‘Including the expenses and the pay-offs, though,’ Maggie said.
‘No, no,’ said Lauro. ‘There’s a big risk for those poor people who do the actual work. They risk a life’s imprisonment if they don’t get shot by the police. Then they have to find the people to do the first part, take the prisoner; then they have to find the good hiding places; they have to find the family and make the telephone calls, and they have to feed the man.’
‘All right, thirty per cent inclusive,’ Maggie said.
‘Who is the family?’
‘An American wife, rather ancient-looking, living here in Lausanne. I’ve seen her at a distance, poor dreary soul. The investigators say she swears she hasn’t seen him for five months, but they don’t believe her; neither do I.’
‘You think he’ll visit her one day?’
‘I don’t know. I think he’s probably changed his appearance by plastic surgery. The reason I think so is that he’s done it twice before.’
‘He’ll never come back to Switzerland,’ Lauro said. ‘If he’s now a millionaire in the Argentine, why should he want to see an old wife?’
‘There’s a daughter at college in America,’ said Maggie. ‘She’ll be home with her mother this summer. I think he might want to see the daughter.’
‘You would have to demand a very large ransom,’ said Lauro, ‘to make it worth your while.’
‘I’ll demand a large ransom,’ Maggie said. ‘After all, it’s my money, isn’t it?’
‘My contacts don’t run to the Mafia,’ Lauro said. ‘I’m not in touch with the underworld at all.’
‘Oh, come,’ said Maggie, ‘don’t exaggerate, Lauro.’
‘I know very few,’ Lauro said.
‘If I sell my big ruby pendant,’ said Maggie, ‘I can offer to those very few friends of yours a good sum in advance. My ruby is one of the few things that haven’t yet been stolen. I’ve had some jewellery stolen from the villa and I think Mary has probably lost hers in that job at the Banco di Santo Spirito the other day.’ She was crying now.
‘I don’t know what to believe,’ said Lauro, ‘but somehow I believe you, or you wouldn’t have torn me away from my bride and my honeymoon.’ He, too, had tears in his eyes at the thought of his lost paradise as it now existed in his head, if not in fact.
‘Betty will be back soon. Can you get rid of her for the afternoon? She can use my car,’ Maggie said.
‘I suppose so,’ Lauro said. ‘I get rid of her and I take you up to bed. Isn’t that your idea?’
‘It’s usually your idea,’ said Maggie, ‘isn’t it?’
‘I suppose so,’ Lauro said.
Dusk had fallen when Maggie arrived two days later at the Villa Tullio. Berto was not expecting her; he had heard no word from her and had been unable to find her at any of the Swiss hotels she usually stayed at. Berto was worried; he could not quite understand why she had needed money. He made arrangements for the money to reach her, but afterwards, when he had tried to reach her by telephone at Lausanne, she had just left the hotel.
Mary also had tried to reach her, overjoyed that her safety-box, being one of those set high in the wall of the bank-vault, had escaped the gang’s frenzied operation. Mary had telephoned to Berto in the Veneto. ‘I’m worried about Maggie. Where is she?’
‘I don’t know’ Berto said. ‘She’s left Lausanne, and I can’t find her anywhere else. I’m worried, too. Have you seen this morning’s paper? Another kidnapping.’
‘Oh, Berto, darling, don’t worry,’ Mary said. ‘Would you like me to come and keep you company?’
‘No, my dear, don’t think of it.’
