Photo Finish

Chapter one The Sommita

i

One of the many marvels of Isabella Sommita’s techniques was her breathing: it was totally unobservable. Even in the most exacting passages, even in the most staggering flights of coloratura, there was never the slightest disturbance of the corsage.

“You could drop an ice cube down her cleavage,” boasted her manager, Ben Ruby, “and not a heave would you get for your trouble.”

He had made this observation when sitting in a box immediately above the diva at the Royal Festival Hall and had spoken no more than the truth. Offstage when moved by one of her not infrequent rages, La Sommita’s bosom would heave with the best of them.

It did so now, in her private suite at the Chateau Australasia in Sydney. She was en négligé and it was sumptuously evident that she was displeased and that the cause of her displeasure lay on the table at her elbow: a newspaper folded to expose a half-page photograph with a banner headline, “Cross-Patch?” and underneath, “La Sommita is not amused!”

It had been taken yesterday in Double Bay, Sydney. The photographer, wearing a floppy white hat, a white scarf over his mouth, and dark spectacles, had stepped out from an alleyway and gone snap. She had not been quick enough to turn her back, but her jaw had dropped and her left eye had slewed, its habit when rage overtook her. The general effect was that of a gargoyle at the dentist’s: an infuriated gargoyle. The photograph was signed “Strix.”

She beat on the paper with her largish white fist and her rings cut into it. She panted lavishly.

“Wants horsewhipping,” Montague Reece mumbled. He was generally accepted as the Sommita’s established lover, and he filled this role in the manner commonly held to be appropriate, being large, rich, muted, pale, dyspeptic, and negative. He was said to wield a great deal of power in his own world.

“Of course he needs horsewhipping,” shouted his dear one. “But where’s the friend who will go out and do it?” She laughed and executed a wide contemptuous gesture that included all present. The newspaper fluttered to the carpet.

“Personally,” Ben Ruby offered, “I wouldn’t know one end of a horsewhip from the other.” She dealt him a glacial stare. “I didn’t mean to be funny,” he said.

“Nor were you.”

“No.”

A young man of romantic appearance, in a distant chair behind the diva, clasped a portfolio of music to his midriff and said in a slightly Australian voice: “Can’t something be done? Can’t they be sued?”

“What for?” asked Mr. Ruby.

“Well — libel. Look at it, for God’s sake!” the young man brought out. “Well, I mean to say, look!”

The other two men glanced at him, but the Sommita, without turning her head, said, “Thank you, darling,” and extended her arm. The intention was unmistakable: an invitation, nay, a command. The young man’s beautiful face crimsoned, he rose, and, maintaining a precarious hold on his portfolio, advanced crouchingly to imprint a kiss upon the fingers. He lost control of his portfolio. Its contents shot out of their confine and littered the carpet: sheet upon sheet of music in manuscript.

He fell on his knees and scrabbled about the floor. “I’m so sorry,” he gabbled. “Oh hell, I’m so bloody sorry.”

The Sommita had launched a full-scale attack upon the Australian press. Rupert, she said, indicating the young man, was absolutely right. The press should be sued. The police should be called in. The photographer should be kicked out of the country. Was he to be suffered to wreck her life, her career, her sanity, to make her the laughingstock of both hemispheres? (She was in the habit of instancing geographical data.) Had she not, she demanded, consented to the Australian appearances solely as a means of escape from his infamy?

“You are sure, I suppose,” said Mr. Reece in his pallid manner, “that it’s the same man? Strix?”

This produced a tirade. “Sure! Sure!” Had not the detested Strix bounced out of cover in all the capitals of Europe as well as in New York and San Francisco? Had he not shot her at close quarters and in atrocious disarray? Sure! She drew a tempestuous breath. Well, she shouted, what were they going to do about it? Was she to be protected or was she to have a breakdown, lose her voice, and spend the rest of her days in a straitjackct? She only asked to be informed.

The two men exchanged deadpan glances.

“We can arrange for another bodyguard,” Montague Reece offered without enthusiasm.

