Photo Finish

Chapter five Nocturne

i

The hunt turned out, as Alleyn had expected it would, to be a perfectly useless exercise. The couples were carefully assorted. Marco was paired with Mrs. Bacon, Ben Ruby with Dr. Carmichael, and Hanley with the chef, for whom he seemed to have an affinity. Alleyn dodged from one pair to another, turning up where he was least expected, sometimes checking a room that had already been searched, sometimes watching the reluctant activities of the investigators, always registering in detail their reactions to the exercise.

These did not vary much. Hanley was all eyes and teeth and inclined to get up little intimate arguments with the chef. Ben Ruby, smoking a cigar, instructed his partner, Dr. Carmichael, where to search, but did nothing in particular himself. Alleyn thought he seemed to be preoccupied as if confronted by a difficult crossword puzzle. Signor Lattienzo looked as if he thought the exercise was futile.

When the search was over they all returned to the staff sitting room where, on Alleyn’s request, Hilda Dancy and Sylvia Parry joined them. Nobody had anything to report. The New Zealanders, Alleyn noticed, collected in a huddle. Mrs. Bacon and the ex-hotel staff showed a joint tendency to eye the Italians. Marco attached himself to Signor Lattienzo. Maria entered weeping but in a subdued manner, having been chastened, Alleyn fancied, by Mrs. Bacon. Hanley detached himself from his chef and joined Ben Ruby.

When they were all assembled, the door opened and Mr. Reece walked in. He might have arrived to take the chair at a shareholders’ meeting. Hanley was assiduous with offers of a seat and was disregarded.

Mr. Reece said to Alleyn: “Please don’t let me interrupt. Do carry on.”

“Thank you,” Alleyn said. He told Mr. Reece of the search and its non-result and was listened to with stony attention. He then addressed the company. He said he was grateful to them for having carried out a disagreeable job and asked that if any one of them, on afterthought, should remember something that, however remotely, could be of significance, he would at once speak of it. There was no response. He then asked how many of them possessed cameras.

The question was received with concern. Glances were exchanged. There was a general shuffling of feet.

“Come on,” Alleyn said. “There’s no need to show the whites of your eyes over a harmless inquiry. I’ll give you a lead.” He raised his hand, “I’ve got a camera and I don’t mind betting most of you have. Hands up.” Mr. Reece, in the manner of seconding the motion, raised his. Seven more followed suit, one after another, until only six had not responded: three New Zealand housemen with Maria, Marco, and Hilda Dancy.

“Good,” Alleyn said. “Now. I’m going to ask those of you who do possess a camera to tell me what the make is and if you’ve used it at any time during the last week and if so, what you took. Mrs. Bacon?”

The response was predictable. A cross-section of cameras, from a wildly expensive type of self-developing instrument, the property of Mr. Reece, down to low-priced popular items at the falling-off-a-log level of simplicity, belonging to Sylvia Parry and two of the maids.

Mr. Ruby’s camera was another highly sophisticated and expensive version of instantaneous self-development. He had used it that very morning when he had lined up the entire houseparty with the Lodge for a background. He actually had the “picture,” as he consistently called the photograph, on him and showed it to Alleyn. There was Troy between Mr. Reece, who, as usual, conveyed nothing, and Signor Lattienzo, who playfully ogled her. And there, at the center, of course, the Sommita with her arm laid in tigerish possession across the shoulders of a haunted Rupert, while Silvia Parry, on his other side, looked straight ahead. A closer examination showed that she had taken his hand.

Alleyn himself, head and shoulders taller than his neighbors, was, he now saw with stoic distaste, being winsomely contemplated by the ubiquitous Hanley, three places removed in the back row.

Signor Lattienzo was a problem. He waved his hands and cast up his eyes. “Oh, my dear Mr. Alleyn!” he said. “Yes, I have a camera. It was presented to me by — forgive my conscious looks and mantling cheeks — a grateful pupil. Isabella, in fact. I cannot remember the name and have been unable to master its ridiculously complicated mechanism. I carry it about with me, in order to show keen.”

“And you haven’t used it?”

“Well,” said Signor Lattienzo. “In a sense I have used it. Yesterday. It upsets me to remember. Isabella proposed that I take photographs of her at the bathing pool. Rather than confess my incompetence, I aimed it at her and pressed a little protuberance. It gave no persuasive click. I repeated the performance several times but nothing emerged. As to any latent result, one has grave misgivings. If there are any, they rest in some prenatal state in the womb of the camera. You shall play the midwife,” offered Signor Lattienzo.

“Thank you. Perhaps if I could see the camera—?”

“But of course. Of course. Shall I fetch it?”

“Please do.”

Signor Lattienzo bustled away, but after a considerable period, during which Alleyn finished the general camera check, he returned looking flustered.

“Alas!” he proclaimed and spread his arms.

“Have you lost your camera?” Alleyn said.

“Not to say lost, my dear fellow. Mislaid. I suspect by the swimming pool. By now, one fears, drowned.”

“One does indeed.”

And that being so, the round of camera owners was completed, the net result being that Mr. Reece, Ben Ruby, Hanley, and Signor Lattienzo (if he had known how to use it) all possessed cameras that could have achieved the photograph now pinned under the breast of the murdered Sommita. To these proceedings Maria had listened with a sort of smoldering resentment. At one point she flared up and reminded Marco, in vituperative Italian, that he had a camera and had not declared it. He responded with equal animosity that his camera had disappeared during the Australian tour and hinted darkly that Maria herself knew more than she was prepared to let on in that connection. As neither of them could remember the make of the camera, their dialogue was unfruitful.

Alleyn asked if Rupert Bartholomew possessed a camera. Hanley said he did and had taken photographs of the Island from the lakeshore and of the lakeshore from the Island. Nobody knew anything at all about his camera.

Alleyn wound up the proceedings, which had taken less time in performance than in description. He said that if this had been a police inquiry they would all have been asked to show their hands and roll up their sleeves and if they didn’t object he would be obliged if—?

Only Maria objected, but on being called to order in no uncertain terms by Mr. Reece, offered her clawlike extremities as if she expected to be stripped to the buff. There were no signs of bloodstains on anybody, which, if one of them was guilty, supported the theory that the Sommita was dead when the photograph was skewered to her heart.

