by Ngaio Marsh
‘You would, but so far she hasn’t done any better than yelling pen-and-ink.’
‘Well,’ Troy said, ‘I don’t see what you could be expected to do about it.’
‘Accept with pleasure and tell my AC that I’m off to the antipodes with my witch-wife? Because,’ Alleyn said, putting his hand on her head, ‘you are going, aren’t you?’
‘I do madly want to have a go at her: a great big flamboyant rather vulgar splotch of a thing. Her arms,’ Troy said reminiscently, ‘are indecent. White and flowing. You can see the brush strokes. She’s so shockingly sumptuous. Oh yes, Rory love, I’m afraid I must go.’
‘We could try suggesting that she waits till she’s having a bash at Covent Garden. No,’ said Alleyn, watching her, ‘I can see that’s no go, you don’t want to wait. You must fly to your commodious studio and in between sittings you must paint pretty peeps of snowy mountains reflected in the lucid waters of the lake. You might knock up a one-man show while you’re about it.’
‘You shut up,’ said Troy, taking his arm.
‘I think you’d better write a rather formal answer giving your terms, as he so delicately suggests. I suppose I decline under separate cover.’
‘It might have been fun if we’d dived together into the flesh pots.’
‘The occasions when your art and my job have coincided haven’t been all that plain sailing, have they, my love?’
‘Not,’ she agreed, ‘so’s you’d notice. Rory, do you mind? My going?’
‘I always mind but I try not to let on. I must say I don’t go much for the company you’ll be keeping.’
‘Don’t you? High operatic with tantrums between sittings? Will that be the form, do you suppose?’
‘Something like that, I dare say.’
‘I shan’t let her look at the thing until it’s finished and if she cuts up rough, her dear one needn’t buy it. One thing I will not do,’ said Troy calmly. ‘I will not oblige with asinine alterations. If she’s that sort.’
‘I should think she well might be. So might he.’
‘Taking the view that if he’s paying he’s entitled to a return for his cash? What is he? English? New Zealand? American? Australian?’
‘I’ve no idea. But I don’t much fancy you being his guest, darling, and that’s a fact.’
‘I can hardly offer to pay my own way. Perhaps,’ Troy suggested, ‘I should lower my price in consideration of board and lodging.’
‘All right, smarty-pants.’
‘If it turns out to be a pot-smoking party or worse, I can always beat a retreat to my pretty peepery and lock the door on all comers.’
‘What put pot into your fairly pretty little head?’
‘I don’t know. Here!’ said Troy. ‘You’re not by any chance suggesting the diva is into the drug scene?’
‘There have been vague rumours. Probably false.’
‘He’d hardly invite you to stay if she was.’
‘Oh,’ Alleyn said lightly, ‘their effrontery knows no bounds. I’ll write my polite regrets before I go down to the Factory.’
The telephone rang and he answered it with the noncommittal voice Troy knew meant the Yard.
‘I’ll be down in a quarter of an hour, sir,’ he said and hung up. ‘The AC,’ he explained. ‘Up to something. I always know when he goes all casual on me.’
‘Up to what, do you suppose?’
‘Lord knows. Undelicious by the sound of it. He said it was of no particular moment but would I drop in: an ominous opening. I’d better be off.’ He made for the door, looked at her, returned and rounded her face between his hands. ‘Fairly pretty little head,’ he repeated and kissed it.
Fifteen minutes later his Assistant Commissioner received him in the manner to which he had become accustomed: rather as if he was some sort of specimen produced in a bad light to be peered at, doubtfully. The AC was as well furnished with mannerisms as he was with brains and that would be underestimating them.
‘Hullo, Rory,’ he said. ‘Morning to you. Morning. Troy well? Good.’ (Alleyn had not had time to answer.) ‘Sit down. Sit down. Yes.’
Alleyn sat down. ‘You wanted to see me, sir?’ he suggested.
‘It’s nothing much, really. Read the morning papers?’
‘The Times.’
‘Seen last Friday’s Mercury?’
‘No.’
‘I just wondered. That silly stuff with the press photographer and the Italian singing woman. What’s-her-name?’
