You Find Him, I'll Fix Him

I

At nine o’clock the following morning I was outside the Vesuvius hotel with the hired Rolls as instructed.

The Italian press had given Helen’s death quite a coverage. Every paper carried her picture: showing her as I had first known her with her horn spectacles, her scraped-back hair-do and wearing her intellectual, serious expression.

As soon as I had left Chalmers the previous evening, I had called Maxwell. I gave him instructions to go ahead and break the story.

“Play it down,” I said. “Make it sound commonplace. The story is she was on vacation in Sorrento, she was using a cine camera, she got absorbed in what she was taking and she fell off the cliff.”

“Who do you imagine is going to swallow a yarn like that?” he demanded, his voice excited. “They’ll want to know what she was doing alone, living in a villa that size.”

“I know,” I said, “but that’s the story, Jack, and you’re stuck with it. We’ll tackle what comes next when it comes. This is the way the old man wants it, and if you want to keep your job, that’s the way it’s got to be.” I hung up before he could argue further.

I handed it to him when I saw the morning’s papers. He had followed out my instructions to the letter. The press carried the story and a photograph, and that was all. No smart alec had an opinion to express. They just stated the facts as known, soberly and without hysterics.

Around nine-ten, Chalmers came out of the hotel and climbed into the back of the Rolls. He had a bunch of newspapers under his arm and a cigar between his teeth. He didn’t even nod good morning to me.

I knew where he wanted to go, so I didn’t waste time asking him. I got in beside the chauffeur, told him to drive to Sorrento and to snap it up.

I was a little surprised that June Chalmers hadn’t come along far the ride. From where I sat I could get a good view of Chalmers in the driving mirror as he read the newspapers. He went through them quickly and searchingly, dropping one after the other on the floor of the car as he finished reading what he wanted to read.

By the time we reached Sorrento he had got through all the papers. He sat smoking his cigar, staring out of the window, communicating with the only god he would ever know — himself. I directed the chauffeur to the mortuary. When the Rolls pulled up outside the small building, Chalmers got out and, motioning me to remain where I was, he went inside.

I lit a cigarette and tried not to think of what he was going to look at, but Helen’s smashed, bruised face was in my mind and had been in my dreams last night, and it haunted me. He was in there for twenty minutes.

When he came out, he walked just as briskly as when he went in. His cigar, now burned down to an inch and a half, was still gripped between his teeth. I decided that to look at your dead daughter with a cigar in your mouth was playing the role of “the iron man” to an ultimate end.

He got into the back seat of the Rolls before I had time to get out and hold the rear door open for him.

“Okay, Dawson, we’ll go up to this villa now.”

Nothing was said during the drive up to the villa. When we got there, and I had got out of the car to open the wrought-iron gates and got back in again, and we had crawled up the drive, I saw the Lincoln convertible was still standing on the tarmac before the front door.

As Chalmers got out of the Rolls, he said, “Is this her car?”

I said it was.

He glanced at it and then went on up the steps and into the villa. I went after him.

The chauffeur watched us without interest. As soon as Chalmers’s back was turned, he reached for a cigarette.

I kept in the background while Chalmers looked the villa over. He left the bedroom to the last and he spent some time in there. Curious to see what be was up to, I edged to the doorway and looked in.

He was sitting on the bed beside one of Helen’s suitcases, his big, fat hands in a mass of her nylon underwear while he stared fixedly out of the window.

There was a look on his face that turned me cold, and I moved silently back until he was out of my sight, then I sat down and lit a cigarette.

The past two days had been the worst I had ever lived through. I felt I was caught in a trap and was waiting for the hunter to come along and finish me off.

The fact that Carlotti had traced me from Sorrento to the villa, that he knew I had been wearing a grey suit, that he knew exactly when Helen had died and that I, as the mysterious man in the grey suit, had been up there at that time, made my flesh creep.

I had lain awake most of the night, worrying and thinking, and as I sat waiting while Chalmers was going through his daughter’s things, I still worried.