This daunting formality completed, Alleyn told them they could all go to bed and it might be as well to lock their doors. He then returned to the landing, where Bert sustained his vigil behind a large screen, across whose surface ultramodern nudes frisked busily. He had been able to keep a watch on the Sommita’s bedroom door through hinged gaps between panels. The searchers to this part of the house had been Ruby and Dr. Carmichael. They had not tried the bedroom door but stood outside it for a moment or two, whispering, for all the world as if they were afraid the Sommita might overhear them.

Alleyn told Bert to remain unseen and inactive for the time being. He then unlocked the door, and he and Dr. Carmichael returned to the room.

In cases of homicide when the body has been left undisturbed, and particularly when there is an element of the grotesque or of extreme violence in its posture, there can be a strange reaction before returning to it. Might it have moved? There is something shocking about finding it just as it was, like the Sommita, still agape, still with her gargoyle tongue, still staring, still rigidly pointing upside-down on her bed. He photographed it from just inside the door.

Soon the room smelled horridly of synthetic violets as Alleyn made use of the talc powder. He then photographed the haft of the knife, a slender, spirally grooved affair with an omate silver knob. Dr. Carmichael held the bedside lamp close to it.

“I suppose you don’t know where it came from?” he asked.

“I think so. One of a pair on the wall behind the pregnant woman.”

“What pregnant woman?” exclaimed the startled doctor.

“In the hall.”

“Oh. That.”

“There were two, crossed and held by brackets. Only one now.” And after a pause during which Alleyn took three more shots: “You wouldn’t know when it was removed?” Dr. Carmichael said.

“Only that it was there before the general exodus this evening.”

“You’re trained to notice details, of course.”

Using Troy’s sable brush, he spread the violet powder round the mouth, turning the silent scream into the grimace of a painted clown.

“By God, you’re a cool hand,” the doctor remarked.

Alleyn looked up at him and something in the look caused Dr. Carmichael to say in a hurry: “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Alleyn said. “Do you see this? Above the corners of the mouth? Under the cheekbones?”

Carmichael stooped. “Bruising,” he said.

“Not hypostases?”

“I wouldn’t think so. I’m not a pathologist, Alleyn.”

“No. But there are well-defined differences, aren’t there?”

“Precisely.”

“She used very heavy makeup. Heavier than usual, of course, for the performance, and she hadn’t removed it. Some sort of basic stuff topped up with a finishing cream. Then coloring. And then a final powdering. Don’t those bruises, if bruises they are, look as if the makeup under the cheekbones has been disturbed? Pushed up, as it were!”

After a considerable pause, Dr. Carmichael said: “Could be. Certainly could be.”

“And look at the area below the lower lip. It’s not very marked, but don’t you think it may become more so? What does that suggest to you?”

“Again bruising.”

“Pressure against the lower teeth?”

“Yes. That. It’s possible.”

Alleyn went to the Sommita’s dressing table, where there was an inevitable gold-mounted manicure box. He selected a slender nail file, returned to the bed, slid it between the tongue and the lower lip, exposing the inner surface.

“Bitten,” he said. He extended his left hand to within half an inch of the terrible face with his thumb below one cheekbone, his fingers below the other, and the heel of his hand over the chin and mouth. He did not touch the face.

“Somebody with a larger hand than mine, I fancy,” he said, “but not much. I could almost cover it.”

“You’re talking about asphyxia, aren’t you?”

“I’m wondering about it. Yes. There are those pinpoint spots.”

“Asphyxial hemorrhages. On the eyeballs.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn and closed his own eyes momentarily. “Can you come any nearer to a positive answer?”

“An autopsy would settle it.”

“Of course,” Alleyn agreed.

He had again stooped over his subject and was about to take another photograph when he checked, stooped lower, sniffed, and then straightened up.

“Will you?” he said. “It’s very faint.”

Dr. Carmichael stooped. “Chloroform,” he said. “Faint, as you say, but unmistakable. And look here, Alleyn. There’s a bruise on the throat to the right of the voice box.”

“And have you noticed the wrists?”

Dr. Carmichael looked at them — at the left wrist on the end of the rigid upraised arm and at the right one on the counterpane. “Bruising,” he said.

“Caused by — would you say?”

“Hands. So now what?” asked Dr. Carmichael.

“Does a tentative pattern emerge?” Alleyn suggested. “Chloroform. Asphyxia. Death. Ripping the dress. Two persons— one holding the wrists. The other using the chloroform. The stabbing coming later. If it’s right it would account for there being so little blood, wouldn’t it?”

“Certainly would,” Dr. Carmichael said. “And there’s very, very little. I’d say that tells us there was a considerable gap between death and the stabbing. The blood had had time to sink.”

“How long?”

“Don’t make too much of my guesswork, will you? Perhaps as much as twenty minutes — longer even. But what a picture!” said Dr. Carmichael. “You know? Cutting the dress, ripping it open, placing the photograph over the heart, and then using the knife. I mean — it’s so — so farfetched. Why?”

“As farfetched as a vengeful killing in a Jacobean play,” Alleyn said and then: “Yes. A vengeful killing.”

“Are you — are we,” Carmichael asked, “not going to withdraw the weapon?”

“I’m afraid not. I’ve blown my top often enough when some well-meaning fool has interfered with the body. In this case I’d be the well-meaning fool.”

“Oh, come. But I see your point,” Carmichael said. “I suppose I’m in the same boat myself. I should go no further than making sure she’s dead. And, by God, it doesn’t need a professional man to do that.”

“The law, in respect of bodies, is a bit odd. They belong to nobody. They are not the legal property of anyone. This can lead to muddles.”

“I can imagine.”

“It’s all jolly fine for the lordly Reece to order me to take charge. I’ve no right to do so and the local police would have every right to cut up rough if I did.”

“So would the pathologist if I butted in.”

“I imagine,” Alleyn said, “they won’t boggle at the photographs. After all there will be — changes.”

“There will indeed. This house is central-heated.”

“There may be a local switch in this room. Yes. Over there where it could be reached from the bed. Off with it.”

“I will,” said Carmichael and switched it off.

“I wonder if we can open the windows a crack without wreaking havoc,” Alleyn said. He pulled back the heavy curtains and there was the black and streaming glass. They were sash windows. He opened one and then others half an inch at the top, admitting blades of cold air and the voice of the storm.

“At least, if we can find something appropriate, we can cover her,” he said and looked about the room. There was a sandalwood chest against the wall. He opened it and lifted out a folded bulk of black material. “This will do,” he said. He and Carmichael opened it out, and spread it over the body. It was scented and heavy and it shone dully. The rigid arm jutted up underneath it.

