Photo Finish

Chapter four Performance

i

Early in the morning of the following day there came a change in the weather. A wind came up from the northwest, not a strong wind and not steady, but rather it was a matter of occasional brushes of cooler air on the face and a vague stirring among the trees around the house. The sky was invaded by oncoming masses of cloud, turrets and castles that mounted and changed and multiplied. The Lake was no longer glassy but wrinkled. Tiny wavelets slapped gently at the shore.

At intervals throughout the morning new guests would arrive: some by chartered plane to the nearest airport and thence by helicopter to the island, others by train and car and a contingent of indigenous musical intelligentsia by bus. The launch would be very active.

A piano tuner arrived and could be heard dabbing away at single notes and, to the unmusical ear, effecting no change in their pitch.

Sir David Baumgartner, the distinguished musicologist and critic, was to stay overnight at the Lodge, together with a Dr. Carmichael, a celebrated consultant who was also president of the New Zealand Philharmonic Society. The remainder faced many dark hours in launch, bus and cars and in midmorning would be returned wan and bemused to their homes in Canterbury.

The general idea, as far as the Sommita had concerned herself with their reaction to these formidable exertions, was that the guests would be so enraptured by their entertainment as to be perfectly oblivious of all physical discomfort. In the meantime she issued a command that the entire house party was to assemble outside the house for Mr. Ben Ruby to take a mass photograph. They did so in chilly discomfort under a lowering sky.

“Eyes and teeth to the camera, everybody,” begged Mr. Ruby.

The Sommita did not reappear at luncheon and was said to be resting. It was, on the whole, a quiet meal. Even Signor Lattienzo did little to enliven it. Rupert Bartholomew, looking anguished, ate nothing, muttered something to the effect that he was needed in the concert chamber, and excused himself. Mr. Reece made ponderous small talk with Troy while Alleyn, finding himself next to Miss Hilda Dancy, did his best. He asked her if she found opening nights trying and she replied in vibrant contralto, “When they are important,” clearly indicating that this one was not. After Rupert had left them she said, “It’s a crying shame.”

“A crying shame?” he ventured. “How?”

“You’ll see,” she prophesied. “Cannibal!” she added and, apart from giving him a dark look which he was unable to interpret, though he thought he could make a fairly good guess, she was disinclined for any further conversation.

After luncheon the Alleyns went up to the studio, where he related the story of the interloper and the camera cap. When he had finished and Troy had taken time to think it over, she said: “Rory, do you think he’s still on the Island? The photographer?”

“The photographer? Yes,” he said, and something in his voice made her stare at him. “I think the photographer’s here. I’ll tell you why.” And he did.

For the rest of the afternoon Troy brooded over her drawings and made some more. Sounds of arrival were heard from time to time. Beyond the great window the prospect steadily darkened and the forest on the far shore moved as if brushed by an invisible hand. “The arrivals by launch will have a rough trip,” said Alleyn. The helicopter flapped down to its landing place and discharged an imposing personage in a black overcoat and hat. “Sir David Baumgartner, no less,” said Alleyn and then, “Troy, you saw me outside that window, didn’t you? Do you think you would have been bound to notice a photographer if one had operated through that same window?”

“Oh, no,” she said, “not bound to at all. I was working.”

“So you were,” he agreed. “I think I’ll take a look.”

And he went downstairs to the concert chamber. When he arrived, there was no one to be seen but Hanley, who was evidently stage manager for the production, superintending three imported electricians in the management of the lights and seeming to be in a state of controlled dementia. Whatever the climate outside might be, inside it was electric.

Alleyn heard Hanley demand at large: “Well, where the hell is he? He ought to be here. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The curtain that separated the apron from the stage proper was open and the acting areas were prepared for the performance. A realistic set had not been attempted. A blue cloth had been hung behind the pillars and the central entrance was flanked by two stylized sheafs of corn. Three sumptuously draped seats completed the decor.

Alleyn sat where Troy had sat to make her drawings. The window in question was still uncurtained and open. Such had been her concentration that he thought she would not have noticed him if he had not leaned over the sill.

Hanley said to the electricians, “It’s easy, really. You’ve marked the areas where Madame Sommita stands, and you’ve got them covered. Fade up when she’s there and fade down when she moves away. Otherwise there are no lights cues: they stay as set throughout. Cover the windows and we’ll run it through once more.”

He turned to Alleyn. “Have you seen Rupert?” he asked. “He was to be here half an hour ago to give the music cues. They went all to blazes at the dress rehearsal. Honestly, it’s too much.”

“I’ll see if I can find him,” he volunteered.

“Super of you,” gushed Hanley with a desperate return to his secretarial manner. “Thank you so much.”

Alleyn thought that a hunt for the unhappy Rupert might well turn out to be as fruitless as the one for a problematical photographer, but he struck it lucky, if that was the appropriate word, at the first cast, which was Mr. Reece’s spectacular study.

He wondered if a visitor was expected to knock or even to make an appointment before venturing upon this sanctum, but decided to effect an entrance in the normal manner. He opened the door and walked in.

The actual entrance was shut off from the room by a large leather screen, the work of a decorator much in vogue. Alleyn came in to the sound of Mr. Reece’s voice.

“—remind you of the favors you have taken at her hands. And this is how you would choose to repay them. By making her a laughingstock. You allow us to engage celebrated artists, to issue invitations, to bring people of the utmost distinction halfway across the world to hear this thing, and now propose to tell them that after all there will be no performance and they can turn round and go back again.”

“I know. Do you think I haven’t thought of all this! Do you think — please, please believe me — Bella, I beg you—”

“Stop!”

Alleyn, behind the screen and about to beat a retreat, fetched up short as if the command had been directed at him. It was the Sommita.

“The performance,” she announced, “will take place. The violin is competent. He will lead. And you, you who have determined to break my heart, will sulk in your room. And when it is over you will come to me and weep your repentance. And it will be too late. Too late. You will have murdered my love for you. Ingrate!” shouted the Sommita. “Poltroon! So!”

Alleyn heard her masterful tread. As he had no time to get away, he stepped boldly out of cover and encountered her face-to-face.

Her own face might have been a mask for one of the Furies. She made a complicated gesture, and for a moment he thought that actually she might haul off and hit him, blameless as he was, but she ended up by grasping him by his coat collar, giving him a ferocious précis of their predicament, and ordering him to bring Rupert to his senses. When he hesitated, she shook him like a cocktail, burst into tears, and departed.

Mr. Reece, standing with authority on his own hearthrug, had not attempted to stem the tide of his dear one’s wrath nor was it possible to guess at his reaction to it. Rupert sat with his head in his hands, raising it momentarily to present a stricken face.

“I’m so sorry,” Alleyn said; “I’ve blundered in with what is clearly an inappropriate message.”

“Don’t go,” said Mr. Reece. “A message? For me?”

“For Bartholomew. From your secretary.”

“Yes? He had better hear it.”

Alleyn delivered it. Rupert was wanted to set the lights.

Mr. Reece asked coldly, “Will you do this? Or is it going too far to expect it?”

Rupert got to his feet. “Well,” he asked Alleyn, “what do you think, now? Do you say I should refuse?”

Alleyn said: “I’m not sure. It’s a case of divided loyalties, isn’t it?”

“I would have thought,” said Mr. Reece, “that any question of loyalty was entirely on one side. To whom is he loyal if he betrays his patrons?”

“Oh,” Alleyn said, “to his art.”

