The Terra-Cotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri Page B

things. All in perfect order, with each item wrapped in cellophane.”
    â€œWe’ve really dealt them a serious blow, eh?”
    â€œAbsolutely. Tano avenged himself well, just enough to avoid looking like a traitor or repenter. I want you to know that I didn’t sequester the weapons; I left them in the cave. I’ve arranged for my men to stand guard, in two shifts, round the clock. They’re in an uninhabited cottage a few hundred yards away from the arms depot.”
    â€œYou’re hoping someone will come for supplies?”
    â€œThat’s the idea.”
    â€œGood, I agree with that. We’ll wait a week, keep everything under close watch, and if nothing happens, we’ll go ahead with the seizure. Ah, Montalbano, do you remember my dinner invitation for day after tomorrow?”
    â€œHow could I forget?”
    â€œI’m afraid we’ll have to postpone it a few days. My wife has the flu . . .”
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There was no need to wait a week. The third day after they had discovered the weapons, Catarella, having completed his midnight-to-midday shift on guard, went to report to Montalbano, asleep on his feet. The inspector had asked them all to do the same as soon as they went off duty.
    â€œAny news?”
    â€œNothing, Chief. All peacefulness and quietude.”
    â€œGood. Actually, bad. Go get some sleep.”
    â€œUh, wait. Now that I put my head to it, there was something, nothing, really, I just thought I’d tell you more out of consciousness than duty, but it’s nothing.”
    â€œWhat kind of nothing?”
    â€œA tourist came by.”
    â€œExplain a little better, Cat.”
    â€œIt looked to be around twenty-one hundred hours in the morning.”
    â€œIf it was morning, it was nine, Cat.”
    â€œWhatever you say. Then right then and there I heard the roar of a motorcycle. So I grabbed the binoculars around my neck and precautiously looked out the window for confirmation. The motorcycle was red.”
    â€œThe color is of no importance. Then what?”
    â€œThen a tourist of the male sex descended from off said motorcycle.”
    â€œWhat made you think he was a tourist?”
    â€œHe was wearing a camera around his neck, a really big camera, so big it looked like a cannon.”
    â€œMust have been a telephoto lens.”
    â€œYessir, that it was. Then he started taking telephotos.”
    â€œOf what?”
    â€œEverything, Chief, everything. The countryside, the Crasticeddru, even the location I was located in.”
    â€œDid he get close to the Crasticeddru?”
    â€œNever, sir. But when he climbed back on his motorcycle to leave, he waved at me with his hands.”
    â€œHe saw you?”
    â€œNo. I stayed inside the whole time. But as I was saying, once he started up, he waved good-bye to the little house.”
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“Commissioner? I’ve got some news, and it’s not good. Looks like they somehow got wind of our discovery and sent somebody on reconnaissance to confirm.”
    â€œAnd how do you know this?”
    â€œThis morning the man on duty in the cottage saw some guy arrive on a motorcycle and take photographs of the whole area with a powerful telephoto. They must have set up a very specific marker around the boulder blocking the entrance, like, say, a stick pointing in a certain direction, a rock placed a certain distance away . . . It simply would not have been possible for us to put everything back exactly the way it was.”
    â€œExcuse me, but had you given precise instructions to the officer on duty?”
    â€œOf course. The man on duty should have stopped the motorcyclist, identified him, confiscated the camera, and brought him to the station . . .”
    â€œSo why didn’t he?”
    â€œFor one very simple reason: the officer was Catarella, whom we both know well.”
    â€œAh,” was the commissioner’s laconic reply.
    â€œWhat do we do