Theft of a Heart E-Book

Barbara Cartland

• Herausgeber: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Eternal Collection
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 358

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Amanda and her brother Vernon have vowed to avenge their father's death and repay some of his creditors. With substantial sums owing to those who lost all their money, the pair team up with Major Jackson, an army commando, to steal back all that was lost. Jackson, a strange, rather sinister character plans every detail of every theft and while each mission has been successful so far, will the final challenge prove too much? And so Amanda is sent out on the final mission, entering the Villa of the fabulously rich, but reclusive Max Manton. How she arrives at the villa in a sensational manner, how she rescues them both from kidnap and certain death only to be thrown into another terrifying situation, and how she finds there is so much more to life than money and adventure, are all told in this thrilling, fast moving romance that you won't be able to put down.

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CHAPTER I

In the roar of the traffic speeding down the wet streets of Naples nobody noticed a small figure come out onto the balcony of the Splendifico Hôtel.

For a moment the girl stood in the rain looking down at the speeding cars moving with a haste and urgency, as though the whole affairs of the nation depended on their reaching some distant point in the least possible time.

There was a chill wind blowing across the bay and she shivered a little, feeling the rain soaking through the black stockinet tights that she wore to the waist, and through the thin black sweater that, with its high neck and long sleeves, covered almost completely the upper part of her body. She also wore black cotton gloves, and she flexed her fingers a little inside them, before she turned from her contemplation of the traffic and walked along the side of the hotel to where another stone balcony protruded some twelve feet beyond the one on which she was standing.

She stared at it calculatingly, and then moving with a sudden swiftness as though what she had to do had to be done with the same urgency that possessed the traffic below, she swung herself up on the balustrade, holding with one hand on to the stone ornamentation which, with Italian generosity of design, was repeated over every window of the hotel from the first floor, to this, the ninth floor.

The rain was steady, but it was not hard enough to be blinding. She could see by the light of the street-lamps the whole perspective of stone balconies bulging out from the façade of the hotel, identical, and from where she stood, looking somewhat like the basket of netball goalposts emptily waiting for a ball to be deposited in them.

She drew a deep breath. Her whole body tensed and then she jumped. To anyone watching it was almost as though she flew over the intervening chasm between her balcony and the next – she was so light, so lissom, the jump seemed effortless, and yet to have failed, defaulted or lost her nerve, would have meant crashing down nine floors onto the busy street below.

She landed on the balustrade of the next balcony with a little thud, her feet gripping the stone surface momentarily, and then with a further jump she landed in the very centre of the balcony itself. With her hands she steadied herself on the wet stone floor of the balcony and then she was up and turning to the window. It was, as she had seen before she jumped, slightly ajar – she listened, then cautiously edged it open and moved out of the rain until she was behind the curtain.

The room was in darkness. She pulled the window to behind her – then, passing through the heavy satin curtains, reached out her hand to where, on a writing desk in front of the window, she had glimpsed the outline of a reading lamp. She switched it on and a golden light was diffused round the room. Elegantly furnished, it was obvious that neither the furniture nor the gilt-framed oil paintings on the walls could have been part of the hotel furnishings.

It was a long, narrow room with three French windows opening onto a balcony looking out over the bay. Big comfortable sofas were interspersed with magnificent carved tables with marble tops. There were flowers everywhere – the fragrance filled the room and, as it was spring, carnations predominated. Just for a moment the girl glanced at them. Then her lips tightened. She had no time to admire, or to examine, the contents of the room.

Determinedly, with a certainty bred of knowledge, she moved towards the marble mantelpiece. There were two pictures flanking it on either side – both were of the early Italian school and even to an inexperienced eye, exceedingly rare and valuable. The one of a sweet but pale-faced Madonna and a fat, bouncing babe occupied her attention.

She slipped off her gloves and with cold fingers started to explore the side of the frame. A few moments later a soft sigh came from between her lips and the frame swung open revealing that a small safe had been hidden behind it.

Now came the difficult part and the girl knew it. She examined the safe, touched the dial with delicate fingers, and resolutely began to turn it. She bent her head so that her ear was very close to hear the faint click made by the revolving centre. Again and again she turned the dial, moving her fingers quickly and yet without haste. Again she gave that little sigh of relief as with a tug, the safe door swung open.