He came out eventually and walked slowly across the lounge to the window.

I watched him, wondering what was going on in his mind. He remained like that for several minutes, then he turned and came over to sit in a chair near where I was sitting.

“You didn’t see much of Helen when she was in Rome?” he asked, staring at me with his rain-coloured eyes.

This question was unexpected and I felt myself stiffen.

“No. I called her twice, but she didn’t seem to want me around,” I said. “I guess she looked on me as her father’s employee.”

Chalmers nodded.

“You have no idea who her friends were?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“She obviously got into pretty rotten company.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I suppose this guy Sherrard gave her the jewels and the car,” he went on, staring down at his freckled hands. “It looks as if I made a mistake keeping her so short of money. I should have given her more and sent some woman along with her. When a good-looking punk comes along, well-heeled with money, and is willing to give lavish presents, it doesn’t matter how decent a girl is, it’s a temptation not to fall for him. I know enough about human nature to know that. I shouldn’t have put her in the way of such temptation.” He produced a cigar and began to peel off its cellophane wrapping. “She was a thoroughly decent girl, Dawson,” he went on. “She was a student; a serious-minded girl. She wanted to study architecture. That’s why I let her come to

Italy. Rome is the blood and bones of architects!”

I took out my handkerchief and wiped my face. I didn’t say anything.

“I have a pretty high opinion of you,” he went on. “I wouldn’t be giving you the foreign desk if I hadn’t. I’ve fixed this coroner fella: he’s going to bring in a verdict of accidental death. There’s going to be no talk about pregnancy. I’ve had a word with the police chief. He’s agreed to let the thing lie. The press will roe the line. I’ve had a word in that direction too. So now we have a clear field. I’m going to leave this to you. I have to be in New York by the day after tomorrow. I haven’t the time to dig into this thing myself, but you have. From now on, Dawson, you have nothing else to do but to find Sherrard.”

I sat frozen, staring at him.

“Find Sherrard?” I repeated stupidly.

Chalmers nodded.

“That’s right. Sherrard seduced my daughter, and now he’s going to damn well pay for it. But we’ve got to find him first. That’s going to be your job. You can have all the money you want and all the help too. You can hire a flock of private detectives. I’ll have some sent out from New York if they’re no good here. It won’t be easy. It’s obvious he wasn’t using his real name, but somewhere along the line he must have left a clue, and once you find that, you’ll find other clues, then you’ll find him.”

“You can rely on me, Mr. Chalmers,” I somehow managed to get out.

“Let me know how you’re going to tackle the job. I want to be kept informed of every move you make. If I think of anything, I’ll let you know. The thing to do is to find him, and find him fast.”

“What happens when we do find him?”

I had to ask that question. I had to know.

He looked at me, and there was an expression in his eyes that turned my mouth dry.

“This is the way I see it,” he said “Helen met this punk soon after she arrived in Rome. It didn’t take him long to seduce her. The doctor says she was eight weeks’ pregnant. She arrived in Rome fourteen weeks ago, so he worked pretty fast. She probably told him what had happened, and like all the rats of his type, he started to fade out of the picture. I reckon Helen took this villa in the hope of winning him back.” He turned his head to look around the lounge. “It’s pretty romantic, isn’t it? I guess she hoped the surroundings would soften him. From what that wop detective says, Sherrard or whatever he calls himself did came here, but he didn’t soften.”

I crossed my legs. I had to do something. I couldn’t just shake a frozen dummy.

“Know what I think?” Chalmers went on, turning the full force of his big-shot personality on to me. “I think Helen’s death was no accident. I think we have two alternatives: she either tried to scare him into marrying her by threatening to commit suicide, and when he told her to go ahead and jump, she jumped or else, to shut her mouth, he shoved her off the cliff.”

“You can’t believe that… ?” I began. My voice sounded as if it were coming out of a tunnel.

