When in Rome
Chapters (14)
- Cover Page
- Cast of Characters
- CHAPTER 1Barnaby in Rome
- CHAPTER 2An Expedition is Arranged
- CHAPTER 3Saturday, the Twenty-sixth
- CHAPTER 4Absence of Mr Mailer
- CHAPTER 5Evening Out
- CHAPTER 6Re-appearance of a Postcard Vendor
- CHAPTER 7Afternoon
- CHAPTER 8Return of Sebastian Mailer
- CHAPTER 9Death in the Morning
- CHAPTER 10When in Rome
- BY THE SAME AUTHOR
- About the Publisher
Cover Page
Cast of Characters
Patrons of Mr Sebastian Mailer’s conducted tour
| Mr Barnaby Grant | Author of Simon in Latium |
| The Baron and Baroness Van der Veghel | |
| Miss Sophy Jason | Writer of children’s stories |
| Lady Braceley | |
| The Hon. Kenneth Dorne | Her nephew |
| Major Hamilton Sweet | |
| Superintendent Roderick Alleyn | CID London |
Officers of the Roman Police Department
Il Questore Valdarno
Il Vice-Questore Bergarmi
Sundry members of the Questura
Dominicans in charge at S. Tommaso in Pallaria
Father Denys
Brother Dominic
| Mr Sebastian Mailer | Il Cicerone Conducted Tours |
| Giovanni Vecchi | His assistant |
| Violetta | A postcard vendor |
| Marco | A restaurateur |
| A British Consul | |
| Signor Pace | A travel agent |
| A Porter and sundry waiters |
CHAPTER 1
Barnaby in Rome
Barnaby Grant looked at the Etruscan Bride and Bridegroom who reclined so easily on their sarcophagal couch and wondered why they had died so young and whether, as in Verona, they had died together. Their gentle lips, he thought, brushed with amusement, might easily tilt into the arrowhead smile of Apollo and Hermes. How fulfilled they were and how enigmatically alike. What signal did she give with her largish hands? How touchingly his hand hovered above her shoulder.
‘—from Cerveteri,’ said a guide rapidly. ‘Five hundred and thirty years before Christ.’
‘Christ!’ said a tourist on a note of exhaustion.
The party moved on. Grant stayed behind for a time and then, certain that he desired to see no more that morning, left the Villa Giulia and took a taxi to the Piazza Colonna for a glass of beer.
II
As he sat at a kerbside table in the Piazza Colonna, Barnaby thought of the Etruscan smile and listened to thunder.
The heavens boomed largely above the noon traffic but whatever lightning there might be was not evident, being masked by a black canopy of low and swollen cloud. At any moment, thought Barnaby, Marcus Aurelius’s Column will prick it and like ‘a foul bumbard’ it will shed its liquor! And then what a scene!
Before him on the table stood a glass and a bottle of beer. His mackintosh was folded over the back of his chair and on the ground, leaning against his leg, was a locked attaché case. Every so often his left hand dropped to the case and fingered it. Refreshed by this contact his mouth would take on an easier look and he would blink slowly and push away the lock of black hair that overhung his forehead.
A bit of a swine, this one, he thought. It’s been a bit of a swine.
A heavy rumbling again broke out overhead. Thunder on the left, Barnaby thought. The gods are cross with us.
He refilled his glass and looked about him.