“According to him, he has no ‘art.’ ”

“I’m not sure,” Alleyn said slowly, “whether, in making his decision, it really matters. It’s a question of aesthetic integrity.”

Rupert was on his feet and walking toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Mr. Reece said sharply.

“To set the lights. I’ve decided,” said Rupert loudly. “I can’t stick this out any longer. I’m sorry I’ve given so much trouble. I’ll see it through.”

ii

When Alleyn went up to their room in search of Troy, he found her still suffering from jet lag, fast asleep on their enormous bed. At a loose end, and worried about Rupert Bartholomew’s sudden capitulation, Alleyn returned downstairs. He could hear voices in the drawing room and concert chamber. Outside the house, a stronger wind had got up.

Midway down the hall, opposite the dining room, there was a door which Mr. Reece had indicated as opening into the library. Alleyn thought he would find himself something to read and went in.

It might have been created by a meticulous scene painter for an Edwardian drama. Uniform editions rose in irremovable tiers from floor to ceiling, the result, Alleyn supposed, of some mass-ordering process: classics, biographies, and travel. There was a section devoted to contemporary novels, each a virgin in its unmolested jacket. There was an assembly of “quality” productions that would have broken the backs of elephantine coffee tables, and there were orderly stacks of the most popular weeklies.

He wandered along the ranks at a loss for a good read and high up in an ill-lit corner came upon a book that actually bore signs of usage. It was unjacketed and the spine was rubbed. He drew it out and opened it at the title page.

Il Mistero da Bianca Rossi, by Pietro Lamparelli. Alleyn didn’t read Italian with the complete fluency that alone gives easy pleasure but the title was an intriguing surprise. He allowed the half-title page to flip over and there on the flyleaf in sharp irregular characters was the owner’s name, M. V. Rossi.

He settled down to read it.

An hour later he went upstairs and found Troy awake and refreshed.

The opera, a one-acter which lasted only an hour, was to begin at eight o’clock. It would be prefaced by light snacks with drinks and followed by a grand dinner party.

“Do you suppose,” Troy wondered, as they dressed, “that a reconciliation has taken place?”

“I’ve no idea. She may go for a magnificent acceptance of his surrender or she may not be able to do herself out of the passionate rapture bit. My bet would be that she’s too professional to allow herself to be upset before a performance.”

“I wish he hadn’t given in.”

“He’s made the harder choice, darling.”

“I suppose so. But if she does take him back — it’s not a pretty thought.”

“I don’t think he’ll go. I think he’ll pack his bags and go back to teaching the piano and playing with his small Sydney group and doing a little typing on the side.”

“Signor Lattienzo did say there were two or three signs of promise in the opera.”

“Did he? If he’s right, the more shame on that termagant for what she’s done to the boy.”

They were silent for a little while after this and then Troy said: “Is there a window open? It’s turned chilly, hasn’t it?”

“I’ll look.”

The curtains had been closed for the night. Alleyn parted them, and discovered an open window. It was still light outside. The wind had got up strongly now; there was a great pother of hurrying clouds in the sky and a wide vague sound abroad in the evening.

“It’s brewing up out there,” Alleyn said. “The Lake’s quite rough.” He shut the window.

“Not much fun for the guests going home,” said Troy and then: “I’ll be glad, won’t you, when this party’s over?”

“Devoutly glad.”

“Watching that wretched boy’s ordeal, it’ll be like sitting out an auto-da-fé,” she said.

“Would you like to have a migraine? I’d make it sound convincing.”

“No. He’d guess. So, oh Lord, would she.”

“I’m afraid you’re right. Should we go down, now, darling, to our champagne and snacks?”

“I expect so. Rory, your peculiar mission seems to have got mislaid, doesn’t it? I’d almost forgotten about it. Do you, by any chance, suppose Mr. Reece to be a ‘Godfather’ with an infamous Sicilian ‘Family’ background?”

“He’s a cold enough fish to be anything but—” Alleyn hesitated for a moment. “No,” he said. “So far, there’s been nothing to report. I shall continue to accept his hospitality and will no doubt return empty-handed to my blasted boss. I’ve little stomach for the job, and that’s a fact. If it wasn’t for you, my particular dish, and your work in hand, I’d have even less. Come on.”

Notwithstanding the absence of Rupert and all the performers, the drawing room was crowded. About thirty guests had arrived by devious means and were being introduced to each other by Mr. Reece and his secretary. There were top people from the Arts Council, various conductors and a selection of indigenous critics, notably a prestigious authority from the New Zealand Listener. Conspicuous among the distinguished guests from abroad was a large rubicund man with drooping eyelids and a dictatorial nose: Sir David Baumgartner, the celebrated critic and musicologist. He was in close conversation with Signor Lattienzo, who, seeing the Alleyns, gave them one of his exuberant bows, obviously told Sir David who they were, and propelled him toward them.

Sir David told Troy that it really was a great honor and a delightful surprise to meet her and asked if it could be true that she was going to paint the Great Lady. He chaffed Alleyn along predictable lines, saying that they would all have to keep their noses clean, wouldn’t they? He spoke gravely of the discomforts of his journey. It had come upon him, to put it bluntly, at a most inconvenient time and if it had been anybody else— here he gave them a roguish glance — he wouldn’t have dreamed of — he need say no more. The implication clearly was that The Alien Corn had better be good.

Lobster sandwiches, pâté, and miniature concoctions of the kind known to Mr. Justice Shallow as “pretty little tiny kickshaws” were handed round and champagne galore. Sir David sipped, raised his eyebrows and was quickly ready for a refill. So were all the new arrivals. Conversation grew noisy.

“Softening-up process,” Alleyn muttered.

And indeed by ten minutes to eight all signs of travel fatigue had evaporated and when Marco, who had been much in evidence, tinkled up and down on a little xylophone, he was obliged to do so for some time like a ship’s steward walking down corridors with a summons to dinner.

Ben Ruby and Mr. Reece began a tactful herding toward the concert chamber.

The doors were open. The audience assembled itself.

The chairs in the front rows were ticketed with the names of the houseguests and some of the new arrivals who evidently qualified as V.I.P.s. Troy and Alleyn were placed on the left of Mr. Reece’s empty chair, Sir David and Signor Lattienzo on its right, with Ben Ruby beyond them. The rest of the élite comprised the conductor of the New Zealand Philharmonic Orchestra and his wife, three professors of music from as many universities, an Australian newspaper magnate, and four representatives of the press — which press exactly had not been defined. The remainder of an audience of about fifty chose their own seats, while at the back the household staff was feudally accommodated.

The collective voice was loud and animated and the atmosphere of expectancy fully established. “If only they keep it up,” Troy whispered to Alleyn. She glanced along the row to Signor Lattienzo. His arms were folded and his head inclined toward Sir David, who was full of animation and bonhomie. Lattienzo looked up from under his brows, saw Troy, and crossed the fingers of his right hand.

The players came in and tuned their instruments, a sound that always caught Troy under the diaphragm. The lights in the auditorium went out. The stage curtain glowed. Mr. Reece slipped into his seat beside Troy. Rupert Bartholomew came in from behind the stage so inconspicuously that the had raised his baton before he had been noticed. The overture began.

Troy always wished she knew more about music and could understand why one sound moved her and another left her disengaged. Tonight she was too apprehensive to listen properly. She tried to catch the response of the audience, watched Rupert’s back and wondered if he was able to distill any magic from his players, wondered, even, how long the ephemeral good nature induced by champagne could be expected to last with listeners who knew what music was about. She was so distracted by these speculations that the opening of the curtain caught her by surprise.