“She didn’t much fancy the one in New York,” Mr. Ruby pointed out.

“Assuredly I did not,” she agreed, noisily distending her nostrils. “It is not amusing to be closely followed by an imbecile in unspeakable attire who did nothing, but nothing to prevent the outrage on Fifth Avenue. He merely goggled. As, by the way, did you all.”

“Sweetheart, what else could we do? The fellow was a passenger in an open car. It was off like a bullet as soon as he’d taken his picture.”

“Thank you, Benny. I remember the circumstances.”

“But why?” asked the young man called Rupert, still on his knees assembling his music. “What’s got into him? I mean to say, it doesn’t make sense and it must cost a lot of money to follow you all over the globe. He must be bonkers.”

He recognized his mistake as soon as it escaped his lips and began to gabble. Perhaps because he was on his knees and literally at her feet the Sommita, who had looked explosive, leaned forward and tousled his blond hair. “My poorest!” she said. “You are quite, quite ridiculous and I adore you. I haven’t introduced you,” she added as an afterthought. “I’ve forgotten your surname.”

“Bartholomew.”

“Really? Very well. Rupert Bartholomew,” she proclaimed, with an introductory wave of her hand.

“… d’you do,” he muttered. The others nodded.

“Why does he do it? He does it,” Montague Reece said impatiently, reverting to the photographer, “for money. No doubt the idea arose from the Jacqueline Kennedy affair. He’s carried it so much further and he’s been successful. Enormously so.”

“That’s right,” Ruby agreed. “And the more he does it the more”—he hesitated—“outrageous the results became.”

“He retouches,” the Sommita intervened. “He distorts. I know it.”

They all hurriedly agreed with her.

“I’m going,” she said unexpectedly, “to dress. Now. And when I return I wish to be given an intelligent solution. I throw out, for what they are worth, my suggestions. The police. Prosecution. The Press. Who owns this?”—she kicked the offending newspaper and had some difficulty in disengaging her foot—“this garbage? Who is the proprietor? Attack him.” She strode to the bedroom door. “And I warn you, Monty. I warn you, Benny. This is my final word. Unless I am satisfied that there is an end to my persecution, I shall not sing in Sydney. They can,” said the Sommita, reverting to her supposed origins, “stuff their Sydney Opera House.”

She made her exit and did not neglect to slam the door.

“Oh dear,” said Benjamin Ruby quietly.

“Quite,” said Montague Reece.

The young man called Rupert Bartholomew, having reinstated his portfolio, got to his feet.

“I reckon I’d better—?”

“Yes?” said Mr. Reece.

‘Take myself off. I mean to say, it’s a bit awkward.“

“What’s awkward?”

“Well, you see, Madame — Madame Sommita asked me— I mean to say she said I was to bring this”—he indicated, precariously, his portfolio.

“Look out,” said Ben Ruby. “You’ll scatter it again.” He did not try to suppress a note of resignation. “Is it something you’ve written?” he said. It was more a statement than an inquiry.

“This is right. She said I could bring it.”

“When,” Reece asked, “did she say it?”

“Last night, well — this morning. About one o’clock. You were leaving that party at the Italian Embassy. You had gone back to fetch something — her gloves I think — and she was in the car. She saw me.”

“It was raining.”

“Heavily,” said the young man proudly. “I was the only one.”

“You spoke to her?”

“She beckoned me. She put the window down. She asked me how long I’d been there. I said three hours. She asked my name and what I did. I told her. I play the piano in a small orchestra and give lessons. And I type. And then I told her I had all her recordings and — well, she was so wonderful. I mean to me, there in the rain. I just found myself telling her I’ve written an opera — short, a one-acter — sort of dedicated to her, for her. Not, you know, not because I dreamt she would ever hear of it. Good God, no!”

“And so,” Benjamin Ruby suggested, “she said you could show it to her.”

“This is right. This morning. I think she was sorry I was so wet.”

“And have you shown it to her?” asked Mr. Reece. “Apart from throwing it all over the carpet?”

