‘And a head-lamp and overalls,’ Brother Dominic ennumerated with a glance at Alleyn’s impeccable suit. ‘We have them all got. I’ll fetch them, Father.’

‘Do so.’

‘It’s unwholesome here,’ Father Denys said when Brother Dominic had gone. ‘Let us move away for the time being.’

They entered the Mithraeum. Father Denys had switched on the lighting used in visiting hours. The altar glowed. At the far end, the god, lit from beneath, stared out of blank eyes at nothing. They sat on one of the stone benches where in the second century his initiates had sat, wan with their ordeal, their blanched faces painted by the altar fires.

Alleyn thought he would like to ask Father Denys what he made of the Mithraic Cult but when he turned to speak to him found that he was withdrawn into himself. His hands were pressed together and his lips moved.

Alleyn waited for a minute and then, hearing the returning slap of sandals in the cloister, went quickly out by the doorway behind the god. This was the passage by which he and the Van der Veghels had left the Mithraeum. It was very dark indeed and the Baroness had exclaimed at it.

Two right turns brought him back into sight of the well and there was Brother Dominic with ropes, an old-fashioned head-lamp of the sort miners use, a suit of workmen’s overalls and a peculiar woolly cap.

‘I’m obliged to you, Brother Dominic,’ said Alleyn.

‘Let you put them on.’

Alleyn did so. Brother Dominic fussed about him. He fixed the head-lamp and with great efficiency made fast one end of the rope round Alleyn’s chest and under his shoulders.

Alleyn transferred a minuscule camera from his homicide kit to the pocket of his overalls. After looking about for a minute, Brother Dominic asked Alleyn to help him place the lid of the sarcophagus at right angles across the coffin. It was massive but Brother Dominic was a strong man and made little of it. He passed the slack of the rope twice round the lid, crossing it in the manner of sailors when they wear a rope in lowering a heavy load.

‘We could take your weight neat between us,’ he said, ‘but this will be the better way. Where’s Father?’

‘In the Mithraeum. Saying his prayers, I think.’

‘He would be that.’

‘Here he is.’

Father Denys returned looking anxious. ‘I hope we are right about this,’ he said. ‘Are you sure it’s safe, now, Dominic?’

‘I am, Father.’

‘Mr Alleyn, would you not let me place a—a handkerchief over your—eh?’

He hovered anxiously and finally did tie his own large cotton handkerchief over Alleyn’s nose and mouth.

The two Dominicans tucked back their sleeves, wetted their palms and took up the rope, Brother Dominic on Alleyn’s side of the sarcophagus lid and Father Denys on the far side, close to the turn.