“I don’t think she jumped,” he said, leaning forward, his face set and his eyes frightening. “I think he killed her! He knew she was my daughter. He knew sooner or later I’d hear what he had done to her. He knew if he tangled with me, he wouldn’t, stand a chance. So he manoeuvred her up on to the cliff top and gave her a push.”

“But that’s murder,” I said.

He showed his teeth in a mirthless smile.

“Of course it’s murder, but you don’t have to worry about that. All you have to do is to find him, then I’ll handle it. Let everyone think it’s an accident. That suits me. I’m not going to have any publicity on this thing. No one is going to snigger behind my back because she was pregnant. If this guy is arrested and tried for murder, the whole dirty story will come out, and I don’t want it to come out, but that doesn’t mean I won’t make him pay for what he has done. I can kill him in my own particular way, and that’s what I intend to do.” His eyes were glaring now. “Don’t think I’m going to murder him. I’m not that crazy, but I can make his life such a hell, in the end he’ll be glad to blow his rotten brains out. I’ve got the power and the money to do it, and that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll go after the basic things of his life first. I can get him turned out of his house or apartment or wherever he lives. I can prevent him putting a car on the road. I can fix it he can’t go into any decent restaurant. Small stuff, you think? Imagine how you’d like it. Then I can get after his money and wipe out his securities. I can make him lose his job, and I can make sure no one else ever employs him. I can hire thugs to beat him up from time to time until he’s too damned scared to show himself on the streets at night. I can even fix it that be loses his passport. Then when he begins to think life’s bad, I’ll really start on him,” He pushed his jaw at me, his face turning a dusty red. “Every so often I run into odd, tough characters: characters who are a little screwy. I know a guy who would blind this punk for a couple of hundred dollars. He’d tear his goddam eyeballs out, and think nothing of it.” He smiled suddenly, a smile that chilled me. “I’ll make him pay, Dawson, make no mistake about that.” He tapped my knee with a thick finger. “You find him — I’ll fix him.”

II

In the cupboard of the sideboard that stood against one of the walls of the lounge, I found three bottles of whisky and two of gin. I broke open one of the bottles of whisky, found a glass in the kitchen and poured out three fingers of spirit.

I carried the drink out on to the balcony and sat down on the bench seat. I drank the whisky slowly, staring at the magnificent view without seeing it. I was shaking, and my mind was numbed with panic.

It wasn’t until I had finished the drink that my eyes began to register again. From where I sat I looked down on the distant snake-back road that led down to Sorrento. I saw the big black Rolls that was taking Chalmers back to Naples, moving fast into the bends.

“It’s all yours, Dawson,” he had said as I walked with him to the car. “Keep in touch with me. Money’s no object. Don’t waste time writing. Telephone me. As soon as you discover anything, call me; no matter what time it is. I’ll fix it from now on my secretary knows where I am all the time. I’ll be waiting. I want this punk found fast.”

It was like handing me a razor and telling me to hurry up and cut my throat.

He had gone on to say that I might as well examine the villa in detail while I was up here, and check up on the place where Helen had died.

“Use her car. When you’re through with it, sell it and give the money to some charity. Sell all her stuff in there. I don’t want it. I’ll leave it to you. I’ve fixed to have her body flown home.” He had shaken my hand, his rain-coloured eyes on my face. “I want you to find this guy, Dawson.”

“I’ll try,” I said.

“Look, you’ll do more than try: you’ll find him.” His chin pushed out at me. “I’ll hold the foreign desk open for you until you do find him… understand?”

Which was just another way of saying if I didn’t find him, I wouldn’t get the foreign desk.

The whisky did me some good. After the second drink, I was able to shake off my panic and begin to think.

I didn’t believe for one moment that Helen had been murdered or that she had committed suicide. Her death had been accidental. I was sure of it.

I hadn’t been her lover. It was something I couldn’t prove, but at least I knew it. Chalmers had told me to find Sherrard whom he believed was her lover. I was Sherrard, and I wasn’t her lover, therefore it followed that there was another man involved. If I were going to save what was left of my future, I had to find this guy and prove he had been her lover.