After a moment’s pause Alleyn said woodenly: ‘Isabella Sommita.’
‘That’s the one,’ agreed the AC, one of whose foibles it was to pretend not to remember names. ‘Silly of me. Chap’s been at it again.’
‘Very persistent.’
‘Australia. Sydney or somewhere. Opera House, isn’t it?’
‘There is one: yes.’
‘On the steps at some sort of function. Here you are.’
He pushed over the newspaper folded to expose the photograph. It had indeed been taken a week ago on the steps of the magnificent Sydney Opera House on a summer’s evening. La Sommita, gloved in what seemed to be cloth of gold topped by a tiara, stood among VIPs of the highest calibre. Clearly she was not yet poised for the shot. The cameraman had jumped the gun. Again, her mouth was wide open but on this occasion she appeared to be screaming at the Governor General of Australia. Or perhaps shrieking with derisive laughter. There is a belief held by people of the theatre that nobody over the age of twenty-five should allow themselves to be photographed from below. Here, the camera had evidently been half a flight beneath the diva who therefore appeared to be richly endowed with chins and more than slight embonpoint. The Governor General, by some momentary accident, seemed to regard her with incredulity and loathing.
A banner headline read: WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!
The photograph, as usual, was signed ‘Strix’ and was reproduced, by arrangement, from a Sydney newspaper.
‘That, I imagine,’ said Alleyn, ‘will have torn it!’
‘So it seems. Look at this.’
It was a letter addressed to ‘The Head of Scotland Yard, London’ and written a week before the invitations to the Alleyns on heavy paper endorsed with an elaborate monogram: I.S. lavishly entwined with herbage. The envelope was bigger than the ones received by the Alleyns but of the same make and paper. The letter itself occupied two and a half pages, with a gigantic signature. It had been typed, Alleyn noticed, on a different machine. The address was Château Australasia, Sydney.
‘The Commissioner sent it down,’ said the AC. ‘You’d better read it.’
Alleyn did so. The typed section merely informed the recipient that the writer hoped to meet one of his staff, Mr Alleyn, at Waihoe Lodge, New Zealand, where Mr Alleyn’s wife was commissioned to paint the writer’s portrait. The writer gave the dates proposed. The recipient was of course aware of the outrageous persecution – ‘and so on along the already familiar lines. Her object in writing to him, she concluded, was because she hoped Mr Alleyn would be accorded full authority by the Yard to investigate this outrageous affair and she remained – ‘
‘Good God,’ said Alleyn quietly.
‘You’ve still got a postscript,’ the AC observed.
It was handwritten and all that might be expected. Points of exclamation proliferated. Underscorings doubled and trebled to an extent that would have made Queen Victoria’s correspondence appear by contrast a model of stony reticence. The subject matter lurched into incoherence but the general idea was to the effect that if the ‘Head of Scotland Yard’ didn’t do something pretty smartly he would have only himself to blame when the writer’s career came to a catastrophic halt. On her knees she remained distractedly and again in enormous calligraphy, sincerely, Isabella Sommita.
‘Expound,’ the AC invited with his head on one side. He was being whimsical. ‘Comment. Explain in your own words.’
‘I can only guess that the letter was typed by a secretary who advised
moderation. The postscript seems to be all her own and written in a frenzy.’
‘Is Troy going to paint the lady? And do you propose to be absent without leave in the antipodes?’
Alleyn said: ‘We got our invitations this morning. I was about to decline, sir, when you rang up. Troy’s accepting.’
‘Is she?’ said the AC thoughtfully. ‘Is she, now? A good subject, um? To paint? What?’
‘Very,’ Alleyn said warily. What is he on about? he wondered.
‘Yes. Ah well,’ said the AC, freshening his voice with a suggestion of dismissal. Alleyn started to get up. ‘Hold on,’ said the AC. ‘Know anything about this man she lives with? Reece, isn’t it?’
‘No more than everyone knows.’
‘Strange coincidence, really,’ mused the AC.
‘Coincidence?’
‘Yes. The invitations. Troy going out there and all this.’ He flipped his finger at the papers on his desk. ‘All coming together as it were.’
‘Hardly a coincidence, sir, would you say? I mean, these dotty letters were all written with the same motive.’