The chauffeur who drove Maggie home to the Villa Tullio that night was thoroughly puzzled. The Marchesa had dressed herself up so peculiarly. She had gone to a flea-market in a small town on the way home, all on an impulse while he waited in the car-park. This chauffeur had long been in Berto’s service and had very few original thoughts about Maggie. He respected her considerably because she was Berto’s wife and hence the Marchesa, and he felt it natural that she should have illogical impulses. He had taken her all over Switzerland on a mystifying route, not consequentially, not economically planned; first the Zürich area, then the Geneva area, then Zug, then Lausanne. To him, it was all a great non sequitur but Maggie was always careful to see that he had good rooms and ate well and was comfortable, as a lady should. It had not caused him to quibble in his thoughts when Lauro and his bride turned up at Lausanne, that Lauro at Maggie’s request had then sent him on a trip around the valleys and up the mountains on a sight-seeing tour with Betty for the whole afternoon, from twelve-thirty to six-thirty. The chauffeur had lunched at pretty little Caux, high up on a mountain path, Betty sitting at one table, he at another, despite the girl’s invitation to sit at the table with her. Betty had marvelled at the little chalets, and the chauffeur had agreed with a totally unscientific will to please. ‘My husband, my poor husband,’ Betty had said, ‘is busy with that Marchesa all the afternoon and he’s on his honeymoon.’ The chauffeur merely said that such was life. ‘Her houses at Nemi are built on my land,’ said Betty. ‘They’re abusivo; she has to pull down those houses or else pay us. That’s what they have to discuss, and believe me—’
As she spoke the chauffeur pulled up at a cottage-weave shop and asked Betty if she would like to look round it. Betty spent some time there, buying embroidered place-mats and a shawl, then re-entered the car, into the back seat, daintily, with the door held open for her by Berto’s chauffeur.
The next day Maggie had gone to Geneva and dropped Betty at the airport to catch a plane for Rome. Then, with Lauro, she had gone to a newly constructed block of flats where there was no concierge but a press-button phone at the entrance. Lauro pressed a button but there was no answer. The big glass-fronted doors were locked. Maggie got back into the car and waited. Lauro walked up and down the little pathway with its tidy new plants on either side; he pressed the button again from time to time; he looked up at the windows; he looked at his watch.
Maggie, who seldom explained anything, had evidently felt it necessary to explain to the chauffeur that they were waiting for a dressmaker, very brilliant and not yet famous, whom she simply had to see. They had an appointment, she explained.
It was too bad, said the chauffeur, to keep the Marchesa waiting. They waited twenty more minutes before a Peugeot drew up. Three youngish men got out, very quickly, and made for the entrance where Lauro was waiting. The chauffeur had not been able to see their faces for they kept them quite averted from him. One of the men, saying something to Lauro, indicated vulgarly with his thumb the car where Maggie sat with the chauffeur and said something in French, which the chauffeur didn’t understand, but which sounded disapproving. Maybe the man had not wanted to be seen. At any rate one of the men had opened the door with a key, and Lauro was answering back, looking at his watch. Maggie then got out of the car with her charming smile and followed the four men into the building. That took up the rest of the morning. Maggie emerged without Lauro, and they were off, back to the Veneto, stopping for meals on the way, and then, unaccountably, at a little market-town where Maggie had spent an hour while the chauffeur waited in the carpark.
He had waited, which is to say he had taken an occasional walk around. From what he saw and what he heard, Maggie had no rendezvous with anyone this time. A rendezvous, although its purpose might escape Berto’s good chauffeur, might at least have been explicable. What was thoroughly inconsistent was that Maggie had stood there at a stall, innocently buying a heap of dreadful clothes; and they were plainly intended for herself for she held up these rags against her body to get a rough idea if they would fit. A worn-out long skirt of black cotton, a pair of soiled tennis shoes which she actually tried on there in the street, a once-pink head scarf, a cotton blouse, not second-hand but cheap, piped with white, and terrible. The chauffeur wandered back to the car and waited. Maggie appeared before long, with her sunniness intact, and her light-hear
ted walk, holding in her arms the bundle of these frightful garments, not even wrapped in a piece of paper.
The chauffeur took them from her and placed them carefully in the boot. All he said was, ‘The Marchesa should leave her handbag with me when she goes shopping. There are bad people about.’ Whereupon Maggie searched in her handbag, quite alarmed; but everything was all right. They drove on.
Towards dusk next day Maggie wanted to stop in Venice for a rest and a drink. She left the chauffeur at the quay and, hiring a water-taxi, directed it to a smart bar. Later she returned in a water-taxi and kept it waiting while she demanded of the chauffeur the old clothes from the back of the car. Wrapping them, for very shame, in a tartan car-rug, the chauffeur handed them over. Maggie redirected the taxi to the bar.
She returned looking so like a tramp that the chauffeur failed to recognize her at first. ‘Marchesa!’ he then exclaimed.
‘I changed in the ladies’ room,’ Maggie had said. ‘Did I give you a fright? I want to play a joke on my husband.’