I lit a cigarette while I let my mind work on this thing.

Was this man I had to look for the intruder I had spotted in the villa? If he wasn’t, then who was the intruder? What was he looking for? Certainly not the box of jewels. That had been on the dressing-table and he couldn’t have failed to have teen it. Then what had he been looking for?

After thinking around it for five minutes and getting nowhere I decided to shelve it for the moment and try some other angle that might yield dividends.

Helen had lived in Rome for fourteen weeks. During that time she had met this man X who eventually became her lover. Where did she meet him?

I realized then that I knew nothing about Helen’s activities in Rome during those weeks. I had taken her out a few times, been to her apartment twice and met her once at a party, but apart from that I had no idea how she had passed her time.

She had stayed at the Excelsior hotel, and then had rented an expensive apartment off the Via Cavour. Chalmers probably had paid the hotel bill: giving her a little luxury until she had settled down in Rome. It was probable that after staying at the hotel a few days, she was to move into one of the university hostels. Instead, she had moved into an apartment that must have soaked up nearly all of her sixty dollars a week allowance.

Did this mean that she had met X at the Excelsior, and he had persuaded her to take the apartment, probably paying for it?

The more I thought about it, the plainer it became that I should have to start this hunt for X in Rome. I knew of a firm of private investigators who had a reputation for thoroughness. It wouldn’t be possible for me to dig into Helen’s past back-ground without help. My first move would be to consult them. I got to my feet and wandered into Helen’s bedroom. I had only glanced into the room previously, but now I examined it in detail.

I looked at the double bed and felt a little qualm. She had planned this for both of us. I must not lose sight of that. It was obvious to me that her affair with X had petered out and, looking for a new lover, she had selected me. Had she been in love with me or had she been looking for a father for her unborn child? The thought was unsettling, but it was something that was a waste of time to brood on. Only Helen could tell me that, and she was dead.

Then another idea dropped into my mind. I remembered what Maxwell had said about Helen. She makes a play at arty-thing in trousers. The trouble she gets a guy into! Suppose X had still been in love with her, and she had grown tired of him? Suppose he had found out she had taken this villa and was planning to live here with me? He might have come down to even the score. He might even have thrown’ her over the cliff.

This would be a sweet theory to lay before Chalmers, who was obviously convinced that Helen was a thoroughly decent girl. I couldn’t lay it before him without involving myself.

With this idea nagging at the back of my mind, I spent an hour going through her three suitcases. It was a waste of time, because I knew both Carlotti and Chalmers had been through them and had found nothing. Her clothes carried a faint smell of an expensive perfume that made her memory very alive to me. I was feeling pretty depressed by the time I had completed repacking the suitcases, ready to put in the car when I left.

I looked over the whole villa, but I found nothing that’d tell me what she had done from the time the village woman had left her arranging the flowers to the time she had died.

I carried the suitcases down the steps and loaded them on the back seat of the convertible. I returned to the villa and gave myself another drink.

I told myself that my search must begin in Rome. Here I had found nothing, and as I thought about that, I got another idea. I stood thinking for a moment, then I crossed to the telephone and asked to be connected with Sorrento police headquarters. When I got through, I asked for Lieutenant Grandi.

“This is Dawson,” I said. “I forgot to ask you: did you have that film processed? The film in Signorina Chalmers’s cine camera?”

“There wasn’t a film in the camera,” he said curtly.

“No film? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

I stared at the opposite wall.

“If there was no film in the camera, she wasn’t using the camera when she died,” I said, speaking my thoughts aloud.

“That doesn’t follow. She could have forgotten to put a film in, couldn’t she?”

I remembered that the indicator on the camera had shown that twelve feet of film had been run off. I knew a little about these cameras, and I knew that when you put a film in, there is a catch that opens the film gate through which you thread the film, and as the gate opens the indicator is automatically set back to zero.

