On Thursday morning, 18 November, there was a telephone call in Inez’s room. It was from Mrs Perry of the Lido. Coleman, in his dressing-gown and sitting on Inez’s bed, had answered it.
“I wonder if you’ve seen this morning’s paper, Mr Coleman?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Your son-in-law—his picture’s in the Gazzettino. They say he’s missing. Missing since last Thursday night. That’s the night we had dinner.”
“Yes, I did know,” Coleman said, with a successful attempt at casualness. “That is, I knew just in the last couple of days. Not missing. I think he’s gone off on a trip somewhere.” Coleman put his hand over the telephone and said, “Mrs Perry.”
Inez was listening attentively, standing six feet away, her comb in her hand.
“I’d forgotten his name,” said Mrs Perry, “but I did recognize his face. I suppose you’ve spoken to the police?”
“No. I didn’t think it was necessary.”
A knock on the door. Inez let the breakfast tray in.
“I think maybe you should,” Mrs Perry said, “because the police want to know the last people who saw him. You went back with him that evening, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I dropped him on Zattere by his pensione.”
“I’m sure the police would want to know that. I could say I saw him that evening, until just after midnight, but you saw him after I did. I haven’t rung Laura and Francis yet, but I thought I would. Is he apt to go off on a trip, just like that?”
“Oh, I think so. He’s a free agent. Used to travelling.”
“But he left his passport, the paper said. I couldn’t translate all of it, but I got the manager to help me. I just happened to see the newspaper on someone else’s breakfast tray in the hall. He seems to come from a nice family in the States. They’ve been notified. So you see, it doesn’t sound like just a trip.”
Coleman wanted to hang up. “I’ll get a paper and sec what I can do, Mrs Perry.”
“And do keep in touch, would you? I’m very interested. I thought he was such a nice young man.”
Coleman promised that he would.
“What’s in the paper?” Inez asked.
“Let’s have some coffee, dear.” Coleman gestured to the tray on the writing-table.
“Have they found out something?”
“No.”
“Then what is in the paper? What paper? We’ll get it.”
“The Gazzettino, she said.” Coleman shrugged. “It’s to be expected, if the Consulate was notified.”
“Nothing about where he is? In the paper?”
“No, just a report he’s missing. I wish I’d thought to order orange juice. Wouldn’t you like some?”
Inez brought Coleman his coffee, then picked up the telephone and ordered two orange juices and asked if she could have a Gazzettino.
The Smith-Peters would ring up next. Coleman thought. They had gone to the theatre with the Smith-Peters last evening, and Francis had asked him how Ray was. Coleman had said, before Inez could answer anything, that they hadn’t seen him lately. “He’s still in Venice?” Laura had asked. “I don’t know,” Coleman had replied. The Smith-Peters were leaving for Florence as soon as their central heating and plumbing was ready, but that was running into Italian delays, and they kept themselves informed by telephoning their housekeeper. It looked as if they would be here another week. Coleman wished they weren’t here.
“Perhaps you should speak to the police, Edward,” Inez said.
“Wait till I see the paper. I’ll speak with them if I have to.”
The paper and the orange juice arrived.
Ray Garrett’s picture, probably his passport picture, was one-column wide on the front page, and the item below it some two inches long. It stated that Rayburn Cook Garrett, 27, American, had not returned to his room at the Pension Seguso, 779 Zattere, since last Thursday evening, November nth. His passport and personal effects were still in his room. Would anyone who had seen him that evening or since come forward and speak to the police at their local police station? It went on to say that Garrett was the son of Thomas L. Garrett of so-and-so address, St Louis, Missouri, president of the Garrett-Salm Oil Company. The police or the American Consulate had perhaps spoken to Ray’s parents by telephone, Coleman, however, was as yet unworried.
“If he is in Venice, I should think they can find him—with this picture,” Inez said. “Where could he be staying without a passport?”
“Oh—if he’s here, maybe some private house where they take in roomers,” Coleman said. “Not every place asks for a passport.”
Inez poured their orange juice from two small cans. “Promise me you’ll speak to the police today, Edward.”
