Ben looked aghast at the hole which had opened in the floor beneath him. The light was on in the room below. Obviously their breaking in through the dormer skylight had woken the occupant. Now it was likely that the whole house had been awakened and a reception committee would be ready for them. After all that effort they had failed at the very first hurdle.
And what state was Francesca in? She might have broken something or knocked herself out. She would certainly be in no condition to escape from Vitelli’s minders. She was likely to be kept under very close control from now on. And Ben’s own chances of getting to the head of the family were virtually nil.
By the light coming from below he was now able to see that only the centre part of the loft floor had been boarded. The planking ended just beyond the window. But no barrier had been provided. Francesca, with her lesser height, had been able to step back without hitting her head. She had stepped off the edge of the floor and had fallen between two joists. She had obviously been so startled that she hadn’t even been able to catch hold of the timber either side and had crashed through to the floor below. What had she done to herself?
Ben dropped to his knees and peered through the jagged opening. By great good fortune Francesca had fallen flat on her back onto a double bed which was immediately below the hole and seemed to have escaped serious injury. To his huge relief it appeared that she was unhurt. He was delighted to see her startled and breathless face gazing up at him, surrounded by chunks of plaster and rubble.
Recovering from her shock she rolled over and sat up on the edge of the bed. Suddenly she froze stock still. The colour drained from her face and her mouth opened wide. She seemed to be trying to say something but no words came out. What was she looking at? Or had she suffered some form of paralysis as a result of her fall?
“Francesca! Francesca – what’s the matter?” He knelt at the edge of the ragged hole, unable to get down for the moment to help her.
Then he saw a little old man move into the circle of his vision.
“Francesca!” The old fellow’s voice was hardly more than a hoarse whisper. He opened his arms wide.
“Papa?” she gasped. She jumped off the bed and rushed into his arms. She hugged him to her and smothered his face with kisses. “Oh – papa mea, papa mea,” she cooed as she rocked his frail body back and forth.
Her father looked up to heaven and mumbled something in Italian. Ben felt a lump rise in his throat when he saw the tears in the old man’s eyes. He felt a keen frustration as he watched their loving reunion without being able to join them or understand what they were saying to each other.
At last he could bear it no longer. He called out, “Francesca – what is it?”
She looked up to him with a tear-streaked but radiant smile. “Oh, Ben! My papa is still alive. He is not dead. He has never died. He is still with us.” The colour had returned to her cheeks. The sudden shock had been replaced by joy. Ben thought how extraordinarily beautiful she looked.
She turned back to her father. “Papa, do you remember Ben? He is Toni’s friend. And he is my friend – my very good friend.”
“Si! Si, Francesca.”
Ben thought that Signor Cimbrone seemed to have recovered from his first breakdown of emotion and now had himself under control.
“Of course your father knows me, Francesca,” he said. “I last met him after the accident on the mountain when Carlos was killed.”
Then suddenly the awful truth burst upon Francesca and she whirled round to face her father. She spoke to him in a flood of Italian to which he replied with a shake of his head.
“What are you saying?” asked Ben.
She looked up at him. “We buried someone two weeks ago who we thought was my papa. How did that happen?”
“I don’t know. I think that’s another question for Mancino Vitelli to answer.” Ben stopped further discussion. “I’m sorry, Francesca, but there is no time for this. If you do not get out of that room your papa will be in greater danger. And so will you, for that matter. You are both in mortal danger. The Vitelli will be here any minute and they will not want anyone to know that they have been falsely imprisoning your father.”
She looked up at Ben with a horrified expression as she absorbed the meaning of his words. Then she went and tried the door. It was obviously locked. She looked quickly round the room and then back up at him.
“How can I get out? I cannot reach the ceiling. Papa is not strong enough to help me.”
Ben too had realized there was no practical way that she could get back into the loft. It was up to him to get her out. “I’ll try and get to the outside of the door. Let’s hope the key is in the lock so that I can let you out. Hide under the bed until I get there in case anybody comes. Perhaps they won’t try to look for you.”
As he stood up, Ben knew that was a fairly slim chance with the great hole in the ceiling above her father’s bed. It was up to him to try and save them. He turned away from the hole and went to collect his jacket. He carefully unwrapped the glass and put it to one side. Then he shook the jacket thoroughly to get rid of any fragments before he put it on. Walking as quietly as he could, he set about finding a way out of the roof space.
Just about half way along the floor in the middle of the attic he came to a trap door. Of course it had no handle but there was a length of rope fixed to the back which appeared to have been used as a stay to keep it open when people were in the loft. He caught hold of it and lifted gently.
The trap door was heavy and the hinges were stiff and it required a lot of effort. Ben raised it only few inches before cautiously looking out to see what was below. It was just as well that he did, for the first thing he saw was the back view of a person’s head walking along the lighted corridor. The man stopped in front of a door about twenty feet away and inserted a key into the lock. Ben realized, with a sinking feeling, that the man was entering the room where Papa Cimbrone was imprisoned. Francesca was in great danger of being discovered.