Photo Finish ra-31

by Ngaio Marsh

  The question was received with concern. Glances were exchanged. There was a general shuffling of feet.

  “Come on,” Alleyn said. “There’s no need to show the whites of your eyes over a harmless inquiry. I’ll give you a lead.” He raised his hand, “I’ve got a camera and I don’t mind betting most of you have. Hands up.” Mr. Reece, in the manner of seconding the motion, raised his. Seven more followed suit, one after another, until only six had not responded: three New Zealand housemen with Maria, Marco, and Hilda Dancy.

  “Good,” Alleyn said. “Now. I’m going to ask those of you who do possess a camera to tell me what the make is and if you’ve used it at any time during the last week and if so, what you took. Mrs. Bacon?”

  The response was predictable. A cross-section of cameras, from a wildly expensive type of self-developing instrument, the property of Mr. Reece, down to low-priced popular items at the falling-off-a-log level of simplicity, belonging to Sylvia Parry and two of the maids.

  Mr. Ruby’s camera was another highly sophisticated and expensive version of instantaneous self-development. He had used it that very morning when he had lined up the entire houseparty with the Lodge for a background. He actually had the “picture,” as he consistently called the photograph, on him and showed it to Alleyn. There was Troy between Mr. Reece, who, as usual, conveyed nothing, and Signor Lattienzo, who playfully ogled her. And there, at the center, of course, the Sommita with her arm laid in tigerish possession across the shoulders of a haunted Rupert, while Silvia Parry, on his other side, looked straight ahead. A closer examination showed that she had taken his hand.

  Alleyn himself, head and shoulders taller than his neighbors, was, he now saw with stoic distaste, being winsomely contemplated by the ubiquitous Hanley, three places removed in the back row.

  Signor Lattienzo was a problem. He waved his hands and cast up his eyes. “Oh, my dear Mr. Alleyn!” he said. “Yes, I have a camera. It was presented to me by — forgive my conscious looks and mantling cheeks — a grateful pupil. Isabella, in fact. I cannot remember the name and have been unable to master its ridiculously complicated mechanism. I carry it about with me, in order to show keen.”

  “And you haven’t used it?”

  “Well,” said Signor Lattienzo. “In a sense I have used it. Yesterday. It upsets me to remember. Isabella proposed that I take photographs of her at the bathing pool. Rather than confess my incompetence, I aimed it at her and pressed a little protuberance. It gave no persuasive click. I repeated the performance several times but nothing emerged. As to any latent result, one has grave misgivings. If there are any, they rest in some prenatal state in the womb of the camera. You shall play the midwife,” offered Signor Lattienzo.

  “Thank you. Perhaps if I could see the camera—?”

  “But of course. Of course. Shall I fetch it?”

  “Please do.”

  Signor Lattienzo bustled away, but after a considerable period, during which Alleyn finished the general camera check, he returned looking flustered.

  “Alas!” he proclaimed and spread his arms.

  “Have you lost your camera?” Alleyn said.

  “Not to say lost, my dear fellow. Mislaid. I suspect by the swimming pool. By now, one fears, drowned.”

  “One does indeed.”

  And that being so, the round of camera owners was completed, the net result being that Mr. Reece, Ben Ruby, Hanley, and Signor Lattienzo (if he had known how to use it) all possessed cameras that could have achieved the photograph now pinned under the breast of the murdered Sommita. To these proceedings Maria had listened with a sort of smoldering resentment. At one point she flared up and reminded Marco, in vituperative Italian, that he had a camera and had not declared it. He responded with equal animosity that his camera had disappeared during the Australian tour and hinted darkly that Maria herself knew more than she was prepared to let on in that connection. As neither of them could remember the make of the camera, their dialogue was unfruitful.

  Alleyn asked if Rupert Bartholomew possessed a camera. Hanley said he did and had taken photographs of the Island from the lakeshore and of the lakeshore from the Island. Nobody knew anything at all about his camera.

