Читать книгу Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 11: Photo-Finish, Light Thickens, Black Beech and Honeydew - Ngaio Marsh, Stella Duffy - Страница 21

Mr Reece handled the catastrophe with expertise. He stood up, faced his guests and said that Rupert Bartholomew had been unwell for some days and no doubt the strain of the production had been a little too much for him. He (Mr Reece) knew that they would all appreciate this and he asked them to reassemble in the drawing room. Dinner would be served as soon as the performers were ready to join them.

So out they all trooped and Mr Reece, followed by Signor Lattienzo, went backstage.

As they passed through the hall the guests became more aware of what was going on outside: irregular onslaughts of wind, rain and, behind these immediate sounds, a vague groundswell of turbulence. Those guests who were to travel through the night by way of launch, bus and car began to exchange glances. One of them, a woman, who was near the windows parted the heavy curtains and looked out releasing the drumming sound of rain against glass and a momentary glimpse of the blinded pane. She let the curtain fall and pulled an anxious grimace. A hearty male voice said loudly: ‘Not to worry. She’ll be right.’

More champagne in the drawing room and harder drinks for the asking. The performers began to come in and Hanley with them. He circulated busily. ‘Doing his stuff,’ said Alleyn.

‘Not an easy assignment,’ said Troy and then: ‘I’d like to know how that boy is.’

‘So would I.’

‘Might we be able to do anything, do you suppose?’

‘Shall we ask?’

Hanley saw them, flashed his winsome smile and joined them. ‘We’re going in now,’ he said. ‘The Lady asks us not to wait.’

‘How’s Rupert?’

‘Poor dear! Wasn’t it a pity? Everything had gone so well. He’s in his room. Lying down, you know, but quite all right. Not to be disturbed. He’ll be quite all right,’ Hanley repeated brightly. ‘Straightout case of nervous fatigue. Ah, there’s the gong. Will you give a lead? Thank you so much.’

On this return passage through the hall, standing inconspicuously just inside the entrance and partly screened by the vast pregnant woman whose elfin leer suggested a clandestine rendezvous, was a figure in dripping oilskins: Les, the launchman. Hanley went to speak to him.

The dining room had been transformed, two subsidiary tables being introduced to form an E with the middle stroke missing. The three central places at the ‘top’ table were destined for the Sommita, her host and Rupert Bartholomew, none of whom appeared to occupy them. All the places were named and the Alleyns were again among the VIPs. This time Troy found herself with Mr Reece’s chair on her left and Signor Lattienzo on her right. Alleyn was next to the Sommita’s empty chair with the wife of the New Zealand conductor on his left.

‘This is delightful,’ said Signor Lattienzo.

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Troy who was not in the mood for badinage.

‘I arranged it.’

‘You, what?’ she exclaimed.

‘I transposed the cards. You had been given the New Zealand maestro and I his wife. She will be enraptured with your husband’s company and will pay no attention to her own husband. He will be less enraptured but that cannot be helped.’

‘Well,’ said Troy, ‘for sheer effrontery, I must say – !’

‘I take, as you say, the buttery bun? Apropos, I am much in need of refreshment. That was a most painful débâcle, was it not?’

‘Is he all right? Is someone doing something? I’m sure I don’t know what anybody can do,’ Troy said, ‘but is there someone?’

‘I have seen him.’

‘You have?’

‘I have told him that he took a courageous and honest course. I was also able to say that there was a shining moment – the duet when you and I exchanged signals. He has rewritten it since I saw the score. It is delightful.’

‘That will have helped.’

‘A little, I think.’

‘Yesterday he confided rather alarmingly in us, particularly in Rory. Do you think he might like to see Rory?’

‘At the moment I hope he is asleep. A Dr Carmichael has seen him and I have administered a pill. I suffer,’ said Signor Lattienzo, ‘from insomnia.’

‘Is she coming down, do you know?’

‘I understand from our good Monty – yes. After the débâcle she appeared to have been in two minds about what sort of temperament it would be appropriate to throw. Obviously an attack upon the still unconscious Rupert was out of the question. There remained the flood of remorse which I fancy she would not care to entertain since it would indicate a flaw in her own behaviour. Finally there could be a demonstration as from a distracted lover. Puzzled by this choice, she burst into a storm of ambiguous tears and Retired, as they say in your Shakespeare, Above. Escorted by Monty. To the ministrations of the baleful Maria and with the intention of making another delayed entrance. We may expect her at any moment, no doubt. In the meantime the grilled trout was delicious and here comes the coq-au-vin.’

