The air was fresh, Rome sparkled, the streets swam with shoals of early workers. Above them and against a pontifical blue, giant personages in marble looked downwards, the arms frozen in benediction. Under the streets, behind façades, in still-dominant monuments the aspirations of senators, Caesars and Emperors held their ground. And nowhere more strangely, Alleyn thought, than in S. Tommaso in Pallaria.

When they arrived they were met by three of the Questore’s ‘people’: Agenti de Questura, which Alleyn took to be the equivalent of constables, and by Father Denys and the Sacristan, Brother Dominic, a dour man who drew the key to the underworld from his habit as if it was a symbol of mortality.

Valdarno was rather high and remote with the clergy, but complaisant too, and not ungracious.

Father Denys greeted Alleyn as an old friend.

‘It’s yourself again, is it, and you not letting on what was your true function. Sure, I thought to myself there was something about you that was more than met the eye and here you are, they tell me, a great man in the CID.’

‘I hope it was an innocent—reservation, Father.’

‘Ah, well,’ said Father Denys with a tolerance, Alleyn felt, reserved for heretics, ‘we’ll let you off this time. Now what is all this? A wild-goose chase you and the Questore are on over the head of this queer fellow. Be sure he’s given us the slip and away on his own devices.’

‘You’re persuaded he did give you the slip, Father?’

‘What else could it be? He’s not beneath.’ He turned to Valdarno. ‘If you’re ready, Signor Questore, we may proceed.’

Cleaners were busy in the upper basilica, which in common with most Latin churches, had the warm air of always being in business and ready for all comers. A Mass had been said and a small congregation of old women and early workers were on their way out. Three women and one man knelt in prayer before separate shrines. The Sacristy was open. The celebrant had concluded his after-Mass observances and was about to leave. They moved on into the vestibule and shop. Brother Dominic opened the great iron grille and he, with Valdarno, Alleyn and three attendant policemen, began their search of the underworld. Father Denys remained above, being, as he pointed out, entirely satisfied of the non-presence of Mr Mailer in the basements and having a job to do in the shop.

As they descended Brother Dominic turned on the fluorescent lighting used by the monks in their maintenance and excavation. It completely changed the atmosphere and character of the underworld, which had become a museum with no shadows and its exhibits remorselessly displayed. Nothing could reduce the liveliness, beauty and strangeness of the Etruscan terra-cottas but they no longer disconcerted.