by Ngaio Marsh
‘That’s right – ‘ Hanley said. ‘The envelope was meant for her letter to The Watchman when she’d signed it. I’ve told you – ‘ And then, on a calmer note. ‘I see what you mean. Marco would have thought it would be posted without – anybody -me- thinking anything of it. Yes, I see.’
‘Instead of which we believe Maria caught sight of Marco pushing the photograph into the envelope. Her curiosity was aroused. She waited until Marco had gone, and took it out. She kept it, and made the mistake of throwing the envelope into the fire. It fell, half-burnt, through the bars of the grate into the ashpan from where we recovered it.’
‘If this is provable and not merely conjecture,’ said Mr Reece, swinging his keys, ‘do you argue that at this stage she anticipated the crime?’
‘If the murder was the last in a long series of retributive crimes it would appear so. In the original case an incriminating letter was transfixed to the body.’
There followed a long silence. ‘So she was right,’ said Mr Reece heavily. ‘She was right to be afraid. I shall never forgive myself.’
Ben Ruby said Mr Reece didn’t want to start thinking that way. ‘We none of us thought there was anything in it,’ he pleaded. ‘She used to dream up such funny ideas. You couldn’t credit them.’
Signor Lattienzo threw up his hands. ‘Wolf. Wolf,’ he said.
‘I’ve yet to be convinced,’ Mr Reece said. ‘I cannot believe it of Maria. I know they used to fall out occasionally but there was nothing in that. Maria was devoted. Proof!’ he said still contemplating his keys. ‘You have advanced no proof.’
‘I see I must now give some account of the puzzle of the keys.’
‘The keys? Whose keys?’ asked Mr Reece, swinging his own.
Alleyn suppressed a crazy impulse to reply ‘The Queen’s keys’ in the age-old challenge of the Tower of London. He merely gave as clear an account as possible of the enigma of the Sommita’s key and the impossibility of her having had time to remove it from a bag in the bottom drawer of the dressing table and lock the bedroom door in the seconds that elapsed between her kicking out Mr Reece and Maria and them hearing it click in the lock.
Mr Reece chewed this over and then said: ‘One can only suppose that at this stage her bag was not in the drawer but close at hand.’
‘Even so: ask yourself. She orders you out, you shut the door and immediately afterwards hear it locked: a matter of perhaps two seconds.’
‘It may have already been in her hand.’
‘Do you remember her hands during the interview?’
‘They were clenched. She was angry.’
‘Well – it could be argued, I suppose. Just. But there is a sequel,’ Alleyn said. And he told them of Maria’s final performance and arrest.
‘I’m afraid,’ he ended, ‘that all the pious protestations, all her passionate demands to perform the last duties were an act. She realized that she had blundered, that we would, on her own statement, expect to find her mistress’s key in the room, and that she must at all costs get into the room and push it under the body where we would find it in due course.’
‘What did she say when you arrested her?’ Lattienzo asked.
‘Nothing. She hasn’t spoken except – ‘
‘Well? Except?’
‘She accused Rupert Bartholomew of murder.’
Hanley let out an exclamation. Lattienzo stared at him. ‘You spoke, Mr Hanley?’ he said.
‘No, no. Nothing. Sorry.’
Ben Ruby said: ‘All the same, you know – well, I mean, you can’t ignore – I mean to say, there was that scene, wasn’t there? I mean, she had put him through it, no kidding. And the curtain speech and the way he acted. I mean to say, he’s the only one of us who you could say had motive and opportunity – I mean – ‘
‘My good Ben,’ Lattienzo said wearily, ‘we all know in general terms what you mean. But when you say “opportunity” what precisely do you mean? Opportunity to murder? But Mr Alleyn tells us he does not as yet accuse the perpetrator of the dagger-and-photograph operation of the murder. And Mr Alleyn convinces me, for what it’s worth, that he knows what he’s talking about. I would like to ask Mr Alleyn if he links Maria, who has been arrested for the photograph abomination, with the murder and if so what that link is. Or are we to suppose that Maria, on re-entering the room, hot drink in hand, discovered the dead body and was inspired to go downstairs, unobserved by the milling crowd, remove the dagger from the wall, collect the photograph from wherever she’d put it, return to the bedroom, perform her atrocity and then raise the alarm? Is that, as dear Ben would put it, the story?’
