Through the insula, a left turn and then straight towards the iron stairway passing a cloistral passage out of which came the perpetual voice of water. Up the iron stairway. Through the second basilica, past Mercury, and Apollo, and then up the last flight of stone steps towards the light, and here was the little shop: quite normal and bright.

The people in charge of the postcard and holy trinket stalls, a monk and two youths, were shutting them up. They looked sharply at Grant and Sophy.

‘No more,’ Grant said to them. ‘We are the last.’

They bowed.

‘There’s no hurry,’ he told Sophy. ‘The upper basilica stays open until sunset.’

‘Where will the others be?’

‘Probably in the atrium.’

But the little garden was quite deserted and the basilica almost so. The last belated sightseers were hurrying away through the main entrance.

‘He’s mustered them outside,’ Grant said. ‘Look—there they are. Come on.’

And there, in the outer porch where they had originally assembled, were Mr Mailer’s guests in a dissatisfied huddle: the Van der Veghels, the Major, Lady Braceley, Kenneth and, removed from them, Alleyn. The two sumptuous cars were drawn up in the roadway.

Grant and Alleyn simultaneously demanded of each other: ‘Where’s Mailer?’ and then, with scarcely a pause: ‘Haven’t you seen him?’

But nobody, it transpired, had seen Mr Mailer.

CHAPTER 4
Absence of Mr Mailer

‘Not since he slouched off to find you, ‘Major Sweet shouted, glaring at Kenneth. ‘Down below, there.’

‘Find me,’ Kenneth said indifferently. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t seen him.’

Alleyn said, ‘He went back to find you when you returned to photograph the Apollo.’

‘He must have changed his mind then. Last I saw of him was—you know—it was—you know, it was just before I went back to Apollo.’

Kenneth’s voice dragged strangely. He gave an aimless little giggle, closed his eyes and reopened them sluggishly. By the light of day, Alleyn saw that the pupils had contracted. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Kenneth drawled, ‘I remember. It was then.’

‘And he didn’t follow you and Lady Braceley, Major Sweet?’

‘I imagined that to be perfectly obvious, sir. He did not.’

‘And he didn’t join you, Lady Braceley, in the atrium?’

‘If that’s the rather dismal little garden where the gallant major dumped me,’ she said, ‘the answer is no. Mr Mailer didn’t join me there or anywhere else. I don’t know why,’ she added, widening her terrible eyes at Alleyn, ‘but that sounds vaguely improper, don’t you think?’

Major Sweet, red in the face, said unconvincingly that he had understood Lady Braceley would prefer to be alone in the atrium.

‘That,’ she said, ‘would have rather depended on what was offering as an alternative.’

‘I must say—’ he began in a fluster but Alleyn interrupted him.