She looked inside, then drew from the belt of her tights a small plastic bag. It had been folded neatly so that it was little more than three inches square. Now it opened up and became, as it had been described at the time of its sale, ‘a very useful sponge-bag’. There were banknotes in the safe and the girl put them quickly into the bag. There were several pink leather-covered boxes, which she opened, taking out the jewels from their white velvet settings, closing the boxes and returning them to the safe.

It took her less than three minutes to empty the safe, shut the door and turn the dial in the opposite direction to that in which she had manipulated it to open. Without undue haste she picked up her gloves from where she had thrown them on the floor and rubbed the dial clean of any fingerprints. Then she shut the frame back into its place, hearing the secret catch click home, and once again she used her damp gloves to wipe clean the side of the frame.

She turned and looked round the room. It was exactly as it had been when she entered it and she saw with satisfaction that her footsteps had left no mark. Switching the light out, she went from the sitting room into the bedroom beyond. It, too, was a magnificent room, furnished with antiques that in themselves must have been worth a fortune. The huge brocade and gold canopied bed was worthy of the illustrious houses to which it had belonged.

But the girl, passing through the room, did not even glance at it in curiosity. She opened a door, found it was a cupboard, closed it quickly again and turned to another door, which led into the bathroom. Here she picked up a white towelling peignoir, such as were provided all over the hotel for the male guests who preferred to use them after a bath rather than the towels, which never seemed large or voluminous enough. The girl put it on. She was small and it enveloped her almost completely, hiding even her legs in the black tights and leaving only her small head to be seen with her fair hair damp from the rain outside, lank against her forehead.

She moved from the bathroom, turning out the light as she went. She crossed the wide corridor to where in a square entresol there was a front-door to the whole apartment. It was a solid, well-built door, reinforced, the girl noticed, with bolts and chains, which she guessed were all utilised at night for fear of burglars.

She was just about to open it when she heard voices. Swiftly and silently she turned, opened the door of a coat cupboard and disappeared into its depths. There was a slight rattle of coat hangers as she moved inside, then as the door closed behind her there was the sound of a key being turned in the outside door and a woman’s laughter.

“I don’t really know if I should let you persuade me to come to your apartment,” said a light, rather attractive voice with an American accent.

“What could be wrong,” a man answered, “in wishing to show you my collection of pictures? They are some of the finest in the whole of Italy. You will be disappointed if you do not see them before you return to New York.”

“Indeed I shall,” the woman replied, “but unfortunately, Signor Lorenzo, you have a very wicked reputation and I am worried just a little about that.”

“There is no need to worry about anything,” the man replied, and there was a caress in the tones of his voice.

The girl hiding in the cupboard guessed that while they had been talking he had been relieving his companion of her coat or perhaps her furs. Now she heard him push open the door of the sitting room and put on the light.

“A glass of champagne,” he said. “That is what we both need. I would ring for my manservant but unfortunately, I have given him the evening off. So, if you will excuse me a second, I must wait on you myself and I assure you it is a privilege I would surrender to no one.”

The woman laughed.

“Oh Signor, you do say pretty things in the most engaging way!”

“How else can I explain to you that I am your servant to command?” Signor Lorenzo answered.

He must have kissed the woman’s hand or perhaps her shoulder because she gave a little girlish scream and cried,

“Oh Signor you mustn’t! Indeed you make me feel really embarrassed.”

“It is your fault,” the Italian answered. “You are so beautiful, so tempting. One would have to be St. Anthony himself to withstand you!”

“Oh Signor!”

Signor Lorenzo walked across the hall towards the kitchen, which was at the far end of the apartment beyond the door that led, the listening girl knew only too well, to the guestrooms, the dining room and the manservant’s bedroom.

There was the sound of glasses, of the refrigerator door being opened and shut, and the sudden loud report of a champagne cork leaving the bottle. Then the Signor passed through the entresol into the sitting room and set the tray containing the champagne and the glasses down on a side-table.

“What a lovely room!” the woman who had been waiting for him exclaimed.

“A perfect setting for a lovely person,” Signor Lorenzi replied. “Let us drink to your first visit and may it be the first of many.” He paused, then added, “No, that is not a romantic enough toast. Let us drink to your eyes, which are as blue and as sparkling as the sea in the bay outside when the sun first shines on it.”

