The Lure of the Italian Treasure Read online

  “I feel like saying Bruno was pretty convincing, too,” Frank said. “But then I guess I can’t really say that, since I never understand more than half of what he said. What do you think, Cosimo?”

  “He fooled me. I thought he was a nice guy. And it seems as if he had a nice life here. It’s a tragedy, really.”

  “It’s sort of like that centaur you found, Julia,” Joe said. “He looks like a nice guy, but he must really be kind of an animal who can’t help himself.”

  “You’ve captured the myth perfectly, Joe. And to think that the man who maintained this beautiful garden was the thief. It’s hard to take in.”

  • • •

  “I don’t know about you guys,” Joe said after excavating all afternoon, “but I’m having trouble believing Bruno was responsible for all the things that have happened. Why would he take us into the secret chapel if he knew his fingerprints were on that rifle, and if he had used it to scare our horses?”

  They were closing up the dig for the night, having found little of interest that afternoon. Julia had gone home early—exhausted, she had said, by all the excitement. “I agree,” Cosimo said. “But then, he must have known his prints were on the gun. There isn’t any way of planting phony fingerprints, is there?”

  “Not any realistic way,” Frank said. “Anyway, anybody trying to frame Bruno that way would have to know that somebody would find the gun. And who but Bruno knew he was going to show us the secret chapel? What I don’t get is why Bruno pretended to have discovered the room when he had obviously been there before.”

  “I am afraid that there is only one solution,” Cosimo announced as he began climbing up the ladder to ground level. “Bruno must have returned to the chapel after we left and handled the gun for some reason, perhaps out of simple curiosity. He probably obliterated the prints of the real thief.”

  Everyone agreed that Cosimo’s theory made as much sense as any.

  “So we’ve got to keep trying to figure this thing out,” Joe said.

  • • •

  That night Joe had trouble sleeping. Another nightmare woke him up. He sat up and looked at the clock. Two in the morning. Quietly he got out of bed and slipped on his jeans and sandals. The moon was bright once again, so he decided to go for a walk in the garden. There, the croaking frogs kept him company as he strolled along the gravel paths, thinking. There was some thought that was lying below the surface of his conscious mind, but he couldn’t bring it up.

  Suddenly he remembered there would be guards on duty outside the dig site—Professor Mosca had insisted on two professionals. He realized he could easily startle them if he continued to walk around in the dark, so he decided to get onto the straight wide path that led to the site and walk slowly toward them while whistling. He’d been working on his Italian the past few days and thought he could have a bit of a conversation.

  He was all ready to say “Non posso dormire—I can’t sleep,” when he got close enough to see the two guards slumped over on the ground. He raced to them and turned one of them over. He was breathing. So was the other one. Joe was about to leave them when he saw a small metallic object glittering in the moonlight on one of their backs. He bent down to take a closer look. An inch-long brass dart with a feathered quill was lodged in one of the men’s dorsal muscles.

  Joe ran back to his room and woke up Frank and Cosimo. “Come on, guys,” he urged. “We’ve got to see if Francesca’s in her room.”

  They all rushed over and pushed the door open. Joe turned the light on and saw that her bed was empty.

  “Okay, that’s it. I’m not going to let her wriggle out of this,” Joe said. “Turn off the light and let’s wait for her.”

  The next fifteen minutes felt like hours to Joe, but somehow he knew that Francesca would come back soon. She was probably helping Vito stash the statue—or whatever they had stolen—somewhere safe. Or maybe they were delivering it to their dealer. He wondered what they would be pulling next, now that they had graduated to dart guns.

  Finally the door opened. Frank switched on the light, and Francesca tried to run. Joe jumped up and tackled her. She kicked him hard in the stomach and scrambled to her feet. Joe recovered soon enough to snag her left foot and send her reeling. He got up and grabbed her firmly by the arm. She struggled for a few seconds and then gave up. Joe pulled her into the bedroom and shut the door.

  “We know about everything, Francesca,” Joe said. “If you help us catch Vito, you might be able to reduce your sentence.”