“I suppose she could,” I said. “Did Lieutenant Carlotti think anything of it?”

“What’s there to think about?” Grandi snapped.

“Well, thanks. Just one other thing: there wasn’t anything taken from the villa, was there? Besides the jewels, I mean.”

“We didn’t take anything.”

“Have you finished with the camera and the case? I’m collecting la signorina Chalmers’s things now. If I drop by, can I have the camera?”

“We don’t want it any more.”

“Okay, I’ll be along then. So long, Lieutenant,” and I hung up.

The footage indicator on the camera had shown twelve feet. That meant there had been a film in the camera, and it had been removed by someone who wasn’t familiar in handling this type of camera. The film had been forcibly removed, ripping the length of film out of the gate without releasing the gate lock. It meant too that the film had been ruined by taking it out this way, so it followed whoever had taken it out hadn’t wished to keep the film. The only purpose for removing the film was to destroy it.

Why?

I gave myself another drink. I was suddenly excited. Could this be the clue Chalmers had said I would find, and having found this one, I’d find another?

Helen wouldn’t have ripped the film out of the camera. That was certain. Then who did?

Then the second clue dropped into my mind the way a leaf floats off a tree.

I remembered her showing me ten cartons of cine film when I had called at her Rome apartment. I remembered chaffing her about buying so many, and I remembered she had said she intended to use most of the film in Sorrento.

And yet there wasn’t one carton of film in the villa or m her luggage.

There wasn’t even a film in her camera. The police hadn’t taken the films. Grandi had said they had taken nothing from the villa.

Was this the explanation of the intruder I had seen creeping around in the villa? Had he found and taken them? Had he ripped the film from the camera, and then tossed the camera down the cliff face?

To make absolutely sure, I went over the whole villa again, searching for the cartons of film, but I didn’t find them. Satisfied, I locked up the villa, dropped the keys into my pocket, and then, leaving the Lincoln where it was, I walked down the garden path, through the gate and along the path to the cliff head.

By now it was just after midday and the sun blazed down on me as I walked. I passed the inaccessible villa below. This time I paused to look more closely at it.

On the terrace, in the shadow of a table umbrella and lying on a lounging chair, I could see a woman in a white swim-suit. She appeared to be reading a newspaper. The edge of the umbrella prevented me from seeing much of her. I could just make out her long, tanned shapely legs, part of the swim-suit and a tanned arm and hand that held the newspaper.

I wondered vaguely who she was, but I had too many things on my mind to take any interest in her, and I kept on until I reached the place where Helen had fallen.

Methodically, I searched the path, the rough grass and the surrounding rocks within a thirtyyard radius. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I thought it might pay dividends to do it.

It was hot work, but I kept at it. I found one thing that might or might not mean something. It was a half-smoked Burma cheroot.

As I stood in the hot sunlight, turning the butt over between my fingers, I had a sudden and unmistakable feeling that I was being watched.

I was pretty rattled, but I was careful not to look up. I continued to study the butt, my heart beginning to thump. It was an eerie feeling, being up there on this dangerous path, knowing that someone was close by in hiding and watching me.

I slid the butt into my pocket and straightened, moving away from the edge of the cliff head.

The feeling of being watched persisted. Casually, I looked around. Dense shrubs, and about fifty yards away, the thick wood, showed me that anyone could be hidden and watching me without a hope of my spotting them.

I started back down the path to the villa. All the way back to the garden gate, I felt eyes boring into my back. I had to exert a lot of will power not to look over my shoulder.

It wasn’t until I had got into the Lincoln convertible and was driving fast along the snakeback road to Sorrento that I began to relax.

III

My first move when I reached Sorrento was to hand the keys of the villa to the estate agent. I settled the rent that was owing and gave him my Rome address in case any mail came for Helen at the villa. I told him to forward it to me.

