Ngaio Marsh - When in Rome

“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.

“All right. Take Lady B. She’s rolling in money. One of her husbands was an Italian millionaire and she may have alimony paid out to her in Rome. She could obviously afford this show. She’s rich, raffish, pretty bloody awful and all for la dolce vita . No doubt she’s paying for the egregious Kenneth, who looks to me very much as if he’s hooked and may therefore turn out to be a useful lead into Mailer’s activities. I gather from something young Sophy Jason, who is an enchanter, let fall that she just suddenly decided to blue fifty quid out of the Italian funds available to her through business connections.

“The Van der Veghels are a couple of grotesques and interest me enormously as I think they would you. Grotesques? No, not the right word. We both go for the Etruscan thing, don’t we? Remember? Remember that male head, bearded and crowned with leaves, in the Museo Barraco? Remember the smiling mouth, shaped, now I come to think of it, exactly like a bird in flight with the thin moustache repeating and exaggerating the curve of the lips? And the wide open eyes? What an amusing face, we thought, but is it perhaps atrociously cruel? I assure you, a portrait of the Baron Van der Veghel. But against this remember the tender and fulfilled couple of that sarcophagus in the Villa Giulia: the absolute in satisfied love? Recall the protective hand of the man. The extraordinary marital likeness, the suggestion of heaviness in the shoulders, the sense of completion. Portrait, I promise you, of the Van der Veghels. They may be Dutch by birth but blow me down flat if they’re not Etruscan by descent. Or nature. Or something.

“The overall effect of the Van der V’s is, however, farcical. There’s always an easy laugh to be won from broken English or, come to that, fractured French. Remember that de Maupassant story about an English girl who became increasingly boring as her command of French improved? The Baroness’s lapses are always, as I’m sure beastly Kenneth would say, good for a giggle.

“I suppose their presence in the set-up is the least surprising. They’re avid and merciless sightseers and photographers and their fund of enthusiasm is inexhaustible. Whether one can say the same of their fund of cash is anyone’s guess.

“Major Sweet. Now, why has Major Sweet coughed up fifty quid for this sort of jaunt? On the face of it he’s a caricature, a museum piece: the sort of Indian Army officer who, thirty years ago, was fair game for an easy laugh shouting Qui-hi at a native servant and saying, By George, what? I find it unconvincing. He’s bad-tempered, I should imagine pretty hard on the bottle, and amorous. As the young Sophy found to her discomfort in the Mithraic underworld. He’s violently, aggressively and confusingly anti-religion. Religion of any kind. He lumps them all together, turns purple in the face, and deriving his impenetrable argument from the sacraments, pagan or Christian, says the whole lot are based on cannibalism. Why should he pay through the neck to explore two levels of Christianity and a Mithraic basement? Just to have a good jeer?