Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 11: Photo-Finish, Light Thickens, Black Beech and Honeydew. Ngaio Marsh

diva had arrived at the concluding fioritura, she moved towards her audience, she lifted her head, she spread her arms and rewarded them with her trump card – A above high C.

      No doubt she would have been very cross if they had observed the rule about not applauding until the final curtain. They did not observe it. They broke into a little storm of clapping. She raised a monitory hand. The performance entered into its penultimate phase: a lachrymose parting between Ruth and Signor Romano, plump in kilted smock and leg strappings and looking like a late photograph of Caruso. Enter Boaz, discovering them and ordering the gleaner to be beaten. Ruth and Naomi pleading with Boaz to relent, which he did, and the opera ended with a rather cursory reconciliation of all hands in chorus.

      The sense of relief when the curtains closed was so overwhelming that Troy found herself clapping wildly. After all, it had not been so bad. None of the horrors she had imagined had come to pass, it was over and they were in the clear.

      Afterwards, she wondered if the obligatory response from the audience could have been evoked by the same emotion.

      Three rapid curtain calls were taken. The first by the company, the second by the Sommita who was thinly cheered by backbenchers, and the third again by the Sommita who went through her customary routine of extended arms, kissed hands and deep curtsies.

      And then she turned to the orchestra, advanced upon it with outstretched hand and beckoning smile only to find that her quarry had vanished. Rupert Bartholomew was gone. The violinist stood up and said something inaudible but seemed to suggest that Rupert was backstage. The Sommita’s smile had become fixed. She swept to an upstage entrance and vanished through it. The audience, nonplussed, kept up a desultory clapping which had all but died out when she reentered, bringing, almost dragging, Rupert after her.

      He was sheet-white and dishevelled. When she exhibited him, retaining her grasp of his hand, he made no acknowledgement of the applause she exacted. It petered out into a dead silence. She whispered something and the sound was caught up in a giant enlargement: the north-west wind sighing round the island.

      The discomfiture of the audience was extreme. Someone, a woman, behind Troy said: ‘He’s not well. He’s going to faint,’ and there was a murmur of agreement. But Rupert did not faint. He stood bolt upright, looked at nothing, and suddenly freed his hand.

      ‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ he said loudly.

      Mr Reece began to clap and was followed by the audience. Rupert shouted: ‘Don’t do that,’ and they stopped. He then made his curtain speech.

      ‘I expect I ought to thank you. Your applause is for a Voice. It’s a wonderful Voice, insulted by the stuff it has been given to sing tonight. For that I am responsible. I should have withdrawn it at the beginning when I realized – when I first realized – when I knew –’

      He swayed a little and raised his hand to his forehead.

      ‘When I knew,’ he said. And then he did faint. The curtains closed.

      III

      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