She had dreamed up all sorts of awful possibilities: Rupert breaking down and walking out, leaving the show to crawl to disaster; Rupert stopping the proceedings and addressing the audience; or the audience itself growing more and more restless or apathetic and the performance ending on the scantiest show of applause, and the audience being harangued by an infuriated Sommita.

None of these things took place. True, as the opera developed, the boisterous good humor of the audience seemed to grow tepid, but the shock of that Golden Voice, the astonishment it engendered note by note, was so extraordinary that no room was left for criticism. And there was, or so it seemed to Troy, a passage in the duet with Hilda Dancy — “Whither thou goest” — when suddenly the music came true. She thought: That’s one of the bits Signor Lattienzo meant. She looked along the row and he caught her glance and nodded.

Sir David Baumgartner, whose chin was sunk in his shirt frill in what passed for profound absorption, raised his head. Mr. Reece, sitting bolt upright in his chair, inconspicuously consulted his watch.

The duet came to its end and Troy’s attention wandered. The show was well dressed, the supporting artists being clad in low-profile biblical gear hired from a New Zealand company who had recently revived the York Cycle. The Sommita’s costume, created for the occasion, was white and virginal and, if it was designed to make Ruth look like a startling social misfit amidst the alien corn, succeeded wonderfully in achieving this end.

The quartet came and went and left no mark. Sir David looked irritated. The Sommita, alone on stage, sailed into a recitative and thence to her big aria. Troy now saw her purely in terms of paint, fixing her in the memory, translating her into a new idiom. The diva had arrived at the concluding fioritura, she moved toward her audience, she lifted her head, she spread her arms and rewarded them with her trump card — A above high C.

No doubt she would have been very cross if they had observed the rule about not applauding until the final curtain. They did not observe it. They broke into a little storm of clapping. She raised a monitory hand. The performance entered into its penultimate phase: a lachrymose parting between Ruth and Signor Rodolfo, plump in kilted smock and leg strappings and looking like a late photograph of Caruso. Enter Boaz, discovering them and ordering the gleaner to be beaten. Ruth and Naomi pleading with Boaz to relent, which he did, and the opera ended with a rather cursory reconciliation of all hands in chorus.

The sense of relief when the curtains closed was so overwhelming that Troy found herself clapping wildly. After all, it had not been so bad. None of the horrors she had imagined had come to pass, it was over, and they were in the clear.

Afterward, she wondered if the obligatory response from the audience could have been evoked by the same emotion.

Three rapid curtain calls were taken, the first by the company, the second by the Sommita, who was thinly cheered by back-benchers, and the third again by the Sommita, who went through her customary routine of extended arms, kissed hands, and deep curtseys.

And then she turned to the orchestra, advanced upon it with outstretched hand and beckoning smile, only to find that her quarry had vanished. Rupert Bartholomew was gone. The violinist stood up and said something inaudible but seemed to suggest that Rupert was backstage. The Sommita’s smile had become fixed. She swept to an upstage entrance and vanished through it. The audience, nonplussed, kept up a desultory clapping which had all but died out when she reentered, bringing, almost dragging, Rupert after her.

He was sheet-white and disheveled. When she exhibited him, retaining her grasp of his hand, he made no acknowledgment of the applause she exacted. It petered out into a dead silence. She whispered something and the sound was caught up in a giant enlargement: the northwest wind sighing round the Island.

The discomfiture of the audience was extreme. Someone, a woman, behind Troy said: “He’s not well; he’s going to faint,” and there was a murmur of agreement. But Rupert did not faint. He stood bolt upright, looked at nothing, and suddenly freed his hand.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said loudly.

Mr. Reece began to clap and was followed by the audience. Rupert shouted, “Don’t do that,” and they stopped. He then made his curtain speech.

“I expect I ought to thank you. Your applause is for a Voice. It’s a wonderful Voice, insulted by the stuff it has been given to sing tonight. For that I am responsible. I should have withdrawn it at the beginning when I realized — when I first realized — when I knew—”

He swayed a little and raised his hand to his forehead.

“When I knew,” he said. And then he did faint. The curtains closed.

iii

Mr. Reece handled the catastrophe with expertise. He stood up, faced his guests, and said that Rupert Bartholomew had been unwell for some days and no doubt the strain of the production had been a little too much for him. He (Mr. Reece) knew that they would all appreciate this and he asked them to reassemble in the drawing room. Dinner would be served as soon as the performers were ready to join them.

So out they all trooped and Mr. Reece, followed by Signor Lattienzo, went backstage.

As they passed through the hall the guests became more aware of what was going on outside: irregular onslaughts of wind, rain, and behind these immediate sounds, a vague ground swell of turbulence. Those guests who were to travel through the night by way of launch, bus, and car began to exchange glances. One of them, a woman, who was near the windows, parted the heavy curtains and looked out, releasing the drumming sound of rain against glass and a momentary glimpse of the blinded pane. She let the curtain fall and pulled an anxious grimace. A hearty male voice said loudly: “Not to worry. She’ll be right.”

More champagne in the drawing room and harder drinks for the asking. The performers began to come in and Hanley with them. He circulated busily. “Doing his stuff,” said Alleyn.

“Not an easy assignment,” said Troy and then: “I’d like to know how that boy is.”

“So would I.”

“Might we be able to do anything, do you suppose?”

“Shall we ask?”

Hanley saw them, flashed his winsome smile, and joined them. “We’re going in now,” he said. “The Lady asks us not to wait.”

“How’s Rupert?”

“Poor dear! Wasn’t it a pity? Everything had gone so well. He’s in his room. Lying down, you know, but quite all right. Not to be disturbed. He’ll be quite all right,” Hanley repeated brightly. “Straight-out case of nervous fatigue. Ah, there’s the gong. Will you give a lead? Thank you so much.”

On this return passage through the hall, standing inconspicuously just inside the entrance and partly screened by the vast pregnant woman whose elfin leer suggested a clandestine rendezvous, was a figure in dripping oilskins: Les, the launch man. Hanley went over to speak to him.

The dining room had been transformed, two subsidiary tables being introduced to form an E with the middle stroke missing. The three central places at the “top” table were destined for the Sommita, her host, and Rupert Bartholomew, none of whom appeared to occupy them. All the places were named and the Alleyns were again among the V.I.P.s. This time Troy found herself with Mr. Reece’s chair on her left and Signor Lattienzo on her right. Alleyn was next to the Sommita’s empty chair, with the wife of the New Zealand conductor on his left.

“This is delightful,” said Signor Lattienzo.

“Yes, indeed,” said Troy who was not in the mood for badinage.

“I arranged it.”

“You what?” she exclaimed.

“I transposed the cards. You had been given the New Zealand maestro and I his wife. She will be enraptured with your husband’s company and will pay no attention to her own husband. He will be less enraptured, but that cannot be helped.”

“Well,” said Troy, “for sheer effrontery, I must say!”

“I take, as you say, the buttery bun? Apropos, I am much in need of refreshment. That was a most painful debacle, was it not?”

“Is he all right? Is someone doing something, I’m sure I don’t know what anybody can do,” Troy said, “but is there someone?”

“I have seen him.”

“You have?”

“I have told him that he took a courageous and honest course. I was also able to say that there was a shining moment— the duet when you and I exchanged signals. He has rewritten it since I saw the score. It is delightful.”

