by Ngaio Marsh
III
At noon Mr Mailer’s unhappy band of pilgrims assembled in the Questore Valdarno’s sumptuous office.
Lady Braceley, Kenneth Dorne and Major Sweet all bore shattering witness to the extravagances of the previous night. The Van der Veghels looked astonished, Barnaby Grant anxious and Sophy Jason shocked. They sat in a semi-circle on imitation renaissance chairs of great splendour and little ease while Valdarno caused wine to be handed round on a lordly tray. Lady Braceley, Kenneth Dorne and Major Sweet, turned sickly glances upon it and declined. The rest of the party sipped uncomfortably while the Questore addressed them at length.
Alleyn sat a little apart from the others who, as the Questore proceeded, eyed him with increasing consternation.
Without much elaboration, Valdarno told them of the discovery of Violetta’s body and remarked upon Sebastian Mailer’s continued non-appearance. He sat behind his magnificent desk. Alleyn noticed that the centre drawer was half-open and that it contained paper. The Questore had placed his folded hands negligently across the drawer but as he warmed to his theme he forgot himself and gestured freely. His audience shifted uneasily. Major Sweet, rousing himself, said that he’d known from the first that there was something fishy about the fellow Mailer. Nobody followed this up.
‘My Lady, Ladies and Gentlemen,’ the Questore concluded, ‘you will, I am sure, perceive that it is important for this Mr Mailer to be traced. I speak from the highest authority when I assure you of our great concern that none of you should be unduly inconvenienced and that your visit to Rome, we hope a pleasurable one, should not be in any way—‘ he paused and glanced into the drawer of his desk ‘—diminished,’ he said, ‘by this unfortunate occurrence.’
He made the slight mistake of absent-mindedly closing the drawer with his thumb. Otherwise, Alleyn thought, he had managed beautifully.
Major Sweet said, ‘Very civil, I’m sure. Do what we can.’ The Van der Veghels and Sophy said, ‘Of course,’ Lady Braceley looked vaguely about her. ‘No, but really!’ she said. ‘I mean, how too off-putting and peculiar.’ She opened her cigarette case but made a sad botch of helping herself. Her hands jerked, cigarettes shot about the floor.
‘Excellenza!’ the Questore ejaculated. ‘Scusi! Allow me!’ He leapt to his feet.
‘No! No! Please! Kenneth! Too stupid of me. No!’
Kenneth gathered the cigarettes, pushed them back into the case and with some difficulty lit the one that shook between his lips. They all looked away from Lady Braceley and Kenneth.
Grant said loudly, ‘You haven’t actually told us so, but I suppose I am right in thinking you suspect Mailer of this murder?’
Kenneth Dorne gave out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a snort.
The Questore made one of his more ornate gestures. ‘One must not be precipitate,’ he said. ‘Let us say, Mr Grant, that we feel he may—’
‘ “Help the police in their investigation”,’ Kenneth said, ‘that’s got a familiar ring about it! “Inspector or Superintendent Flookamapush says he’s anxious to trace Mr Sebastian Mailer who the police believe may help—” ’
He broke off, staring at Alleyn. ’My God!’ he said and got to his feet. ‘I was right! My God. I remember, now. I knew I’d seen that fabulous face before. My God, you are a policeman!’
He turned to the others. ‘He’s a bloody policeman,’ he said. ‘He’s the detective they’re always writing up in the papers. “Handsome” something—what is it?—yes—by God—“Handsome Alleyn”.’ He pointed to Alleyn. ‘He’s no tourist, he’s a spy. Last night. At Toni’s. Spying. That’s what he was doing.’
Alleyn watched all the heads turn in his direction and all the shutters come down. I’m back in business, he thought.
He stood up. ‘Mr Dorne,’ he said, ‘has beaten us to the post by one second. I think the Questore was about to explain.’
The Questore did explain, with one or two significant evasions and a couple of downright lies that Alleyn would have avoided. He said that the highly distinguished Superintendent was on holiday but had made a courtesy call at police headquarters in Rome, that he had expressed a wish to remain incognito which the Questore had of course respected. It was by pure accident, he lied, that Alleyn had joined in the Cicerone tour but when Mailer disappeared he had felt it his duty to report the circumstance. For which the Questore and his subordinates were greatly obliged to him.
Here he paused. Of his audience Sophy and the Van der Veghels looked perfectly satisfied. The others exhibited distrust and scepticism in varying degrees.
The Questore continued. In view of the death of this unfortunate woman, and because Mr Mailer was a British subject, he had asked Superintendent Alleyn to assist, which he had most graciously consented to do. The Questore felt sure that the Superintendent’s fellow-countrymen would greatly prefer the few enquiries to be under his guidance. In any case, he ended, the proceedings would probably be very short and there would be no radical interference in their holidays. He bowed to the Van der Veghels and added that he hoped they, also, would find themselves in agreement with this plan.