“No. I was just going to when the waiter came up with this morning’s papers and — she saw that thing. And then you came. I suppose I’d better go.”

“It’s hardly the moment perhaps—” Mr. Reece began when the bedroom door opened and an elderly woman with ferociously black hair came into the room. She held up a finger at Rupert, rather in the manner of summoning a waiter.

“She wanta you,” said the woman. “Also the music.”

“All right, Maria,” said Mr. Ruby, and to the young man, “Maria is Madame’s dresser. You’d better go.”

So Rupert, whose surname was Bartholomew, clutching his opera, walked into La Sommita’s bedroom like a fly, if he’d only known it, into a one-way web.

“She’ll eat that kid,” Mr. Ruby said dispassionately, “in one meal.”

“Halfway down her throat already,” her protector agreed.

ii

“I’ve wanted to paint that woman,” said Troy Alleyn, “for five years. And now look!”

She pushed the letter across the breakfast table. Her husband read it and raised an eyebrow. “Remarkable,” he said.

“I know. Especially the bit about you. What does it say, exactly? I was too excited to take it all in. Who’s the letter from, actually? Not from her, you’ll notice.“

“It’s from Montague Reece, no less.”

“Why ‘no less’? Who’s Montague Reece?”

“I wish,” said Alleyn, “he could hear you ask.”

“Why?” Troy repeated. “Oh, I know! Isn’t he very well off?”

“You may say so. In the stinking-of-it department. Mr. Onassis Colossus, in fact.”

“I remember, now. Isn’t he her lover?”

“That’s it.”

“All is made clear to me. I think. Do read it, darling. Aloud.”

“All of it?”

“Please.”

“Here goes,” said Alleyn and read:

“He sounds like a land-and-estate agent — all mod. cons. and the usual offices. Pray continue,” said Troy.

After a longish pause Troy said: “Would it be going too far to paint her singing? You know, mouth wide open for a top note.”

“Mightn’t she look as if she were yawning?”

“I don’t think so,” Troy brooded and then with a sidelong grin at her husband, “I could always put a balloon coming out of her mouth with ‘A in alt’ written in it.”

“That would settle any doubts, of course. Except that I fancy it refers to male singers.”

“You haven’t looked at your letter. Do look.”

Alleyn looked. “Here it is,” he said. “Overposh and posted in Sydney.” He opened it.”

“What’s he say?”

“The preamble’s much the same as yours and so’s the follow-up: the bit about him having to confess to an ulterior motive.”

“Does he want you to paint his portrait, my poor Rory?”

“He wants me to give them ‘my valued opinion as to the possibility of obtaining police protection in the matter of the persecution of Madame Sommita by a photographer, of which I am no doubt aware.’ Well, of all the damn cheek!” said Alleyn. ‘Travel thirteen thousand miles to sit on an island in the middle of a lake and tell him whether or not to include a copper in his house party.”

“Oh! Yes. The penny’s dropped. All that stuff in the papers. I didn’t really read it.”

“You must be the only English-speaking human being who didn’t.”

“Well, I did, really. Sort of. But the photographs were so hideous they put me off. Fill me, as I expect they say in Mr. Reece’s circles, in.”

“You remember how Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy, as she was then, was pestered by a photographer?”

“Yes.”

“It’s the same situation but much exaggerated. The Kennedy rumpus may have put the idea into this chap’s head. He signs himself ‘Strix.’ He’s actually followed the Sommita all over the world. Wherever she has appeared in opera or on the concert stage: Milan, Paris, Covent Garden, New York, Sydney. At first the photographs were the usual kind of thing with the diva flashing gracious smiles at the camera, but gradually differences crept in. They became more and more unflattering and he became more and more intrusive. He hid behind bushes. He trespassed on private ground and cropped up when and where he was least expected. On one occasion he joined the crowd round the stage door with the rest of the press, and contrived to get right up to the front.

“As she came into the doorway and did her usual thing of being delighted and astonished at the size of the crowd, he aimed his camera and at the same time blew a piercingly loud whistle. Her jaw dropped and her eyes popped and in the resulting photograph she looked as if someone had thumped her between the shoulder blades.

