Mary looked at them, stricken. Clearly, she believed them all too well. When MacAlpine spoke, it was very gently.
‘I am sorry. We all know how fond you are of him. We took the bottles away, incidentally.’
‘You took -the bottles away.’ Her voice was slow and dull and uncomprehending. ‘But he’ll know. He’ll report the theft. There’ll be police. There’ll be fingerprints -your fingerprints. Then — ‘
MacAlpine said: ‘Can you imagine Johnny Harlow ever admitting to anyone in the world that he’d five bottles of scotch in his room? Run along, girl, and get dressed. We’ve got to leave for -this bloody reception in twenty minutes — without, it seems, your precious Johnny.’
She remained seated, her face quite without expression, her unblinking eyes irremovably fixed on MacAlpine’s. After a few moments his expression softened and he smiled. He said: Tm sorry. That was quite uncalled for.’
Dunnet held the door while she hobbled from the room. Both men watched her go with pity in their eyes.
CHAPTER FIVE
To the Grand Prix racing fraternity of the world, as to seasoned travellers everywhere, a hotel is a hotel is a hotel, a place to sleep, a place to eat, a stopover to the next faceless anonymity. The newly-built Villa- Hotel Cessni on the outskirts of Monza, however, could fairly claim to be an exception to the truism. Superbly designed, superbly built and superbly landscaped, its huge airy rooms with their immaculately designed furniture, their luxurious bathrooms, splendidly sweeping balconies, sumptuous food and warmth of service, here one would have thought was the caravanserai nonpareil for the better-heeled millionaire.
And so it would be, one day, but not yet. The Villa-Hotel Cessni had as yet to establish its clientele, its image, its reputation and, hopefully and eventually, its traditions and for the achievement of -those infinitely desirable ends, the fair uses of publicity, for luxury hotels as for hotdog stands, could be very sweet indeed. No sport on earth has a more international following and it was with this in mind that the management had deemed it prudent to invite the major Grand Prix teams to accommodate themselves in this palace, for a ludicrously low nominal fee, for the duration of the Italian Grand Prix. Few teams had failed to accept the invitation and fewer still cared to exercise their minds with the philosophical and psychological motivations of the management: all they knew and cared about was that the Hotel-Villa Cessni was infinitely more luxurious and fractionally cheaper than the several Austrian hotels they had so gratefully abandoned only twelve days ago. Next year, it seemed likely, they wouldn’t even be allowed to sleep stacked six-deep in the basement: but that was next year.
That Friday evening late in August was warm but by no means warm enough to justify air-conditioning. Nevertheless, the air-conditioning in the lobby of the Hotel-Villa Cessni was operating at the top of its bent making the temperature in that luxuriously appointed haven from the lower classes almost uncomfortably cool. Common sense said that this interior climatic condition was wholly unnecessary: the prestige of an up and coming status symbol said that it was wholly necessary. The management was concerned with prestige to the point of obsession: the air-conditioning remained on. The Cessni was going to be the place to go when the sun rode high.
MacAlpine and Dunnet, sitting side by side but almost concealed from each other’s sight by virtue of the imposing construction of the vast velvet-lined arm-chairs in which they reclined rather than sat, had more important things on their minds than a few degrees of temperature hither and yonder. They spoke but seldom and then with a marked lack of animation: they gave the air of those who had precious little to get animated about. Dunnet stirred.
‘Our wandering boy is late on the road tonight.’
He has an excuse,’ MacAlpine said. ‘At least, I hope to hell he has. One thing, he was always a conscientious workman. He wanted a few more extra laps to adjust the suspension and gear ratios of this new car of his.’
Dunnet was gloomy. ‘It wouldn’t have been possible, I suppose, to give it to Tracchia instead?’