‘Not quite,’ said Alleyn.
‘Ah!’ said Lattienzo. ‘So I supposed.’
‘I didn’t say we don’t suspect her for murder: on the contrary. I merely said she was arrested on the charge of mutilating the body, not on a charge of murder.’
‘But that may follow?’
Alleyn was silent.
‘Which is as much as to say,’ Ben Ruby said, ‘that you reckon it’s a case of conspiracy and that Maria is half of the conspiracy and that one of us – I mean of the people in this house – was the principal. Yeah?’
‘Yes.’
‘Charming!’ said Mr Ruby.
‘Are we to hear any more?’ Mr Reece asked. ‘After all, apart from the modus operandi in Maria’s case, we have learnt nothing new, have we? As, for instance, whether you have been able to clear any of us of suspicion. Particularly the young man – Bartholomew.’
‘Monty, my dear,’ said Lattienzo who had turned quite pale, ‘how right you are. And here I would like to say with the greatest emphasis that I resist vehemently any suggestion, open or covert, that this unfortunate boy is capable of such a crime. Mr Alleyn, I beg you to consider! What does such a theory ask us to accept? Consider his behaviour.’
‘Yes,’ Alleyn said, ‘consider it. He makes what amounts to a public announcement of his break with her. He puts himself into the worst possible light as a potential murderer. He even writes a threatening message on a greetings card. He is at particular pains to avoid laying on an alibi. He faints, is taken upstairs, recovers and hurries along to the bedroom where he chloroforms and asphyxiates his victim and returns to his own quarters.’
Lattienzo stared at Alleyn for a second or two. The colour returned to his face, he made his little crowing sound and seized Alleyn’s hands. ‘Ah!’ he cried. ‘You agree! You see! You see! It is impossible! It is ridiculous!’
‘If I may just pipe up,’ Hanley said, appealing to Mr Reece. ‘I mean, all this virtuous indignation on behalf of the Boy-Beautiful! Very touching and all that.’ He shot a glance at his employer and another at Lattienzo. ‘One might be forgiven for drawing one’s own conclusions.’
‘That will do,’ said Mr Reece.
‘Well, all right, then, sir. Enough said. But I mean – after all, one would like to be officially in the clear. I mean: take me. From the time you escorted Madame upstairs and she turned you and Maria out until Maria returned and found her – dead – I was in the dining room and hall calming down guests and talking to Les and telling you about the lake and making a list for Les to check the guests by. I really could not,’ said Hanley on a rising note of hysteria, ‘have popped upstairs and murdered Madame and come back, as bright as a button, to speed the parting guests and tramp about with umbrellas. And anyway,’ he added, ‘I hadn’t got a key.’
‘As far as that goes,’ said Ben Ruby, ‘she could have let you in and I don’t mean anything nasty. Just to set the record straight.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Hanley bitterly.
‘To return to the keys,’ Mr Reece said slowly, still swinging his own as if to illustrate his point. ‘About the third key, her key.’ He appealed to Hazelmere and Alleyn. ‘There must be some explanation. Some quite simple explanation. Surely.’
Alleyn looked at Hazelmere who nodded very slightly.
‘There is,’ said Alleyn, ‘a very simple explanat
ion. The third key was in the bag in the bottom drawer where it had lain unmolested throughout the proceedings.’
Into the silence that followed there intruded a distant pulsation: the chopper returning, thought Alleyn.
Mr Reece said: ‘But when Maria and I left – we – heard the key turn in the lock. What key? You’ve accounted for the other two. She locked us out with her own key.’
‘We think not.’
‘But Maria heard it too. She has said so. I don’t understand this,’ said Mr Reece. ‘Unless…But no. No, I don’t understand. Why did Maria do as you say she did? Come back and try to hide the key under – ? It’s horrible. Why did she do that?’
‘Because, as I’ve suggested, she realized we would expect to find it.’
‘Ah. Yes. I take the point but all the same – ‘
‘Monty,’ Signor Lattienzo cried out. ‘For pity’s sake do something with those accursed keys. You are lacerating my nerves.’
