by Ngaio Marsh
Valdarno had begun, ‘Mr Grant, I must insist—’ when his telephone rang. He gestured angrily at Bergarmi, who lifted the receiver. A spate of Italian broke out at the other end. Bergarmi ejaculated and answered so rapidly that Alleyn could only just make out what he said. He picked up something like ‘—insufferable incompetence. At once. All of you. You hear me! All!’ He clapped the receiver down and turned to Valdarno.
‘They have lost him,’ he said. ‘Buffoons! Idiots! Lunatics! He has given them the slip.’
‘Vecchi?’
‘Vecchi! No, Signor Questore, no. Sweet. Major Sweet.’
CHAPTER 9
Death in the Morning
He made his getaway during the riots.
After Alleyn left him on the previous afternoon he had begun to keep watch from behind his window-blind on a man in the street below. The man had changed three times, the second to last being a short, swarthy fellow wearing a green hat. Sweet could not be sure if these watchers were police agents or spies employed by Giovanni. The latter would be infinitely more dangerous.
He had eaten in his room, giving it out that he was unwell and had managed to keep on the safe side of the whisky-bottle although, as evening came on, he had taken more than most men could stand.
Once when he was not looking into the street, he made a tiny fire of paper in an ashtray. Two larger papers he tore into fragments and put down the lavatory across the landing. But he had never carried much really incriminating stuff about with him and these were soon disposed of.
When it grew dark he did not turn on his light but still watched. The man in the green hat was at no pains to make himself inconspicuous. Often, he looked directly at the window so that, although Sweet knew this was not possible, he felt as if they stared into each other’s eyes. When the man’s relief came—he arrived on a motorbicycle—they pointed out the window to each other.
The lavatory was at the back of the landing. He had stood on the seat and looked through the window louvres. Yes, sure enough, there was another man, watching the rear of the hotel.
When he got down he saw he had left marks of the shoe-polish on the seat. He had always been particular about his shoes, liking the arches of their soles to be attended to. He wiped away the marks.
If they were Agenti down there, it meant that Alleyn had told the police and they had decided he should be kept under observation. And if, as Alleyn had suggested, Giovanni was under arrest? He might still have managed to lay this on. And if he had done that, then things looked black indeed.
At eleven o’clock he was still watching and being watched. At five past eleven the telephone on the landing rang and went on ringing. He heard the man in the next room groan and go out. He was prepared for the bang on his own door and the slam of the neighbouring one. He answered the telephone. It was somebody speaking basic English for the Vice-Questore Bergarmi. The travellers were required to report next morning at the office where they had formerly been interviewed. At 10.30.
He waited for two or three seconds while he ran the tip of his tongue over his trim little moustache. His hand slithered on the receiver.
‘Jolly good,’ he said. ‘Can do.’
‘I beg your pardon, Signore? You said?’
‘I’ll be there.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Wait a bit. Hold on.’
‘Have you found Mailer?’
A pause. A consultation in Italian.
‘Hullo? Are you there?’
‘Yes, Signore, Mailer has been found.’
‘Oh.’
‘His body has been found. He has been murdered.’
He should have said something. He shouldn’t have hung up the receiver without a word. Too late now.
He lay on his bed and tried to think. The hours went by and sometimes he dozed but he always came to with a jerk and returned to look down into the street. The brief quietude of the small hours came over Rome and then, with the first light, the gradual return of traffic. Presently there were movements within the hotel.
At eight o’clock he heard a vacuum cleaner whining in the passage. He got up, shaved, packed a small overnight bag and then sat looking at nothing and unable to think coherently.
At 9.30 the biggest student demonstrations of the year began. The point of assembly was Navona but as they increased in violence the crowds overflowed and erupted into the narrow street below. A gang of youths ran down it manhandling parked cars into a herringbone pattern. He could see bald-heads among them, urging them on. He began to make frantic preparations. Still watching the street, he struggled into his overcoat. There was a scarf in the pocket. He wound it over his mouth. Then he found a tweed hat he hadn’t worn since he arrived. He checked that he had his passport and money in his pockets and took up the overnight bag. There was now a great deal of noise in the street. A group of students milled round the watcher’s motorbicycle. They had opened the tank and then set fire to the petrol. Six or seven of them swarmed about the man. A fight broke out.