‘But, of course,’ the Baron said. ‘It is a satisfactory and intelligent suggestion. A crime has been committed. It is our duty to assist. At the same time I am glad of your assurance that we shall not be detained for very long. After all,’ and he bowed to Alleyn, ‘we are also, on vacation.’
With many mellifluous assurances the Questore begged them to withdraw to a room which had been placed at Alleyn’s disposal.
It was less sumptuous than the first office but more than sufficient for the purpose. There was a desk for Alleyn and extra chairs were brought in for the seven travellers. He noticed that Barnaby Grant was quick to place himself next to Sophy Jason, that Major Sweet was fractionally less bleary-eyed than he had been, that Lady Braceley had better luck with a new cigarette and in controlling the tremor that was nevertheless still in evidence. Kenneth, fidgety and resentful, looked out of the corner of his eye at Alleyn and clearly was not much mollified by the official pronouncement.
Alleyn’s chief concern was to avoid sounding like a replay of the Valdarno disc.
‘This is both a tragic and an absurd situation,’ he said, ‘and I don’t really know what you’ll be making of it. Cutting it down to size it amounts to this. An unfortunate woman has been murdered and a rather strange individual of presumed British nationality has disappeared. We seem to be the last people to have seen him and the police, obviously, want to get statements from all of us. Signor Valdarno is much too grand a personage to handle the case: he’s the equivalent in rank of our Chief Constable or perhaps Assistant Commissioner. His man in charge doesn’t speak English and because I’m a cop he’s asked me to sort it out. I hope that’s all right with all of you. I could hardly refuse, could I?’
‘You might have told us about your job,’ Major Sweet said resentfully.
‘But why? You haven’t told us about yours.’
The Major reddened.
‘Look,’ Alleyn said. ‘Let’s get it over shall we? The sooner the better, surely.’
‘Certainly,’ Sophy Jason said. ‘By all means, let’s.’
Grant said, ‘Oh, by all means,’ in a wooden voice, and Lady Braceley and Kenneth made plaintive sounds of acceptance.
‘Ach, yes’ cried the Baroness. ‘No more delays, isn’t it? Already our plans for today look silly. Instead of fountinks at the Villa d’Este here is a stuffed room. Come! On!’
Thus encouraged, Alleyn set about his task. His situation was an odd one, removed as he was from immediate reliance upon the CID and from the sense of being an integral part of its structure. This was an ‘away match’ and presented its own problems, not the least of which was to define his area of investigation. Originally this had simply been that which covered Mailer’s presumed activities in the international drug racket and possible association with the key figure—the fabulous Otto Ziegfeldt. Now, with the discovery of Violetta, staring an
d frightful, in a stone coffin that had held who could guess what classic bones and flesh, the case had spilled into a wider and more ambiguous affair. The handling of it became very tricky indeed.
He began: ‘I think we’d better settle the question of when each of us last saw Sebastian Mailer. For my part, it was when we were on the middle level and just after Major Sweet and Lady Braceley had left to go up to the atrium. Mr Grant, Miss Jason and the Baron and Baroness were with me and we all went down to the Mithraic dwelling together. Major Sweet and Mr Dorne joined us there separately, some five to ten—or fifteen minutes later. May I begin by asking you, Lady Braceley, if you saw anything of Mailer or of Violetta after you left us?’
Not only, Alleyn thought, was she in the grip of a formidable hangover but she was completely nonplussed at finding herself in a situation that could not be adjusted to a nineteen-twentyish formula for triteness. She turned her lacklustre gaze from one man to another, ran her tongue round her lips and said, ‘No. No, of course I didn’t. No.’
‘And you, Major? On your way down? Did you see either of them?’
‘I did not.’
‘You stayed for a minute of two with Lady Braceley and then came down to the Mithraeum?’
‘Yes.’
‘And met nobody on the way.’
‘Nobody.’
Alleyn said casually, ‘There must at that time have been besides yourself, three persons at large between the top level—the basilica, and the bottom one—the Mithraeum. Mailer himself, Violetta and Mr Kenneth Dorne. You neither saw nor heard any of them?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Mr Dorne, when exactly did you leave us?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’
‘Perhaps,’ Alleyn said with undiminished good humour, ‘we can help you. You were with us in the middle level cloisters when Mailer made his joke about Apollo being a latter-day Lazarus.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because you giggled at it.’
‘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.’
‘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. “What’s 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 in 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 S. 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 round 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 ante-chamber and then down the short passage to the stairway. We didn’t pass the well and sarcophagus, of course, and we met nobody.’