Mr Reece looked at him blankly. ‘Oh?’ he said. ‘Am I? I’m sorry.’ He hesitated, examined the key by which he had suspended the others and, turning to his desk, fitted it into one of the drawers. ‘Is that better?’ he asked and unlocked the drawer.
Ben Ruby said in a voice that was pitched above its normal register: ‘I don’t get any of this. All I know is we better look after ourselves. And as far as our lot goes – you, Monty, and Beppo and me – we were all sitting at the dinner table from the time you left Bella alive and throwing a temperament, until Maria raised the alarm.’ He turned on Alleyn. ‘That’s right, isn’t it? That’s correct? Come on – isn’t it?’
‘Not quite,’ said Alleyn. ‘When Mr Reece and Maria left Madame Sommita she was not throwing a temperament. She was dead.’
II
In the bad old days of capital punishment it used to be said that you could tell when a verdict of guilty was about to be returned. The jury always avoided looking at the accused. Alleyn was reminded now, obliquely, of this dictum. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Everyone looked at him and only at him.
Inspector Hazelmere cleared his throat.
The helicopter landed. So loud, it might have been on the roof or outside on the gravel. The engine shut off and the inflowing silence was intolerable.
Mr Reece said: ‘More police, I assume.’
Hazelmere said: ‘That is correct, sir.’
Somebody crossed the hall and seconds later Sergeant Franks walked past the windows.
‘I think, Chief Superintendent Alleyn,’ said Mr Reece, ‘you must be out of your mind.’
Alleyn took out his notebook. Hazelmere placed himself in front of Mr Reece. ‘Montague Reece,’ he said, ‘I arrest you for the murder of Isabella Sommita and I have to warn you that anything you say will be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence.’
‘Hanley,’ Mr Reece said, ‘get through to my solicitors in Sydney.’
Hanley said in a shaking voice: ‘Certainly, sir.’ He took up the receiver, fumbled and dropped it on the desk. He said to Alleyn: ‘I suppose – is it all right? I mean – ‘
Hazelmere said: ‘It’s in order.’
‘Do it,’ Mr Reece said. And then, loudly to Hazelmere: ‘The accusation is grotesque. You will do yourself a great deal of harm.’
Alleyn wrote this down.
Mr Reece looked round the room as if he was seeing it for the first time. He swivelled his chair and faced his desk. Hanley, drawn back in his chair with the receiver at his ear, watched him. Alleyn took a step forward.
‘Here are the police,’ Mr Reece observed loudly.
Hazelmere, Lattienzo and Ruby turned to look.
Beyond the windows Sergeant Franks tramped past, followed by a uniform sergeant and a constable.
‘No!’ Hanley screamed. ‘Stop him! No!’
There was nothing but noise in the room.
Alleyn had not prevented Mr Reece from opening the unlocked drawer and snatching out the automatic but he had knocked up his arm. The bullet had gone through the top of a window-pane and two succeeding shots had lodged in the ceiling. Dust fell from the overhead lampshades.
Two helmets and three deeply concerned faces appeared at the foot of the windows, slightly distorted by pressure against the glass. The owners rose and could be heard thundering round the house.
Alleyn with Mr Reece’s arms secured behind his back said, a trifle breathlessly: ‘That was a very silly thing to do, Signor Rossi.’
III
‘…almost the only silly thing he did,’ Alleyn said. ‘He showed extraordinary coolness and judgement throughout. His one serious slip was to say he heard the key turn in the lock. Maria set that one up and he felt he had to fall in with it. He was good at avoiding conflicts and that’s the only time he told a direct lie.’
‘What I can’t understand,’ Troy said, ‘is his inviting you of all people to his party.’
‘Only, I think, after the Sommita or perhaps Hanley told him about her letter to the Yard. It was dated a week before his invitations to us. Rather than un-pick her letter he decided to confirm it. And I’m sure he really did want the portrait. Afterwards it could have been, for him, the equivalent of a scalp. And as for my presence in the house, I fancy it lent what the mafiosi call “elegance” to the killing.’
‘My God,’ said Signor Lattienzo, ‘I believe you are right.’
