Ngaio Marsh - Photo Finish

“Because of what you told me about — the photograph. That seemed to be — still seems to be — so much in character with the sort of thing she said these people do. It was as if the man had signed his work and wanted to make sure it was recognized. As if I had been wrong and she had been right — right to be terrified. That we should have had her fully guarded. That I am responsible. And this,” said Mr. Reece, “is a very, very dreadful thought, Mr. Alleyn.”

“It may turn out to be a mistaken thought. Tell me, how much do you know about Madame Sommita’s background — her early life? Her recent associates?”

Mr. Reece clasped his large well-kept hands and tapped them against his lower teeth. He frowned and seemed to be at a loss. At last he said: “That is difficult to answer. How much do I know? In some ways a lot, in others very little. Her mother died in childbirth. She was educated at convent schools in the U.S.A., the last being in New York, where her voice was first trained. I got the impression that she saw next to nothing of her father, who lived in Chicago and died when Bella was already abroad. She was brought up by an aunt of sorts, who accompanied her to Italy and is now deceased. There used to be confused allusions to this reputed feud, but in a way they were reticent — generalizations, nothing specific. Only these— these expressions of fear. I am afraid I thought they were little more than fairytales. I knew how she exaggerated and dramatized everything.”

“Did she ever mention the name Rossi?”

“Rossi? It sounds familiar. Yes, I believe she may have, but she didn’t, as a matter of fact, mention names — Italian names — when she talked about this threat. She would seem as if she was going to, but if I asked her point-blank to be specific in order that I could make inquiries, she merely crossed herself and wouldn’t utter. I’m afraid I found that exasperating. It confirmed me in the opinion that the whole thing was imaginary.”

“Yes, I see.” Alleyn put his hand in his overcoat pocket, drew out the book from the library, and handed it to Mr. Reece. “Have you ever seen this?” he asked.

He took it and turned it over distastefully.

“Not that I remember,” he said. He opened it and read the title, translating it. “ ‘The Mystery of Bianca Rossi.’ Oh, I see — Rossi. What is all this, Mr. Alleyn?”

“I don’t know. I hoped you might throw some light on it.”

“Where did you find it? In her room?” he asked.

“In the library. Have you noticed the name on the flyleaf?”

Mr. Reece looked at it. “M. V. Rossi,” he said. And then: “I can’t make any sense out of this. Do we assume it was hers?”

“It will be fingerprinted, of course.”

“Ah, yes, Oh, I see. I shouldn’t have handled it, should I?”

“I don’t think you’ve done any damage,” Alleyn said and took it from him.

“If it was Bella’s she may have left it lying about somewhere and one of the servants put it in the library. We can ask.”

“So we can. Leaving it for the moment: did you ever hear of her association with the Hoffman-Beilstein Group?”

It was curious to see how immediate was Mr. Reece’s return to his own world of financial expertise. He at once became solemn, disapproving, and grand.

“I certainly did,” he said shortly and shot an appraising glance at Alleyn. “Again,” he said, “you seem to be well informed.”

“I thought I remembered,” Alleyn improvised, “seeing press photographs of her in a group of guests abroad Hoffman’s yacht.”

“I see. It was not a desirable association. I broke it off.”

“He came to grief, didn’t he?”

“Deservedly so,” said Mr. Reece, pursing his mouth rather in the manner of a disapproving governess. Perhaps he felt he could not quite leave it at that, because he added, stuffily, as if he were humoring an inquisitive child: “Hoffman-Beilstein had approached me with a view to interesting me in an enterprise he hoped to float. Actually, he invited me to join the cruise you allude to. I did so and was confirmed in my opinion of his activities.” Mr. Reece waited for a moment. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “it was then that I met one of his executives— young Ned Hanley. I considered he might well come to grief in that company and, as I required a private secretary, offered him the position.” He looked much more fixedly at Alleyn. “Has he been prattling?” he asked, and Alleyn thought: He’s formidable, all right.

“No, no,” he said. “Not indiscreetly, I promise you. I asked him how long he’d been in your employ, and he simply arrived at the answer by recalling the date of the cruise.”

“He talks too much,” said Mr. Reece, dismissing him, but with an air of — what? Indulgence? Tolerance? Proprietorship? He turned to Dr. Carmichael. “I wanted to speak to you, doctor,” he said. “I want to hear from you exactly how my friend was killed. I do not wish, if it can be spared me, to see her again as she was last night and I presume still is. But I must know how it was done. I must know .”

Dr. Carmichael glanced at Alleyn, who nodded very slightly.

“Madame Sommita,” said Dr. Carmichael, “was almost certainly anesthetized, probably asphyxiated when she had become unconscious, and, after death, stabbed. There will be an autopsy, of course, which will tell us more.”

“Did she suffer?”

“I think, most unlikely.”

“Anesthetized? With what? How?”

“I suspect, chloroform.”

“But — chloroform? Do you mean somebody came here prepared to commit this crime? Provided?”

“It looks like it. Unless there was chloroform somewhere on the premises.”

“Not to my knowledge. I can’t imagine it.”

Alleyn suddenly remembered the gossip of Bert the chauffeur. “Did you by any chance have a vet come to the house?” he asked.

“Ah! Yes. Yes, we did. To see Isabella’s afghan hound. She was very — distressed. The vet examined the dog under an anesthetic and found it had a malignant growth. He advised that it be put down immediately, and it was done.”

“You wouldn’t, of course, know if by any chance the vet forgot to take the chloroform away with him?”

“No. Ned might know. He superintended the whole thing.”

“I’ll ask him,” said Alleyn.

“Or, perhaps, Marco,” speculated Mr. Reece. “I seem to remember he was involved.”

“Ah, yes. Marco,” said Alleyn. “You have told me, haven’t you, that Marco is completely dependable?”

“Certainly. I have no reason to suppose anything else.”

“In the very nature of the circumstances and the development of events as we hear about them, we must all have been asking ourselves disturbing questions about each other, mustn’t we? Have you not asked yourself disturbing questions about Marco?”

“Well, of course I have,” Mr. Reece said at once. “About him, and, as you say, about all of them. But there is no earthly reason, no conceivable motive for Marco to do anything— wrong.”

“Not if Marco should happen to be Strix?” Alleyn asked.

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?”