“That will have helped.”

“A little, I think.”

“Yesterday he confided rather alarmingly in us, particularly in Rory. Do you think he might like to see Rory?”

“At the moment I hope he is asleep. A Dr. Carmichael had seen him and I have administered a pill. I suffer,” said Signor Lattienzo, “from insomnia.”

“Is she coming down, do you know?”

“I understand from our good Monty — yes. After the debacle she appeared to have been in two minds about what sort of temperament it would be appropriate to throw. Obviously an attack upon the still-unconscious Rupert was out of the question. There remained the flood of remorse, which I fancy she would not care to entertain since it would indicate a flaw in her own behavior. Finally there could be a demonstration as from a distracted lover. Puzzled by this choice, she burst into a storm of ambiguous tears and Retired, as they say in your Shakespeare, Above. Escorted by Monty. To the ministrations of the baleful Maria and with the intention of making another delayed entrance. We may expect her at any moment, no doubt. In the meantime the grilled trout was delicious and here comes the coq au vin.”

But the Sommita did not appear. Instead, Mr. Reece arrived to say that she had been greatly upset by poor Rupert Bartholomew’s collapse, which had no doubt been due to nervous exhaustion, but would rejoin them a little later. He then said that he was sorry indeed to have to tell them that he had been advised by the launch man that the local storm, known as the Rosser, had blown up and would increase in force, probably reaching its peak in about an hour, when it would then become inadvisable to make the crossing to the mainland. Loath as he was to break up the party, he felt perhaps… He spread his hands.

The response was immediate. The guests, having finished their marrons glacés, professed themselves, with many regrets, ready to leave. There was a general exodus for them to prepare themselves for the journey, Sir David Baumgartner, who had been expected to stay, among them. He had an important appointment looming up, he explained, and dared not risk missing it.

There would be room enough for all the guests and the performers in the bus and cars that waited across the Lake. Anyone so inclined could spend the tag end of the night at Cornishman’s Pass pub on the east side of the Pass and journey down-country by train the next day. The rest would continue through the night, descending to the plains and across them to their ultimate destinations.

The Alleyns agreed that the scene in the hall bore a resemblance to rush hour on the Underground. There was a sense of urgency and scarcely concealed impatience. The travelers were to leave in two batches of twenty, which was the maximum accommodation in the launch. The house staff fussed about with raincoats and umbrellas. Mr. Reece stood near the door, repeating valedictory remarks of scant originality and shaking hands. Some of the guests, as their anxiety mounted, became perfunctory in their acknowledgments; a few actually neglected him altogether, being intent upon maneuvering themselves into the top twenty. Sir David Baumgartner, in awful isolation and a caped mackintosh, sat in a porter’s chair looking very cross indeed.

The entrance doors opened, admitting wind, rain, and cold all together. The first twenty guests were gone: swallowed up and shut out as if, Troy thought — and disliked herself for so thinking — they were condemned.

Mr. Reece explained to the remainder that it would be at least half an hour before the launch returned and advised them to wait in the drawing room. The servants would keep watch and would report as soon as they sighted the lights of the returning launch.

A few followed this suggestion, but most remained in the hall, sitting round the enormous fireplace or in scattered chairs, wandering about, getting themselves behind the window curtains and coming out, scared by their inability to see anything beyond streaming panes.

Eru Johnstone was speaking to the tenor, Roberto Rodolfo, and the little band of musicians, who listened to him in a huddle of apprehension. Alleyn and Troy joined them. Eru Johnstone was saying: “It’s something one doesn’t try to explain. I come from the far north of the North Island and have only heard about the Island indirectly from some of our people down here on the Coast. I had forgotten. When we were engaged for this performance, I didn’t connect the two things.”

“But it’s tapu?” asked the pianist. “Is that it?” [Tapu — Maori word signifying sacred and forbidden.]

“In very early times an important person was buried here,” he said, as it seemed unwillingly. “Ages afterwards, when the pakehas came, a man named Ross, a prospector, rowed out to the Island. The story is that the local storm blew up and he was drowned. I had forgotten,” Eru Johnstone repeated in his deep voice. “I suggest you do, too. There have been many visitors since those times and many storms—”

“Hence ‘Rosser’?” Alleyn asked.

“So it seems.”

“How long does it usually last?”

“About twenty-four hours, I’m told. No doubt it varies.”

Alleyn said: “On my first visit to New Zealand I met one of your people, who told me about Maoritanga. We became friends and I learnt a lot from him — Dr. Te Pokiha.”

“Rangi Te Pokiha?” Johnstone exclaimed. “You know him? He is one of our most prominent elders.”

And he settled down to talk at great length of his people. Alleyn led the conversation back to the Island. “After what you have told me,” he said, “do you mind my asking if you believe it to be tapu?”

After a long pause Eru Johnstone said: “Yes.”

“Would you have come,” Troy asked, “if you had known?”

“No,” said Eru Johnstone.

“Are you staying here?” asked Signor Lattienzo, appearing at Troy’s elbow, “or shall we fall back upon our creature comforts in the drawing room? One can’t go on saying good-bye to people who scarcely listen.”

“I’ve got a letter I want to get off,” said Alleyn. “I think I’ll just scribble it and ask one of these people if they’d mind putting it in the post. What about you, Troy?”

“I rather thought — the studio. I ought to ‘fix’ those drawings.”

“I’ll join you there,” he said.

“Yes, darling, do.”

Troy watched him run upstairs.

“Surely you are not going to start painting after all this!” Signor Lattienzo exclaimed.

“Not I!” Troy said. “It’s just that I’m restless and can’t settle. It’s been a bit of a day, hasn’t it? Who’s in the drawing room?”

“Hilda Dancy and the little Parry, who are staying on. Also the Dr. Carmichael, who suffers excruciatingly from seasickness. It is not very gay in the drawing room, although the lissom Hanley weaves in and out. Is it true that you made drawings this afternoon?”

“One of two preliminary canters.”

“Of Bella?”

“Mostly of her, yes.”

Signor Lattienzo put his head on one side and contrived to look wistful. In spite of herself Troy laughed. “Would you like to see them?” she said.

“Naturally I would like to see them. May I see them?”

“Come on, then,” said Troy.

They went upstairs to the studio. Troy propped her drawings, one by one, on the easel, blew fixative through a diffuser over each, and laid them side by side on the throne to dry: Signor Lattienzo screwed in his eyeglass, folded his plump hands over his ample stomach, and contemplated them.

After a long pause during which vague sounds of activity down in the hall drifted up and somewhere a door slammed, Signor Lattienzo said:

“If you had not made that last one, the one on the right, I would have said you were a merciless lady, Madame Troy.”

It was the slightest of the drawings. The orchestra was merely indicated playing like mad in the background. In the foreground La Sommita, having turned away from them, stared at vacancy, and in everything that Troy had set down with such economy there was desolation.

“Look what you’ve done with her,” Signor Lattienzo said. ‘Did she remain for long like that? Did she, for once, face reality? I have never seen her look so, and now I feel I have never seen her at all.”

“It only lasted for seconds.”

“Yes? Shall you paint her like that?”

Troy said slowly. “No, I don’t think so.” She pointed to the drawing of La Sommita in full cry, mouth wide open, triumphant. “I rather thought this—”

“This is the portrait of a Voice.”

“I would have liked to call it ‘A in Alt’ because that sounds so nice. I don’t know what it means but I understand it would be unsuitable.”

