by Ngaio Marsh
‘I think I’ll stay put for a moment,’ she said. She did not at all fancy roaming in a Mithraic gloaming with the Major.
Alleyn said he, too, would find his own way back and the Van der Veghels who had been photographing each other against the sacrificial altar decided to join him, not, Sophy thought, entirely to his delight.
Major Sweet left by one of the side doors. Alleyn disappeared behind the god, enthusiastically followed by the Van der Veghels. They could be heard ejaculating in some distant region. Their voices died and there was no more sound except, Sophy fancied, the cold babble of that subterranean stream.
‘Come and sit down,’ Grant said.
She joined him on one of the stone benches.
‘Are you feeling a bit oppressed?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Shall I take you up? There’s no need to stay. That lot are all right under their own steam. Say the word.’
‘How kind,’ Sophy primly rejoined, ‘but, thank you, no. I’m not all that put out. It’s only—’
‘Well?’
‘I’ve got a theory about walls.’
‘Walls?
‘Surfaces. Any surfaces.’
‘Do explain yourself.’
‘You’ll be profoundly unimpressed.’
‘One never knows. Try me.’
‘Mightn’t surfaces—wood, stone, cloth, anything you like—have a kind of physical sensitivity we don’t know about? Something like the coating on photographic film? So that they retain impressions of happenings that have been exposed to them. And mightn’t some people have an element in their physical make-up—their chemical or electronic arrangements or whatever—that is responsive to this and aware of it?’
‘As if other people were colour-blind and only they saw red?’
‘That’s the idea.’
‘That would dispose rather neatly of ghosts, wouldn’t it?’
‘It wouldn’t be only the visual images the surfaces retained. It’d be emotions too.’
‘Do you find your idea an alarming one?’
‘Disturbing, rather.’
‘Well—yes.’
‘I wonder if it might fit in with your Simon.’
‘Ah,’ ejaculated Grant, ‘don’t remind me of that, for God’s sake!’
‘I’m sorry,’ Sophy said, taken aback by his violence.
He got up, walked away and with his back turned to her said rapidly, ‘All right, why don’t you say it! If I object so strongly to all this show-off, why the hell do I do it? That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Come on. Isn’t it?
‘If I am it’s no business of mine. And anyway I did say it. Up above.’ She caught her breath. ‘It seems ages ago,’ said Sophy. ‘Ages.’
‘We’ve dropped through some twenty centuries, after all. And I’m sorry to have been so bloody rude.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ Sophy said. She looked up at the sharply lit head of Mithras. ‘He is not very formidable after all. Plump and placid, really, wouldn’t you say? Isn’t it odd, though, how those blank eyes seem to stare? You’d swear they had pupils. Do you suppose—
She cried out. The god had gone. Absolute darkness had closed down upon them like a velvet shutter.
‘It’s all right,’ Grant said. ‘Don’t worry. They do it as a warning for closing time. It’ll go on again in a second.’
‘Thank the Lord for that. It’s—it’s so completely black. One might be blind.’
‘“All dark and comfortless”?’
‘That’s from Lear, isn’t it? Not exactly a reassuring quotation, if I may say so.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Here.’
In a distant region there was a rumour of voices: distorted, flung about some remote passage. Grant’s hand closed on Sophy’s arm. The god came into being again, staring placidly at nothing.
‘There you are,’ Grant said. ‘Come on. We’ll climb back into contemporary Rome, shall we?’
‘Please.’
He moved his hand up her arm and they embarked on the return journey.
Through the insula, a left turn and then straight towards the iron stairway passing a cloistral passage out of which came the perpetual voice of water. Up the iron stairway. Through the second basilica, past Mercury, and Apollo, and then up the last flight of stone steps towards the light, and here was the little shop: quite normal and bright.
The people in charge of the postcard and holy trinket stalls, a monk and two youths, were shutting them up. They looked sharply at Grant and Sophy.
‘No more,’ Grant said to them. ‘We are the last.’
They bowed.
‘There’s no hurry,’ he told Sophy. ‘The upper basilica stays open until sunset.’
‘Where will the others be?’
‘Probably in the atrium.’
