It was Valdarno’s card with an appropriate message written on the back. The waiter took a quick look at it and another at Alleyn and said he would see if the great man was in his office.

‘I expect he is,’ Alleyn said cheerfully. ‘Shall we go there?’

The waiter, using his restaurant walk, hurried through the foyer into a smaller vestibule where he begged Alleyn to wait. He tapped discreetly at a door marked Il direttore, murmured something to the elegant young man who opened it and handed in the card. The young man was gone for a very short time and returned with a winning smile and an invitation to enter. The waiter scuttled off.

Marco’s office was small but sumptuous. He advanced upon Alleyn with ceremony and a certain air of guarded cordiality.

‘Good evening, again, Mr—’ he glanced at the card. ‘Mr Alleyn. I hope you have dined pleasantly.’ His English was extremely good. Alleyn decided to be incapable of Italian.

‘Delightfully,’ he said. ‘A superb evening. Il Questore Valdarno told me of your genius and how right he was.’

‘I am glad.’

‘I think I remember you some years ago in London, Signore. At the Primavera.’

‘Ah! My “salad days”. Thirty-one different salads, in fact. Perhaps five are worth remembering. Can I do anything for you, Mr Alleyn? Any friend of Il Questore Valdarno—?’

Alleyn made a quick decision.

‘You can, indeed,’ he said. ‘If you will be so kind. I think I should tell you, Signore, that I am a colleague of the Questore’s and that I am not in Rome entirely for pleasure. May I—’

He produced his own official card. Marco held it in his beautifully manicured fingers and for five seconds was perfectly motionless. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said at last. ‘Of course. I should have remembered from my London days. There was a cause célèbre. Your most distinguished career. And then—surely—your brother—he was Ambassador in Rome, I think, some time ago?’

Alleyn normally reacted to remarks about his brother George by falling over backwards rather than profit by their relationship. He bowed and pressed on.

‘This is an affair of some delicacy,’ he said and felt as if he spoke out of an Edwardian thriller or, indeed, from No. 221B Baker Street. ‘I assure you I wouldn’t have troubled you if I could have avoided doing so. The fact is Il Questore Valdarno and I find ourselves in something of a quandary. It’s come to our knowledge that a certain unsavoury character whose identity has hitherto been unknown is living in Rome. He has formed associations with people of the highest standing who would be appalled if they knew about him. As I think you yourself would be.’

‘I? Do you suggest—?’

‘He is one of your patrons. We think it proper that you should be warned.’