Photo-Finish

by Ngaio Marsh

  Rupert who had a tendency to change colour whenever Mr Reece paid him any attention, did so now. He stooped over the paper.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s not our – I mean my – machine. The letter p is out of alignment in ours. And anyway it’s not the same type.’

  ‘And the signature? That looks convincing enough, doesn’t it?’ Alleyn asked his host.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘It’s Bella’s signature.’

  ‘Can any of you think of any cause Madame Sommita may have had to put her signature at the foot of a blank sheet of letter paper?’

  Nobody spoke.

  ‘Can she type?’

  ‘No,’ they all said and Ben Ruby added irritably, ‘Ah, for Chrissake, what’s the point of labouring at it? There’ve been no rumours about her bosom, pardon my candour, and, hell, she never wrote that bloody letter. It’s got to be a forgery and, by God, in my book it’s got to be that sodding photographer at the bottom of it.’

  The two young men made sounds of profound agreement.

  Mr Reece raised his hand and they were silenced. ‘We are fortunate enough,’ he announced, ‘to have Mr Alleyn, or rather Chief Superintendent Alleyn, with us. I suggest that we accord him our full attention, gentlemen.’

  He might have been addressing a board meeting. He turned to Alleyn and made a slight inclination. ‘Will you – ?’ he invited.

  Alleyn said: ‘Of course, if you think I can be of use. But I expect I ought just to mention that if there’s any idea of calling in the police it will have to be the New Zealand police. I’m sure you will understand that.’

  ‘Oh, quite so, quite so,’ said Mr Reece. ‘Let us say we will value, immensely, your unofficial expertise.’

  ‘Very well. But it won’t be at all startling.’

  The men took chairs round the table, as if, Alleyn thought, they were resigning themselves to some damned lecture. The whole scene, he thought, was out of joint. They might have arranged between themselves how it should be played but were not quite sure of their lines.

  He remembered his instructions from the AC. He was to observe, act with extreme discretion, fall in with the terms of his invitation and treat the riddle of the naughty photographer as he would any case to which he had been consigned in the ordinary course of his duties.

  He said: ‘Here goes then. First of all: if this was a police job one of the first things to be done would be to make an exhaustive examination of the letter which seems to be a reproduction in print of an original document. We would get it blown up on a screen, search the result for any signs of fingerprints or indications of what sort of paper the original might be. Same treatment for the photograph with particular attention to the rather clumsy faking of surgical scars.

  ‘At the same time someone would be sent to the offices of The Watchman to find out everything available about when the original letter was received and whether by post or pushed into the correspondence box at the entrance or wherever of The Watchman’s office. And also who dealt with it. The Watchman, almost certainly, would be extremely cagey about this and would, when asked to produce the original, say it had not been kept, which might or might not be true. Obviously,’ Alleyn said, ‘they didn’t ask for any authorization of the letter or take any steps to assure themselves that it was genuine.’

  ‘It’s not that sort of paper,’ said Ben Ruby. ‘Well, look at it. If we sued for libel it’d be nothing new to The Watchman. The scoop would be worth it.’

  ‘Didn’t I hear,’ Alleyn asked, ‘that on one occasion the photographer – “Strix” isn’t it? – dressed as a woman, asked for her autograph and then fired his camera at point-blank range and ducked out?’

  Mr Ruby slammed the table. ‘By God, you’re right,’ he shouted, ‘and he got it. She signed. He got her signature.’

  ‘It’s too much, I suppose, to ask if she remembers any particular book or whether she ever signed at the bottom of a blank page or how big the page was.’

  ‘She remembers! Too right she remembers!’ Mr Ruby shouted. ‘That one was an outsize book. Looked like something special for famous names. She remembers it on account it was not the usual job. As for the signature she’s most likely to have made it extra big to fill out the whole space. She does that.’

  ‘Were any of you with her? She was leaving the theatre, wasn’t she? At the time?’

  ‘I was with her,’ Mr Reece offered. ‘So were you, Ben. We always escort her from the stage door to her car. I didn’t actually see the book. I was looking to make sure the car was in the usual place. There was a big crowd.’