“What can I tell them?—I put him on the Zattere quay and that’s the last I saw of him.”
“Was he walking towards his pensione? Could you see?”
“Seemed to be. I didn’t stay to look.”
He could see that Inez would not rest until she got him to a police station. It crossed his mind to refuse, even if it meant making Inez angry with him, if it meant leaving her and going back to his Rome apartment, but if he did not speak to the police, she or eventually the Smith-Peters or Mrs Perry would, Coleman thought; he would be mentioned in that case, so the best thing to do was to speak to the police on his own. It was damned annoying. Coleman would have given a lot to get out of it. If Ray hadn’t had money, if he’d been an ordinary American beatnik, his disappearance wouldn’t have raised this stink, Coleman thought. Ray’s parents had probably cabled the Consulate in Venice, asking them to do everything they could.
So Coleman promised to go to the police that morning.
He and Inez left their room by lo a.m., and Coleman was congratulating himself on the fact he hadn’t had to deal with the Smith-Peters, when the telephone rang. They heard it from the hall, and Inez went back into the room. Coleman wanted to walk on to the elevators, but he was curious as to what Inez would say, so he went back into the room with her.
“Yes…Oh, she did? Yes, she rang us up also…We are going this morning to speak to the police…The last time was when Edward dropped him at the Zattere near his pensione Thursday night…I don’t know him that well…Yes, oh yes, of course we will, Laura. Good-bye.” Inez turned to Coleman and said, as if she were rather happy about it, “Mrs Perry rang up the Smith-Peters. They hadn’t seen the paper. Let’s go, darling.”
At the first police station they tried, near San Marco, Coleman was pleased to learn that the chief officer there had not heard of Ray Garrett. He made a telephone call, then Coleman was told that another officer was coming over. Coleman and Inez had a ten-minute wait. Inez’s feet were getting cold, so they went out for a coffee and came back.
The new official was a bright-looking man of around forty, greying at his temples, in dapper uniform. His name was Dell’ Isola.
Coleman explained his relationship to Rayburn Garrett, father-in-law, then said that he and the Signora Schneider and three other people had seen Garrett last Thursday evening until after midnight on the Lido, and that Coleman had then taken him home in their rented motor-boat, the Marianna II.
“You put him off exactly where?”
Coleman told him, near the Pensione Seguso on the Zattere quay.
“At what time was this?”
The conversation was in Italian, in which Coleman was adequate though not perfect. “As nearly as I can remember one-thirty in the morning.”
“Was he a little drunk?” asked the officer politely.
“Oh, no. Not in the least.”
“Where is his wife?” asked Dell’ Isola, pencil ready, taking it all down.
“My daughter—died about three weeks ago,” said Coleman, “in a town in Mallorca called Xanuanx.” He spelled it for the Italian, and explained that she and Garrett had been living there.
“I am sorry, sir. She was young, then?” Dell’ Isola’s sympathy sounded genuine.
Coleman was to
uched, unpleasantly, by his kind tone. “She was just twenty-one. She was a suicide. I think—I know Signor Garrett was unhappy about this, so I can’t tell what he might have done that night. It is possible he decided to leave the city.”
Three or four policemen were now standing around listening, standing like tailors’ dummies, their eyes fixed on Coleman and Dell’ Isola alternately.
“Did he say anything that evening about going away?” Dell’ Isola looked towards Inez, too. She was standing a few feet away, though someone had offered her a chair. “He was depressed, you say.”
“Naturally—he had not been happy since my daughter’s death. But he did not say anything about going away,” Coleman answered.
There were a few more questions. Did Signor Garrett suffer from blackouts, amnesia? Was he trying to hide from anyone? Had he any large debts? To these questions Coleman answered in the negative “as far as he knew.”
“How long will you be in Venice, Signor Coleman?”
“Two or three days more.”
He asked for Coleman’s hotel, his permanent address—Rome, and Coleman gave street and number and telephone—then thanked Coleman for his information and said he would pass it on to the American Consulate. “You were present the evening on the Lido, Signora?” he asked Inez.
“Yes.”
