The Splintered Sunglasses Affair - Leslie Peter - Страница 23

Twenty four hours later, they had begun to recognize many of the "regulars" from the office buildings around.

They knew that the post office doorman became angry if customers stayed too long after the door was supposed to be closed at noon and he missed his usual corner seat at the bar during the lunch hour. They recognized most of the typists and clerks who took an aperitif and a sandwich at the cafe. They had noted the number of the Savona-registered Maserati in which a dark, smooth young man called for the girl who ran the tie boutique every lunchtime and evening. And they had been told by the concierge that—despite their airs and graces—the flower ladies below were doing so badly that they brought their own lunch in a paper bag and ate it behind the closed shutters as they took turns to cross the road and bring back from the cafe the smallest possible amount of hot chocolate in a jug. They could tell, also, which taxi it was that was calling to take home the blind man, and which one had been ordered to help with the shopping by the wife of the man who ran the kiosk.

What they did not know was anything more about the killing of Leonardo.

On the third day. Solo sighed and took the binoculars away from his eyes at eleven thirty. "We could get them to send our retirement pensions here," he said. "This is getting us nowhere, Illya. Let's vary the thing a bit, eh?"

"Alter the routine, you mean?"

"Exactly. Let's check up the characters we see, when we see them, with the statements they gave the police after the murder. We'll see if they fit the ambience of their statements! You keep a look-out and tell me who you see; I'll look up what they said—and we can both decide if it sounds right!"

"The porter has come out on to the steps to look at the sky," Illya reported a few minutes later. "He shakes his head. He thinks it will rain. So do I."

Solo flipped over pages. "Let's see... porter... Here we are!" he said. "I quote. 'Hearing a disturbance on the steps, I went out and saw a small crowd of people at the bottom of the flight. Some were on the steps and some still on the sidewalk. They were gathered round a tall man who had been coming into the post office and had fallen back down the stairs so that his head was now on the pavement. He was cleanshaven and his eyes were open. I could see that he was dead. There was plaster on the steps and blood underneath the man."

"That seems to stack up very well with the man I can see," Kuryakin said. "Old soldier trained to observe. Crisp, factual comments. Eye for detail."

"Yes. I guess the plaster was the result of the third bullet; the one that missed him... what is it?"

"Another customer. The wider of the flower shop ladies is going to get her chocolate."

Solo consulted his list again. "The wider one. That'd be Signora Rastoldi... 'I heard my cousin cry out. I looked up. A tall man in dark glasses was lurching about on the post office steps across the road. He sat down suddenly and fell back into the road. Then people rushed up and I couldn't see any more'."

Twenty minutes later, Kuryakin said: "Glamour girl's boyfriend has arrived in the Maserati. She's locking up the shop and getting into the car."

"On the day Leonardo was killed," Solo said, "she went to the post office first to register some letters before lunch. Estrellita Palomari... 'I heard what I thought was a backfire. I thought my friend's car was perhaps being temperamental, again, but when I reached the steps there was this man lying there with people all around. He was on his back sort of staring at the sky. Somebody told me he was dead."

"The porter has closed the doors," the Russian said a little later. "He has bought his usual box of matches from the blind man... now he's at the cafe."

"Did they take evidence from the blind man?... Ah, yes!... 'There was a clatter and a thump from just beyond where I sit. Something heavy fell down the stairs... footsteps dashed up and someone said send for an ambulance. It was some time before I could catch anyone's attention to ask what had happened.'... Now let's see—I know she's not there just now—how it looked to someone who saw it all. 'I noticed a tall man in sunglasses coming up the stairs towards me. I happened to glance up over his head and I saw three puffs of smoke, one after another, float away from a window of the new apartment block beyond the lot across the road. It was blue smoke.

"I imagine there was about ten seconds between the first puff and the last. I heard the sound of the three shots just as the man gave a kind of cough and fell against the wall. Then he sat down and fell back into the street. My dress was covered in plaster dust and something stung my cheek'."

"That's the housewife the Commendatore was talking about?"

"Yes; Signora Rastafia. Do you notice anything so far?"

"About the various statements? You mean...?" Illya sketched a gesture in front of his face with both hands.

"Yes. I mean," Solo said grimly. "There's a discrepancy, isn't there? But before we get our teeth into it, let's have a look through the glasses."

He took the binoculars and scanned the street below. "Think of the evidence and look carefully," he said at last. "'On the left, there's a little entry leading through an arch to a warehouse or something..."

"It's where the post office vans go in and out, actually."

"So it is. Thanks, Illya. Then comes the tie boutique. Then the body of the post office itself, with the stairs leading to the doors on the right. The matchseller sits with his back to the right-hand pillar framing the stairs. Immediately beyond him is the tobacco kiosk, then double doors leading to offices, apartments, and so on. The news vendor's stand. And finally the cafe-bar on the next corner..."

Solo paused suddenly, sharpening the focus of the glasses with the centre finger of his right hand. "Illya," he said urgently, "quick! Do you see that big man coming down the steps there? There now he's turned towards the cafe... He's stopped to buy cigarettes at the kiosk!... Get after him, boy. That's our Mr. Carlsen! He knows me but he won't know you from Adam unless he meets the girl who met you at Caselle. Don't worry about making contact. Get after him and see what you can find out!"

After one long glance into the street to fix the image of Carlsen in his mind, the Russian slipped out and sped down the staircase into the street.

Solo continued watching. At twelve thirty, Giovanna came up to relieve him for lunch and he went across the road to the cafe. After a couple of abortive attempts, he managed to engage one of the waiters in conversation and obtain yet another eyewitness account of the death of Leonardo.

Before he went back to the office hideout, he made one telephone call. After he had given Solo the information he wanted, the man at the other end relayed a message from Waverly in New York.

The agent returned to his eyrie satisfied enough and released the girl to continue her freelance patrol.

At ten past four, Illya Kuryakin returned, flushed with success. Panting, he dropped into a chair and drew an envelope covered in scribbled notes from his hip pocket. "It wasn't too difficult at first. Napoleon," he said, "especially as Carlsen doesn't know me by sight and had no reason to think he was being followed anyway."

"Don't underestimate him, though, that's all!" Solo said. "He's smart."

"So I found out. He bought a paper after I picked him up, and then he went to have lunch—at the same place we were at the other evening."