But the little garden was quite deserted and the basilica almost so. The last belated sightseers were hurrying away through the main entrance.
‘He’s mustered them outside,’ Grant said. ‘Look—there they are. Come on.’
And there, in the outer porch where they had originally assembled, were Mr Mailer’s guests in a dissatisfied huddle: the Van der Veghels, the Major, Lady Braceley, Kenneth and, removed from them, Alleyn. The two sumptuous cars were drawn up in the roadway.
Grant and Alleyn simultaneously demanded of each other: ‘Where’s Mailer?’ and then, with scarcely a pause: ‘Haven’t you seen him?’
But nobody, it transpired, had seen Mr Mailer.
CHAPTER 4
Absence of Mr Mailer
‘Not since he slouched off to find you, ‘Major Sweet shouted, glaring at Kenneth. ‘Down below, there.’
‘Find me,’ Kenneth said indifferently. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t seen him.’
Alleyn said, ‘He went back to find you when you returned to photograph the Apollo.’
‘He must have changed his mind then. Last I saw of him was—you know—it was—you know, it was just before I went back to Apollo.’
Kenneth’s voice dragged strangely. He gave an aimless little giggle, closed his eyes and reopened them sluggishly. By the light of day, Alleyn saw that the pupils had contracted. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Kenneth drawled, ‘I remember. It was then.’
‘And he didn’t follow you and Lady Braceley, Major Sweet?’
‘I imagined that to be perfectly obvious, sir. He did not.’
‘And he didn’t join you, Lady Braceley, in the atrium?’
‘If that’s the rather dismal little garden where the gallant major dumped me,’ she said, ‘the answer is no. Mr Mailer didn’t join me there or anywhere else. I don’t know why,’ she added, widening her terrible eyes at Alleyn, ‘but that sounds vaguely improper, don’t you think?’
Major Sweet, red in the face, said unconvincingly that he had understood Lady Braceley would prefer to be alone in the atrium.
‘That,’ she said, ‘would have rather depended on what was offering as an alternative.’
‘I must say—’ he began in a fluster but Alleyn interrupted him.
‘Would you stay where you are, all of you,’ Alleyn said. And to Grant, ‘You’re in charge, aren’t you? Be a good chap and see they stay put, will you?’
He was gone—back into the church.
‘By God, that’s pretty cool I must say,’ fumed the Major. ‘Ordering people about, damn it, like some blasted policeman. Who the devil does he think he is!’
‘I fancy,’ Grant said, ‘we’d better do as he suggests.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ Grant said with a half-smile at Sophy, ‘he seems to have what Kent recognized in Lear.’
‘What the hell’s that?’
‘Authority.’
‘How right you are,’ said Sophy.
‘I think he’s gorgeous,’ Lady Braceley agreed, ‘too compulsive and masterful.’
A long and uneasy silence followed this appraisal.
‘But what�
��s he doing?’ Kenneth suddenly asked. ‘Where’s he gone?’
‘I’m blasted well going to find out,’ the Major announced.
As he was about to carry out this threat, Alleyn was seen, returning quickly, through the basilica.
Before Major Sweet could launch, as he clearly intended to do, a frontal attack, Alleyn said:
‘Do forgive me, all of you. I’m afraid I was insufferably bossy but I thought it as well to go back and ask at the shop if Mr Mailer had come through.’
‘All right, all right,’ said the Major. ‘Had he?’
‘They say not.’
‘They might not have noticed him,’ Grant offered.
‘It’s possible, of course, but they know him by sight and say they were waiting for him to go out. They check the numbers of tickets for the lower regions in order to guard against shutting someone in.’
‘What’s he doing, skulking down there?’ the Major demanded. ‘I call it a damn poor show. Leaving us high and dry.’ He attacked Grant. ‘Look here, Grant, you’re on the strength here, aren’t you? Part of the organization, whatever it is.’
‘Absolutely not. I’ve nothing to do with it. Or him,’ Grant added under his breath.
‘My dear fellow, your name appears in their literature.’
‘In a purely honorary capacity.’
‘I suppose,’ Kenneth said, ‘it’s publicity for you, isn’t it?’