Again there came that gratified, slightly embarrassed little laugh.

“To you, Signor Lorenzo,” the woman said.

“Now let us make ourselves comfortable.”

He must have moved across the room as he spoke. The sitting room door shut with a decisive bang.

The girl in the clothes-cupboard moved stealthily. She was not going to risk the clothes-hangers rattling again as they had done when she entered the cupboard. She tiptoed across the entresol, turned the handle of the Yale lock and the door into the corridor was open. A swift glance told her that there was no one about. She moved through the smallest possible opening of the door and pulled it to very gently until it was practically closed, save for the last crack when the lock would shut home. Then, without appearing to hurry, she walked down the corridor swinging her plastic sponge-bag.

She had some distance to negotiate to reach the other side of the hotel where the cheaper rooms with no view of the bay looked out over a narrow, pokey back street. During her journey she encountered only two people – a waiter carrying a tray to one of the rooms looked politely away from her so as not to embarrass a signorina returning to her room from the bath, and an elderly woman hobbling along with a stick who paid no attention to anything save the difficulty of placing one foot before the other.

The girl kept her head bowed as if embarrassed at encountering anyone while she was in her dressing gown. She knew that even the waiter had not given her a second glance. She turned one corner and then another. At last, in a corridor where the carpet was worn and the light-fittings were cheap and unimaginative, she found the door she sought. She tapped gently with the tips of her fingers and it was opened immediately. She pushed her way inside and the door closed behind her. She turned to face a young man with a worried expression who had one foot in plaster of Paris.

“You have been a long time,” he said almost breathlessly.

“Darling, I can hardly bear to tell you,” she answered, “but he came back.”

“Who? Lorenzo?”

In answer the girl flung the plastic bag down on the bed, which was the main object in the small, rather pokey room.

“It’s all right. Don’t look so worried,” she answered. “It is here, all of it, exactly as Antonio told us it would be.”

“But he came back! Did he see you?” the young man asked.

The girl shook her head.

“No, I hid in the coat-cupboard. It was dark and stuffy and smelt of the most exotic after-shave lotion. I was absolutely terrified it would make me sneeze. That’s how people in books are always betrayed.”

The young man moved from the door and hobbled to a chair.

“Don’t waffle, Amanda, for God’s sake. Tell me what happened. I have been nearly out of my mind waiting for you. Another five minutes and I would have gone to look for you, in case you missed the jump.”

“I would have murdered you if you had, Vernon. You might have betrayed us all. The jump was easy and the window was open. He has got some lovely things in his room, by the way. The furniture is quite breath-taking. You know how I love those marble-topped gold tables.”

“Go on, Amanda, or I shall throttle you,” Vernon said.

She laughed at the expression on his face.

“I have a good mind to make you wait until I have changed,” she said. “It was raining cats and dogs when I got up on the balcony and I was half-afraid we might have to call it off. Then I realised it was really better that it was raining, as nobody was likely to be staring up at the hotel on such a night.”

“It must have been slippery,” Vernon said with a shudder.

“It was a bit,” she answered, “but I landed perfectly, just as we practised.”

“You weren’t afraid?” he asked.

“Of course I was,” she said scornfully. “Only a liar would tell you otherwise.”

“I had a vision of you lying smashed on the pavement…”

“Wondering how you could ever explain my spiderman’s outfit? What would you have said? ‘My sister had a predilection for wearing black tights when we were alone in the evening’? ‘She was doing her gymnastics and I dared her to jump from one balcony to the other’? Anyhow, I had nothing incriminating on me, so it would have remained one of the mysteries of Naples.”

“Shut up!” her brother almost shouted. “I’ve been nearly mad with worry ever since you left here. Never again. I would far rather do the jobs myself.”

“You couldn’t have done this one even if you hadn’t fractured your leg,” Amanda said. “It really wasn’t very easy and the safe was complicated too. Luckily Antonio wasn’t very far out in what he thought the numbers might be. I tried the first combination, then went straight into the second – it worked!”

“What have you got?” Vernon demanded.

“The money – just as Antonio said – he must have drawn it all out for payday tomorrow – and the jewellery.”

Vernon leant forward.

“I am not very happy about the jewellery,” he said. “Let me have a look.”

She picked up the plastic bag from where she had thrown it and tossed it into his lap.

