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

so sorry. Yes, I think you’re very wise. No, no news. Awful, isn’t it?’

      She hung up. ‘Miss Dancy has got a migraine,’ she said. ‘She sounds very Wagnerian. Well, I’d better make the best I can of the beds.’

      ‘You’re not going round on your own, Troy.’

      ‘Aren’t I? But why?’

      ‘It’s inadvisable.’

      ‘But, Rory, I promised Mrs Bacon.’

      ‘To hell with Mrs Bacon. I’ll tell her it’s not on. They can make their own bloody beds. I’ve made ours,’ said Alleyn. ‘I’d go round with you but I don’t think that’d do either.’

      ‘I’ll make beds with you, Mrs Alleyn,’ offered Dr Carmichael in a sprightly manner.

      ‘That’s big of you, Carmichael,’ said Alleyn. ‘I dare say all the rooms will be locked. Mrs Bacon will have spare keys.’

      ‘I’ll find out.’

      Troy said: ‘You can pretend it’s a hospital. You’re the matron and I’m a ham-fisted probationer. I’ll just go along to our palatial suite for a moment. Rejoin you here.’

      When she had gone Alleyn said: ‘She’s hating this. You can always tell if she goes all jokey. I’ll be glad to get her out of it.’

      ‘If I may say so, you’re a lucky man.’

      ‘You may indeed say so.’

      ‘Perhaps a brisk walk round the Island when we’ve done our chores.’

      ‘A splendid idea. In a way,’ Alleyn said, ‘this bedmaking nonsense might turn out to be handy. I’ve no authority to search, of course, but you two might just keep your eyes skinned.’

      ‘Anything in particular?’

      ‘Not a thing. But you never know. The skinned eye and a few minor liberties.’

      ‘I’ll see about the keys,’ said Dr Carmichael happily and bustled off.

      II

      Alleyn wondered if he was about to take the most dangerous decision of his investigative career. If he took this decision and failed, not only would he make an egregious ass of himself before the New Zealand police but he would effectively queer the pitch for their subsequent investigations and probably muck up any chance of an arrest. Or would he? In the event of failure, was there no chance of a new move, a strategy in reserve, a surprise attack? If there was, he was damned if he knew what it could be.

      He went over the arguments again: The time factor. The riddle of the keys. The photograph. The conjectural motive. The appalling conclusion. He searched for possible alternatives to each of these and could find none.

      He resurrected the dusty old bit of investigative folklore: If all explanations except one fail, then that one, however outrageous, will be the answer.

      And, God knew, they were dealing with the outrageous.

      So he made up his mind and having done that went downstairs and out into the watery sunshine for a breather.

      All the guests had evidently been moved by the same impulse. They were abroad on the Island in pairs and singly. Whereas earlier in the morning Alleyn had likened those of them who had come out into the landscape to surrealistic details, now, while still wildly anachronistic, as was the house itself, in their primordial setting, they made him think of persons in a poem by Verlaine or perhaps by Edith Sitwell. Signor Lattienzo in his Tyrolean hat and his gleaming eyeglass, stylishly strolled beside Mr Ben Ruby who smoked a cigar and was rigged out for the country in a brand new Harris tweed suit. Rupert Bartholomew, wan in corduroy, his hair romantically disordered, his shoulders hunched, stood by the tumbled shore and stared over the lake. And was himself stared at, from a discreet distance, by the little Sylvia Parry with a scarlet handkerchief round her head. Even the stricken Miss Dancy had braved the elements. Wrapped up, scarfed and felt-hatted, she paced alone up and down a gravel path in front of the house as if it were the deck of a cruiser.

      To her from indoors came Mr Reece in his custom-built outfit straight from pages headed ‘Rugged Elegance: For Him’ in the glossiest of periodicals. He wore a peaked cap which he raised ceremoniously to Miss Dancy, who immediately engaged him in conversation, clearly of an emotional kind. But he’s used to that, thought Alleyn, and noticed how Mr Reece balanced Miss Dancy’s elbow in his dogskin grasp as he squired her on her promenade.

      He had thought they completed the number of persons in the landscape until he caught sight out of the corner of his eye, of some movement near one of the great trees near the lake. Ned Hanley was standing there. He wore a dark green coat and sweater and merged with his background. He seemed to survey the other figures in the picture.

      One thing they all had in common and that was a tendency to halt and stare across the lake or shade their eyes, tip back their heads and look eastward into the fast-thinning clouds. He had been doing this himself.

      Mr Ben Ruby spied him, waved his cigar energetically and made towards him. Alleyn advanced and at close quarters found Mr Ruby looking the worse for wear and self-conscious.

      ‘’Morning, old man,’ said Mr Ruby. ‘Glad to see you. Brightening up, isn’t it? Won’t be long now. We hope.’

      ‘We do indeed.’

      ‘You hope, anyway, I don’t mind betting. Don’t envy you your job. Responsibility without the proper backing, eh?’

      ‘Something like that,’ said Alleyn.

      ‘I owe you an apology, old man. Last evening. I’d had one or two drinks. You know that?’

      ‘Well …’

      ‘What with one thing and another – the shock and that. I was all to pieces. Know what I mean?’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘All the same – bad show. Very bad show,’ said Mr Ruby, shaking his head and then wincing.

      ‘Don’t give it another thought.’

      ‘Christ, I feel awful,’ confided Mr Ruby and threw away his cigar. ‘It was good brandy, too. The best. Special cognac. Wonder if this guy Marco could rustle up a corpse-reviver.’

      ‘I dare say. Or Hanley might.’

      Mr Ruby made the sound that is usually written: ‘T’ss’ and after a brief pause said in a deep voice and with enormous expression: ‘Bella! Bella Sommita! You can’t credit it, can you? The most beautiful woman with the most gorgeous voice God ever put breath into. Gone! And how! And what the hell we’re going to do about the funeral’s nobody’s business. I don’t know of any relatives. It’d be thoroughly in character if she’s left detailed instructions and bloody awkward ones at that. Pardon me, it slipped out. But it might mean cold storage to anywhere she fancied or ashes in the Adriatic.’ He caught himself up and gave Alleyn a hard if bloodshot stare. ‘I suppose it’s out of order to ask if you’ve formed an idea?’

      ‘It is, really. At this stage,’ Alleyn said. ‘We must wait for the police.’

      ‘Yeah? Well, here’s hoping they know their stuff.’ He reverted to his elegiac mood. ‘Bella!’ he apostrophized. ‘After all these years of taking the rough with the smooth, if you can understand me. Hell, it hurts!’

      ‘How long an association has it been?’

      ‘You don’t measure grief by months and years,’ Mr Ruby said reproachfully. ‘How long? Let me see? It was on her first tour of Aussie. That would be in ’72. Under the Bel Canto management in association with my firm – Ben Ruby Associates. There was a disagreement with Bel Canto and we took over.’

      Here Mr Ruby embarked on a long parenthesis explaining that he was a self-made man,