She was still for a moment and then slowly turned to him. “How long have you been there?” she asked.

“No time at all. You’re ready, I see. Shall we go?”

“If you like; yes, shall we?”

It was cooler out-of-doors. As they entered Navona the splashing of water by its very sound freshened the evening air. The lovely piazza sparkled, lights danced in cascades and fans of water glared from headlamps and glowed in Tre Scalini caffè.

“There’s a table,” Grant said. “Let’s nab it, quickly.”

It was near the edge of the pavement. Their immediate foreground was occupied by parked cars. Their view of Navona was minimal. To Sophy this was of small matter. It suited her better to be here, hemmed in, slightly jostled, bemused, possibly bamboozled in some kind of tourist racket, than to be responding to Rome with scholarly discretion and knowledgeable good taste and a reserve which in any case she did not command.

“This is magic,” she said, beaming at Grant. “That’s all. It’s magic. I could drink it.”

“So you shall,” he said, “in the only possible way,” and ordered champagne cocktails.

At first they did not have a great deal to say to each other but were not troubled by this circumstance. Grant let fall one or two remarks about Navona. “It was a circus in classical times. Imagine all these strolling youths stripped and running their courses by torchlight or throwing the discus in the heat of the day.” And after one of their silences: “Would you like to know that the people in the middle fountain are personifications of the Four Great Rivers? Bernini designed it and probably himself carved the horse, which is a portrait.” And later: “The huge church was built over the site of a brothel. Poor St. Agnes had her clothes taken off there, and in a burst of spontaneous modesty instantly grew quantities of luxurious and concealing hair.”

“She must have been the patron saint of Lady Godiva.”

“And of the librettists of Hair.”

“That’s right.” Sophy drank a little more champagne cocktail. “I suppose we really ought to be asking each other whatever could have happened to Mr. Mailer,” she said.

Grant was motionless except that his left hand, resting on the table, contracted about the stem of his glass.

“Oughtn’t we?” Sophy said vaguely.

“I feel no obligation to do so.”

“Nor I really. In fact, I think it’s very much nicer without him. If you don’t mind my saying so?”

“No,” Grant said heavily. “No, I don’t mind. Here comes the car.”

When Alleyn got back to his fine hotel at ten past six he found a message asking him to telephone Il Questore Valdarno. He did so and was told with a casual air that scarcely concealed the Questore’s sense of professional gratification that his people had already traced the woman called Violetta to her lair, which was in a slum. When he said they had traced her, the Questore amended, he did not mean precisely in person since she was not at home when his man called. He had, however, made rewarding enquiries among her neighbours, who knew all about her war with Sebastian Mailer and said, variously, that she was his cast-off mistress, wife or shady business associate, that he had betrayed her in a big way and that she never ceased to inveigh against him. Violetta was not popular among the ladies in her street, being quarrelsome, vindictive, and unpleasant to children. She was also held to poach on certain begging preserves in the district. It emerged that Mr. Mailer in his salad days had abandoned Violetta in Sicily, “Where, my dear superintendent,” said the Questore, “she may well have been one of his contacts in the smuggling of heroin. Palermo is a port of transit as we well know.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“All are agreed that she is a little mad.”

“Ah.”

It appeared, the Questore continued, that for an unspecified time, years perhaps, Mailer had eluded Violetta, but getting wind of his being first in Naples and then in Rome she had chased him, finally establishing herself on the postcard beat outside San Tommaso.

“I have spoken with this Irish Dominican,” said the Questore. “It is nonsense for him to say that no one could escape their vigilance going or coming from the places below. It is ridiculous. They sell their cards, they sell their rosaries, they add up their cashes, they visit their stores, they sleep, they talk, they say their prayers. A man of Mailer’s talents would have no difficulty.”

“What about a woman of Violetta’s talents?”

“Ah-ah. You speak of the shadow on the wall? While I am sure that she could elude the vigilance of these gentlemen, I doubt if she did so. And if she did, my dear colleague, where was she when they made their search? I have no doubt the search was thorough: of that they are perfectly capable and the lighting is most adequate. They know the terrain. They have been excavating there for a century. No, no, I am persuaded that Mailer recognized you and, being aware of your most formidable and brilliant record in this field, took alarm and fled.”

“Um,” Alleyn said, “I’m not at all sure I struck terror in that undelicious breast. Mailer seemed to me to be, in a subfusc sort of way, cocksure. Not to say gloating!”

“Scusi? Subfusc?”

“Dim. It doesn’t matter. Do you mean you think that at some moment when we were groping about in the underworld, recognition came upon him like a thunderclap and he fled. There and then?”

“We shall see, we shall see. I spread my net. The airports, the wharves, the stazioni.”

Alleyn hurriedly congratulated him on all this expedition.

“But nevertheless,” Valdarno said, “we make our examination of these premises. Tomorrow morning. It is, of course, not my practice personally to supervise such matters. Normally, if a case is considered important enough, one of my subordinates reports to one of my immediate staff.”

“I assure you. Signor Questore—”

“But in this case, where so much may be involved, where there are international slantings and, above all, where so distinguished a colleague does us the honour—Ecco!”

Alleyn made appropriate noises and wondered how great a bore Valdarno really thought him.

“So tomorrow,” the Questore summed up, “I leave my desk and I take the fields. With my subordinates. And you accompany us, is it not?”

“Thank you. I shall be glad to come.”

They whipped through the routine of valedictory compliments and hung up their receivers.

Alleyn bathed and dressed and wrote a letter to his wife.

“—so you see it’s taken an odd turning. I’m supposed to be nudging up to Mailer with the object of finding out just how vital a cog he is in the heroin game and whether through him I can get a line on his bosses. My original ploy was to be the oblique approach, the hint, the veiled offer, the striking up of an alliance and finally the dumping upon him of a tidy load of incriminating evidence and so catching him red-handed. And now, damn him, he disappears and I’m left with a collection of people some of whom may or may not be his fall guys. Consider, if you’re not fast asleep by this time, my darling — consider the situation.

“To launch this Il Cicerone business Mailer must have had access to very considerable funds. You can’t do this sort of thing on H.P. The cars, the drivers, the food and, above all, the quite phenomenal arrangement that seems to have been made with the Giaconda Restaurant, who as a general rule would look upon package diners on however exalted a scale as the Caprice would look upon coach-loads from the Potteries. It appears that we dine à la carte at the best tables and drink distilled gold if they’ve got it in their cellars. And Mailer pays all. Well, I know we’ve paid him through the neck but that’s another story.

“And then — this lot. This lot who’ve stumped up fifty quid each for the pleasure of hearing Barnaby Grant, with evident reluctance, read aloud, very badly, from his own best seller. Next attraction: a walk round an ancient monument that’s open to the public followed by tea or whatever they had on the Palatine Hill, and dinner at the Giaconda which could set them back anything up to a 20 pounds a nob if they went under their own steam and then on to a further entertainment coyly unspecified in the brochure. Probably a very expensive strip and champagne show with possibly a pot party to follow. Or worse.