At 9.30 the biggest student demonstrations of the year began. The point of assembly was Navona but as they increased in violence the crowds overflowed and erupted into the narrow street below. A gang of youths ran down it manhandling parked cars into a herringbone pattern. He could see bald-heads among them, urging them on. He began to make frantic preparations. Still watching the street, he struggled into his overcoat. There was a scarf in the pocket. He wound it over his mouth. Then he found a tweed hat he hadn’t worn since he arrived. He checked that he had his passport and money in his pockets and took up the overnight bag. There was now a great deal of noise in the street. A group of students milled round the watcher’s motorbicycle. They had opened the tank and then set fire to the petrol. Six or seven of them swarmed about the man. A fight broke out.

He heard windows opening and voices in the other rooms exclaiming.

The landing and stairs were deserted.

When he reached the street the bicycle was in flames. The crowd manhandled the owner. He struggled, caught sight of Sweet, and yelled.

Sweet dodged and ran. He was hustled and thrust aside and finally caught up in a general stampede down the street and into the main thoroughfare. Here he took to his heels and ran, disregarded, until he was winded.

There was a traffic block at an intersection. He saw an empty taxi in midstream, got to it, wrenched open the door and fell in. The driver shouted angrily at him. He pulled out his wallet and showed a L. 10,000 note, ‘Stazione!’

The traffic moved and the cars behind set up a great hooting. The driver gestured, seemed to refuse but finally moved with the stream, still shouting incomprehensibly.

Then Sweet heard the siren.

The police-car was some way behind them but the traffic between made way for it. Sweet and the driver saw each other in the rearvision glass. Sweet pounded with both fists on the driver’s back. ‘On!’ he screamed. ‘Go on!’

The taxi screeched to a halt as the man crammed on his brakes. The police-car drew alongside and Sweet hurled himself through the opposite door.

For a moment he showed up in the sea of traffic: a well-dressed man in an English overcoat and tweed hat. Then he went down under an oncoming van.

II

‘He is not expected,’ Bergarmi said, ‘to recover consciousness.’

Since Sweet’s escape had been reported, less than half an hour had elapsed. During that interval, while Valdarno and his Vice-Questore were still at blast-off potential, Giovanni had been brought in. He was unshaven, pale and dishevelled, and had looked round the group of tourists as if he saw them for the first time. When his glance fell on Lady Braceley he half-closed his eyes, smirked and bowed. She had not looked at him.