“What on earth is it for?” Carmichael wondered.

“It’s one of her black satin sheets. There are pillowcases to match in the box.”

“Good God!”

“I know.”

Alleyn locked the door into the bathroom, wrapped the key in his handkerchief, and pocketed it.

He and the doctor stood in the middle of the room. Already it was colder. Slivers of wind from outside stirred the marabou trimming on the Sommita’s dressing gown and even fiddled with her black satin pall so that she might have been thought to move stealthily underneath it.

“No sign of the wind dropping,” said Carmichael. “Or is there?”

“It’s not raining quite so hard, I fancy. I wonder if the launch man’s got through. Where would the nearest police station be?”

“Rivermouth, I should think. Down on the coast. About sixty miles, at a guess.”

“And as, presumably, the cars are all miles away returning guests to their homes east of the ranges, and the telephone at the boatshed will be out of order, we can only hope that the unfortunate Les has set out on foot for the nearest sign of habitation. I remember that on coming here we stopped to collect the mailbag at a railway station some two miles back along the line. A very small station called Kai-kai, I think.”

“That’s right. With about three whares* and a pub. He may wait till first light,” said Dr. Carmichael, “before he goes anywhere.” [A whare is a small dwelling.]

“He did signal ‘Roger,’ which of course may only have meant ‘Message received and understood.’ Let’s leave this bloody room, shall we?”

They turned, and took two steps. Alleyn put his hand on Carmichael’s arm. Something had clicked.

The door handle was turning, this way and that. A pause and then the sound of a key being inserted and engaged.

The door opened and Maria came into the room.

ii

This time Maria did not launch out into histrionics. When she saw the two men she stopped, drew herself up, looked beyond them to the shrouded figure on the bed, and said in English that she had come to be of service to her mistress.

“I perform the last rites,” said Maria. “This is my duty. Nobody else. It is for me.”

Alleyn said: “Maria, certainly it would be for you if circumstances had been different, but this is murder and she must not be touched until permission has been given by the authorities. Neither Doctor Carmichael nor I have touched her. We have examined but we have not touched. We have covered her for dignity’s sake but that is all, and so it must remain until permission is given. We can understand your wish and are sorry to prevent you. Do you understand?”

She neither replied nor looked at him. She went to a window and reached for the cord that operated it.

“No,” Alleyn said. “Nothing must be touched.” She made for the heavier, ornate cord belonging to the curtains. “Not that either,” Alleyn said. “Nothing must be touched. And I’m afraid I must ask you to come away from the room, Maria.”

“I wait. I keep veglia. “

“It is not permitted. I am sorry.”

She said, in Italian, “It is necessary for me to pray for her soul.”

“You can do so. But not here.”

Now she did look at him, directly and for an uncomfortably long time. Dr. Carmichael cleared his throat.

She walked toward the door. Alleyn reached it first. He opened it, removed the key and stood aside.

“Sozzume,” Maria said and spat inaccurately at him. She looked and sounded like a snake. He motioned with his head to Dr. Carmichael, who followed Maria quickly to the landing. Alleyn turned off the lights in the room, left it, and locked the door. He put Maria’s key in his pocket. He now had two keys to the room.

“I remain,” Maria said. “All night. Here.”

“That is as you wish,” Alleyn said.

Beside the frisky nude-embellished screen behind which Bert still kept his vigil, there were chairs and a clever occasional table with a lamp carved in wood — an abstract with unmistakable phallic implications, the creation, Alleyn guessed, of the master whose pregnant lady dominated the hall.

“Sit down, Maria,” Alleyn said. “I have something to say to you.”

He moved a chair toward her. “Please,” he said.

At first he thought she would refuse, but after two seconds or so of stony immobility she did sit, poker-backed, on the edge of the offered chair.

“You have seen Madame Sommita and you know she has been murdered,” he said. “You wish that her murderer will be found, don’t you?”

Her mouth set in a tight line and her eyes flashed. She did not speak, but if she had delivered herself of a tirade it could not have been more eloquent.

“Very well,” Alleyn said. “Now then: when the storm is over and the lake is calmer, the New Zealand police will come and they will ask many questions. Until they come, Mr. Reece has put me in charge and anything you tell me, I will tell them. Anything I ask you, I will ask for one reason only: because I hope your answer may help us to find the criminal. If your reply is of no help it will be forgotten — it will be as if you had not made it. Do you understand?”

He thought: I shall pretend she has answered. And he said: “Good. Well now. First question. Do you know what time it was when Madame Sommita came upstairs with Mr. Reece and found you waiting for her? No? It doesn’t matter. The opera began at eight and they will know how long it runs.”

He had a pocket diary on him and produced it. He made quite a business of opening it and flattening it on the table. He wrote in it, almost under her nose.

“Maria. Time of S’s arrival in bedroom. No answer.”

When he looked up he found that Maria was glaring at his notebook. He pushed it nearer and turned it toward her. “Can you see?” he asked politely.

She undamped her mouth.

“Twenty past nine. By her clock,” she said.

“Splendid. And now, Maria — by the way, I haven’t got your surname, have I? Your cognome.”

“Bennini.”

“Thank you.” He added it to his note. “I see you wear a wedding ring,” he said. “What was your maiden name, please?”

“Why do you ask me such questions? You are impertinent.”

“You prefer not to answer?” Alleyn inquired politely.

Silence.

“Ah well,” he said. “When you are more composed and I hope a little recovered from the terrible shock you have sustained, you will tell me exactly what happened after she arrived with Signor Reece?”

And astonishingly, with no further ado, this creature of surprises, who a few seconds ago had called him “filth” and spat at him, embarked upon a coherent and lucid account. Maria had gone straight upstairs as soon as the curtain fell on the opera. She had performed her usual duties, putting out the glass of water and the tranquilizer that the Sommita always took after an opening night, folding her negligé over the back of a chair, and turning down the crimson counterpane. The Sommita arrived with Signor Reece. She was much displeased, Maria said, which Alleyn thought was probably the understatement of the year, and ordered Maria to leave the room. This, he gathered was a not unusual occurrence. She also ordered Mr. Reece to leave, which was. He tried to soothe her, but she became enraged.

“About what?” Alleyn asked.

About something that happened after the opera. Maria had already left the audience. The Signor Bartholomew, she gathered, had insulted the diva. Signor Reece tried to calm her, Maria herself offered to massage her shoulders but was flung off. In the upshot he and Maria left and went downstairs together, Mr. Reece suggesting that Maria give the diva time to calm down and then take her a hot drink, which had been known on similar occasions to produce a favorable reaction.

