Photo Finish

Chapter seven Strix

i

When Alleyn and Dr. Carmichael joined Troy in the studio, rifts had appeared in the rampart of clouds and, at intervals, shafts of sunlight played fitfully across Lake Waihoe and struck up patches of livid green on mountain flanks that had begun to reappear through the mist.

The landing stage was still under turbulent water. No one could have used it. There were now no signs of Les on the mainland.

“You gave Mr. Reece a bit of a shakeup,” said Dr. Carmichael. “Do you think he was right when he said the idea had never entered his head?”

“What, that Marco was Strix? Who can tell? I imagine Marco has been conspicuously zealous in the anti-Strix cause. His reporting an intruder on the Island topped up with his production of the lens cap was highly convincing. Remember how you all plunged about in the undergrowth? I suppose you assisted in the search for nobody, didn’t you?”

“Blast!” said Dr. Carmichael.

“Incidentally, the cap was a mistake, a fancy touch too many. It’s off a mass-produced camera, probably his own, as it were, official toy and not at all the sort of job that Strix must use to get his results. Perhaps he didn’t want to part with the Strix cap and hadn’t quite got the nerve to produce it, or perhaps it hasn’t got a cap.”

“Why,” asked Troy, “did he embark on all that nonsense about an intruder?”

“Well, darling, don’t you think because he intended to take a ‘Strix’ photograph of the Sommita — his bonne bouche—and it seemed advisable to plant the idea that a visiting Strix was lurking in the underbrush. But the whole story of the intruder was fishy. The search party was a shocking-awful carry-on, but by virtue of sheer numbers one of you would have floundered into an intruder if he’d been there.”

“And you are certain,” said Dr. Carmichael, “that he is not your man?”

“He couldn’t be. He was waiting in the dining room and busy in the hall until the guests left and trotting to and from the launch with an umbrella while they were leaving.”

“And incidentally on the porch, with me, watching the launch after they had gone. Yes. That’s right,” agreed Dr. Carmichael.

“Is Mr. Reece going to tackle him about Strix?” Troy asked.

“Not yet. He says he’s not fully persuaded. He prefers to leave it with me.”

“And you?”

“I’m trying to make up my mind. On the whole I think it may be best to settle Strix before the police get here.”

“Now?”

“Why not?”

Troy said: “Of course he knows you’re onto it. After your breakfast tray remarks.”

“He’s got a pretty good idea of it, at least,” said Alleyn and put his thumb on the bell.

“Perhaps he won’t come.”

“I think he will. What’s the alternative? Fling himself into the billowy wave and do a Leander for the mainland?”

“Shall I disappear?” offered Dr. Carmichael.

“And I?” said Troy.

“Not unless you’d rather. After all, I’m not going to arrest him.”

“Oh? Not?” they said.

“Why would I do that? For being Strix? I’ve no authority. Or do you think we might borrow him for being a public nuisance or perhaps for false pretenses? On my information he’s never actually conned anybody. He’s just dressed himself up funny-like and taken unflattering photographs. There’s the forged letter in the Watchman, of course. That might come within the meaning of some act: I’d have to look it up. Oh, yes, and makes himself out to be a gentleman’s gent, with forged references, I daresay.”

“Little beast,” said Troy. “Cruel little pig, tormenting her like that. And everybody thinking it a jolly joke. And the shaming thing is, it was rather funny.”

“That’s the worst of ill-doing, isn’t it? It so often has its funny side. Come to think of it, I don’t believe I could have stuck my job out if it wasn’t so. The earliest playwrights knew all about that: their devils more often than not were clowns and their clowns were always cruel. Here we go.”

There had been a tap at the door. It opened and Marco came in.

He was an unattractive shade of yellow but otherwise looked much as usual.

He said: “You rang, sir?”

“Yes,” Alleyn agreed. “I rang. I’ve one or two questions to ask you. First, about the photograph you took yesterday afternoon through the window of the concert chamber. Did you put the print in the letter-bag?”

“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

“Yes, you do. You are Strix. You got yourself into your present job with the intention of following up your activities with the camera. Stop me if I’m wrong. But on second thoughts you’re more likely to stop me if I’m right, aren’t you? Did you see the advertisement for a personal servant for Mr. Reece in the paper? Did it occur to you that as a member of Mr. Reece’s entourage you would be able to learn a lot more about Madame Sommita’s programs for the day? On some occasion when she was accompanied by Mr. Reece or when Mr. Reece was not at home and you were not required, you would be able to pop out to a room you kept for the purpose, dress yourself up like a sore thumb, startle her, and photograph her with her mouth open looking ridiculous. You would hand the result in to the press and notch up another win. It was an impudently bold decision and it worked. You gave satisfaction as a valet and came here with your employer.”

Marco had assumed an air of casual insolence.

“Isn’t it marvelous,” he asked of nobody in particular and shrugged elaborately.

“You took yesterday’s photograph with the intention of sending it back to the Watchman and through them to the chain of newspapers with whom you’ve syndicated your productions. I know you did this. Your footprints are underneath the window. I fancy this was to be your final impertinence and that having knocked it off you would have given in your notice, claimed your money, retired to some inconspicuous retreat, and written your autobiography.”

“No comment,” said Marco.

“I didn’t really suppose there would be. Do you know where that photograph is now? Do you, Marco?”

“I don’t know anything about any — ing photograph,” said Marco, whose Italian accent had become less conspicuous and his English a good deal more idiomatic.

“It is skewered by a dagger to your victim’s dead body.”

“My victim! She was not my victim. Not—” He stopped.

“Not in the sense of your having murdered her, were you going to say?”

“Not in any sense. I don’t,” said Marco, “know what you’re talking about.”

“And I don’t expect there’ll be much trouble about finding your fingerprints on the glossy surface.”

Marco’s hand went to his mouth.

“Come,” Alleyn said, “don’t you think you’re being unwise? What would you say if I told you your room will be searched?”

“Nothing!” said Marco loudly. “I would say nothing. You’re welcome to search my room.”

“Do you carry the camera — is it a Strassman, by the way? — on you? How about searching you?”

“You have no authority.”

“That is unfortunately correct. See here, Marco. Just take a look at yourself. I shall tell the police what I believe to be the facts: that you are Strix, that you took the photograph now transfixed over Madame Sommita’s heart, that it probably carries your fingerprints. If it does not it is no great matter. Faced by police investigation, the newspapers that bought your photographs will identify you.”

“They’ve never seen me,” Marco said quickly and then looked as if he could have killed himself.

“It was all done by correspondence, was it?”

“They’ve never seen me because I’m not — I’ve never had anything to do with them. You’re putting words in my mouth.”