  Alleyn wound up the proceedings, which had taken less time in performance than in description. He said that if this had been a police inquiry they would all have been asked to show their hands and roll up their sleeves and if they didn’t object he would be obliged if—?

  Only Maria objected, but on being called to order in no uncertain terms by Mr. Reece, offered her clawlike extremities as if she expected to be stripped to the buff. There were no signs of bloodstains on anybody, which, if one of them was guilty, supported the theory that the Sommita was dead when the photograph was skewered to her heart.

  This daunting formality completed, Alleyn told them they could all go to bed and it might be as well to lock their doors. He then returned to the landing, where Bert sustained his vigil behind a large screen, across whose surface ultramodern nudes frisked busily. He had been able to keep a watch on the Sommita’s bedroom door through hinged gaps between panels. The searchers to this part of the house had been Ruby and Dr. Carmichael. They had not tried the bedroom door but stood outside it for a moment or two, whispering, for all the world as if they were afraid the Sommita might overhear them.

  Alleyn told Bert to remain unseen and inactive for the time being. He then unlocked the door, and he and Dr. Carmichael returned to the room.

  In cases of homicide when the body has been left undisturbed, and particularly when there is an element of the grotesque or of extreme violence in its posture, there can be a strange reaction before returning to it. Might it have moved? There is something shocking about finding it just as it was, like the Sommita, still agape, still with her gargoyle tongue, still staring, still rigidly pointing upside-down on her bed. He photographed it from just inside the door.

  Soon the room smelled horridly of synthetic violets as Alleyn made use of the talc powder. He then photographed the haft of the knife, a slender, spirally grooved affair with an omate silver knob. Dr. Carmichael held the bedside lamp close to it.

  “I suppose you don’t know where it came from?” he asked.

  “I think so. One of a pair on the wall behind the pregnant woman.”

  “What pregnant woman?” exclaimed the startled doctor.

  “In the hall.”

  “Oh. That.”

  “There were two, crossed and held by brackets. Only one now.” And after a pause during which Alleyn took three more shots: “You wouldn’t know when it was removed?” Dr. Carmichael said.

  “Only that it was there before the general exodus this evening.”

  “You’re trained to notice details, of course.”

  Using Troy’s sable brush, he spread the violet powder round the mouth, turning the silent scream into the grimace of a painted clown.

  “By God, you’re a cool hand,” the doctor remarked.

  Alleyn looked up at him and something in the look caused Dr. Carmichael to say in a hurry: “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” Alleyn said. “Do you see this? Above the corners of the mouth? Under the cheekbones?”

  Carmichael stooped. “Bruising,” he said.

  “Not hypostases?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. I’m not a pathologist, Alleyn.”

  “No. But there are well-defined differences, aren’t there?”

  “Precisely.”

  “She used very heavy makeup. Heavier than usual, of course, for the performance, and she hadn’t removed it. Some sort of basic stuff topped up with a finishing cream. Then coloring. And then a final powdering. Don’t those bruises, if bruises they are, look as if the makeup under the cheekbones has been disturbed? Pushed up, as it were!”

  After a considerable pause, Dr. Carmichael said: “Could be. Certainly could be.”

  “And look at the area below the lower lip. It’s not very marked, but don’
t you think it may become more so? What does that suggest to you?”

  “Again bruising.”

  “Pressure against the lower teeth?”

  “Yes. That. It’s possible.”

  Alleyn went to the Sommita’s dressing table, where there was an inevitable gold-mounted manicure box. He selected a slender nail file, returned to the bed, slid it between the tongue and the lower lip, exposing the inner surface.

  “Bitten,” he said. He extended his left hand to within half an inch of the terrible face with his thumb below one cheekbone, his fingers below the other, and the heel of his hand over the chin and mouth. He did not touch the face.

  “Somebody with a larger hand than mine, I fancy,” he said, “but not much. I could almost cover it.”

  “You’re talking about asphyxia, aren’t you?”

  “I’m wondering about it. Yes. There are those pinpoint spots.”

  “Asphyxial hemorrhages. On the eyeballs.”

