The Keys Of Hell

SIX

THERE WERE TWO OF THEM, HE COULD tell that much from their footfalls echoing between the walls of the narrow alleys as they moved through the old quarter of the town. The harsh voice of the man who had first spoken occasionally broke the silence to tell him to turn right or left, but otherwise there was no conversation and they stayed well behind him.

Fifteen minutes later, they emerged from an alley onto the sea wall on the far side of the harbor from the jetty. A house several floors high reared into the night, and beside it a flight of stone steps led down to a landing stage.

An old naval patrol boat was moored there, shabby and neglected, paint peeling from her hull. Across her stern ran the faded inscription Stromboli – Taranto.

The landing stage was deserted in the light of a solitary lamp and there was no one to help him. He turned slowly and faced the two men. One of them was small and rather nondescript. He wore a heavy jersey and a knitted cap was pulled over his eyes.

The other was a different proposition, a big, dangerous-looking man badly in need of a shave. He had a scarred, brutal face, cropped hair, and wore a reefer coat and seaboots.

He slipped a cigarette into his mouth and struck a match on the seawall. “Down we go, Mr. Chavasse. Down we go.”

Chavasse descended the steps slowly. As he reached the landing stage, the little man moved past him and led the way to the far end, where he opened a door set in the thickness of the wall. A flight of stone stairs lifted into the gloom and Chavasse followed him, the big man a couple of paces behind.

They arrived on a stone landing and the little man opened another door and jerked his head. Chavasse moved past him and stood just inside the entrance. The room was plainly furnished with a wooden table and several chairs. A narrow iron bed stood against one wall.

The man who sat at the table writing a letter was small and dark and dressed in a suit of blue tropical worsted. His skin was the color of fine leather, the narrow fringe of beard combining to give him the look of a conquistadore.

Chavasse paused a couple of feet away, hands in pockets. Small, black, shining eyes had swivelled to a position from which they could observe him. The man half turned and smiled.

“Mr. Chavasse – a distinct pleasure, sir.”

His English was clipped and precise, hardly any accent at all. Chavasse decided that he didn’t like him. The eyes were cold and merciless in spite of the polite, birdlike expression, the eyes of a killer.

“I’m beginning to find all this rather a bore.”

The little man smiled. “Then we must try to make things more interesting. How would you like to earn ten thousand pounds?”

At the other end of the table was a tray containing a couple of bottles and several glasses. Chavasse walked to it calmly, aware of a slight movement from the big man over by the door.

One of the bottles contained Smirnoff, his favorite vodka. He half filled a glass and walked casually to the window, gazing forty feet down into the harbor as he drank, assessing the position of the Stromboli to the left, her outline showing dimly through the fog.

“Well?” the little man asked.

Chavasse turned. “How are things in Tirana these days?”

The little man smiled. “Very astute, but I haven’t seen Tirana in five years. A slight difference of opinion with the present regime.” He produced a white card and flicked it across. “My card, sir. I am Adem Kapo, agent for Alb-Tourist in Taranto.”

“Among other things, I’m sure.”

Kapo took out a case and extracted a cigarette, which he fitted into a holder. “You could describe me as a sort of middle-man. People come to me with their requirements and I try to satisfy them.”

“For a fee?”

“But of course.” He extended the case. “Cigarette?”

Chavasse took one. “Ten thousand pounds. That’s a lot of money. What makes you think I’d be interested?”

“Knowing who people are is part of my business and I know a great deal about you, my friend. More than you could dream of. Men like you are a gun that is for sale to the highest bidder. In any case, the money would be easily earned. My principals will pay such a sum in advance if you will agree to lead them to the position of a certain launch which recently sank in the marshes of the Buene River in Northern Albania. You are interested?”

“I could be if I knew what you were talking about.”

“I’m sure Signorina Minetti has already filled you in on the details. Come now, Mr. Chavasse, all is discovered, as they say in the English melodramas. According to the information supplied to me by my clients, the body of an Italian citizen, one Marco Minetti, was discovered on a mud bank at the mouth of the Buene recently after an attempt had been made to smuggle a priceless religious relic from the country.”

“You don’t say,” Chavasse said.

Kapo ignored the interruption. “A few hours earlier his launch had disappeared into the wastes of the Buene Marshes. Later, a priest and two men were taken into custody by the sigurmi at the town of Tama. Apparently, the priest was stubborn to the end, a bad habit they have, but the two men talked. They named Minetti, his sister and an Albanian refugee, an artist called Ramiz. I was offered what I must admit was a very handsome fee to trace them.”