‘I’m not in need—’ Grant began and then turned white. ‘Isn’t all this beside the point?’ he asked Alleyn.
‘I’d have thought so. The people in charge have gone down to find him. There’s a complete system of fluorescent lighting kept for maintenance, excavation and emergencies. If he’s there they’ll find him.’
‘He may have been taken ill or something,’ Sophy hazarded.
‘That is so, that is so,’ cried the Van der Veghels like some rudimentary chorus. They often spoke in unison. ‘He is of a sickly appearance,’ the Baroness added. ‘And sweats a great deal,’ said her husband, clinching the proposition.
The two drivers now crossed the road. Giovanni, the one who spoke English and acted as an assistant guide, invited the ladies and gentlemen to take their seats in the cars. Alleyn asked if they had seen Mr Mailer. The drivers put their heads on one side and raised their hands and shoulders. No.
‘Perhaps,’ Lady Braceley said in an exhausted voice, ‘he’s fallen down those horrid-awful stairs. Poorest Mr Mailer. Do you know, I think I will sit in the car. I’m no good at standing about on my gilded pins.’
She swivelled one of her collective stares between Grant, Alleyn and the Baron and got into the car, finding a moment to smile into the face of Giovanni as he opened the door. Established, she leant out of the window. ‘The offer of a cigarette,’ she said, ‘would be met in the spirit in which it was made.’
But only Kenneth, it seemed, could oblige and did so, leaning his face down to his aunt’s as he offered his lighter. They spoke together, scarcely moving their lips and for a moment or two looked alike.
Grant muttered to Alleyn, ‘This is a bloody rum turn-up for the books, isn’t it?’ ‘Rum enough, yes.’
Sophy said, ‘Of course, they’ll find him, won’t they? I mean they must.’
‘You were together, weren’t you, after the rest of us left?’
‘Yes,’ they said.
‘And returned together?’
‘Of course,’ Grant said. ‘You saw us. Why?’
‘You were the last out by some moments. You didn’t hear anything? Mailer’s wearing rather heavy shoes. They made quite a noise, I noticed, on the iron steps.’
No, they said. They hadn’t heard a thing.
‘I think I’ll go back, Grant. Care to come?’
‘Back? You mean—down below again?’
‘If necessary.’
‘I’ll come,’ Grant said, ‘as far as the office—the shop. I’m not madly keen to traipse round the nether regions after Mailer. If he’s there the staff’ll find him.’
‘All right. But don’t you think something ought to be done about this lot?’
‘Look here,’ Grant said angrily, ‘I’ve already said I accept no responsibility for this turn-out. Or for anyone in it—‘ his voice wavered and he glanced at Sophy. ‘Except Miss Jason who’s on her own.’
‘I’m all right,’ Sophy said airily and to Alleyn, ‘What should we do? Can you suggest anything?’
‘Suppose you all carry on with your picnic on the Palatine Hill? The drivers will take you there. The one that speaks English—Giovanni—seems to be a sort of second-in-command. I’m sure he’ll take over. No doubt they’ll unpack hampers and lay on the charm: they’re wonderful at that. I’ll unearth Mailer and if he’s all right we’ll follow you up. It’ll be a lovely evening on the Palatine Hill.’
‘What do you think?’ Sophy asked Grant.
‘It’s as good an idea as any other.’ He turned to Alleyn. ‘Sorry to be bloody-minded,’ he said. ‘Shall we go back in there, then?’
‘On second thoughts I won’t bother you. If you wouldn’t mind fixing things with Giovanni—I suggest that even if I don’t re-appear with Mailer in hand, you carry on with the programme. The alfresco tea, then back to your hotels and the cars will pick you all up again at nine o’clock. You’re at the Gallico, aren’t you? You might be very kind and just make a note of where the others are staying. There I go, bossing again. Never mind.’
He gave Sophy a little bow and as Major Sweet bore down upon them, neatly side-stepped him and returned to the basilica.
‘I’ll be damned,’ said Barnaby Grant.
‘I dare say,’ Sophy said. ‘But all the same you’ll do it. It’s like what you said.’
