You Find Him – I'll Fix Him

  I told myself that my search must begin in Rome. Here I had found nothing, and as I thought about that, I got another idea. I stood thinking for a moment, then I crossed to the telephone and asked to be connected with Sorrento police headquarters. When I got through, I asked for Lieutenant Grandi.

  "This is Dawson," I said. "I forgot to ask you: did you have that film processed? The film in Signorina Chalmers's cine camera?"

  "There wasn't a film in the camera," he said curtly.

  "No film? Are you sure?"

  "I'm sure."

  I stared at the opposite wall.

  "If there was no film in the camera, she wasn't using the camera when she died," I said, speaking my thoughts aloud.

  "That doesn't follow. She could have forgotten to put a film in, couldn't she?"

  I remembered that the indicator on the camera had shown that twelve feet of film had been run off. I knew a little about these cameras, and I knew that when you put a film in, there is a catch that opens the film gate through which you thread the film, and as the gate opens the indicator is automatically set back to zero.

  "I suppose she could," I said. "Did Lieutenant Carlotti think anything of it?"

  "What's there to think about?" Grandi snapped.

  "Well, thanks. Just one other thing: there wasn't anything taken from the villa, was there? Besides the jewels, I mean."

  "We didn't take anything."

  "Have you finished with the camera and the case? I'm collecting la signorina Chalmers's things now. If I drop by, can I have the camera?"

  "We don't want it any more."

  "Okay, I'll be along then. So long, Lieutenant," and I hung up.

  The footage indicator on the camera had shown twelve feet. That meant there had been a film in the camera, and it had been removed by someone who wasn't familiar in handling this type of camera. The film had been forcibly removed, ripping the length of film out of the gate without releasing the gate lock. It meant too that the film had been ruined by taking it out this way, so it followed whoever had taken it out hadn't wished to keep the film. The only purpose for removing the film was to destroy it.

  Why?

  I gave myself another drink. I was suddenly excited. Could this be the clue Chalmers had said I would find, and having found this one, I'd find another?

  Helen wouldn't have ripped the film out of the camera. That was certain. Then who did?

  Then the second clue dropped into my mind the way a leaf floats off a tree.

  I remembered her showing me ten cartons of cine film when I had called at her Rome apartment. I remembered chaffing her about buying so many, and I remembered she had said she intended to use most of the film in Sorrento.

  And yet there wasn't one carton of film in the villa or m her luggage.

  There wasn't even a film in her camera. The police hadn't taken the films. Grandi had said they had taken nothing from the villa.

  Was this the explanation of the intruder I had seen creeping around in the villa? Had he found and taken them? Had he ripped the film from the camera, and then tossed the camera down the cliff face?

  To make absolutely sure, I went over the whole villa again, searching for the cartons of film, but I didn't find them. Satisfied, I locked up the villa, dropped the keys into my pocket, and then, leaving the Lincoln where it was, I walked down the garden path, through the gate and along the path to the cliff head.

  By now it was just after midday and the sun blazed down on me as I walked. I passed the inaccessible villa below. This time I paused to look more closely at it.

  On the terrace, in the shadow of a table umbrella and lying on a lounging chair, I could see a woman in a white swim-suit. She appeared to be reading a newspaper. The edge of the umbrella prevented me from seeing much of her. I could just make out her long, tanned shapely legs, part of the swim-suit and a tanned arm and hand that held the newspaper.

  I wondered vaguely who she was, but I had too many things on my mind to take any interest in her, and I kept on until I reached the place where Helen had fallen.

  Methodically, I searched the path, the rough grass and the surrounding rocks within a thirtyyard radius. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I thought it might pay dividends to do it.

  It was hot work, but I kept at it. I found one thing that might or might not mean something. It was a half-smoked Burma cheroot.

  As I stood in the hot sunlight, turning the butt over between my fingers, I had a sudden and unmistakable feeling that I was being watched.

  I was pretty rattled, but I was careful not to look up. I continued to study the butt, my heart beginning to thump. It was an eerie feeling, being up there on this dangerous path, knowing that someone was close by in hiding and watching me.

I slid the butt into my pocket and straightened, moving away from the edge of the cliff head.