The Flight of the Falcon Read online

  For centuries this picture had lain in the dusty cellars of the palace, until it was discovered at some period after the Risorgimento, when much reconstruction of the building took place. Forever afterwards it graced—or, as some scandalized inhabitants of Ruffano murmured, disgraced—the ducal apartment. The picture, like the altarpiece in San Cipriano, both shocked and fascinated me, as my brother Aldo was well aware. He would force me to climb with him, without our father’s knowledge, the dangerous twisting stairway of the tower, and opening the ancient doorway leading directly to the turret would lift me, with what seemed superhuman strength, onto the encircling balustrade.

  “This was where the Falcon stood,” Aldo would say. “This was where the Devil tempted him. ‘If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.’ ”

  Hundreds of feet below lay the city of Ruffano, the distant piazza del Mercato. The people, the moving vehicles, scurried about their business like ants on some lowly, dusty plain. I would cling to the balustrade, trembling. I don’t know what age I was. Six, perhaps, or seven.

  “Shall I tell you what the Falcon did?” asked Aldo.

  “No,” I pleaded, “no…”

  “He spread out his arms,” said Aldo, “and he flew. His arms were wings, he had become a bird. He soared over the rooftops and the city that was his, and the people stared up at him in wonder.”

  “It isn’t true!” I cried. “He couldn’t fly. He was not a bird, he was not a falcon. He was a man, and fell. He fell and died. Father told me so.”

  “He was a falcon,” insisted Aldo, “he was a falcon, and he flew.”

  In my dream the scene of terror I remembered was repeated once again. I clung to the balustrade, Aldo behind me. Then, with greater power than I had possessed as a child, I flung myself backwards, breaking from his grasp, and ran down, down the narrow twisting stair to where Marta waited, calling “Beo… Beo…” Her arms were there, ready to receive me, and she wrapped herself round me, holding me close, soothing me and comforting me. Marta, dear Marta. Why, though, in the dream, the odor of old, worn clothes? The smell of wine?

  This time, on waking, I could feel my heart thumping in my breast, and I was sweating. The nightmare was too vivid to risk a third encounter. I switched on the light, sat up in bed, took up my notebook, and went over the accounts until, dizzy with exhaustion, I fell into a half-doze, and slept without dreaming until the knock on the door at seven announced the floor-waiter with my rolls and coffee.

  The routine of the day began. The night, with all its horror, was a world away. The telephone started buzzing, as it always did, and within ten minutes I was involved in all the small technicalities of the hours ahead; the plans of those who wished to spend the morning shopping and join the rest of us at lunch; the queries of those who desired to see St. Peter’s but did not want to walk up and down the long galleries of the Vatican. Downstairs to the coach and the waiting Beppo, whose evening, unlike mine, had been spent in the warmth and comfort of his favorite trattoria.

  “You know what?” he said. “You and I should change places. You drive the coach, and I make love to the clients.”

  This was a dig at my morning face, haggard from want of sleep. I told him he would be welcome.

  As our cargo mounted, refreshed and eager for the “Rome by Day” that offered herself for their pleasure, I noticed that the lone barbarian, my suitor of last night, now cut me dead.

  Our chariot swept left, past the church that had, in fearful fashion, confounded itself with San Cipriano and turned a dream to nightmare. The step was bare, the peasant woman gone. She was even now, I hoped, indulging herself, renewing inward fires with the ten thousand lire I had given her. The retired schoolteachers had forgotten her existence. They were already thumbing a guidebook and reading to their neighbors those contents of the Villa Borghese—first stop—that must on no account be missed. I was not surprised to discover them, some twenty minutes later, hurrying past the more conventional statuary, to stare with avid eyes at the reclining hermaphrodite.

  On, on, the peace of the Pincio behind us, and so down to the piazza del Popolo, across the Tiber to Sant’Angelo, and thence to St. Peter’s and the Vatican. Then, God be thanked, to lunch.

