by Paolo Copparoni, translated into English by Ruth Stephens
Chapter 8 – The Killer
Now Vittorio is really scared and doesn’t know what to do. He can’t ask for information on a convicted murderer without at least a name. Yet he must try. He must at all costs save his friend Mario.
Suddenly he has an idea. He remembers an old room at the Bologna Police Headquarters where the files are kept on everyone who has been investigated together with all the objects found at the various scenes of their crimes.
He decides to return to Bologna immediately to personally check if the pink handkerchief is still among the pieces of evidence of the old cases and, if so to search for information on its owner.
At the headquarters everyone has fond memories of Vittorio, so someone offers to accompany him to the archives. And here Signor Ricetti strikes lucky; almost immediately he finds the pink handkerchief and on the file to which it is attached is written the name of the killer and his last address: Rocco Caputi, resident in Bologna, in via del Pilastro 180.
“That’s it! I’ve got you now!” thinks Vittorio, delighted.
This time he is accompanied by two policemen from the flying squad. They head straight to Caputi’s address. But his wife, a surly and uncooperative woman, who answers the door, tells them she doesn’t know where her husband is. The police produce a search warrant and enter the apartment. They conduct a thorough search and finally, in the cellar, they find poor Mario tied to a chair and gagged.
Rocco Caputi is there, too, and tries to make a getaway in his car.”Damn you, Ricetti! You’ve already arrested me once, you won’t get me again!” he shouts as he moves away.
But he doesn’t get far because he is stopped immediately by another police car waiting near the house.
“Damn you, Ricetti! I’ll make you pay for this!” yells the criminal, but the police hold him in a firm grip and, after handcuffing him, take him away in a car with sirens wailing.
Luckily, Mario is unharmed and a relieved Vittorio embraces him. “I’m sorry, my friend. I shouldn’t have asked you to help me in a matter as dangerous as this!”
“Don’t worry. I’m glad to have helped you! And what’s more, we’ve arrested a dangerous criminal.”
At the killer’s home the police find arms and explosives that Caputi was planning to use to avenge himself on Signor Ricetti for his arrest and imprisonment. The murder of Signora Rocchi in Sicily was a mistake on the killer’s part. His intended target was Ricetti!
But the ex-policeman outsmarted the criminal and managed to have him arrested once again.
Now Signor Ricetti can finally return to his life in retirement, satisfied with having solved another case.
“Let me see,” he says to himself, “where shall I go for my next holiday?”