“Your Strix activities have come to an end. The woman you tormented is dead, you’ve made a packet and will make more if you write a book. With illustrations. The only thing that is likely to bother you is the question of how the photograph got from your camera to the body. The best thing you can do if you’re not the murderer of Isabella Sommita is help us find out who is. If you refuse, you remain a prime suspect.”

Marco looked from Troy to Dr. Carmichael and back to Troy again. It was as if he asked for their advice. Troy turned away to the studio window.

Dr. Carmichael said: “You’d much better come across, you know. You’ll do yourself no good by holding back.”

There was a long silence.

“Well,” said Marco at last and stopped.

“Well?” said Alleyn.

“I’m not admitting anything.”

“But suppose—?” Alleyn prompted.

“Suppose, for the sake of argument, Strix took the shot you talk about. What would he do with it? He’d post it off to the Watchman, at once, wouldn’t he? He’d put it in the mailbox to be taken away in the bag.”

“Or,” Alleyn suggested, “to avoid Mr. Hanley noticing it when he cleared the box, he might slip it directly into the mailbag while it was still unlocked and waiting in the study.”

“He might do that.”

“Is that what you’d say he did?”

“I don’t say what he did. I don’t know what he did.”

“Did you know the mailbag was forgotten last night and is still on the premises?”

Marco began to look very scared. “No,” he said. “Is it?”

“So if our speculation should turn out to be the truth: if you put the photograph, addressed to the Watchman, in the mailbag, the question is: who removed it? Who impaled it on the body? If, of course, you didn’t.”

“It is idiotic to persist in this lie. Why do you do it? Where for me is the motive? Suppose I were Strix? So. I kill the goose that lays the golden egg? Does it make sense? So: after all, the man who takes the photograph does not post it. He is the murderer and he leaves it on the body.”

“What is your surname?”

“Smith.”

“I see.”

“It is Smith,” Marco shouted. “Why do you look like that? Why should it not be Smith? Is there a law against Smith? My father was an American.”

“And your mother?”

“A Calabrian. Her name was Croce. I am Marco Croce Smith. Why?”

“Have you any Rossis in your family?”

“None. Again, why?”

“There is an enmity between the Rossis and Madame Sommita’s family.”

“I know nothing of it,” said Marco and then burst out, “How could I have done it? When was it done? I don’t even know when it was done, but all the time from when the opera is ended until Maria found her, I am on duty. You saw me. Everybody saw me. I wait at table. I attend in the hall. I go to and from the launch. I have alibis.”

“That may be true. But you may also have had a collaborator.”

“You are mad.”

“I am telling you how the police will think.”

“It is a trap. You try to trap me.”

“If you choose to put it like that. I want, if you didn’t do it, to satisfy myself that you didn’t. I want to get you out of the way. I believe you to be Strix, and as Strix I think your activities were despicable, but I do not accuse you of murder. I simply want you to tell me if you put the photograph in the postbag. In an envelope addressed to the Watchman.”

There followed a silence. The sun now shone in at the studio windows on the blank canvas and the empty model’s throne. Outside a tui sang: a deep lucid phrase, uncivilized as snow water and ending in a consequential clatter as if it cleared its throat. You darling, thought Troy, standing by the window, and knew that she could not endure to stay much longer inside this clever house with its arid perfections and its killed woman in the room on the landing.

Marco said: “I surmise it was in the postbag. I do not know. I do not say I put it there.”

“And the bag was in the study?”

“That is where it is kept.”

“When was the letter put in it? Immediately after the photograph was taken? Or perhaps only just before the postbox was emptied into it and it was locked.”

Marco shrugged.

“And finally — crucially — when was the photograph removed, and by whom, and stabbed onto the body?”

“Of that I know nothing. Nothing, I tell you,” said Marco and then with sudden venom, “but I can guess.”

“Yes?”

“It is simple. Who clears the postbox always? Always! Who? I have seen him. He puts his arms into the bag and rounds it with his hands to receive the box and then he opens the box and holds it inside the bag to empty itself. Who?”

“Mr. Hanley?”

“Ah. The secretary. Il favorito,” said Marco and achieved an angry smirk. He bowed in Troy’s direction. “Excuse me, madam,” he said. “It is not a suitable topic.”

“Did you actually see Mr. Hanley do this, last evening?”

“No, sir.”

“Very well,” said Alleyn. “You may go.”

He went out with a kind of mean flourish and did not quite bang the door.

“He’s a horrible little man,” said Troy, “but I don’t think he did it.”

“Nor I,” Dr. Carmichael agreed.

“His next move,” said Alleyn, “will be to hand in his notice and wait for the waters to subside.”

“Sling his hook?”

“Yes.”

“Will you let him?”

“I can’t stop him. The police may try to, or I suppose Reece could simply deny him transport.”

“Do you think Reece believes Marco is Strix?”

“If ever there was a clam, its middle name was Reece, but I think he does.”

“Are you any further on?” asked the doctor.

“A bit. I wish I’d found out whether Marco knows who took his bloody snapshot out of the bag. If ever it was in the bloody bag, which is conjectural. It’s so boring of him not to admit he put it in. If he did.”

“He almost admitted something, didn’t he?” said Troy.

“He’s trying to work it out whether it would do him more good or harm to come clean.”

“I suppose,” hazarded Dr. Carmichael, “that whoever it was, Hanley or anyone else, who removed the photograph, it doesn’t follow he was the killer.”

“Not as the night the day. No.”

Troy suddenly said: “Having offered to make beds, I suppose I’d better make them. Do you think Miss Dancy would be outraged if I asked her to bear a hand? I imagine the little Sylvia is otherwise engaged.”

“Determined to maintain the house party tone against all hazards, are you, darling?” said her husband.

“That’s right. The dinner-jacket-in-the-jungle spirit.”

Dr. Carmichael gazed at Troy in admiration and surprise. “I must say, Mrs. Alleyn, you set us all an example. How many beds do you plan to make?”

“I haven’t counted.”

“The round dozen or more,” teased Alleyn, “and God help all those who sleep in them.”

“He’s being beastly,” Troy remarked. “I’m not all that good at bed-making. I’ll just give Miss Dancy a call, I think.”

She consulted the list of room numbers by the telephone. Dr. Carmichael joined Alleyn at the windows. “It really is clearing,” he said. “The wind’s dropping. And I do believe the Lake’s settling.”

“Yes, it really is.”

“What do you suppose will happen first, the telephone be reconnected, or the launch engine be got going or the police appear on the far bank or the chopper turn up?”

“Lord knows.”

Troy said into the telephone, “Of course I understand. Don’t give it another thought. We’ll meet at lunchtime. Oh. Oh, I see. I’m so sorry. Yes, I think you’re very wise. No, no news. Awful, isn’t it?”

She hung up. “Miss Dancy has got a migraine,” she said. “She sounds very Wagnerian. Well, I’d better make the best I can of the beds.”

“You’re not going round on your own, Troy.”

