“It’s not very late,” Grant had said. “Shall we go out on the roof garden for a minute or two? Would you like a drink?”

“I don’t want any more alcohol, thank you,” Sophy said.

“I’ve got some oranges. We could squeeze them out and add cold water, couldn’t we? Fetch your tooth mug.”

The roof garden smelt of night-scented stocks, watered earth and fern. They made their orange drinks, pointed out the silhouettes of Rome against the sky and spoke very quietly because bedrooms opened on to the roof garden. This gave their dialogue an air of conspiracy.

“I wish I had one of them,” Sophy said.

“I did last time I was here. That one over there with the french windows.”

“How lovely.”

“I — suppose it was.”

“Didn’t you like it?”

“Something rather off-putting happened that time.”

If Sophy had asked “What?” or indeed had shown any kind of curiosity Grant would probably have fobbed her off with a vague sentence or two, but she said nothing. She looked at Rome and sipped her drink.

“You have the gift of Virgilia, Sophy.”

“What was that?”

“A gracious silence.”

She didn’t answer and suddenly he was telling her about the morning of the thunderstorm in the Piazza Colonna and the loss of his manuscript. She listened with horror, her fingers at her lips. “Simon,” she muttered. “You lost Simon!” And then: “Well — but obviously you got it back.”

“After three days of sweltering hell spent largely on this roof garden. Yes. I got it back.” He turned away and sat in one of the little wrought-iron chairs. “At this table, actually,” he said indistinctly.

“I wonder you can face it again.”

“You don’t ask how I got it back.”

“Well — how, then?”

“Mailer — brought it here.”

“Mailer? Did you say Mailer? Sebastian Mailer?”

“That’s right. Come and sit here. Please.”

She took the other chair at his table, as if, she thought, the waiter was going to bring their breakfast. “What is it?” she asked. “You’re worried about something. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I suppose I must. To this extent, at least. Do you believe me when I tell you that at the moment I can almost wish he had never recovered the thing?”

Sophy said, after a pause: “If you say so I believe you, but it’s a monstrous idea. For you to wish Mailer hadn’t found it — yes. That I can imagine.”

“And that is what I meant. You’re too young to remember when my first book came out. You were a child of course.”

“Aquarius? Well, I was about fourteen, I think. I read it with goggling eyes and bated breath.”

“But afterwards. When you came into Koster Press? You heard about — the scandal? Well, didn’t you? You can’t tell me they don’t still thumb it over in those august premises.”

“Yes,” Sophy said. “I heard about the coincidence bit.”

“The coincidence bit! Did you, by God! And did you believe that I could have repeated in exact detail the central theme of a book I’d never read?”

“Certainly. That’s the general opinion at Koster’s.”

“It wasn’t the opinion of twelve good, bloody men and true.”

“Token damages, though, weren’t they? And there’s a long list of proven literary coincidences. I write children’s books. I found last year that I’d lifted the entire story-line of Mrs. Molesworth’s Cuckoo Clock. Actually it wasn’t coincidence. My grandmother had read her copy aloud to me when I was six. I suppose it was stowed away in my subconscious and bobbed up unbeknownst. But I swear I didn’t know.”

“What did you do when you found out?”

“Scrapped it. I was just in time.”

“You were lucky.”

“Does it still hurt so much?”

“Yes,” Grant said. “Yes, my girl, it does.”

“Why, though? Because people may still believe you cribbed?”

“I suppose so — yes. The whole thing’s a nightmare.”

“I’m sorry,” Sophy said. “That’s beastly for you. But I can’t quite see—”

“What it’s got to do with this book — and Mailer?”

“Yes.”

Grant said: “Was it at half past three last afternoon that we met for the first time?”

“We’ve been thrown together. Like people in ships,” Sophy said with a practical air that was invalidated by the circumstance of her being obliged to murmur.

“Mailer kept the manuscript for three days.”

“Why?”

“He says because he flaked out. Cocaine. He showed me his arm to prove it. I don’t believe it for a moment.”

“Was he waiting for a reward to be offered?”

“He wouldn’t take it.”

“Amazing!” said Sophy.

“I don’t think so. I don’t think he’s an addict. I think he’s a pusher in a big way and they never are. He took me to the place they’ve gone on to, tonight. Toni’s. It’s a highly tarted-up junk and flop shop. Caters for all tastes. It’s outrageous. Where was I?”

“You were going to say—”

“Why he waited three days. Because it took him that amount of time to cook up a novella with a resemblance in theme to an incident in Simon. He asked me to read it and give him a criticism. I’m certain now that he’d opened my case, read the ms. and deliberately concocted this thing. It had all the characteristics only I was too dumb to spot them. I gave him an opinion and mentioned, as an amusing coincidence, the resemblance. We were in a restaurant and he told some friends about it. Later on in that damnable evening he told other people. He made a great story of it.”

Grant stopped speaking. A belated horse-carriage clopped down the street under their garden. Much further away a babble of Italian voices broke out, topped by a whistle, laughter and a snatch of song. A driver in Navona changed gears and revved up his engine.

“Do I begin to see,” Sophy said, “why you put up with — this afternoon?”

“Do you begin to see!” he burst out. “Yes, you do begin to see. You haven’t heard half of it yet but my God you do begin to see.” He brought his clenched fist down on the table with a crash and their tooth mugs clattered together.

“Pardon me,” said a shrill lady behind the french windows. “But is it too much to ask for a mite of common courtesy and consideration?” And then in an access of rage: “If you can’t keep your voices down you can belt up and get out.”

Morning was well established when Giovanni and Kenneth Dorne with Lady Braceley, maintained by lateral pressure and support from the armpits and not so much propelled as lifted, crossed the foyer of the hotel and entered the lift.

Cleaning women with black-currant eyes exchanged looks with the night porter, who was preparing to go off duty. The man with the vacuum cleaner watched their progress to the lift and then joined them and, with back turned and averted glance, took them up to their floor. A chambermaid, seeing their approach, opened the door into their suite and hurried away.

They put Lady Braceley into a chair.

Kenneth fumbled in his pocket for his note-case.

“You’re sure, aren’t you,” he said to Giovanni. “It’s going to be O.K. I mean — you know—?”

Giovanni, indigo about the jaws but otherwise impeccable, said: “Perfectly, Signore. I am fully in Signor Mailer’s confidence.”

“Yes — but — you know? This thing about — well, about the police — did he—?”

“I will be pleased to negotiate.”

They both looked at Lady Braceley.

“We’ll have to wait,” Kenneth said. “It’ll be all right, I promise. Later. Say this afternoon when she’s — you know?”

“As soon as possible. A delay is not desirable.”

“All right. All right. I know. But — see for yourself, Giovanni.”

“Signore, I have already perceived.”

“Yes. Well, in the meantime — here.”

“You are very kind,” Giovanni said, taking his dirt-money with infinite aplomb. “I will return at 2:30, Signore. Arrivederci.”

Left alone, Kenneth bit his knuckles, looked at his aunt and caught back his breath in a dry sob. Then he rang for her maid and went to his room.