Ngaio Marsh - Photo Finish

CAST OF CHARACTERS (in order of appearance)

Isabella Sommita (née Pepitene)

Ben Ruby: Her manager

Montague V. Reece: Her friend

Rupert Bartholomew: Her protégé

Maria: Her maid

Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn, C.I.D.

Troy Alleyn, R.A.: His wife

His Assistant Commissioner, Scotland Yard

Bert: A chauffeur

Les: A launch man

Marco: A manservant

Ned Hanley: Mr. Reece’s secretary

Signor Beppo Lattienzo: The Sommita’s Master of Singing

Roberto Rodolfo: A tenor

Sylvia Parry: A mezzo-soprano

Hilda Dancy: A contralto

Eru Johnstone: A bass

Sir David Baumgartner: A critic

Mrs. Bacon: Housekeeper

Dr. John Carmichael, M.D.: A guest

Inspector Hazelmere: Rivermouth Constabulary

Detective Sergeant Franks: Rivermouth Constabulary

Detective Sergeant Barker: Rivermouth Constabulary

Dr. Winslow: Medical examiner

i

One of the many marvels of Isabella Sommita’s techniques was her breathing: it was totally unobservable. Even in the most exacting passages, even in the most staggering flights of coloratura, there was never the slightest disturbance of the corsage.

“You could drop an ice cube down her cleavage,” boasted her manager, Ben Ruby, “and not a heave would you get for your trouble.”

He had made this observation when sitting in a box immediately above the diva at the Royal Festival Hall and had spoken no more than the truth. Offstage when moved by one of her not infrequent rages, La Sommita’s bosom would heave with the best of them.

It did so now, in her private suite at the Chateau Australasia in Sydney. She was en négligé and it was sumptuously evident that she was displeased and that the cause of her displeasure lay on the table at her elbow: a newspaper folded to expose a half-page photograph with a banner headline, “Cross-Patch?” and underneath, “La Sommita is not amused!”

It had been taken yesterday in Double Bay, Sydney. The photographer, wearing a floppy white hat, a white scarf over his mouth, and dark spectacles, had stepped out from an alleyway and gone snap. She had not been quick enough to turn her back, but her jaw had dropped and her left eye had slewed, its habit when rage overtook her. The general effect was that of a gargoyle at the dentist’s: an infuriated gargoyle. The photograph was signed “Strix.”

She beat on the paper with her largish white fist and her rings cut into it. She panted lavishly.

“Wants horsewhipping,” Montague Reece mumbled. He was generally accepted as the Sommita’s established lover, and he filled this role in the manner commonly held to be appropriate, being large, rich, muted, pale, dyspeptic, and negative. He was said to wield a great deal of power in his own world.

“Of course he needs horsewhipping,” shouted his dear one. “But where’s the friend who will go out and do it?” She laughed and executed a wide contemptuous gesture that included all present. The newspaper fluttered to the carpet.

“Personally,” Ben Ruby offered, “I wouldn’t know one end of a horsewhip from the other.” She dealt him a glacial stare. “I didn’t mean to be funny,” he said.

“Nor were you.”

“No.”

A young man of romantic appearance, in a distant chair behind the diva, clasped a portfolio of music to his midriff and said in a slightly Australian voice: “Can’t something be done? Can’t they be sued?”

“What for?” asked Mr. Ruby.

“Well — libel. Look at it, for God’s sake!” the young man brought out. “Well, I mean to say, look !”

The other two men glanced at him, but the Sommita, without turning her head, said, “Thank you, darling,” and extended her arm. The intention was unmistakable: an invitation, nay, a command. The young man’s beautiful face crimsoned, he rose, and, maintaining a precarious hold on his portfolio, advanced crouchingly to imprint a kiss upon the fingers. He lost control of his portfolio. Its contents shot out of their confine and littered the carpet: sheet upon sheet of music in manuscript.

He fell on his knees and scrabbled about the floor. “I’m so sorry,” he gabbled. “Oh hell, I’m so bloody sorry.”

The Sommita had launched a full-scale attack upon the Australian press. Rupert, she said, indicating the young man, was absolutely right. The press should be sued. The police should be called in. The photographer should be kicked out of the country. Was he to be suffered to wreck her life, her career, her sanity, to make her the laughingstock of both hemispheres? (She was in the habit of instancing geographical data.) Had she not, she demanded, consented to the Australian appearances solely as a means of escape from his infamy?

“You are sure, I suppose,” said Mr. Reece in his pallid manner, “that it’s the same man? Strix?”

This produced a tirade. “Sure! Sure!” Had not the detested Strix bounced out of cover in all the capitals of Europe as well as in New York and San Francisco? Had he not shot her at close quarters and in atrocious disarray? Sure ! She drew a tempestuous breath. Well, she shouted, what were they going to do about it? Was she to be protected or was she to have a breakdown, lose her voice, and spend the rest of her days in a straitjackct? She only asked to be informed.

The two men exchanged deadpan glances.

“We can arrange for another bodyguard,” Montague Reece offered without enthusiasm.

“She didn’t much fancy the one in New York,” Mr. Ruby pointed out.

“Assuredly I did not,” she agreed, noisily distending her nostrils. “It is not amusing to be closely followed by an imbecile in unspeakable attire who did nothing, but nothing to prevent the outrage on Fifth Avenue. He merely goggled. As, by the way, did you all.”

“Sweetheart, what else could we do? The fellow was a passenger in an open car. It was off like a bullet as soon as he’d taken his picture.”

“Thank you, Benny. I remember the circumstances.”

“But why ?” asked the young man called Rupert, still on his knees assembling his music. “What’s got into him? I mean to say, it doesn’t make sense and it must cost a lot of money to follow you all over the globe. He must be bonkers.”

He recognized his mistake as soon as it escaped his lips and began to gabble. Perhaps because he was on his knees and literally at her feet the Sommita, who had looked explosive, leaned forward and tousled his blond hair. “My poorest!” she said. “You are quite, quite ridiculous and I adore you. I haven’t introduced you,” she added as an afterthought. “I’ve forgotten your surname.”

“Bartholomew.”

“Really? Very well. Rupert Bartholomew,” she proclaimed, with an introductory wave of her hand.

“… d’you do,” he muttered. The others nodded.

“Why does he do it? He does it,” Montague Reece said impatiently, reverting to the photographer, “for money. No doubt the idea arose from the Jacqueline Kennedy affair. He’s carried it so much further and he’s been successful. Enormously so.”

“That’s right,” Ruby agreed. “And the more he does it the more”—he hesitated—“outrageous the results became.”

“He retouches,” the Sommita intervened. “He distorts. I know it.”

They all hurriedly agreed with her.

“I’m going,” she said unexpectedly, “to dress. Now. And when I return I wish to be given an intelligent solution. I throw out, for what they are worth, my suggestions. The police. Prosecution. The Press. Who owns this?”—she kicked the offending newspaper and had some difficulty in disengaging her foot—“this garbage? Who is the proprietor? Attack him.” She strode to the bedroom door. “And I warn you, Monty. I warn you, Benny. This is my final word. Unless I am satisfied that there is an end to my persecution, I shall not sing in Sydney. They can,” said the Sommita, reverting to her supposed origins, “stuff their Sydney Opera House.”