Photo Finish

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. “Straight-out 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 launch man. Hanley went over 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 V.I.P.s. 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 ca

“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 debacle, 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 had 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 debacle 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 behavior. 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 launch man 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 dared 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 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 travelers 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 acknowledgments; a few actually neglected him altogether, being intent upon maneuvering 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, Roberto Rodolfo, 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 co

“But it’s tapu?” asked the pianist. “Is that it?” [Tapu — Maori word signifying sacred and forbidden.]

“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.”