Leslie Charteris - Vendetta for the Saint

“I wouldn’t know how to give you the address, but I could take you there.” Simon refilled their glasses. “But you surprise me — you seem to know a lot more about this organization than you did the last time we talked.”

“I should claim to have done some extraordinary secret research, but I am too modest. I owe it all to the sample of one of their products that was left in your car, the one that was designed to make the loud noise. You remember, there was a certain kind of signature on the plastic. I photographed it myself, and checked it against the identification files while the clerk was at lunch. The Fates smiled, for a change, and I discovered that the marks were made by a local dealer named Niccolo who has been accused of handling similar goods before, but of course was absolved for lack of evidence. I brought him in to the office myself and managed to question him privately.”

“But I thought those people would never tell anything. The omerta, and all that. You yourself told me they would die before they talked.”

“That is the rule. But it has been broken, usually by women. In 1955, one Francesca Serio denounced four of these salesmen for putting her son out of business — permanently. They were sent to prison for life. In 1962 another, Rose Riccobono, who lost her husband and three sons to a vendetta with the same Company, gave us a list of more than 29 who were charged with controlling the business in her village. These women defied the penalty because of love, or grief. With Niccolo, I used another argument. An inspiration.”

“Worse than death?”

“For him. And more permanent that torture.”

“Do tell.”

“I put a white coat on the old man who sweeps the building — a very distinguished old fellow, but weak in the head — and laid out a row of butcher knives, and one of the masks that are kept for tear gas. I told Niccolo that we were going to anesthetize him, very humanely, but unless he talked” — Ponti leaned forward and dropped his voice even lower, almost to a sepulchral depth — “he would wake up and find he had been castrated.”

Simon regarded him with unstinted admiration.

“I felt there was a spark of genius in you, from our first meeting,” he said sincerely. “So Niccolo talked.”

“It is apparently common gossip throughout the organization that Don Pasquale’s health will soon force him to retire. And when the chairman is on his way out, the other Directors gather to compete for the succession. In such a crisis, an organization becomes a little disorganized, and the opposition has a chance to compete against weakness. All I needed was to know the meeting place. If you know it, we can proceed. Shall we go?”

The detective’s quietly controlled voice was a contrast to the creased urgency of his earnest old-young face. The Saint started to raise a quizzical eyebrow, and left it only half lifted.

“Whatever you say, Marco,” he acquiesced, and looked around for a waiter and a bill.

In a few minutes they were outside, where the gleaming masterpiece of Ettore waited at the curb; but as Simon instinctively aimed himself towards the driver’s seat, Ponti contrived to interpose himself quite inoffensively.

“You will allow me? It will be easier, since I know the way.”

“To where?”

“What I learned from Niccolo was interesting enough for me to send a prepared message to Rome, which has resulted in a picked company of bersaglieri being flown into Sicily. I wanted to have some reliable help on hand whenever I completed the information I needed to use them. You are about to do that.”

“Then I’m the one who knows the way.”

“Not to where the troops are.”

Simon nodded and went around the front of the car to crank it. It started as it had before, at the first turn of the handle, with an instancy which made electric starters seem like effete fripperies; and the Saint got in to the passenger seat.

“Do you intend to leave the police out of this altogether?” he asked, as they thundered away.

“I am the police,” Ponti said. “But I do not know which others I can trust. If I tried to work through them there would be delays, confusions, and slow mobilization. By the time we got to this castello it would be empty. I knew this before I ever came to Sicily, and arrangements were made in Rome to have these soldiers prepared for an ’emergency maneuver’ whenever I might need them.”

“And you know that they are reliable?”

“Completely. Only their commander knows their mission here, but his men are absolutely loyal to him and would follow him into hell on skis if he ordered it. As far as we can tell they have not been penetrated by the Mafia, so they should look forward to the fun of roughing up these canaglie. Now tell me everything you have been doing.”

Ponti himself was no slow-poke at the wheel, it turned out, and he spurred the giant Bugatti along at a gait which would have had many passengers straining on imaginary brakes and muttering silent prayers; but the Saint was fatalistic or iron-nerved enough to tell his story without faltering or losing the thread of it. The only things that he left out were certain personal details which he did not think should concern Ponti or affect his official actions.

“So,” he concluded, “they should still think they have me cordoned in at Cefalù, and even when they hear from Lily they should believe I’m making for Catania. Anyhow they ought not to have felt that they have to vacate their headquarters in a hurry. They think I’m on the run and busy trying to save my own skin. And Al would never expect me to be talking to you like this.”

“I have tried not to allow that impression,” Ponti said, “by putting out an order that I want you for personal questioning about a political conspiracy. I did that partly to try to find some trace of you, of course, and to make sure that if you were picked up you would not be beaten up by some stupid cop who would take you for a common criminal. I have found that when any political implications are mentioned, the police are inclined to proceed with caution.”

“When I think of some of my celebrated rude remarks about policemen,” said the Saint, “your thoughtfulness brings a lump to my throat. And no one would dream you had an ulterior motive.”

“I have only one motive — to show these fannulloni that they are not bigger than the law. And here we have the means to do it.”

The treacherous mountain road over which they had last been bouncing ended at a gap in a wire fence guarded by a sentry with rifle and bayonet. As he barred the way, a young officer appeared out of the darkness and saluted when Ponti gave his name.

“Il maggiore L’aspetta,” he said. “Leave your car over here.”

There was no illumination other than the lamp over the gate and their own headlights, and when the latter were switched off they stumbled through rutted dirt until a vague hut shape loomed up before them. A door opened and a white wedge of light poured out; then they were inside the bare wooden building.

“Ponti,” said an older officer in an unbuttoned field tunic, grasping the detective’s hand, “it is good to know we shall have some action. Everything is ready. When shall we move?”

“At once. This is Signor Templar, who knows the location of our objective. Major Olivetti.”

The commandant turned to Simon and acknowledged the introduction with a crunching grip. The top of his bald head hardly came to the Saint’s chin; but there was nothing small about him. He had a chest like a barrel and arms like tree-trunks. The right side of his face was a webwork of scars that stood out clearly on his swarthy skin, and a black patch covered that eye, which would have given him a highly sinister appearance but for the merry twinkle in the other.