James Chase - Mission to Siena

“No, but I will find out,” Crantor said, moving to the door. He paused with his hand on the door knob. “What shall I do with the money?”

Lorelli shrugged her shoulders.

“It belongs to Shapiro,” she.said.

Crantor’s mutilated face lit up with a wolfish smile.

“Perhaps I’ll persuade him to leave it to me in his will,” he said and went out, closing the door behind him.

A little after twelve o’clock the following morning, Marian came into Don’s study to announce that Chief Superintendent Dicks of the Special Branch was waiting to see him.

“Dicks? What’s he want?” Don asked, signing the last letter of a number that lay before him.

“He didn’t confide in me, but he did say it was urgent.”

“I have half a mind not to see him,” Don said, pushing back his chair. “I’m fed up with the police. They had those two just where they wanted them and they calmly let them get away.” He reached for a cigarette. “Any news of Julia? Have you phoned the Clinic yet?”

“Yes, just now. She is doing as well as can be expected, but she is still very ill. I’ll go down after lunch and see if I can’t get something less vague.”

“I wish you would. I can’t get her out of my mind.”

“The Superintendent is waiting,” Marian reminded him.

“All right, I’ll see him now.”

Chief Superintendent Dicks, a red-faced, jovial-looking man, was sitting comfortably in an armchair before the fire in the lounge. He was puffing placidly at his pipe; his shrewd eyes were half-closed as Don walked in. He and Don had known each other over a number of years and were old friends.

“There you are,” Dicks said, looking up. “I bet you’re hating the entire police force this morning.”

“You’re right, I am,” Don said, sitting on the arm of a chair that faced the fire. “I have every reason to. The way your people let those two slip through their hands sticks in my gullet.”

Dicks lifted his broad shoulders.

“We’ll find them,” he said. “At the moment they are lying low, but sooner or later they’ll have to make a move into the open. They can’t get away.”

“I don’t believe it,” Don said irritably. “It wouldn’t surprise me if they weren’t already in France or Italy, laughing at you. What’s the good of watching the ports and airports? You don’t imagine they will go that way, do you? They’ve probably gone by fast motor-boat. It’s easy enough and you know it.”

“Fortunately for me,” Dicks said, “catching them isn’t my pigeon.”

Don wasn’t in a patient mood. He stared hard at Dicks. “Well, I can’t imagine you’re here to chit-chat about the weather, Super,” he said. “I suppose something is your pigeon. What is it you wanted to see me about? I’m a little pressed for time.”

Dicks lifted his heavy eyebrows.

“Sounds as if you’re a little testy this morning, Mr Micklem,” he said. “Can’t say I blame you. This has been a foul-up.

We should have had them by now. The Commissioner is raising all kinds of hell. Yes, I have a reason for seeing you. I thought you would like some information about the Tortoise.”

Don looked at him, his angry expression fading. “What do you know about the Tortoise? What’s he to do with your department?”

“I don’t know much about him, and I’m afraid he is going to have a lot to do with my department,” Dicks returned, settling himself more comfortably in his chair.

Don got up and as a gesture of peace went to the liquor cabinet, fixed two big whiskies and water and gave Dicks oxig of them. Dicks took it dubiously, sniffed at it and sighed with approval. “It’s a bit early for me, but perhaps it won’t do any harm. Thanks, Mr Micklem.”

“Tell me about the Tortoise,” Don said, sitting down. “I’d give a lot to get my hands on him.”

“So would we, so would the French, Italian and American police. I know our people didn’t come out of this business too well,” Dicks said, “but you have to shoulder some of the blame. You see, Horrocks had never heard of the Tortoise while I had. If you had told me we might have had a very different story to tell.”

“I did try to tell you,” Don said shortly. “You happened to be out. I know it was careless of me not to try again, but I just couldn’t take it seriously.”

“I’m not saying we could have saved Mr Ferenci if we had known what was happening, but at least we would have had a good try. You aren’t the only one who has looked on the Tortoise as a joke. The Paris police thought he was a harmless lunatic and Renaldo Busoni lost his life.”

“Busoni? Wasn’t he the Italian attache?” “That’s right. He was fished out of the Seine after receiving threatening letters from the Tortoise. I got the report with a hint that Italian officials over here might be threatened in the same way.”

“Who is the Tortoise?” Don demanded.

“He is a very dangerous and ruthless extortioner: a man who will stop at nothing.”

“So Ferenci isn’t his first victim?”

“Oh no; there have been nine others over a period of fourteen months,” Dicks said. “Two of them were murdered in the States, three in France and four in Italy. Mr Ferenci is the first to be murdered in this country. The trouble is we have no idea who paid the Tortoise’s demands. We feel pretty sure there must be a great number of men and women in Europe and in the States who are paying up and saying nothing. If you had told me Ferenci had been threatened by the Tortoise I would have advised him to pay up.”

“You’re not serious, are you? That’s odd advice from a police officer.”

“It happens to be good advice,” Dicks said quietly. “His wife wouldn’t be in the London Clinic now if he had paid up and he would be alive.”

“But that’s not the point. You are admitting the police would have been helpless to protect him.”

“That’s what I am admitting. Let’s face it. We haven’t enough policemen to shadow any but the V.I.P.s day in and day out. The Tortoise is patient. Sooner or later he gets his man. Mr Ferenci wouldn’t have rated a day and night bodyguard.

We would have to do something about the Italian ambassador’s staff if one of them was threatened, but Mr Ferenci was an ordinary individual. We couldn’t have looked after him for weeks on end. You’ve seen how the Tortoise works. You, Mason and Dixon were guarding Ferenci. That didn’t save him, did it?” Dicks tapped out his pipe, blew noisily down it and began to fill it again. “The Tortoise knows that if he fails to make good his threat a crack will start in the racket he has built up. Pay up or die is his slogan. People are paying up because they believe they haven’t a chance to survive if they don’t.”

“But Ferenci didn’t know that,” Don said sharply. “The Tortoise meant nothing to him.”

“That’s true. The Tortoise is starting his racket over here. No one knew about him before Ferenci died, but they know about him now. After the way the newspapers handled the murder, no one can fail to know about him. The next rich man who gets a threatening note from the Tortoise will know it isn’t a joke. I think Ferenci was deliberately killed to advertise the arrival in this countiy of the Tortoise.”

“It’s up to your people to catch him,” Don said grimly. “That’s what you are here for.”

“It’s not going to be easy. We have no lead on him. If we do catch up with the killer, he isn’t the Tortoise. If we catch this redheaded woman, she isn’t the Tortoise either. The French police did manage to catch one of the Tortoise’s dagger-men and persuaded him to talk, but he didn’t tell them anything of any use. He said he was hired by a man who made an appointment with him on a dark road. This man — he may or may not have been the Tortoise — arrived by car and stayed in the car. The dagger-man didn’t see his face. He took his orders and did the job. So you see the Tortoise is quite a headache. The American, French and Italian police have been wrestling with the problem for the past fourteen months. Now it’s our turn.”