  “Yes,” said Alleyn and closed his own eyes momentarily. “Can you come any nearer to a positive answer?”

  “An autopsy would settle it.”

  “Of course,” Alleyn agreed.

  He had again stooped over his subject and was about to take another photograph when he checked, stooped lower, sniffed, and then straightened up.

  “Will you?” he said. “It’s very faint.”

  Dr. Carmichael stooped. “Chloroform,” he said. “Faint, as you say, but unmistakable. And look here, Alleyn. There’s a bruise on the throat to the right of the voice box.”

  “And have you noticed the wrists?”

  Dr. Carmichael looked at them — at the left wrist on the end of the rigid upraised arm and at the right one on the counterpane. “Bruising,” he said.

  “Caused by — would you say?”

  “Hands. So now what?” asked Dr. Carmichael.

  “Does a tentative pattern emerge?” Alleyn suggested. “Chloroform. Asphyxia. Death. Ripping the dress. Two persons— one holding the wrists. The other using the chloroform. The stabbing coming later. If it’s right it would account for there being so little blood, wouldn’t it?”

  “Certainly would,” Dr. Carmichael said. “And there’s very, very little. I’d say that tells us there was a considerable gap between death and the stabbing. The blood had had time to sink.”

  “How long?”

  “Don’t make too much of my guesswork, will you? Perhaps as much as twenty minutes — longer even. But what a picture!” said Dr. Carmichael. “You know? Cutting the dress, ripping it open, placing the photograph over the heart, and then using the knife. I mean — it’s so — so farfetched. Why?”

  “As farfetched as a vengeful killing in a Jacobean play,” Alleyn said and then: “Yes. A vengeful killing.”

  “Are you — are we,” Carmichael asked, “not going to withdraw the weapon?”

  “I’m afraid not. I’ve blown my top often enough when some well-meaning fool has interfered with the body. In this case I’d be the well-meaning fool.”

  “Oh, come. But I see your point,” Carmichael said. “I suppose I’m in the same boat myself. I should go no further than making sure she’s dead. And, by God, it doesn’t need a professional man to do that.”

  “The law, in respect of bodies, is a bit odd. They belong to nobody. They are not the legal property of anyone. This can lead to muddles.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “It’s all jolly fine for the lordly Reece to order me to take charge. I’ve no right to do so and the local police would have every right to cut up rough if I did.”

  “So would the pathologist if I butted in.”

  “I imagine,” Alleyn said, “they won’t boggle at the photographs. After all there will be — changes.”

  “There will indeed. This house is central-heated.”

  “There may be a local switch in this room. Yes. Over there where it could be reached from the bed. Off with it.”

  “I will,” said Carmichael and switched it off.

  “I wonder if we can open the windows a crack without wreaking havoc,” Alleyn said. He pulled back the heavy curtains and there was the black and streaming glass. They were sash windows. He opened one and then others half an inch at the top, admitting blades of cold air and the voice of the storm.

  “At least, if we can find something appropriate, we can cover her,” he said and looked about the room. There was a sandalwood chest against the wall. He opened it and lifted out a folded bulk of black material. “This will do,” he said. He and Carmichael opened it out, and spread it over the body. It was scented and heavy and it shone dully. The rigid arm jutted up underneath it.

  “What on earth is it for?” Carmichael wondered.

  “It’s one of her black satin sheets. There are pillowcases to match in the box.”

  “Good God!”

  “I know.”

  Alleyn locked the door into the bathroom, wrapped the key in his handkerchief, and pocketed it.

  He and the doctor stood in the middle of the room. Already it was colder. Slivers of wind from outside stirred the marabou trimming on the Sommita’s dressing gown and even fiddled with her black satin pall so that she might have been thought to move stealthily underneath it.

  “No sign of the wind dropping,” said Carmichael. “Or is there?”

  “It’s not raining quite so hard, I fancy. I wonder if the launch man’s got through. Where would the nearest police station be?”

  “Rivermouth, I should think. Down on the coast. About sixty miles, at a guess.”