“Highly so. Mot juste, by the way.”

‘“A in Sop’ wouldn’t have the same charm.”

“No.”

“Perhaps, simply ‘Top Note.’ Though why I should fuss about a title when I haven’t as yet clapped paint to canvas, I can’t imagine.”

“Has she seen the drawings?”

“No.”

“And won’t if you can help it?”

“That’s right,” said Troy.

They settled down. Signor Lattienzo discoursed cosily, telling Troy of droll occurrences in the world of opera and of a celebrated company, half-Italian and half-French, of which the Sommita had been the star and in which internal feuding ran so high that when people asked at the box-office what opera was on tonight the manager would intervene and say, “Wait till the curtain goes up, madame!” (or “dear boy!”) “Just wait till the curtain goes up.” With this and further discourse he entertained Troy exceedingly. After some time Alleyn came in and said the launch had been sighted on its return trip and the last batch of travelers were getting ready to leave.

“The wind is almost gale force,” he said. “The telephone’s out of order — probably a branch across the line — radio and television are cut off.”

“Will they be all right?” Troy asked. “The passengers?”

“Reece says that Les knows his job and that he wouldn’t undertake the passage if he thought there was any risk. Hanley’s swanning about telling everyone that the launch is seaworthy, cost the earth, and crossed the English Channel in a blizzard.”

“How glad I am,” Signor Lattienzo remarked, “that I am not on board her.”

Alleyn opened the window curtains. “She could be just visible from here,” he said, and after a pause, “Yes, there she is. Down at the jetty.”

Troy joined him. Behond the half-blinded window, lights, having no background, moved across the void, distorted by the runnels of water streaming down the pane. They rose, tilted, sank, rose again, vanished, reappeared, and were gone.

“They are going aboard,” said Alleyn. “I wonder if Eru Johnstone is glad to have left the Island.”

“One would have thought—” Signor Lattienzo began and was cut short by a scream.

It came from within the house and mounted like a siren. It broke into a gabble, resumed, and increased in volume.

“Oh no!” said Signor Lattienzo irritably. “What now, for pity’s sake!” A piercing scream answered him.

And then he was on his feet. “That is not Bella’s voice,” he said loudly.

It was close. On their landing. Outside their door. Alleyn made for the door, but before he could reach it, it opened and there was Maria, her mouth wide open, yelling at the top of her voice.

“Soccorso! Soccorso!”

Alleyn took her by the upper arms. “Che succede?” he demanded. “Control yourself, Maria. What are you saying?”

She stared at him, broke free, ran to Signor Lattienzo, beat him with her clenched fists, and poured out a stream of Italian.

He held her by the wrists and shook her. “Taci!” he shouted and to Alleyn: “She is saying that Bella has been murdered.”

iv

The Sommita lay spread-eagled on her back across a red counterpane. The bosom of her biblical dress had been torn down to the waist and under her left breast, irrelevantly, unbelievably, the haft of a knife stuck out. The wound was not visible, being masked by a piece of glossy colored paper or card that had been pierced by the knife and transfixed to the body. From beneath this a thin trace of blood had slid down toward naked ribs like a thread of red cotton. The Sommita’s face, as seen from the room, was upside-down. Its eyes bulged and its mouth was wide open. The tongue protruded as if at the moment of death she had pulled a gargoyle’s grimace at her killer. The right arm, rigid as a branch, was raised in the fascist salute. She might have been posed for the jacket on an all-too-predictable shocker.

Alleyn turned to Montague Reece, who stood halfway between the door and the bed with Beppo Lattienzo holding his arm. The secretary, Hanley, had stopped short just inside the room, his hand over his mouth and looking as if he was going to be sick. Beyond the door Maria could be heard to break out afresh in bursts of hysteria. Alleyn said: “That doctor — Carmichael, isn’t it? — he stayed behind, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Reece. “Of course,” and to Hanley: “Get him.”

“And shut the door after you,” said Alleyn. “Whoever’s out there on the landing, tell them to go downstairs and wait in the drawing room.”

“And get rid of that cursed woman,” Mr. Reece ordered savagely. “No! Stop! Tell the housekeeper to take charge of her. I—” he appealed to Alleyn. “What should we do? You know about these things. I — need a few moments.”

“Monty, my dear! Monty,” Lattienzo begged him, “don’t look. Come away. Leave it to other people. To Alleyn. Come with me.” He turned on Hanley. “Well. Why do you wait? Do as you’re told, imbecile. The doctor!”

“There’s no call to be insulting,” Hanley quavered. He looked distractedly about him and his gaze fell upon the Sommita’s face. “God almighty!” he said and bolted.

When he had gone, Alleyn said to Mr. Reece, “Is your room on this floor? Why not let Signor Lattienzo take you there. Dr. Carmichael will come and see you.”

“I would like to see Ben Ruby. I do not require a doctor.”

“We’ll find Ben for you,” soothed Lattienzo. “Come along.”

“I am perfectly all right, Beppo,” Mr. Reece stated. He freed himself and actually regained a sort of imitation of his customary manner. He said to Alleyn: “I will be glad to leave this to you. You will take charge, if you please. I will be available and wish to be kept informed.” And then: “The police. The police must be notified.”

Alleyn said: “Of course they must. When it’s possible. At the moment it’s not. We are shut off.”

Mr. Reece stared at him dully. “I had forgotten,” he conceded. And then astonishingly—“That is extremely awkward,” he said, and walked out of the room.

“He is in trauma,” said Lattienzo uncertainly. “He is in shock. Shall I stay with him?”

“If you would. Perhaps when Mr. Ruby arrives—?”

“Sì, sì, sicuro,” said Signor Lattienzo. “Then I make myself scarce.”

“Only if so desired,” Alleyn rejoined in his respectable Italian.

When he was alone he returned to the bed. Back on the job, he thought, and with no authority.

He thought of Troy — of six scintillating drawings, of a great empty canvas waiting on the brand-new easel — and he wished to God he could put them all thirteen thousand miles away in a London studio.

There was a tap on the door. He heard Lattienzo say: “Yes. In there,” and Dr. Carmichael came in.

He was a middle-aged to elderly man with an air of authority. He looked sharply at Alleyn and went straight to the bed. Alleyn watched him make the expected examination and then straighten up.

“I don’t need to tell you that nothing can done,” he said. “This is a most shocking thing. Who found her?”

“It seems, her maid. Maria. She raised the alarm and was largely incoherent. No doubt you all heard her.”

“Yes.”

“She spoke Italian,” Alleyn explained. “I understood a certain amount and Lattienzo, of course, much more. But even to him she was sometimes incomprehensible. Apparently after the performance Madame Sommita was escorted to her room by Mr. Reece.”

“That’s right,” said the doctor. “I was there. They’d asked me to have a look at the boy. When I arrived they were persuading her to go.”

“Ah yes. Well. Maria was here, expecting she would be needed. Her mistress, still upset by young Bartholomew’s collapse, ordered them to leave her alone. Maria put out one of her tablets, whatever they are. She also put out her dressing gown — there it is, that fluffy object still neatly folded over the chair — and she and Reece did leave. As far as I could make out, she was anxious about Madame Sommita and after a time returned to the room with a hot drink — there it is, untouched— and found her as you see her now. Can you put a time to the death?”

“Not precisely, of course, but I would think not more than an hour ago. Perhaps much less. The body is still warm.”

“What about the raised arm? Rigor mortis? Or cadaveric spasm?”