“From then on the thing ripened into a sort of war of attrition. It caught the fancy of her enormous public, the photos became syndicated, and the man is said to be making enormous sums of money. Floods of angry letters from her fans to the papers concerned. Threats. Unkind jokes in the worst possible taste. Bets laid. Preposterous stories suggesting he’s a cast-off lover taking his revenge or a tenor who fell out with her. Rumors of a nervous breakdown. Bodyguards. The lot.”

“Isn’t it rather feeble of them not to spot him and manhandle him off?”

“You’d have thought so, but he’s too smart for them. He disguises himself — sometimes bearded and sometimes not. Sometimes in the nylon stocking mask. At one time turned out like a city agent, at another like a Skid Row dropout. He’s said to have a very, very sophisticated camera.”

“Yes, but when he’s done it, why hasn’t somebody grabbed him and jumped on the camera? And what about her celebrated temperament? You’d think she’d set about him herself.”

“You would, but so far she hasn’t done any better than yelling pen-and-ink.”

“Well,” Troy said, “I don’t see what you could be expected to do about it.”

“Accept with pleasure and tell my A.C. that I’m off to the antipodes with my witch-wife? Because,” Alleyn said, putting his hand on her head, “you are going, aren’t you?”

“I do madly want to have a go at her: a great, big flamboyant rather vulgar splotch of a thing. Her arms,” Troy said reminiscently, “are indecent. White and flowing. You can see the brush strokes. She’s so shockingly sumptuous. Oh, yes, Rory love, I’m afraid I must go.”

“We could try suggesting that she waits till she’s having a bash at Covent Garden. No,” said Alleyn, watching her, “I can see that’s no go, you don’t want to wait. You must fly to your commodious studio and in between sittings you must paint pretty peeps of snowy mountains reflected in the lucid waters of the lake. You might knock up a one-man show while you’re about it.”

“You shut up,” said Troy, taking his arm.

“I think you’d better write a rather formal answer giving your terms, as he so delicately suggests. I suppose I decline under separate cover.”

“It might have been fun if we’d dived together into the fleshpots.”

“The occasions when your art and my job have coincided haven’t been all that plain sailing, have they, my love?”

“Not,” she agreed, “so’s you’d notice. Rory, do you mind? My going?”

“I always mind but I try not to let on. I must say I don’t go much for the company you’ll be keeping.”

“Don’t you? High operatic with tantrums between sittings? Will that be the form, do you suppose?”

“Something like that, I daresay.”

“I shan’t let her look at the thing until it’s finished and if she cuts up rough, her dear one needn’t buy it. One thing I will not do,” said Troy calmly. “I will not oblige with asinine alterations. If she’s that sort.”

“I should think she well might be. So might he.”

‘Taking the view that if he’s paying he’s entitled to a return for his cash? What is he? English? New Zealand? American? Australian?”

“I’ve no idea. But I don’t much fancy you being his guest, darling, and that’s a fact.”

“I can hardly offer to pay my own way. Perhaps,” Troy suggested, “I should lower my price in consideration of board-and-lodging.”

“All right, smarty-pants.”

“If it turns out to be a pot-smoking party or worse, I can always beat a retreat to my pretty peepery and lock the door on all comers.”

“What put pot into your fairly pretty little head?”

“I don’t know. Here!” said Troy. “You’re not by any chance suggesting the diva is into the drug scene?”

“There have been vague rumors. Probably false.”

“He’d hardly invite you to stay if she was.”

“Oh,” Alleyn said lightly, “their effrontery knows no bounds. I’ll write my polite regrets before I go down to the Factory.”

The telephone rang and he answered it with the noncommittal voice Troy knew meant the Yard.

“I’ll be down in a quarter of an hour, sir,” he said and hung up. “The A.C.,” he said. “Up to something. I always know when he goes all casual on me.”

“Up to what, do you suppose?”