He heard windows opening and voices in the other rooms exclaiming.
The landing and stairs were deserted.
When he reached the street the bicycle was in flames. The crowd manhandled the owner. He struggled, caught sight of Sweet, and yelled.
Sweet dodged and ran. He was hustled and thrust aside and finally caught up in a general stampede down the street and into the main thoroughfare. Here he took to his heels and ran, disregarded, until he was winded.
There was a traffic block at an intersection. He saw an empty taxi in midstream, got to it, wrenched open the door and fell in. The driver shouted angrily at him. He pulled out his wallet and showed a L. 10,000 note, ‘Stazione!’
The traffic moved and the cars behind set up a great hooting. The driver gestured, seemed to refuse but finally moved with the stream, still shouting incomprehensibly.
Then Sweet heard the siren.
The police-car was some way behind them but the traffic between made way for it. Sweet and the driver saw each other in the rearvision glass. Sweet pounded with both fists on the driver’s back. ‘On!’ he screamed. ‘Go on!’
The taxi screeched to a halt as the man crammed on his brakes. The police-car drew alongside and Sweet hurled himself through the opposite door.
For a moment he showed up in the sea of traffic: a well-dressed man in an English overcoat and tweed hat. Then he went down under an oncoming van.
II
‘He is not expected,’ Bergarmi said, ‘to recover consciousness.’
Since Sweet’s escape had been reported, less than half an hour had elapsed. During that interval, while Valdarno and his Vice-Questore were still at blast-off potential, Giovanni had been brought in. He was unshaven, pale and dishevelled, and had looked round the group of tourists as if he saw them for the first time. When his glance fell on Lady Braceley he half-closed his eyes, smirked and bowed. She had not looked at him.
He was questioned by Bergarmi with occasional interjections from Valdarno. This time there was no translation and only Alleyn knew what was said. The travellers leant forward in their chairs and strained and frowned as if they were physically rather than intellectually deaf. It was difficult, indeed, to think of any good reason why their presence was supposed to be desirable. Unless, Alleyn thought, we are to become bilingual again and some sort of confrontation is envisaged.
The official manner with Giovanni was formidable. Bergarmi shot out the questions. Valdarno folded his arms, scowled and occasionally threw in a demand if not a threat. Giovanni alternately sulked and expostulated. A good deal of what went on, Alleyn reflected, would be meat and drink to defending counsel in Great Britain. The examination was twice interrupted by reports of further violence in the street and the Questore flung orders into the telephone with the precision of a souped-up computer. Alleyn could not escape the feeling that they all three greatly relished running through this virtuoso performance before their baffled and uncomprehending audience.
Aft
er a prolonged skirmish leading nowhere in particular Giovanni suddenly flung out his arms, made a complicated acknowledgement of his own stainless integrity, and intimated that he was prepared to come clean.
This turned out to be the overstatement of the day. What he was prepared to do, and did, was to accuse Major Sweet of murdering Sebastian Mailer. He said that while he himself was innocent of all knowledge of Mailer’s side activities and had merely acted in good faith as a top-class courier for Il Cicerone, it had come to his knowledge that there was some kind of hanky-panky going on between Mailer and Sweet.
‘Something told me it was so,’ said Giovanni. ‘I have an instinct in such matters.’
‘For “instinct”,’ Il Questore said, ‘read “experience”.’ Bergarmi laughed rather in the manner of deferential junior counsel.
‘And what steps,’ Valdarno asked nastily, ‘did this instinct prompt you to take?’ He glanced at Alleyn.
Giovanni said he had observed, when Violetta attacked Mailer in the portico, that Sweet watched with a certain eagerness. He became even more interested in Sweet. When the party went below he strolled into the basilica and said a prayer to S. Tommaso for whom he had a devotion. Major Sweet, he said in parenthesis, was an atheist and made several abominable remarks about the holy saints.