Dell’ Isola took Inez’s address in Venice also. He seemed pleased to be in charge of inquiries here, though he said the building was not his headquarters. “Were there other people present?—May I have their names, please?”
Coleman told him, Mr and Mrs Francis Smith-Peters, now at the Hotel Monaco, and Mrs Perry at the Hotel Excelsior, Lido.
It was over.
Coleman and Inez walked out into the chill day again. He wanted to visit the church of Santa Maria Zobenigo, which he told Inez cheerfully had no ornament on its façade with any religious significance. Inez knew this and was familiar with the church. She wanted to buy a pair of black gloves.
They went to the church first.
It was after three when they returned to their hotel for a rest. Coleman wanted to make a drawing, and Inez suggested they have tea sent up, as she felt chilled to the bone. At four, the telephone rang and Inez answered it.
“Oh, ‘allo, Laura,” Inez said. She listened for a moment. “That sounds very nice.” She was lying back on her pillows in her dressing gown. “Let me speak to Edward. They would like us to have dinner tonight at the Monaco, and a drink first at Harry’s Bar.”
Coleman grimaced, but agreed. It was hard to manufacture prior engagements in Venice, since he knew so few people here, only three, and unfortunately every one of them was out of town.
Inez said yes. Harry’s Bar at seven. “Yes, we did. No, they know nothing. A bientôt.”
Inez and Coleman were a little late at Harry’s. The room was three-quarters full. Coleman looked around first for Ray, quickly, then saw Laura Smith-Peters’s red-blonde head at a back table. She was sitting opposite her husband. Coleman followed Inez towards them. Waiters in white jackets swooped gracefully about with trays of martinis in small straight tumblers and plates of tiny hot sandwiches and croquettes.
“Well, hello!” Laura said. “It’s so nice of you to come out to meet us on a night like this!”
It was raining lightly.
Coleman sat down beside Inez.
“What have you been doing all day?” Laura asked.
“We went to a church,” said Inez. “Santa Maria Zobenigo.”
They ordered, an americano for Inez, Scotch for Coleman. The Smith-Peters had their martinis.
“Delicious drink, but awfully strong,” said Laura.
As if a martini could be weak unless it was full of ice, Coleman thought.
“How can a plain martini be weak?” Francis said brightly, and Coleman hated that his thought had been echoed by this bore.
They had not yet been questioned by the police, Coleman decided.
Coleman girded himself for a deadly evening, and determined to order another Scotch as soon as he could catch the waiter’s eye. A waiter did come, with a saucer of olives which he set down, and a plate of hot croquettes which he offered. The Smith-Peters accepted, and the waiter served them a croquette each in a paper napkin folded in a triangle.
“I should be dieting, but we only live once,” said Laura, before taking a bite.
Coleman put in his Scotch order. He glanced at the door ahead of him as a man and woman came in.
“So you went to the police today, Ed,” Francis said, leaning towards Coleman. His grey hair was neatly combed over his bony head. His hair looked damp, as if he had just applied tonic.
“I told them what I knew,” Coleman said, “which isn’t much.”
“Do they have any clues at all?” Laura asked.
“No. The police station hadn’t even heard of Ray Garrett. They had to send for someone who didn’t know much either, but he took a few notes from me.” That was all he ought to say, Coleman thought.
“Did he say anything about taking off some place?” Laura asked.
“No.”
“Was he depressed?” her husband asked.
“Not very. You saw him that night.” Coleman took an olive.
Francis Smith-Peters cleared his throat and said, “I was going to go to the police just as a matter of duty. You know, as a fellow-American. But I thought since you’d seen him last—”
“Yes,” Coleman said. Francis’s tenor voice was as unpleasant as a rotary saw to Coleman. And Francis’s eyes were on guard, Coleman saw, beneath their bland friendliness. If Francis had gone to the police, he might have felt obliged to tell them—only after leading questions, of course—that Coleman hadn’t liked Ray Garrett, and that there had been some unfriendly words from Coleman to Garrett. Coleman sensed all this, and sensed it in Laura, too.
“I felt the same way,” Laura put in. “You knew him so much better and you’d seen him last.”