Maria had followed this advice.

How long between the time when they had left the room and Maria returned to it?

About an hour, she thought.

Where was she during that time?

In the servants’ quarters, where she made the hot drink. Mrs. Bacon and Bert the chaffeur were there most of the time, and others of the staff came to and fro from their duties in the dining room, where the guests were now at table. Mr. Reece had joined them. Maria sat and waited for her mistress to compose herself, as Mr. Reece had suggested, and then made the hot drink. Then she returned to the bedroom, found her mistress murdered, and raised the alarm.

“When Madame Sommita dismissed you, did she lock the door after you?”

Yes, it appeared. Maria heard the lock click. She had her own key and used it on her return.

Had anybody else a key to the room?

For the first time she boggled. Her mouth worked but she did not speak.

“Signor Reece, for instance?” Alleyn prompted.

She made the Italian negative sign with her finger.

“Who, then?”

A sly look appeared. Her eyes slid around in the direction of the passage to the right of the landing. Her hand moved to her breast.

“Do you mean Signor Bartholomew?” Alleyn asked.

“Perhaps,” she said, and he saw that, very furtively, she crossed herself.

He made a note about keys in his book.

She watched him avidly.

“Maria,” he said when he had finished writing, “how long have you been with Madame Sommita?”

Five years, it appeared. She had come to Australia as wardrobe mistress with an Italian opera company, and had stayed on as sewing maid at the Italian Embassy. The Signora’s personal maid had displeased her and been dismissed and Signor Reece had inquired of an aide-de-camp who was a friend of his if they could tell him of anyone suitable. The Ambassador had come to the end of his term and the household staff was to be reorganized. Maria had been engaged as personal dresser and lady’s maid to Isabella Sommita.

“Who do you think committed this crime?” Alleyn asked suddenly.

“The young man,” she answered venomously and at once as if that was a foolish question. And then with another of her abrupt changes of key she urged, begged, demanded that she go back into the room and perform the last services for her mistress — lay her out with decency and close her eyes and pray it would not be held in wrath against her that she had died in a state of sin. “I must go. I insist,” said Maria.

“That is still impossible,” said Alleyn. “I’m sorry.”

He saw that she was on the edge of another outburst and hoped that if she was again moved to spit at him her aim would not have improved.

“You must pull yourself together,” he said. “Otherwise I shall be obliged to ask Mr. Reece to have you locked up in your own room. Be a good girl, Maria. Grieve for her. Pray for her soul but do not make scenes. They won’t get you anywhere, you know.”

Dr. Carmichael, who had contemplated Maria dubiously throughout, now said with professional authority: “Come along like a sensible woman. You’ll make yourself unwell if you go on like this. I’ll take you down and we’ll see if we can find the housekeeper. Mrs. Bacon, isn’t it? You’d much better go to bed, you know. Take an aspirin.”

“And a hot drink?” Alleyn mildly suggested.

She looked furies at him but with the abruptness that was no longer unexpected stood up, crossed the landing, and walked quickly downstairs.

“Shall I see if I can find Mrs. Bacon and hand her over?” Dr. Carmichael offered.

“Do, like a good chap,” said Alleyn. “And if Mrs. B. has vanished, take her to bed yourself.”

“Choose your words,” said Dr. Carmichael and set off in pursuit.

Alleyn caught him at the head of the stairs. “I’m going back in there,” he said. “I may be a little time. Join me if you will when you’ve brought home the Bacon. Actually I hope they’re all tucked up for the night, but I’d like to know.”

Dr. Carmichael ran nimbly downstairs and Alleyn returned, once more, to the bedroom.

iii

He began a search. The bedroom was much more ornate than the rest of the house. No doubt, Alleyn thought, this reflected the Sommita’s taste more than that of the clever young architect. The wardrobe doors, for instance were carved with elegant festoons and swags of flowers in deep relief, each depending from the central motif of a conventionalized sunflower with a sunken black center, the whole concoction being rather loudly painted and reminiscent of art nouveau.

Alleyn made a thorough search of the surfaces under the bed, of the top of her dressing table, of an escritoire, on which he found the Sommita’s jewel box. This was unlocked and the contents were startling in their magnificence. The bedside table. The crimson coverlet. Nothing. Could it be under the body? Possible, he supposed, but he must not move the body.

The bathroom: all along the glass shelves, the floor, everywhere.

And yet Maria, if she was to be believed, had heard the key turned in the lock after she and Mr. Reece were kicked out. And when she returned she had used her own key. He tried to picture the Sommita, at the height, it seemed, of one of her rages, turning the key in the lock, withdrawing it, and then putting it — where? Hiding it? But why? There was no accommodation for it in the bosom of her Hebraic gown, which was now slashed down in ribbons. He uncovered the horror that was the Sommita, and with infinite caution, scarcely touching it, examined the surface of the counterpane round the body. He even slid his hand under the body. Nothing. He re-covered the body.

“When all likely places have been fruitlessly explored, begin on the unlikely and carry on into the preposterous.” This was the standard practice. He attacked the drawers of the dressing table. They were kept, by Maria, no doubt, in perfect order. He patted, lifted and replaced lacy undergarments, stockings, gloves. Finally, in the bottom drawer on the left he arrived at the Sommita’s collection of handbags. On the top was a gold mesh, bejeweled affair that he remembered her carrying on the evening of their arrival.

Using his handkerchief he gingerly opened it and found her key to the room lying on top of an unused handkerchief.

The bag would have to be fingerprinted, but for the moment it would be best to leave it undisturbed.

So what was to be concluded? If she had taken her bag downstairs and left it in her dressing room, then she must have taken it back to the bedroom. Mr. Reece was with her. There would have been no call for the key, for Maria was already in the room, waiting for her. She was, it must never be forgotten, in a passion, and the Sommita’s passions, he would have thought, did not admit of methodical tidying away of handbags into drawers. She would have been more likely to chuck the bag at Mr. Reece’s or Maria’s head, but Maria had made no mention of any such gesture. She had merely repeated that when they beat their retreat they heard the key turn in the lock and that when she came back with the hot drink she used her own key.

Was it then to be supposed that, having locked herself in, the Sommita stopped raging and methodically replaced her key in the bag and the bag in the drawer? Unlikely, because she must have used the key to admit her killer and was not likely to replace it. Being, presumably, dead.