“Start counting,” she said, “while I go and change. I want to be certain there are no identifying marks on the peignoir. We don’t want it traced to these rooms.”

“Antonio reassured us on that point,” Vernon answered. “You know he said he took them off a trolley and there was no question of anyone knowing which room the towels or the peignoirs were left. Incidentally, he took two, so there was no reason why, when they are given in, anyone should even notice one was missing from the bathroom.”

“With any luck Lorenzo is going to be very busy this evening and will not know what he has lost until tomorrow morning,” Amanda said. “As I left he promised to be very occupied with what sounded, in your words, a smashing piece of homework!” She laughed.

Vernon did not answer, he was already drawing the money, great wads of lira notes, out of the plastic bag. Amanda went through the communicating door into her own bedroom and started to peel off her sweater. The damp, black stockinet clung to her skin. She wore nothing underneath and she put on the towelling dressing-gown again, rubbing herself dry – then she took lace-trimmed nylon underclothes from the chest of drawers and from the wardrobe a pretty chiffon dinner-frock. It was cheaply made, but the pale-green colour of spring leaves suited the fairness of her skin and the ripe corn gold of her hair.

It took her only a few minutes to change – then she bundled up the tights and damp sweater, slipped them into a leather bag which contained tennis shoes and a racket, carried the peignoir into the bathroom she shared with her brother, and hung it on a hook.

“There are no traces of the crime,” she said gaily in the doorway, “except what you are holding in your hand.”

Vernon turned his face towards her.

“Do you know how much there is here?” he asked. “Nearly twenty million lire.”

“Ten thousand pounds,” Amanda said. “That’s what Antonio told us would be there, and say we get another five thousand for the jewellery…”

“Not as much as that,” Vernon interrupted. “You know how they will cut us down, saying it’s impossible to dispose of the stones and so on.”

“Don’t be too soft with them. You know as well as I do the jewellery will be in Tunis tomorrow morning.”

“Touch wood!” Vernon interjected quickly.

She laughed.

“You’re always so frightened something will go wrong,” she said teasingly. “But you’re right, we mustn’t take risks. All the same, you realise this will take care of old Mrs. Marsham, of Henry Barkley and some, at any rate, of the Chapman family.”

“Don’t let’s count our chickens until they’re hatched,” Vernon said testily.

Amanda laughed again, not bitterly but sympathetically, because she loved her brother and knew he was genuinely worried. She opened the drawer of the dressing table and drew out a pair of gloves.

“Put the jewellery in these,” she said, “while I get the loaf. Did it come?”

Vernon, nodded.

“Yes, it’s in that box just inside the door,” he said. “A small boy left it just after you had gone.”

A rather battered cardboard box produced the wheaten loaf that the Italians bake at Easter time, to be placed round the altars of the churches to ensure productivity and good harvests for the coming year. On the night of Good Friday, the women lay them in one chapel of each church that is decorated to proclaim the Resurrection.

The crust of the loaf was stamped with ears of wheat and smelt fresh and crisp.

“I am so hungry now it’s all over I could eat it,” Amanda said jokingly.

“It’s not over yet,” Vernon said severely. “You stop being so irritatingly cocksure. I shall not be happy until all this is out of our hands.”

Amanda looked down at the notes lying on his knee.

“I suppose we’ll get the English equivalent,” she said. “I don’t want to attempt that jump a second time.”

“Jackson has never let us down yet,” Vernon said testily. “If this friend of his is as good as the others he produced, we shall have nothing to regret.”

“Except twenty per cent,” Amanda said almost beneath her breath.

“My dear, what would we have, amateurs like us, if it weren’t for the co-operation of Antonio and his like?” Vernon said. “Stop niggling, Amanda, and get the stuff packed up for Heaven’s sake.”

As if she realised she was trying him too far, Amanda produced a knife and cut the end off the loaf. Inserting her small hand into the aperture, she began to scrape out the soft dough, pulling it out in small handfuls until little more than the shell of the outer crust was left. Then Vernon handed her the notes. She pressed them into the loaf and then forced the bread she had removed, on top of them. She pressed and pressed until there was only a relatively small pile of the newly-baked bread lying on the table, on which she had been working.

“Now the difficulty is going to be to get the end to stick on,” she said.

“The skewers are in my drawer,” Vernon remarked.

