On to the railed hole in the floor of the second-level cloister where Baroness Van der Veghel had peered into the underworld and where Sophy Jason and Alleyn, also looking down, had seen the shadow of a woman they took to be Violetta.

Alleyn reminded Valdarno of this and invited him to stand where Sophy had stood while he himself looked over the Questore’s shoulder. There was no lighting down below and they stared into a void.

‘You see, Signor Questore, we are looking straight down into the well-head on the bottom level. And there to the right is the end of the sarcophagus with the carved lid. You can, I think, just make it out. I wonder—could one of your men go down there and switch on the normal lighting? Or perhaps—’ He turned with diffidence to the Dominican. ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘if you would mind going down, Brother Dominic? Would you? You are familiar with the switches and we are not. If we could just have the same lighting as there was yesterday? And if you would be very kind and move between the source of light and the well. We’d be most grateful.’

Brother Dominic waited for so long, staring in front of him, that Alleyn began to wonder if he had taken some vow of silence. However, he suddenly said ‘I will’ in a loud voice.

‘That’s very kind of you. And—I hope I’m not asking for something that is not permitted—would you have your hood over your head?’

‘What for would I be doing that?’ asked Brother Dominic in a sudden access of communication.

‘It’s just to lend a touch of verisimilitude,’ Alleyn began, and to his astonishment Brother Dominic instantly replied, ‘ “To an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative”?’

‘Bless you, Brother Dominic. You’ll do it?’

‘I will,’ Brother Dominic repeated, and stalked off.

‘These holy fathers!’ Valdarno tolerantly observed. ‘The one talks to distraction and the other has half a tongue. What is it you wish to demonstrate?’

‘Only, in some sort, how the shadow appeared to us.’

‘Ah, the shadow. You insist on the shadow?’

‘Humour me.’

‘My dear colleague, why else am I here? I am all attention.’

So they leant over the railing, stared into the depths and became aware of the now familiar burble of subterranean water.

‘Almost,’ Alleyn said, ‘you can persuade yourself that you see a glint of it in the well—almost but not quite. Yesterday I really thought I did.’

‘Some trick of the light.’

‘I suppose so. And pat on his cue, there goes Brother Dominic.’