“Will it include an account of your talk with Major Sweet yesterday afternoon, at the Eremo?”
Giovanni, snake-like, retracted his head. Almost, Alleyn thought, you could hear him hiss. He half closed his eyes and whispered disgustingly.
For the hundredth time that morning Valdarno shouted, “E molto seccante! Presto!” He clapped down the receiver, spread his hands for Alleyn’s benefit and caught sight of Giovanni. “You! Vecchi! You are required to make a written statement.”
“Of course, Signor Questore,” Giovanni said. The intercom buzzed. Valdarno took another call.
An officer came in and removed Giovanni, who darted a look at Il Questore’s back and as he passed Alleyn rapidly mimed a spit into his face. The officer barked at him and pushed him out. “Violetta,” thought Alleyn, “would not have stopped short at pantomine.”
“These students!” cried Valdarno, leaving the telephone. “What do they suppose they achieve? Now, they burn up Vespa motorcycles. Why? Possibly they are other students’ Vespas. Again, why? You were speaking of the signed statement. I would be greatly obliged if you would combine with Bergarmi.” The buzzer sounded. “Basta!” shouted Il Questore and answered it.
Alleyn joined Bergarmi, who received him with a strange blend of huffishness and relief. He had written out a résumé in Italian, based on his own notes of the now desperately familiar experiences of the travellers in the depths of San Tommaso. Alleyn found this accurate and put it into English. “Would you like a check of the translation by a third person, Signor Vice-Questore?” he asked. Bergarmi made deprecatory noises. “After all,” he said, “it is no longer of the first importance, all this. Giovanni Vecchi’s evidence and the fact that this,” he slapped the statement, “does nothing to contradict it and, above all, Sweet’s attempt to escape, are sufficient, for our purpose. The case is virtually closed.”
Alleyn pushed his translation across the table. “There is just one thing I’d like to suggest.”
“Yes? And that is?”
“The Van der Veghels took photographs in the Mithraeum and the insula. Flashlights. Two by the Baroness and one by the Baron. Kenneth Dorne also took one. After that, when we were returning, the Baroness photographed the sarcophagus. I thought you might like to produce these photographs.”
“Ah. Thank you. The sarcophagus, yes. Yes. That might be interesting.”
“If it shows the piece of shawl?”
“Quite so. It would limit the time. To some extent that is true. It would show that the woman Violetta was murdered before you all left the Mithraeum. By Mailer, of course. There can be no doubt, by Mailer. It would not help us — not that we need this evidence — to fix a precise time for Sweet’s attack upon Mailer. We have, my dear Signor Super,” said Bergarmi with evident pleasure in discovering this new mode of address, “motive. From your own investigation of Sweet.” Alleyn made a wry face. “Intent. As evidenced in suspicious behaviour noted by Vecchi. Opportunity. Apart from Signor Dorne and his Aunt Baroness (this latter being a ludicrous notion) he is the only one with opportunity.”
“With the greatest respect — the only one?”
“Signore?”
“Well,” Alleyn said apologetically, “it’s just that I wonder if Giovanni was speaking all of the truth all of the time.”
After a considerable pause Bergarmi said: “I find no occasion to doubt it.” And after an even longer pause. “He had no motive, no cause to attack Mailer.”
“He had every reason, though, to attack Sweet. But don’t give it another thought.”
Alleyn’s translation was typed, with copies, by a brisk bilingual clerk. During this period Bergarmi was rather ostentatiously busy. When the transcription was ready he and Alleyn went to the lesser office, where for the second and last time the travellers were assembled. At Bergarmi’s request Alleyn handed out the copies.
“I find this a correct summary of our joint statements,” Alleyn said, “and am prepared to sign it. What about everyone else?”
Lady Braceley, who was doing her face, said with an unexpected flight of fancy: “I’d sign my soul to the devil if he’d get me out of here.” She turned her raffish and disastrous gaze upon Alleyn. “You’re being too wonderful,” she predictably informed him.
He said: “Lady Braceley, I wonder — simply out of curiosity, you know — whether you noticed anything at all odd in Sweet’s manner when he took you up to the atrium. Did you?”
He thought she might seize the chance to tell them all how responsive she was to atmosphere and how she had sensed that something was wrong or possibly come out with some really damaging bit of information. All she said, however, was: “I just thought him a bloody rude, common little man.” And after a moment’s thought: “And I’ll eat my hat if he was ever in The Gunners.” She waited again for a moment and then said: “All the same, it’s quite something, isn’t it, to have been trotted about by a murderer, however uncivil? My dear, we’ll dine on it, Kenny and I. Won’t we, darling?”
Her nephew looked up at her and gave a sort of restless acknowledgement. “I just don’t go with all this carry-on,” he complained. “It’s not my scene.”
“I know, darling. Too confusing. Three dead people in as many days, you might say. Still it’s a wonderful relief to be in the clear oneself.” She contemplated Bergarmi, smiling at him with her head on one side. “He really doesn’t speak English, does he? He’s not making a nonsense of us?”
Bergarmi muttered to Alleyn: “What is she saying? Does she object to signing? Why is she smiling at me?”
“She doesn’t object. Perhaps she has taken a fancy to you, Signor Vice-Questore.”
“Mamma mia!”
Alleyn suggested that if they were all satisfied they would sign and Lady Braceley instantly did so, making no pretence of reading the statement. Kenneth followed her — mulishly. The Van der Veghels were extremely particular and examined each point with anxious care and frequent consultations. Barnaby Grant and Sophy Jason read the typescript with professional concentration. Then they all signed. Bergarmi told them, through Alleyn, that they were free to go. They would be notified if their presence at the inquest was required. He bowed, thanked them and departed with the papers.
The six travelers rose, collected themselves and prepared, with evident signs of relief, to go their ways.
Sophy and Barnaby Grant left together and the Van der Veghels followed them.
Lady Braceley, with her eye on Alleyn, showed signs of lingering.
Kenneth had lounged over to the door and stood there, watching Alleyn with his customary furtive, sidelong air. “So that would appear to be that,” he threw out.
“You remember,” Alleyn said, “you took a photograph of Mithras when we were all down there?”
“That’s right.”
“Have you had it developed?”
“No.”
“Is it in black-and-white or colour?”
“Black-and-white,” Kenneth mumbled. “It’s meant to be better for the architecture and statues bit.”
“Mine are being developed by the police expert, here. They’ll only take a couple of hours. Would you like me to get yours done at the same time?”
“The film’s not finished. Thank you very much, though.”
Lady Braceley said: “No, but do let Mr. Alleyn get it done, darling. You can’t have many left. You never stopped clicking all through that extraordinary picnic on the what-not hill. And you must admit it will have a kind of grisly interest. Not that I’ll be in the one Mr. Alleyn’s talking about, you know — the bowels of the earth. Do give it to him.”