When in Rome

by Ngaio Marsh

  He had rather wildly offered his guest champagne cocktails, cognac, wine—anything—but when reminded that it was not yet ten o’clock in the morning settled for coffee. ‘Well then,’ he said, ‘at a more appropriate hour—you will let me—and in the meantime I must—well—of course.’

  He slid his hand inside his jacket. His heart still thumped at it like a fist.

  ‘You are thinking of the reward so generously offered,’ said his companion. ‘But, please—no. No. It is out of the question. To have been of service even on so insignificant a scale to Barnaby Grant—that really is a golden reward. Believe me.’

  Barnaby had not expected this and he at once felt he had committed a gigantic error in taste. He had been misled, he supposed, by general appearances: not only by the shabby alpaca jacket that had replaced the English tweed and like it was hooked over the shoulders, displaying a dingy open shirt with worn cuffs, nor by the black-green hat or the really lamentable shoes but by something indefinable in the man himself. I wish, he thought, I could take an instant liking to him. I owe him that, at the least.

  And as his companion talked Barnaby found himself engaged in the occupational habit of the novelist: he dwelt on the bullet head, close cropped like an American schoolboy’s, and the mouse-coloured sparse fringe. He noted the extreme pallor of the skin, its appearance of softness and fine texture like a woman’s: the unexpected fullness and rich colour of the mouth and those large pale eyes that had looked so fixedly into his in the Piazza Colonna. The voice and speech? High but muted, it had no discernible accent but carried a suggestion of careful phrasing. Perhaps English was no longer the habitual language. His choice of words was pedantic as if he had memorized his sentences for a public address.

  His hands were plump and delicate and the nails bitten to the quick.

  His name was Sebastian Mailer.

  ‘You wonder, of course,’ he was saying, ‘why you have been subjected to this no doubt agonizing delay. You would like to know the circumstances?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘I can’t hope that you noticed me the other morning in Piazza Colonna.’

  ‘But yes. I remember you very well.’

  ‘Perhaps I stared. You see, I recognized you at once from the photographs on your book-jacket. I must tell you I am a most avid admirer, Mr Grant.’

  Barnaby murmured.

  ‘I am also, which is more to the point, what might be described as “an old Roman hand”. I have lived here for many years and have acquired some knowledge of Roman society at a number of levels. Including the lowest. You see I am frank.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why not indeed! My motives in what I imagine some of our compatriots would call muck-raking, are aesthetic and I think I may say philosophical, but with that I must not trouble you. It will do well enough if I tell you that at the same time as I recognized you I also recognized a despicable person known to the Roman riff-raff as—I translate—“Feather-fingers”. He was stationed at a short distance from you and behind your back. His eyes were fastened upon your attaché case.’

  ‘God!’

  ‘Indeed, yes. Now, you will recollect that the incipient thunderstorm broke abruptly and that with the downpour and subsequent confusion a fracas arose between some of the occupants of tables adjacent to your own.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that you received a violent blow in the back that knocked you across your table.’

  ‘So it did,’ Barnaby agreed.

  ‘Of course you thought that you had been struck by one of the contestants but this was not so. The character I have brought to your notice took advantage of the mêlée, darted forward, delivered the blow with his shoulder, snatched up your case and bolted. It was an admirably timed manoeuvre and executed with the greatest speed and precision. The contestants continued to shout at each other and I, my dear Mr Grant, gave chase.’

  He sipped his coffee, made a small inclination, an acknowledgement perhaps of Barnaby’s passionate attention.

  ‘It was a long pursuit,’ Mailer continued. ‘But I clung to his trail and—is the phrase “ran him to earth”? It is. Thank you. I ran him to earth, then, in what purveyors of sensational fiction would describe as “a certain caffè in such-and-such a little street not a thousand miles from—“ etc., etc.—perhaps my phraseology is somewhat dated. In plain terms I caught up with him at his habitual haunt, and by means with which I shall not trouble you, recovered your attaché case.’

  ‘On the same day,’ Barnaby couldn’t help asking, ‘that I lost it?’