“And did you?”

“We’ve been watching Ramiz for weeks, waiting for him to make his move. Incredible though it may seem, he apparently intended to go in again. You see, he was an intellectual – one of those rather irritating people who feel they have a mission in life.”

“You speak of him in the past tense?”

“Yes, it’s really quite sad.” Kapo sounded genuinely moved. “I decided to have a little chat with him earlier this evening. When Haji and Tasko were bringing him here, there was some sort of struggle. He fell from the seawall and broke his neck.”

“Just an unfortunate accident, I suppose?”

“But of course, and quite unnecessary. It’s surprising how easily one’s motives can be misunderstood. I’m afraid an earlier attempt to get in touch with Signorina Minetti also met with a conspicuous lack of success.”

“Which leaves you with me.”

“One can hardly be blamed for thinking it rather more than coincidental that Mr. Paul Chavasse of the British Secret Service just happened to be on the spot when the Signorina Minetti needed some assistance.”

Chavasse reached for the bottle of vodka and poured some more into his glass. “And what would you say if I told you I still don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“If you persisted, you would leave me no choice. I would have to apply to the signorina again, which would distress me greatly.” Kapo sighed. “On the other hand, women are so much easier to deal with. Don’t you agree, Tashko?”

The big man moved to the end of the table, a mirthless grin on his face, and Chavasse nodded thoughtfully. “Somehow I thought you’d say that.”

He reversed his grip on the bottle of vodka and struck sideways against Tashko’s skull. The Albanian cried out sharply as the bottle smashed into pieces, drawing blood, and Chavasse heaved the table over, sending Kapo backwards in his chair, pinning him to the floor.

Haji was already moving fast across the room, a knife in his right hand. As it started to come up, Chavasse warded off the blow with one arm, caught the small man by his left wrist and, with a sudden pull, sent him crashing into the wall.

Tashko was already on his feet, blood streaming down the side of his face. He threw a tremendous punch, and Chavasse ducked under his arm and moved toward the door. Kapo pushed out a foot and tripped him so that he fell heavily to the floor.

Tashko moved in quickly, kicking at his ribs and face, and Chavasse rolled away, avoiding most of the blows and scrambling up. He vaulted over the upturned table, picked up one of the chairs in both hands and hurled it through the window with all his force. The dried and rotting wood of the frame smashed easily and the window dissolved in a snowstorm of flying glass.

He was aware of Kapo’s warning cry, of Tashko lurching forward. He lashed out sideways, the edge of his hand catching the big man across the face, scrambled onto the sill and jumped into darkness.

The air rushed past his ears with a roar, the fog seemed to curl around him, then he hit the water with a solid forceful smack and went down.

When he surfaced, he gazed up at the dark bulk of the house, at the light filtering through the fog from the smashed window. There was a sudden call, Kapo’s voice drifting down, and another answered from the Stromboli, dimly seen in the fog to the right.

There was only one sensible way out of the situation and Chavasse took it. He turned and swam away from the landing stage, out into the harbor toward the jetty on the other side. It was perhaps a quarter of a mile, he knew that. No great distance and the water was warm.

He took his time, swimming steadily, and the voices faded into the fog behind him and he was alone in an enclosed world. Everything seemed to fade away and he felt curiously calm and at peace with himself. Time seemed to have no meaning and the riding lights of the fishing boats moored close to the jetty appeared through the fog in what seemed a remarkably short time.

He swam between them and landed at a flight of steps that led to the jetty. For a moment or two he sat there getting his breath and then went up quickly and moved along the jetty to the waterfront.

His first real need was obviously a change of clothes, and he hurried through the fog toward his hotel. After that, a visit to Orsini at the Tabu and perhaps a return match with Adem Kapo and his thugs, although it was more than probable that the Stromboli was already being prepared for a hasty exit.

The electric sign over the entrance to the hotel loomed out of the night and he opened the door and moved inside. The desk was vacant, no one apparently on duty, and he went up the stairs two at a time and turned along the corridor.

The door to his room stood open, panels smashed and splintered, and a light was still burning. A chair lay on its side in the middle of the floor and the blankets were scattered over the end of the bed as if there had been a struggle. He stood there for a moment, his stomach suddenly hollow, then turned and hurried back downstairs.

He noticed the foot protruding from behind the desk as he moved to the door and there was a slight, audible groan of pain. When he looked over the top, he saw the old proprietor lying on his face, blood matting the white hair at the back of the head.