  Beppo, wise fellow, ate his in the coach, read the newspaper, slept; but my part was always that of the conductor, and in the restaurant near St. Peter’s there was little room or leisure to relax. Mrs. Taylor had already lost her umbrella, left, she thought, in the cloakroom at the Vatican. Would I please see to it as soon as possible? We were due to leave for the Baths of Caracalla at 2 p.m., then back on our tracks to the Forum and a long afternoon among the ruins. Here it was my policy to let my charges loose to their own devices.

  This afternoon it turned out otherwise. I had rescued the lost umbrella, and was crossing the via della Conciliazione to assemble my group, when I noticed that a handful of them had preceded me and were clustered about Beppo, who was reading to them from an open newspaper. He winked at me, enjoying his role of interpreter. His listeners looked shocked. I observed, with misgiving, that the two schoolteachers were in the van.

  “What’s the excitement?” I asked.

  “Murder off the via Sicilia,” said Beppo, “within a hundred yards or so of the Hotel Splendido. These ladies claim to have seen the victim.”

  The most vocal of the schoolteachers turned to me, outraged. “It’s that poor woman,” she said, “it must be the same. The driver says she was found stabbed on the church steps at five o’clock this morning. We could have saved her. It’s too horrible for words.”

  I was shocked to silence. My aplomb deserted me. I snatched the paper from Beppo and read for myself. The notice was brief.

  “The body of a woman was found at five o’clock this morning on the steps of a church on the via Sicilia. She had been stabbed. The woman appeared to be a vagrant, and had been drinking. A few coins only were found in her possession, and the crime would seem to be without motive. The police are seeking anyone who saw the woman, or noticed anything unusual in the vicinity during the hours of darkness, and who may be able to help their inquiries.”

  I returned the newspaper to Beppo. The group watched for my reaction.

  “This is very regrettable,” I said, “but not, I’m afraid, altogether unusual. Crimes of violence occur in every city. One can only hope the criminal will soon be caught.”

  “But we saw her,” clamored the schoolteacher. “Hilda and I tried to speak to her, just before nine o’clock. She was not dead then. She was asleep, and breathing heavily. You saw her from the coach as we went by. Everyone saw her. I wanted you to do something then.”

  Beppo caught my eye and shrugged. He moved discreetly to the coach and climbed into his driving seat. This was my business to sort out, not his.

  “Madam,” I said, “I don’t wish to be heartless, but as far as we are concerned the incident is closed. There was little we could have done for the woman then. There is nothing now. The police have her case in hand. Now, we are already behind schedule…”

  But argument had broken out among the group. The remainder of the party joined us, asking what had happened. Passersby paused, and stared.

  “Into the coach,” I said firmly. “Into the coach, please, everybody. We are holding up the traffic.”

  Once seated, babel reigned. The barbarians, Mr. Hiram Bloom their spokesman, were of the opinion that it never helped to meddle in other people’s business. You only got abuse. The Anglo-Saxons glowered, especially the two schoolteachers from south London. A woman had died on the doorsteps of a church, within a few hundred yards of the Pope’s own Vatican City, within earshot of British travelers asleep in bed at the Hotel Splendido, and if the Rome police did not know how to do their job it was time a London bobby came to show them.

  “So what?” murmured Beppo in my ear. “The po
lice station, or the Baths of Caracalla?”

  Beppo was fortunate. He was not involved. It was otherwise for me. No motive, the paper said, ignorant of the true facts. The woman had been murdered, not for the few coins found in her possession, but for the ten thousand lire I had put into her hand. It was as simple as that. Some roaming vagabond, himself with an empty belly, had stumbled across her in the small hours, pocketed the note, and perhaps arousing her, and suddenly terrified for his own life, had silenced her forever. Our petty criminals have small respect for human life. Who would shed tears over a vagrant, and a drunkard one at that? A hand over her mouth, a quick jab, and away.

  “I insist,” announced the schoolteacher, a note of hysteria in her voice, “in reporting to the police. It’s my duty to tell them what I know. It may help them to learn that we saw her in the church porch at nine o’clock. If Mr. Fabbio refuses to go with me, I shall go alone.”