  ‘Ah! As the cornered victim of an interrogation always says: I am glad you asked that question. Mr Grant, with any less distinguished person I would have come armed with a plausible prevarication. With you, I cannot adopt this measure. I did not return your case before because—’

  He paused, smiling very slightly, and without removing his gaze from Barnaby’s face, pushed up the shirt-sleeve of his left arm which was white-skinned and hairless. He rested it palm upwards on the table and slid it towards Barnaby.

  ‘You can see for yourself,’ he said. ‘They look rather like mosquito bites, do they not. But I’m sure you will recognize them for what they are. Do you?’

  ‘I—I think I do.’

  ‘Quite. I have acquired an addiction for cocaine. Rather “square” of me, isn’t it? I really must change, one of these days, to something groovier. You see I am conversant with the jargon. But I digress. I am ashamed to say that after my encounter with “Feather-fingers”, I found myself greatly shaken. No doubt my constitution has been somewhat undermined by my unfortunate proclivity. I am not a robust man. I called upon my—the accepted term is, I believe, fix—and, in short, I rather exceeded my usual allowance and have been out of circulation until this morning. I cannot, of course, hope that you will forgive me.’

  Barnaby gave himself a breathing space and then—he was a generous man—said: ‘I’m so bloody thankful to have it back I feel nothing but gratitude, I promise you. After all, the case was locked and you were not to know—’

  ‘Oh but I was! I guessed. When I came to myself I guessed. The weight, for one thing. And the way it shifted, you know, inside. And then, of course, I saw your advertisement: “containing manuscript of value only to owner”. So I cannot lay that flattering unction to my soul, Mr Grant.’

  He produced a dubious handkerchief and wiped his neck and face with it. The little caffè was on the shady side of the street but Mr Mailer sweated excessively.

  ‘Will you have some more coffee?’

  ‘Thank you. You are very kind. Most kind.’

  The coffee seemed to revive him. He held the cup in his two plump, soiled hands and looked at Barnaby over the top.

  ‘I feel so deeply in your debt,’ Barnaby said. ‘Is there nothing I can do—?’

  ‘You will think me unbearably fulsome—I have, I believe, become rather Latinized in my style, but I assure you the mere fact of meeting you and in some small manner—

  This conversation, Barnaby thought, is going round in circles. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you must dine with me. Let’s make a time, shall we?’

  But Mr Mailer, now squeezing his palms together, was evidently on the edge of speech and presently achieved it. After a multitude of deprecating parentheses he at last confessed that he himself had written a book.

  He had been at it for three years: the present version was his fourth. Through bitter experience, Barnaby knew what was coming and knew, also, that he must accept his fate. The all-too-familiar phrases were being delivered ‘…value, enormously, your opinion…’ ‘…glance through it’ ‘…advice from such an authority…’ ‘…interest a publisher…’

  ‘I’ll read it, of course,’ Barnaby said. ‘Have you brought it with you?’

  Mr Mailer, it emerged, was sitting on it. By some adroit and nimble sleight-of-hand, he had passed it under his rump while Barnaby was intent upon his recovered property. He now drew it out, wrapped in a dampish Rom
an news-sheet and, with trembling fingers, uncovered it. A manuscript, closely written in an Italianate script, but not, Barnaby rejoiced to see, bulky. Perhaps forty thousand words, perhaps, with any luck, less.

  ‘Neither a novel nor a novella in length, I’m afraid,’ said its author, ‘but so it has befallen and as such I abide by it.’

  Barnaby looked up quickly. Mr Mailer’s mouth had compressed and lifted at the corners. Not so difficult, after all, Barnaby thought.

  ‘I hope,’ said Mr Mailer, ‘my handwriting does not present undue difficulties. I cannot afford a typist.’

  ‘It seems very clear.’

  ‘If so, it will not take more than a few hours of your time. Perhaps in two days or so I may—? But I mustn’t be clamorous.’

  Barnaby thought: And I must do this handsomely. He said: ‘Look, I’ve a suggestion. Dine with me the day after tomorrow and I’ll tell you what I think.’