It was probably Laura, Coleman thought, who had kept her husband from going to the police—although Francis’s Italian was so non-existent Coleman could understand his reticence. “Let’s stay out of it, Francis. You know Ed doesn’t like him, and we don’t know what happened that night.” Coleman could imagine the conversation in their hotel room.
“I don’t know that neighbourhood,” Francis said, “around the Zattere quay. What kind of neighbourhood is it?”
“Oh, quieter than here, certainly,” Coleman answered.
“What do you think happened, Inez?” Laura asked. “You’re so intuitive.”
“About this?—No,” Inez answered. “He’s—” She lifted her hands in a helpless shrug. “I just don’t know.”
“What were you going to say?” asked Francis. “He’s what?”
“If he’s so depressed, maybe he went off somewhere—left everything—I suppose that’s possible.”
Coleman felt the Smith-Peters doubted this, and that they felt Inez did not believe it herself.
“The alleys,” Coleman said, “the alleys in Venice, if someone wants to hit you over the head and take your money—there’s always a canal handy. Just roll the body in.” The American table on his right was noisy. One of the men had a laugh like a dog’s bark.
“What a horrible idea!” Laura said, rolling her blue eyes, looking at her husband.
“See anyone around when you let him off?” asked Francis.
“I didn’t get out of the boat, so I couldn’t see much,” Coleman said. “I don’t remember. I turned the boat around and headed for San Marco.”
“Where was Corrado that night?” Laura asked Inez.
Inez shrugged, not looking at Laura. “Home? I don’t know.”
Inez had asked Coleman that, too.
“I looked for him, but it was after one then, after all,” Coleman said. He glanced at the door and started, sat forward with a jerk, and looked immediately down at the table. Ray had come in the door.
“What’s the matter?” Inez asked.
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“Almost—almost swallowed an olive pit,” Coleman said. He saw, without actually looking or seeing, that Ray had gone out again, having seen him. “I did swallow an olive pit,” Coleman said, smiling, realizing that he had no olive pit in his mouth to produce. He was glad Inez was so concerned with him, she had not noticed Ray, and that the Smith-Peters had their backs almost to the door. Ray had a beard along his jaw. He had jumped back as quickly as Coleman himself had started in his seat. “Whew! Gave me a queasy minute. Thought it was down the windpipe,” Coleman said, laughing now.
The others talked on after that about something else. Coleman did not hear a word. Ray was still alive, and on the loose. What was he up to? He certainly wasn’t trying to get the police on to him, or he would have come straight over. Or were the police collecting themselves outside now? Coleman glanced again, furtively, at the door. Two tall men were leaving, laughing and moving slowly. The door, like the windows, was of clouded grey glass, and one could not see through it. At least five minutes passed, and nothing happened.
Coleman forced himself to make conversation.
Where was Ray hiding out? Wherever he had been the past week, he would have had to change his abode today because of the newspaper picture, Coleman thought, unless he had told the truth to whomever he was with—but Coleman didn’t think that likely. Or did Ray have close friends here? Coleman began to feel angry, and afraid. Ray alive was a horrible risk for him, the risk of being accused of a murder attempt—two, in fact. The second one, however, was provable: someone must have seen Ray in the water that night, someone who pulled him out, or if by some miracle he had swum to the Piazzale, someone or several people must have seen him soaking wet that night. Coleman concluded that he had better finish the job, eliminate Ray; and though he realized this thought was prompted by emotion—mainly fear—he still felt it was a valid thought, and that logic would soon provide him with a better method than those he had been using up to now.
10
Ray crossed San Moise, the street of the Bauer-Gruenwald, and entered the Frezzeria. He walked quickly, as if Coleman were pursuing him, though he realized this was the last thing Coleman would dream of doing now, Coleman in the bosom of his friends again! Still with Inez, who must suspect Coleman, and yet they’d be in the same bed tonight. The world did not care really whether he was alive or dead, if he had been murdered or not. Perhaps it was the beginning of wisdom to realize this. He could have been murdered, and by Coleman only, but the world didn’t seem to care.