Ngaio Marsh - Photo Finish

“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?”