Obediently Amanda fetched three long skewers, secured them to the sides of the loaf and fixed the piece she had cut off to the three sharp points protruding.

“It looks wonderful,” she said standing back to admire her handiwork. “Now we will wrap it in white paper. We must be quite certain that some bump or vibration doesn’t knock the end off – at the same time we must arrange the paper so that people can see what we are carrying.”

“I’ll put the gloves in my pocket,” Vernon said.

“Be careful when you draw them out, then,” Amanda said. “It would be awful if the Lorenzo diamonds fell on the ground!”

“You would have to pretend they had dropped from your neck,” Vernon said.

“I somehow think my camel-hair coat is not in keeping with diamonds of that magnitude,” Amanda rejoined. “I suppose if I were the right sort of feminine woman, I should want to try them on before parting with them.”

“For Heaven’s sake stop messing about and let’s get on,” Vernon said in a voice that was suddenly angry.

Amanda smiled at him as he got to his feet.

“Poor darling, you hate my teasing you, don’t you?” she said. “I suppose it’s relief, really, that I’m alive and well and nothing went wrong. I thought for one moment I was going to be caught, and I didn’t exactly relish the prospect.”

Vernon looked down at her because she was much smaller than he.

“Listen, Amanda,” he said. “Haven’t we done enough? We’ve made a lot of people happy or rather stopped them being unhappy. Can’t we call it a day?”

“Vernon, you know we vowed an almost sacred vow to each other that we would pay everybody back and we have very nearly finished now.”

“You can’t say that with thirty thousand pounds still outstanding. It’s pushing our luck too hard, Amanda, can’t you see? Let’s divide this instead of paying off in full. If Mrs. Marsham gets back two thousand she’ll be happy enough.” The anger had gone from his voice and he spoke almost pleadingly. Amanda turned her face away and said in a voice that was suddenly hard,

“I’m not going to let any of them suffer. What those men did to Daddy was crooked, and you know it. Think of all the suffering they have caused to poor, old loyal creature like Mrs. Marsham and silly old Henry Barkley. They and the rest suffered just because they loved Daddy. We have got to pay them back. It’s no use getting weak and cowardly just because, for the moment, you are out of the running. You’ve taken greater risks – it’s only because you’re jealous that I have to do the jobs.”

“All right, Amanda,” her brother said, “for Heaven’s sake don’t let us have a scene about it! You women – you always win! We will go on with it. I only hope I don’t have to say, ‘I told you so’ when we are both serving pretty stiff prison sentences.”

“I hope it won’t be in Italy, at any rate!” Amanda smiled. “I have a feeling prisons here will be rather dank and unhygienic, much worse than the Scrubs.”

“Come on, put your coat on and let’s get it over,” Vernon said sharply.

Amanda fetched her coat from her bedroom, threw a mackintosh loosely over her brother’s shoulders and, picking up the loaf, opened the door into the passage.

Vernon hobbled beside her towards the lift. They had to wait quite a long time for it to come because the service to the cheaper rooms in the hotel was indifferent at times, but particularly so at dinner time.

Amanda looked at the clock when they reached the main hall – it was only a little after ten. She thought almost involuntarily how quickly Signor Lorenzo must have gobbled his dinner tonight in his anxiety to entice his attractive companion back to his rooms. She could almost imagine how the liftman and porter had smiled benignly on him as they carried him up to the private apartment on the top floor of the Hôtel Splendifico.

Signor Lorenzo was noted for his amours, which were both the envy and admiration of the male staff, while the chambermaids sighed wistfully over him, wondering whether it would ever be their turn to be entertained in the sumptuous penthouse which he had made his special pied-à-terre in Naples.

“He has a palace and a very fine estate only twenty miles from the city,” one of the waiters had told Amanda, “but he prefers to live at the Splendifico. We are honoured to have him.”

He meant it in all sincerity, and Amanda knew it was not only the generosity of his tips that endeared Signor Lorenzo to them but the fact that his Don Juan activities made him almost a hero to them all.

As she and Vernon moved slowly down the big hallway, with its black and white marble floor, towards the front door, Amanda knew that she and her brother were receiving sympathetic and kindly glances from the hotel staff. They might be poor and in very inferior rooms, but at the same time her golden hair and fair skin excited their imagination. They were deeply sympathetic about her brother’s fractured leg, taking what seemed an almost personal interest in the improvement he was making in walking and in the optimistic manner in which the Italian doctor reported his progress.

