The Lure of the Italian Treasure Page 7

  “Oh well, at least we’re in,” Joe said, sticking his legs under the table and trying to smooth his tousled hair.

  “Don’t look now,” Frank said, lowering his eyes, “but somebody else we know just came in.”

  “Isn’t this marvelous, Silvio!” Philip Speck said as he walked straight over to their table with the maitre d’. He stopped and held out his hand for Joe to shake. “You’ve found my favorite restaurant. You boys are getting to be more and more intriguing all the time.”

  Joe didn’t offer his hand, but Speck picked it up off the table and shook it anyway. “Now, Silvio, you must do your best for them. They must be very hungry. They have been running all over town to escape from a very bad man.” He laughed and let go of Joe’s hand.

  “Yes, sir,” the maitre d’ said, smiling warmly this time.

  It was strange. Speck hung around blathering about how sorry he was to have put them through all that, how you can never be too careful in his business, how funny it was to see Pino at the police station, and on and on, as though he hadn’t just tried to kidnap them—or kill them, or whatever he was going to do.

  He must not have his gun, Joe thought, as Speck pulled up a chair and sat down.

  “Look, boys,” he said seriously, “I’m going to level with you. I don’t have anything to do with those Etruscan jewels—as much as I’d like to. If you ask me, you ought to be giving a close look to that count you’re staying with. Everyone knows he’s absolutely strapped, and I can tell you confidentially that he is in big trouble with one of his creditors. If I were he, I would rather steal than be in the kind of trouble he’s in.”

  He knows more about us than he let on, Frank thought as he gave Speck a cold stare.

  “Well, I’ll let you boys enjoy your time here.” He got up and Silvio escorted him to a table in the other room.

  • • •

  As much as they wanted to dismiss Speck’s information about the count being in trouble with some cutthroat loan shark, neither Frank nor Joe could get it out of their heads. But they didn’t talk about the case until they were on the bus going home. In fact, they hadn’t talked about much of anything while they were in Speck’s favorite restaurant. Every time someone opened the door, they expected Pino to come crashing in. And then when the food came, they forgot about everything else.

  “Obviously,” said Frank, after the crowd on the bus had thinned out and they were able to get seats, “if Speck is the conduit for the jewelry, he’ll want to frame somebody like the count.”

  “So,” Joe said, looking around to see if anyone left on the bus might be following them, “we should be thinking that the count is probably innocent.”

  “Unless Speck is innocent and really is giving us a tip.”

  Joe buried his head in his hands and tried to sort it all out. “It’s hard to think of a crook like Speck as being innocent, but I guess it’s possible he just missed this one. Maybe there’s some other dealer in town we should check out.”

  “I’m not sure I can deal with that right now,” Frank punned.

  “Two points, Frank. But you know what they say. You’ve got to play the hand you’re dealt.”

  • • •

  By the time Frank and Joe retrieved their scooters in Sesto Fiorentino, it was midnight, and they were ready for bed. They wished their underpowered rental motors could take them up the hill faster, but they had to be satisfied to putter up the road to Colonnata, past the building with the spring-fed horse trough built into its wall, and on up Monte Morello to the villa while the cars whooshed past them. About a half-mile from the villa, on a straightaway leading to a hairpin curve, they realized the car behind them wasn’t passing. Its brights flicked on, and a blinding reflection filled their sideview mirrors.

  “All right, already, go ahead and pass,” Joe yelled into the night air. But instead the car eased forward to within inches of their rear wheels.

  “He’s trying to run us over!” Joe shouted as the car revved its engine.

  10 Fire and Brimstone

  * * *

  With the car’s engine roaring behind him and the glare blinding him, Joe struggled to keep his Vespa on track. He reached over to swivel the mirror so he could see. Then, in the wide beam of bright lights he could make out a path that crossed the road just before the curve and rose up the mountain on the right.

