Free Death of a Dutchman by Magdalen Nabb Page B

glass panelling.
    'We printed it here so they sent me a few copies—take it, take it! No compliments! You can take it back to Sicily to show your family. Sicily's beautiful, too, I don't doubt it, I don't doubt it, but Florence . . .'
    The young Count's farewells had been less exuberant, despite the present of the vinsanto.
    'You might want to talk to me again,' he had said hopefully.
    'I don't think . . .'
    'You mustn't think that because we're in the country you can't reach me. If it's something important, my father—I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll come down tomorrow, just in case you need to talk to me. I'll be here all afternoon . . . they wouldn't like it if I weren't there for lunch, you understand, but I can say that you might want to see me sometime in the afternoon? I could say that?'
    'Yes, I suppose you could say that . . .'
    All down the marble hallway, there had been half-moon tables with gilded lamps on them, alternating with elaborately carved oak chairs. Some of the rooms they had passed through were almost empty of furniture. They had passed a small, concealed door let into the wall on the left, and the Marshal had time to glimpse a single bed with a dark blue linen suit thrown across it before the Count hurriedly shut the door.
    'I'll leave you here.'
    The Marshal had been out on the first-floor landing when the Count made this abrupt remark.
    'Then, goodbye and thank you . . .'
    But by the time he turned, the door had shut and he was alone.
    There were still two hotels to be visited. The Marshal was tired and not at all sure, thinking about it as he drove along by the river, whether his visits to the Brothers had been useful or not. They hadn't turned up any concrete facts that he could present to an officer, and the Brothers of the Misericordia, although acceptable as reliable and experienced witnesses, were not officially expert ones. And the expert ones weren't going to give their findings to him. Unless . . .
    The Marshal pulled up at a bar, went in and asked for a telephone token. If there was one thing his last visit had done it was to make him more determined. Perhaps it had been the deserted-looking room with its dust-sheeted furniture which had brought the deadened images to life. After all, if somebody did kill the Dutchman, what a cold-blooded, sinister killing it had been. The meeting must have been arranged since the man only went there once or twice a year, and nobody goes about carrying enormous doses of sleeping pills . . .
    Waiting for the token, he glared about him at the milling tourists buying ice-cream and evening aperitifs. Somewhere in the city ... it could be any of these people, anyone . . . dressed like any other holidaymaker . . .
    A middle-aged German couple, unnerved by the hostile glare discernible even behind his dark glasses, left their drinks unfinished and hurried out.
    'Is something the matter?' asked the barman, handing over the token.
    'What? What should be the matter?" growled the Marshal. He paid and strode to the telephone.
    The barman looked apprehensively after him and then at his waiter, who shrugged. 'None of our business, I suppose . . .'
    'Let's hope not. I don't want any shoot-outs with terrorists taking place in my bar, thanks.'
    And he, too, began to scan the innocent-looking tourists.
    'Rubbish! That sort of thing only happens in Rome.. .'
    But both of them touched the metal edge of the counter to ward off evil, and the barman, dropping ice-cubes into three Camparis for an outside table, kept an eye on the Marshal's broad back.
    'Di Nuccio? What? I can't hear, this place is packed . .. Well, get what details you can and send them over with the daily sheet—Lorenzini will have to sign it, I'm going to be late ... I shall be at the Medico-Legal Institute and then ... let me see, the Pensione Annamaria and the Albergo del Giardino, those are my last two. If I'm not back—and I don't think I will be—you'll have to stay in, or if you want to eat at the