‘Oh, everything is grist that comes to our grubby little mill,’ Alleyn said. ‘I’m in a damn tricky sort of position myself, you know. I’ve learnt this morning that the Roman police have found out Mailer’s definitely a British subject. That, in a vague way, keeps me in the picture but with a shift of emphasis: my masters sent me here on the drug-running lay and I find myself landed with the presumptive murder of an Italian.’

‘So your presence in yesterday’s ongoings was not accidental?’

‘No. Not.’

‘I may as well tell you, Alleyn, I’m not as keen as mustard for you to catch Mailer.’

‘I suppose not. You’re afraid, aren’t you, that if he’s brought to trial he’ll blow the story of your alleged plagiarism?’

‘All right. Yes. I am. I don’t expect you to understand. The police,’ Grant said savagely, ‘are not exactly famous for their sympathy with the arts.’

‘On the other hand they are acquainted with a tendency on the part of the general public, artistic or otherwise, to separate what is laughingly called justice from the concept of enlightened self-interest.’

‘I imagine,’ Grant said after a sufficient pause, ‘that my face could scarcely be redder.’

‘Don’t give it another thought. As for your fear of a phoney exposure, I think I can promise you it is absolutely groundless.’

‘You can? You really can do that?’

‘I believe so. I’d take long odds on it.’

‘I suppose the whole thing, from the police point of view, is entirely beside the point.’

‘You may put it like that,’ Alleyn said. ‘How about a liqueur with our coffee?’

II

The next two days went by without incident. Mr Mailer’s guests followed, Alleyn presumed, their own inclinations. He himself wrote up a detailed report on the case and sent a précis of it to his masters. He had three indeterminate conversations with Valdarno and put a call through to London asking for detailed reports on Lady Braceley and Kenneth Dorne and a check through the Army lists on Major Hamilton Sweet. He also asked for the appropriate branch to make inquiries through the Dutch authorities about the Van der Veghels.

On the third day Rome was engulfed in a heat wave. Pavements, walls and the sky itself quivered under its onslaught and the high saints extended their stone arms above the city in a shimmer that resembled movement. Alleyn lunched in the hotel and spent a good deal of time wondering how Fox was prospering in London.

The Latin siesta is a civilized habit. At its best it puts the sweltering heat of the day behind insect-proof barriers, gives people a rest from excitedly haranguing each other and causes a lull in the nervous activity of the streets.