“It is raining harder, Signorina,” the commissionaire said when she and Vernon had successfully negotiated the revolving door. “It is not a night to go out and the Signor is so lame.”

“We are only going to the church,” Amanda answered lifting a corner of the white paper so that the commissionaire could see the decorated loaf she held in her arms.

“Ah! Then you are right!” he commented. “The Easter Bread must be there tonight – it will be bad luck otherwise.”

He hailed a taxi and helped Vernon into it. He thanked them profusely for the small coin he received, although Amanda was certain he would have been less enthusiastic if anyone else had given him double.

“Such a nice man,” she said as the taxi started off.

“They are all nice to you,” Vernon said, making it a statement rather than a compliment.

It did not take them long to drive to the Gesu Nuovo, an ancient church, which had been built in the fifteenth century with much love and sacrifice by the poor inhabitants of Naples. Tonight there was a continuous stream of people climbing the wet steps – women with black shawls over their heads, men holding small children by the hand and a number of American tourists clutching their guide-books and reading out the descriptions of the church in nasal tones.

As it was Good Friday the High Altar was shrouded in purple and so were the pictures and statues in most of the chapels – but one was a blaze of light. There were great vases of red carnations, sheaves of wheat, and so many candles lighted by those who prayed, that the golden angels around the altar seemed almost to be flying through a sunburst of colour and light. Coins were being flung on a white cloth in front of the chapel, which was enclosed with prayer chairs and women were laying their offerings of Easter Bread round the little circle of coins.

Just inside the porch there were beggars – some offering postcards, some holy pictures and others just holding out their hands dumbly. Amanda moved past them towards the chapel. She held her bread tightly in her arms as the crowd surged round her. It seemed as though there was no place for her to press through the kneeling women on the prayer chairs and place her offering amongst the others.

While she hesitated a soft voice at her side said,

“Could I perhaps take the Signorina’s bread for her? There is such a crowd here tonight – but of course that is usual on Good Friday.”

Amanda looked up to see a dark man dressed plainly and inconspicuously. He was wearing dark glasses and his hair was a little grey at the sides. He had spoken in English, yet she had the idea that purposely he affected a foreign accent.

“I’m afraid it’s difficult for me to find the right place for it,” Amanda answered. She waited as if for a pre-arranged signal and he answered,

“A place can always be found.”

“Then perhaps you will be kind enough to find it for me.”

She put the bread into his hand. He bowed his head, moved through the crowd, and even as she tried to watch him, he disappeared. She gave a little sigh of relief and turned to Vernon who had somehow been separated from her and now came to her side. He glanced down at her empty hands.

“What are we waiting for?” he asked.

“It is so pretty,” Amanda replied with a glance at the altar.

There was indeed something magic about all this light and colour and fragrance and the dark austerity of the otherwise unlit church. Amanda had a sudden desire to kneel and pray. What for, she was not certain. Love perhaps, because all women wanted love. She was sure many of the kneeling women with their black shawls, or lace over their heads, were praying for love. Love! She had never known it and yet sometimes she felt as if her body ached for it. But Vernon had turned towards the west door and was already hobbling away. People made a passage for him as soon as they saw his stick and the white plaster on his stiff leg.

Amanda hurried after him, and as they reached the porch she drew her purse from her handbag.

“I must buy a postcard to send home,” she murmured as if in explanation.

It was then that a woman, her face shadowed by a thick shawl, and holding a baby, put her hand on Amanda’s arm.

“Pardon Signorina, but can you help me?” she said in halting, very broken English. “My husband is ill and it is so cold, so very cold in our house. We have not the coal, or the wood for a fire. The Signorina has an old coat perhaps?”

“I’m afraid we’re travelling light,” Amanda said doubtfully. “But ... I know, Vernon! What about those old gloves you said you were going to throw away?”

“Of course, she can have those with pleasure,” Vernon answered as if he was embarrassed by charity and wished to have little part in it.

He drew the worn leather gloves from his pocket. Amanda took them from him and gave them to the woman with the baby.

“Perhaps these will help a little to keep out the cold,” she said.

“Blessings on you Signorina, blessings indeed,” the woman murmured.

Amanda turned quickly to Vernon.