But the Sommita did not appear. Instead, Mr Reece arrived to say that she had been greatly upset by poor Rupert Bartholomew’s collapse which had no doubt been due to nervous exhaustion, but would rejoin them a little later. He then said that he was sorry indeed to have to tell them that he had been advised by the launchman that the local storm, known as The Rosser, had blown up and would increase in force, probably reaching its peak in about an hour when it would then become inadvisable to make the crossing to the mainland. Loath as he was to break up the party, he felt perhaps … He spread his hands.

The response was immediate. The guests, having finished their marrons glacés, professed themselves, with many regrets, ready to leave. There was a general exodus for them to prepare themselves for the journey, Sir David Baumgartner, who had been expected to stay, among them. He had an important appointment looming up, he explained, and dare not risk missing it.

There would be room enough for all the guests and the performers in the bus and cars that waited across the lake. Anyone so inclined could spend the tag end of the night at the Cornishman’s Pass pub on the east side of the Pass and journey down-country by train the next day. The rest would continue through the night, descending to the plains and across them to their ultimate destinations.

The Alleyns agreed that the scene in the hall bore a resemblance to rush hour on the Underground. There was a sense of urgency and scarcely concealed impatience. The travellers were to leave in two batches of twenty which was the maximum accommodation in the launch. The house-staff fussed about with raincoats and umbrellas. Mr Reece stood near the door repeating valedictory remarks of scant originality and shaking hands. Some of the guests, as their anxiety mounted, became perfunctory in their acknowledgements, a few actually neglected him altogether being intent upon manoeuvring themselves into the top twenty. Sir David Baumgartner, in awful isolation and a caped mackintosh, sat in a porter’s chair looking very cross indeed.

The entrance doors opened admitting wind, rain and cold all together. The first twenty guests were gone: swallowed up and shut out as if, Troy thought – and disliked herself for so thinking – they were condemned.

Mr Reece explained to the remainder that it would be at least half an hour before the launch returned and advised them to wait in the drawing room. The servants would keep watch and would report as soon as they sighted the lights of the returning launch.

A few followed this suggestion but most remained in the hall, sitting round the enormous fireplace or in scattered chairs, wandering about, getting themselves behind the window curtains and coming out, scared by their inability to see anything beyond streaming panes.

Eru Johnstone was speaking to the tenor, Rodolfo Romano, and the little band of musicians who listened to him in a huddle of apprehension. Alleyn and Troy joined them. Eru Johnstone was saying: ‘It’s something one doesn’t try to explain. I come from the far north of the North Island and have only heard about the Island indirectly from some of our people down here on the Coast. I had forgotten. When we were engaged for this performance, I didn’t connect the two things.’

‘But it’s tapu?’ asked the pianist. ‘Is that it?’

‘In very early times an important person was buried here,’ he said, as it seemed unwillingly. ‘Ages afterwards, when the pakehas came, a man named Ross, a prospector, rowed out to the island. The story is that the local storm blew up and he was drowned. I had forgotten,’ Eru Johnstone repeated in his deep voice. ‘I suggest you do, too. There have been many visitors since those times and many storms –’

‘Hence “Rosser”?’ Alleyn asked.

‘So it seems.’

‘How long does it usually last?’

‘About twenty-four hours, I’m told. No doubt it varies.’

Alleyn said: ‘On my first visit to New Zealand I met one of your people who told me about Maoritanga. We became friends and I learnt a lot from him – Dr Te Pokiha!’

‘Rangi Te Pokiha?’ Johnstone exclaimed. ‘You know him? He is one of our most prominent elders.’

And he settled down to talk at great length of his people. Alleyn led the conversation back to the Island. ‘After what you have told me,’ he said, ‘do you mind my asking if you believe it to be tapu?’

After a long pause Eru Johnstone said: ‘Yes.’

‘Would you have come,’ Troy asked, ‘if you had known?’

‘No,’ said Eru Johnstone.

‘Are you staying here?’ asked Signor Lattienzo, appearing at Troy’s elbow, ‘or shall we fall back upon our creature comforts in the drawing room? One can’t go on saying goodbye to people who scarcely listen.’

‘I’ve got a letter I want to get off,’ said Alleyn. ‘I think I’ll just scribble it and ask one of these people if they’d mind putting it in the post. What about you, Troy?’

‘I rather thought – the studio. I ought to “fix” those drawings.’

‘I’ll join you there,’ he said.

‘Yes, darling, do.’

Troy watched him run upstairs.

‘Surely you are not going to start painting after all this!’ Signor Lattienzo exclaimed.

‘Not I!’ Troy said. ‘It’s just that I’m restless and can’t settle. It’s been a bit of a day, hasn’t it? Who’s in the drawing room?’

