Mysterious Aviator (29 page)

“He says his boss is coming over from San Remo for this show,” he said. “They reckon to start at about five o’clock in the morning and get to the place at dawn.”

I moved uneasily at the table. “I don’t see that. Why can’t they start before?”

Stenning turned to Fazzini with the question. The Italian hesitated, lowered his voice, and the talk became confidential. Finally Stenning burst out laughing and clapped the Italian on the shoulder; the other smiled his slow, shy smile. Stenning turned to me.

“This is what it is,” he said. “The fellow who’s coming from San Remo—Fazzini’s boss—he isn’t in on this smuggling. I reckon he’s outside the radius of the people they bribe. He never touches a bean of what these lads get, and he doesn’t know about it. Old Fats here has a party out on the border to-night, and they’ll be making for the Casa with their stuff. He wants to give them time to get clear away before the Field-Marshal arrives from San Remo. That’s why he’s fixed his raid for five o’clock.”

It was then about eleven. “I suppose it’s all right,” I said. “What if they start skipping in the meantime?”

Stenning nodded. “I thought of that—and so did Fats. He’s put a guard on the road to Ventimiglia, and he’ll hold up any car from the Casa. I don’t see how Lenden can get away from there except by road, and that’s the only road.”

He paused. “I think it’s all right,” he said, and I agreed.

We got most of my clothes on to me again, and lashed the arm up stiffly with a sling. Then we all went across the square in the bright moonlight to the Ristorante delle Monte and had a meal with Ribotto. I managed to eat a little and to drink quite a lot; so that by the time that meal was over it was midnight and I was more or less myself again. That was the brandy, of course. I had a bad time of it when that wore off, but for the next twelve hours I was very little troubled by my injuries.

There was no talk of going to bed. We made Sheila comfortable before the stove in an English wicker chair, and covered her over with a rug. I think she slept a good deal. Stenning and I sat upon rather a hard sofa before the stove, smoking and drinking, and talking together drowsily. It was then that he
told me something of the experiences of his varied life. Nothing that he told me lessened the respect that I had formed for him, from the account of his month’s imprisonment for being “drunk in charge” to the almost incredible story which culminated in his marriage.

Ribotto was up and about at three in the morning, and we had a sort of breakfast. He went out into the back premises and fried up a dish of veal and sausages, helping it out with spaghetti. I roused Sheila, and when we had had a little walk around the square to get an appetite we settled down to it.

That meal was never finished. There was a commotion in the square, and Fazzini appeared in the doorway. He spoke rapidly to Stenning for a minute or two, and disappeared. Stenning turned to me.

“The road patrol have stopped a car,” he said. “From the Casa Alba. There was an Englishman in it, with the chauffeur. They’ve got him in the Town Hall over there.”

I had no doubt who it must be. It seemed that a great weight had been lifted from my mind, that our anxiety was over. Whether Lenden had the plates with him or not was a matter of no consequence to us now. The important thing was that he was safe.

I wondered how he would take the news that I had already exposed the plates. I was a bit nervous about telling him that, I remember.

“What’s the matter?” asked Sheila. “Who is it?”

I got up from the table, nursing my arm. “Maurice Lenden,” I said. “They’ve got him in the Town Hall over there.”

“Oh …” she said.

Stenning grinned slowly. “Seems to me we’d better see if we can’t call off that raid,” he remarked. “It seems a pity to spoil their business, doesn’t it?”

“Well,” said I, “let’s get across the way and have a look at the Duke,” and we tumbled out of that Ristorante and crossed the square to the Town Hall again. There was a light in the same little room and we went crowding in at the doorway, Stenning first. There were many people in the room now, mostly
in black shirts. And the prisoner.

There was a little pause in the talk as we entered and stood motionless in the doorway. It was as if all movements were suspended by our disappointment.

“Damned if I know what we’ve got here,” said Stenning, a little heavily. “I thought it might be Maurice, myself.”

He moved forward, and we followed him into the room. “I know who this is,” I said. “He’s got relations in my part of the world. He’s a Trades Union official.”

