Ngaio Marsh - Photo Finish

“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.”

i

“From now on,” Alleyn said to Dr. Carmichael, “it would be nice to maintain a masterly inactivity. I shall complete my file and hand it over, with an anxious smirk, to Inspector Hazelmere in, please God, the course of a couple of hours or less.”