“Lord knows. Undelicious by the sound of it. He said it was of no particular moment but would I drop in: an ominous opening. I’d better be off.” He made for the door, looked at her, returned, and rounded her face between his hands. “Fairly pretty little head,” he repeated and kissed it.

Fifteen minutes later his Assistant Commissioner received him in the manner to which he had become accustomed: rather as if he was some sort of specimen produced in a bad light to be peered at, doubtfully. The A.C. was as well furnished with mannerisms as he was with brains, and that would be underestimating them.

“Hullo, Rory,” he said. “Morning to you. Morning. Troy well? Good.” (Alleyn had not had time to answer.) “Sit down. Sit down. Yes.”

Alleyn sat down. “You wanted to see me, sir?” he suggested.

“It’s nothing much, really. Read the morning papers?”

“The Post.”

“Seen last Friday’s Mercury?”

“No.”

“I just wondered. That silly stuff with the press photographer and the Italian singing woman. What’s-her-name?”

After a moment’s pause Alleyn said woodenly: “Isabella Sommita.”

“That’s the one,” agreed the A.C, one of whose foibles it was to pretend not to remember names. “Silly of me. Chap’s been at it again.”

“Very persistent.”

“Australia. Sydney or somewhere. Opera House, isn’t it?”

“There is one: yes.”

“On the steps at some sort of function. Here you are.”

He pushed over the newspaper, folded to expose the photograph. It had indeed been taken a week ago on the steps of the magnificent Sydney Opera House on a summer’s evening. La Sommita, gloved in what seemed to be cloth of gold topped by a tiara, stood among V.I.P.s of the highest caliber. Clearly she was not yet poised for the shot. The cameraman had jumped the gun. Again, her mouth was wide open, but on this occasion she appeared to be screaming at the Governor-General of Australia. Or perhaps shrieking with derisive laughter. There is a belief held by people of the theatre that nobody over the age of twenty-five should allow themselves to be photographed from below. Here, the camera had evidently been half-a-flight beneath the diva, who therefore appeared to be richly endowed with chins and more than slightly en bon point. The Governor-General, by some momentary accident, seemed to regard her with incredulity and loathing.

A banner headline read: “Who Do You Think You Are!”

The photograph, as usual, was signed “Strix” and was reproduced, by arrangement, from a Sydney newspaper.

“That, I imagine,” said Alleyn, “will have torn it!”

“So it seems. Look at this.”

It was a letter addressed to “The Head of Scotland Yard, London” and written a week before the invitations to the Alleyns on heavy paper endorsed with an elaborate monogram: “I.S.” lavishly entwined with herbage. The envelope was bigger than the ones received by the Alleyns but of the same make and paper. The letter itself occupied two and a half pages, with a gigantic signature. It had been typed, Alleyn noticed, on a different machine. The address was “Chateau Australasia, Sydney.”

“The Commissioner sent it down,” said the A.C. “You’d better read it.”

Alleyn did so. The typed section merely informed the recipient that the writer hoped to meet one of his staff, Mr. Alleyn, at Waihoe Lodge, New Zealand, where Mr. Alleyn’s wife was commissioned to paint the writer’s portrait. The writer gave the dates proposed. The recipient was of course aware of the outrageous persecution — and so on along the already familiar lines. Her object in writing to him, she concluded, was that she hoped Mr. Alleyn would be accorded full authority by the Yard to investigate this outrageous affair and she remained—.

“Good God,” said Alleyn quietly.

“You’ve still got a postscript,” the A.C. observed.

It was handwritten and all that might be expected. Points of exclamation proliferated. Underscorings doubled and trebled to an extent that would have made Queen Victoria’s correspondence appear by contrast a model of stony reticence. The subject matter lurched into incoherence, but the general idea was to the effect that if the “Head of Scotland Yard” didn’t do something pretty smartly he would have only himself to blame when the writer’s career came to a catastrophic halt. On her knees she remained distractedly and again in enormous calligraphy, sincerely, Isabella Sommita.

“Expound,” the A.C. invited with his head on one side. He was being whimsical. “Comment. Explain in your own words.”

