Death in Autumn Page 15

  'A remarkably cool character, if this is all true.'

  'Whoever did those thefts had to be remarkable in many ways. It was the description of Becker's character that made me suspect him.'

  'Well it's a convincing enough story, but why kill Hilde Vogel? And why a month later?'

  'I don't know why he killed her. We may never know. As for why a month later, that could just be to leave a gap between that and the theft. If so, he was unfortunate because the two stories broke together. Not that anyone noticed at the time.'

  'This jeweller, can he identify the Vogel woman?'

  'I saw him this morning on my way here. I showed him her photograph.'

  'And . . .?'

  'Nothing. He's not sure. He remembers her being tall and blonde and very talkative—that would be to distract him while Becker passed him the counterfeit jewel, no doubt. But it was summer and she was wearing sunglasses. He can't remember her face at all.'

  'I see.'

  The Substitute picked up the telex again and looked at it in silence. The Marshal had sat patiently through this conversation he didn't consider himself competent even to think about. Now he glanced surreptitiously at his watch.

  'All in all,' the Substitute said at last, 'we haven't a scrap of evidence against this man, have we?'

  'No, sir,' replied the Captain, 'and we probably never will have. He still has another accomplice and there's nothing to prevent him from carrying on for many more years.'

  'Well, send me your written report. All we can do is to keep the file open and wait for developments. Is the mother-in-law still here?'

  'Until tomorrow—that is, if you're willing to release the boy's body.'

  'I don't see why not. What about the woman's body? Surely if it's her daughter-in-law . . .?'

  'I don't think she wants to take it back to Germany. She may change her mind, of course.'

  'Arrange for me to see her tomorrow, will you? I may as well tell Sweeton he can take his son home. I don't think he's going to be needed as a witness for some time, if ever.'

  The Captain said nothing. He and the Marshal got to their feet. Outside on the steps of the Procura the two of them stood for a moment beneath the great baroque facade, watching the traffic streaming by in the rain. The guard on duty hitched up his submachine-gun and gave them a brief salute.

  'I'd give a lot to know why he killed Hilde Vogel,' the Captain said, putting on his hat. 'Even if we never find him.'

  But the Marshal was thinking about Querci.

  'I have to get off,' he said. 'I'm picking my wife up at the station.'

  And they made a dash through the rain to their cars.

  The Marshal lay in bed, his eyes wide open. He could hear his wife still moving about in the next room. His mind rambled over the events of the day and sometimes further back. He could hear the rain still falling heavily on the trees and gravel outside and imagined it filling the ditch that ran down from the fort to the dark swollen river. The thought made him shiver. What was his wife finding to do all this time? She had been busy from the moment she arrived, unpacking boxes full of tomato preserve, jam and fresh oranges and lemons. He'd have done better to take the van to meet her instead of his little Fiat. She had filled the kitchen to overflowing within minutes and had begun to cook immediately. Three or four times he had found an excuse to leave his office and come through to see what she was doing.

  'You're getting in my way, whatever do you want this time?'

  'A glass of water.' The first thing that came into his head, just like a little boy!

  After supper he had pretended to read the newspaper, sneaking a glance at her every so often as she worked on a red sweater she was knitting for one of the boys, pausing occasionally to spread the piece over one knee and stroke it flat with her fingers, looking for non-existent mistakes.

  Once she caught him watching her and smiled. 'It'll be different when the boys get here.'

  And he had been embarrassed.

  At last he heard her switch the sitting-room light off.

  'You're in bed already!'

  She began getting undressed, first removing her little string of artificial pearls.

  'Do you always do that?' he asked her suddenly.

  'Do what?'

  'Take your pearls off before undressing?'

  'Of course. Why?'

  'Nothing. I just wondered . . .'

  'What a funny thing to ask. Do you think I should go to the school first thing tomorrow?'

  'If you do, you should go to the post office first and pay their insurance and registration fees. I've got the forms in my desk.'

  'You'll have to tell me where the post office is. What did they say at the school, exactly?'

  'That all the sections studying English were full. They're the most popular. There's only room in the French sections.'

  'Well, it's out of the question for them to change languages now. I'll see if I can convince them tomorrow . . . You should have been more insistent . . .'

  And after a while, talking of other things, the Marshal forgot to listen to the rain that went on falling through the night into the dark water.

  CHAPTER 12

  There was another theft nine months later. This time it was Birmingham, in England. Both Becker and his one remaining accomplice had disappeared without trace by the time the stone concerned was discovered to be false some two weeks later. Since it was summer and nothing newsworthy was happening in Florence, Galli wrote a long, mostly hypothetical story in the Nazione with the headline, KILLER-THIEF STRIKES AGAIN. There was a picture of Hilde Vogel, the one the Captain had provided in the hope of identifying her, and one of Mario Querci with the sub-heading,The one man who knows the face of the world-famous jewel thief.

  For Querci it was the end.

