From here, as they assembled, his seven guests looked down at April azaleas flaring on the Spanish Steps and at Rome suddenly laid out before them in a wide gesture. There was a sense of opulence and of excitement in the air.

Alleyn got there before the appointed time and saw the cars draw up. They had small labels in their windows: ‘Il Cicerone’. Out of one of them stepped a dark man of romantic appearance whom he at once recognized as Barnaby Grant and out of the other the person he had come to see: Sebastian Mailer. He was smartened up since Barnaby Grant’s last encounter with him and was dressed in a black suit of some material that might have been alpaca. This, together with a pair of clumping black shoes gave him a dubiously priestly look and made Alleyn think of Corvo and wonder if he might turn out to be such another. The white silk shirt was clean and the black bow tie looked new. He now wore a black beret on his cropped head and no longer had the appearance of an Englishman.

Alleyn kept his distance among a group of sightseers who milled about taking photographs. He saw that while Sebastian Mailer, half-smiling, talked vivaciously, Grant seemed to make little or no response. He had his back to Alleyn who thought the nape of his neck looked indignant. It looks, Alleyn thought, like the neck of a learner-driver seen from the rear. Rigid, cross and apprehensive.

A young woman approached the cars, spotted Mailer and made towards him. She had a glowing air about her as if Rome had a little gone to her head. Miss Sophy Jason, Alleyn said to himself. He saw her look quickly at Barnaby Grant. Mailer pulled slightly at his beret, made a little bow and introduced her. The girl’s manner was shy, Alleyn thought, but not at all gauche: rather charming, in fact. Nevertheless she said something to Grant that seemed to disconcert him. He glared at her, replied very shortly and turned away. The girl blushed painfully.

This brief tableau was broken by the arrival of two over-sized persons hung about with canvas satchels and expensive cameras: a man and a woman. The Van der Veghels, Alleyn concluded and, like Barnaby Grant before him, was struck by their resemblance to each other and their strangely archaic faces. They were well-dressed in a non-with-it sort of way: both of them in linen and both wearing outsize shoes with great rubber-studded soles and canvas tops. They wore sensibly shady hats and identical sun-glasses with pink frames. They were eager in their greetings and evidently had met Grant before. What great hands and feet you have, Baron and Baroness, thought Alleyn.