  ‘I was behind her,’ said Mr Ruby. ‘I couldn’t see anything. The first thing I knew was the flash and the rumpus. She was yelling out for somebody to stop the photographer. Somebody else was screaming “Stop that woman!” and fighting to get through. And it turned out afterwards, the screamer was the woman herself who was the photographer Strix if you can follow me.’

  ‘Just,’ said Alleyn.

  ‘He’s made monkeys out of the lot of us; all along the line he’s made us look like monkeys,’ Mr Ruby complained.

  ‘What does he look like? Surely someone must have noticed something about him?’

  But, no, it appeared. Nobody had come forward with a reliable description. He operated always in a crowd where everyone’s attention was focused on his victim and cameramen abounded. Or unexpectedly he would pop round a corner with his camera held in both hands before his face, or from a car that shot off before any action could be taken. There had been one or two uncertain impressions – he was bearded, he had a scarf pulled over his mouth, he was dark. Mr Ruby had a theory that he never wore the same clothes twice and always went in for elaborate make-ups but there was nothing to support this idea.

  ‘What action,’ Mr Reece asked Alleyn, ‘would you advise?’

  ‘To begin with: not an action for libel. Can she be persuaded against it, do you think?’

  ‘She may be all against it in the morning. You never know,’ said Hanley, and then with an uneasy appeal to his employer: ‘I beg your pardon, sir, but I mean to say you don’t, do you? Actually?’

  Mr Reece, with no change of expression in his face, merely looked at his secretary who subsided nervously.

  Alleyn had returned to The Watchman. He tilted the paper this way and that under the table lamp. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure but I think the original paper was probably glossy.’

  ‘I’ll arrange for someone to deal with The Watchman end,’ said Mr Reece, and to Hanley: ‘Get through to Sir Simon Marks in Sydney,’ he ordered. ‘Or wherever he is. Get him.’

  Hanley retreated to a distant telephone and huddled over it in soundless communication.

  Alleyn said: ‘If I were doing this as a conscientious copper I would now ask you all if you have any further ideas about the perpetrator of these ugly tricks – assuming for the moment that the photographer and the concoctor of the letter are one and the same person. Is there anybody you can think of who bears a grudge deep enough to inspire such persistent and malicious attacks? Has she an enemy, in fact?’

  ‘Has she a hundred bloody enemies?’ Mr Ruby heatedly returned. ‘Of course she has. Like the homegrown baritone she insulted in Perth or the top hostess in Los Angeles who threw a high-quality party for her and asked visiting royalty to meet her.’

  ‘What went wrong?’

  ‘She didn’t go.’

  ‘Oh dear!’

  ‘Took against it at the last moment because she’d heard the host’s money came from South Africa. We talked about a sudden attack of migraine, which might have answered if she hadn’t gone to supper at Angelo’s and the press hadn’t reported it with pictures the next morning.’

  ‘Wasn’t “Strix” already in action by then, though?’

  ‘That’s true,’ agreed Mr Ruby gloomily. ‘You’ve got something there. But enemies! My oath!’

  ‘In my view,’ said Mr Reece, ‘the matter of enmity doesn’t arise. This has been from first to
last a profitable enterprise. I’ve ascertained that “Strix” can ask what he likes for his photographs. It’s only a matter of time, one imagines, before they reappear in bookform. He’s hit on a money-spinner and unless we can catch him in the act he’ll go on spinning as long as the public interest lasts. Simple as that.’

  ‘If he concocted the letter,’ Alleyn said, ‘it’s hard to see how he’d make money out of that. He could hardly admit to forgery.’

  Rupert Bartholomew said: ‘I think the letter was written out of pure spite. She thinks so, too: you heard her. A sort of black practical joke.’

  He made this announcement with an air of defiance, almost of proprietorship. Alleyn saw Mr Reece look at him for several seconds with concentration as if his attention had been unexpectedly aroused. He thought: That boy’s getting himself into deep water.

  Hanley had been speaking into the telephone. He stood up and said, ‘Sir Simon Marks, sir.’