“The latter, I should think. There doesn’t appear to have been a struggle. And that card or paper or whatever it is?” said Dr. Carmichael.

“I’ll tell you what that is,” said Alleyn. “It’s a photograph.”

v

Dr. Carmichael, after an incredulous stare at Alleyn, stooped over the body.

“It’d be as well not to touch the paper,” said Alleyn, “but look at it.”

He took a ball-point pen from his pocket and used it to open out the creases. “You can see for yourself,” he said.

Dr. Carmichael looked. “Good God!” he exclaimed. “You’re right. It’s a photograph of her. With her mouth open. Singing.”

“And the knife has been pushed through the photograph at the appropriate place — the heart.”

“It’s — grotesque. When — where could it have been taken?”

“This afternoon, in the concert chamber,” said Alleyn. “Those are the clothes she wore. She stood in a shaft of sunlight. My wife made a drawing of her standing as she is here. The photograph must have been taken from outside a window. One of those instant self-developing jobs.”

Dr. Carmichael said: “What should we do? I feel helpless.”

“So, believe me, do I! Reece tells me I am to ‘take charge,’ which is all very well, but I have no real authority.”

“Oh — surely!”

“I can only assume it until the local police take over. And when that will be depends on this blasted ‘Rosser’ and the telephone breakdown.”

“I heard the young man who seems to be more or less in charge — I don’t know his name—”

“Hanley.”

“—say that if the Lake got rougher the launch man would stay on the mainland and sleep on board or in the boatshed. He was going to flash a lamp when they got there from the second trip to show they were all right. I think Hanley said something about him ringing a bell, though how they could expect anyone to hear it through the storm, I can’t imagine.”

“Eru Johnstone said the ‘Rosser’ usually lasts about twenty-four hours.”

“In the meantime—?” Dr. Carmichael motioned with his head, indicating the bed and its occupant. “What should be the drill? Usually?”

“An exhaustive examination of the scene. Nothing moved until the crime squad have gone over the ground: photographer, dabs — fingerprints — pathologist’s first report. See any self-respecting whodunit,” said Alleyn.

“So we cover her up and maintain a masterly inactivity?”

Alleyn waited for a moment or two. “As it happens,” he said, “I have got my own working camera with me. My wife has a wide camel’s-hair watercolor brush. Talc powder would work all right. It’s a hell of a time since I did this sort of fieldwork, but I think I can manage. When it’s done the body can be covered.”

“Can I be of help?”

Alleyn hesitated for a very brief moment and then said, “I’d be very glad of your company and of your help. You will of course be asked to give evidence at the inquest, and I’d like to have a witness to my possibly irregular activities.”

“Right.”

“So if you don’t mind, I’ll leave you here while I collect what I need and see my wife. And I suppose I’d better have a word with Hanley and the hangovers in the drawing room. I won’t be long.”

“Good.”

An onslaught of wind shook the window frames.

“Not much letting up out there,” Alleyn said. He parted the heavy curtains. “By George!” he exclaimed. “He’s signaling! Have a look.”

Dr. Carmichael joined him. Out in the blackness a pinpoint of light appeared, held for a good second, and went out. It did this three times. A pause followed. The light reappeared for a full second, was followed by a momentary flash and then a long one. A pause and the performance was repeated.

“Is that Morse?” asked the doctor.

“Yes, It reads ‘O.K.’ ” said Alleyn. “Somewhat ironically, under the circumstances. It was to let us know they’d made it in the launch.”

The signals were repeated.

“Here!” Alleyn said. “Before he goes. Quick. Open up.”

They opened the curtain wide. Alleyn ran to the group of light switches on the wall and threw them all on.

The Sommita, gaping on her bed, was, as she had always demanded she should be, fully lit.

Alleyn blacked out. “Don’t say anything,” he begged the doctor, “or I’ll muck it up. Do you know Morse?”

“No.”

“Oh, for a tiny Boy Scout. Here goes, then.”

Using both hands on the switches, he began to signal. The Sommita flashed up and out, up and out. The storm lashed the windows, the switches clicked: Dot, dot, dot. Dash dash dash and Dot, dot, dot.

He waited. “If he’s still watching,” he said, “he’ll reply.”

And after a daunting interval, he did. The point of light reappeared and vanished.

Alleyn began again, slowly, laboriously: “S.O.S. Urgent. Contact. Police. Murder.” And again: “S.O.S. Urgent. Contact. Police. Murder.”

He did it three times and waited an eternity.

And at last the acknowledgment.

“Roger.”

Alleyn said: “Let’s hope it works. I’ll be off. If you’d rather leave the room, get a key from the housekeeper. Lock it from the outside and wait for me on the landing. There’s a chair behind a screen. Half a minute; I’d better just look round here before I go.”

There was another door in the Sommita’s enormous bedroom: it opened into her bathroom, an extraordinarily exotic apartment carpeted in crimson with a built-in dressing table and a glass surrounded by lights and flanked by shelves thronged with flasks, atomizers, jars, boxes and an arrangement of crystal flowers in a Venetian vase.

Alleyn looked at the hand basin. It was spotless but damp and the soap, wet. Of the array of scarlet towels on heated rails, one was wet, but unstained.

He returned to the bedroom and had a quick look around. On the bedside table was a full cup of some milky concoction. It was still faintly warm and a skin had formed on top. Beside this was a glass of water and a bottle of tablets of a well-known proprietary brand. One had been laid out beside the water.

Dr. Carmichael met Alleyn at the door. They left the room together. Alleyn took charge of the key, and locked the door.

“If it’s all right,” said the doctor. “I thought I’d have a look at the young chap. He was rather under the weather after that faint.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “So I gathered. Did you look after him?”

“Reece asked me to. The secretary came round to the front in a great taking-on. I went backstage with him.”

“Good. What did you find?”

“I found Bartholomew coming to, Madame Sommita shaking him like a rabbit, and that Italian singing master of hers— Lattienzo — ordering her to stop. She burst out crying and left. Reece followed her. I suppose it was then that she came upstairs. The ingenue — little Miss Parry — had the good sense to bring a glass of water for the boy. We got him to a seat and from there, when he was ready for it, to his room. Lattienzo offered to give him one of his own sleeping pills and put him to bed, but he wanted to be left to himself. I returned to the drawing room. If it’s O.K. by you, I think I’ll take a look-see at him.”

“Certainly. I’d like to come with you.”

“Would you?” said Dr. Carmichael, surprised. And then: “I see. Or do I? You’re checking up. Right?”

“Well — sort of. Hold on a jiffy, will you?”

Below in the hall a door had shut and he caught the sound of a bolt being pushed home. He went to the head of the stairs and looked down. There was the unmistakable, greatly foreshortened figure of their driver: short ginger hair and heavy shoulders. He was coming away from the front door and had evidently been locking up. What was his name? Ah, yes. Bert.

Alleyn gave a not too loud whistle between his teeth. “Hi! Bert!” he said. The head tilted back and the dependable face was presented. Alleyn beckoned and Bert came upstairs.

“G’day,” he said. “This is no good. Murder, eh?”

Alleyn said: “Look, do you feel like lending a hand? Dr. Carmichael and I have got a call to make, but I don’t want to leave this landing unguarded. Would you be a good chap and stay here? We won’t be too long. I hope.”

“She’ll be right,” said Bert. And then, with a motion of his head toward the bedroom door: “Would that be where it is?”

“Yes. The door’s locked.”

