

Give the devil his due. This von Grubbner was a brave man as well as a cunning one. He walked alone, contemptuous of those who needed guards to attend them, the money case in his hand, a smile on his lips, and he invited confidences.

“After all,” he would say, “we are businessmen, you and I. We are practical people who dislike trouble. Remove the troublemakers and all is peaceful, no? Well, here I am to do business. Look at this money. Beautiful, isn’t it? And all you have to do is name your own price, expose the troublemakers, and we are all happy. Name your own price, that’s all you have to do.”

And he would open the case under your nose, showing you the money, fondling it, offering it to you. It was more than money. It was life itself. It could buy the few scraps of food remaining to be bought, it could buy you a refuge for your wife and children, it could buy you safety for another day. Life itself. Everyone wants life, and there it was in that little black leather case with the doubleheaded eagle in gold marking it.

Only one man was tempted. The day after the three partisans were taken, Ezechiele Coen was seen fleeing with that case through the alleys, running like a rabbit before the hounds of vengeance he knew would soon be on him. Only Ezechiele Coen the devout, the honorable, the arrogant, fell, and died soon for his treachery.

Vito Levi’s words needed translation, but not the emotion behind them. And the crowd around Noah, now staring at him in silence, did not need its feelings explained. Yet, the story seemed incomplete to him, to Detective Noah Freeman, who had learned at his job not to live by generalities. The evidence, that was what had meaning.

“Ask them,” he said to Carlo, “who saw Ezechiele Coen with that case in his possession,” and when Carlo translated this, Levi drove a thumb hard into his own chest. Then he looked around the crowd and pointed, and a man on its outskirts raised his hand, a woman nearby raised hers, someone else raised a hand.

Three witnesses, four, five. Enough, Noah thought, to hang any man. With difficulty, prompting Carlo question by question, he drew their story from them. They lived in houses along Via del Portico. It was hot that night, a suffocating heat that made sleep impossible. One and all, they were at their windows. One and all, they saw the doctor running down the street toward the Teatro Marcello, the leather case under his arm. His medical bag? No, no. Not with the golden eagle on it. It was the doctor with his blood money. This they swore on the lives of their children.

During siesta time that afternoon, Noah, with the connivance of Signora Alfiara, drew Rosanna out of doors for a walk to a café in the Piazza Navona. Over glasses of Campari he told her the results of his investigation.

“Witnesses,” she said scathingly. “Have you found that witnesses always tell the truth?”

“These people do. But sometimes there can be a difference between what you imagine is the truth and the truth itself.”

“And how do you discover that difference?”

“By asking more questions. For example, did your father live in the ghetto?”

“During the war, yes.”

“And according to my street map the Teatro Marcello is outside it. Why would he be running there with the money instead of keeping it safe at home? Even more curious, why would he carry the money in that case, instead of transferring it to something that couldn’t be identified? And why would he be given that case, a personal possession, along with the money? You can see how many unanswered questions come up, if you look at all this without prejudice.”

“Then you think—”

“I don’t think anything yet. First, I want to try to get answers to those questions. I want to establish a rational pattern for what seems to be a whole irrational set of events. And there is one person who can help me do this.”

“Who?”

“Major von Grubbner himself.”

“But how would you ever find him? It was so long ago. He may be dead.”

“Or he may not be. If he is not, there are ways of finding him.”

“But it would mean so much trouble. So much time and effort.”

The way she was looking at him then, Noah thought, was more than sufficient payment for the time and effort. And the way she flushed when he returned her look told him that she knew his thought.

“I’m used to this kind of effort,” he said. “Anyhow, it may be the last chance I’ll have to practice my profession.”

“Then you’re not going back to your work with the police? But you’re a very good detective. You are, aren’t you?”

“Oh, very good. And,” he said, “honest, too, despite the popular opinion.”

“Don’t say it like that,” she flashed out angrily. “You are honest. I know you are.”

“Do you? Well, that makes two of us at least. Anyhow, the vital thing is for me to locate von Grubbner if he’s still somewhere to be found. After that, we’ll see. By the way, do you know the date when all this happened? When your father was seen with that case?”

“Yes. It was the fifth of July in 1943. I couldn’t very well forget that date, Mr. Freeman.”

“Noah.”

“Of course,” said Rosanna. “Noah.”

After returning her to her desk at the pensione, Noah went directly to police headquarters. There he found his credentials an open sesame. In the end he was closeted with Commissioner Ponziani, a handsome urbane man, who listened to the story of Ezechiele Coen with fascination. At its conclusion he raised quizzical eyebrows at Noah.