“I can only guess that the letter was typed by a secretary who advised moderation. The postscript seems to be all her own and written in a frenzy.”

“Is Troy going to paint the lady? And do you propose to be absent without leave in the antipodes?”

Alleyn said: “We got our invitations this morning. I was about to decline, sir, when you rang up. Troy’s accepting.”

“Is she?” said the A.C. thoughtfully. “Is she, now? A good subject, um? To paint? What?”

“Very,” Alleyn said warily. What is he on about? he wondered.

“Yes. Ah well,” said the A.C, freshening his voice with a suggestion of dismissal. Alleyn started to get up. “Hold on,” said the A.C. “Know anything about this man she lives with? Reece, isn’t it?”

“No more than everyone knows.”

“Strange coincidence, really,” mused the A.C.

“Coincidence?”

“Yes. The invitations. Troy going out there and all this”— he flipped his finger at the papers on his desk. “All coming together, as it were.”

“Hardly a coincidence, sir, would you say? I mean these dotty letters were all written with the same motive.”

“Oh, I don’t mean them,” said the A.C. contemptuously. “Or only insofar as they turn up at the same time as the other business.”

“What other business?” said Alleyn and managed to keep the weary note out of his voice.

“Didn’t I tell you? Stupid of me. Yes. There’s a bit of a flap going on in the international drug scene: the U.S.A. in particular. Interpol picked up a lead somewhere and passed it on to the French, who talked to the F.B.I., who’ve been talking to our lot. It seems there’s been some suggestion that the diva might be a big, big girl in the remotest background. Very nebulous it sounded to me, but our Great White Chief is slightly excited.” This was the A.C.’s habitual manner of alluding to the Commissioner of the C.I.D. “He’s been talking to the Special Squad. And, by the way, to M.I. 6.”

“How do they come into it?”

“Somewhere along the line. Cagy, as usual, I gather,” said the A.C. “But they did divulge that there was a leak from an anonymous source to the effect that the Sommita is thought to have operated in the past.”

“What about Reece?”

“Clean as a whistle as far as is known.”

“ ‘Montague Reece,’ ” Alleyn mused. “Almost too good to be true. Like something out of Trilby. Astrakhan coat collar and glistening beard. Anything about his origin, sir?”

“Thought to be American-Sicilian.”

During the pause that followed the A.C. hummed, uncertainly, the “Habañera” from Carmen. “Ever heard her in that?” he said. “Startling. Got the range — soprano, mezzo, you name it, got the looks, got the sex. Stick you like a pig for tuppence and make you like it.” He shot one of his disconcerting glances at Alleyn. “Troy’ll have her hands full,” he said. “What?”

“Yes,” Alleyn agreed, and with a strong foreboding of what was in store, added: “I don’t much fancy her going.”

“Quite. Going to put your foot down, are you, Rory?”

Alleyn said: “As far as Troy’s concerned I haven’t got feet.”

‘Tell that to the Fraud Squad,“ said the A.C. and gave a slight whinny.

“Not where her work’s concerned. It’s a must. For both of us.”

“Ah,” said the A.C. “Mustn’t keep you,” he said and shifted without further notice into the tone that meant business. “It just occurs to me that in the circumstances you might, after all, take this trip. And by the way, you know New Zealand, don’t you? Yes?” And when Alleyn didn’t answer: “What I meant when I said ‘coincidence.’ The invitation and all that. Drops like a plum into our lap. We’re asked to keep a spot of very inconspicuous observation on this article and here’s the article’s boyfriend asking you to be his guest and Bob, so to speak, is your uncle. Incidentally, you’ll be keeping an eye on Troy and her termagant subject, won’t you? Well?”

Alleyn said: “Am I to take it, sir, that this is an order?”

“I must say,” dodged the A.C, “I thought you would be delighted.”

“I expect I ought to be.”

“Very well, then,” said the A.C. testily, “why the hell aren’t you?”

“Well, sir, you talked about coincidences. It so happens that by a preposterous series of them Troy has been mixed up to a greater and lesser degree in four of my cases. And—”

“And by all accounts behaved quite splendidly. Hul-lo!” said the A.C. “That’s it, is it? You don’t like her getting involved?”

