When in Rome. Ngaio Marsh
brown eyes looked over the top at his aunt. There was a kind of fitful affectation in everything he did: he tried-on his mannerisms and discarded them as fretfully as his aunt tried-on her hats.
‘Sweetie,’ he said. ‘There is a thing.’
‘Well—what? I can’t hear you when you talk behind your fingers.’
He made a triangular hole with them and spoke through that. ‘I know a little man,’ he said.
‘What little man? Where?’
‘In Perugia and now here.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s rather a clever little man. Well, not so little, actually.’
‘Kenneth, don’t go on like that. It’s maddening: it’s infuriating.’ And then suddenly:
‘In Perugia. Did you—did you—smoke— ?’
‘There’s no need for the hushed tones, darling. You’ve been handed the usual nonsense, I see.’
‘Then you did?’
‘Of course,’ he said impatiently and, after a pause, changed his attitude. He clasped his hands round his knee and tilted his head on one side. ‘You’re so fabulous,’ he said. ‘I can tell you anything. As if you were my generation. Aren’t we wonderful? Both of us?’
‘Are we? Kenneth—what’s it like?’
‘Pot? Do you really want to know?’
‘I’m asking, aren’t I?’
‘Dire the first time and quite fun if you persevere. Kid-stuff really. All the fuss is about nothing.’
‘It’s done at—at parties, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right, lovey. Want to try?’
‘It’s not habit-forming. Is it?’
‘Of course it’s not. It’s nothing. It’s OK as far as it goes. You don’t get hooked. Not on pot. You’d better meet my little man. Try a little trip. In point of fact I could arrange a fabulous trip. Madly groovy. You’d adore it. All sorts of gorgeous gents. Super exotic pad. The lot.’
She looked at him through her impossible lashes: a girl’s look that did a kind of injury to her face.
‘I might,’ she said.
‘Only thing—it’s top bracket for expense. All-time-high and worth it. One needs lots of lovely lolly and I haven’t—surprise, surprise—got a morsel.’
‘Kenneth!’
‘In fact if my rich aunt hadn’t invited me I would have been out on my little pink ear. Don’t pitch into me, I don’t think I can take it.’
They stared at each other. They were very much alike: two versions of the same disastrous image.
‘I understand you,’ Kenneth said. ‘You know that, don’t you? I’m a sponge, OK? But I’m not just a sponge. I give back something. Right?’ He waited for a moment and when she didn’t answer, shouted, ‘Don’t I? Don’t I?’
‘Be quiet. Yes. Yes, of course you do. Yes.’
‘We’re two of a kind, right?’
‘Yes. I said so, didn’t I. Never mind, darling. Look in my bag. I don’t know how much I’ve got.’
‘God, you’re wonderful! I—I’ll go out straight away. I—I’ll—I’ll get it—‘ his mouth twisted ’—fixed. We’ll have such a—what did that old burnt-out Egyptian bag call it?—or her boyfriend?—gaudy night?—won’t we?’
Her note-case shook in his hand. ‘There isn’t much here,’ he said.
‘Isn’t there?’ she said. ‘They’ll cash a cheque downstairs. I’ll write one. You’d better have something in hand.’
When he had gone she went into her bedroom, sat in front of her glass and examined the precarious mask she still presented to the world.
Kenneth, yawning and sweating, went in febrile search of Mr Sebastian Mailer.
IV
‘It’s the familiar story,’ the tall man said. He uncrossed his legs, rose in one movement, and stood, relaxed, before his companion who, taken by surprise, made a laborious business of getting to his feet.
‘The big boys,’ said the tall man, ‘keep one jump ahead while their henchmen occasionally trip over our wires. Not often enough, however.’
‘Excuse me, my dear colleague. Our wires?’
‘Sorry. I meant: we do sometimes catch up with the secondary villains but their principals continue to evade us.’
‘Regrettably!’
‘In this case the biggest boy of all is undoubtedly Otto Ziegfeldt who, at the moment, has retired to a phoney castle in the Lebanon. We can’t get him. Yet. But this person, here in Rome, is a key man.’
‘I am most anxious that his activities be arrested. We all know, my dear colleague, that Palermo has most regrettably been a transit port. And also Corsica. But that he should have extended his activities to Naples and, it seems, to Rome! No, assure yourself you shall have every assistance.’
‘I’m most grateful to you, Signor Questore. The Yard was anxious that we should have this talk.’
‘Please! Believe me, the greatest pleasure,’ said Il Questore Valdarno. He had a resonant voice and grand-opera appearance. His eyes melted and he gave out an impression of romantic melancholy. Even his jokes wore an air of impending disaster. His position in the Roman police force corresponded, as far as his visitor had been able to work it out, with that of a Chief Constable.
‘We are all so much honoured, my dear Superintendent,’ he continued. ‘Anything that we can do to further the already cordial relationship between our own Force and your most distinguished Yard.’
‘You are very kind. Of course, the whole problem of the drug traffic, as we both know, is predominantly an Interpol affair but as in this instance we are rather closely tied up with them—’
‘Perfectly,’ agreed Valdarno, many times nodding his head.
‘—and since this person is, presumably, a British subject—’
The Questore made a large involved gesture of deprecation: ‘Of course!’
‘—in the event of his being arrested the question of extradition might arise.’
‘I assure you,’ said the Questore, making a joke, ‘we shall not try to deprive you!’
His visitor laughed obligingly and extended his hand. The Questore took it and with his own left hand dealt him the buffet with which Latin gentlemen endorse their friendly relationships. He insisted on coming to the magnificent entrance.
In the street a smallish group of young men carrying a few inflammatory placards shouted one or two insults. A group of police, gorgeously arrayed, pinched out their cigarettes and moved towards the demonstrators who cat-called and bolted a short way down the street. The police immediately stopped and relit their cigarettes.
‘How foolish,’ observed the Questore in Italian, ‘and yet after all, not to be ignored. It is all a great nuisance. You will seek out this person, my dear colleague?’
‘I think so. His sightseeing activities seem to offer the best approach. I shall enrol myself for one of them.’
‘Ah-ah! You are a droll! You are a great droll.’
‘No.