Читать книгу Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 11: Photo-Finish, Light Thickens, Black Beech and Honeydew - Ngaio Marsh, Stella Duffy - Страница 24

The hunt turned out as Alleyn had expected it would, to be a perfectly useless exercise. The couples were carefully assorted. Marco was paired with Mrs Bacon, Ben Ruby with Dr Carmichael and Hanley with the chef for whom he seemed to have an affinity. Alleyn dodged from one pair to another, turning up where he was least expected, sometimes checking a room that had already been searched, sometimes watching the reluctant activities of the investigators, always registering in detail their reactions to the exercise.

These did not vary much. Hanley was all eyes and teeth and inclined to get up little intimate arguments with the chef. Ben Ruby, smoking a cigar, instructed his partner, Dr Carmichael, where to search, but did nothing in particular himself. Alleyn thought he seemed to be preoccupied as if confronted by a difficult crossword puzzle. Signor Lattienzo looked as if he thought the exercise was futile.

When the search was over they all returned to the staff sitting room where, on Alleyn’s request, Hilda Dancy and Sylvia Parry joined them. Nobody had anything to report. The New Zealanders, Alleyn noticed, collected in a huddle. Mrs Bacon and the ex-hotel staff showed a joint tendency to eye the Italians. Marco attached himself to Signor Lattienzo. Maria entered weeping but in a subdued manner, having been chastened, Alleyn fancied, by Mrs Bacon. Hanley detached himself from his chef and joined Ben Ruby.

When they were all assembled, the door opened and Mr Reece walked in. He might have arrived to take the chair at a shareholders’ meeting. Hanley was assiduous with offers of a seat and was disregarded.

Mr Reece said to Alleyn: ‘Please don’t let me interrupt. Do carry on.’

‘Thank you,’ Alleyn said. He told Mr Reece of the search and its non-result and was listened to with stony attention. He then addressed the company. He said he was grateful to them for having carried out a disagreeable job and asked that if any of them, on afterthought, should remember something that could be of significance, however remotely, he would at once speak of it. There was no response. He then asked how many of them possessed cameras.

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 enquiry. 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?’

‘Old-fashioned Simplex. I used it yesterday. I snapped the people round the bathing pool from my sitting-room window.’

‘Miss Parry?’

‘It’s a Pixie. I used it yesterday.’ She turned pink. ‘I took Rupert. By the landing stage.’

‘Signor Lattienzo?’

‘Oh, my dear Mr Alleyn!’ he said, spreading his hands. ‘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 its 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 button. It gave a persuasive click. I repeated the performance several times. As to the results, one has grave misgivings. If there are any they rest in a prenatal state in the womb of the camera. You shall play the midwife,’ offered Signor Lattienzo.

‘Thank you. What about you, Mr Ruby? There’s that magnificent German job, isn’t there?’

Mr Ruby’s camera was a very sophisticated and expensive version of instantaneous self-development. He had used it that very morning when he had lined up the entire house party 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 centre, of course, the Sommita with her arm laid in tigerish possession across the shoulders of a haunted Rupert while Sylvia 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 neighbours, was, he now saw with stoic distaste, being winsomely contemplated by the ubiquitous Hanley, three places removed in the back row.

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 smouldering 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 lake shore and of the lake shore 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 enquiry 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.

This daunting but fruitless 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 ultra-modern nudes frisked busily. He had been able to keep a watch on the Sommita’s bedroom door through hinged gaps between panels. The searchers in this part of the house had been Ben 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. He photographed it from just inside the door.

Soon the room smelt horridly of synthetic violets as Alleyn made use of the talc powder. He then photographed the haft of the knife, a slender, vertically grooved affair with an ornate 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 camel-hair 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 hypostasis?’

‘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 make-up. 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. The colouring. And then a final powdering. Don’t those bruises, if bruises they are, look as if the make-up 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 haemorrhages. 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 far-fetched. Why?’

‘As far-fetched 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 launchman’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 boathouse 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.’

‘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. Alleyn unlocked and opened it and Maria strode into the room.