  Mr Reece took the call inaudibly. The others fell into an unrestful silence, not wishing to seem as if they listened but unable to find anything to say to each other. Alleyn was conscious of Rupert Bartholomew’s regard which as often as he caught it was hurriedly turned away. He’s making some sort of appeal, Alleyn thought and went over to him. They were now removed from the others.

  ‘Do tell me about your opera,’ he said. ‘I’ve only gathered the scantiest picture from our host of what is going to happen but it all sounds most exciting.’

  Rupert muttered something about not being too sure of that.

  ‘But,’ said Alleyn, ‘it must be an enormous thing for you, isn’t it? For the greatest soprano of our time to bring it all about? A wonderful piece of good fortune, I’d have thought.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Rupert muttered. ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘Hullo! What’s all this? First night nerves?’

  Rupert shook his head. Good Lord, Alleyn thought, a bit more of this and he’ll be in tears. Rupert stared at him and seemed to be on the edge of speech when Mr Reece put back the receiver and rejoined the others. ‘Marks will attend to The Watchman,’ he said. ‘If the original is there he’ll see that we get it.’

  ‘Can you be sure of that?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘Certainly. He owns the group and controls the policy.’

  They began to talk in a desultory way and for Alleyn their voices sounded a long way off and disembodied. The spectacular room became unsteady and its contents swelled, diminished and faded. I’m going to sleep on my feet, he thought and pulled himself together.

  He said to his host, ‘As I can’t be of use, I wonder if I may be excused? It’s been a long day and one didn’t get much sleep on the plane.’

  Mr Reece was all consideration. ‘How very thoughtless of us,’ he said. ‘Of course. Of course.’ He made appropriate hospitable remarks about hoping the Alleyns had everything they required, suggested that they breakfasted late in their room and ring when they were ready for it. He sounded as if he was playing some sort of internal cassette of his own recording. He glanced at Hanley who advanced, all eager to please.

  ‘We’re in unbelievable bliss,’ Alleyn assured them, scarcely knowing what he said. And to Hanley: ‘No, please don’t bother. I promise not to doze off on my way up. Good night, everyone.’

  He crossed the hall which was now dimly lit. The pregnant woman loomed up and stared at him through slitted eyes. Behind her the fire, dwindled to a glow, pulsated quietly.

  As he passed the drawing-room door he heard a scatter of desultory conversation: three voices at the most, he thought, and none of them belonging to Troy.

  And, sure enough, when he reached their room he found her in bed and fast asleep. Before joining her he went to the heavy window curtains, parted them and saw the lake in moonlight close beneath him, stretching away like a silver plain into the mountains. Incongruous, he thought, and impertinent, for this little knot of noisy, self-important people with their self-imposed luxury and serio-comic concerns to be set down at the heart of such an immense serenity.

  He let the curtain fall and went to bed.

  He and Troy were coming back to earth in Mr Reece’s aeroplane. An endless road rushed towards them. Appallingly far below, the river thundered and water lapped at the side of their boat. He fell quietly into it and was immediately fathoms deep.

  CHAPTER 3

  Rehearsal

  Troy slept heavily and woke at ten o’clock to find Alleyn up and dressed and the room full of sunshine.

  ‘I’ve never known you so unwakeable,’ he said. ‘Deep as the lake itself. I’ve asked for our breakfast.’

  ‘Have you been up long?’

  ‘About two hours. The bathroom’s tarted up to its eyebrows. Jets of water smack you up where you least expect it. I went downstairs. Not a soul about apart from the odd slave who looked at me as if I was dotty. So I went outside and had a bit of an explore. Troy, it really is quite extraordinarily beautiful, this place; so still; the lake clear, the trees motionless, everything new and fresh and yet, or so one feels, empty and belonging to primordial time. Dear me,’ said Alleyn, rubbing his nose, ‘I’d better not try. Let’s tell each other about what went on after that atrocious dinner party.’

  ‘I’ve nothing to tell. When we left you the diva merely said in a volcanic voice: ‘Excuse me, ladies,’ and swept upstairs. I gave her time to disappear and then followed suit. I can scarcely remember getting myself to bed. What about you?’

  Alleyn told her.

