“Exccellenza!” the Questore ejaculated. “Scusi! Allow me!” He leapt to his feet.

“No! No! Please! Kenneth! Too stupid of me. No!”

Kenneth gathered the cigarettes, pushed them back into the case and with some difficulty lit the one that shook between her lips. They all looked away from Lady Braceley and Kenneth.

Grant said loudly: “You haven’t actually told us so, but I suppose I am right in thinking you suspect Mailer of this murder?”

Kenneth Dorne gave out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a snort.

The Questore made one of his more ornate gestures. “One must not be precipitate,” he said. “Let us say, Mr. Grant, that we feel he may—”

“ ‘Help the police in their investigation,’ ” Kenneth said, “that’s got a familiar ring about it! ‘Inspector or Superintendent Flookamapush says he’s anxious to trace Mr. Sebastian Mailer, who the police believe may help—’ ”

He broke off, staring at Alleyn. “My God!” he said and got to his feet, “I was right! My God! I remember, now. I knew I’d seen that fabulous face before. My God, you are a policeman!”

He turned to the others: “He’s a bloody policeman,” he said. “He’s the detective they’re always writing up in the papers. ‘Handsome’ something — what is it? — yes — by God—‘Handsome Alleyn.’ ” He pointed to Alleyn. “He’s no tourist, he’s a spy. Last night. At Toni’s. Spying. That’s what he was doing.”

Alleyn watched all the heads turn in his direction and all the shutters come down. “I’m back in business,” he thought.

He stood up. “Mr. Dorne,” he said, “has beaten us to the post by one second. I think the Questore was about to explain.”

The Questore did explain, with one or two significant evasions and a couple of downright lies that Alleyn would have avoided. He said that the highly distinguished Superintendent was on holiday but had made a courtesy call at police headquarters in Rome, that he had expressed a wish to remain incognita which the Questore had of course respected. It was by pure accident, he lied, that Alleyn had joined in the Cicerone tour but when Mailer disappeared he had felt it his duty to report the circumstance. For which the Questore and his subordinates were greatly obliged to him.

Here he paused. Of his audience Sophy and the Van der Veghels looked perfectly satisfied. The others exhibited distrust and scepticism in varying degrees.

The Questore continued. In view of the death of this unfortunate woman, and because Mr. Mailer was a British subject, he had asked Superintendent Alleyn to assist, which he had most graciously consented to do. The Questore felt sure that the Superintendent’s fellow-countrymen would greatly prefer the few enquiries to be under his guidance. In any case, he ended, the proceedings would probably be very short and there would be no radical interference in their holidays. He bowed to the Van der Veghels and added that he hoped they, also, would find themselves in agreement with this plan.

“But, of course,” the Baron said. “It is a satisfactory and intelligent suggestion. A crime has been committed. It is our duty to assist. At the same time I am glad of your assurance that we shall not be detained for very long. After all,” and he bowed to Alleyn, “we are also on vacation.”

With many mellifluous assurances the Questore begged them to withdraw to a room which had been placed at Alleyn’s disposal.

It was less sumptuous than the first office but more than sufficient for the purpose. There was a desk for Alleyn and extra chairs were brought in for the seven travellers. He noticed that Barnaby Grant was quick to place himself next to Sophy Jason, that Major Sweet was fractionally less bleary-eyed than he had been, that Lady Braceley had better luck with a new cigarette and in controlling the tremor that was nevertheless still in evidence. Kenneth, fidgety and resentful looked out of the corner of his eyes at Alleyn and clearly was not much mollified by the official pronouncement.

Alleyn’s chief concern was to avoid sounding like a replay of the Valdarno disc.

“This is both a tragic and an absurd situation,’’ he said, “and I don’t really know what you’ll be making of it. Cutting it down to size it amounts to this. An unfortunate woman has been murdered and a rather strange individual of presumed British nationality has disappeared. We seem to be the last people to have seen him and the police, obviously, want to get statements from all of us. Signor Valdarno is much too grand a personage to handle the case: he’s the equivalent in rank of our Chief Constable or perhaps Assistant Commissioner. His man in charge doesn’t speak English and because I’m a cop he’s asked me to sort it out. I hope that’s all right with all of you. I could hardly refuse, could I?”

“You might have told us about your job,” Major Sweet said resentfully.

“But why? You haven’t told us about yours.”

The Major reddened.

“Look,” Alleyn said. “Let’s get it over, shall we? The sooner the better, surely.”

“Certainly,” Sophy Jason said. “By all means, let’s.”

Grant said: “Oh, by all means,” in a wooden voice and Lady Braceley and Kenneth made plaintive sounds of acceptance.

“Ach, yes!” cried the Baroness. “No more delays, isn’t it? Already our plans for today look silly. Instead of fountinks at the Villa d’Este here is a stuffed room. Come! On!”

Thus encouraged Alleyn set about his task. His situation was an odd one, removed as he was from immediate reliance upon the C.I.D. and from the sense of being an integral part of its structure. This was an “away match” and presented its own problems, not the least of which was to define his area of investigation. Originally it had simply been that which covered Mailer’s presumed activities in the international drug racket and possible association with the key figure — the fabulous Otto Ziegfeldt. Now, with the discovery of Violetta, staring and frightful, in a stone coffin that had held who could guess what classic bones and flesh, the case had spilled into a wider and more ambiguous affair. The handling of it became very tricky indeed.

He began. “I think we’d better settle the question of when each of us last saw Sebastian Mailer. For my part, it was when we were on the middle level and just after Major Sweet and Lady Braceley had left to go up to the atrium. Mr. Grant, Miss Jason and the Baron and Baroness were with me and we all went down to the Mithraic dwelling together. Major Sweet and Mr. Dorne joined us there separately, some five to ten — or fifteen — minutes later. May I begin by asking you, Lady Braceley, if you saw anything of Mailer or of Violetta after you left us?”

Not only, Alleyn thought, was she in the grip of a formidable hangover but she was completely non-plussed by finding herself in a situation that could not be adjusted to a nineteen-twentyish formula for triteness. She turned her lacklustre gaze from one man to another, ran her tongue round her lips and said: “No. No, of course I didn’t. No.”

“And you, Major? On your way down? Did you see either of them?”

“I did not.”

“You stayed for a minute or two with Lady Braceley and then came down to the Mithraeum?”

“Yes.”

“And met nobody on the way.”

“Nobody.”

Alleyn said casually, “There must at that time have been, beside yourself, three persons at large between the top level — the basilica — and the bottom one — the Mithraeum. Mailer himself, Violetta and Mr. Kenneth Dorne. You neither saw nor heard any of them?”

“Certainly not.”

“Mr. Dorne, when exactly did you leave us?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Perhaps,” Alleyn said with undiminished good humour, “we can help you. You were with us in the middle-level cloisters when Mailer made his joke about Apollo being a latter-day Lazarus.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you giggled at it.”