‘Quite impossible, Alexis, and you know it. The mighty law of protocol. Johnny’s not only Coronado’s number one, he’s still the world’s. Our dear sponsors, without which we couldn’t very well operate — I could, but I’ll be damned if I’ll lay out a fortune like that — are highly sensitive people. Sensitive to public opinion, that is. The only reason they paint the names of their damned products on the outside of our cars is that the public will go out and buy those same damned products. They’re not benefactors of racing except purely incidentally: they are simply advertisers. An advertiser wants to reach the biggest market. Ninety-nine point repeater nine per cent of that market lies outside the racing world and it doesn’t matter a damn if they know nothing about what goes on inside the racing world. It’s what they believe that matters. And they believe that Harlow still stands alone. So, Harlow gets the best and newest car. If he doesn’t, the public lose their faith in Harlow, in Coronado and in the advertisers, and not necessarily in that order.’
‘Ah, well. The days of miracles may not yet He behind us. After all, he hasn’t been observed or known to take a drink in the past twelve days. Maybe he’s going to surprise us all. And there’s only two days to go to the Italian Grand Prix.’
‘So why did he have those two bottles of scotch which you removed from his room only an hour ago?’
‘I could say he was trying to test his moral fibre but I don’t think you would believe it.’
‘Would you?’
‘Frankly, James, no.’ Dunnet relapsed into another period of gloom from which he emerged to say: ‘Any word from your agents in the south, James?’
‘Nothing. I’m afraid, Alexis, I’ve just about given up hope. Fourteen weeks now since Marie disappeared. It’s too long, it’s just too long. Had there been an accident, I would have heard. Had there been foul play, then I’m sure I would have heard. Had I been kidnap and ransom-well, that’s ridiculous, of course I would have heard. She’s just vanished. Accident, boating-I don’t know.’
‘And we’ve talked so often about amnesia.’
‘And I’ve told you so often, without immodesty, that no one as well known as Marie MacAlpine, no matter what her mental trouble, could go missing so long without being picked up.’
‘I know. Mary’s taking that pretty badly now, isn’t she?’
‘Especially in the past twelve days. Harlow. Alexis, we broke her heart — sorry, that’s quite unfair — I broke her heart in Austria. If I’d known how far she was gone — ah, but I’d no option.’
Taking her to the reception tonight?’
‘Yes. I insisted. To take her out of herself, that’s what I tell myself— or is it just to ease my conscience? Again, I don’t know. Maybe I’m making another mistake.’
‘It seems to me that that young fellow Harlow has a great deal to answer for. And this is his last chance, James? Any more crazy driving, any more fiascos, any more drinking – then it’s the chopper? That’s it?’
‘That’s entirely it.’ MacAlpine nodded in the direction of the revolving entrance doors. Think we should tell him now?’
Dunnet looked in the direction indicated. Harlow was walking across the Carrara-marbled flags. He was still clad in his customarily immaculate white racing overalls. A young and rather beautiful young girl at the desk smiled at him as he passed by. Harlow flicked her an expressionless glance and the smile froze. He continued on his way across the vast lobby and such is the respect that men accord the gods when they walk the earth that a hundred conversations died as he passed by. ‘Harlow seemed unaware of the presence of any of them, for he looked neither to left nor to right, but it was a safe assumption that those remarkable eyes missed nothing, an assumption borne out by the fact that, apparently without noticing them, he veered direction towards where MacAlpine and Dunnet sat. MacAlpine said: ‘No scotch or menthol, that’s for sure. Otherwise, he’d avoid me like the plague.’
Harlow stood before them. He said, without any inflection of irony or sarcasm : ‘Enjoying the quiet even-fall, gentlemen?’
MacAlpine answered. ‘You could say that. We might enjoy it even more if you could tell us how the new Coronado is coming along.’
‘Shaping up. Jacobson —for once —agrees with me that a slight alteration in the ratios and the rear suspension is all that’s necessary. It’ll be all right for Sunday.’
‘No complaints, then?’
‘No. It’s a fine car. Best Coronado yet. And fast.’
‘How fast?’
‘I haven’t found out yet. But we equaled the lap record the last two times out.’