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A silence fell between them and into it there was insinuated the sound of a distant crowd and a shrilling of whistles. A police car shot down the street with its siren blasting.
“And now, my dear Baron,” said Grant, “having to some extent bared our respective bosoms, perhaps we had better, with Sophy’s permission, consider our joint situation.”
“With the greatest pleasure,” said the Baron politely.
Alleyn found a change in the atmosphere of Il Questore Valdarno’s splendid office and in the attitude of Valdarno himself. It was not that he was exactly less cordial but rather that he was more formally so. He was very formal indeed and overpoweringly polite. He was also worried and preoccupied and was constantly interrupted by telephone calls. Apparently the demonstrations were hotting up in Navona.
Valdarno made it perfectly clear that the discovery of Mailer’s body altered the whole complexion of the case: that while he had no intention of excluding Alleyn from the investigation and hoped he would find some interest in the proceedings, they would be absolutely in the hands of the Roman Questura which, he added with an unconvincing air of voicing an afterthought, was under the direct control of the Minister of the Interior. Valdarno was very urbane. Alleyn had his own line of urbanity and retired behind it and between them, he thought, they got exactly nowhere.
Valdarno thanked Alleyn with ceremony for having gone down the well and for being so kind as to photograph the body in situ. He contrived to suggest that this proceeding had, on the whole, been u
The travellers, he said, were summoned to appear at 10:30. Conversation languished but revived with the arrival of Bergarmi, who had the results of the postmortems. Violetta had been hit on the back of the head and manually strangled. Mailer had probably been knocked out before being strangled and dropped down the well, though the bruise on his jaw might have been caused by a blow against the rails or the wall on his way down. He had drowned. The fragment of material Alleyn had found on the i
At this point Valdarno, with stately punctilio, said to Bergarmi they must acknowledge at once that Signor Alleyn had advanced the theory of Mailer’s possible disappearance down the well and that he himself had not accepted it. They both bowed, huffily, to Alleyn.
“It is of the first importance,” Valdarno continued, “to establish whether the sound which was heard by these persons when they were in the Mithraeum was in fact the sound made by the lid of the sarcophagus falling upon its edge to the floor where, it is conjectured, it remained, propped against the casket while the body of the woman was disposed of. Your opinion, Signore, is that it was so?”
“Yes,” Alleyn said. “You will remember that when we removed the lid it made a considerable noise. Two minutes or more before that, we heard a confused sound that might have been that of a woman’s voice. It was greatly distorted by echo and stopped abruptly.”
“Screaming?”
“No.”
“One would expect the woman Violetta to scream.”
“Perhaps not, do you think, if she was there unlawfully? When she abused Mailer on the earlier occasion she didn’t scream: she whispered. I got the impression of one of those harridan voices that have worn out and can no longer scream.”
Valdarno surveyed Bergami. “You realize what all this implies, no doubt.”
“Certainly, Signor Questore.”
“Well?”
“That if this was the woman Violetta and if the sound was the sound of the sarcophagus lid and if the person Mailer killed the woman Violetta and was himself killed soon afterwards—” here Bergami took a breath—“then, Signor Questore, the field of suspects is confined to such persons as were unaccompanied after the party left the Mithraeum. These were the Major Sweet, the Baronessa Braceley, the nephew Dorne.”
“Very well.”
“And that in fact the field of suspects remains the same,” Bergami said, fighting his way out, “whether the woman Violetta was killed by the person Mailer or by the killer of the person Mailer.”
Valdarno turned to Alleyn and spread his hands.
“Ecco!” he said. “You agree?”
“A masterly survey,” Alleyn said. “There is-if I may? — just one question I would like to ask.”
“Ah?”
“Do we know where Giova
“Vecchi!”
“Yes,” Alleyn said apologetically. “He was by the cars when we came out of the basilica but he might have been inside while we were in the nether regions. He wouldn’t attract notice, would he? I mean he’s a regular courier and must often hang about the premises while his customers are below. Part of the scenery, as it were.”
Valdarno gazed in his melancholy way at nothing in particular. “What,” he asked Bergami, “has the man Vecchi said?”
“Signore Questore — nothing.”
“Still nothing?”
“He is obstinate.”
“Has he been informed of Mailer’s death?”
“Last night, Signor Questore.”
“His reaction?”
Bergarmi’s shoulders rose to his ears, his eyebrows to the roots of his hair and his pupils into his head.
“Again nothing. A little pale perhaps. I believe him to be nervous.”
“He must be examined as to his movements at the time of the crimes. The priests must be questioned.”
“Of course, Signor Questore,” said Bergarmi, who had not looked at Alleyn.
“Send for him.”
“Certainly, Signor Questore. At once.”
Valdarno waved a hand at his telephone and Bergarmi hurried to it.
An Agente came in and saluted.
“The tourists, Signor Questore,” he said.
“Very well. All of them?”
“Not yet, Signor Questore. The English nobildo
“Admit them,” said Valdarno with all the grandeur of a Shakespearian monarch.
And in they came: that now familiar and so oddly assorted company.
Alleyn stood up and so did Valdarno, who bowed with the utmost formality. He said, merely, “Ladies and gentlemen,” and motioned them to their seats.
Lady Braceley, who was dressed, with an overdeveloped sense of occasion, in black, ignored this invitation. She advanced upon Valdarno and held out her hand at the kissing level. He took it and kissed his thumb.
“Baronessa,” he said.
“Too shattering,” she lamented. “I can’t believe it. That’s all. I simply ca
“Unfortunately it is true. Please! Be seated.”
The Agente hastened to push a chair into the back of her knees. She sat abruptly, gazed at Valdarno and shook her head slowly from side to side. The others regarded her with dismay. The Van der Veghels exchanged brief, incredulous glances. Ke
Bergarmi finished his orders on the telephone and seated himself at a little distance from the administrative desk.
“We shall not wait for the assembly to complete itself,” said Valdarno. He explained, loftily, that under the normal and correct form of procedure the interview would be in charge of his Vice-Questore but that as this would necessitate an interpreter he proposed to conduct it himself.
Alleyn thought that little time was saved by this departure as Il Questore continually interrupted the proceedings with translations into Italian from which Bergarmi took notes.
The ground that had been so laboriously traversed before was traversed again and nothing new came out except a rising impatience and anxiety on the part of the subjects. When Ke
Il Questore ploughed majestically on. He had arrived at the point of the departure from the Mithraeum when Grant, who had become increasingly and obviously restive, suddenly interrupted him.