Unless, of course, Maria was her killer. This conjured up a strange picture. The fanatically devoted Maria, hot drink in hand, reenters the bedroom, places the brimming cup in its saucer on the bedside table, and chloroforms her tigerish mistress, who offers no resistance, and she then produces the dagger and photograph and, having completed the job, sets up her own brand of hullabaloo and rushes downstairs proclaiming the murder? No.

Back to the Sommita, then. What had she done after she had locked herself in? She had not undressed. She had not taken her pill. How had she spent her last minutes before she was murdered?

And what, oh what about Rupert Bartholomew?

At this point there was a tap on the door and Dr. Carmichael returned.

“‘Safely stowed,’ ” he said. “At least, I hope so. Mrs. Bacon was still up and ready to cope. We escorted that tiresome woman to her room, she offering no resistance. I waited outside. Mrs. B. saw her undressed, be-nightied and in bed. She gave her a couple of aspirins, made sure she took them, and came out. We didn’t lock her up, by the way.”

“We’ve really no authority to do that,” said Alleyn. “I was making an idle threat.”

“It seemed to work.”

“I really am very grateful indeed for your help, Carmichael. I don’t know how I’d manage without you.”

“To tell you the truth, in a macabre sort of way, I’m enjoying myself. It’s a change from general practice. What now?” asked Dr. Carmichael.

“Look here. This is important. When you went backstage to succor the wretched Bartholomew, the Sommita was still on deck, wasn’t she?”

“She was indeed. Trying to manhandle the boy.”

“Still in her Old Testament gear, of course?”

“Of course.”

“When they persuaded her to go upstairs — Reece and Lattienzo, wasn’t it? — did she take a gold handbag with her? Or did Reece take it?”

“I can’t remember. I don’t think so.”

“It would have looked pretty silly,” Alleyn said. “It wouldn’t exactly team up with the white samite number. I’d have thought you’d have noticed it.” He opened the drawer and showed Dr. Carmichael the bag.

“She was threshing about with her arms quite a bit,” the doctor said. “No, I’m sure she hadn’t got that thing in her hand. Why?” Alleyn explained.

Dr. Carmichael closed his eyes for some seconds. “No,” he said at last, “I can’t reconcile the available data with any plausible theory. Unless—”

“Well?”

“Well, it’s a most unpleasant thought but — unless the young man—”

“There is that, of course.”

“Maria is already making strong suggestions along those lines.”

“Is she, by George,” said Alleyn and after a pause, “but it’s the Sommita’s behavior and her bloody key that won’t fit in. Did you see anything of our host downstairs?”

“There’s a light under what I believe is his study door and voices beyond.”

“Come on then. It’s high time I reported. He may be able to clear things up a bit.”

“I suppose so.”

“Either confirm or refute la bella Maria, at least,” said Alleyn. “Would you rather go to bed?”

Dr. Carmichael looked at his watch. “Good Lord,” he exclaimed, “it’s a quarter to twelve.”

“As Iago said, ‘Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.’ ”

“Who? Oh. Oh, yes. No, I don’t want to go to bed.”

“Come on then.”

Again they turned off the lights and left the room. Alleyn locked the door.

Bert was on the landing.

“Was you still wanting a watch kept up,” he said, “I’ll take it on if you like. Only a suggestion.”

“You are a good chap,” Alleyn said. “But—”

“I appreciate you got to be careful. The way things are. But seeing you suggested it yourself before and seeing I never set eyes on one of this mob until I took the job on, I don’t look much like a suspect. Please yourself.”

“I accept with very many thanks. But—”

“If you was thinking I might drop off, I’d thought of that. I might, too. I could put a couple of them chairs in front of the door and doss down for the night. Just an idea,” said Bert.

“It’s the answer,” Alleyn said warmly. “Thank you, Bert.”

And he and Dr. Carmichael went downstairs to the study.

Here they found not only Mr. Reece but Signor Lattienzo, Ben Ruby, and Hanley, the secretary.

Mr. Reece, perhaps a trifle paler than usual, but he was always rather wan, sat at his trendy desk — his swivel chair turned toward the room as if he had interrupted his work to give an interview. Hanley drooped by the window curtains and had probably been looking out at the night. The other two men sat by the fire and seemed to be relieved at Alleyn’s appearance. Signor Lattienzo did, in fact, exclaim: “Ecco! At last!” Hanley, reverting to his customary solicitude, pushed chairs forward.

“I am very glad to see you, Mr. Alleyn,” said Mr. Reece in his pallid way. “Doctor!” he added with an inclination of his head toward Carmichael.

“I’m afraid we’ve little to report,” Alleyn said. “Doctor Carmichael is very kindly helping me, but so far we haven’t got beyond the preliminary stages. I’m hoping that you, sir, will be able to put us right on some points, particularly in respect of the order of events from the time Rupert Bartholomew fainted until Maria raised the alarm.”

He had hoped for some differences: something that could give him a hint of a pattern or explain the seeming discrepancies in Maria’s narrative. Particularly, something about keys. But no, on all points the account corresponded with Maria’s.

Alleyn asked if the Sommita made much use of her bedroom key.

“Yes; I think she did, I recommended it. She has — had— there was always — a considerable amount of jewelry in her bedroom. You may say very valuable pieces. I tried to persuade her to keep it in my safe in this room but she wouldn’t do that. It was the same thing in hotels. After all, we have got a considerable staff here and it would be a temptation.”

“Her jewel case in the escritoire — unlocked.”

Mr. Reece clicked his tongue. “She’s — she was incorrigible. The artistic temperament, I am told, though I never, I’m afraid, have known precisely what that means.”

“One is never quite sure of its manifestations,” said Alleyn, surprised by this unexpected turn in the conversation. Mr. Reece seemed actually to have offered something remotely suggesting a rueful twinkle.

“Well,” he said, “you, no doubt, have had firsthand experience,” and with a return to his elaborately cumbersome social manner. “Delightful, in your case, may I hasten to say.”

“Thank you. While I think of it,” Alleyn said, “do you, by any chance remember if Madame Sommita carried a gold-meshed handbag when you took her up to her room?”

“No,” said Mr. Reece, after considering it. “No, I’m sure she didn’t.”

“Right. About these jewels. No doubt the police will ask you later to check the contents of the box.”

“Certainly. But I am not familiar with all her jewels.”

Only, Alleyn thought, with the ones he gave her, I daresay.

“They are insured,” Mr. Reece offered. “And Maria would be able to check them.”

“Is Maria completely to be trusted?”