‘Oh, I don’t mean them,’ said the AC contemptuously. ‘Or only in so far as they turn up at the same time as the other business.’
‘What other business?’ said Alleyn, and managed to keep the weary note out of his voice.
‘Didn’t I tell you? Stupid of me. Yes. There’s a bit of a flap going on in the international Drug Scene: the USA in particular. Interpol picked up a lead somewhere and passed it on to the French who talked to the FBI who’ve been talking to our lot. It seems there’s been some suggestion that the diva might be a big, big girl in the remotest background. Very nebulous it sounded to me but our Great White Chief is slightly excited.’ This was the AC’s habitual manner of alluding to the Commissioner. ‘He’s been talking to the Special Squad. And, by the way, to MI6.’
‘How do they come into it?’
‘Somewhere along the line. Cagey, as usual, I gather,’ said the AC. ‘But they did divulge that there was a leak from an anonymous source to the effect that the Sommita is thought to have operated in the past.’
‘What about Reece?’
‘Clean as a whistle, as far as is known.’
‘Montague Reece,’ Alleyn mused. ‘Almost too good to be true. Like something out of Trilby. Astrakhan coat-collar and glistening beard. Anything about his origin, sir?’
‘Thought to be American-Sicilian.’
During the pause that followed the AC hummed, uncertainly, the habañera from Carmen. ‘Ever heard her in that?’ he said. ‘Startling. Got the range – soprano, mezzo, you name it, got the looks, got the sex. Stick you like a pig for tuppence and make you like it.’ He shot one of his disconcerting glances at Alleyn. ‘Troy’ll have her hands full,’ he said. ‘What?’
‘Yes,’ Alleyn agreed, and with a strong foreboding of what was in store, added: ‘I don’t much fancy her going.’
‘Quite. Going to put your foot down, are you, Rory?’
Alleyn said: ‘As far as Troy’s concerned I haven’t got feet.’
‘Tell that to the Fraud Squad,’ said the AC and gave a slight whinny.
‘Not where her work’s concerned. It’s a must. For both of us.’
‘Ah,’ said the AC. ‘Mustn’t keep you,’ he said, and shifted without further notice into the tone that meant business. ‘It just occurs to me that in the circumstances you might, after all, take this trip. And by the way you know New Zealand, don’t you? Yes?’ And when Alleyn didn’t answer: ‘What I meant when I said “coincidence". The invitation and all that. Drops like a plum into our lap. We’re asked to keep a spot of very inconspicuous observation on this article and here’s the article’s boyfriend asking you to be his guest and Bob, so to speak, is your uncle. Incidentally, you’ll be keeping an eye on Troy and her termagant subject, won’t you? Well?’
Alleyn said: ‘Am I to take it, sir, that this is an order?’
‘I must say,’ dodged the AC, ‘I thought you would be delighted.’
‘I expect I ought to be.’
‘Very well, then,’ said the AC testily. ‘Why the hell aren’t you?’
‘Well, sir, you talked about coincidences. It so happens that by a preposterous series of them Troy has been mixed up to a greater and lesser degree in four of my cases. And – ‘
‘And by all accounts behaved quite splendidly. Hul-lo!’ said the AC. ‘That’s it, is it? You don’t like her getting involved?’
‘On general principles, no, I don’t.’
‘But, my dear man, you’re not going out to the antipodes to involve yourself in an investigation. You’re on observation. There won’t,’ said the AC, ‘as likely as not, be anything to observe. Except, of course, your most attractive wife. You’re not going to catch a murderer. You’re not going to catch anyone. What?’
‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘All right. It’s an order. You’d better ring your wife and tell her. Morning to you.’
III
In Melbourne all was well. The Sydney season had been a fantastic success artistically, financially and, as far as Isabella Sommita was concerned, personally. ‘Nothing to equal it had been experienced,’ as the press raved, ‘within living memory.’ One reporter laboriously joked that if cars were motivated by real instead of statistical horsepower the quadrupeds would undoubtedly have been unhitched and the diva drawn in triumph and by human propulsion through the seething multitudes.
There had been no further offensive photography.