  “Head for the path!” he yelled to Frank as he held tight to the handlebars and prepared for a rough ride. He was on Frank’s left and couldn’t make the move before Frank did, so he waited as the path approached, hoping Frank had heard him. The straightaway was fairly level, and as they pushed their engines to try to stay ahead of the car, they reached about sixty kilometers per hour. It wasn’t going to be easy to jump off the road—if they were going to do it. Now the car was honking its horn and swerving back and forth, its tires screeching.

  Just as Joe was about to give up hope that Frank had understood, and they were almost into the curve, Frank pulled off to the right. His timing was perfect. The driver reacted quickly by veering to the right and cutting off Joe’s escape. Making a split-second decision, Joe turned left and applied the brakes at the same time. The black sedan whizzed past. Joe had to stick out his foot to stay upright during the skid, and he could feel the heat of the friction through the sole of his shoe as he slid over the pavement. Regaining control, he peeled off to join Frank on the path.

  Following Frank’s lead, Joe flipped off his lights and navigated by the moonlight. The car stopped and backed up. But there was no way a car could negotiate that narrow, rocky path. They listened as the car screeched off.

  The path climbed up through an olive grove, and Frank and Joe kept going till they reached a clearing on the hill. From there they could see the road below snaking up the mountain toward the villa. And at the limit of their view they saw the villa itself, its red-tiled roof lapping up the light of the moon.

  “Hey, the car just stopped at the villa,” Frank said.

  “And someone’s getting picked up there.” Joe strained without success to see who it might be, and then the car sped off toward the summit of Monte Morello.

  They decided to head back to the villa even though whoever had followed them up the hill might return.

  “I say we wake up Francesca and tell her what’s happened,” Frank said as he unlocked the garden door. “Maybe she can convince her father to search the house to see who’s missing.”

  “What if it’s somebody who isn’t staying here?”

  “Well, then, at least we’ll know that it’s not Bruno, or . . . ”

  “Or the count himself?” Joe asked.

  They weren’t sure which room was Francesca’s, but they knew where the family apartments were and had heard her say her room overlooked the garden.

  “One good thing about creeping around a house like this,” Joe said as they climbed the stone steps, “is that the floors don’t creak.” Joe was wondering whether the rifle was still in the chapel when they reached the hallway and saw a light on in one of the rooms. The door was ajar, so they approached it cautiously.

  Seeing the pastels of the walls and draperies through the crack, Frank assumed that the room was Francesca’s. He tapped lightly at the door, and when no one answered he gently pushed it open. Thinking that Francesca might have nodded off while reading, he poked his head in and looked around.

  “Maybe she’s in the bathroom,” Joe suggested, noticing a tiled room coming off the far corner. “I mean, maybe it’s not too cool for us to be here right now, Frank.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right, but I’m not worried about being cool right now, are you?” He walked in and called out Francesca’s name, but there was no response.

  “Strange,” Frank said as he looked around the room. “I wonder where she is.”

  “I don’t know, but let’s get out of here.”

  Neither Joe nor Frank shied away from concluding that Francesca might have been the one who had been picked up outside
the villa, but neither of them said it. As they were leaving, Frank noticed a butterfly collection mounted on the wall over the bed.

  “Hey, Joe,” he said, “you remember our butterfly collection?”

  “Yeah, sure—but let’s get going, Frank.”

  “You remember what chemical we used to knock ’em out?”

  “Not really—something that smelled bad, that’s for sure.”

  Frank was about to tell him that it was chloroform, the same thing the thief had used to knock out the guard, when a voice startled them.

  “Francesca? Is that you?”

  The door swung open before Frank and Joe had a chance to hide. The light swept into the dark hall and fell across the angry face of the count.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he asked. He looked less imposing in his bathrobe, and the harsh light made him appear older. “Where is Francesca?”

  “We don’t know,” Joe answered.

  “We were trying to get her to help us figure out who just tried to kill us,” Frank said.

