He made no effort to wave back. I saw him glance quickly up and down the platform and then edge his way through the crowd towards the window through which I was leaning. A second or two later he was standing below me. I was about to ask him who he had been waiting to meet when he looked up. Something in his face alarmed me.
“What’s the matter?”
“Get back into your compartment and stay there.”
There was extraordinary urgency in his voice. His eyes had dropped. He was looking down the platform.
“What the…?”
“Do as I tell you.”
“But this train goes on to Venice.”
“That doesn’t matter a damn. Get back inside and keep out of sight. Open your suitcase and be looking inside it. I’m coming aboard in a minute. I’ll join you when we’ve left the station.”
He had not raised his voice, but his tone was so vehement that I obeyed him. Utterly bewildered, I returned to the compartment and opened my suitcase. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him, a moment or two later, plant his back against the glass door of the compartment. He remained there motionless until the train began to move. Then he took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. He did not turn round until the train had left the station. Then he slid the door open, stepped inside the compartment, shut the door behind him and pulled the blinds down.
Then he turned to me. He grinned.
“I’ve met every train from Rome to-day,” he said. “I think they were beginning to take an interest in me.”
“What on earth is this all about?” I demanded.
“Sit down and I’ll tell you.”
“What’s happened?”
He took out his cigarettes and sat down facing me.
“The fat’s in the fire,” he announced calmly.
“What does that mean?” I was worried and beginning to get irritated.
“Yesterday afternoon, Vagas skipped it by air to Belgrade. He could only have got away by the skin of his teeth because your friend Commendatore Bernabo was arrested at seven o’clock. They were waiting for him when he got home. And there’s a warrant out for your arrest. About eight o’clock last night they raided your offices. It was the Ovra all right, not the regular police. They went through the place with a fine comb. They’ve been at it all day to-day. Bellinetti’s been enjoying himself no end, I guess. The only trouble was that they didn’t know where you were. But they’re watching all three stations. You wouldn’t have got out of the Centrale without being arrested.”
“But what’s it all about?”
“The actual charge is one of bribing Government officials. That means Bernabo, of course. But the real trouble is that they’ve found out about your reports to Vagas.”
I swallowed hard. I felt suddenly very, very frightened. “But who
…?” I began.
He laughed shortly and not pleasantly.
“That’s easy. The one person we didn’t reckon on taking a hand-your girl friend, Madame Vagas.”
13
The train gathered speed. Zaleshoff went on talking. I listened to him in stunned silence.
“This is the way I see it,” he said: “Madame Vagas had it in for her ever-loving husband. That note she slipped you the night you went to the Opera proves that. You remember what she said? ‘He killed Ferning.’ It was obvious that she knew a lot. I’ve an idea she knew more than Vagas knew. And there’s only one way she could have found out about Ferning’s being bumped off. My guess is that the Ovra, knowing that she fancied Vagas about as much as a dose of poison, got at her and persuaded her to keep tabs on him. She agreed, with reservations. She didn’t tell them, then, that he was actually a German agent. She must be a bit crazy. You could see the way her mind worked in that note. She knew that Vagas hadn’t actually killed Ferning with his own hands. But she saw that he was, in a sort of way, morally responsible. Her hatred twisted that moral responsibility into a direct one. She must,” he added reflectively, “have hated him plenty.”
In my mind’s eye I saw the baroque hangings of that house in the Corso di Porta Nuova, the obscene wall paintings, Ricciardo, pale and dainty in his blood-red satin knee breeches, gliding across the hall. There had been a smell of incense in the air. I remembered that sudden deadly passage of hatred between the husband and the wife. “Any talk of death depresses her.” For a moment I thought that I understood Madame Vagas, saw through and round her mind, and found her horribly sane; then the moment passed. I looked up at Zaleshoff.
“Vagas got away, you said?”
“Yes, he got away. I don’t even know if they’ve issued a warrant for him. Maybe not. What happened probably was that his wife, having spilled all the beans to the Ovra, couldn’t resist telling him that she had done so. When he knew that they knew he was a German agent, he knew that it was time he went. His pensioners have saved his bacon before, but he couldn’t rely on their being able to repeat the process. You can’t buy your way through all the time. Sooner or later you come up against folks who haven’t had their cut. Then you’re done. Vagas took it on the lam like any other sensible guy in his position would have done. He was darn lucky to have the chance, and he knew it.”
“What did you mean by saying that they’d found out about my reports? Madame Vagas may have known nothing about them.”
“Ah, I was coming to that. Tamara and I were in our office last night when they raided your place. Bellinetti was with them, sort of official guide, but your lad had gone home. I knew you were away, as I’d called you up at the Parigi about some dinner the evening before, and they’d told me. Well, I, as a respectable citizen wondering what the devil all the fuss was about, marched up and threatened them with the law. They were a dirty lot of thugs. They shot me out straightaway, of course; but I discovered two things. One was that Bellinetti didn’t know where you were, which was odd. The other thing was that they had found out about the poste restante business. As I barged in I heard one of them telling the others to look for any correspondence from a man named Venezetti. That clinched it. Nobody but Vagas’ wife could have known about that.”
I remembered something. “Vagas told her that he was meeting me that night on the autostrada. She sent her kind regards.”
“Oh, did she! Well, now you’ve got them. Vagas must have been crazy to trust her. But his own self-esteem would place her above suspicion.”
“Why should she start off by warning me and then do this?”
“She probably thought that having ignored her warning you had only yourself to blame. And then Vagas must have done something that sent her completely nuts.”
“You may be right. But what I can’t understand is why Bellinetti didn’t know where I was. I told Umberto. Incidentally, how did you know I’d gone to Rome. I tried to telephone you before I went, but there was no reply.”
He grinned. “Ah, that’s the rest of the story. I told you that they began again on your office this morning. Well, Tamara and I were downstairs pretty early. We hadn’t a ghost of a notion what had happened to you. I don’t mind telling you we were damnably worried. You might have gone straight back to the Parigi and been arrested. I went along to try and find out, but the place was alive with Ovra agents, and if I’d started asking after you there might have been some trouble. We decided that the best thing was to stay at the end of the telephone in case you’d found out what had happened and called us up. Then, towards ten o’clock there was a scratch at the door, and your lad-Umberto, is it? — slipped in with his knees knocking together and frightened out of his wits, wanting to know if I was a friend of yours. I told him yes. He said that he’d been questioned upstairs, and then told to go home until he was sent for again. He’d come to me because he was worried about you. He seems to like you, that kid. They’d asked him where you were, and they hadn’t asked any too gently, because he had a cut lip and a hand-mark on his cheek that looked pretty nasty. But he hadn’t told them. He’d said he didn’t know. It appears that he knew who and what they were, and was afraid for you.”