‘What did I say, smarty-pants?’
‘He’s got authority.’
II
When Alleyn got back to the vestibule he found the shop still in process of closure. An iron lattice gate with a formidable padlock shut off the entrance to the lower regions. S. Tommaso in Pallaria, like its sister basilica, S. Clemente, is in the care of Irish Dominicans. The monk in charge—Father Denys, it transpired—spoke with a superb brogue. Like so many Irishmen in exile, he had the air of slightly putting it on as if he played his own part in some pseudo-Hibernian comedy. He greeted Alleyn like an old acquaintance.
‘Ah, it’s yourself again,’ he said. ‘And I have no news for you. This fellow Mailer’s not below. We’ve had the full power of the lighting on and it’s enough to dazzle the eyes out of your head. I’m after looking beneath with these two young chaps—‘ he indicated his assistants. ‘We made a great hunt of it, every nook and cranny. He’s not there, at all, no doubt of it.’
‘How very odd,’ Alleyn said. ‘He’s in charge of our party, you know. What can have happened to him?’
‘Well, now, it’s a strange occurrence and no mistake. I can only suggest he must have slipped through here at a great pace when we were all occupied and never noticed ‘um. Though that’s not an easy thing to credit, for as I’ve mentioned we keep a tally ever since a Scandinavian lady twisted a fetlock and got herself locked in five years ago and she screeching all night to no avail and discovered clean demented, poor soul, in the morning. And another thing. Your party was the only one beneath, for the one or two odd visitors had come out before you arrived. So he would have been on his own and the more noticeable for it.’
‘I don’t want to make a nuisance of myself, Father, and I don’t for a moment suggest your search wasn’t thorough but would you mind if I—
‘I would not but I can’t permit it. It’s the rule of the place, d’ye see. No visitors beneath under any pretext after closure.’
‘Yes, I see. Then I wonder—is there a telephone I could use?’
‘There is and welcome. In here. You can go, now,’ he said over his shoulder to his assistants and repeated it in Italian.
He opened a door into a store-cupboard, pointed to a telephone and switched on a light.
&n
bsp; There wasn’t much room or air when the door was shut. Alleyn backed gingerly into an open box of holy trinkets, eased himself into a crouch supported by the edge of a shelf, examined his memory and dialled the resulting number.
Il Questore Valdarno had not left his office. He listened to Alleyn’s story with an animation that was almost tangible but with few interruptions. When Alleyn had finished Valdarno said in English: ‘He has run.’
‘Run?’
‘Flown. He has recognized you and decamped.’
‘They seemed pretty sure, here, that he couldn’t have got past them.’
‘Ah, ah, ah,’ said the Questore contemptuously, ‘who are they? a monk and two pale shop boys. Against this expert! Pah! He has run away at the double-up behind the show-cases.’
‘Speaking of postcards, there was a savage elderly postcard lady in the entrance who made a scene with Mailer.’
‘A scene? How?’
‘Yelling abuse at him. It was not in the sort of Italian we learnt in my Diplomatic days but the general drift was invective and fury.’
Alleyn could almost hear the Questore’s shrug.
‘He has done something to annoy her, perhaps,’ he suggested in his melancholy voice.
‘She spat at him.’
‘Ah,’ sighed the Questore. ‘He had irritated her.’
‘No doubt,’ Alleyn faintly agreed. ‘She’s called Violetta,’ he added.
‘Why do you concern yourself with this woman, my dear colleague?’
‘Well, if I understood her at all, she threatened to kill him.’
‘Evidently a short-tempered woman. Some of these street-vendors are in fact badly-behaved persons.’
‘I thought he was greatly disturbed by the encounter. He made light of it but he turned very white.’
‘Ah.’ There was a brief silence. ‘She sells postcards outside S. Tommaso?’
‘Yes. One of our party thought she saw her shadow on the wall of a passage down in the Mithraeum.’
‘They are not permitted to enter.’
‘So I gathered.’
‘I will have inquiries made. I will also have the airports, omnibus and railway stations watched. I feel there is a strong probability Mailer has recognized you and will attempt an escape.’