  Galli had traced him, after some difficulty. He had just come out of prison and was living in a hostel. He had only got a six-month sentence, and since he had already served nine months before his case came up he was released immediately. When Galli found him he was penniless, for although in theory he had inherited all Hilde VogePs money, the bulk of it remained in Switzerland, blocked because of the continuing investigation of the Vogel-Becker affair. In any case, as an Italian citizen he could not have imported it. The villa, which he had also inherited, was up for sale, but being so large and so rundown had found no buyer. It stood empty and rapidly decaying. The small amount of money in Hilde Vogel's account in Florence was at first confiscated and then released to cover payment of the rates on the villa and Avvocato Heer's fees. Galli gave Querci a small fee for his interview.

  The day after the story appeared Querci turned up at Borgo Ognissanti looking for the Captain, with some garbled story about asking for protection. The Captain was out on a case and the guard on duty didn't recognize him. Querci was drunk anyway on the money the journalist had given him and the guard sent him away. The following week he turned up at the newspaper offices and tried to get in to see the editor. The editor was in a meeting. He asked for Galli, but Galli had gone away on holiday. In the end, a very young reporter who had nothing much else to do that day took pity on him and listened to his story for almost an hour, promising afterwards to talk to the editor about publishing a story claiming that Querci should be given police protection. He said it to make the unfortunate man feel better. He wouldn't have dared to do it since he had only been on the paper a month.

  Somehow or other the Captain got to hear about Querci's visit and telephoned Guarnaccia.

  'See if you can find him. They say in the paper he was staying in the hostel in Via Sant'Agostino when Galli talked to him but he's gone from there. You could try the others.'

  'Do you think he's genuinely frightened?'

  'Probably, if he believed that exaggerated story of Galli's. Even if he's not, he obviously needs some help. Some sort of work, for a start.'

  'I should be able to do something there. I've been trying to find him anyway. His wife's been to see me. The family does
n't know, of course, but she wants to see him. If we can fix him up with some sort ofjob, they might manage to get on their feet again.'

  'Well, keep a lookout. If he turns up here I'll send him over to you.'

  Two weeks went by and nothing was heard of Qucrci. When Galli came back from his holiday the Captain telephoned him and gave him hell. Galli was genuinely remorseful.

  'I thought the poor beggar needed money. I had to make a good story of it or I'd never have got it through on my expenses. I'll see if I can find him.'

  'You do that.'

  'I'll find him, don't worry. He's had a bad deal, poor sod. I was only trying to help him.'

  It took Galli three days to track him down to where he was boarding illegally in a rundown house belonging to a woman who had three other undeclared lodgers, two of whom were smalltime crooks. When Galli spoke to her he didn't say who he was in case it should frighten Querci off. He called the Captain, who sent Guarnaccia to the house. Querci wasn't there, so he left a message. Instead of delivering it, the landlady, who couldn't afford to have the carabinieri nosing round the place, kicked Querci out as soon as he turned up.

  At five o'clock on the following afternoon there were crowds of witnesses around to see a shabby-looking man, afterwards described as 'looking dazed', make straight for the parapet of the San Niccolo bridge and throw himself over without a moment's hesitation. Two of them jumped in after him and managed to drag him to the bank, but it was midsummer and the Arno was very low. Querci's head had struck the foundations of the bridge and he was dead in seconds from the blow.

  The one person he had never considered asking for help was the Marshal, who had been responsible for sending him to prison.

  *

  It may have been because relations had remained cool ever since Mario Querci's death that Galli telephoned Maestrangelo the minute he got the news. Not only because he was a valued contact but because he liked and respected the man. And anyway, keeping one ahead of the usual press conferences by the use of a short-wave radio instead of through having a good contact was as unsatisfactory as it was illegal.

  'I thought you'd like to know,' he announced one fine spring morning the following year, 'that we've got the whole story on Walter Becker—you remember him?—Thefts, murders, everything.'

  'You mean they've caught him?' The Captain was almost disappointed, not at the idea of some other Force catching his man but because he had come to think of Becker as a sort of invincible super-criminal.

  'No, they haven't caught him,' Galli said, 'or you'd have heard before I did. He's dead. Died of a stroke at his home in New York a few days ago. But it seems he couldn't bear to leave us without being sure that his great genius was fully appreciated by the world. He had deposited the full details of his successful life of crime with his lawyer, to be sent to an important German newspaper on his death. A contact of mine on this paper has written the story up and sent the documents on to me. I'm writing it up now. As soon as I've finished this evening I could send the stun" over to you. That's if you're interested.'

  'I am. Thank you. But is there any explanation of why he killed the Vogel woman?'

  Galli chuckled. 'That's easy. He killed the other accomplice too, one month after that last theft in England. Hilde Vogel's death had nothing to do with that business of the son. The reason was simple enough: Becker was fifty-five.'

  'Fifty-five . . .?'

  'Exactly. He retired!'

  As soon as the package of papers arrived, towards eight in the evening, Maestrangelo cleared his desk and asked not to be disturbed unless there was something urgent.