  ‘How kind you are! I am overwhelmed. But, please, you must allow me—if you don’t object to—well to somewhere—quite modest—like this, for example. There is a little trattoria, as you see. Their fettuccini—really very good and their wine quite respectable. The manager is a friend of mine and will take care of us.’

  ‘It sounds admirable and by all means let us come here but it shall be my party, Mr Mailer, if you please. You shall order our dinner. I am in your hands.’

  ‘Indeed? Really? Then I must speak with him beforehand.’

  On this understanding they parted.

  At the Pensione Gallico Barnaby told everybody he encountered: the manageress, the two waiters, even the chambermaid who had little or no English, of the recovery of his manuscript. Some of them understood him and some did not. All rejoiced. He rang up the Consulate which was loud in felicitations. He paid for his advertisements.

  When all this had been accomplished he re-read such bits of his book as he had felt needed to be re-written, skipping from one part to another.

  It crossed his mind that his dominant reaction to the events of the past three days was now one of anticlimax: All that agony and—back to normal, he thought and turned a page.

  In a groove between the sheets held by their looseleaf binder he noticed a smear and, on opening the manuscript more widely, found a slight deposit of something that looked like cigarette ash. He had given up smoking two years ago.

  V

  On second thoughts (and after a close examination of the lock on his case) he reminded himself that the lady who did for him in London was a chain-smoker and excessively curious and that his manuscript often lay open on his table. This reflection comforted him and he was able to work on his book and, in the siesta, to read Mr Mailer’s near-novella with tolerable composure.

  ‘Angelo in August by Sebastian Mailer.’

  It wasn’t bad. A bit jewelled. A bit fancy. Indecent in parts but probably not within the meaning of the act. And considering it was a fourth draft, more than a bit careless: words omitted: repetitions, redundancies. Barnaby wondered if cocaine could be held responsible for these lapses. But he’d seen many a worse in print and if Mr Mailer could cook up one or two shorter jobs to fill out a volume he might very well find a publisher for it.

  He was struck by an amusing coincidence and when, at the appointed time, they met for dinner, he spoke of it to Mr Mailer.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, refilling Mr Mailer’s glass, ‘you have introduced a secondary theme which is actually the ground-swell of my own book.’

  ‘Oh no!’ his guest ejaculated, and then: ‘But we are told, aren’t we, that there are only—how many is it? three?—four?—basic themes?’

  ‘And that all subject matter can be traced to one or another of them? Yes. This is only a detail in your story, and you don’t develop it. Indeed, I feel it’s extraneous and might well be dropped. The suggestion is not,’ Barnaby added, ‘prompted by professional jealousy,’ and they both laughed, Mr Mailer a great deal louder than Barnaby. He evidently repeated the joke in Italian to some acquaintances of his whom he had greeted on their arrival and had presented to Barnaby. They sat at the next table and were much diverted. Taking advantage of the appropriate moment, they drank Barnaby’s health.

  The dinner, altogether, was a great success. The food was excellent, the wine acceptable, the proprietor attentive and the mise-en-scène congenial. Down the narrowest of alleyways they looked into the Piazza Navona, and saw the water-god Il Moro in combat with his Fish, superbly lit. They could almost hear the splash of his fountains above the multiple voice of Rome at night. Groups of youths moved elegantly about Navona and arrogant girls thrust bosoms like those of figureheads at the eddying crowds. The midsummer night pulsed with its own beauty. Barnaby felt within himself an excitement that rose from a more potent ferment than their gentle wine could induce. He was exalted.

  He leant back in his chair, fetched a deep breath, caught Mr Mailer’s eye and laughed. ‘I feel,’ he said, ‘as if I had only just arrived in Rome.’

  ‘And perhaps as if the night had only just begun?’

  ‘Something of the sort.’

  ‘Adventure?’ Mailer hinted.

  Perhaps, after all, the wine had not been so gentle. There was an uncertainty about what he saw when he looked at Mailer, as if a new personality emerged. He really had got very rum eyes, thought Barnaby, tolerantly.