“But you reckon somebody might get nosy?”

“Something like that. How about it?”

“I don’t mind,” said Bert. “Got it all on your own, eh?”

“With Dr. Carmichael. I would be grateful. Nobody, no matter who, is to go in.”

“Good as gold,” said Bert.

So they left him there, lounging in the chair behind the screen.

“Come on,” Alleyn said to Dr. Carmichael. “Where’s his room?”

“This way.”

They were passing the studio door. Alleyn said, “Half a second, will you?” and went in. Troy was sitting on the edge of the throne looking desolate. She jumped to her feet.

He said, “You know about it?”

“Signor Lattienzo came and told me. Rory, how terrible!”

“I know. Wait here. All right? Or would you rather go to bed?”

“I’m all right. I don’t think I really believe it has happened.”

“I won’t be long, I promise.”

“Don’t give it another throught. I’m O.K., Rory. Signor Lattienzo seems to think it was Strix — the photographer. Is that possible?”

“Remotely, I suppose.”

“I don’t quite believe in the photographer.”

“If you want to talk about it, we will. In the meantime could you look me out my camera, a big sable brush and a squirt-thing of talc powder?”

“Certainly. There are at least three of the latter in our bathroom. Why,” asked Troy, rallying, “do people perpetually give each other talc powder and never use it themselves?”

“We must work it out when we’ve the leisure,” said Alleyn. “I’ll come back for the things.”

He kissed her and rejoined the doctor.

Rupert Bartholomew’s room was two doors along the passage. Dr. Carmichael stopped. “He doesn’t know,” he said. “Unless, of course, someone has come up and told him.”

“If he’s taken Lattienzo’s pill he’ll be asleep.”

“Should be. But it’s one of the mildest sort.”

Dr. Carmichael opened the door and Alleyn followed him.

Rupert was not asleep. Nor had he undressed. He was sitting upright on his bed with his arms clasped round his knees. He looked very young.

“Hello!” said Dr. Carmichael. “What’s all this? You ought to be sound asleep.” He looked at the bedside table with its switched-on lamp, glass of water, and the tablet lying beside it. “So you haven’t taken your Lattienzo pill,” he said. “What’s that?”

“I didn’t want it. I want to know what’s happening. All that screaming and rushing about.” He looked at Alleyn. “Was it her? Bella? Was it because of me? I want to know. What have I done?”

Dr. Carmichael slid his fingers over Rupert’s wrist. “You haven’t done anything,” he said. “Calm down.”

“Then what—?”

“The rumpus,” Alleyn said, “was nothing to do with you. As far as we know. Nothing. It was Maria who screamed.”

An expression that in less dramatic circumstances might almost have been described as huffy appeared and faded: Rupert looked at them out of the corners of his eyes. “Then, why did Maria scream?” he asked.

Alleyn exchanged a glance with the doctor, who slightly nodded his head.

“Well?” Rupert demanded.

“Because,” Alleyn said, “there has been a disaster. A tragedy. A death. It will be a shock to you, but as far as we can see, which admittedly is not very far, there is no reason to link it with what happened after the performance. You will have to know of it and there would be no point in holding it back.”

“A death? Do you mean—? You can’t mean—? Bella?”

“I’m afraid — yes.”

“Bella?” Rupert said and sounded incredulous. “Bella? Dead?”

“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?”

There was a long silence, broken by Rupert.

“But — why? What was it? Was it heart failure?”

“You could say,” Dr. Carmichael observed with a macabre touch of the professional whimsy sometimes employed by doctors, “that all deaths are due to heart failure.”

“Do you know if she had any heart trouble at all?” Alleyn asked Rupert.

“She had high blood pressure. She saw a specialist in Sydney.”

“Do you know who?”

“I’ve forgotten. Monty will know. So will Ned Hanley.”

“Was it a serious condition, did you gather?”

“She was told to — to slow down. Not get overexcited. That sort of thing.” He looked at them with what seemed to be apprehension.

“Should I see her?” he mumbled.

“No,” they both said quickly. He breathed out a sigh.

“I can’t get hold of this,” he said and shook his head slowly. “I can’t get hold of it at all. I can’t sort of seem to believe it.”

“The best thing you can do,” said Dr. Carmichael, “is to take this tablet and settle down. There’s absolutely nothing else you can do.”

“Oh. Oh, I see. Well: all right, then,” he replied with a strange air of speaking at random. “But I’ll put myself to bed, if you don’t mind.”

He took the tablet, drank the water and leaned back, staring in front of him. “Extraordinary!” he said and closed his eyes.

Alleyn and Carmichael waited for a minute or two. Rupert opened his eyes and turned off the bedside lamp. Disconcerted, they moved to the door.

“Thank you,” said Rupert in the dark. “Goodnight.”

When they were in the passage Carmichael said: “That was a very odd little conversation.”

“It was, rather.”

“You’d have almost said — well — I mean—”

“What?”

“That he was relieved. Don’t get me wrong. He’s had a shock — I mean that extraordinary apology for his opera, which I must say I didn’t find very impressive, and his faint. His pulse is still a bit erratic. But the reaction,” Carmichael repeated, “was odd, didn’t you think?”

“People do tend to behave oddly when they hear of death. I’m sure you’ve found that, haven’t you? In this case I rather think there has actually been a sense of release.”

“A release? From what?”

“Oh,” said Alleyn, “from a tricky situation. From extreme anxiety. High tension. Didn’t somebody say — was it Shaw? — that after the death of even one’s closest and dearest, there is always a sensation of release. And relief.”

Carmichael made the noise that is written “Humph.” He gave Alleyn a speculative look. “You didn’t,” he said, “tell him it was murder.”

“No. Time enough in the morning. He may as well enjoy the benefit of the Lattienzo pill.”

Dr. Carmichael said “Humph” again.

Alleyn returned to Troy, who had the camera, brush, and talc powder ready for him.

“How is that boy?” she asked. “How has he taken it?”

“On the whole, very well. Remarkably well.”

“Perhaps he’s run out of emotional reactions,” said Troy. “He’s been fully extended in that department.”

“Perhaps he has. You’re the wisest of downy owls and had better go to roost. I’m off, and it looks like being one of those nights.”

“Oh, for Br’er Fox and Thompson and Bailey?”

“You can say that again. And oh, for you to be in your London nest thirteen thousand miles away, which sounds like the burden of a ballad,” said Alleyn. “But as you’re here, you’d better turn the key in your lock when you go to bed.”

“Me!” said Troy incredulously. “Why?”

“So that I’ll be obliged to wake you up,” said Alleyn and left her.

He asked Bert to continue his vigil.

Dr. Carmichael said: “But I don’t quite see — I mean, you’ve got the key.”

“There may be other keys and other people may have them. If Bert sits behind that screen he can see anyone who tries to effect an entry.”

“I can’t imagine anyone wanting to go back. Not even her murderer.”

“Can’t you?” said Alleyn. “I can.”

He and Dr. Carmichael went downstairs to the drawing room leaving Bert on guard.

A wan little trio of leftovers was there: Hilda Dancy, Sylvia Parry, Lattienzo. Mr. Reece, Alleyn gathered, was closeted with Ben Ruby and Hanley in the study. The drawing room had only been half-tidied of its preprandial litter when the news broke. It was tarnished with used champagne glasses, full ashtrays, and buckets of melted ice. The fire had burned down to embers, and when Alleyn came in Signor Lattienzo was gingerly dropping a small log on them.