“Aren’t I? But why?”

“It’s inadvisable.”

“But, Rory, I promised Mrs. Bacon.”

“To hell with Mrs. Bacon. I’ll tell her it’s not on. They can make their own bloody beds. I’ve made ours,” said Alleyn. “I’d go round with you but I don’t think that’d do, either.”

“I’ll make beds with you, Mrs. Alleyn,” offered Dr. Carmichael in a sprightly manner.

“That’s big of you, Carmichael,” said Alleyn. “I daresay all the rooms will be locked. Mrs. Bacon will have spare keys.”

“I’ll find out.”

Troy said: “You can pretend it’s a hospital. You’re the matron and I’m a hamfisted probationer. I’ll just go along to our palatial suite for a moment. Rejoin you here.”

When she had gone, Alleyn said: “She’s hating this. You can always tell if she goes all joky. I’ll be glad to get her out of it.”

“If I may say so, you’re a lucky man.”

“You may indeed say so.”

“Perhaps a brisk walk round the Island when we’ve done our chores.”

“A splendid idea. In a way,” Alleyn said, “this bed-making nonsense might turn out to be handy. I’ve no authority to search, of course, but you two might just keep your eyes skinned.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Not a thing. But you never know. The skinned eye and a few minor liberties.”

“I’ll see about the keys,” said Dr. Carmichael happily and bustled off.

ii

Alleyn wondered if he were about to take the most dangerous decision of his investigative career. If he took this decision and failed, not only would he make an egregious ass of himself before the New Zealand police but he would effectively queer the pitch for their subsequent investigations and probably muck up any chance of an arrest. Or would he? In the event of failure was there no chance of a new move, a strategy in reserve, a surprise attack? If there was, he was damned if he knew what it could be.

He went over the arguments again: The time factor. The riddle of the keys. The photograph. The conjectural motive. The appalling conclusion. He searched for possible alternatives to each of these and could find none.

He resurrected the dusty old bit of investigative folklore: “If all explanations except one fail, then that one, however outrageous, will be the answer.”

And, God knew, they were dealing with the outrageous.

So he made up his mind and, having done that, went downstairs and out into the watery sunshine for a breather.

All the guests had evidently been moved by the same impulse. They were abroad on the Island in pairs and singly. Whereas earlier in the morning Alleyn had likened those of them who had come out into the landscape to surrealistic details; now, while still wildly anachronistic, as was the house itself, in their primordial setting, they made him think of persons in a poem by Verlaine or perhaps by Edith Sitwell. Signor Lattienzo, in his Tyrolean cape and his gleaming eyeglass, stylishly strolled beside Mr. Ben Ruby, who smoked a cigar and was rigged out for the country in a brand new Harris tweed suit. Rupert Bartholomew, wan in corduroy, his hair romantically disordered, his shoulders hunched, stood by the tumbled shore and stared over the Lake. And was himself stared at, from a discreet distance, by the little Sylvia Parry with a scarlet handkerchief around her head. Even the stricken Miss Dancy had braved the elements. Wrapped up, scarfed, and felt-hatted, she paced alone up and down a gravel path in front of the house as if it were the deck of a cruiser.

To her from indoors came Mr. Reece in his custom-built outfit straight from pages headed “Rugged Elegance: For Him” in the glossiest of periodicals. He wore a peaked cap, which he raised ceremoniously to Miss Dancy, who immediately engaged him in conversation, clearly of an emotional kind. But he’s used to that, thought Alleyn, and noticed how Mr. Reece balanced Miss Dancy’s elbow in his pigskin grasp as he squired her on her promenade.

He had thought they completed the number of persons in the landscape until he caught sight, out of the corner of his eye, of some movement near one of the great trees near the Lake. Ned Hanley was standing there. He wore a dark green coat and sweater and merged with his background. He seemed to survey the other figures in the picture.

One thing they all had in common, and that was a tendency to halt and stare across the Lake or shade their eyes, tip back their heads, and look eastward into the fast-thinning clouds. He had been doing this himself.

Mr. Ben Ruby spied him, waved his cigar energetically, and made toward him. Alleyn advanced and at close quarters found Mr. Ruby looking the worse for wear and self-conscious.

“ ’Morning, old man,” said Mr. Ruby. “Glad to see you. Brightening up, isn’t it? Won’t be long now. We hope!”

“We do indeed.”

“You hope, anyway, I don’t mind betting. Don’t envy you your job. Responsibility without the proper backing, eh?”

“Something like that,” said Alleyn.

“I owe you an apology, old man. Last evening. I’d had one or two drinks. You know that?”

“Well—”

“What with one thing and another — the shock and that. I was all to pieces. Know what I mean?”

“Of course.”

“All the same — bad show. Very bad show.” said Mr. Ruby, shaking his head and then wincing.

“Don’t give it another thought.”

“Christ, I feel awful,” confided Mr. Ruby and threw away his cigar. “It was good brandy, too. The best. Special cognac. Wonder if this guy Marco could rustle up a corpse-reviver.”

“I daresay. Or Hanley might.”

Mr. Ruby made the sound that is usually written: “T’ss” and after a brief pause said in a deep voice and with enormous expression, “Bella! Bella Sommita! You can’t credit it, can you? The most beautiful woman with the most gorgeous voice God ever put breath into. Gone! And how! And what the hell we’re going to do about the funeral’s nobody’s business. I don’t know of any relatives. It’d be thoroughly in character if she’s left detailed instructions and bloody awkward ones at that. Pardon me, it slipped out. But it might mean cold storage to anywhere she fancied or ashes in the Adriatic.” He caught himself up and gave Alleyn a hard if bloodshot stare. “I suppose it’s out of order to ask if you’ve formed an idea?”

“It is, really. At this stage,” Alleyn said, “we must wait for the police.”

“Yeah? Well, here’s hoping they know their stuff.” He reverted to his elegiac mood. “Bella!” he apostrophized. “After all these years of taking the rough with the smooth, if you can understand me. Hell, it hurts!”

“How long an association has it been?”

“You don’t measure grief by months and years,” Mr. Ruby said reproachfully. “How long? Let me see? It was on her first tour of Aussie. That would be in ’72. Under the Bel Canto management in association with my firm — Ben Ruby Associates. There was a disagreement with Bel Canto and we took over.”

Here Mr. Ruby embarked on a long parenthesis explaining that he was a self-made man, a Sydneysider who had pulled himself up by his own boot-strings and was proud of it and how the Sommita had understood this and had herself evolved from peasant stock.

“And,” said Alleyn when an opportunity presented itself, “a close personal friendship had developed with the business association?”

“This is right, old man. I reckon I understood her as well as anybody ever could. There was the famous temperament, mind, and it was a snorter while it lasted, but it never lasted long. She always sends — sent — for Maria to massage her shoulders, and that would do the trick. Back into the honied-kindness bit and everybody loving everybody.”

