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.Then a hole had beenhacked and gouged in the layer of concrete under the tiles with the aid of apickaxe added to the sledge, which had afterwards been dis-carded.The holedisclosed a rusty iron plate which Destamio was now using the pickaxe to pryout.He was in his shirt-sleeves, dusty, dishevelled, and sweat-soaked,panting from the fury of his unac-customed exertion.Donna Maria leaned on the back of a chair with one hand, using the other toclutch the front of a flannel dressing-gown that covered her from neck toankle, watching the vandalism with a kind of helpless fascination."You promised me that nothing would go wrong," she was moaning in Italian."You prom-ised first that you would leave the country and never return, andthere would be enough money for the family ""I did not come back because I wanted to," Destamio snarled."What else couldI do when the Americans threw me out?""Then you promised that everything would still be all right, that you wouldkeep away from us with your affairs.Yet for these last three days every-thinghas involved us.""It is not my fault that that goat Templar came to stick his horns intoeverything, old woman.But that is all finished now.Everything is finished."Grunting and cursing, he finally broke the sheet of metal loose, and flung itclanking across the room.He went down on his knees and reached into thecavity which it exposed, and lugged out a cheap fiber valise covered with dustand dirt.He lifted it heavily, getting to his feet again, and dumped itrecklessly on the polished top of a side table."I take what is mine, and this time you will never see me again," he said.It seemed to the Saint that it would have been sheer preciosity to wait anylonger for some possi-bly more dramatic juncture at which to make hisentrance.It was not that he had lost any of his zest for festooningsuperlatives on a situation, but that in maturity he had recognized that therewas always the austerely apt moment which would never improve itself.He pushed the door wider, and stepped quietly in."Famosé ultime parole," he remarked.The heads of Alessandro Destamio and Donna Maria performed simultaneoussemicircular spins as if they had been snapped around by strings at-tached totheir ears, with a violence that must have come close to dislocating theirnecks.Discovering the source of the interruption, they seemed at first to bePage 106 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmltrying to extrude their eyes on stalks, like lobsters.Destamio had one additional reflex: his hand started a snatching movementtowards his hip pocket."I wouldn't," advised the Saint gently, and gave a slight lift to the gunwhich he already held, to draw attention to it.Destamio let his hand drop, and straightened up slowly.His eyes sank backinto their sockets, and from the shift of them Simon knew that Gina had nowfollowed him into the room.Without turning his head, the Saint gave a pan-oramic wave of his free lefthand which invited her to connect the wreckage of the room and the hole in thecorner with the dusty bag on the table.He explained: "The game is Treasure Hunt.But I'm afraid Al is cheating.Heknew where it was all the time, because he buried it himself after he stole itfrom a bank in Palermo where he worked long ago under another name.""Is that true, Uncle Alessandro?" Gina asked in a small voice."I'm not your uncle," was the impatient rasping answer."I never was youruncle or anybody's un-cle, and you might as well forget that nonsense.""His real name," Simon said, "is Dino Cartelli."Cartelli-Destamio glowered at him with un-wavering venom."Okay, wise guy," he growled in English."Make like a private eye ontelevision.Tell'em my life story like you figure it all out in your head.""All right, since you ask for it," said the Saint agreeably."I've alwaysrather liked those scenes myself, and wondered if anyone could really be sobrilliant at reconstructing everything from all the way back, without a lot ofhelp from the author who dreamed it up.But let's see what I can do."Gina had moved in to where he could include her in his view without shiftinghis gaze too much from its primary objective.It made it easier for him thanaddressing an audience behind his back."Dino and let's scrub that Alessandro Destamio nonsense, as he suggests," hesaid, "is a man of various talents and very lofty ambitions.He started out asa two-bit punk right here in Palermo, and although he is still a punk he isnow in the sixty-four thousand dollar class, or better.He once had an honestjob in the local branch of a British bank, but its prospects looked a bit slowand stodgy for a lad who was in a hurry to get ahead.So he joined the Mafia,or perhaps he was already a member my crystal ball is a little un-clear onthis point, but it isn't important.What matters is that somebody thought of abigger and faster way to get money out of the bank than work-ing for it."Cartelli's eyes were small and crafty again now, and Simon knew that behindthem a brain that was far from moronic was flogging itself to find a way outof its present corner, and would take advantage of all the time it could gainby letting someone else do the talking."That's a good start," Cartelli croaked."What's next?""Whether it was Dino's own idea, because he'd already been tapping the till ina small way and an audit by the bank examiners was coming up, or whether hewas recruited for the job from higher up, is something else I can't tell youwhich doesn't matter either.The milestone is that the bank was robbed,apparently by some characters who broke in while he was working late onenight.He seems to have put up a heroic fight before he was killed by ashotgun blast in the face and hands which mutilated him beyond recognition oreven routine identification.But have you read enough detective stories toguess what really happened?""Go on," Cartelli said."You're the guy who was gonna dope it out.""For a first caper, it was quite a classic," Simon went on imperturbably."Infact, it was a variation on the gimmick in quite a few classic stories.Ofcourse, the robbers were Dino's pals and he let them in.He helped them tobust the safe and shovel out the loot, and then changed clothes with anotherbloke who'd been brought along to take the fall.He was the one who was killedwith the shotgun but who would ever doubt that it was the loyal Dino Cartelli?Dino got a nice big cut off the cake in return for disappearing, a lot ofwhich I think is still in that valise; the Mafia got the rest, and everyonePage 107 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlwas happy except the insurance company that had to make good the loss.Andmaybe the man with no face
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