  “And as, presumably, the cars are all miles away returning guests to their homes east of the ranges, and the telephone at the boatshed will be out of order, we can only hope that the unfortunate Les has set out on foot for the nearest sign of habitation. I remember that on coming here we stopped to collect the mailbag at a railway station some two miles back along the line. A very small station called Kai-kai, I think.”

  “That’s right. With about three whares* and a pub. He may wait till first light,” said Dr. Carmichael, “before he goes anywhere.” [A whare is a small dwelling.]

  “He did signal ‘Roger,’ which of course may only have meant ‘Message received and understood.’ Let’s leave this bloody room, shall we?”

  They turned, and took two steps. Alleyn put his hand on Carmichael’s arm. Something had clicked.

  The door handle was turning, this way and that. A pause and then the sound of a key being inserted and engaged.

  The door opened and Maria came into the room.

  ii

  This time Maria did not launch out into histrionics. When she saw the two men she stopped, drew herself up, looked beyond them to the shrouded figure on the bed, and said in English that she had come to be of service to her mistress.

  “I perform the last rites,” said Maria. “This is my duty. Nobody else. It is for me.”

  Alleyn said: “Maria, certainly it would be for you if circumstances had been different, but this is murder and she must not be touched until permission has been given by the authorities. Neither Doctor Carmichael nor I have touched her. We have examined but we have not touched. We have covered her for dignity’s sake but that is all, and so it must remain until permission is given. We can understand your wish and are sorry to prevent you. Do you understand?”

  She neither replied nor looked at him. She went to a window and reached for the cord that operated it.

  “No,” Alleyn said. “Nothing must be touched.” She made for the heavier, ornate cord belonging to the curtains. “Not that either,” Alleyn said. “Nothing must be touched. And I’m afraid I must ask you to come away from the room, Maria.”

  “I wait. I keep veglia. “

  “It is not permitted. I am sorry.”

  She said, in Italian, “It is necessary for me to pray for her soul.”

  “You can do so. But not here.”

  Now she did look at him, directly and for an uncomfortably long time. Dr. Carmichael cl
eared his throat.

  She walked toward the door. Alleyn reached it first. He opened it, removed the key and stood aside.

  “Sozzume,” Maria said and spat inaccurately at him. She looked and sounded like a snake. He motioned with his head to Dr. Carmichael, who followed Maria quickly to the landing. Alleyn turned off the lights in the room, left it, and locked the door. He put Maria’s key in his pocket. He now had two keys to the room.

  “I remain,” Maria said. “All night. Here.”

  “That is as you wish,” Alleyn said.

  Beside the frisky nude-embellished screen behind which Bert still kept his vigil, there were chairs and a clever occasional table with a lamp carved in wood — an abstract with unmistakable phallic implications, the creation, Alleyn guessed, of the master whose pregnant lady dominated the hall.

  “Sit down, Maria,” Alleyn said. “I have something to say to you.”

  He moved a chair toward her. “Please,” he said.

  At first he thought she would refuse, but after two seconds or so of stony immobility she did sit, poker-backed, on the edge of the offered chair.

  “You have seen Madame Sommita and you know she has been murdered,” he said. “You wish that her murderer will be found, don’t you?”

  Her mouth set in a tight line and her eyes flashed. She did not speak, but if she had delivered herself of a tirade it could not have been more eloquent.

  “Very well,” Alleyn said. “Now then: when the storm is over and the lake is calmer, the New Zealand police will come and they will ask many questions. Until they come, Mr. Reece has put me in charge and anything you tell me, I will tell them. Anything I ask you, I will ask for one reason only: because I hope your answer may help us to find the criminal. If your reply is of no help it will be forgotten — it will be as if you had not made it. Do you understand?”

  He thought: I shall pretend she has answered. And he said: “Good. Well now. First question. Do you know what time it was when Madame Sommita came upstairs with Mr. Reece and found you waiting for her? No? It doesn’t matter. The opera began at eight and they will know how long it runs.”