‘His remarks are unimportant. Continue.’
Giovanni was still in the basilica when Major Sweet returned with Lady Braceley, he said, and slid his eyes in her direction. Sweet’s behaviour was peculiar and far from polite. He planted her in the atrium and hastened to return below. Giovanni, filled, if he was to be believed, with nameless misgiving, had gone to the top well-head in the basilica and looked down—to his astonishment upon Major Sweet who (against the holy fathers’ regulations) had mounted the rails of the well-head directly underneath and seemed to strain over the top and peer into the Mithraic insula below. There was something extraordinarily furtive about the way he finally climbed down and darted out of sight.
‘This is nothing,’ said Valdarno, flicking it away with his fingers.
‘Ah,’ said Giovanni, ‘but wait.’ Wait, as he had, for the return of the party. First to arrive was Signor Dorne, who went immediately to his aunt in the atrium. And then, alone, the Major. White. Trembling. Agitated. A terrible expression in the eyes. He had passed Giovanni without seeing him and staggered into the porch. Giovanni had gone to him, had asked him if he was unwell. He had cursed Giovanni and asked him what the hell he meant and told him to get out. Giovanni had gone to his car and from there had seen the Major fortify himself from a pocket flask. His recovery was rapid. When the others appeared he was in full command of himself.
‘At the time, Signor Questore, I was at a loss to understand—but now, now I understand. Signor Questore, I,’ said Giovanni, slapping his chest and shaking his finger and making his point with the greatest virtuosity, ‘had looked upon the face of a murderer.’
And it was at this point that the telephone had rung. Bergarmi answered it, received the news of Sweet’s catastrophe and informed his Superior.
‘He is not expected,’ he said, ‘to recover consciousness.’
And while we’re on the subject of facial expression, Alleyn thought, if ever I’ve seen incredulous delight flash up in anybody’s face it’s now. And the face is Giovanni’s.
III
Five minutes later came the information that Hamilton Sweet had died without speaking.
Valdarno unbent so far as to convey this news to the travellers. And again relief, decently restrained, was in the air. Barnaby Grant probably voiced the majority’s reaction when he said, ‘For God’s sake don’t let’s go through the motions. He was a disastrous specimen and now it seems he was a murderer. It’s beastly but it’s over. Better for them—all three of them—by a long chalk and for everybody else that it should be.’
Alleyn saw Sophy look steadily at Grant for a moment and then frowningly at her own clenched hands. The Baron made sounds of agreement, but his wife, disconcertingly, broke into protest.
‘Ah no, ah no!’ cried the Baroness. ‘We cannot so coldly dismiss! Here is tragedy! Here is Nemesis! Behind this dénouement what horror is not lurkink?’ She appealed from one to another of the hearers and finally to her husband. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘No, Gerrit, no! It is dreadful to think,’ she said. ‘The Violetta and this Mailer and the Sweet: between them was such hatred! Such evil! So close to us! I am sick to think of it.’
‘Never mind, my darling. It is gone. They are gone.’
He comforted her in their own language, gently patting one of her large hands between his own two enormous ones as if to warm it. He looked round at the others with that winged smile inviting them to indulge a childish distress. They responded awkwardly.
Valdarno said that they would all perceive, no doubt, that the affair now wore an entirely different complexion. It would be improper, until legal pronouncements had been made and the case formally wound up, for him to make a categorical pronouncement but he felt, nevertheless, that as representative of the Minister for the Interior he might assure them they would not be unduly troubled by further proceedings. They would be asked to sign a statement as to their unfortunate experience. Possibly they would be required to give formal evidence and should hold themselves in readiness to do so. And now, perhaps, they would be kind enough to wait in the next room while Vice-Questore Bergarmi prepared a statement. He greatly regretted—
He continued in this strain for a few more rounded periods and then they all stood up and responded as best they could to a ceremonial leave-taking.
