Monsignor Spada regarded him approvingly. The whites of the archbishop's small cunning eyes were streaked with brown like those of an old dog. This, together with his solid appearance and bristly hair, had earned him a nickname – the Mastiff. But only the most high-ranking, secure members of the Curia dared use it.

"Pleased to sec you again, Father Quart. It's been some time."

Two months, thought Quart. Then, as now, there had been three men in the room: himself, Monsignor Spada, and a well-known banker, Renzo Lupara, chairman of the Italian Continental Bank, one of the banks involved with Vatican finances. Lupara had an untarnished reputation. He was handsome, elegant, and a happy family man blessed with a beautiful wife and four children. He had made his fortune using the cover of Vatican banking activities to get money out of the country illegally for businessmen and politicians who were members of the Aurora 7 lodge, of which he himself was a member and holder of the 33rd degree. This was exactly the sort of worldly matter that required Lorenzo Quart's special skills. He spent six months trailing Lupara through offices in Zurich, Gibraltar, and St. Barthelemy in the West Indies, and produced a lengthy report on his findings. Lying open on the desk of the director of the IEA it left the banker two choices: he could go to prison, or he could make a discreet exit, thus saving the good name of the Continental Bank and the Vatican, not to mention Mrs Lupara and her four offspring. Staring blankly at the fresco of the Tyrrhenian Sea in the archbishop's office, the banker had clearly grasped the thrust of Spada's speech, which was most tactfully expressed and illustrated with the parable of the bad slave and the talents. Then, despite the salutary moral that, technically, an unrepentant mason always died in mortal sin, Lupara went straight to his beautiful villa in Capri and leaped, apparently without saying confession, from a terrace over the cliff. According to a commemorative plaque, Curzio Malaparte had once drunk vermouth at that very spot.