GUSTAW HERLING
67
proof of fidelity and allegiance to a deep and genuine bond of feeling. Poor
Malcolm! The incident on the rocks dimmed his vision and clouded his mind. I
said 'suspect,' because all I had to go
011
were his conjectures. The last chap–
ter of this story, after Patano's disappearance, is not fit to tell. It can be sum–
marized in a few words: prostration and I suppose endless thought about
'freeing' Tom, 'ransoming' him from imprisonment in some
out-of~the-way
place in Sicily. Bear in mind, Signor Commissario, that this too is in the sphere
of my mind-reading. Even though 1 was now going to Villa Melton almost
every day, rather like visiting a lonely invalid who has to be looked after,
and though Malcolm was now more willing to take me int his confidence, it
never went beyond scraps torn out of a wider context that 1 knew nothing
about - things on the order of that allusion to Mafia efforts to buy anns
abroad in exchange for narcotics, the Freemasons' meeting in Erice, or the
episode in Trapani. What 1 want to stress in our conversation is that these
were the only direct confidences in that last period. That was the final pic–
ture, and 1 had to try to work it out for myself; it is the fruit of what you
refer to as my so-called intuition, rather than the summing-up of the little
confidences that Malcolm let trickle out."
"I certainly do want to consider the finished picture you have drawn."
"Consider it or not, as you like. Aiter all you were the one who called
me
to
the Questura, and you are the one who is conducting our conversa–
tion."
"Since I allowed you so much leeway, and since you have not followed
my suggestions, could we please dot the 'i's' now?"
"My opinion is that Malcolm,
f~tmiliar
as he was with the English ter–
rain, was drawn in as a middle man in the purchase of arms for narcotics
business. 1 suppose that Pat;mo was used as bait to begin with and then as a
means of blackmail and pressure. Malcolm resisted, thundered, took one step
forward and then jUlltped back half a step, and calculated that the price might
not be too high to maneuver himself out of the operation and pay to keep
Patano. The shot that deliberately missed was a put-up show for Patano's
benefit, but it was also a warning. Malcolm knew what the stakes were; he
couldn't not know. He went
to
London again fe)r three days in the middle of
November, in a desperate attempt to make a final deal. Evidently it didn't
work, because as soon as he came back he put the villa in Naples up for sale.
He sold it like lightning and too cheap, true, but he was in a panic. The irony
is that as far as the other parties in the affair he was mediating were con–
cerned, he already knew
f~tr
too much. He represented a serious threat to
both sides. And that is the finished picture this author has , plus the "total
disintegration" in London last night at midnight.
As
for the specific details,
Scotland Yard and you people in the QueslUra will have to work them out