Alleyn remained behind.
‘If it would save trouble, Signor Questore,’ he said, ‘I’m at your service—you’ll want an English transcription of this statement, for instance. And perhaps—as I was there, you know—?’
‘You are very kind,’ Valdarno began, and broke off to deal with yet another report of violence. Bergarmi had gone to some inner office and for a moment or two Alleyn and Giovanni were confronted. The Questore’s back was turned to them as he apostrophized the telephone.
‘You too,’ Alleyn said, ‘will no doubt sign a statement, will you not?’
‘But certainly, Signore. On my conscience and before the saints. It is my duty.’
‘Will it include an account of your talk with Major Sweet yesterday afternoon, at the Eremo?’
Giovanni, snakelike, retracted his head. Almost, Alleyn thought, you could hear him hiss. He half-closed his eyes and whispered disgustingly.
For the hundredth time that morning Valdarno shouted, ‘E molto seccante! Presto!’ He clapped down the receiver, spread his hands for Alleyn’s benefit, and caught sight of Giovanni. ‘You! Vecchi! You are required to make a written statement.’
‘Of course, Signor Questore,’ Giovanni said. The intercom buzzed. Valdarno took another call.
An officer came in and removed Giovanni, who darted a look at Il Questore’s back and as he passed Alleyn rapidly mimed a spit into his face. The officer barked at him and pushed him out. Violetta, thought Alleyn, would not have stopped short at pantomime.
‘These students!’ cried Valdarno, leaving the telephone. ‘What do they suppose they achieve? Now, they burn up Vespa motorcycles. Why? Possibly they are other students’ Vespas. Again, why? You were speaking of the signed statement. I would be greatly obliged if you would combine with Bergarmi.’ The buzzer sounded. ‘Basta!’ shouted Il Questore and answered it.
Alleyn joined Bergarmi, who received him with a strange blend of huffishness and relief. He had written out a résumé in Italian, based on his own notes of the now desperately familiar experiences of the travellers in the depths of S. Tommaso. Alleyn found this accurate and put it into English. ‘Would you like a check of the translation by a third person, Signor Vice-Questore?’ he asked. Bergarmi made deprecatory noises. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘it is no longer of the first importance, all this. Giovanni Vecchi’s evidence and the fact that this—’ he slapped the st
atement ‘—does nothing to contradict it and, above all, Sweet’s attempt to escape, are sufficient, for our purpose. The case is virtually closed.’
Alleyn pushed his translation across the table. ‘There is just one thing I’d like to suggest.’
‘Yes? And that is?’
‘The Van der Veghels took photographs in the Mithraeum and the insula. Flashlights. Two by the Baroness and one by the Baron. Kenneth Dorne also took one. After that, when we were returning, the Baroness photographed the sarcophagus. I thought you might like to produce these photographs.’
‘Ah. Thank you. The sarcophagus, yes. Yes. That might be interesting.’
‘If it shows the piece of shawl?’
‘Quite so. It would limit the time. To some extent that is true. It would show that the woman Violetta was murdered before you all left the Mithraeum. By Mailer, of course. There can be no doubt, by Mailer. It would not help us—not that we need this evidence—to fix a precise time for Sweet’s attack upon Mailer. We have, my dear Signor Super,’ said Bergarmi with evident pleasure in discovering this new mode of address, ‘motive. From your own investigation of Sweet.’ Alleyn made a wry face. ‘Intent. As evidenced in suspicious behaviour noted by Vecchi. Opportunity. Apart from Signor Dorne and his Aunt Baroness (this latter being a ludicrous notion), he is the only one with opportunity.’
‘With the greatest respect—the only one?’
‘Signore?’
‘Well,’ Alleyn said apologetically, ‘it’s just that I wonder if Giovanni was speaking all of the truth all of the time.’
After a considerable pause Bergarmi said, ‘I find no occasion to doubt it.’ And after an even longer pause: ‘He had no motive, no cause to attack Mailer.’