“Let me help you down the steps,” she said. “Remember they are slippery from the rain.”

The crowds were pressing round them and it took them some time to force their way even to the top of the steps because there were so many people coming up them. Amanda looked back – the woman and the baby had vanished as quickly and completely as the man with the bread had done.

They had some difficulty in finding a taxi to carry them back to the hotel. The rain was worse and they were both rather wet before finally a taxi-driver, somewhat surlily said he would take them as it was on his way home.

“It’s a bad night,” the commissionaire said as he helped Vernon out at the hotel entrance.

“It’s raining worse than ever,” Amanda agreed.

“Never mind Signorina, the Easter Bread will bring you luck,” the commissionaire said with a smile.

“I hope so,” Amanda replied, “I very much hope so!”

CHAPTER II

“The report in the newspaper says the valet, Antonio, found all the windows locked exactly as he had left them, and the police are still puzzled as to how the entry to the apartment had been effected.”

Amanda put the newspaper down and gave a little laugh.

“Antonio certainly seems to have done his part most effectively.”

Vernon, sitting on the seat beside her, drew a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one before he answered. Then he said a trifle sourly,

“Don’t let’s count our chickens too soon. The police aren’t fools.”

“I’m not underestimating them,” Amanda answered, “but as Antonio got the window shut, they are not likely to guess that anyone had been such a fool as to make that tremendous jump, especially on a wet night.”

“You ought not to have done it,” Vernon muttered.

“You’re jealous,” Amanda teased him. “You would much prefer to have done it yourself. I know that, but it was actually not as difficult as it looked. The flat top to the balustrade made quite a decent landing place.”

Vernon looked over his shoulder.

“Don’t talk about it,” he said, “even here.”

Amanda laughed again.

“You’re always windy afterwards. That is where we’re opposites. I’m frightened beforehand. Afterwards it doesn’t seem real. It feels as if someone else and not I had done all the things the papers write about.”

“All the same, we can’t be too careful,” Vernon said in a low voice.

Amanda looked over the calm blue sea to where the distant Vesuvius was silhouetted against the sparkling sky. On the horizon she could see the misty outlines of Capri and below the colourful roofs of the town nestled together in the curious uneven hotchpotch that was characteristically Naples.

She and her brother were sitting on a seat in the municipal park. They had come there by bus and they had brought a picnic lunch that Amanda had purchased at a delicatessen store just round the corner from their hotel – it was cheaper than eating in the hotel and it was, they both felt, more in character for them to be saving money wherever possible to offset the fact that they were staying in one of the more expensive hotels, which bordered the sea.

Amanda folded the paper neatly, setting it down beside her, and asked,

“How is Antonio going to get his money?”

“It has all been arranged,” Vernon replied. “He’s always buying lottery tickets. In a few weeks’ time, he’ll buy one for the lottery that has been organised to help the church he attends regularly. The first prize will be his, leaving a bigger profit for the organisers who’ll not be concerned that some unknown benefactor has wished to bestow a certain sum of money on the winner of the first prize.”

“It’s a clever idea,” Amanda said with a little sigh. “And then, I suppose he’ll buy his vineyard, marry his dark-eyed signorina and live happy ever after.”

“Of course,” Vernon answered. “You know that fairy stories sometimes come true.”

“Especially in Italy,” Amanda added. “You know, Vernon, I think I’ve enjoyed this job more than all the others.”

“I’m not surprised,” her brother answered. “The first two or three were terrifying. Besides you’ll remember we were not even sure then that we could trust Jackson.”

“Can we trust him now?” Amanda asked quickly.

“Oh don’t be ridiculous,” Vernon said. “I didn’t mean we couldn’t trust him in the way of honesty and all that sort of thing! What worried me was whether his schemes would really come off. And we have certainly proved that!”

“Indeed we have,” Amanda agreed. “But it’s rather creepy somehow, never seeing him – in fact I can hardly remember what he looks like – and just getting his instructions.”

“What we’ve got to remember is that we should never have managed all this without him,” Vernon said. “I remember so well the whole idea coming into being. We were lunching together after Father’s death, and because I was so upset I banged my fist down on the table saying, ‘My God I’ll get even with those swines sometime! And what’s more, I’ll make them pay back every penny they owe to the people who trusted my father and who have suffered because of their loyalty’.”