“Oh, certainly. Completely. Like many of her class and origin she has an uncertain temper and she can be rather a nuisance, but she was devoted to her mistress, you might say fanatically so. She has been upset,” Mr. Reece added with one of his own essays in understatement.

“Oh, my dear Monty,” Signor Lattienzo murmured. “Upset! So have we all been upset. ‘Shattered’ would be a more appropriate word.” He made an uncertain gesture and took out his cigarette case.

And indeed he looked quite unlike himself, being white and, as Alleyn noticed, tremulous. “Monty, my dear,” he said. “I should like a little more of your superb cognac. Is it permitted?”

“Of course, Beppo. Mr. Alleyn? Doctor? Ben?”

The secretary, with a sort of ghostly reminder of his customary readiness, hurried into action. Dr. Carmichael had a large whiskey-and-soda and Alleyn nothing.

Ben Ruby, whose face was puffed and blotched and his eyes bloodshot, hurriedly knocked back his cognac and pushed his glass forward. “What say it’s one of that mob?” he demanded insecurely. “Eh? What say one of those buggers stayed behind?”

“Nonsense,” said Mr. Reece.

“ ’S all very fine, say ‘nonsense.’ ”

“They were carefully chosen guests of known distinction.”

“All ver’ well. But what say,” repeated Mr. Ruby, building to an unsteady climax, “one of your sodding guestserknown-stinction was not what he bloody seemed. Eh? What say he was Six.”

“Six?” Signor Lattienzo asked mildly. “Did you say six?”

“I said nothing of sort. I said,” shouted Mr. Ruby, “Strix.”

“Oh, no!” Hanley cried out, and to Mr. Reece: “I’m sorry but honestly! There was the guest list. I gave one to the launch person and he was to tick off all the names as they came aboard in case anybody had been left behind. In the loo or something. I thought you couldn’t be too careful in case of accidents. Well, you know, it was — I mean is — such a night.”

“Yes, yes,” Mr. Reece said wearily. “Give it a rest. You acted very properly.” He turned to Alleyn. “I really can’t see why it should be supposed that Strix, if he is on the premises, could have any motive for committing this crime. On the contrary, he had every reason for wishing Bella to remain alive. She was a fortune to him.”

“All ver’ well,” Mr. Ruby sulked. “If it wasn’t, then who was it? Thass the point. D’you think you know who it was? Beppo? Monty? Ned? Come on. No, you don’t. See what I mean?”

“Ben,” said Mr. Reece quite gently. “Don’t you think you’d better go to bed?”

“You may be right. I mean to say,” said Mr. Ruby, appealing to Alleyn, “I’ve got a hell of a lot to do. Cables. Letters. There’s the U.S. concert tour. She’s booked out twelve months ahead: booked solid. All those managements.”

“They’ll know about it soon enough,” said Mr. Reece bitterly. “Once this storm dies down and the police arrive it’ll be world news. Go to bed, boy. If you can use him, Ned will give you some time tomorrow.” He glanced at Hanley. “See to that,” he said.

“Yes, of course,” Hanley effused, smiling palely upon Mr. Ruby, who acknowledged the offer without enthusiasm. “Well, ta,” he said. “Won’t be necessary, I daresay. I can type.”

He seemed to pull himself together. He finished his brandy, rose, advanced successfully upon Mr. Reece, and took his hand. “Monty,” he said, “dear old boy. You know me? Anything I can do? Say the word.”

“Yes, Benny,” Mr. Reece said, shaking his hand. “I know. Thank you.”

“There’ve been good times, haven’t there?” Mr. Ruby said wistfully. “It wasn’t all fireworks, was it? And now—!”

For the first time Mr. Reece seemed to be on the edge of losing his composure. “And now,” he surprised Alleyn by saying, “she no longer casts a shadow.” He clapped Mr. Ruby on the shoulder and turned away. Mr. Ruby gazed mournfully at his back for a moment or two and then moved to the door.

“Good night, all,” he said. He blew his nose like a trumpet and left them.

He was heard to fall rather heavily on his way upstairs.

“He is fortunate,” said Signor Lattienzo, who was swinging his untouched cognac around in the glass. “Now, for my part, the only occasions on which I take no consolation from alcohol are those of disaster. This is my third libation. The cognac is superb. Yet I know it will leave me stone-cold sober. It is very provoking.”

Mr. Reece, without turning to face Alleyn, said: “Have you anything further to tell me, Mr. Alleyn?” and his voice was elderly and tired.

Alleyn told him about the Morse signals and Mr. Reece said dully that it was good news. “But I meant,” he said, “about the crime itself. You will appreciate, I’m sure, how — confused and shocked — to find her — like that. It was—” He made a singular and uncharacteristic gesture as if warding off some menace. “It was so dreadful,” he said.

“Of course it was. One can’t imagine anything worse. Forgive me,” Alleyn said, “but I don’t know exactly how you learned about it. Were you prepared in any way? Did Maria—?”

“You must have heard her. I was in the drawing room and came out and she was there on the stairs, screaming. I went straight up with her. I think I made out before we went into the room and without really taking it in, that Bella was dead. Was murdered. But not — how. Beppo, here, and Ned — arrived almost at the same moment. It may sound strange but the whole thing, at the time, seemed unreal: a nightmare, you might say. It still does.”

Alleyn said: “You’ve asked me to take over until the police come. I’m very sorry indeed to trouble you—”

“No. Please,” Mr. Reece interrupted with a shaky return to his customary formality. “Please, do as you would under any other circumstances.”

“You make it easy for me. First of all, you are sure, sir, are you, that after Madame Sommita ordered you and Maria to leave the bedroom you heard her turn the key in the lock?”

“Absolutely certain. May I ask why?”

“And Maria used her own key when she returned?”

“She must have done so, I presume. The door was not locked when Maria and I returned after she raised the alarm.”

“And there are — how many keys to the room?”

If atmosphere can be said to tighten without a word being uttered, it did so then in Mr. Reece’s study. The silence was absolute; nobody spoke, nobody moved.

“Four?” Alleyn at last suggested.

“If you know, why do you ask?” Hanley threw out.

Mr. Reece said: “That will do, Ned.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, cringing a little yet with a disreputable suggestion of blandishment. “Truly.”

“Who has the fourth key?” Alleyn asked.

“If there is one I don’t imagine it is used,” said Mr. Reece.

“I think the police will want to know.”

“In that case we must find out. Maria will probably know.”