  ‘If you ask me,’ Troy said, ‘it needs only another outrage like this and she’ll break down completely. She was literally shaking all over as if she had a rigor. She can’t go on like that. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Not really. Not necessarily. Have you ever watched two Italians having a discussion in the street? Furious gestures, shrieks, glaring eyes, faces close together. Any moment, you think, it’ll be a free-for-all and then without warning they burst out laughing and hit each other’s shoulders in comradely accord. I’d say she was of the purest Italian – perhaps Sicilian – peasant stock and utterly uninhibited. Add to that the propensity of all public performers to cut up rough and throw temperaments right and left when they think they’ve been slighted and you’ve got La Sommita. You’ll see.’

  But beyond staring bemusedly out of the windows, Troy was not given much chance of seeing for herself. Instead, she and Alleyn were to be taken on a tour of the house by Mr Reece, beginning with the ‘studio’ which turned out to be on the same level as their bedroom. Grand pianos being as chicken feed to Mr Reece, there was one in here and Troy was given to understand that the Sommita practised at it and that the multiple-gifted Rupert Bartholomew acted as her accompanist, having replaced an Australian lady in that capacity. She found, with astonishment, that an enormous easel of sophisticated design and a painter’s table and stool had been introduced into the room for her use. Mr Reece was anxious, he said, to know if they suited. Troy, tempted to ask if they were on sale or return, said they did and was daunted by their newness. There was also a studio throne with a fine lacquer screen on it. Mr Reece expressed a kind of drab displeasure that it was not large enough to accommodate the grand piano as well. Troy, who had already made up her mind what she wanted to do with her subject, said it was of no consequence. When, she asked, would she be able to start? Mr Reece, she thought, was slightly evasive. He had not spoken this morning to Madame, he said, but he understood there would be rehearsals for the greater part of the day. The orchestra was to arrive. They had been rehearsing, with frequent visits from Bartholomew, and would arrive by bus. The remaining guests were expected tomorrow.

  The studio window was of the enormous plate-glass kind. Through it they had a new view of lake and mountains. Immediately beneath them, adjoining the house, was a patio and close by an artificially enclosed swimming pool, round which and in which members of the house party were displayed. On the extreme right, separated from the pool and surrounded by native bush, was an open space and a hangar which,
Mr Reece said, accommodated the helicopter.

  Mr Reece was moved to talk about the view which he did in a grey, factual manner, stating that the lake was so deep in many parts that it had never been sounded and that the region was famous for a storm, known locally as The Rosser, which rose unheralded in the mountains and whipped the lake into fury and had been responsible for many fatal accidents.

  He also made one or two remarks on the potential for ‘development’ and Alleyn saw the look of horrified incredulity on his wife’s face. Fortunately, it appeared, pettifogging legislation about landtenure and restrictions on imported labour would prohibit what Mr Reece called ‘worthwhile touristic planning’ so that the prospect of marinas, high-rise hotels, speedboats, loud music and floodlit bathing pools did not threaten those primordial shores. Sandflies by day and mosquitoes by night, Mr Reece thought, could be dealt with and Troy envisaged low-flying aircraft delivering millions of gallons of kerosene upon the immaculate face of the lake.

  Without warning she was overcome by a return of fatigue and felt quite unable to face an extended pilgrimage of this unending mansion. Seeing her dilemma, Alleyn asked Mr Reece if he might fetch her gear and unpack it. There was immediate talk of summoning a ‘man’ but they managed to avoid this. And then a ‘man’ in fact did appear, the dark, Italianate-looking person who had brought their breakfast. He had a message for Mr Reece. Madame Sommita wished to see him urgently.

  ‘I think I had better attend to this,’ he said. ‘We all meet on the patio at eleven for drinks. I hope you will both join us there.’

  So they were left in peace. Alleyn fetched Troy’s painting gear and unpacked it. He opened up her old warrior of a paintbox, unstrapped her canvases and set out her sketchbook, and the collection of materials that were like signatures written across any place where Troy worked. She sat in a chair by the window and watched him and felt better.

  Alleyn said: ‘This room will be de-sterilized when it smells of turpentine and there are splotches of flake white on the ledge of that easel and paint rags on the table.’