“Mr. Ruby — have you anything to tell me that might in however farfetched or remote a degree help to throw light on this tragedy?”

Mr. Ruby opened his arms wide and let them fall in the classic gesture of defeat.

“Nothing?” Alleyn said.

“This is what I’ve been asking myself ever since I woke up. When I got round, that is, to asking myself anything other than why the hell I had to down those cognacs.”

“And how do you answer yourself?”

Again the gesture. “I don’t,” Mr. Ruby confessed. “I can’t. Except—” He stopped, provokingly, and stared at Signor Lattienzo, who by now had arrived at the lakeside and contemplated the water rather, in his Tyrolean outfit, like some poet of the post-Romantic era.

“Except?” Alleyn prompted.

“Look!” Mr. Ruby invited. “Look at what’s been done and how it’s been done. Look at that. If you had to say — you, with your experience — what it reminded you of, what would it be? Come on.”

“Grand opera,” Alleyn said promptly.

Mr. Ruby let out a strangulated yelp and clapped him heavily on the back. “Good on you!” he cried. “Got it in one! Good on you, mate. And the Italian sort of grand opera, what’s more. That funny business with the dagger and the picture! Verdi would have loved it. Particularly the picture. Can you see any of us, supposing he was a murderer, doing it that way? That poor kid Rupert? Ned Hanley, never mind if he’s one of those? Monty? Me? You? Even if you’d draw the line at the props and the business. ‘No,’ you’d say; ‘no.’ Not that way. It’s not in character, it’s impossible, it’s not — it’s not—” and Mr. Ruby appeared to hunt excitedly for the mot juste of his argument. “It’s not British,” he finally pronounced and added: “Using the word in its widest sense. I’m a Commonwealth man myself.”

Alleyn had to give himself a moment or two before he was able to respond to this declaration.

“What you are saying,” he ventured, “in effect, is that the murderer must be one of the Italians on the premises. Is that right?”

“That,” said Mr. Ruby, “is dead right.”

“It narrows down the field of suspects,” said Alleyn dryly.

“It certainly does,” Mr. Ruby portentously agreed.

“Marco and Maria?”

“Right.”

During an uncomfortable pause Mr. Ruby’s rather bleary regard dwelt upon Signor Lattienzo in his windblown cape by the lakeside.

“And Signor Lattienzo, I suppose?” Alleyn suggested.

There was no reply.

“Have you,” Alleyn asked, “any reason, apart from the grand opera theory, to suspect one of these three?”

Mr. Ruby seemed to be much discomforted by this question. He edged with his toe at a grassy turf. He cleared his throat and looked aggrieved.

“I knew you’d ask that,” he said resentfully.

“It was natural, don’t you think, that I should?”

“I suppose so. Oh, yes. Too right it was. But listen. It’s a terrible thing to accuse anyone of. I know that. I wouldn’t want to say anything that’d unduly influence you. You know. Cause you to — to jump to conclusions or give you the wrong impression. I wouldn’t like to do that.”

“I don’t think it’s very likely.”

“No? You’d say that, of course. But I reckon you’ve done it already. I reckon like everyone else you’ve taken the old retainer stuff for real.”

“Are you thinking of Maria?”

“Too bloody right I am, mate.”

“Come on,” Alleyn said. “Get it off your chest. I won’t make too much of it. Wasn’t Maria as devoted as one was led to suppose?”

“Like hell she was! Well, that’s not correct either. She was devoted all right, but it was a flaming uncomfortable sort of devotion. Kind of dog-with-a-bone affair. Sometimes when they’d had a difference you’d have said it was more like hate. Jealous! She’s eaten up with it. And when Bella was into some new ‘friendship’—know what I mean? — Maria as likely as not would turn plug-ugly. She was even jealous in a weird sort of way, of the artistic triumphs. Or that’s the way it looked to me.”

“How did she take the friendship with Mr. Reece?”

“Monty?” A marked change came over Mr. Ruby. He glanced quickly at Alleyn as if he wondered whether he were unenlightened in some respect. He hesitated and then said quietly, “That’s different again, isn’t it?”

“Is it? How, ‘different’?”

“Well — you know.”

“But, I don’t know.”

“It’s platonic. Couldn’t be anything else.”

“I see.”

“Poor old Monty. Result of an illness. Cruel thing, really.”

“Indeed? So Maria had no cause to resent him.”

‘This is right. She admires him. They do, you know. Italians. Especially his class. They admire success and prestige more than anything else. It was a very different story when young Rupert came along. Maria didn’t worry about letting everyone see what she felt about that lot. I’d take long odds she’ll be telling you the kid done — did — it. That vindictive, she is. Fair go — I wouldn’t put it past her. Now.”

Alleyn considered for a moment or two. Signor Lattienzo had now joined Rupert Bartholomew on the lakeside and was talking energetically and clapping him on the shoulder. Mr. Reece and Miss Dancy still paced their imaginary promenade deck and the little Sylvia Parry, perched dejectedly on a rustic seat, watched Rupert.

Alleyn said: “Was Madame Sommita tolerant of these outbursts from Maria?”

“I suppose she must have been in her own way. There were terrible scenes, of course. That was to be expected, wasn’t it? Bella’d threaten Maria with the sack and Maria’d throw a fit of hysterics and then they’d both go weepy on it and we’d be back to square one with Maria standing behind Bella massaging her shoulders and swearing eternal devotion. Italians! My oath! But it was different, totally different — with the kid. I’d never seen her as far gone over anyone else as she was with him. Crazy about him. In at the deep end, boots and all. That’s why she took it so badly when he saw the light about that little opera of his and wanted to opt out. He was dead right, of course, but Bella hadn’t got any real musical judgment. Not really. You ask Beppo.”

“What about Mr. Reece?”

“Tone-deaf,” said Mr. Ruby.

“Really?”

“Fact. Doesn’t pretend to be anything else. He was annoyed with the boy for disappointing her, of course. As far as Monty was concerned, the diva had said the opus was great, and what she said had got to be right. And then of course he didn’t like the idea of throwing a disaster of a party. In a way,” said Mr. Ruby, “it was the Citizen Kane situation with the boot on another foot. Sort of.” He waited for a moment and then said: “I feel bloody sorry for that kid.”

“God knows, so do I,” said Alleyn.

“But he’s young. He’ll get over it. All the same, she’d a hell of a lot to answer for.”

“Tell me. You knew her as well as anybody, didn’t you? Does the name ‘Rossi’ ring a bell?”

“Rossi,” Mr. Ruby mused, “Rossi, eh? Hang on. Wait a sec.”

As if to prompt, or perhaps warn him, raucous hoots sounded from the jetty across the water, giving the intervals without the cadence of the familiar signing-off phrase “Dah dahdy dah-dah. Dah Dah.”

