She offered no comment unless her next remark could be construed as such. “We are distantly related,” she said. “We are in fact descended upon the distaff side from the Wittelsbacks. I am called Mathilde Jacobea after the so celebrated Countess. But it is strange, what you say, all the same. My husband believes that our family had its origins in Etruria. So perhaps,” she added playfully, “we are backthrows. He thinks of writing a book on the subject.”

“How very interesting,” said Alleyn politely and entered upon a spinning manoeuvre of some virtuosity. It rather irritated him that she followed with perfect ease. “Yes,” she said, confirming her own pronouncement, “you dance well. That was most pleasant. Shall we return?”

They went back to her husband, who kissed her hand and contemplated her with his head on one side. Grant and Sophy joined them. Giovanni asked if they were ready to be driven to their hotels and, on learning that they were, summoned the second driver.

Alleyn watched them leave and then, with the resignation that all policemen on duty command, addressed himself to the prospect of Toni’s pad.

The entrance to Toni’s was through a wrought iron gate, opened after a subdued exchange with Giovanni, by a porter. Then across a paved courtyard and up five floors in a lift. Giovanni had collected fifteen thousand lire from each member of his party. He handed these amounts to someone who peered through a trap in a wall. A further door was then opened from the inside and the amenities of Toni’s pad were gradually disclosed.

They were everything — and more — that might be expected on a pretty elaborate scale and they catered for all tastes at predictable levels. The patrons were ushered into a pitch-dark room and seated on velvet divans round the wall. It was impossible to discover how many were there, but cigarette ends pulsed in many places and the room was full of smoke. Giovanni’s party seemed to be the last arrivals. They were guided to their places by someone with a small blue torchlight. Alleyn contrived to settle near the door. A voice murmured: “A ‘joint,’ Signore?” and a box with a single cigarette in it was displayed by the torch. Alleyn took the cigarette. Every now and then people murmured and often giggling broke out.

The freak-out was introduced by Toni himself, holding a torch under his face. He was a smooth man who seemed to be dressed in floral satin. He spoke in Italian and then haltingly in English. The name of the performance, he said, was “Keenky Keeks.”

A mauve light flooded the central area and the show was on.

Alleyn was not given to subjective comment where police fieldwork was concerned, but in a report that he subsequently drew up on the case in hand he referred to Toni’s Kinky Kicks as “infamous” and, since a more explicit description was unnecessary, he did not give one.

The performers were still in action when his fingers found the door handle behind a velvet curtain. He slipped out.

The porter who had admitted them was in the vestibule. He was big, heavy and lowering and lay back in a chair placed across the entrance. When he saw Alleyn he did not seem surprised. It might be supposed that rebellious stomachs were not unknown at Toni’s.

“You wish to leave, Signore?” he asked in Italian and gestured towards the door. “You go?” he added in basic English.

“No,” Alleyn said in Italian. “No, thank you. I am looking for Signor Mailer.” He glanced at his hands which were trembling and thrust them in his pockets.

The man lowered his feet to the floor, gave Alleyn a pretty hard stare and got up.

“He is not here,” he said.

Alleyn withdrew his hand from his trouser pocket and looked absentmindedly at the 50,000-lire note. The porter slightly cleared his throat. “Signor Mailer is not here this evening,” he said. “I regret.”

“That is disappointing,” Alleyn said. “I am very surprised. We were to meet. I had an arrangement with him: an arrangement for special accommodation. You understand?” He yawned widely and used his handkerchief.

The porter, watching him, waited for some moments. “Perhaps he has been delayed,” he said. “I can speak to Signor Toni on your behalf, Signore. I can arrange the accommodation.”

“Perhaps Signor Mailer will come. Perhaps I will wait a little.” He yawned again.

“There is no need. I can arrange everything.”

“You don’t even know—”

“You have only to speak, Signore. Anything!”

The porter became specific. Alleyn affected restlessness and discontent. “That’s all very fine,” he said. “But I wish to see the padrone. It is an appointment.”

Alleyn waited for the man to contradict the term “padrone” but he did not. He began to wheedle. Mellifluously he murmured and consoled. He could see, he said, that Alleyn was in distress. What did he need? Was it perhaps H. and C.? And the equipment? He could provide everything at once and a sympathetic couch in privacy. Or did he prefer to take his pleasure in his apartment?

Alleyn realized after a minute or two that the man was trading on his own account and had no intention of going to Toni for the cocaine and heroin he offered. Perhaps he stole from the stock in hand. He himself kept up his display of “withdrawal” symptoms. The 50,000-lire note shook in his grasp, he gaped, dabbed at his nose and mopped his neck and brow. He affected to mistrust the porter. How did he know that the porter’s stuff would be of good quality? Mr. Mailer’s supplies were of the best: unadulterated, pure. He understood Mr. Mailer was a direct importer from the Middle East. How was he to know—?

The porter said at once that it would be from Mr. Mailer’s stock that he would produce the drugs. Mr. Mailer was indeed an important figure in the trade. He became impatient.

“In a moment, Signore, it will be too late. The performance will end. It is true that Toni’s guests will retire to other rooms and other amusements. To be frank, Signore, they will not receive the service that I can provide.”

“You guarantee that it is of Signor Mailer’s supply?”

“I have said so, Signore.”

Alleyn consented. The man went into a sort of cubbyhole off the vestibule that was evidently his office. Alleyn heard a key turn. A drawer was shut. The porter returned with a sealed package neatly wrapped in glossy blue paper. The cost was exorbitant: about thirty per cent on the British blackmarket price. He paid and said agitatedly that he wanted to go at once.

The man opened the door, took him down in the lift and let him out.

A car was drawn up in the alley and at its wheel, fast asleep, Giovanni’s second-in-command. Alleyn concluded that Giovanni found himself fully occupied elsewhere.

He walked to the corner, found the name of the main street — the Via Aldo — and took his bearings. He returned to the car, woke the driver and was driven to his hotel. He maintained his withdrawal symptoms for the driver’s benefit, made a muddle over finding his money and finally overtipped lavishly with a trembling hand.

After Toni’s pad the hotel vestibule might have been in the Austrian Tyrol, so healthful did its quietude, its subdued luxury, its tinkling fountains and its emptiness appear. Alleyn went to his room, bathed, and for a minute or two stood on his small balcony and looked down at Rome. Eastward there was a faint pallor in the sky. In those churches, shut like massive lids, over the ancient underworld, they would soon be lighting candles for the first offices of the day. Perhaps the lay brother at San Tommaso in Pallaria was already awake and preparing to go slap-slap in his sandals through the empty streets with a key to the underworld in his habit.

Alleyn locked the cigarette and the package of cocaine and heroin in his briefcase and, telling himself to wake at seven o’clock, went to bed and to sleep.

Much earlier in the night Barnaby Grant and Sophy Jason from the top of the Pensione Gallico had also looked at Rome.