  Mr. Bloom touched me on the shoulder. “What exactly would it entail?” he said sotto voce. “Any unpleasantness for the rest of the party? Or just a routine statement from you on behalf of these two ladies, and then finish?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “Who can ever tell with the police, once they start asking questions?”

  I told Beppo to drive on. Dissentient voices rose and fell behind me. Indifferent traffic hemmed us in on either side. Mine must be the decision, for good or ill. One false move and the harmony of my flock would dissolve, and a spirit of ill feeling and resentment, so fatal to a tour, spring into being.

  I reached for my pocketbook and handed a roll of notes to Mr. Bloom.

  “If you will be so good,” I said, “as to take charge of the party, both at the Baths of Caracalla and at the Forum. There are guides who speak English in both places. Beppo will interpret if there should be any difficulty. You are due at the English Tea Rooms, near the piazza di Spagna at four-thirty. I will meet you there.”

  The schoolteacher leaned forward. “What are you going to do?” she demanded.

  “Conduct you and your friend to the police,” I told her.

  We were for it. There was no retreat. I told Beppo to set us down at the first taxi rank. The two Samaritans and I watched the coach drive away to the Baths of Caracalla. I had seldom regretted a departure more.

  Driving to police headquarters my companions were strangely silent. They had not expected so swift an acquiescence to their plans.

  “Will the police officers speak English?” asked the more nervous of the two women.

  “I doubt it, madam,” I replied. “Would you expect your police officers to speak Italian?”

  They exchanged glances. I could sense the hostility that froze them to their seats. Also a deep mistrust of Roman law. Police headquarters are forbidding in any city, but I disliked the mission far more than they, to whom, no doubt, it could be counted as an experience of tourism. The sight of uniform, any uniform, makes me want to run. The tramp of feet, the brisk word of command, the cold speculative eye, have disagreeable associations; they remind me of my youth.

  We alighted at our destination and I told the taxi to wait. I warned him, speaking clearly so that my companions could understand, that we might be hours.

  Our feet sounded hollow as we crossed the courtyard to the police station within. We were passed from the inquiry desk to a waiting room, from the waiting room to an inner office, where the officer on duty asked our names, addresses, and the nature of our business. On my informing him that the English ladies wished to give information about the woman found murdered on the steps of the church in the via Sicilia, he stared. Then he struck a bell and snapped an order to the man who entered. The atmosphere was chill. After a moment two more police officers entered. Notebooks were produced. All three stared at the now subdued schoolteachers. I explained to the officer behind the desk that neither spoke Italian. They were English tourists, I the courier in charge of Sunshine Tours.

  “If you have any information material to last night’s murder, please give it,” he said curtly. “We have no time to waste.”

  The elder of the two Englishwomen began to speak, pausing, between sentences, for me to act as her interpreter. I used my own discretion as to what to omit in her somewhat incoherent tale. The remark that it seemed to her and her friend disgraceful that in these modern times there was no hospital or asylum in Rome for a starving woman to go to would hardly interest the police.

  “You actually touched the woman?” asked the officer.

  “Yes,” replied the schoolteacher. “I touched her shoulder and spoke. She grunted. I felt that she might be ill, and so did my friend. We hurried back to the coach and asked Mr. Fabbio here to do something. He said it was not our business, and we were keeping the coach waiting.”

  The police officer questioned me with a glance. I replied that it was true. And that the time was just after nine p.m.

  “And when you returned from the tour you did not notice whether the woman was still there?” he asked her through my interpretation.

  “I’m afraid not. The coach did not pass that way, and we were all very tired.”

  “In fact, the subject was not mentioned again?”

  “No. Actually, my friend and I did bring it up when we were undressing. We said what a disgraceful thing it was that Mr. Fabbio had not called an ambulance or informed the police.”

