‘It wasn’t quite the same, though. Violetta’s shadow—we are accepting Violetta as a working hypothesis—came from the right as Brother Dominic’s did and, like his, crossed to the left. But there was a sequel. It re-appeared, darting into view, lying across the sarcophagus and up the wall. It paused. It turned this way and that, and then shot off to the right. The suggestion, a vivid one, was of a furtive person looking for a hiding-place. Miss Jason thought so, too.’

‘Did Mailer comment?’

‘He pooh-poohed the idea of it being Violetta and changed the subject.’ Alleyn looked about him. ‘If we extend the “working hypothesis” which, by the way, Signor Questore, is a nice alternative to the hateful word “conjecture”, we must allow that there are plenty of places where she could hide. Look what a black shadow the sarcophagus throws, for instance.’

Alleyn had a torch and now used it. He flashed it along the well-rails, which turned out to be makeshift construction of roughly finished wood.

‘You would like the working lights, Signore?’ said one of the men.

But the darting beam paused and sharpened its focus. Alleyn stooped and peered at the rail.

‘There’s a thread of some material caught here,’ he said. ‘Yes, may we have the lights, please?’

The man went back down the passage, his retreating footfalls loud on the stone floor.

The torchlight moved away from the rails, played across the lid of the sarcophagus, caused little carved garlands to leap up in strong relief, found the edge of the lid. Stopped.

‘Look here.’

Valdarno used his torch and the other two men came forward with theirs. As they closed in the pool of light contracted and intensified.

The lid of the sarcophagus was not perfectly closed. Something black protruded and from the protrusion dangled three strands of wool.

‘Dio mio!’ whispered the Questore.

Alleyn said, ‘Brother Dominic, we must remove the lid.’

‘Do so.’

The two men slid it a little to one side, tilted it and with a grating noise, let it slide down at an angle. The edge of the lid hit the floor with a heavy and resounding thud, like the shutting of a monstrous door.

The torchlights fastened on Violetta’s face.

Her thickened eyes stared sightlessly into theirs. Her tongue was thrust out as if to insult them.

Valdarno’s torch clattered on the stone floor.

The long silence was broken by a voice: uninflected, deep, rapid.

Brother Dominic prayed aloud for the dead.

II

A consultation was held in the vestibule. The church was shut and the iron grille into the underworld locked, awaiting the arrival of Valdarno’s Squadra Omicidi. It was strange, Alleyn found, to hear the familiar orders being laid on by somebody else in another language.