From the middle of the crowd of black-shirted Italians the little man peered forward at the sound of my voice. “It’s not Mr. Moran, from the Hall?”

I sat down on the edge of the table, and they cleared away so that I was facing him. “That’s right,” I said. “How’s the Russian trip going, Nitter?”

He glowered at me, and was silent. In the background Stenning was translating to Fazzini in a low tone.

“Well,” I said evenly. “Let’s try again. Where have you come from now?”

“Ye know the answer to that,” he said sullenly. “From the big house up the valley.”

“And may I ask what you were doing there?”

Silence.

“Is that on the way to Russia?”

Silence again.

“Well,” I said quietly, “suppose we have another shot. Was it you that murdered Sanders, my butler at the Hall?”

That shook him. I saw his lip quiver and he went very white, but he pulled himself together. “I know,” he muttered, half to himself, I think. “It had to come. Ye don’t say he died, Mr. Moran?”

“Was it you?”

He faced me steadfastly. “Ah’ll come back with you to England and stand trial for that, Mr. Moran. I was there. But it wasn’t me that fired, and if Ah’d known that Manek had a pistol, Ah’d not have gone with him.”

I made a mental note of the name. “You’ll certainly stand
trial for that,” I said grimly. “Now, tell me about this house up the valley. Why did you go there, and where are you going to now?”

The tubby little man stared me down.

“What’s that to you?”

“Quite a lot,” I said. “And you’re going to tell us about that house pretty damn quick.”

I must say, I had something of a respect for the little man. “Find out for yourself,” he said coolly. “I don’t see why I should tell you anything.”

Stenning shoved his way forward. He had picked up a drover’s whip that was lying on a dusty shelf in the corner. “By Christ, I’ll tell you why!” he cried. “Because, unless you tell us everything you know about that place, I’m going to run you out into the square and whip you till your guts fall out.”

I am half inclined to think that he would have done it. The little man looked up into his face and laughed. “Is that the best reason ye’ve got?”

“No,” said Sheila unexpectedly. The Italians made way for her, and she came forward to the little man. “We want to find out where Maurice Lenden is, Mr. Nitter. That’s all we want—really. Is he in the house?”

He stared at her. “He’ll be the other Englishman, the one what they don’t trust? Tall chap, with dark hair?”

Sheila nodded.

The little man considered for a minute. “Ah’ll tell ye about him,” he said at last. “Ye’ll do well to get him out of that, if he’s a friend of yours.” He turned to Sheila with a smile. “If ye’d be so good as to call off your friend with the dog whip?”

He told us that he had travelled out via Paris with Manek, reaching Ventimiglia at about seven o’clock. Manek, he said, had the plates with him. They had taken a car at the station and driven straight out to the Casa Alba; they cannot have missed me on the road by longer than half an hour.

They reached the Casa in time for dinner. He refused to tell us any names or to give any descriptions, but he said that there were seven people there besides himself and Manek, and
amongst them he saw Lenden. He didn’t have a chance to speak to him. He said that he had a feeling that Lenden was on trial in some way, or under suspicion. They never left him alone for a moment; there was always someone at his elbow. So far as he knew, at this time Manek was still in possession of the plates. After the meal Lenden was taken away by two of the others. Jews, they looked. He was sorry not to have had a chance to speak to him, because he knew that Lenden was a countryman and he had heard that he had done good work for the Soviet in England. He thought that they would have had a lot in common, and might have had a pleasant chat.

After dinner, he was taken into another room and given a passport and one or two other identity papers for his journey into Russia. At about half-past nine they ushered him politely to his bedroom.

He said he wasn’t very sleepy. And so he sat in his bedroom and tried to read some seditious literature, printed in French, that he found there, but he wasn’t much good at French and didn’t get very far with it. At last, for very boredom, he fell asleep.

He was roused by Manek at about two in the morning, who told him to get his things on and come downstairs. They were abandoning ship in the rooms below. News had reached them—Lord knows how—that the house was to be raided at dawn, and they were packing up. There were more people about than he had seen before—country people, he said they looked like, and that was very puzzling to him. He knew nothing of the smuggling side of it, I think. Manek told him the position, gave him his final instructions for the next stage of his journey into Russia, and told him that a car was ready to take him to San Remo, where he would be met.