  Once again the officer glanced in my direction. I thought I detected sympathy. “Will you please thank these ladies for having come forward?” he said. “Their testimony has been helpful. For the records, I must trouble them to identify the clothing worn by the murdered woman, if they can do so.”

  I had not expected this. Nor had my charges. They turned a little pale.

  “Is it necessary?” faltered the younger of the two.

  “It appears so,” I said.

  We followed one of the police officers down a corridor and through to a small room. A white-coated attendant came forward, and after a moment’s explanation went to an inner sanctum and brought forth a bundle of clothing and two baskets. My charges turned paler still.

  “Yes,” said the elder hurriedly, turning aside her head, “yes, I feel sure those were the things. How very dreadful it all is…”

  The white-coated attendant, officious in his capacity as ghoul, asked if the ladies wished to view the body.

  “No,” I said, “they are not required to do so. The clothes are identification enough. However, if it would help at all with the inquiry, I am willing to do so on their behalf.”

  The police agent with us shrugged his shoulders. It was up to me. Neither of the two schoolteachers knew what was being discussed. I passed with the attendant into the mortuary. Drawn by some painful and disturbing fascination, I approached the slab on which the body lay. The attendant drew back the covering, revealing the face. It was noble in repose, and younger than it had seemed last night.

  I turned away. “Thank you,” I said to the attendant.

  I informed the officer in charge, on returning to the interview room, that the ladies had recognized the clothes. He thanked them once again.

  “I assume,” I said, “that these ladies will not be required for further questioning? We leave for Naples tomorrow afternoon.”

  Gravely the officer noted the fact in his report. “I do not anticipate,” he said, “that we shall need their presence again. We have their names and addresses. I wish the ladies and yourself a pleasant resumption of your tour.”

  I could have sworn that after bowing to the schoolteachers his eyelid flickered for an instant in a wink; but not at them, at me.

  “Any clue to the victim’s identity?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “There are hundreds such, as you know, who wander into the city from outside. They are hard to check. Nothing on her of value. The murderer may have been a fellow vagrant with some motive of revenge, or else a prowler, doing it for kicks. We’ll pick him up.”

  We were dismissed. We walked back, across the courtyard, to the
waiting taxi. I handed the ladies in. “The English Tea Rooms,” I told the driver.

  I looked at my watch. I had judged the time correctly. My charges could settle peacefully to a cup of tea together before the remainder of the party came. When we arrived I paid the taxi off and escorted the pair inside the English Tea Rooms. I settled them at a corner table.

  “Now, ladies,” I said, “you can relax.”

  My automatic smile brought no response, save a stiff inclination of the head.

  I went out, and walked down the via dei Condotti to a bar. I had to think. I kept seeing the aquiline features, sharpened by death, of the murdered woman. Murdered because I had put ten thousand lire into her hand.

  I felt sure now I had not been mistaken. There had been recognition in her eyes the night before, and she had called Beo as I ran away across the street. I had not seen her for over twenty years, but it was Marta.

  3

  When the police officers were questioning the English schoolteachers—I should have spoken then. The opportunity was given me. They had asked whether, when we returned from our tour, we had noticed that the woman was still on the doorstep of the church. This had been the moment. “Yes,” I should have said, “yes, I walked to the end of the street and she was there, and I crossed over and put a note for ten thousand lire in her hand.”

  I could imagine the look of surprise in the police officer’s eyes. “A note for ten thousand lire?”

  “Yes.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Shortly after midnight.”

  “Did any of the party see you?”

  “No.”

  “Was the money your own, or did it belong to Sunshine Tours?”

  “It had just been given me. A mark of favor.”

  “You mean a tip?”

  “Yes.”

  “By one of your clients?”

  “Yes. But if you ask him, he will deny it.”

  Then the police officer would have asked for the two English ladies to withdraw. The interrogation would have continued, harder pressed. Not only could I never summon a witness to the fact that the lone barbarian had given me the money and had asked me to his room, but I could not produce a motive for giving away the money that would make sense to the police officer. Nothing made sense.