  “You’re not the police,” she scoffed. “You can’t make deals like that.”

  “Okay, then, we’ll just take you in right now, and Vito will have a nice life without you on the French Riviera.”

  She pursed her lips for a second and then said, “All right. I’ll help.”

  Frank, who had been sleeping soundly only twenty minutes earlier, couldn’t believe what was happening. “What made you do it, Francesca? Wasn’t five million dollars enough for you.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said, crying. “Speck made us do it. He said he wouldn’t pay us at all until we got him something else. And if we refused, he said he would have Papa killed.” She sobbed again.

  “So it is Speck,” said Joe. “Look, Francesca, I’m sure if you help us catch Speck, it’ll help. Do you know what happens next, or is Vito in charge now?”

  “He’s . . . he’s always been in charge,” cried Francesca. “He talked me into it . . . I thought I could save the estate. . . . ”

  “Okay, okay, just try to remember what Vito said he would do next,” Joe said.

  “He’s going to meet Speck in front of the church in Colonnata to make the transfer,” she explained. “They were going to meet at three-thirty this morning.”

  “That’s in a half hour,” Frank pointed out. “We’ve got to act fast.”

  “How about if Francesca shows up with that secret recording device you brought,” Cosimo suggested, “and gets Speck to talk about the thefts?”

  “Brilliant, Cosimo,” Joe said. “But how’s she going to explain suddenly showing up. Speck won’t like that.”

  “Maybe Francesca could say she’s worried that the police have planted a homing device on the statue,” Frank said.

  “Let’s try it,” Joe said. “Do you think you can pull it off, Francesca?”

  “I . . . I think so,” she said weakly.

  They sneaked quietly out of the family apartment, and then Joe ran to get the wire from their room. After taping the miniature transmitter to Francesca’s stomach, everyone started to get into Francesca’s car. Suddenly Cosimo pulled back. “Perhaps it would be better to call Inspector Barducci at this point. Speck is a dangerous man.”

  “There’s no time,” Frank said, but he could see that Cosimo was scared stiff. “You’re right, though, Cosimo, about the inspector. Do you mind staying behind and calling her?”

  “No, not at all,” Cosimo said, obviously relieved. “You guys be careful.”

  On the short ride, Frank and Joe decided that they would get out before reaching the piazza. Then they would hold the receiver and tape recorder at a safe distance, while Francesca would proceed to drive to the piazza. That way, if Speck got suspicious and checked the car, he wouldn’t find anything.

  After getting dropped off, Frank and Joe took a back alley to a spot behind the post office where they could watch without being seen.

  “Something’s going wrong,” Joe whispered as he strained to see into the dimly lit piazza. He had on the headset and was listening in on what was being said.

  “Did they spot the wire on Francesca?” asked Frank. He could see Speck giving instructions to two athletic-looking men in dark suits. They were standing beside a limousine next to Francesca and Vito.

  “No. Speck’s saying he’s glad she showed up, so that he can get rid of both of them at once.”

  Frank and Joe crouched down and watched while the men shoved Francesca and Vito into the trunk of the limo and
then quickly got into the front seat. Speck scanned the piazza before getting in, and then the limo drove quietly away.

  14 Dishonor Among Thieves

  * * *

  Joe took off his headset and watched the limo climb the steep road leading out of town. He memorized the license plate number even though he had a feeling it wouldn’t do any good. Cosimo was probably having as much trouble as before getting hold of Inspector Barducci. At any rate, there were no police cars in sight. It looked as though there was nothing they could do to save Francesca and Vito.

  “What if we start knocking on doors until somebody agrees to call the police,” Joe proposed in desperation.

  “I don’t think so,” Frank said. “It’s the middle of the night. They’d probably have us arrested.”

  “At least the cops would come,” Joe countered.

  “And do you think we could explain the real problem without Cosimo?”

  “How about if we hot-wire Francesca’s car and chase the limo?” Joe offered.

  “We don’t have any tools, Joe.”

  “Maybe she’s got some in the trunk.”