Les appeared on deck and could be seen to wave his scarlet cap.

The response from the islanders was instant. They hurried into a group. Miss Dancy flourished her woollen scarf. Mr. Reece raised his arm in a Roman salute. Signor Lattienzo lifted his Tyrolese hat high above his head. Sylvia ran to Rupert and took his arm. Hanley moved out of cover and Troy, Mrs. Bacon, and Dr. Carmichael came out of the house and pointed Les out to each other from the steps. Mr. Ruby bawled out, “He’s done it. Good on ’im, ’e’s done it.”

Alleyn took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and a spare from his overcoat. He went down to the lake edge and semaphored: “Nice Work.” Les returned to the wheelhouse and sent a short toot of acknowledgment.

The islanders chattered excitedly, telling each other that the signal must mean the launch was mobile again, that the Lake was undoubtedly calmer, and that when the police did arrive they would be able to cross. The hope that they themselves would all be able to leave remained unspoken.

They trooped up to the house and were shepherded in by Mr. Reece, who said, with somber playfulness, that “elevenses” were now served in the library.

Troy and Dr. Carmichael joined Alleyn. They seemed to be in good spirits. “We’ve finished our chores,” Troy said, “and we’ve got something to report. Let’s have a quick swallow, and join up in the studio.”

“Don’t make it too obvious,” said Alleyn, who was aware that he was now under close though furtive observation by most of the household. He fetched two blameless tomato juices for himself and Troy. They joined Rupert and Sylvia Parry, who were standing a little apart from the others and were not looking at each other. Rupert was still white about the gills but, or so Alleyn thought, rather less distraught — indeed there was perhaps a hint of portentousness, of self-conscious gloom in his manner.

She has provided him with an sudience, thought Alleyn. Let’s hope she knows what she’s letting herself in for.

Rupert said: “I’ve told Sylvia about — last night.”

“So I supposed,” said Alleyn.

“She thinks I was right.”

“Good.”

Sylvia said: “I think it took wonderful courage and artistic integrity and I do think it was right.”

“That’s a very proper conclusion.”

“It won’t be long now, will it?” Rupert asked. “Before the police come?” He pitched his voice rather high and brittle, with the sort of false airiness some actors employ when they hope to convey suppressed emotion.

“Probably not,” said Alleyn.

“Of course, I’ll be the prime suspect,” Rupert announced.

“Rupert, no,” Sylvia whispered.

“My dear girl, it sticks out a mile. After my curtain performance. Motive. Opportunity. The lot. We might as well face it.”

“We might as well not make public announcements about it,” Troy observed.

“I’m sorry,” said Rupert grandly. “No doubt I’m being silly.”

“Well,” Alleyn cheerfully remarked, “you said it. We didn’t. Troy, hadn’t we better sort out those drawings of yours?”

“O.K. Let’s. I’d forgotten.”

“She leaves them unfixed and tiles the floor with them,” Alleyn explained. “Our cat sat on a preliminary sketch of the Prime Minister and turned it into a jungle flower. Come on, darling.”

They found Dr. Carmichael already in the studio. “I didn’t want Reece’s ‘elevenses,’ ” he said. And to Troy: “Have you told him?”

“I waited for you,” said Troy.

They were, Alleyn thought, as pleased as Punch with themselves. “You tell him,” they said simultaneously. “Ladies first,” said the doctor.

“Come on,” said Alleyn.

Troy inserted her thin hand in a gingerly fashion into a large pocket of her dress. Using only her first finger and her thumb, she drew out something wrapped in one of Alleyn’s handkerchiefs. She was in the habit of using them, as she preferred a large one and she had been known when intent on her work to confuse the handkerchief and her paint rag, with regrettable results to the handkerchief and to her face.

She carried her trophy to the paint table and placed it there. Then, with a sidelong look at her husband, she produced two clean hoghair brushes and, using them upside down in the manner of chopsticks, fiddled open the handkerchief and stood back.

Alleyn walked over, put his arm across her shoulders, and looked at what she had revealed.

A large heavy envelope, creased and burned but not so extensively that an airmail stamp and part of the address were not still in evidence. The address was typewritten.

“Of course,” Troy said after a considerable pause, “it may be of no consequence at all, may it?”

“Suppose we have the full story?”

Their story was that they had gone some way with their housemaiding expedition when Troy decided to equip herself with a box-broom and a duster. They went downstairs in search of them and ran into Mrs. Bacon emerging from the study. She intimated that she was nearing the end of her tether. The staff, having gone through progressive stages of hysteria and suspicion, had settled for a sort of work-to-rule attitude and, with the exception of the chef, who had agreed to provide a very basic luncheon, and Marco, who was, said Mr. Bacon, abnormally quiet but did his jobs, either sulked in their rooms or muttered together in the staff sitting room. As far as Mrs. Bacon could make out, the New Zealand ex-hotel group suspected in turn Signor Lattienzo, Marco, and Maria on the score of their being Italians and Mr. Reece, whom they cast in the role of de facto cuckold. Rupert Bartholomew was fancied as an outside chance on the score of his having turned against the Sommita. Maria had gone to earth, supposedly in her room. Chaos, Mrs. Bacon said, prevailed.

Mrs. Bacon herself had rushed round the dining and drawing rooms while Marco set out the elevenses. She had then turned her attention to the study and found to her horror that the open fireplace had not been cleaned or the fire relaid. To confirm this, she had drawn their attention to a steel ashpan she herself carried in her rubber-gloved hands.

“And that’s when I saw it, Rory,” Troy explained. “It was sticking up out of the ashes and I saw what’s left of the address.”

“And she nudged me,” said Dr. Carmichael proudly, “and I saw it too.”

“And he behaved perfectly,” Troy intervened. “He said: ‘Do let me take that thing and tell me where to empty it. ’ And Mrs. Bacon said, rather wildly: ‘In the bin. In the yard,’ and made feeble protestations, and at that moment we all heard the launch hooting and she became distracted. So Dr. Carmichael got hold of the ashpan. And I — well — I—got hold of the envelope and put it in my pocket amongst your handkerchief, which happened to be there.”

“So it appears,” Dr. Carmichael summed up, “that somebody typed a communication of some sort to the Watchman and stamped the envelope, which he or somebody else then chucked on the study fire, and it dropped through the grate into the ashpan when it was only half-burnt. Or doesn’t it?”

“Did you get a chance to have a good look at the ashes?” asked Alleyn.

“Pretty good. In the yard. They were faintly warm. I ran them carefully into a zinc rubbish bin, already half-full. There were one or two very small fragments of heavily charred paper and some clinkers. Nothing else. I heard someone coming and cleared out. I put the ashpan back under the study grate.”

Alleyn bent over the trophy. “It’s a Sommita envelope,” said Troy. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes. Bigger than the Reece envelope, but the same paper: like the letter she wrote to the Yard.”