Onward to the villa. It was dark as they approached. ‘The back entrance,’ Maggie ordered. ‘I have the key.’
The chauffeur, still puzzled, drove round the villa to the firmly locked and heavy back gate in the wall which led into the paddock, the orchard, the kitchen garden, and finally to the great back door.
‘Let me accompany the Marchesa,’ he said, fetching out his big electric torch. He had in mind those masked balls he had heard of, and felt a little guilty and low-class, lacking that sense of humour of the sophisticated. He decided to try to enter the spirit of the thing.
Maggie attacked the big gate with her key while the chauffeur’s torch shone on it. With the first touch, a furious din broke loose. Barking of dogs, the screams of women, male voices roaring out the worst possible obscenities, and above all the words, ‘Ladri! ladri! polizia!’—Thieves, police.…Maggie screamed, but bells were ringing now, searchlights beamed from the rooftop of the villa and Berto’s dalmatian, Pavoncino, came streaking towards the gate, barking only less loudly than the barking in the air.
The pandemonium continued while the chauffeur pulled Maggie back into the car, bundling her into the front seat beside him. He drove off at full speed round to the front of the house and got out to ring the bell.
Here, Pavoncino awaited them, barking. But soon, having recognized Maggie, he was wagging his tail. Maggie sat on and waited. A police car drew up, then another.
In the midst of the turmoil Berto appeared with Guillaume, both armed with guns.
The police had taken Maggie into custody and were holding the chauffeur with his hands behind his back.
‘Berto, it’s me,’ Maggie called out.
‘Where are you, Maggie? I can’t see you,’ Berto called. ‘Are you all right?’
‘No, I’m not,’ Maggie said.
The police could not understand English and had already bundled her, in her rags, into a police car, around which the dog pranced joyfully, barking loudly.
The noises in the air ceased abruptly. Guillaume slowly opened the front gate, still with his gun poised. Then, perceiving the dog’s demonstrations of welcome, cautiously approached the police car where Maggie sat meekly, handcuffed to two burly carabinieri.
At first he didn’t recognize her, and could hardly believe her voice when she called ‘Berto!’
‘That’s my wife,’ Berto said. ‘Maggie, what are you doing? You’ve set off my new burglar alarm and all the loudspeakers and the electronic communication with the police station. What’s wrong?’
Maggie was released in due course of time, and brandy administered to the chauffeur. The policemen were invited inside and apologized to, refusing, however, to drink while on duty; they seemed happy enough to have a nice glance round the drawing-room.
‘I dressed up as a pauper,’ Maggie explained in the best Italian she could manage. ‘Because I am a pauper. I’m ruined. I just wanted everyone to know.’
Berto, placing to one side for the moment his bewilderment, translated this with considerable modifications. He explained, in fact, that the Marchesa had only meant it as a joke; she had not known of the burglar alarm. Many more apologies from Berto. Sincere and profound apologies. The police went away and Berto stood looking at his bedraggled wife, still handsome and gleaming through it all as she was.
Chapter Sixteen
DEAR HUBERT,
On my return from a business trip to Switzerland I found a letter from my lawyer, Avvocato Massimo de Vita, in which he tells me you are claiming that I gave you my Gauguin, and that moreover my Gauguin is a fake.
As it happens, I did not give you my Gauguin and my Gauguin is not a fake.
I plan, in fact, to sell my Gauguin. In these days of tight money one has to plan one’s budget, and Berto plans to take my Gauguin to London to sell it. I plan also to dispose of my Louis XIV furniture. I heard an absurd rumor that my furniture and pictures had already been taken away from the house, but naturally you would have informed me had they been stolen. There are so many rumors!! However, I plan the move for Wednesday. As you know I’m not so very keen on Louis XIV and I don’t need it anyway really. I don’t use it, do I? We are planning to collect it next week Wednesday August 27. It is such a long time since we met. We are planning to pay you a visit, Hubert, to discuss your future plans, as we are selling the villa to Lauro as it appears the land on which it is built belongs to Lauro’s beautiful new bride. Isn’t it fortunate that Lauro has been our friend all these years? Would you believe it, but he even cut short his honeymoon to come and discuss my plans with me! What good fortune that the land does not belong to a stranger! In the meantime of course I am taking action against Mr de Lafoucauld who arranged for the purchase of my properties at Nemi as it seems he was most untrustworthy. That is not his real name, of course, but Berto has talked to the police, they have found him in Milan and certainly he will go to prison. Berto has said he no longer cares if his name gets into the papers in connection with a criminal action as we are the innocent party, always have been and always will be.