  “I don’t know,” Frank replied. “We’d probably just waste a lot of time and not get anywhere.”

  “If something happens to Francesca, it’ll be our fault,” Joe said grimly.

  “I think our only option is to run back to the villa. Cosimo can explain the crisis to the police or the carabinieri,” Frank said, referring to the Italian military police. “At this time of night, with hardly any other cars out, they might be able to track down the limo from the air.”

  “Okay, let’s go!” Joe said. He threw down his eavesdropping equipment, and they started running the two miles to the villa. They made it up to the house with the horse trough and turned the corner.

  Suddenly bright lights from a car filled the air and blinded them. Before they could run away, Speck’s men, one blond and the other with jet black hair, were using the barrels of their submachine guns to shove them toward the limo, which was idling in the middle of the street.

  Frank was pushed into the backseat first. He looked up and saw Vito grinning at him. Francesca was sitting on his right. She looked the other way as Vito began laughing. “You like our show?” he asked as Joe was flung in beside Frank. “You must have felt so sorry for Francesca.” He laughed and put an arm around Francesca. “Look how clever is Francesca.” He took out a piece of paper, unfolded it, and handed it to Frank.

  “ ‘Fratelli Hardy stanno guardando.’ ” Frank read it out loud. “The Hardy brothers are watching,” Francesca had written. She must have handed it to Vito before the Hardys had arrived at the piazza. The “show” must have been planned out on paper, too, so that the bug wouldn’t pick it up. Francesca was getting the last laugh after all.

  Speck turned around in the front seat as the limo sped off. He looked relaxed and pleased with himself. “Well, it’s been quite an adventure, boys, but I think we’ll do the Swiss leg of the trip without you. Any last requests before we find a nice place to, ah, put you?”

  “Just tell me how you’re going to explain Francesca’s disappearance,” Frank said.

  “Oh, how careless of me!” Speck replied. “You’re absolutely right, Mr. Hardy. We must stop and swing back to the villa to drop off Francesca. Then she can explain everything to the police. Splendid plan, indeed!” He laughed, as the limo turned onto the wide road at the base of the hill, apparently on its way to the autostrada that went north to Bologna and eventually to Switzerland.

  “What are we going to do about Cosimo, Mr. Speck?” Francesca asked, apparently having realized for the first time that there was a problem in her scheme to double-cross the Hardys. “I’m afraid he knows about you.”

  “I see. Well, now, that does seem inconvenient, doesn’t it?”

  “No one will listen to the boy,” Vito said.

  “Well, it doesn’t really matter to me,” said Speck. “No one will have any evidence connecting me to any of this.”

  “Francesca won’t ever be able to go home, will she?” Frank asked. “She’ll be a fugitive for the rest of her life.”

  Frank watched Francesca stiffen, as though she had just realized that he was right. “You’ll never get away with this!” she shouted. “My father will have you hunted down.”

  “It’s a little late to worry about that now, don’t you think, cara? Besides, it’s not so bad being a fugitive—is it, Claudio?” Speck looked at Vito and smiled. Vito—or was it Claudio?—shrugged and said, “I feel more free than before.”

  Francesca slumped back in her seat and buried her face in her hands. She seemed to be in a state of shock. Frank almost felt sorry for her, but he couldn’t help thinking that she deserved to find out that she’d been dating a fugitive con man.

  “You mean you guys set this whole thing up way in advance, including getting Francesca to fall for Vito?” Joe asked.

  “It wasn’t quite so precise as all that,” said Speck. “You plant seeds, and some turn into beautiful flowers. I never thought this one would be so easy to pick, did you, Claudio?”

  “I had a good feeling,” he said, laughing cruelly as he watched Francesca sobbing.

  “But, of course,” Speck continued, “if the dig hadn’t turned up anything, we would have found some other flowers to pick in that lovely villa. My foolish friend Antonio Cafaggio has described many of them to me.”