“Why would she write to the Watchman?”

“We don’t know that she did.”

“Don’t we?”

“Or if she did, whether her letter was in this envelope.” He took one of Troy’s brushes and used it to flip the envelope over. “It may have been stuck up,” he said, “and opened before the gum dried. There’s not enough left to be certain. It’s big enough to take the photograph.”

Dr. Carmichael blew out his cheeks and then expelled the air rather noisily. “That’s a long shot, isn’t it?” he said.

“Of course it is,” agreed Alleyn. “Pure speculation.”

“If she wrote it,” Troy said carefully, “she dictated it. I’m sure she couldn’t type, aren’t you?”

“I think it’s most unlikely. The first part of her letter to the Yard was impeccably typed and the massive postscript flamboyantly handwritten. Which suggested that she dictated the beginning or told young Rupert to concoct something she could sign, found it too moderate, and added the rest herself.”

“But why,” Dr. Carmichael mused, “was this thing in the study, on Reece’s desk? I know! She asked that secretary of his to type it because she’d fallen out with young Bartholomew. How’s that?”

“Not too bad,” said Alleyn. “Possible. And where, do you suggest, is the letter? It wasn’t in the envelope. And, by the way, the envelope was not visible on Reece’s desk when you and I, Carmichael, visited him last night.”

“Really? How d’you know?”

“Oh, my dear chap, the cop’s habit of using the beady eye, I suppose. It might have been there under some odds and ends in his ‘out’ basket.”

Troy said: “Rory, I think I know where you’re heading.”

“Do you, my love? Where?”

“Could Marco have slid into the study to put the photograph in the post bag, before Hanley had emptied the mailbox into it, and could he have seen the typed and addressed envelope on the desk and thought there was a marvelous opportunity to send the photograph to the Watchman, because nobody would question it? And so he took out her letter or whatever it was and chucked it on the fire and put the photograph in this envelope and—”

Troy, who had been going great guns, brought up short. “Blast!” she said.

“Why didn’t he put it in the postbag?” asked Alleyn.

“Yes.”

“Because,” Dr. Carmichael staunchly declared, “he was interrupted and had to get rid of it quick. I think that’s a damn‘ good piece of reasoning, Mrs. Alleyn.”

“Perhaps,” Troy said, “her letter had been left out awaiting the writer’s signature and — no, that’s no good.”

“It’s a lot of good,” Alleyn said warmly. “You have turned up trumps, you two. Damn Marco. Why can’t he make up his dirty little mind that his best move is to cut his losses and come clean? I’ll have to try my luck with Hanley. Tricky.”

He went out on the landing. Bert had resumed his guard duty and lounged back in the armchair reading a week-old sports tabloid. A homemade cigarette hung from his lower lip. He gave Alleyn the predictable sideways tip of his head.

Alleyn said: “I really oughtn’t to impose on you any longer, Bert. After all, we’ve got the full complement of keys now and nobody’s going to force the lock with the amount of traffic flowing through this house.”

“I’m not fussy,” said Bert, which Alleyn took to mean that he had no objections to continuing his vigil.

“Well, if you’re sure,” he said.

“She’ll be right.”

“Thank you.”

The sound of voices indicated the emergence of the elevenses party. Miss Dancy, Sylvia Parry, and Rupert Bartholomew came upstairs. Rupert, with an incredulous look at Bert and a scared one at Alleyn, made off in the direction of his room. The ladies crossed the landing quickly and ascended the next flight. Mr. Reece, Ben Ruby, and Signor Latticnzo made for the study. Alleyn ran quickly downstairs in time to catch Hanley emerging from the morning room.

“Sorry to bother you,” he said, “but I wonder if I might have a word. It won’t take a minute.”

“But of course,” said Hanley. “Where shall we go? Back into the library?”

“Right.”

When they were there Hanley winningly urged further refreshment. Upon Alleyn’s declining, he said: “Well, I will; just a teeny tiddler,” and helped himself to a gin-and-tonic. “What can I do for you, Mr. Alleyn?” he said. “Is there any further development?”

Alleyn said: “Did you type a letter to the Watchman sometime before Madame Sommita’s death?”

Hanley’s jaw dropped and the hand holding his drink stopped halfway to his mouth. For perhaps three seconds he maintained this position and then spoke.

“Oh, Christmas!” he said. “I’d forgotten. You wouldn’t credit it, would you? I’d entirely forgotten.”

He made no bones about explaining himself and did so very fluently and quite without hesitation. He had indeed typed a letter from the Sommita to the Watchman. She had been stirred up “like a hive of bees,” he said, by the episode of the supposed intruder on the Island and had decided that it was Strix who had been sent by the Watchman and had arrived after dark the previous night, probably by canoe, and had left unobserved by the same means, she didn’t explain when. The letter which she dictated was extremely abusive and threatened the editor with a libel action. She had made a great point of Mr. Reece not being told of the letter.

“Because of course he’d have stopped all the nonsense,” said Hanley. “I was to type it and take it to her to sign and then put it in the bag, all unbeknownst. She asked me to do it because of the row with the Wonder Boy. She gave me some of her notepaper.”

“And you did it?”

“My dear! As much as my life was worth to refuse. I typed it out, calming it down the least morsel, which she didn’t notice. But when she’d signed it, I bethought me that maybe when it had gone she’d tell the Boss Man and he’d be cross with me for doing it. So I left the letter on his desk, meaning to show it to him after the performance. I put it under some letters he had to sign.”

“And the envelope?”

“The envelope? Oh, on the desk. And then, I remember, Marco came in to say I was wanted onstage to refocus a light.”

“When was this?”

“When? I wouldn’t know. Well — late afternoon. After tea, sometime, but well before the performance.”

“Did Marco leave the study before you?”

“Did he? I don’t know. Yes, I do. He said something about making up the fire and I left him to it.”

“Did Mr. Reece see the letter, then?”

Hanley flapped his hands. “I’ve no notion. He’s said nothing to me, but then with the catastrophe — I mean everything else goes out of one’s head, doesn’t it, except that nothing ever goes out of his head. You could ask him.”

“So I could,” said Alleyn. “And will.”

Mr. Reece was alone in the study. He said at once in his flattest manner that he had found the letter on his desk under a couple of business communications which he was to sign in time for Hanley to send them off by the evening post. He did sign them and then read the letter.

“It was ill advised,” he said, cutting the episode down to size. “She had been overexcited ever since the matter of the intruder arose. I had told her Sir Simon Marks had dealt with the Watchman and there would be no more trouble in that quarter. This letter was abusive in tone and would have stirred everything up again. I threw it on the fire. I intended to speak to her about it but not until after the performance when she would be less nervous and tense.”