  There were reams of it. Stacks of closely written pages in a tiny, fanatically neat script, red underlinings, numbered lists. It was frustrating not to be able to read the originals which were in German, but Galli had attached the roughly typed translation he'd had done for his article. The lists concerned the stones Becker had stolen. They were divided into columns showing carat weight, cut, clarity, colour, the date of the theft and the cost of making the false replica, the recutting and sale of the original, with calculations on the loss of value involved in cutting a large stone into smaller ones. The loss was evidently considerable, often a little more than fifty percent of the original weight, and in most cases Becker had succeeded in selling the original untouched because the theft hadn't been discovered. These sales were recorded as having been made in Antwerp.

  On a separate sheet, enormous and folded into four, was a master plan drawn up over an outline map of Europe. Cities where thefts were to take place were circled in green ink and numbered. The accomplice's initials were written next to the number in black. Beside the cities of Florence in Italy and Birmingham in England the initials were circled in blue. This plan had evidently been drawn up by Becker at the very beginning of his career since the paper was yellowish and split on the folds and the ink was faded. Including the blue circles round the initials. The deaths of the two women were planned, almost to the minute, all those years ago. A third set of initials was circled in blue beside the city of Amsterdam. That must have been the cutter who had taught him his craft. The rest of the sheets formed a sort of diary, but a diary that wasn't written for the diarist himself but for a public, for the audience Becker always had to have. His only real weakness and one he knew well how to control.

  In Amsterdam he had written:

  / have learnt in less than two years what would normally take at least Jive. The old man himself told me so today. He has no sons and I do believe he's nursing a sentimental hope that I will stay on and take over from him. This sort of sentimental wishful thinking now causes him to hide from himself what he knows must be my real reason for being here, just as greed caused him to hide it from himself at the beginning. He will continue to deceive himself up to the moment of his 'suicide' because that is what he wishes. As always, my role is an entirely passive one . . .

  Of Hilde Vogel he had written:

  Encouraging H. 's attempts to seek out her father was as necessary as encouraging her marriage to C. Her dependence on and submission to me frightened her at the beginning and any attempt to enforce them might have resulted in her escaping me. Now she is resigned to her situation. Only the timing was difficult. U. is in London and we are ready to start work. Without H. it would have been more difficult, not only because of languages but because neither will ever retire from the scene as long as the other is there. If anything unforeseen should occur and one of them tries to back out, the other could in theory start to blackmail. I have been careful to implant this idea while offering comforting assurances that it couldn't happen . . .

  And when the unforeseen did occur:

  H. created a dangerous mess. She now believes the boy took the cash and left, which is what she wishes to believe. Tomorrow we go ahead as planned since the boy's death is irrelevant, as H.'s would not be were she recognized. A month should create sufficient space. Let us hope that no similar mess awaits me in England with my last piece of work.

  Presumably it hadn't. Presumably, when this news filtered through via Inte'rpol, some English policeman would insert the name Ursula Janz into the file regarding an unidentified body, close the file and send it to the archives.

  Just as the Captain could now close the Vogel-Becker file. He stared across at the window without seeing the evening sunshine flooding the stones of the building opposite with a soft pink light. That foreigner in a fur coat job.

  That was how the case was still remembered. It somehow seemed likely that it would go on being remembered that way, even after the big splash Becker's story would make in tomorrow's paper. What did that mean? Was it one up on Becker that Hilde Vogel's story remained hers and not just a sub-plot of his? Or did it only emphasize how clever he had been about separating the two in the first place? One thing was certain: Becker knew how to manipulate the Press. There was a note from Galli on the envelope the stuff came in saying that there were photographs, too. Of Becker, his accomplices and the more spectacular of t
he jewels, real and false. The note said these were still at the paper being prepared for tomorrow's publication. The complete Press handout. If the man had tried his hand at journalism he would have been brilliant at that, too. Or at anything else.

  Ninety-nine point nine per cent ofpeople are fools.

  Querci hadn't known how to manipulate the Press. A poor survivor, a born victim, in Becker's terms a fool.

  The last words Becker had written were on a separate sheet.

  This is my first day in retirement. If I have any regrets it is only because most of it has been too easy. The only real difficulty was getting myself accepted here in New York where I sold many of the stones. It took a long time to infiltrate the Diamond Dealers' Club. Even with the introduction I got the old man to write for me. Most of the dealers are Orthodox Jews and everything is done on trust among them. Thousands of dollars' worth of stones change hands on W. 47th Street with no more collateral than a handshake. It was some time before they bought from me and then cautiously. But demand always succeeds supply in this business and in the end they accepted my presence and bought more, but I never became one of them. Only between themselves do they conclude a deal by rising and saying with a clasp of hands maze! und broche. They are the only people I encountered who presented a worthy challenge.

  I never gave any serious thought to the possibility of getting caught, never used a false name or papers, never left the 'scene of the crime' in haste. There was no necessity for it. The police are trained to seek out weakness, passion, greed, stupidity, not intelligence and objectivity. This, of course, is as it should be.