“On general principles, no, I don’t.”

“But my dear man, you’re not going out to the antipodes to involve yourself in an investigation. You’re on observation. There won’t,” said the A.C, “as likely as not, be anything to observe. Except, of course, your most attractive wife. You’re not going to catch a murderer. You’re not going to catch anyone. What?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“All right. It’s an order. You’d better ring your wife and tell her. ’Morning to you.”

iii

In Melbourne all was well. The Sydney season had been a fantastic success artistically, financially, and, as far as Isabella Sommita was concerned, personally. “Nothing to equal it had been experienced,” as the press raved, “within living memory.” One reporter laboriously joked that if cars were motivated by real instead of statistical horsepower the quadrupeds would undoubtedly have been unhitched and the diva drawn in triumph and by human propulsion through the seething multitudes.

There had been no further offensive photography.

Young Rupert Bartholomew had found himself pitchforked into a milieu that he neither understood nor criticized but in which he floundered in a state of complicated bliss and bewilderment. Isabella Sommita had caused him to play his one-act opera. She had listened with an approval that ripened quickly with the realization that the soprano role was, to put it coarsely, so large that the rest of the cast existed only as trimmings. The opera was about Ruth, and the title was The Alien Corn. (“Corn,” muttered Ben Ruby to Monty Reece, but not in the Sommita’s hearing, “is dead right.”) There were moments when the pink clouds amid which Rupert floated thinned and a small, ice-cold pellet ran down his spine and he wondered if his opera was any good. He told himself that to doubt it was to doubt the greatest soprano of the age, and the pink clouds quickly re-formed. But the shadow of unease did not absolutely leave him.

Mr. Reece was not musical. Mr. Ruby, in his own untutored way, was. Both accepted the advisability of consulting an expert, and such was the pitch of the Sommita’s mounting determination to stage this piece that they treated the matter as one of top urgency. Mr. Ruby, under pretense of wanting to study the work, borrowed it from the Sommita. He approached the doyen of Australian music critics, and begged him, for old times’ sake, to give his strictly private opinion on the opera. He did so and said that it stank.

“Menotti-and-water,” he said. “Don’t let her touch it.”

“Will you tell her so?” Mr. Ruby pleaded.

“Not on your Nelly,” said the great man and as an afterthought, “What’s the matter with her? Has she fallen in love with the composer?”

“Boy,” said Mr. Ruby deeply. “You said it.”

It was true. After her somewhat tigerish fashion the Sommita was in love. Rupert’s Byronic appearance, his melting glance, and his undiluted adoration had combined to do the trick. At this point she had a flaring row with her Australian secretary, who stood up to her and when she sacked him said she had taken the words out of his mouth. She then asked Rupert if he could type and when he said yes promptly offered him the job. He accepted, canceled all pending appointments, and found himself booked in at the same astronomically expensive hotel as his employer. He not only dealt with her correspondence. He was one of her escorts to the theatre and was permitted to accompany her at her practices. He supped with her after the show and stayed longer than any of the other guests. He was in heaven.

On a night when this routine had been observed and Mr. Reece had retired early, in digestive discomfort, the Sommita asked Rupert to stay while she changed into something comfortable. This turned out to be a ruby silken negligé, which may indeed have been comfortable for the wearer but which caused the beholder to shudder in an agony of excitement.

He hadn’t a hope. She had scarcely embarked upon the preliminary phases of her formidable techniques when she was in his arms or, more strictly, he in hers.

An hour later he floated down the long passage to his room, insanely inclined to sing at the top of his voice.

“My first!” he exulted. “My very first. And, incredibly— Isabella Sommita.”