‘Hilda Dancy and the little Parry who are staying on. Also the Dr Carmichael who suffers excruciatingly from seasickness. It is not very gay in the drawing room although the lissom Hanley weaves in and out. Is it true that you have made drawings this afternoon?’

‘One or two preliminary canters.’

‘Of Bella?’

‘Mostly of her, yes.’

Signor Lattienzo put his head on one side and contrived to look wistful. In spite of herself Troy laughed. ‘Would you like to see them?’ she said.

‘Naturally I would like to see them. May I see them?’

‘Come on, then,’ said Troy.

They went upstairs to the studio. Troy propped her drawings, one by one, on the easel, blew fixative through a diffuser over each and laid them side by side on the throne to dry: Signor Lattienzo screwed in his eyeglass, folded his plump hands over his ample stomach and contemplated them.

After a long pause during which vague sounds of activity down in the hall drifted up and somewhere a door slammed, Signor Lattienzo said: ‘If you had not made that last one, the one on the right, I would have said you were a merciless lady, Madame Troy.’

It was the slightest of the drawings. The orchestra was merely indicated playing like mad in the background. In the foreground La Sommita, having turned away from them, stared at vacancy and in everything that Troy had set down with such economy there was desolation.

‘Look what you’ve done with her,’ Signor Lattienzo said. ‘Did she remain for long like that? Did she, for once, face reality? I have never seen her look so and now I feel I have never seen her at all.’

‘It only lasted for seconds.’

‘Yes? Shall you paint her like that?’

Troy said slowly: ‘No, I don’t think so.’ She pointed to the drawing of La Sommita in full cry, mouth wide open, triumphant. ‘I rather thought this –’

‘This is the portrait of a Voice.’

‘I would have liked to call it “A in alt” because that sounds so nice. I don’t know what it means but I understand it would be unsuitable.’

‘Highly so. Mot juste, by the way.’

‘“A in sop” wouldn’t have the same charm.’

‘No.’

‘Perhaps, simply “Top Note”. Though why I should fuss about a title when I haven’t as yet clapped paint to canvas, I can’t imagine.’

‘Has she seen the drawings?’

‘No.’

‘And won’t if you can help it?’

‘That’s right,’ said Troy.

They settled down. Signor Lattienzo discoursed cosily, telling Troy of droll occurrences in the world of opera and of a celebrated company half-Italian and half-French of which the Sommita had been the star and in which internal feuding ran so high that when people asked at the Box Office what opera was on tonight the manager would intervene and say, ‘Wait till the curtain goes up, Madame,’ or (Dear Boy!) ‘Just wait till the curtain goes up.’ With this and further discourse he entertained Troy exceedingly. After some time Alleyn came in and said the launch had been sighted on its return trip and the last batch of travellers were getting ready to leave.

‘The wind is almost gale force,’ he said. ‘The telephone’s out of order – probably a branch across the line. Radio and television are cut off.’

‘Will they be all right?’ Troy asked. ‘The passengers?’

‘Reece says that Les knows his job and that he wouldn’t undertake the passage if he thought there was any risk. Hanley’s swanning about telling everyone that the launch is seaworthy, cost the earth and crossed the English Channel in a blizzard.’

‘How glad I am,’ Signor Lattienzo remarked, ‘that I am not on board her.’

Alleyn opened the window-curtains. ‘She could be just visible from here,’ he said, and after a pause, ‘Yes, there she is. Down at the jetty.’

Troy joined him. Beyond the half-blinded window lights, having no background, moved across the void, distorted by the runnels of water streaming down the pane. They rose, tilted, sank, rose again, vanished, reappeared and were gone.

‘They are going aboard,’ said Alleyn. ‘I wonder if Eru Johnstone is glad to have left the Island?’

‘One would have thought –’ Signor Lattienzo began and was cut short by a scream.

It came from within the house and mounted like a siren. It broke into a gabble, resumed and increased in volume.

‘Oh no!’ said Signor Lattienzo irritably. ‘What now, for pity’s sake!’ A piercing scream answered him.

And then he was on his feet. ‘That is not Bella’s voice,’ he said loudly.

It was close. On their landing. Outside their door. Alleyn made for the door but before he could reach it, it opened and there was Maria, her mouth wide open, yelling at the top of her voice.

‘Soccorso! Soccorso!’

Alleyn took her by the upper arms. ‘Che succede?’ he demanded. ‘Control yourself, Maria. What are you saying?’

She stared at him, broke free, and ran to Signor Lattienzo, beat him with her clenched fists and poured out a stream of Italian.

He held her by the wrists and shook her. ‘Taci!’ he shouted, and to Alleyn: ‘She is saying that Bella has been murdered.