The Splintered Sunglasses Affair - Leslie Peter (электронные книги без регистрации txt) 📗

"He steals, too," Kuryakin interrupted. "I watched while you were getting the car. He's in a marvelous position there, at the bottom of the steps. Women leave their shopping baskets on the ground while they put coins in the stamp machines; they leave their bags down while they check their mail... who's going to suspect a poor blind man, even if they do miss things at once? I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't pick a few pockets on the side, too."

The matchseller's face was contorted with rage. "Get out of here!" he snarled. "I'll have the police on you! I'll show you—"

Solo strode across the hall. He grasped the man's greasy lapels. "No," he said quietly. "I'll show you!... Let's have a look at your sneaky little face... I see. A partial cataract in one eye and perfectly good sight in the other. So you have to capitalize on it. Charming." His knuckles bunched in the cheap material of the man's suit as he raised him off the ground and thrust his face within inches of the bloodshot eyes. "All right," he hissed. "What have you done with the dead man's sunglasses?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" the matchseller blustered.

"When he fell, his head came to rest just by you, didn't it? And in the general scuffle you either picked the glasses off the ground or actually took them from his nose, wasn't that it?"

"You're mad, both of you! I tell you I don't—"

Solo hurled the man from him so that he crashed against the wall and slid to the floor. "Don't give me that!" he barked. "Illya—do we have the generator in the car? I think a little electrical treatment is indicated here."

"Certainly. It'll be a real pleasure," Kuryakin said, picking up his cue and moving towards the door.

"In the meantime..."Solo bent down and slapped the rat-like face once, twice, three times, four times, forehanded and backhanded, as he hauled the man to his feet. "I'll make a start. We have all night to spend if necessary."

"How many clips do you want?" Illya asked from the door. "Half a dozen will do, I should think. Greasy skin's a good conductor."

"All right, all right, all right!" The bluster changed all at once to an abject whine. "There's no need to get all dramatic over a miserable pair of sunglasses. What did you want to go and get violent for?" Eyes glared at them malevolently over black-rimmed nails as he felt his unshaven jaw to see if it had been damaged.

"So you do have them?" Kuryakin demanded.

"Of course I do, if it's so important to you. I don't see the harm in it: he wasn't going to need them any more. If I'd left them, the police'd only have pinched them. They were a nice pair too. Would've done a treat on me."

"Would have?"

"Yes, would have. The silly bastard must have caught them on something as he went down. One of the lenses is splintered to hell," the little man said viciously.

"How inconsiderate of him! What else did you steal from his body? ... Do you know the penalty in Italy for violating the dead. Napoleon?"

"Whatever it is, it's not enough. Come on, you. We want an answer."

"There was nothing else. I swear..."

Solo moved in menacingly. The man backed off, his hands raised, his lips curled back in a snarl. "Oh, very well, curse you. There was a pocket book... it was falling out of his hip pocket. The police would have—"

"We quite understand. Of course there was no money in it."

"No, there was not. And nothing you can do will prove there was."

"Go and fetch it. And the sunglasses."

"I tell you there wasn't any Not even a hundred lira."

"Strange and unbelievable as it may seem to you, we are not interested in the money—or the lack of it. Go and fetch them. Now!"

Sullenly, the man walked through into a squalid bedroom.

Beyond the tumbled grey sheets on the bed, a cheap veneer dressing table was piled with watches, belts, ties, wallets, purses, a couple of women's handbags, cameras, even a pair of binoculars. He pulled open the top drawer and rummaged around inside it. Eventually he fished out a black calf pocket book, nearly new, and a pair of sunglasses in expensive tortoise-shell frames. The left-hand lens was, as the man had said, cracked, the smoked glass finely starred and splintered, though none of it had fallen out.

Solo held out his hand and took them. He slid the Berretta back into his pocket and opened the door. "That's all for now," he said. "You're lucky. But there is one thing... I should hate to find you still outside that kiosk tomorrow, cashing in on people's sympathy, if I happened to pass."

Back in their hotel room, they examined their prizes. There was very little in the pocket book. The money would have vanished within minutes of the theft and the pickpocket would no doubt have plenty of blackmarket contacts for the sale of driving license, identity papers, check book and so on—the absence of which had been remarked on by the police when the body was brought in. There was, however, a miniature diary, a tiny volume with a pencil lodged in its spine and a calf cover en suite with the pocket book itself. And there was a collection of visiting cards, restaurant bills, stamps and other scraps of paper.

Solo glanced briefly through them and put them aside. "All these seem to be documentary evidence to support the poor guy's expense account," he said. "It's things like that which make you realize..." He broke off and shook his head.

Kuryakin hadn't heard him. He was staring at the last entry in the diary. "Listen to this," he said slowly. "Leonardo seems to have used this just as a kind of movable memorandum pad. He doesn't put down dates and times every day, like an engagement book. He doesn't fill it in afterward like an ordinary diary."

"It would hardly do, in our business, would it?" Solo asked drily.

"... But what he does do—he makes cryptic little notes to remind him of things. You know. Rent due tomorrow. Replace lamp in chandelier. Buy birthday card for G. Meet X at 3:15. Check dentist's appointment. That sort of thing."

"So?"

"So the last entry, for the day he died, reads simply: Send glasses to W for repair..."

"W for Waverly? Is that what you mean?"

"It does rather suggest itself, Napoleon."

Solo gave a low whistle. "If that's so, then he was on his way to send a signal to Waverly telling him the glasses were arriving, and what they were for, when he was shot," he said. "Exactly. And presumably he was intending to pack up the glasses and send them off by another route, from another post office, later in the day."

"I wonder if the Thrush people knew how lucky they were, getting him when they did?"

"I imagine not. They'd hired these local toughs to bump him off as quickly as possible, as soon as they discovered the list had been copied and realized it must be him—and that was the first chance they got."

"Yes... I hate to tell you this, Illya, but they stopped using the phrase 'bump him off' several decades ago."

"Rub him in, then, or whatever. But there's one other thing that's odd. Napoleon: an operative of Leonardo's experience really does not need to have a written reminder to send vital information back to his headquarters, does he?"

"No, I guess he doesn't at that. That doesn't tie in with your knowledge of the man's M.O.?"

"He was a very experienced, a very reliable, man. And he was working directly for me on this job. I'm certain, absolutely certain, he would only have put such an entry in that book because he meant it to be seen—by one of us."