“You’ve turned what promised to be a perfectly hellish evening into—” Grant stopped short, waited for a moment and then leant towards her.

“Yes, well, all right,” Sophy said in a hurry. “You needn’t bother about that. Silly conversation.”

“—into something almost tolerable,” Grant said.

On the other side of the table Alleyn thought: “No doubt she’s very well able to take care of herself but I wouldn’t have thought her one of the easy-come easy-go sort. On the contrary. I hope Grant isn’t a predatory animal. He’s a god in her world and a romantic-looking ravaged sort of god, at that. Just the job to fill in the Roman foreground. Twenty years her senior, probably. He’s made her blush again.”

Major Sweet, at the head of the table, had ordered himself yet another cognac but nobody followed his example. The champagne bottles were upside down in the coolers and the coffee cups had been removed. Giovanni appeared, spoke to the waiter and retired with him, presumably to pay the bill. The maître d’hôtel, Marco, swept masterfully down upon them and not for the first time inclined, smiled and murmured over Lady Braceley. She fished in her golden reticule and when he kissed her hand, left something in his own. He repeated this treatment with subtle modulations, on the Baroness, worked in a gay salute to Sophy, included the whole table in a comprehensive bow and swept away with the slightest possible oscillation of his hips.

“Quite a dish, isn’t he?” Kenneth said to his aunt.

“Darling,” she replied, “the things you say! Isn’t he too frightful, Major?” She called up the table to Major Sweet, who was staring congestedly over the top of his brandy glass at Sophy.

“What!” he said. “Oh. Ghastly.”

Kenneth laughed shrilly. “When do we move?” he asked at large. “Where do we go from here?”

“Now we are gay,” cried the Baroness. “Now we dance and all his hip and nightlife. To the Cosmo, is it not?”

“Ah-ha, ah-ha, to the Cosmo!” the Baron echoed.

They beamed round the table.

“In that case,” Lady Braceley said, picking up her purse and gloves, “I’m for the ritirata.”

The waiter was there in a flash to drop her fur over her shoulders.

“I too, I too,” said the Baroness and Sophy followed them out.

The Major finished his brandy. “The Cosmo, eh?” he said. “Trip a jolly old measure, what? Well, better make a move, I suppose—”

“No hurry,” Kenneth said. “Auntie’s best official clocking in la ritirata is nineteen minutes and that was when she had a plane to catch.”

The Baron was in deep consultation about tipping with the Major and Grant. Their waiter stood near the door into the restaurant. Alleyn strolled over to him.

“That was a most excellent dinner,” he said and overtìpped just enough to consolidate his follow-on. “I wonder if I may have a word with Signor Marco? I have a personal introduction to him which I would like to present. Here it is.”

It was Valdarno’s card with an appropriate message written on the back. The waiter took a quick look at it and another at Alleyn and said he would see if the great man was in his office.

“I expect he is,” Alleyn said cheerfully. “Shall we go there?”

The waiter, using his restaurant walk, hurried through the foyer into a smaller vestibule where he begged Alleyn to wait. He tapped discreetly at a door marked Il Direttore, murmured something to the elegant young man who opened it and handed in the card. The young man was gone for a very short time and returned with a winning smile and an invitation to enter. The waiter scuttled off.

Marco’s office was small but sumptuous. He advanced upon Alleyn with ceremony and a certain air of guarded cordiality.

“Good evening, again Mr. — ” he glanced at the card. “Mr. Alleyn. I hope you have dined pleasantly.” His English was extremely good. Alleyn decided to be incapable of Italian.

“Delightfully,” he said. “A superb evening. Il Questore Valdarno told me of your genius and how right he was.”

“I am glad.”

“I think I remember you some years ago in London, Signore. At the Primavera.”

“Ah! My ‘salad days.’ Thirty-one different salads, in fact. Perhaps five are worth remembering. Can I do anything for you, Mr. Alleyn? Any friend of Il Questore Valdarno—?”

Alleyn made a quick decision.

“You can, indeed,” he said. “If you will be so kind. I think I should tell you, Signore, that I am a colleague of the Questore’s and that I am not in Rome entirely for pleasure. May I—”

He produced his own official card. Marco held it in his beautifully manicured fingers and for five seconds was perfectly motionless. “Ah, yes,” he said at last. “Of course. I should have remembered from my London days. There was a cause célèbre. Your most distinguished career. And then — surely — your brother — he was Ambassador in Rome I think some time ago?”

Alleyn normally reacted to remarks about his brother George by falling over backwards rather than profit by their relationship. He bowed and pressed on.

“This is an affair of some delicacy,” he said and felt as if he spoke out of an Edwardian thriller or, indeed, from No. 221B Baker Street. “I assure you I wouldn’t have troubled you if I could have avoided doing so. The fact is Il Questore Valdarno and I find ourselves in something of a quandary. It’s come to our knowledge that a certain unsavoury character whose identity had hitherto been unknown is living in Rome. He has formed associations with people of the highest standing who would be appalled if they knew about him. As I think you yourself would be.”

“I? Do you suggest—?”

“He is one of your patrons. We think it proper that you should be warned.”

If Marco had seemed, for an Italian, to be of a rather florid complexion he was so no longer. His cheeks were wan enough to make his immaculately shaven jaws look, by contrast, a cadaverous purple. There was a kind of scuffling noise behind Alleyn. He turned and saw the beautiful young man who had admitted him seated behind a table and making great play with papers.

“I didn’t realize—” Alleyn said.

“My secretary. He does not speak English,” Marco explained and added in Italian. “Alfredo, it might be as well for you to leave us.” And still in Italian, to Alleyn: “That will be better, will it not?”

Alleyn looked blank. “I’m sorry,” he said and spread his hands.

“Ah, you do not speak our language?”

“Alas!”

The young man said rapidly in Italian: “Padrone, is it trouble? It is—?” and Marco cut him short. “It is nothing. You heard me. Leave us.”

When he had gone Alleyn said. “It won’t take long. The man I speak of is Mr. Sebastian Mailer.”

A short pause and Marco said: “Indeed? You are, I must conclude, certain of your ground?”

“Certain enough to bring you the information. Of course you will prefer to check with the Questore himself. I assure you, he will confirm what I’ve said.”

Marco inclined and made a deprecatory gesture. “But of course, of course. You have quite taken me aback, Mr. Alleyn, but I am most grateful for this warning. I shall see that Mr. Mailer’s appearances at La Giaconda are discontinued.”

“Forgive me, but isn’t it rather unusual for La Giaconda to extend its hospitality to a tourist party?”

Marco said rapidly and smoothly: “A normal tourist party — a ‘package’—would be out of the question. A set meal and a fiasco of wine — with little flags on the table — unthinkable! But this arrangement, as you found, is entirely different. The guests order individually, à la carte, as at a normal dinner party. The circumstance of the conto being settled by the host — even though he is a professional host — is of little significance. I confess that when this Mailer first approached me I would not entertain the proposal but then — he showed me his list. It was a most distinguished list. Lady Braceley alone — one of the most elegant of our clientela. And Mr. Barnaby Grant — a man of the greatest distinction.”