And now, unexpectedly, views of Rome. Conventional shots of familiar subjects always with the same large, faintly smiling figure somewhere in the foreground or the middle-distance. The Baron looking waggish with his head on one side, throwing a penny into the Trevi Fountain. The Baron looking magisterial in the Forum, pontifical before the Vatican and martial underneath Marcus Aurelius. And finally a shot taken by a third person of the Van der Veghels’ heads in profile with rather an Egyptian flavour, hers behind his. They even had the same large ears with heavy lobes, he noticed.
And then — nothing. A faint remnant of the Baron at the head of the Spanish Steps heavily obscured by white fog. After that — nothing. Blankness.
“It is a pity,” said the photographic expert, “there has been a misfortune. Light has been admitted.”
“So I see,” Alleyn said.
“I think,” Bergami pointed out, “you mentioned, did you not, that there was difficulty with the Baronessa’s camera in the Mithraeum?”
“The flashlamp failed. Once. It worked the second time.”
“There is a fault, evidently, in the camera. Or in the removal of the film. Light,” the expert reiterated, “has been admitted.”
“So,” Bergarmi said, “we have no record of the sarcophagus. It is of secondary interest after all.”
“Yes,” Alleyn said. “It is. After all. And as for the group by the statue of Mithras—”
“Ah, Signore,” said the expert, “Here the news is better. We have the film marked Dorne. Here, Signore.”
Kenneth’s photographs were reasonably good. They at once disproved his story of using the last of his film before meeting Mailer at the Apollo and of replacing it on his way to the Mithraeum. Here in order were snapshots taken in Perugia. Two of these showed Kenneth himself, en travesti in a garden surrounded by very dubious-looking friends, one of whom had taken off his clothes and seemed to be posing as a statue.
“Molto sofisticato,” said Bergarmi.
Next came pictures of Kenneth’s aunt outside their hotel and of the travellers assembling near the Spanish Steps. Midway in the sequence was the picture of the god Mithras. Kenneth had stood far enough away from his subject to include in the foreground the Baroness, fussing with her camera, and beyond her the group. Alleyn and Sophy grinned on either side of the furiously embarrassed Grant and there was Sweet very clearly groping for Sophy’s waist. They had the startled and rigid look of persons in darkness transfixed by a flashlight. The details of the wall behind them, their own gigantic shadows and the plump god with his Phrygian cap, his smile and his blankly staring eyes, all stood out in the greatest clarity. Kenneth had taken no other photographs in San Tommaso. The rest of his film had been used up on the Palatine Hill.
Alleyn waited for the films and prints to dry. Bergarmi pleaded pressure of work and said he would leave him to it.
As he was about to go Alleyn said: “You know, Signor Vice-Questore, there is one item in this case that I find extremely intriguing.”
“Yes? And it is—?”
“This. Why on earth should Mailer, a flabby man, go to all the exertion and waste a great deal of time in stowing Violetta in the sarcophagus when he might so easily and quickly have tipped her down the well?”
Bergarmi gazed at him in silence for some moments.
“I have no answer,” he said. “There is, of course, an answer but I cannot at the moment produce it. Forgive me, I am late.”
When he had gone Alleyn muttered: “I can. Blow me down flat if I can’t.”
It was ten to three when he got back to his hotel.
He wrote up his report, arranged a meeting with Interpol and took counsel with himself.
His mission, such as it was, was accomplished. He had got most of the information he had been told to get. He had run the Mailer case down to its grass roots and had forced Sweet to give him the most useful list yet obtained of key figures in the biggest of the drug rackets.
And Mailer and Sweet were dead.
Professionally speaking their deaths were none of his business. They were strictly over to the Roman Questura, to Valdarno and Bergarmi and their boys, and very able they were being handled. And yet—
He was greatly troubled.
At half past five he laid out all the photographs on his bed. He took a paper from his file. The writing on it was in his own hand. He looked at it for a long time and then folded it and put it in his pocket.
At six o’clock Kenneth Dorne rang up and asked apparently in some agitation if he could come and collect his film.
“Not now. I’m engaged,” Alleyn said, “at least until seven.” He waited a moment and then said: “You may ring again at eight.”
“Have — have they turned out all right? The photos?”
“Yours are perfectly clear. Why?”
“Is something wrong with hers — the Baroness’s?”
“It’s fogged.”
“Well, that’s not my fault, is it? Look, I want to talk to you. Please.”
“At eight.”
“I see. Well I — yes — well, thank you. I’ll ring again at eight.”
“Do that.”
At half past six the office called to say that the Baron Van der Veghel had arrived. Alleyn asked them to send him up.
He opened his door and when he heard the lift whine went into the corridor. Out came a waiter ushering the Baron, who greeted Alleyn from afar and springingly advanced with outstretched hand.
“I hope you don’t mind my bringing you up here,” Alleyn said. “I thought we wanted a reasonable amount of privacy and the rooms down below are like a five-star Bedlam at this hour. Do come in. What will you drink? They make quite a pleasant cold brandy-punch. Or would you rather stick to the classics?”
The Baron chose brandy-punch and while it was coming enlarged upon their visit to the water-gardens at the Villa d’Este. “We have been there before, of course,” he said, “but with each visit the wonder grows. My wife said today that now she summons up, always at the same vista, a scarlet cardinal and his guests. She sees them through the mists of the fountains.”
“She has second-sight,” Alleyn said lightly. Seeing the Baron was puzzled, he explained.
“Ach — no. No, we do not believe such phenomena. No, it is her imagination which is so very vivid. She is most sensitive to her surroundings but she does not see ghosts, Mr. Alleyn.”
The drinks arrived. Alleyn attended to them and then said: “Would you like to look at your photographs? I’m afraid you will be disappointed.”
He had left all the prints except Kenneth’s on the bed.
When the Baron saw Violetta and Mailer, which he did at once, he said: “Oh, no! This is too horrible! Please!”
“I’m so sorry,” Alleyn said and swept them away. “Here are your wife’s photographs. The early ones, you see, are very good. It is when we come to San Tommaso that the trouble begins.”
“I cannot understand this,” the Baron said. He stopped, peered at them and took them up, one by one. “My wife’s camera is in good condition: it has never happened before. The film was correctly rolled off before it was removed. Where are the negatives?”
“Here they are.”
He held them in turn up to the light. “I am sorry,” he said. “And I confess I am puzzled. Forgive me but — the man who processed the film — you said he was a police photographer?”
“I honestly don’t think for a moment that he was careless.”
“My wife,” said the Baron, “will be relieved after all. She wanted no record of the visit to that place.”
“No.”
“But I am sorry. You wished for the photograph of the sarcophagus, I believe.”
“The police attach little importance to it. But there is, after all, a record of the group in the Mithraeum.”