Miss Dancy at once tackled Alleyn. Was it, she boomed, true that he was in charge? If so would he tell them exactly what had happened. Had the Sommita really been done away with? Did this mean there was a murderer at large in the house? How had she been done away with?

Signor Lattienzo had by this time stationed himself behind Miss Dancy in order to make deprecating faces at Alleyn.

“We have a right to be told,” said the masterful Miss Dancy.

“And told you shall be,” Alleyn replied. “Between one and two hours ago Madame Sommita was murdered in her bedroom. That is all that any of us knows. I have been asked by Mr. Reece to take charge until such time as the local police can be informed. I’m going to organize a search of the premises. There are routine questions that should be asked of everybody who was in the house after the last launch trip. If you would prefer to go to your rooms, please do so but with the knowledge that I may be obliged to call on you when the search is completed. I’m sure Signor Lattienzo will be pleased to escort you to your rooms.”

Signor Lattienzo gave slightly incoherent assurances that he was theirs, dear ladies, to command.

“I’m staying where I am,” Miss Dancy decided. “What about you, dear?”

“Yes. Yes, so am I,” Sylvia Parry decided, and to Alleyn: “Does Rupert know? About Madame Sommita?”

“Dr. Carmichael and I told him.”

Dr. Carmichael made diffident noises.

“It will have been a terrible shock for Rupert,” said Sylvia. “For everybody, of course, but specially for Rupert. After— what happened.” And with an air of defiance she added: “I think Rupert did a very brave thing. It took an awful lot of guts.”

“We all know that, dear,” said Miss Dancy with a kind of gloomy cosiness.

Alleyn said, “Before I go, I wonder if you’d tell me exactly what happened after Bartholomew fainted.”

Their account was put together like a sort of unrehearsed duet with occasional stoppages when they disagreed about details and called upon Signor Lattienzo. It seemed that as soon as Rupert fell, Hanley, who was standing by, said, “Curtains” and closed them himself. Sylvia Parry knelt down by Rupert and loosened his collar and tie. Roberto Rodolfo said something about fresh air and fanned Rupert with his biblical skirt. The Sommita, it appeared, after letting out an abortive shriek, stifled herself with her own hand, looked frantically round the assembly, and then flung herself upon the still unconscious Rupert with such abandon that it was impossible to decide whether she was moved by remorse or fury. It was at this point that Signor Lattienzo arrived, followed in turn by Mr. Reece and Ben Ruby.

As far as Alleyn could make out, these three men lost no time in tackling the diva in a very businesslike manner, detaching her from Rupert and suggesting strongly that she go to her room. From here the narrative followed, more or less, the accounts already given by Signor Lattienzo and the doctor. Mr. Reece accompanied the Sommita out of the concert hall, which was by this time emptied of its audience, and was understood to conduct her to her room. Hanley fetched Dr. Carmichael, and Sylvia Parry fetched water. Rupert, when sufficiently recovered, was removed to his room by the doctor and Signor Lattienzo, who fetched the sleeping tablet and placed it on the bedside table. Rupert refused all offers to help him undress and get into bed, so they left him and went down to dinner. The ladies and the rest of the cast were already at table.

“After Hanley had fetched Dr. Carmichael, what did he do?” Alleyn asked.

Nobody had noticed. Miss Dancy said that he “seemed to be all over the shop” and Sylvia thought it had been he who urged them into the dining room.

On this vague note Alleyn left them.

In the hall he ran into the ubiquitous Hanley, who said that the entire staff was assembled in their sitting room awaiting instructions. Alleyn gathered that Maria had, so to put it, “stolen the show.” The New Zealand members of the staff — they of the recently bankrupt luxury hotel, including the chef and housekeeper — had grown restive under recurrent onsets of Maria’s hysteria, modeled, Alleyn guessed, upon those of her late employer.

The staff sitting room, which in less democratic days would have been called the servants’ hall, was large, modern in design, gaily furnished, and equipped with color television, a Ping-Pong table, and any number of functional armchairs. The housekeeper, who turned out to be called, with Congrevean explicitness, Mrs. Bacon, sat apart from her staff but adjacent to Mr. Reece. She was a well-dressed, personable lady of capable appearance. Behind her was a subdued bevy of two men and three girls, the ex-hotel staff, Alleyn assumed, that she brought with her to the Lodge.

Hanley continued in his role of restless dogsbody and hovered, apparently in readiness for something unexpected to turn up, near the door.

Alleyn spoke briefly. He said he knew how shocked and horrified they all must be and assured them that he would make as few demands upon them as possible.

“I’m sure,” he said, “that you all wonder if there is a connection between this appalling crime and the recent activities of the elusive cameraman.” (And he wondered if Maria had noticed the photograph pinned to the body.) “You will, I daresay, be asking yourselves if yesterday’s intruder, whom we failed to hunt down, could be the criminal. I’m sure your search,” Alleyn said and managed to avoid a sardonic tone, “was extremely thorough. But in a case like this every possibility, however remote, should be explored. For that reason I am going to ask the men of the household to sort themselves into pairs and to search the whole of the indoor premises. I want the pairs to remain strictly together throughout the exercise. You will not go into Madame Sommita’s bedroom, which is now locked. Mr. Bartholomew has already gone to bed and you need not disturb him. Just look in quietly and make sure he is there. I must ask you simply to assure yourselves that there is no intruder in the house. Open any doors behind which someone might be hiding, look under beds and behind curtains, but don’t handle anything else. I am going to ask Mrs. Bacon and Mr. Hanley to supervise this operation.”

He turned to Mrs. Bacon. “Perhaps we might just have a word?” he suggested.

“Certainly,” she said. “In my office.”

“Good.” He looked around the assembled staff.

“I want you all to remain here,” he said. “We won’t keep you long. I’ll leave Dr. Carmichael in charge.”

Mrs. Bacon conducted Alleyn and Hanley to her office, which turned out to be a sitting room with a large desk in it.

She said: “I don’t know whether you gentlemen would care for a drink, but I do know I would,” and went to a cupboard, from which she produced a bottle of whiskey and three glasses. Alleyn didn’t want a drink but thought it politic to accept. Hanley said: “Oh, yes. Oh yes. Please.”

Alleyn said: “I see no point in pretending that I think the perpetrator of this crime has contrived to leave the island, nor do I think he is somewhere out there in the storm or skulking in the hangar. Mrs. Bacon, is the entire staff collected in there? Nobody missing?”

“No. I made sure of that.”

“Good. I think it will be best for you two, if you will, to apportion the various areas so that all are covered without overlapping. I’m not familiar enough with the topography of the Lodge to do this. I’ll cruise. But the guests will know their way about, presumably, after yesterday’s abortive search.”

Mrs. Bacon had watched him very steadily. He thought that this had probably been her manner in her hotel days when listening to complaints.

She said: “Am I wrong in understanding that you don’t believe the murderer was on the island yesterday? That the trespasser was not the murderer, in fact?”

Alleyn hesitated and then said: “I don’t think the murderer was a trespasser, no.”

Hanley said loudly: “Oh no! But you can’t — I mean — that would mean — I mean — oh no.”

“It would mean,” said Mrs. Bacon, still looking at Alleyn, “that Mr. Alleyn thinks Madame Sommita was murdered either by a guest or by a member of the household. That’s correct, Mr. Alleyn, isn’t it? By — if I can put it that way — one of us?”

“That is perfectly correct, Mrs. Bacon,” said Alleyn.