Chapter 33 Chapter 31 Santa Marta Dormitory

Upon hearing the cry, Paula responded immediately.She told Mammy to stay where she was, then drew her gun and ran upstairs in three steps at a time.Dante and Anthony followed closely behind her.Running so fast up the stairs their thighs almost touched.Upstairs they stopped, not knowing where to go.Several people stood in the corridor, with doors on both sides. "Where did that sound come from?" Anthony asked. "I wish I knew," Paula said, "let's all be together, it could be him, he's a horrible bastard." Paula was standing on the left, passing through the elevator, she felt the sound coming from Room 56, her ear was pressed against the door, but Dante gestured her to step aside.The stubby Dante also gave Anthony a gesture, and the two of them pressed close together and knocked open the door.The two rushed in together, Dante in front and Paula behind.Anthony stood guard at the door, his hands on his chest.

A cardinal was lying on the bed, his face was extremely pale, and he was half-dead from fright, but he was still whole. When he saw the two policemen, he raised his hands tremblingly. "Please don't hurt me." Dante glanced around the room and put the gun down. "Where did that sound come from?" "Next door, I think," said the man, pointing, his hands still raised above his head. They ran back into the corridor again, Paula was standing outside door 57, Dante and Anthony were batters again, and they shouldered the door hard, but it didn't open.They tried again, and the door slammed open with a loud "click".

A cardinal lay in bed, his face pale and almost dead.But the room was empty, Dante quickly checked the room and rushed to the toilet, he shook his head, and suddenly, they heard another scream. "Help, help!" Three people rushed out, and at the end of the corridor, next to the elevator, a cardinal fell to the ground, his robe covering him in an oval shape.The three rushed over, and Paula was the first to arrive. She knelt beside him, but the cardinal had already got up. "Francis Gasser!" cried Anthony, recognizing him. "I'm fine, I'm fine. He just pushed me. He ran away," said Cardinal Gase, pointing to a metal door that stands out from the other wooden doors.

"Stay here, Father." "Don't worry, I'm fine, catch that crook," Gasser said. "Go back to your room and lock the door," Anthony told him, not realizing he was shouting. The three hurried through that door to the service stairs.It's cramped and damp, and it smells strange, like it's coming from behind the paintings on the walls.The corridor lights are dim. "It's an easy ambush here," thought Polla. "Kalowski has taken Pontillo's pistol, and is waiting for us at some corner now, and can take at least two of us before we find him." head flew off."

Even so, they rushed down the stairs like flying, almost falling several times.They went down the stairs to the basement, here on the ground floor, and there was a heavy lock on the door here. "He didn't go out from here." They withdrew, when some noisy voices came from the first floor.They opened the door and went straight to the kitchen.Dante walked ahead of Paula, his hand on the trigger of his gun, pointing forward.Three nuns whispered in front of a frying pan.When they saw the police, they froze there, their eyes widened. "Anyone walking through here?" Paula called to them.

The nuns didn't answer.They just stared straight ahead with dazed expressions.One of them, ignoring Paula completely, dropped a bag of chopped beans into the frying pan in front of him. "Anyone coming? A monk?" Paula repeated. The nuns shrugged, and Anthony put his hand on Paula's shoulder. "Never mind, you don't use Italian." Dante inspected the entire kitchen until he found a solid metal door, six feet wide.He tried to open it, but failed.He took out his ID card, pointed to the door and gestured to a nun.One of the nuns came up and took out a key and opened the door.The door opened with a "squeak" and the street outside was Santa Marta.St. Charles' Palace is facing here.

"Damn it! Didn't that nanny say there is only one exit here?" "Oh, you saw it yourself, there are two exits here." Dante said. "Let's go back." They ran upstairs to the attic hall.Here they found a staircase leading to the roof, but at the top there was a barred door. "No one can run from here." Three people sat on the ground out of breath, there was dirt everywhere, and there were narrow stairs under the door.The hearts of several people were beating. "Do you think he's hiding somewhere in the house?" Anthony said. "No, I'm sure he has escaped," said Dante.

"From where?" "From the kitchen, of course. A nun didn't look at us. No other explanation. The other doors are locked, the front door is guarded. It's impossible to escape through the windows, it's too risky. The Vatican police will make a round in a few minutes. .And it's daytime, someone will call." Paula was so angry that she would have pounded her fist on the wall if she hadn't been so out of breath running up and down the stairs. "I need your help, Dante, to have them block the entire street." Dante shook his head. Sweat was dripping down his forehead like raindrops on his leather jacket, and his hair, which was always neatly combed, was now a mess.

"How do you want me to get in touch with them, honey? There's nothing in this building. There's no cameras in the corridors here, no phones, no cell phones, no walkie-talkies, nothing works. Just light bulbs, nothing that uses airwaves It doesn't work. How about we rent a carrier pigeon?" "Then he'd be gone by the time you came. Who pays attention to a priest in the Vatican, Paula?" Anthony said. "So can any of you tell me how this bastard got out of this building? There are three floors, the windows are locked, and we broke down the door. All entrances are either guarded or locked," Paula said. While knocking on the door leading to the top floor over and over again, the door thumped, and a lot of dust fell, like an answer to her question.

"We almost missed him," Dante said. "Damn, damn, damn! We could have caught him!" Anthony spoke the terrible truth, and his words echoed in Paula's ears like a shovel on stone. "What we have now, Dante, is another corpse."