“Yes,” Alleyn agreed. “1 expect she will.” He hesitated for a moment and then said, “Forgive me. The circumstances I know are almost unbelievably grotesque, but did you look closely? At what had been done? And how it had been done?”

“Oh, really, Alleyn—” Signor Lattienzo protested, but Mr. Reece held up his hand.

“No, Beppo,” he said and cracked a dismal joke, “as you yourself would say: I asked for it, and now I’m getting it.” And to Alleyn. “There’s something under the knife. I didn’t go — near. I couldn’t. What is it?”

“It is a photograph. Of Madame Sommita singing.”

Mr. Reece’s lips formed the word “photograph” but no sound came from them.

“This is a madman,” Signor Lattienzo broke out. “A homicidal maniac. It cannot be otherwise.”

Hanley said: “Oh yes, yes!” as if there was some sort of comfort in the thought. “A madman. Of course. A lunatic.”

Mr. Reece cried out so loudly that they were all startled, “No! What you tell me alters the whole picture. I have been wrong. From the beginning I have been wrong. The photograph proves it. If he had left a signed acknowledgment, it couldn’t be clearer.”

There was a long silence before Lattienzo said flatly: “I think you may be right.”

“Right! Of course I am right.”

“And if you are, Monty, my dear, this Strix was on the island yesterday and unless he managed to escape by the launch is still on this island tonight. And, in spite of all our zealous searching, may actually be in the house. In which case we shall indeed do wisely to lock our doors.” He turned to Alleyn. “And what does the professional say to all this?” he asked.

“I think you probably correct in every respect, Signor Lattienzo,” said Alleyn. “Or rather, in every respect but one.”

“And what may that be?” Lattienzo asked sharply.

“You are proposing, aren’t you, that Strix is the murderer? I’m inclined to mink you may be mistaken there.”

“And I would be interested to hear why.”

“Oh,” said Alleyn, “just one of those things, you know. I would find it hard to say why. Call it a hunch.”

“But my dear sir — the photograph.”

“Ah yes,” said Alleyn. “Quite so. There is always the photograph, isn’t there?”

“You choose to be mysterious.”

“Do I? Not really. What I really came in for was to ask you all if you happened to notice that an Italian stiletto, if that is what it is, was missing from its bracket on the wall behind the nude sculpture. And if you did notice, when.”

They stared at him. After a long pause Mr. Reece said: “You will find this extraordinary, but nevertheless it is a fact. I had not realized that was the weapon.”

“Had you not?”

“I am, I think I may say, an observant man but I did not notice that the stiletto was missing and I did not recognize it”— he covered his eyes with his hands—“when I — saw it.”

Hanley said: “Oh, God! Oh, how terrible.”

And Lattienzo: “They were hers. You knew that of course, Monty, didn’t you? Family possessions, I always understood. I remember her showing them to me and saying she would like to use one of them in Tosca. I said it would be much too dangerous, however cleverly she faked it. And I may add that the Scarpia wouldn’t entertain the suggestion for a second. Remembering her temperament, poor darling, it was not surprising.”

Mr. Reece looked up at Alleyn. His face was deadly tired and he seemed an old man.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I think I must go to my room. Unless of course there is anything else.”

“Of course not.” Alleyn glanced at Dr. Carmichael, who went to Mr. Reece.

“You’ve had about as much as you can take,” he said. “Will you let me see you to your room?”

“You are very kind. No, thank you, doctor. I am perfectly all right. Only tired.”

He stood up, straightened himself and walked composedly out of the room.

When he had gone, Alleyn turned to the secretary.

“Mr. Hanley,” he said. “Did you notice one of the stilettos was missing?”

“I’d have said so, wouldn’t I, if I had?” Hanley pointed out in an aggrieved voice. “As a matter of fact, I simply loathe the things. I’m like that over knives. They make me feel sick. I expect Freud would have had something to say about it.”

“No doubt,” said Signor Lattienzo.

“It was her idea,” Hanley went on. “She had them hung on the wall. She thought they teamed up with that marvelous pregnant female. In a way, one could see why.”

“Could one?” said Signor Lattienzo and cast up his eyes.

“I would like again to ask you all,” said Alleyn, “if on consideration, you can think of anyone — but anyone, however unlikely — who might have had some cause, however outrageous, to wish for Madame Sommita’s death. Yes, Signor Lattienzo?”

“I feel impelled to say that my answer is no I can not think of anyone. I believe that this is a crime of passion and impulse and not a coldly calculated affair. The outrageous grotesquerie, the use of the photograph and of her own weapon — everything points to some — I feel inclined to say Strindbergian love-hatred of lunatic force. Strix or not, I believe you are looking for a madman, Mr. Alleyn.”

iv

After that the interview began to languish and Alleyn sensed the unlikelihood of anything to the point emerging from it. He suggested that they go to bed.

“I am going to the studio,” he said. “I shall be there for the next half-hour or so and if anything crops up, however slight, that seems to be of interest, I would be glad if you would report to me there. I do remind you all,” he said, “that what I am trying to do is a sort of caretaker’s job for the police: to see, if possible, that nothing is done inadvertently or with intention, to muddle the case for them before they arrive. Even if it were proper for me to attempt a routine police investigation, it wouldn’t be possible to do so singlehanded. Is that clear?”

They muttered weary assents and got to their feet.

“Good night,” said Dr. Carmichael. It was the second and last time he had spoken.

He followed Alleyn into the hall and up the stairs.

When they reached the first landing they found that Bert had put two chairs together face-to-face, hard against the door to the Sommita’s room, and was lying very comfortably on this improvised couch, gently snoring.

“I’m along there,” said Dr. Carmichael, pointing to the left-hand passage.

“Unless you’re asleep on your feet,” said Alleyn, “will you come into the studio, for a moment or two? No need, if you can’t bear the thought.”

“I’m well trained to eccentric hours.”

“Good.”

They crossed the landing and went into the studio. The great empty canvas still stood on its easel but Troy had put away her drawings. Alleyn’s dispatch case had been removed from their bedroom and placed conspicuously on the model’s throne with a flashlight on top of it. Good for Troy, he thought.

Yesterday, sometime after Troy had been settled in the studio, a supply of drinks had been brought in and stored in a wallside unit. Alleyn wondered if this was common practice at the Lodge wherever a room was inhabited.

He said: “I didn’t have a drink down there: could you do with another?”

“I believe I could. A small one, though.”

They had their drinks and lit their pipes. “I haven’t dared do this before,” said the doctor.