  ‘An adventure?’ the voice insisted. ‘May I help you, I wonder? A cicerone?’

  May I help you? Barnaby thought. He might be a shop-assistant. But he stretched himself a little and heard himself say lightly: ‘Well—in what way?’

  ‘In any way,’ Mailer murmured. ‘Really, in any way at all. I’m versatile.’

  ‘Oh,’ Barnaby said. ‘I’m very orthodox, you know. The largest Square,’ he added and thought the addition brilliantly funny, ‘in Rome.’

  ‘Then, if you will allow me—

  The proprietor was there with his bill. Barnaby thought that the little trattoria had become very quiet but when he looked round he saw that all the patrons were still there and behaving quite normally. He had some difficulty in finding the right notes but Mr Mailer helped him and Barnaby begged him to give a generous tip.

  ‘Very good indeed,’ Barnaby said to the proprietor, ‘I shall return.’ They shook hands warmly.

  And then Barnaby, with Mr Mailer at his elbow, walked into narrow streets past glowing windows and pitch-dark entries, through groups of people who shouted and by-ways that were silent into what was, for him, an entirely different Rome.

  CHAPTER 2

  An Expedition is Arranged

  Barnaby had no further encounter with Sebastian Mailer until the following spring when he returned to Rome after seeing his book launched with much éclat in London. His Pensione Gallico could not take him for the first days so he stayed at a small hotel not far from it in Old Rome.

  On his second morning he went down to the foyer to ask about his mail but finding a crowd of incoming tourists milling round the desk, sat down to wait on a chair just inside the entrance.

  He opened his paper but did not read it, finding his attention sufficiently occupied by the tourists who had evidently arrived en masse: particularly by two persons who kept a little apart from their companions but seemed to be of the same party nevertheless.

  They were a remarkable pair, both very tall and heavily built with high shoulders and a surprisingly light gait. He supposed them to be husband and wife but they were oddly alike, having perhaps developed a marital resemblance. Their faces were large, the wife’s being emphasized by a rounded jaw and the husband’s by a short chinbeard that left his mouth exposed. They both had full, prominent eyes. He was very attentive to her, holding her arm and occasionally her big hand in his own enormous one and looking into her face. He was dressed in blue cotton shirt, jacket and shorts. Her clothes, Barnaby thought, were probably very ‘good’ though they sat but lumpishly on her ungainly person.

  They were in some sort of difficulty and consulted a document w
ithout seeming to derive any consolation from it. There was a large map of Rome on the wall: they moved in front of it and searched it anxiously, exchanging baffled glances.

  A fresh bevy of tourists moved between these people and Barnaby and for perhaps two minutes hid them from him. Then a guide arrived and herded the tourists off exposing the strange pair again to Barnaby’s gaze.

  They were no longer alone. Mr Mailer was with them.

  His back was turned to Barnaby but there was no doubt about who it was. He was dressed as he had been on that first morning in the Piazza Colonna and there was something about the cut of his jib that was unmistakable.

  Barnaby felt an overwhelming disinclination to meet him again. His memory of the Roman night spent under Mr Mailer’s ciceronage was blurred and confused but specific enough to give him an extremely uneasy impression of having gone much too far. He preferred not to recall it and he positively shuddered at the mere thought of a renewal. Barnaby was not a prig but he did draw a line.

  He was about to get up and try a quick getaway through the revolving doors when Mailer made a half turn towards him. He jerked up his newspaper and hoped he had done so in time.

  This is a preposterous situation, he thought behind his shield. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. It’s extraordinary. I’ve done nothing really to make me feel like this but in some inexplicable way I do feel—he searched in his mind for a word and could only produce one that was palpably ridiculous—contaminated.

  He couldn’t help rather wishing that there was a jalousie in his newspaper through which he could observe Mr Mailer and the two strangers and he disliked himself for so wishing. It was as if any thought of Mailer involved a kind of furtiveness in himself and since normally he was direct in his dealings, the reaction was disagreeable to him.