“You had said that to me a dozen times,” Amanda reminisced.

“I know. I kept on saying it,” Vernon agreed. “It seemed to help to believe that one day, somehow or other, justice would be done.”

“I listened to you,” Amanda told him, “but I didn’t really believe anything would ever come of it. It seemed so impossible, so hopeless.”

“I know,” Vernon answered. “I didn’t really believe it myself – and then Jackson said,            “‘Why shouldn’t you do just that?’

     “‘Do what?’ I asked.

“‘Make them pay,’ he answered.”

“I can see your face now when you came home,” Amanda interposed. “You had been so depressed, so miserable, as indeed we both had. Then, suddenly, you looked quite different. You looked alert, excited. I suppose, really, there was an expression of hope on your face.”

“I think hope is the right word,” Vernon answered. “I’d been given hope that things needn’t be as black and as horrible as they were at that moment.”

“And it was Jackson who gave it to you,” Amanda said softly.

“I suppose I’ve always admired him,” Vernon said with an embarrassed laugh. “When we were in the Commandos together, he was always so much better at everything than the rest of us. I was in his platoon and we always won all the competitions, the inter-Regimental manoeuvres and all that. In fact anything that he commanded, arranged or organised was a hundred per cent.”

“I imagine he had a kind of genius for it,” Amanda hazarded.

“Genius is the right word,” Vernon agreed. “Then he smashed his back up and was invalided out of the army. We all seemed to fall to pieces. The main support that had activated us was broken.”

“You certainly didn’t stay there long after he had gone,” Amanda said.

“I had never meant to, as it happens,” Vernon replied. “You know I was going into the business. It was only that I was enjoying myself so much in the Commandos, that Father let me have another year. He had always said it was either the army or a university, and I was never much of a scholar.”

“Then Jackson began to shape our lives,” Amanda murmured.

“I can understand that, in a way, it has given him something to do,” Vernon continued. “It was going to be two or three years, the doctors thought, before he could lead any sort of active life again – and when he had been so energetic, so athletic and fit, it must have been hell for him just to lie on his back wondering how soon the day would pass and another would come.”

“At least we gave him something to think about,” Amanda remarked lightly.

“I’m sure he has enjoyed every moment of it,” Vernon smiled. “Of course, being a rich man it has been easy for him. I can’t help thinking, Amanda, that a lot of the expenses of these different jobs have come out of his pocket.”

“I hope not,” Amanda said quickly. “We don’t want to be beholden to anyone, that’s exactly why we’re doing this.”

“I know,” Vernon said soothingly, “but at the same time when I tried to discuss it with Jackson he just wouldn’t play. Told me to mind my own business and get on with his instructions. I said, ‘O.K. you’re the boss’ and left it at that.”

“He’s not the boss,” Amanda said almost angrily. “It may have been his idea, and it may have been his brain working out the schemes, but we’re doing the work and it’s our people who will benefit.”

“All right, all right,” Vernon said, “what are you niggling about?”

“I just don’t like to feel I’m a puppet on a string. You know, Vernon, it may seem absurd, but when I was about to jump on Friday night from one balustrade to the other, it suddenly felt as if Jackson was beside me pushing me, urging me on, telling me how to do it.”

“Thought transference,” Vernon said. “We used to have lectures on all that sort of high-flown tosh. I bet Jackson believes in it from A to Z. It’s a bit creepy in a way when you think of it – nothing’s entirely physical – there’s always another side to it.”

“Well, he’s right there,” Amanda said, “but…”

She stopped. She didn’t know why, but she had a sudden feeling of resentment, almost anger against the man who had so cleverly, and indeed so successfully, directed all their operations.

She looked at her brother and then down at his leg in plaster. It had been the most unfortunate piece of bad luck that he should have slipped when scrambling down a steep cliff and fractured his leg. At the same time, she was philosophical, realising that it might have been far more serious. As it was, the worst she had to contend with was Vernon’s bad temper at being laid up and having to sit back and watch her do the things he would like to do.

She felt a quick compassion for him. With a smile she put her hand affectionately on his knee and said,

“Anyway, don’t let us carp. There are three or four more names at least to be crossed off the list. And what are our next instructions?”

“As a matter of fact, they came this morning,” Vernon answered.

“So quickly?” Amanda asked.