Young Rupert Bartholomew had found himself pitchforked into a milieu that he neither understood nor criticized but in which he floundered in a state of complicated bliss and bewilderment. Isabella Sommita had caused him to play his one-act opera. She had listened with an approval that ripened quickly with the realization that the soprano role was, to put it coarsely, so large that the rest of the cast existed only as trimmings. The opera was about Ruth and the title was The Alien Corn. (’Corn,’ muttered Ben Ruby to Monty Reece, but not in the Sommita’s hearing, ‘is dead right.’) There were moments when the pink clouds amid which Rupert floated thinned and a small, ice-cold pellet ran down his spine and he wondered if his opera was any good. He told himself that to doubt it was to doubt the greatest soprano of the age and the pink clouds quickly reformed. But the shadow of unease did not absolutely leave him.
Mr Reece was not musical. Mr Ruby, in his own untutored way, was. Both accepted the advisability of consulting an expert and such was the pitch of the Sommita’s mounting determination to stage this piece that they treated the matter as one of top urgency. Mr Ruby, under pretence of wanting to study the work, borrowed it from the Sommita. He approached the doyen of Australian music critics, and begged him, for old times’ sake, to give his strictly private opinion on the opera. He did so and said that it stank.
‘Menotti-and-water,’ he said. ‘Don’t let her touch it.’
‘Will you tell her so?’ Mr Ruby pleaded.
‘Not on your Nelly,’ said the great man, and as an afterthought, ‘What’s the matter with her? Has she fallen in love with the composer?’
‘Boy,’ said Mr Ruby deeply, ‘you said it.’
It was true. After her somewhat tigerish fashion the Sommita was in love. Rupert’s Byronic appearance, his melting glance, and his undiluted adoration had combined to do the trick. At this point she had a flaring row with her Australian secretary who stood up to her and when she sacked him said she had taken the words out of his mouth. She then asked Rupert if he could type and when he said yes promptly offered him the job. He accepted, cancelled all pending appointments, and found himself booked in at the same astronomically expensive hotel as his employer. He not only dealt with her correspondence. He was one of her escorts to the theatre and was permitted to accompany her at her practices. He supped with her after the show and stayed longer than any of the other guests. He was in Heaven.
On a night when this routine had been observed and Mr Re
ece had retired early, in digestive discomfort, the Sommita asked Rupert to stay while she changed into something comfortable. This turned out to be a ruby silken negligée which may indeed have been comfortable for the wearer but which caused the beholder to shudder in an agony of excitement.
He hadn’t a hope. She had scarcely embarked upon the preliminary phases of her formidable techniques when she was in his arms, or more strictly, he in hers.
An hour later he floated down the long passage to his room, insanely inclined to sing at the top of his voice.
‘My first!’ he exulted. ‘My very first. And, incredibly – Isabella Sommita.’
He was, poor boy, as pleased as Punch with himself.
IV
As far as his nearest associates could discover Mr Reece was not profoundly disturbed by his mistress’s goings-on. Indeed he appeared to ignore them but, really, it was impossible to tell, he was so remarkably uncommunicative. Much of his time, most of it, in fact, was spent with a secretary, manipulating, it was widely conjectured, the Stock Markets and receiving long-distance telephone calls. His manner towards Rupert Bartholomew was precisely the same as his manner towards the rest of the Sommita’s following: so neutral that it could scarcely be called a manner at all. Occasionally when Rupert thought of Mr Reece he was troubled by stabs of uncomfortable speculation, but he was too far gone in incredulous rapture to be greatly concerned.
It was at this juncture that Mr Reece flew to New Zealand to inspect his island lodge, now completed.
On his return, three days later, to Melbourne, he found the Alleyns’ letters of acceptance and the Sommita in a high state of excitement.
‘Dar-leeng,’ she said, ‘you will show me everything. You have photographs, of course? Am I going to be pleased? Because I must tell you I have great plans. But such plans!’ cried the Sommita and made mysterious gestures. ‘You will never guess.’
‘What are they?’ he asked in his flat-voiced way.
‘Ah-ah!’ she teased. ‘You must be patient. First the pictures which Rupert, too, must see. Quick, quick, the pictures.’