“Marvellous,” said Kenneth.

“It was not a nice joke,” the Baroness said. “We did not find it amusink, did we, Gerrit?”

“No, my dear.”

“It was a silly one.”

“So.”

“You think it funnier perhaps,” Kenneth said, “to dodge behind terra-cotta busts and bounce out at old — at highly strung people. It takes all sorts to raise a laugh,” said Kenneth.

“You were not there, Mr. Dorne,” said the Baron. “You had left the party. We had crossed the nave of the early church and you did not come with us. How did you know I bounced?”

“I heard of it,” Kenneth said loftily, “from my aunt.”

Alleyn plodded on. “We understood from Mailer that you had gone back to photograph the Apollo. Is that right?”

“Certainly.”

“And you did photograph it?”

Kenneth slid his feet about and after a pretty long pause said: “As it happened, no. I’d run out of film.” He pulled out his packet of cigarettes and found it was empty.

“No, you hadn’t,” shouted Major Sweet. “You hadn’t done any such thing. You took a photograph of Mithras when we were all poodlefaking round Grant and his book.”

Grant, most unexpectedly, burst out laughing.

“There’s such a thing,” Kenneth said breathlessly, “as putting in a new film, Major Sweet.”

“Well, yes,” said Alleyn. “Of course there is. Tell me, did Mailer rejoin you while you were not photographing Apollo?”

This time the pause was an uncomfortably long one. Major Sweet appeared to take the opportunity to have a nap. He shut his eyes, lowered his chin and presently opened his mouth.

At last: “No,” Kenneth said loudly. “No. He didn’t turn up.”

“ ‘Turn up’? You were expecting him, then?”

“No, I wasn’t. Why the hell do you suppose I was? I wasn’t expecting him and I didn’t see him.” The cigarette packet dropped from his fingers. “Whats that?” he demanded.

Alleyn had taken a folded handkerchief from his pocket. He opened it to display a crumpled piece of glossy blue paper.

“Do you recognize it?” he asked.

“No!”

Alleyn reached out a long arm, retrieved the cigarette packet from the floor and dropped it on the desk.

He said: “I was given two boxes wrapped in similar paper to this at Toni’s pad last night.”

“I’m afraid,” Kenneth said whitely, “my only comment to that is: ‘So, dear Mr. Superintendent Alleyn, what?”

“In one of them there were eight tablets of heroin. Each, I would guess, containing one-sixth of a grain. In the other, an equal amount of cocaine in powder form. Mr. Mailer’s very own merchandise, I was informed.”

The Van der Veghels broke into scandalized ejaculations, first in their own language and then in English. “You didn’t throw this paper behind the statue of Apollo, Mr. Dorne?”

“No. Christ!” Kenneth screamed out, “what the hell is all this? What idiot stuff are you trying to sell me? All right, so this was an H. and C. wrapping. And how many people go through Saint what’s-his-name’s every day? What about the old woman? For all you know she may have peddled it. To anyone. Why, for God’s sake, pick on me?”

“Kenneth — darling — no. Please. No!”

“Partly,” Alleyn said, “because up to that time you had exhibited withdrawal symptoms but on your arrival in the Mithraeum appeared to be relieved of them.”

“No!”

“We needn’t labour the point. If necessary we can take fingerprints.” He pointed to the paper, and to the empty cigarette packet. “And in any case, last night you were perfectly frank about your experiments with drugs. You told me that Mailer introduced you to them. Why are you kicking up such a dust now?”

“I didn’t know who you were.”

“I’m not going to run you in here, in Rome, for making a mess of yourself with drugs, you silly chap. I simply want to know if, for whatever reason, you met Mailer by the statue of Apollo in the middle level at San Tommaso.”

“Kenneth — no!”

“Auntie, do you mind! I’ve told him — no, no, no.”

“Very well. We’ll go on. You returned to photograph Apollo, found you had used up the film in your camera, continued on down to the bottom level and joined us in the Mithraeum. At what stage did you put a new film in your camera?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Where is the old film?”

“In my pocket, for God’s sake. In my room.”

“You didn’t encounter Major Sweet either although he must have been on his way down, just ahead of you.”

“No.”

“You passed the Apollo, Major, on your way down?”

“I suppose so. Can’t say I remember. Must have, of course.”

“Not necessarily. The cloisters run right around the old church at the middle level. If you’d turned right instead of left when you reached that level you would have come by a shorter route, and without passing Apollo, to the passage leading to the iron stairway.”

“I could have but I didn’t.”

“Odd!” Alleyn said. “And neither of you had sight, sound or smell of Mailer and Violetta?”

Silence.

“With the exception of Lady Braceley we all came together in the Mithraeum and were there for, I suppose, at least fifteen minutes while the Baroness and Baron and Mr. Dorne took photographs and Mr. Grant read to us. Then we found our several ways back to the top. You left first, Mr. Dorne, by the main entrance.”

“You’re so right. And I went up by the shortest route and I met nobody and heard nothing and I joined my aunt in the garden.”

“Quite so. I went back with the Baron and Baroness. We left the Mithraeum by a doorway behind the figure of the god, turned right twice and followed the cloister, if that’s what it should be called, passing the well and the sarcophagus and arriving finally at the passage to the iron stairway.” He turned to the Van der Veghels. “You agree?”

“Certainly,” said the Baroness. “That was the way. Stoppink sometimes to examine—” She broke off and turned in agitation to her husband, laying her hands on his arm. She spoke to him in their own language, her voice trembling. He stooped over her: solicitous and concerned, gathered her hands in his and said gently: “In English, my dear, should we not? Let me explain.” He turned to Alleyn. “My wife is disturbed and unhappy,” he said. “She has remembered, as no doubt you will remember, Mr. Alleyn — or, no! You had already turned into the passage, I think. But my wife took a photograph of the sarcophagus.”

“It is so dreadful to think,” the Baroness lamented. “Imagink! This wretched woman — her body — it may have been — no, Gerrit, it is dreadful.”

“On the contrary, Baroness,” Alleyn said. “It may be of great assistance to the investigation. Of course, one understands that the implications are distasteful—”

“Distasteful!”

“Well — macabre — dreadful, if you like. But your photograph may at least prove that the sarcophagus had not been interfered with at that juncture.”

“It had not. You yourself must have seen—”

“In that lighting it looked perfectly all right but a flashlamp might bring out some abnormality, you know.”

“What was it like,” Grant said, “when you examined it, as I gather you did, with Valdarno?”

“There was — a slight displacement,” Alleyn said. “If the Baroness’s photograph shows none it will establish that the murder was committed after we left the Mithraeum.”

“And after we had all left the building?” Grant asked.

“Not quite that, perhaps, but it might come to that. May we just define the rest of the party’s movements. Yours, for instance.”

“I had offered to stay in the Mithraeum in case anybody wanted information about the rest of the insula. Miss Jason remained with me for, I suppose, ten minutes or so and we then made our way up by the shortest route: the main exit from the Mithraeum, through the antechamber and then down the short passage to the stairway. We didn’t pass the well and sarcophagus, of course, and we met nobody.”