I hope you can find some other spot in Nemi to continue your plans for your new religion. It sounds very exciting and I would have loved to have been there, too, but I was in Switzerland and besides, Berto is so conventional, he would hate it if I got mixed up with drugs, orgies, etc. etc. Isn’t it good that Lauro is willing to make a little arrangement with me for the house, as it is really an illegal house although I didn’t know it at the time, of course. I plan to move in as soon as possible. Berto, of course, was angry about the orgy but he would naturally prefer you to go quietly. I mean, we don’t want to complain to the authorities as that would be unpleasant. It has been good of you to keep my pictures and my furniture in good condition. I have tried to get in touch with Massimo de Vita to tell him personally what my plans are, but his office telephone number doesn’t answer. A few weeks ago I read in the papers that the Lake of Nemi is ‘biologically dead’ which means it is polluted, but they are building a new sewage system for that clinic, so it doesn’t all go into the lake. I am sure your ancestors would turn in their graves and I do feel for you, after those beautiful ships of antiquity sailed so proudly on its tranquil surface. Of course, Nemi is beautiful and Mary will be sorry to leave, but their house is also illegal and I don’t know if they can make arrangements with the owners of the land, and in any case Michael says we shouldn’t have to pay twice for a house. It is a worry for the Bernardinis also, especially as his wedding to Nancy is to take place soon. She is a very fine young woman and will be a very good housekeeper for him I am quite sure.
If you see Avvocato Massimo de Vita please tell him he has got it all wrong about my Gauguin. I really feel that lawyers these days are very slipshod in their work. Hardly any of them care about their clients any more. I plan to go to another lawyer.
Don’t forget Wednesday, 27, the van will be coming, naturally with an armed escort as one can’t be too careful these days.
&nbs
p; Arrivederci and all my love,
Maggie.
P.S. It is terrible the times we are living in. I just read in the Herald Tribune about a dear friend of mine, a financier from the Argentine, Coco de Renault, being kidnaped. Apparently they are asking a fantastic ransom and the poor wife and daughter in Switzerland are absolutely frantic. I put through a call to them immediately but they didn’t want to talk so as to keep the line free for the kidnapers to negotiate. The family say they haven’t seen Coco for months and they don’t know where he is, which is terrible, but the newspapers say he has to send them a power of attorney to release all his money for the kidnapers, and it’s possible the banks will not accept his word in which case he could be killed. It is terrible to read about these events and even more frightening when it is someone you know and it reaches your own door. Personally, I think the wife has already got all his money tucked away somewhere in Switzerland, though the talk of powers of attorney is her way of trying to drive a bargain. They usually put their money in the wife’s name or in a numbered account so I hope my friend will be released unharmed, but how dreadful to pay it all to criminals!
Hubert read the letter slowly to Pauline Thin who had returned the day after Hubert’s three former secretaries had left.
Since the furniture had been taken away there had been quarrels every day amongst them all; the boys simply didn’t have the stamina to sit it out for a month all sleeping on camp-beds and eating in the kitchen. A month was all Hubert had asked of them, just for the sake of appearances.
Maggie’s furniture and her pictures had already been sold in London. Even those pictures which had been copies, and the set of Louis XIV furniture which had been reconstructed, with an original leg here, an arm there, had fetched quite a fat sum, while those original paintings and articles of furniture which remained had fetched a fortune. After Massimo’s half-share had been deducted there still remained a fortune for Hubert, that fortune which he had felt all along that Maggie should have settled on him. It was now only a matter of keeping up an appearance of poverty for a month or maybe a little longer, so there should be no question that he had made off with Maggie’s property. Massimo had left for some unknown destination; he had said California, which meant, certainly, elsewhere; evidently he was used to departing speedily for elsewhere from time to time. Hubert’s half-share of the sale was safely in that nursery-garden of planted money, Switzerland.