He said it was very sad that such a beautiful girl should have had such a terrible accident. He said he had written to the owner of the villa advising him to have the path fenced in. I wasn’t in the mood for a chit-chat about fences. I made a grunting noise, shook hands with him and went back to the car.

I drove to the police staion where I collected the cine camera and its case. Grandi kept me waiting outside his office, for a quarter of an hour, then sent a sergeant out with the camera. The sergeant got me to sign a receipt for it.

I left the police station and crossed over to the car, carrying the camera in its case slung over my shoulder. I got into the car, started the engine and drove slowly into the traffic-congested main road.

The experience I had had on the cliff head had made me alert. I noticed in the driving mirror, a dark green Renault pull out from behind another parked car and drift after me.

If I hadn’t been certain that someone had been watching me up on the cliff head, I wouldn’t have thought anything of this move, but now I was suspicious. The fact that there was a dark blue sun shield covering the windscreen of the Renault making it impossible to see who was driving, added to my suspicion.

I headed for Naples, driving at a moderate speed, and from time to time glancing in the driving mirror. The Renault kept a respectful hundred yards behind me. I kept going, driving at

a steady forty miles an hour, and the Renault kept after me.

It wasn’t until I reached the entrance to the autostrada that I decided to see if the Renault was really following me of if it was a coincidence that it hung in my rear.

I eased the speed of the Lincoln up to sixty. The Renault still remained a hundred yards behind me. I pushed the gas pedal down to the floorboards. The Lincoln surged forward. It had plenty of speed and snap, and in a minute or so the speedometer needle was swinging up to eighty-seven miles an hour.

The Renault had fallen back, but it had also increased speed. As I watched it in the driving mirror I saw it was closing the gap again, and I was pretty sure now that I was being followed.

There was no hope of shaking it off on this fiat, straight autostrada. The time to try tricks would be when I reached Naples.

I slackened speed to seventy miles an hour, and drove steadily to the end of the autostrada.

The Renault hung on, keeping its hundred yards distance, but as I slowed to hand my ticket to the official at the exit of the autostrada, the Renault, as if the driver realized that once I was in Naples traffic I would be much more difficult to follow, moved up and closed the gap between us. I took the opportunity to memorize the car’s number. As I drove into the thick Naples traffic there were only twenty yards or so between us.

I made one attempt to shake off the Renault, but I wasn’t successful. The driver was a lot smarter at manoeuvring in congested traffic than I was, and when I made my bid I only achieved frenzied curses from the drivers of cars either side of me and wild hooting from the on-coming traffic.

I drove to the Vesuvius hotel, swung the Lincoln into the only available space before the hotel, told the porter to keep an eye on it and went quickly into the lobby.

I paused then to look through the revolving doors to see if I could spot the Renault, but there was no sign of it.

I went into the bar, ordered a Scotch and soda and then took the Paillard Bolex camera from its case. I opened’ the camera. Both the film spool and the take-up spool were missing. When I slid the catch of the film gate release, a strip of torn film about three inches long dropped into my hand.

This confirmed what I had thought had happened. Someone had opened the camera, taken out

the two spools with the film wound on to them and yanked the film clear of the gate.

I replaced the strip of film and locked the gate into position. Then I put the camera back into its case. I lit a cigarette and did some thinking.

It seemed likely that X had ripped out the film. The only reason why he had done so was because Helen had photographed something he didn’t want anyone to see. The chances were that he had come on her while she was on the cliff head and, as he approached her, she had turned the camera on him. He had realized the danger of leaving such a record in the camera. After he had disposed of her, he had ripped out the film and destroyed it.

After he had disposed of her.

I realized now that since I had discovered the film was missing from the camera and that the films had been taken from the villa I had known that Helen hadn’t died accidentally. It was something I was loath to admit, but now I had to admit it.

Chalmers’s wild guess had been right. Helen hadn’t died accidentally. She hadn’t committed suicide.

I was now in a far worse jam that I had imagined. Helen had been murdered, and if I wasn’t careful, the finger of guilt would soon be pointing at me.