“Nor I,” said Alleyn. He performed what had now become a routine exercise and drew back the curtains. The voice of the wind, which he was always to remember as a kind of leitmotiv to the action, invaded their room. The windowpane was no longer masked with water but was a black nothing with vague suggestions of violence beyond. When he leaned forward his ghost-face, cadaverous with shadows, moved toward him. He closed the curtains.

“It’s not raining,” he said, “but blowing great guns.”

“What’s called ‘blowing itself out,’ perhaps?”

“Hope so. But that doesn’t mean the lake will automatically go calmer.”

“Unfortunately no. Everything else apart, it’s bloody inconvenient,” said the doctor. “I’ve got a medical conference opening in Auckland tomorrow. Eru Johnstone said he’d ring them up. I hope he remembers.”

“Why did you stay?”

“Not from choice. I’m a travel-sickness subject. Ten minutes in that launch topped up by mile after mile in a closed bus would have been absolute hell for me and everyone else. Reece was insistent that I should stay. He wanted me to take on the Great Lady as a patient. Some notion that she was heading for a nervous crisis, it seemed.”

“One would have thought it was a chronic condition,” said Alleyn. “All the same I got the impression that even when she peaked, temperamentally speaking, she never went completely over the top. I’d risk a guess that she always knew jolly well what she was up to. Perhaps with one exception.”

“That wretched boy?”

“Exactly.”

“You’d say she’d gone overboard for him?” asked the doctor.

“I certainly got that impression,” Alleyn said.

“So did I, I must say. In Sydney—”

“You’d met them before?” Alleyn exclaimed. “In Sydney?”

“Oh yes. I went over there for her season. Marvelous it was, too. I was asked to meet her at a dinner party and then to a supper Reece gave after the performance. He — they — were hospitable and kind to me for the rest of the season. Young Bartholomew was very much in evidence and she made no bones about it. I got the impression that she was — I feel inclined to say ‘savagely’ devoted.”

“And he?”

“Oh, besotted and completely out of his depth.”

“And Reece?”

“If he objected he didn’t show it. I think his might be a case of collector’s satisfaction. You know? He’d acquired the biggest star in the firmament.”

“And was satisfied with the fait accompli? So ‘that was that’?”

“Quite. He may even have been a bit sick of her tantrums, though I must say he gave no sign of it.”

“No.”

“By the way, Alleyn, I suppose it’s occurred to you that I’m a candidate for your list of suspects.”

“In common with everyone else in the house. Oh, yes, but you don’t come very high on the list. Of course, I didn’t know you’d had a previous acquaintance with her,” Alleyn said coolly.

“Well, I must say!” Dr. Carmichael exclaimed.

“I felt I really needed somebody I could call upon. You and Bert seemed my safest bets. Having had, as I then supposed, no previous connection with her and no conceivable motive.”

Dr. Carmichael looked fixedly at him. Alleyn pulled a long face.

“I am a lowland Scot,” said the doctor, “and consequently a bit heavy-handed when it comes to jokes.”

“I’ll tell you when I mean to be funny.”

“Thank you.”

“Although, God knows, there’s not much joky material going in this business.”

“No, indeed.”

“I suppose,” said Dr. Carmichael after a companionable silence, “that you’ve noticed my tact? Another lowland Scottish characteristic is commonly thought to be curiosity.”

“So I’ve always understood. Yes. I noticed. You didn’t ask me if I know who dunnit.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Do you hae your suspeesions?”

“Yes. You’re allowed one more.”

“Am I? What shall I choose? Do you think the photographer — Strix — is on the Island?”

“Yes.”

“And took — that photograph?”

“You’ve exceeded your allowance. But, yes. Of course. Who else?” said Alleyn.

“And murdered Isabella Sommita?”

“No.”

And after that they wished each other good night. It was now thirteen minutes past one in the morning.

When Dr. Carmichael had gone Alleyn opened a note that lay on top of his dispatch case, took out an all too familiar file and settled down to read it for the seventh time.

Alleyn had brought his library book upstairs. There it lay near to hand—Il Mistero da Bianca Rossi.

Written underneath these notes in the spiky, irritable hand of Alleyn’s Assistant Commissioner,

Alleyn locked the file back in the case. He began to walk about the room as if he kept an obligatory watch. It would be so easy, he thought, to concoct a theory based on the meager document. How would it go?

The Sommita, born Bella Pepitone, which he thought he’d heard or read somewhere was a common Sicilian name, was reared in the United States. He remembered the unresolved Rossi case quite well. It was of the sort that turns up in books about actual crimes. The feud was said to be generations deep: a hangover from some initial murder in Sicily. It offered good material for “true crimes” collections, being particularly bloody and having a peculiar twist: in the long succession of murders the victims had always been women and the style of their putting off grisly.

The original crime, which took place in 1910 in Sicily and triggered off the feud, was said to have been the killing of a Pepitene woman in circumstances of extreme cruelty. Ever since, hideous idiocies had been perpetrated on both sides at irregular intervals in the name of this vendetta.

The macabre nature of the Sommita’s demise and her family connections would certainly qualify her as a likely candidate and it must be supposed would notch up several points on the Rossi score.

Accepting, for the moment, this outrageous proposition, what, he speculated, about the M.O.? How was it all laid on? Could Strix be slotted into the pattern? Very readily, if you let your imagination off the chain. Suppose Strix was in the Rossi interest and had been hired, no doubt at an exorbitant price, to torment the victim, but not necessarily to dispatch her? Perhaps Strix was himself a member of the Rossi Family? In this mixed stew of concoctions there was one outstanding ingredient: the identity of Strix. For Alleyn it was hardly in doubt, but if he was right it followed that Strix was not the assassin. (And how readily that melodramatic word surfaced in this preposterous case.) From the conclusion of the opera until Alleyn went upstairs to write his letter, this “Strix” had been much in evidence downstairs. He had played the ubiquitous busybody. He had been present all through dinner and in the hall when the guests were milling about waiting to embark.

He had made repeated trips from house to jetty full of consoling chat, sheltering departing guests under a gigantic umbrella. He had been here, there, and everywhere but he certainly had not had time to push his way through the crowd, go upstairs, knock on the Sommita’s door, be admitted, administer chloroform, asphyxiate her, wait twenty minutes, and then implant the stiletto and the photograph. And return to his duties, unruffled, in his natty evening getup.

For, in Alleyn’s mind at this juncture, there were no two ways about the identity of Strix.