He was, poor boy, as pleased as Punch with himself.

iv

As far as his nearest associates could discover, Mr. Reece was not profoundly disturbed by his mistress’s goings-on. Indeed he appeared to ignore them but, really, it was impossible to tell, he was so remarkably uncommunicative. Much of his time, most of it, in fact, was spent with a secretary, manipulating, it was widely conjectured, the stock markets and receiving long-distance telephone calls. His manner toward Rupert Bartholomew was precisely the same as his manner toward the rest of the Sommita’s following: so neutral that it could scarcely be called a manner at all. Occasionally when Rupert thought of Mr. Reece he was troubled by stabs of uncomfortable speculation, but he was too far gone in incredulous rapture to be greatly concerned.

It was at this juncture that Mr. Reece flew to New Zealand to inspect his island lodge, now completed.

On his return, three days later, to Melbourne, he found the Alleyns’ letters of acceptance and the Sommita in a high state of excitement.

“Dar-leeng,” she said, “you will show me everything. You have photographs, of course? Am I going to be pleased? Because I must tell you I have great plans. But such plans!” cried the Sommita and made mysterious gestures. “You will never guess.”

“What are they?” he asked in his flat-voiced way.

“Ah-ah!” she teased. “You must be patient. First the pictures, which Rupert, too, must see. Quick, quick, the pictures.”

She opened the bedroom door into the sitting room and in two glorious notes sang, “Rupert!”

Rupert had been coping with her fan mail. When he came in he found that Mr. Reece had laid out a number of glossy, colored photographs on the bed. They were all of the island lodge.

The Sommita was enchanted. She exclaimed, purred, exalted. Several times she burst into laughter. Ben Ruby arrived and the photographs were reexhibited. She embraced all three men severally and more or less together.

And then with a sudden drop into the practical, she said, “The music room. Let me see it again. Yes. How big is it?”

“From memory,” said Mr. Reece, “sixty feet long and forty wide.” Mr. Ruby whistled. “That’s quite a size,” he remarked. “That’s more like a bijou theatre than a room. You settling to give concerts, honey?”

“Better than that!” she cried. “Didn’t I tell you, Monty, my dar-leeng, that we have made plans? Ah, we have cooked up such plans, Rupert and I. Haven’t we, caro? Yes?”

“Yes,” Rupert said with an uncertain glance at Mr. Reece. “I mean—. Marvelous.”

Mr. Reece had an extremely passive face, but Rupert thought he detected a shade of resignation pass over it. Mr. Ruby, however, wore an expression of the deepest apprehension.

The Sommita flung her right arm magnificently across Rupert’s shoulders. “This dear child,” she said, and if she had made it “this adorable lover” she could have scarcely been more explicit, “has genius. I tell you — I who know. Genius.” They said nothing and she continued. “I have lived with his opera. I have studied his opera. I have studied the leading role. The ‘Ruth.’ The arias, the solos, the duets — there are two— and the ensembles. All, but all, have the unmistakable stigmata of genius. I do not,” she amended, “use the word stigmata in the sense of martyrdom. Better, perhaps, to say ‘they bear the banner of genius.’ Genius,” she shouted.

To look at Rupert at this moment one might have thought that martyrdom was, after all, the more appropriate word. His face was dark red and he shifted in her embrace. She shook him, none too gently. “Clever, clever one,” she said and kissed him noisily.

“Are we to hear your plan?” Mr. Reece asked.

The hour being seven o’clock, she hustled them into the sitting room and told Rupert to produce cocktails. He was glad to secrete himself in the chilly pantry provided for drinks, ice, and glasses. A few desultory and inaudible remarks came from the other three. Mr. Ruby cleared his throat once or twice. Then, so unexpectedly that Rupert spilled Mr. Reece’s whiskey and soda over his hands, the piano in the sitting room sketched the opening statement of what he had hoped would be the big aria from his opera, and the superb voice, in heartrending pianissimo, sang: “Alone, alone amidst the alien corn.”

It was at that moment with no warning at all that Rupert was visited by a catastrophic certainty. He had been mistaken in his opera. Not even the most glorious voice in all the world could ever make it anything but what it was — third-rate.

“It’s no good,” he thought. “It is ridiculously commonplace.” And then: “She has no judgment. She is not a musical woman.”

He was shattered.