“What do you mean, no one?” Belbo asked.
“No corpse. The doctor went home, and the police found only what you see here. They questioned the old alcoholic and the clerk, and got the story I just told you. What of the two gentlemen who came in with Ardenti at ten o’clock? They could have left anytime between eleven and one, and nobody would have noticed. Were they still in the room when the old man came in? Who knows? He stayed only a second, didn’t look into the kitchen or the bathroom. Could they have left while the clerk and the alcoholic were out calling for help? Did they take the body with them? Not impossible. There’s an outside staircase to the courtyard, and from the courtyard they could just walk out the front door, which opens into a side street.
“More important, was there really a body? Or did the colonel go out with the two men—at midnight, say—and the old alcoholic dreamed the whole thing? The clerk says it wouldn’t be the first time the old man saw things that weren’t there. A few years ago he saw a naked female guest hanged in her room, but half an hour later the woman came in, fresh as a daisy, and on the old man’s cot they found one of those S-M magazines. Who knows? Maybe he was peeping through the keyhole and saw a curtain stirring in the shadows. All we know for sure is that this room has been searched and Ardenti is missing.
“But I’ve already talked too much. Now it’s your turn, Dr. Belbo. The only thing we found was a slip of paper on the floor by that little table. ‘2 P.M. Rakosky, Hotel Principe e Savoia; 4 P.M. Garamond, Dr. Belbo.’ You say he did come to see you. Tell me what happened.”
The knights of the Graal wanted to face no further questions.
—Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, XVI, 819
Belbo was brief. He repeated what he had already said on the phone: The colonel had told a hazy story about discovering evidence of a treasure in some documents he had found in France, but he hadn’t said much more about it. He seemed to think he was in possession of a dangerous secret, and he wanted to make it public so he wouldn’t be the only one who knew it. He mentioned the fact that others who had discovered the secret before him had disappeared mysteriously.
He would show us the documents only if we guaranteed him a contract, but Belbo couldn’t guarantee a contract without seeing something first. They vaguely agreed to get together again. The colonel had spoken of a meeting with someone named Rakosky, describing him as the editor of Les Cahiers du Mystère. The colonel wanted this Rakosky to write a preface for him, and apparently Rakosky had advised him to delay publication. The colonel hadn’t told this man about the appointment at Garamond. That was all.
“I see,” De Angelis said. “What sort of impression did he make on you?”
“He seemed an eccentric to us, and he spoke about his past in, well, an unrepentant tone. It included a spell in the Foreign Legion.”
“He told you the truth, though not the whole truth. We were already keeping an eye on him, at least to some extent. We have so many such cases…. First of all, Ardenti wasn’t his real name, but he had a legitimate French passport. He started reappearing in Italy from time to time a few years ago, and was tentatively identified as a Captain Arcoveggi, sentenced to death in absentia in 1945. Collaboration with the SS. He sent some people to Dachau. They were keeping an eye on him in France, too. He was tried for fraud there, and just managed to get off.
We have an idea—but only an idea, mind you—that Ardenti at one point was calling himself Fassotti, that he’s the Fassotti that a small industrialist in Peschiera Borromeo filed a complaint against last year. This Fassotti—or Ardenti—had convinced the industrialist that the treasure of Dongo, the legendary Fascist gold reserve, was still lying at the bottom of Lake Como. Fassotti claimed to have identified the spot, and said all he needed was a few tens of millions of lire for a couple of divers and a power boat. Once he had the money, he vanished. Now you confirm that he had a kind of mania about treasures.”
“And this Rakosky?”
“We checked. A Vladimir Rakosky was registered at the Principe e Savoia. French passport. Distinguished-looking gentleman. It matches the description the clerk here gave us. Alitalia says his name appears on the passenger list for the first flight to Paris this morning. I’ve alerted Interpol. Annunziata, anything come in from Paris?”
“Nothing so far, sir.”
“And that’s it. So Colonel Ardenti, or whatever his name is, arrived in Milan four days ago. We don’t know what he did the first three, but yesterday at two he presumably saw Rakosky at the hotel, didn’t tell him about going to see you—which is interesting—then last night he came here, probably with the same Rakosky and another man, and after that your guess is as good as mine. Even if they didn’t kill him, they certainly searched his room. What were they looking for?
In his jacket … which reminds me, if he went out, it was in shirtsleeves, because the jacket with his passport in the pocket is still here. But that doesn’t make things any easier, because the old man says the colonel was stretched out on the bed in his jacket, unless it was a different jacket. God, I feel like I’m in a loony bin. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, in his jacket we found plenty of money, too much money. So it wasn’t money they were looking for. And you gentlemen have given me the only lead. You say the colonel had some documents. What did they look like?”
“He was carrying a brown briefcase,” Belbo said.
“It looked more red to me,” I said.
“Brown,” Belbo insisted. “But I could be wrong.”
“Red or brown,” De Angelis said, “it’s not here now. Last night’s visitors must have taken it. The briefcase is what we have to concentrate on. If you ask me, Ardenti wasn’t trying to publish a book at all. He had probably come up with something he could blackmail Rakosky with, and talking about a publishing contract was a way of applying pressure. That would have been more his style. From there, any number of hypotheses are possible. The two men may have threatened him and left, and Ardenti was so scared that he fled into the night, leaving everything behind except the briefcase, which he clutched under his arm. But first, for some reason, he tried to make the old man think he was dead. It all sounds too much like a novel, and it doesn’t account for the way the room was torn up. On the other hand, if the two men killed him and stole the briefcase, why would they also steal the corpse? Excuse me, but may I see your IDs?”
He looked at my student card, turning it over a few times. “Philosophy student, eh?”
“There are lots of us,” I said.
“Far too many. And you’re studying the Templars. Suppose I wanted to get some background on them—what should I read?”
I suggested two books, popular but fairly serious. I also told him he would find reliable information only up to the trial. After that it was all raving nonsense.
“I see,” he said. “Now it’s the Templars, too. One splinter group I haven’t run into yet.”
The policeman named Annunziata came in with a telegram: “The reply from Paris, sir.”
De Angelis read it. “Great,” he said. “No one in Paris has heard of Rakosky, and the passport number shows that it was stolen two years ago. Now we’re really stuck. Monsieur Rakosky doesn’t exist. You say he’s the editor of a magazine—what was it called?” He made a note. “Well, we’ll try, but I bet we find that the magazine doesn’t exist either, or else it folded ages ago. All right, gentlemen, thanks for your help. I may trouble you again at some point. Oh, yes, one last question: Did Argenti indicate that he had connections with any political organization?”
“No,” Belbo said. “He seemed to have given up politics for treasures.”
“And confidence games.” He turned to me. “You seem not to have liked him much.”
“Not my style,” I said. “But it wouldn’t have occurred to me to strangle him with a length of wire. Except in theory.”
“Naturally. Too much trouble. Relax, Signor Casaubon. I’m not one of those cops who think all students are criminals. Good luck, also, on your thesis.”
“Excuse me,” Belbo asked, “but just out of curiosity, are you homicide or political?”
“Good question. My opposite number from homicide was here last night. After they found a bit more on Ardenti in the records, he turned the case over to me. Yes, I’m from political. But I’m really not sure I’m the right man. Life isn’t simple, the way it is in detective stories.”
“I guess not,” Belbo said, shaking his hand.
We left, but I was still troubled. Not because of De Angelis, who seemed nice enough, but because for the first time in my