‘There was one remark he made that brought me up with a round turn,’ Alleyn said. ‘He was speaking of her death to Ben Ruby and he said, “And now she no longer casts a shadow.” ‘
‘But that’s – isn’t it – a phrase used by – ‘
‘The mafiosi? Yes. So I had discovered when I read the book in the library. It was not in Mr Reece’s usual style, was it?’
Signor Lattienzo waited for a little and then said, ‘I assure you, my dear Alleyn, that I have sworn to myself that I will not pester you but I immediately break my resolution to say that I die to know how you discovered his true identity. His name. “Rossi".’
‘Have you ever noticed that when people adopt pseudonyms they are so often impelled to retain some kind of link with their old name? Often it is the initials, often there is some kind of assonance – Reece – Rossi. M. V. Rossi – Montague V. Reece. He actually had the nerve to tell me his Bella had confided that she wished his surname didn’t remind her of the “enemy". The M. V. Rossi signature in the book bears quite a strong resemblance to the Reece signature, spiky letters and all. He seems to have decided very early in life to opt out of the “family” business. It may even have been at his father’s suggestion. Papa Rossi leaves a hefty swag of ill-gotten gains which Monty Reece manipulates brilliantly and with the utmost propriety and cleanest of noses. I think it must have amused him to plant the book up there with the diva’s bi- and autobi-ographies. The book has been instructive. The victim in the case it deals with was a Rossi girl – his sister. A paper was stabbed to her heart. She had a brother, Michele-Vittorio Rossi, who disappeared.’
‘Our Mr Reece?’
‘It’s a good guess.’
‘And Maria?’
‘The widow Bennini? Who wouldn’t tell me her maiden name. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to have been Rossi. He is said to have picked her up at the Italian Embassy. He may even have planted her there. Obviously they were in heavy cahoots. I imagine them enjoying a good gloat over the Strix on-goings.’
Signor Lattienzo said: ‘Was Strix in Monty’s pay?’
‘So far there’s no proof of it. It would fit in very tidily, wouldn’t it? But all this is grossly speculative stuff. At best, merely Gilbertian “corroborative detail". The case rests on the bedrock fact that once you accept that the crime was committed at the earlier time, which the medical opinion confirms, everything falls into place and there are no difficulties. Nobody else could have done it, not even young Bartholomew who was being tended in his room by you and Dr Carmichael. The rest of us were at dinner. The doctors will testify that the stab was administered an appreciable ti
me after death.’
‘And – he – Monty, took Bella up to her room and – he – ?’
‘With Maria’s help, chloroformed and stifled her. I’ve been told that the diva, after cutting up rough, always without fail required Maria to massage her shoulders. Maria actually told me she offered this service and was refused, but perhaps it was Maria, ready and waiting, who seized the opportunity to grind away at Madame’s shoulders and then use the chloroform while Mr Reece who – all inarticulate sympathy – had been holding the victim’s hands, now tightened his grip and when she was insensible went in for the kill. He then joined us in the dining room as you will remember and told us she was not very well. Maria meanwhile prepared the hot drink and collected the dagger and photograph.’
‘So that extra touch was all her own?’
‘If it was I feel sure he approved it. It was in the mafioso manner. It had, they would consider, style and elegance.’
‘That,’ observed Signor Lattienzo, ‘as Monty himself would say, “figures".’
Bert came into the hall. He said they were ready and opened the front doors. There, outside, was the dawn. Bellbirds chimed through the bush like rain distilled into sound. The trees, blurred in mist, were wet and smelt of honeydew. The lake was immaculate and perfectly still.
Troy said: ‘This landscape belongs to birds: not to men, not to animals: huge birds that have gone now, stalked about in it. Except for birds it’s empty.’
Bert shut the doors of the Lodge behind them.
He and Alleyn and Troy and Signor Lattienzo walked across the gravelled front and down to the jetty where Les waited in the launch.
By the Same Author
A Man Lay Dead
Enter a Murderer
The Nursing Home Murder
Death in Ecstasy
Vintage Murder
Artists in Crime
Death in a White Tie
Overture to Death
Death at the Bar
Surfeit of Lampreys
Death and the Dancing Footman
Colour Scheme
