‘They were so distorted it’s hard to say. A man’s I think and perhaps a woman’s: perhaps yours and Baroness Van der Veghel’s on your way up the stairs. Or Baron Van der Veghel’s. Or all three.’

‘Might be,’ Alleyn said. ‘Which way did you go back, Major Sweet?’

‘Ah, ’um. I pottered round a bit. Had another look at the well and if you ask me whether the lid of the sarcophagus was out of position I can only say if it was I didn’t notice it. I—ah—I went up into the nave of the old church. Matter of fact, while I was there I heard you and—ah—the Van der Veghels in the cloisters. Taking photographs.’

That is so,’ said the Baroness. ‘I took the head of Mercury.’

‘You were still at it when I went on up the stone stairs. Took my time. Didn’t see the woman. Or Mailer. My opinion, he wasn’t there, anywhere in the premises. Sure of it.’

‘Why?’ Alleyn asked.

‘To be perfectly honest because if the fellow had been there I’d have found him. I thought it damned peculiar him not turning up like that, leaving us cold after taking a whacking great fee off us. So I thought: if the blighter’s hanging about somewhere I’m going to dig him out. And I didn’t.’

‘I really can’t believe,’ said Grant, ‘that you could have made anything remotely resembling a thorough search, Major Sweet. In that short time? In that light? And with all those side passages and excavations? No!’

‘That is so,’ said the Baron. ‘That is undoubtedly so.’

‘I resent that, sir,’ said the Major and blew out his cheeks.

The Baron paid no attention to him. ‘Mr Alleyn,’ he said. ‘Surely it is not impossible that this Mailer was hiding down there, perhaps already with the body of the woman he had murdered, and that he waited until we had gone before putting it—where it was found. Mr Alleyn—what do you say? Is it possible?’

‘I think it’s possible, Baron, yes. But when, in that case, did he make his escape?’

‘Perhaps he’s still there,’ Kenneth suggested, and gave his little whinnying laugh.

‘I have thought of that,’ the Baron said, disregarding Kenneth. ‘I have thought that perhaps he waited until the good fathers made their search. That he hid himself somewhere near the top and while they looked elsewhere, contrived to elude them and again hid himself in the basilica until we had driven away and then made his escape. I do not know. Perhaps it is an absurd suggestion but—he is gone, after all.’

‘I think,’ Lady Braceley said, ‘it’s a very clever suggestion.’ And she actually summoned up the wreck of an arch glance for the Baron, who bowed and looked horrified.