He spoke to Lenden before he went. Lenden was standing in the hall, unmoved among the flurry, watching the work of departure. Nitter had gone up to him to greet him and to say good-bye. He was sorry that they hadn’t had the chance of a talk.

“You going into Russia?” Lenden had inquired.

Nitter had replied that it would be a great experience, and one which he had looked forward to for many years. Lenden had smiled at him queerly.

“You want to live there some time, like I did,” he said. “Jolly country, when you get to know it really well. You may like it.”

That was all, but something in the way he spoke upset Nitter rather, and made him a little uneasy. He wasn’t quite sure that Lenden meant what he said. Then the car was ready for him, and he had driven off straight into the arms of Fazzini’s patrol three miles down the road, who had turned the car round and brought him back up the hill to Lanaldo.

That was all he had to tell us, and I think it was true.

“Gosh,” said Stenning. “The sooner we get after them the better.”

He swung round upon Fazzini, but the Italian needed no gingering. Already he was barking out little short sentences that were orders, and men were slipping out of the room to his obedience. His Field-Marshal might follow in our tracks when he arrived; so far as Fazzini was concerned that house was going to be raided within the hour.

His force of Fascisti paraded in the square. It took some time to get them out to parade, in spite of all his efforts—they must all have been in bed—but I liked the look of them when they came. They were a fine, straight body of young men, dressed in field-green breeches and black shirts and each armed with a sort of truncheon. There were about thirty of them with three officers; the officers seemed to be distinguished mainly by the addition of an automatic pistol in a holster at the belt.

The place was about three kilometres distant from the town. Fazzini gave us the first couple of men to turn up on parade as guides, explaining that he intended to double the main body most of the way to the house as soon as he got them out on to parade. Stenning, Sheila, and I set off with our guides at a walking pace; we had arranged with Fazzini that we would halt and wait for the main body a few hundred yards short of the house. I wasn’t up to doubling that night.

It was a warm, starry night, and getting on towards dawn.
Our way led out through the cavernous passages of that town and down the hill-side by a paved mule track through the olives. We went almost entirely in silence—God only knows what each of us was thinking. Stenning had no particular object except a vague friendship for Lenden, and a great feeling that he must see the end of this show. Sheila, I think, had very little concern but for me; I only knew that she kept very close to me all the way, and whenever there was a bit of scrambling to be done she was there to help me. I had been a bachelor for so many years that I didn’t quite know what to do about that, and for the most part I did my scrambling unaided.

And for myself—if I was thinking of anything at all I was thinking of Mollie Lenden in that shop at Winchester, and how I should face her if this thing went wrong.

Half-way to the Casa there was a clatter of feet on the mule track behind us. We drew in to the side, and Fazzini’s platoon came swinging down the path past us at the double, Fazzini at the head. He dropped out as he passed and had a word or two with us. Some of the smugglers, for whose return he had put off the time of the raid, had come into the town before he left. They had told him that everybody was leaving the Casa Alba. One party of Russians had already started across the frontier by the hill paths, guided by a couple of men from the town.

He swung off down the road after his vanishing platoon, and we followed at the best speed we could.

We came out at last on the main road running up the valley, and followed it in the thick dust for half a mile or so to the north. Then, as we came round the spur of a little hill, one of the guides said something to us, and pointed.

The house was a few hundred yards away, standing a little above the road on the slope of a hill. In that dim light it seemed to be a long, low, white plastered place, with a long piazza before the doors and windows of the front. The rooms were uncurtained and brilliantly lit up, great shafts of light running out into the gardens between the stone pillars of the piazza.

We pressed on. Already there must have been a little light
in the sky, I think, for I can remember that that house was standing in a most beautiful garden. A garden full of yellow mimosa and paved walks, and a little stream that ran through it in cascades down the hill. I wondered who the woman was who had cared for it.