GUSTAW HERLING
59
inviting me to supper at Villa Melton. After that 1 went often , at least once a
month, and in late 1970 much more frequently."
"This is the point where our l"eaJ conversation begins, real in the sense
that 1 will be all ears. If I can help our colleagues at Scotland Yard in any
way, it will be chiefly because of what you can tell me about your contacts
with Malcolm in Naples. Consider yourself free to the utmost not to try to
condense things. Anything may be important, even things that instinctively
strike you as insignificant."
"I came away from my first visit feeling strange and somewhat de–
pressed. Of course, Signor Commissario, you know the villa on Posillipo. But
have you ever been there at night? The road down from the street gate to
the villa on its rocky spur right on the sea is a half-kilometer long; it runs
through a splendid park with age-old trees, and it is pitch black at night. I was
received by a silent old gatekeeper with a lantern who lived in the lodge by
the gate. He led me down a narrow stepped walk
to
the front door of the
villa, rang the bell, and then without a word set off on his way back. 1 waited
some time. Finally it was Malcolm himself who opened the door. He was
about forty-three or forty-four at the time, but he looked older. His bushy
hair had turned white, his face was extremely bloated, and his movements
were sluggish. He hobbled and leaned heavily on his cane. The inside ofthe
villa looked like a second-hand furniture shop: it was a picture of seediness
and a kind of intentional disrepair. We dined in his room; the gatekeeper's
wife, who did the housekeeping, served. One whole wall was filled by a
window giving onto a terrace and the bay of Naples. A large overweight
Doberman drowsed in front of the fireplace in a book-lined wall. Books were
strewn over a wide rumpled couch. An easy chair stood in one corner under
a shaded lamp. Next to it was a small table full ofliquor bottles, and a large
engraving hung on the wall behind it. I will come back to the engraving, be–
cause it was the central point of my first visit. We gradually moved to the
dinner table. Malcolm drank a lot; at first he said little and only in half-finished
sentences, later he became more talkative. We went from reminiscences of
the war to mutual, rather shared confidences about later years. He was fed
up with the army, he had taken a fancy to Naples, and he had decided to live
here quietly until he died. He had learned Italian quite well, but he prefen"ed
to speak to me in English. He had got a smattering of archaeology when he
was at Oxford and decided to take it up again as a hobby. He had even
gotten in touch with the local archaeologists, and they promised to take him
along sometime on their excavations. And beside that? Sun , sea, wine, and
reading. Wasn't that sufficient for happiness? A grimace of fatigue and bore–
dom flitted across his face. Before leaving I went over to the engraving in
the corner of the room. Malcolm stood behind me and explained that his fa-
