Ngaio Marsh - Photo Finish

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

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

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

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

“Why did you stay?”

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

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

“That wretched boy?”

“Exactly.”

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

“I certainly got that impression,” Alleyn said.

“So did I, I must say. In Sydney—”

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

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

“And he?”

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

“And Reece?”

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

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

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

“No.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Thank you.”

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

“No, indeed.”

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

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

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Do you hae your suspeesions?”

“Yes. You’re allowed one more.”

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

“Yes.”

“And took — that photograph?”

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

“And murdered Isabella Sommita?”

“No.”

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

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

Isabella Pepitone, known as Isabella Sommita. Born :?1944, reputedly in Palermo, Sicily. Family subsequently settled in U.S.A. Father : Alfredo Pepitone, successful businessman U.S.A., suspected of Mafia activities but never arrested. Suspect in Rossi homicide case 1965. Victim: Bianca Rossi, female. Pepitone subsequently killed in car accident. Homicide suspected. No arrest.

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

Subject trained as singer. First in New York and later for three years under Beppo Lattienzo in Milan. 1965–1968, sang with small German opera companies. Subject’s debut 1968 La Scala. Became celebrated. 1970-79 associated socially with Hoffman-Beilstein Group.

1977 May 10th : Self-styled “Baron” Hoffman-Beilstein, since believed to be Mr. Big behind large-scale heroin chain, cruised his yacht Black Star round the Bermudas. Subject was one of his guests. Visited Miami via Fort Lauderdale. First meeting with Montague V. Reece, fellow passenger.

1977 May 11th : Subject and Hoffman-Beilstein lunched at Palm Beach with Earl J. Ogden, now known to be background figure in heroin trade. He dined aboard yacht same night. Subsequently a marked increase in street sales and socially high-class markets Florida and, later, New York. F.B.I, suspects heroin brought ashore from Black Star at Fort Lauderdale. Interpol interested.

1977 : Relations with Hoffman-Beilstein became less frequent.

1978 : Relations H-B apparently terminated. Close relationship developed with Reece. Subject’s circle now consists of top impeccable socialites and musical celebrities.

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

For Ch. Sup. Alleyn’s attn. Not much joy. Any items however insignificant will be appreciated.

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

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

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

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

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