When in Rome

As he intended to dine in the hotel, he changed into a di

Alleyn ran through Ke

“None whatever.”

“Very well, then. What’s the object in my coming here?”

“Briefly: this. I want to know what happened between you and Mailer by the Apollo, yesterday. No,” Alleyn said and lifted a hand, “don’t lie again. You’ll do yourself a lot of damage if you persist. You met him by arrangement to collect your supply of heroin and cocaine. But you also wanted to find out whether he’d been successful in blackmailing Lady Braceley on your behalf. Perhaps that’s a harsh way of putting it but it’s substantially what happened. You had got yourself into trouble in Perugia, Mailer had purported to get you out of it. Knowing your talent for sponging on your aunt he came again with completely false stories of police activity and the necessity for bribery on a large scale. He told you, no doubt, that Lady Braceley had promised to comply. Do you deny any of this?”

“No comment,” said Ke

“My sole concern is to get a statement from you about your parting with Mailer and where he went — in what direction — when he left you. Your wits,” Alleyn said, “are not so befuddled with narcotics that you don’t understand me. This man has not only made a fool of you and robbed your aunt. He has murdered an old woman. I suppose you know the penalty for comforting and abetting a murderer.”

“Is this Roman law?” Ke

“You’re a British subject. So is Mailer. You don’t want him caught, do you? You’re afraid of exposure.”

“No!”

“Then tell me where he went when he left you.”

At first Alleyn thought Ke

He said that when Mailer had fixed him up with his supply of heroin and cocaine he had “had himself a pop.” He carried his own syringe and Mailer, guessing he would be avid for it, had provided him with an ampoule of water and helped him. He adjusted the tourniquet, using Ke

They had walked together round the end of the old church and arrived at the iron stairway. Mailer had gone down the stairway into the insula with Ke

Ke

“Surprise, surprise.”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw it. Again. The same as what the Jason dolly saw. You know. The shadow.”

“Violetta’s.”

“Across the thing. You know. The sarcophagus.”

“Then you saw her?”

“No, I didn’t. I suppose he was between. I don’t know. I was high. There’s a kind of buttress thing juts out. Anyway I was high.”

“So high, perhaps, that you imagined the whole thing.”

“No,” Ke

“And then?”

“I went into that marvellous place. The temple of whatever. There you were. All of you. On about the god. And the great gri

Alleyn looked at him. “You can’t always have been as bad as this,” he said. “Or are you simply a born, stupid, unalterable monster. How big a hand has Mailer taken, with his H. and C. and his thoughtful ever-ready ampoule of distilled water, in the making of the product?”

Ke

“Shut up,” Alleyn said mildly. “Don’t do that. Pull yourself together if you can.”

“I’m a spoilt boy. I know that. I never had a chance. I was spoilt.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-three. Someone like you could have helped me. Truly.”

“Did you get any idea of why Mailer didn’t go into the Mithraeum with you? Was he expecting to meet the woman?”

“No. No, I’m sure he wasn’t,” Ke

“Go on.”

“He told me why he wouldn’t come in.”

“Why?”

“He had a date. With someone else.”

“Who?”

“He didn’t say. I’d tell you if I knew. He didn’t say. But he had a date. Down there in that place. He told me.”

The telephone rang.

When Alleyn answered it he received an oddly familiar sensation: an open silence broken by the distant and hollow closure of a door, a suggestion of space and emptiness. He was not altogether surprised when a rich voice asked: “Would this be Mr. Alleyn?”

“It would, Father.”

“You mentioned this morning where you were to be found. Are you alone, now?”

“No.”

“No. Well, we’ll say no more under that heading. I’ve called upon you, Mr. Alleyn, in preference to anybody else, on account of a matter that has arisen. It may be no great matter and it may be all to the contrary.”

“Yes?”

“If it’s not putting too much upon you I’d be very greatly obliged if you’d be kind enough to look in at the basilica.”

“Of course. Is it—?”

“Well, now, it may be. It may be and then again it may not and to tell you the truth I’m loath to call down a great concourse of the pollis upon me and then it turning out to be a rat.”

“A rat, Father Denys?”

“Or rats. The latter is more like it. Over the head of the strenth.”

“The strength, did you say?”

“I did that. The strenth. Of the aroma.”

“I’ll be with you,” Alleyn said, “in fifteen minutes.”

His professional homicide kit was in the bottom of his wardrobe. He took it with him.

8

Re-appearance of Sebastian Mailer

San Tommaso in Pallaria looked different after sunset. Its façade was dark against a darkening sky and its windows only faintly illuminated from within. Its entrance where Violetta had cursed Sebastian Mailer was quite given over to shadows and its doors were shut.

Alleyn was wondering how he would get in when Father Denys moved out of the shadows.

“Good evening and God bless you,” he said.

He opened a little pass door in the great entry and led the way in.

The smell of incense and hot candles seemed more noticeable in the dark. Galaxies of small flaming spearheads burned motionless before the saints. A ruby lamp glowed above the high altar. It was a place fully occupied within itself. A positive place.

Brother Dominic came out of the sacristy and they walked into the vestibule with its shrouded stalls. The lights were on in there and it felt stuffy.

“It’s like enough a fool’s errand I’ve brought you on and you maybe not eaten yet,” said Father Denys. “I may tell you it’s not been done without the authority of my superior.”