“Did you throw the envelope on the fire too?” Alleyn asked and thought: “If he says yes, bang goes sixpence and we return to square one.”

“The envelope?” said Mr. Reece. “No. It was not in an envelope. I don’t remember noticing one. May I ask what is the significance of all this, Chief Superintendent?”

“It’s really just a matter to tidying up. The half-burnt envelope stamped and addressed to the Watchman was in the ashpan under the grate this morning.”

“I have no recollection of seeing it,” Mr. Reece said heavily. “I believe I would remember if I had seen it.”

“After you burnt the letter, did you stay in the study?”

“I believe so,” he said, and Alleyn thought he detected a weary note. “Or no,” Mr. Reece corrected himself. “That is not right. Maria came in with a message that Bella wanted to see me. She was in the concert chamber. The flowers that I had ordered for her had not arrived and she was — distressed. I went to the concert chamber at once.”

“Did Maria go with you?”

“I really don’t know what Maria did, Superintendent. I fancy — no, I am not sure but I don’t think she did. She may have returned there a little later. Really, I do not remember,” said Mr. Reece and pressed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

“I’m sorry,” Alleyn said; “I won’t bother you any longer. I wouldn’t have done so now, but it just might be relevant.”

“It is no matter,” said Mr. Reece. And then: “I much appreciate what you are doing,” he said. “You will excuse me, I’m sure, if I seem ungracious.”

“Good Lord, yes,” said Alleyn quickly. “You should just hear some of the receptions we get.”

“I suppose so,” said Mr. Reece heavily. “Very likely.” And then with a lugubrious attempt at brightening up, “The sun is shining continuously and the wind has almost gone down. Surely it can’t be long, now, before the police arrive.”

“We hope not. Tell me, have you done anything about Marco? Spoken to him? Faced him with being Strix?”

And then Mr. Reece made the most unexpected, the most remarkable statement of their conversation.

“I couldn’t be bothered,” he said.

iii

On leaving the study, Alleyn heard sounds of activity in the dining room. The door was open, and he looked in to find Marco laying the table.

“I want a word with you,” Alleyn said. “Not here. In the library. Come on.”

Marco followed him there, saying nothing.

“Now, listen to me,” Alleyn said. “I do not think, indeed I have never thought, that you killed Madame Sommita. You hadn’t time to do it. I now think — I am almost sure — that you went into the study yesterday afternoon, intending to put the photographs you took of her, in the mailbag. You saw on the desk a stamped envelope addressed in typescript to the Watchman. It was unsealed and empty. This gave you a wonderful opportunity; it made everything safer and simpler. You transferred the photograph from its envelope to this envelope, sealed it down, and would have put it in the bag, but I think you were interrupted and simply dropped it back on the desk and I daresay explained your presence there by tidying the desk. Now. If this is so, all I want from you is the name of the person who interrupted you.”

Marco had watched Alleyn carefully with a look, wary and hooded, that often appears on the faces of the accused when some telling piece of evidence is produced against them. Alleyn thought of it as the “dock face.”

“You have been busy,” Marco sneered. “Congratulations.”

“I’m right, then?”

“Oh, yes,” he said casually. “I don’t know how you got there, but you’re right.”

“And the name?”

“You know so much, I’d have thought you’d know that.”

“Well?”

“Maria,” said Marco.

From somewhere in the house there came a sound, normally unexceptionable but now arresting. A door banged and shut it off.

“Telephone,” Marco whispered. “It’s the telephone.”

“Did Maria see you? See you had the envelope in your hands? Did she?”

“I’m not sure. She might have. She could have. She’s been — looking — at me. Or I thought so. Once or twice. She hasn’t said anything. We haven’t been friendly.”

“No?”

“I went back to the study. Later. Just before the opera, and it had gone. So I supposed someone had put it in the mailbag.”

There was a flurry of voices in the hall. The door swung open and Hanley came in.

“The telephone!” he cried. “Working. It’s the—” He pulled up short looking at Marco. “Someone for you, Mr. Alleyn,” he said.

“I’ll take it upstairs. Keep the line alive.”

He went into the hall. Most of the guests were collected there. He passed through them and ran upstairs to the first landing and the studio, where he found Troy and Dr. Carmichael. He took the receiver off the telephone. Hanley’s voice fluted in the earpiece: “Yes. Don’t hang up, will you? Mr. Alleyn’s on his way. Hold the line please.” And a calm reply: “Thank you, sir. I’ll hold on.”

“All right, Hanley,” Alleyn said. “You can hang up now,” and heard the receiver being cradled. “Hullo,” he said. “Alleyn speaking.”

“Chief Superintendent Alleyn? Inspector Hazelmere, Rivermouth Police, here. We’ve had a report of trouble on Waihoe Island and are informed of your being on the premises. I understand it’s a homicide.”

Alleyn gave him the bare bones of the case. Mr. Hazelmere repeated everything he said. He was evidently dictating. There were crackling disturbances on the line.

“So you see,” Alleyn ended, “I’m a sort of minister without portfolio.”

“Pardon? Oh. Oh, I get you. Yes. Very fortunate coincidence, though. For us. We’d been instructed by head office that you were in the country, of course, It’ll be an unexpected honor…” A crash of static obliterated the rest of this remark.

“…temporary repair. Better be quick…should make it…chopper…hope…doctor…”

“There’s a doctor here,” Alleyn shouted. “I’d suggest a fully equipped homicide squad and a search warrant — can you hear? — and a brace and bit. Yes, that’s what I said. Large. Yes, large. Observation purposes. Are you there? Hullo? Hullo?”

The line was dead.

“Well,” said Troy after a pause. “This is the beginning of the end, I suppose.”

“In a way the beginning of the beginning,” Alleyn said wryly. “If it’s done nothing else it’s brought home the virtues of routine. I’m not sure if they have homicide squads in New Zealand, but whatever they do have they’ll take the correct steps in the correct way and with authority. And you, my love, will fly away home with an untouched canvas.” He turned to Dr. Carmichael. “I really don’t know what I’d have done without you,” he said.

Before Dr. Carmichael could answer there was a loud rap at the door.

“Not a dull moment,” said Alleyn. “Come in!”

It was Signor Lattienzo, pale and strangely unsprightly.

“I am de trop,” he said. “Forgive me. I thought you would be here. I find the ambiance downstairs uncomfortable. Everybody asking questions and expressing relief and wanting above all to know when they can go away. And behind it all — fear. Fear and suspicion. Not a pretty combination. And to realize that one is in much the same state oneself, after all! That I find exceedingly disagreeable.”

Dr. Carmichael said to Alleyn, “They’ll be wanting to know about the telephone call. Would you like me to go downstairs and tell them?”

“Do. Just say it was the police and they are on their way and the line’s gone phut again.”

“Right.”

