Ngaio Marsh - When in Rome

Alleyn said aside to him: “You’re sure you don’t want it?”

He shook his head, pursed his lips and frowned like a nanny.

“No, no, no,” he murmured. “You see how it is. My wife prefers — no. Although,” he added rather wistfully, “there are some pictures — our little group, for instance. But never mind.”

“I’ll let you know how it comes out,” Alleyn said.

They went down in the lift together. He wondered if, long after the case of Sebastian Mailer had faded out of most people’s memories, he and the Van der Veghels would meet somewhere. The baroness had cheered up. They were off on a coach trip to the water-gardens at the Villa d’Este. He walked with them to the main entrance. She went ahead with that singularly buoyant tread that made Alleyn think of the gait of some kind of huge and antique bird: a moa perhaps.

“My wife,” said the Baron fondly regarding her, “has the wise simplicity of the classic age. She is a most remarkable woman.” And dropping his voice he added to himself rather than to Alleyn, “And to my mind, very beautiful.”

“You are a fortunate man.”

“That, also, is my opinion.”

“Baron, will you have a drink with me? At about six o’clock? I will be able to show you your photographs. Since they would distress the Baroness I don’t ask you to bring her with you.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I shall be delighted. You are very considerate,” and shifting his rucksack on his massive shoulders, he called: “Mathilde, not so fast! Wait! I am coming.”

And he, also with springing gait, sped nimbly after his wife. They went down the street together, head and shoulders above the other pedestrians, elastically bobbing up and down and eagerly talking.

Kenneth Dorne sat at the wheel of a white sports car with his aunt beside him. It occurred to Alleyn that they might have been served up neat by an over-zealous casting department as type-material for yet another La Dolce Vita . Kenneth had one of the ridiculous “trendy” caps on his head, a raspberry-coloured affair with a little peak. He was very white and his forehead glistened.

“Here we are,” cried Lady Braceley, “and here’s the film. Such a fuss! Come and have drinks with us this evening. I suppose it’s frightful of one, isn’t it, but one can’t help a feeling of relief. I mean that poisonous Giovanni terrifying one. And all lies. Kenneth knows that I told you. So, don’t you think a little celebration? Or don’t you?”

Kenneth stared at Alleyn with a pretty ghastly half-grin. His lips moved. Alleyn leant forward. “What am I to do?” Kenneth mouthed.

Alleyn said aloud: “I’m afraid I’m booked for this evening.” And to Kenneth, “You don’t look well. I should see a doctor if I were you. May I have the film?”

He handed it over. The carton was damp.

“I think you’ve got the Baroness’s film too, haven’t you?”

“Oh God, have I? Yes, of course. Where the hell — here!”

He took it out of the glove-box and handed it over.

“ Can we give you a lift?” Lady Braceley asked with the utmost concern. “Do let us give you a lift.”

“Thank you, no. I’ve a job to do here.”

The sports car shot dangerously into the traffic.

Alleyn went back into the building.

He sought out Bergarmi and got the name and working address of their photographic expert. Bergarmi rang the man up and arranged for the films to be developed immediately.

He offered to accompany Alleyn to the photographic laboratory and when they got there expanded on his own attitude.

“I have looked in,” Bergarmi said, “to see our own photographs. A matter of routine really. The case against Sweet is perfectly established by Giovanni Vecchi’s evidence alone. He now admits that he was aware of a liaison of some sort between Sweet and Mailer and will swear that he heard Mailer threaten Sweet with exposure.”

“I see,” Alleyn said. “Exposure of what? And to whom?”

“Giovanni believes, Signore, that Mailer was aware of Sweet’s criminal record in England and threatened to expose his identity to you, whom he had recognized.”

“Very neat flashes of hindsight from Giovanni,” said Alleyn drily. “I don’t believe a word of it. Do you?”

“Well, Signore, that is his guess! His evidence of fact I accept entirely. The important point is that Sweet was in danger, for whatever reason, and that the threat came from Mailer. Who, of course, had discovered that Sweet was set to spy upon him by Ziegfeldt. It is a familiar story, Signor Super, is it not? The cross and the double-cross. The simple solution so often the true one. The circumstance of Mailer being a ricattatore and of his extorting money from tourists has no real bearing on his murder, though Sweet may have hoped it would confuse the issue.” Bergarmi’s quick glance played over Alleyn. “You are in doubt, Signor Super, are you not?” he asked.

“Pay no attention to me,” Alleyn said. “I’m a foreigner, Signor Vice-Questore, and I should not try to fit Giovanni into an English criminal mould. You know your types and I do not.”

“Well, Signore,” said Bergarmi smiling all over his face, “you have the great modesty to say so.”

The photographic expert came in. “They are ready, Signor Vice-Questore.”

“ Ecco !” said Bergarmi, clapping Alleyn on the shoulder. “The pictures. Shall we examine?”

They were still submerged in their fixative solution along benches in the developing room. The Questura’s photographs: Violetta in the sarcophagus with her tongue out. Violetta on the stretcher in the mortuary. Mailer’s jaw. Details. Alleyn’s photographs of Mailer, of a scrap of alpaca caught in a rail, of Mailer’s foot, sole uppermost, caught in the fangs of the grille, of boot polish on another rail. Of various papers found in Mailer’s apartment. Regulation shots that would fetch up in the police records.

And now, unexpectedly, views of Rome. Conventional shots of familiar subjects always with the same large, faintly smiling figure somewhere in the foreground or the middle-distance. The Baron looking waggish with his head on one side, throwing a penny into the Trevi Fountain. The Baron looking magisterial in the Forum, pontifical before the Vatican and martial underneath Marcus Aurelius. And finally a shot taken by a third person of the Van der Veghels’ heads in profile with rather an Egyptian flavour, hers behind his. They even had the same large ears with heavy lobes, he noticed.

And then — nothing. A faint remnant of the Baron at the head of the Spanish Steps heavily obscured by white fog. After that — nothing. Blankness.

“It is a pity,” said the photographic expert, “there has been a misfortune. Light has been admitted.”

“So I see,” Alleyn said.

“I think,” Bergami pointed out, “you mentioned, did you not, that there was difficulty with the Baronessa’s camera in the Mithraeum?”

“The flashlamp failed. Once. It worked the second time.”

“There is a fault, evidently, in the camera. Or in the removal of the film. Light,” the expert reiterated, “has been admitted.”

“So,” Bergarmi said, “we have no record of the sarcophagus. It is of secondary interest after all.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “It is. After all. And as for the group by the statue of Mithras—”

“Ah, Signore,” said the expert, “Here the news is better. We have the film marked Dorne. Here, Signore.”

Kenneth’s photographs were reasonably good. They at once disproved his story of using the last of his film before meeting Mailer at the Apollo and of replacing it on his way to the Mithraeum. Here in order were snapshots taken in Perugia. Two of these showed Kenneth himself, en travesti in a garden surrounded by very dubious-looking friends, one of whom had taken off his clothes and seemed to be posing as a statue.