  The count walked slowly toward them, his jaw jutting out as he surveyed the room. “Let me tell you something,” he said sternly. “I have no idea what is causing you and your reckless ways to disrupt our lives. But I know one thing.” He looked into the bathroom and then walked over to within an inch of Frank. “Tonight it is going to end. You are no longer welcome here. Now please tell me where my—”

  “Hello, Papa,” Francesca said breathlessly as she walked into the room. Her cheeks were flushed, but her eyes still had their steady gaze. “What’s everybody doing here?”

  “Where have you been, young lady?” the count asked with a look that wavered between anger and relief.

  “Just out for a walk in the garden,” she said. “It’s a lovely night and I couldn’t sleep.” She looked at her father in his bathrobe, practically standing on top of Frank, and smiled. “I guess nobody else could sleep, either. It’s nice that you all thought of coming here.”

  The count backed off, his mood obviously softened by Francesca’s calm gaze. “Look here,” he said, thrusting his hands in his bathrobe pockets and looking at Frank. “What’s all this about being nearly killed? Is this another of your pranks?”

  “No, sir, we were just riding home on our scooters, and someone tried to run us over.”

  “I see. And you thought Francesca could somehow help?”

  Frank could see that the count was skeptical, but he went on anyway. “It’s only because we saw the car stop here and pick someone up.”

  “Ah, but you see, a great many of the local folk use our villa, with its well-lit facade, as a rendezvous point. You no doubt simply ran into a spirited youth on a joy ride. Now, I suggest we all get to bed and try from now on to avoid letting our imaginations become overheated.”

  The count then calmly escorted the Hardys into the hall. They stood in front of a large casement window that opened out into the street, and he put his hands on both of their shoulders, as though to say, “never mind about what I said earlier.”

  After they’d said good night, a loud crash followed by the sound of glass breaking on the pavement outside shattered the quiet. Then the squealing tires of a car could be heard on the street. Frank quickly rushed to the window to look out. A black sedan was hurtling down the road toward Colonnata. Frank was pretty sure it was the same one that had chased them.

  The Hardys, the count, and Francesca ran down the steps toward the section of the villa where the sound had come from—toward the east wing, where the students were staying. When they reached the stairs leading up to their hallway, they could see that the lights were on and heard people screaming.

  Joe bounded up the stairs first. After a few steps he could smell smoke and hear people yelling “Fire!” in several languages. He had a bad feeling as he reached the top and looked down the hall. Smoke was billowing out of their room. “Cosimo!” he yelled as he raced down the hall.

  11 Vito’s Bad Vibes

  * * *

  Joe rushed through the narrow passage, against the stream of anxious students trying to escape the fire. Dense, black, foul-smelling smoke poured out of their room continuously.

  It seemed strange at first that a stone and stucco building could have caught fire so quickly. The only exposed wood consisted of the ancient, hand-sawed beams laid across the ceiling. They were blackened by time, however, and Joe realized that they were therefore extremely dry and flammable. And there was the furniture. If someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail through the window, the burning gasoline could easily have ignited a bed and from there the fire could spread to the ceiling.

  Joe dropped to his stomach and crept under the cloud toward the doorway, hoping to see whether Cosimo was trapped in the room. He had about a foot of clear air along the floor so he kept on creeping, calling for Cosimo.

  “I’m okay, Joe,” Cosimo finally yelled from down the hall. “You’d better get out of there.”

  Joe had made it into the room and could already see what he’d half-expected. There was no fire—only a metal canister spewing out noxious gases and showing no sign of letting up.

  “It’s only a smoke-bomb,” Joe yelled back to the others. He began crawling out of the room, only to find himself under a deluge of water under high pressure. “Hey, turn it off!” he shouted as a steady stream of water arched in through the window. “Tell them to turn it off!”

  The water kept pouring in, and Joe realized that if it didn’t stop soon, the building would suffer almost as much damage from the water as a fire might have caused. He grabbed a towel from a nearby chair, held his breath, and reached for the smoke-bomb. Still holding his breath and pointing the bomb away from him, he ran for the window while dodging the stream of water. A quick toss and the thing flew out of the window like a jet with bad exhaust. Seconds later the hose stopped.