“That’s a very nice man,” said Troy when he had gone. “We never completed our bed-making. I don’t suppose it matters so much now, but we ought at least to put our gear away, don’t you think?”

She had managed to get behind Signor Lattienzo and pull a quick face at her husband.

“I expect you’re right,” he said, obediently, and she made for the door. Signor Lattienzo seemed to make an effort. He produced a rather wan replica of his more familiar manner.

“Bed-making! ‘Gear’?” he exclaimed. “But I am baffled. Here is the most distinguished painter of our time, whom I have, above all things, desired to meet and she talks of bed-making as a sequence to murder.”

“She’s being British,” said Alleyn. “If there were any bullets about, she’d bite on them. Pay no attention.”

“That’s right,” Troy assured Signor Lattienzo. “It’s a substitute for hysterics.”

“If you say so,” said Signor Lattienzo, and as an afterthought seized and extensively kissed Troy’s hand. She cast a sheepish glance at Alleyn and withdrew.

Alleyn, who had begun to feel rather British himself, said he was glad that Signor Lattienzo had looked in. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” he said, “but with all the excursions and alarms, I haven’t got round to it.”

“Me? But, of course! Anything! Though I don’t imagine that I can produce electrifying tidings,” said Signor Lattienzo. He sat down in the studio’s most comfortable armchair and appeared to relax. “Already,” he said, “I feel better,” and took out his cigarette case.

“It’s about Madame Sommita’s background.”

“Indeed?”

“She was your pupil for some three years, wasn’t she, before making her debut?”

“That is so.”

“You were aware, I expect, of her real name?”

“Naturally. Pepitone.”

“Perhaps you helped her decide on her professional name? Sommita, which is as much as to say ‘The Tops,’ isn’t it?”

“It was not my choice. I found it a little extravagant. She did not and she prevailed. You may say she has been fully justified.”

“Indeed you may. You may also say, perhaps, that the choice was a matter of accuracy rather than of taste.”

Signor Lattienzo softly clapped his hands. “That is precisely the case,” he applauded.

“Maestro,” Alleyn said, “I am very ignorant in these matters, but I imagine that the relationship between pedagogue and pupil is, or at least can be, very close, very intimate.”

“My dear Mr. Alleyn, if you are suggesting—”

“Which I am not. Not for a moment. There can be close relationships that have no romantic overtones.”

“Of course. And allow me to say that with a pupil it would be in the highest degree a mistake to allow oneself to become involved in such an attachment. And apart from all that,” he added with feeling, “when the lady has the temperament of a wildcat and the appetite of a hyena, it would be sheer lunacy.”

“But all the same, I expect some kind of aseptic intimacy does exist, doesn’t it?”

Signor Lattienzo broke into rather shrill laughter. “ ‘Aseptic intimacy,’ ” he echoed. “You are a master of the mot juste, my dear Mr. Alleyn. It is a pleasure to be grilled by you.”

“Well then: did you learn anything about a family feud— one of those vendetta-like affairs — between the Pepitones and another Sicilian clan: the Rossis?”

Signor Lattienzo took some time in helping himself to a cigarette and lighting it. He did not look at Alleyn. “I do not concern myself with such matters,” he said.

“I’m sure you don’t but did she?”

“May I, first of all, ask you a question? Do you suspect that this appalling crime might be traced to the Pepitone-Rossi affair? I think you must do so, otherwise you would not bring it up.”

“As to that,” said Alleyn, “it’s just a matter of avenues and stones, however unlikely. I’ve been told that Madame Sommita herself feared some sort of danger threatened her and that she suspected Strix of being an agent or even a member of the Rossi family. I don’t have to tell you that Marco is Strix. Mr. Reece will have done that.”

“Yes. But — do you think—?”

“No. He has an unbreakable alibi.”

“Ah.”

“I wondered if she had confided her fears to you?”

“You will know, of course, of the habit of omertà. It has been remorselessly, if erroneously, paraded in works of popular fiction with a mafioso background. I expected that she knew of her father’s alleged involvement with mafioso elements, although great care had been taken to remove her from the milieu. I am surprised to hear that she spoke of the Rossi affair. Not to the good Monty, I am sure?”

“Not specifically. But it appears that even to him she referred repeatedly, though in the vaguest of terms, to sinister intentions behind the Strix activities.”

“But otherwise—”

Signor Lattienzo stopped short and for the first time looked very hard at Alleyn. “Did she tell that unhappy young man? Is that it? I see it is. Why?”

“It seems she used it as a weapon when she realized he was trying to escape her.”

“Ah! That is believable. An appeal to his pity. That I can believe. Emotional blackmail.”

Signor Lattienzo got up and moved restlessly about the room. He looked out at the now sunny prospect, thrust his plump hands into his trouser pockets, took them out and examined them as if they had changed, and finally approached Alleyn and came to a halt.

“I have something to tell you,” he said.

“Good.”

“Evidently you are familiar with the Rossi affair.”

“Not to say familiar, no. But I do remember something of the case.”

Alleyn would have thought it impossible that Signor Lattienzo would ever display the smallest degree of embarrassment or loss of savoir-faire, but he appeared to do so now. He screwed in his eyeglass, stared at a distant spot somewhere to the right of Alleyn’s left ear, and spoke rapidly in a high voice.

“I have a brother,” he proclaimed. “Alfredo Lattienzo. He is an avvocato, a leading barrister, and he, in the course of his professional duties, has appeared in a number of cases where the mafioso element was — are — involved. At the time of the Rossi trial, which as you will know became a cause célèbre in the U.S.A., he held a watching brief on behalf of the Pepitene element. It was through him, by the way, that Isabella became my pupil. But that is of no moment. He was never called upon to take a more active part but he did — ah — he did learn — ah— from, as you would say, the horse’s mouth, the origin and subsequent history of the enmity between the two houses.”

He paused. Alleyn thought that it would be appropriate if he said: “You interest me strangely. Pray continue your most absorbing narrative.” However, he said nothing, and Signor Lattienzo continued.

“The origin,” he repeated. “The event that set the whole absurdly wicked feud going. I have always thought there must have been Corsican blood somewhere in that family. The whole story smacks more of the vendetta than the mafioso element. My dear Alleyn, I am about to break a confidence with my brother, and one does not break confidences of this sort.”

“I think I may assure that whatever you may tell me, I won’t reveal the source.”

“It may, after all, not seem as striking to you as it does to me. It is this. The event that gave rise to the feud so many, many years ago, was the murder of a Pepitone girl by her Rossi bridegroom. He had discovered a passionate and explicit letter from a lover. He stabbed her to the heart on their wedding night.”

He stopped. He seemed to balk at some conversational hurdle.

“I see,” said Alleyn.

“That is not all,” said Signor Lattienzo. “That is by no means all. Pinned to the body by the stiletto that killed her was the letter. That is what I came to tell you and now I shall go.”