  So that was it, Frank finally realized. Speck and Claudio had been preparing to rob the villa, not the Etruscan site. When the jewelry box showed up, they just made a slight adjustment in their plans. But there was one thing that didn’t make any sense.

  “Why did you let Francesca in on the robbery?” Frank asked. “You wouldn’t have us to worry about right now if you hadn’t.”

  “Well done, young man!” Speck said enthusiastically. “You have hit on a flaw in our operation. We hadn’t counted on Francesca being such a sly little thing, had we, cara?”

  Francesca had stopped sobbing and was glaring at Speck. “It didn’t take a genius to see what you two were up to.”

  “But it would have taken a genius to outsmart us,” Speck said. “And I’m afraid you fell short on that score.”

  “Wait a minute,” Joe said to Francesca. “You mean, you figured out these guys were going to rob you and you didn’t turn them in?”

  “I couldn’t,” she replied. “Speck threatened to have Papa killed if I told the police. So I agreed to work with them, but only in return for a cut in the profits. That way, Papa would collect the insurance money for the stolen goods, and I would get half as much again from the black-market sale. I would have saved the villa—if you two hadn’t gotten in the way.”

  “How were you going to explain the money to your father?” Frank asked.

  “With his experience in forgery, Speck was going to manufacture an inheritance from some long-lost cousin,” Francesca explained. “And the money was going to go into a Swiss bank account.”

  “You fell for that?” Joe said to Francesca. “You never would have seen that money.”

  “You see what I mean about Francesca not being a genius,” Speck said, laughing.

  “But why were you so surprised just now to find that Vito, or Claudio, is a con man?” Frank asked Francesca. He was beginning to feel sorry for her.

  “He convinced me that Speck was threatening him, just like me—and that he had met me before Speck.” She looked contemptuously at Claudio. “I thought we were in this together.”

  “Poor Francesca,” Speck snarled. “She thinks she’s the only one with a good reason to be dishonest. It’s a failing common in our trade, I’m afraid.”

  The limo had traveled about fifteen minutes on the autostrada when the driver pulled off and took a narrow road that led into a forest.

  “I’m afraid there’s been a slight change in plans, children,” Speck said as the car stopped and the two armed men jumped out to open the back doors. “I think you’ll all be happier tog
ether, don’t you? You, too, Claudio, get out.”

  Joe, who had been sitting on the edge of the backseat, with Frank between him and Claudio, had managed to take off his belt during the ride without anyone’s noticing. It was a western-style belt with a heavy metal buckle. When the blond thug opened the door and pointed the gun at him, Joe got out peacefully, but as Frank was getting out, Joe swung the buckle forcefully down on the man’s hand.

  The gun fell to the ground, and Frank lunged for it. As he was about to reach it, the man stomped on his hand. Joe leaped onto him, grabbing him around the upper body and pulling him off balance. Frank was about to grab the gun when he heard Claudio behind him, yelling, “Stop—hands up!” They turned around to see Claudio holding the machine gun in one hand and the black-haired thug’s arm in the other.

  Frank and Joe put their hands up, and as the blond thug slowly got up, Frank could see Speck slide over in the front seat of the limo and grab the steering wheel. Before Claudio could react, the car had peeled off into the night. Claudio shot after it without causing it to stop, cursing at Speck in Italian.

  Claudio threw the black-haired thug to the ground and reached down to retrieve the other gun. “Okay, everybody walk over behind those trees,” he said, pointing both guns. “No one will be able to see you there from the road.”

  “What good will it do you, Claudio, to kill us?” Joe asked. Joe didn’t know if that was Claudio’s plan or not, but he knew from his experience with criminals in hostage situations that it’s always better to keep them talking.

  Claudio remained silent as everyone, including the two thugs, walked reluctantly into the woods. Frank tried to draw him out. “You know, if you help the police find Speck, you might be able to work out a good deal for yourself.” Frank didn’t know how the Italian criminal justice system worked, but he had to try something.

  “You forget I am already a fugitive. I have nothing to gain by being caught. Besides, I plan on catching Speck myself. Then he will wish that the police had caught him!”