  “Well done, young man!” cried the count as he stepped gingerly over the slippery terra-cotta floor toward Joe. He was bent over to avoid the black cloud that still filled the upper half of the room. He started to slip and Joe quickly grabbed him by the upper arm. Fighting to keep his balance, he helped the count out into the hallway.

  “Thank goodness you’re okay!” Francesca said, putting an arm around Joe as they moved down the hall away from the smoke and water. “I guess it looks like somebody really is trying to scare you—if not worse.”

  “In that case, I’m glad this happened,” Joe replied. “I was beginning to wonder if everybody thought we were the cause of all the trouble.”

  “I must confess, it did cross my mind,” the count said.

  That’s an understatement, Frank said to himself.

  “Well, you’ll have to tell me all about what you’ve been up to.” The count seemed to be more than relieved that there had been no fire. He turned to Cosimo with concern. “You must have thought you’d been thrown into Dante’s inferno.”

  “Yes, sir, I did,” Cosimo replied. He was still pale and spoke very softly.

  Joe had seen painted depictions of the great Florentine poet Dante’s Inferno, with its grisly images of the torments of hell. He hadn’t read the book, but he thought a conversation with a count called for him to say something impressive. The statue in the garden of Hercules fighting Cerberus at the gates of hell was all that came to mind.

  “It’s a good thing Cerberon didn’t get thrown through the window.”

  Everyone laughed politely, but the count appeared to be puzzled.

  “I think you mean Cerberus, Giuseppe,” Cosimo said, smiling.

  “Whatever,” Joe said, embarrassed. “You knew what I meant—the monster Hercules is fighting out in the garden. “

  “On the contrary,” the count said. “I had forgotten the name of that creature entirely, and I thank you for reminding me.” He turned to Francesca. “You know, princess, I think I’m going to like your new friends. Now let’s get Giuseppe some fresh clothes and call Inspector Barducci. We’ll probably have to wake her up, but I think
the situation is serious enough to warrant it.”

  After getting cleaned up and changed into some clothes he borrowed from a Swedish student—all of his and Frank’s having been ruined—Joe joined the others in the count’s apartment.

  “Well, Joseph, do come in,” the count said. “Now that I have found out a little about you and your brother, I must say I am impressed—certainly more so than Inspector Barducci seemed to be.” He chuckled cheerfully and indicated a chair for Joe to take next to Frank’s, in what must have been the count’s private living room. Francesca had apparently gone to bed, but Cosimo was sitting on the other side of Frank, and he looked as if he had recovered completely. “Please accept my apologies for not understanding what you have been trying to do.”

  “Trying is right,” said Joe. “I don’t think we’ve succeeded at all.”

  “On the contrary,” said the count. “As we’ve just been discussing, it seems that you and Frank have managed to draw some very nasty characters out of the woodwork.”

  Joe wasn’t sure if the count was including his friend Signore Cafaggio in the same category as Speck, and he also had no idea whether the matter of the mysterious rifle had been cleared up. He glanced at Frank, who subtly shook his head, as though to say, Careful, man—we’re not home yet.

  Joe took a chance. “So you think we were being chased by one of Speck’s henchmen, and that one of them also threw the smoke bomb to scare us off.”

  “Quite possibly—yes,” he said as a bell rang downstairs. “That will be the inspector. Let’s find out what she thinks about all this.”

  When they had last seen the inspector, Frank and Joe had promised not to meddle with any evidence, which they hadn’t taken to mean that they couldn’t pursue fresh leads. They’d have to see what she thought about their brush with Speck and Pino.

  If the expression on her face is any indication, we’re in trouble, Joe thought as she strode into the room scowling. She was wearing a fleece jogging suit and no makeup. She ignored the count’s outstretched hand and walked straight to Frank and Joe. “I had already planned to question you about your continued attempt to harass Signore Cafaggio,” she said. “If you keep causing trouble like this, your father’s reputation will not be able to prevent us from sending you back home.”