’He has them, as a general practice, bumped off. By another agent. He sets a spy upon them. Sometimes the spy is too greedy. He extorts a pay-off from—say—Giovanni? On consideration that he will not betray Giovanni and Mailer to his master. And then, unless he is very clever indeed, he is found out by his master and he too gets bumped off.’

A little bead of sweat trickled down Sweet’s forehead and got hung up in his eyebrow.

‘The Gunners were not in Italy in 1943. They arrived in ’44,’ said Alleyn. ‘Where do you buy your ties?’

‘—slip of the tongue, ‘forty-four.’

‘All right,’ Alleyn said and stood up. ‘How many times can a man double-cross,’ he asked of nobody in particular, ‘before he loses count? What’s your price?’

Sweet raised his head and stared at him.

‘I wouldn’t try to bolt either. You know your own business best, of course, but Otto Ziegfeldt has a long arm. So, for a matter of fact, have Interpol and even the London Police Force.’

Sweet dabbed his mouth and forehead with a neatly folded handkerchief. ‘You’re making a mistake,’ he said. ‘You’re on the wrong track.’

‘I heard you talking to Giovanni Vecchi in the Eremo caffè at a quarter to four this afternoon.’

A very singular noise came from somewhere inside the massive throat. For the first time Sweet looked fixedly at Alleyn. He mouthed rather than said: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I have the advantage of you, there. I do know what you and Vecchi were talking about. Come,’ Alleyn said. ‘You’ll do yourself no good by keeping this up. Understand me. I’m here in Rome to find out what I can about Otto Ziegfeldt’s operations. I’m not here to run in his lesser agents unless by doing so I can carry my job a step further.’ He thought for a moment and then said, ‘And of course, unless such an agent commits some action that in itself warrants his immediate arrest. I think I know what you’ve been up to. I think you’ve been sent by Ziegfeldt to spy upon Mailer and Giovanni Vecchi and report on their side-activities in Italy. I think you’ve double-crossed Ziegfeldt and played along with Mailer and Giovanni and now Mailer’s disappeared you’re afraid he may put you away with Ziegfeldt. I think you threatened to betray Giovanni to Ziegfeldt unless he pays you off in a big way. And I think you plan to clear up and get out while the going’s good. You haven’t a hope. You’re in a pretty ugly situation, one way and another, aren’t you? The safest thing for you, after all, might be for the Roman police to lock you up. The Roman streets won’t be too healthy for you.’

‘What do you want?’