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“She must have done so, I presume. The door was not locked when Maria and I returned after she raised the alarm.”

“And there are — how many keys to the room?”

If atmosphere can be said to tighten without a word being uttered, it did so then in Mr. Reece’s study. The silence was absolute; nobody spoke, nobody moved.

“Four?” Alleyn at last suggested.

“If you know, why do you ask?” Hanley threw out.

Mr. Reece said: “That will do, Ned.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, cringing a little yet with a disreputable suggestion of blandishment. “Truly.”

“Who has the fourth key?” Alleyn asked.

“If there is one I don’t imagine it is used,” said Mr. Reece.

“I think the police will want to know.”

“In that case we must find out. Maria will probably know.”

“Yes,” Alleyn agreed. “1 expect she will.” He hesitated for a moment and then said, “Forgive me. The circumstances I know are almost unbelievably grotesque, but did you look closely? At what had been done? And how it had been done?”

“Oh, really, Alleyn—” Signor Lattienzo protested, but Mr. Reece held up his hand.

“No, Beppo,” he said and cracked a dismal joke, “as you yourself would say: I asked for it, and now I’m getting it.” And to Alleyn. “There’s something under the knife. I didn’t go — near. I couldn’t. What is it?”

“It is a photograph. Of Madame Sommita singing.”

Mr. Reece’s lips formed the word “photograph” but no sound came from them.

“This is a madman,” Signor Lattienzo broke out. “A homicidal maniac. It ca

Hanley said: “Oh yes, yes!” as if there was some sort of comfort in the thought. “A madman. Of course. A lunatic.”

Mr. Reece cried out so loudly that they were all startled, “No! What you tell me alters the whole picture. I have been wrong. From the begi

There was a long silence before Lattienzo said flatly: “I think you may be right.”

“Right! Of course I am right.”

“And if you are, Monty, my dear, this Strix was on the island yesterday and unless he managed to escape by the launch is still on this island tonight. And, in spite of all our zealous searching, may actually be in the house. In which case we shall indeed do wisely to lock our doors.” He turned to Alleyn. “And what does the professional say to all this?” he asked.

“I think you probably correct in every respect, Signor Lattienzo,” said Alleyn. “Or rather, in every respect but one.”

“And what may that be?” Lattienzo asked sharply.

“You are proposing, aren’t you, that Strix is the murderer? I’m inclined to mink you may be mistaken there.”

“And I would be interested to hear why.”

“Oh,” said Alleyn, “just one of those things, you know. I would find it hard to say why. Call it a hunch.”

“But my dear sir — the photograph.”

“Ah yes,” said Alleyn. “Quite so. There is always the photograph, isn’t there?”

“You choose to be mysterious.”

“Do I? Not really. What I really came in for was to ask you all if you happened to notice that an Italian stiletto, if that is what it is, was missing from its bracket on the wall behind the nude sculpture. And if you did notice, when.”

They stared at him. After a long pause Mr. Reece said: “You will find this extraordinary, but nevertheless it is a fact. I had not realized that was the weapon.”





“Had you not?”

“I am, I think I may say, an observant man but I did not notice that the stiletto was missing and I did not recognize it”— he covered his eyes with his hands—“when I — saw it.”

Hanley said: “Oh, God! Oh, how terrible.”

And Lattienzo: “They were hers. You knew that of course, Monty, didn’t you? Family possessions, I always understood. I remember her showing them to me and saying she would like to use one of them in Tosca. I said it would be much too dangerous, however cleverly she faked it. And I may add that the Scarpia wouldn’t entertain the suggestion for a second. Remembering her temperament, poor darling, it was not surprising.”

Mr. Reece looked up at Alleyn. His face was deadly tired and he seemed an old man.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I think I must go to my room. Unless of course there is anything else.”

“Of course not.” Alleyn glanced at Dr. Carmichael, who went to Mr. Reece.

“You’ve had about as much as you can take,” he said. “Will you let me see you to your room?”

“You are very kind. No, thank you, doctor. I am perfectly all right. Only tired.”

He stood up, straightened himself and walked composedly out of the room.

When he had gone, Alleyn turned to the secretary.

“Mr. Hanley,” he said. “Did you notice one of the stilettos was missing?”

“I’d have said so, wouldn’t I, if I had?” Hanley pointed out in an aggrieved voice. “As a matter of fact, I simply loathe the things. I’m like that over knives. They make me feel sick. I expect Freud would have had something to say about it.”

“No doubt,” said Signor Lattienzo.

“It was her idea,” Hanley went on. “She had them hung on the wall. She thought they teamed up with that marvelous pregnant female. In a way, one could see why.”

“Could one?” said Signor Lattienzo and cast up his eyes.

“I would like again to ask you all,” said Alleyn, “if on consideration, you can think of anyone — but anyone, however unlikely — who might have had some cause, however outrageous, to wish for Madame Sommita’s death. Yes, Signor Lattienzo?”

“I feel impelled to say that my answer is no I can not think of anyone. I believe that this is a crime of passion and impulse and not a coldly calculated affair. The outrageous grotesquerie, the use of the photograph and of her own weapon — everything points to some — I feel inclined to say Strindbergian love-hatred of lunatic force. Strix or not, I believe you are looking for a madman, Mr. Alleyn.”

iv

After that the interview began to languish and Alleyn sensed the unlikelihood of anything to the point emerging from it. He suggested that they go to bed.

“I am going to the studio,” he said. “I shall be there for the next half-hour or so and if anything crops up, however slight, that seems to be of interest, I would be glad if you would report to me there. I do remind you all,” he said, “that what I am trying to do is a sort of caretaker’s job for the police: to see, if possible, that nothing is done inadvertently or with intention, to muddle the case for them before they arrive. Even if it were proper for me to attempt a routine police investigation, it wouldn’t be possible to do so singlehanded. Is that clear?”

They muttered weary assents and got to their feet.

“Good night,” said Dr. Carmichael. It was the second and last time he had spoken.

He followed Alleyn into the hall and up the stairs.

When they reached the first landing they found that Bert had put two chairs together face-to-face, hard against the door to the Sommita’s room, and was lying very comfortably on this improvised couch, gently snoring.

“I’m along there,” said Dr. Carmichael, pointing to the left-hand passage.

“Unless you’re asleep on your feet,” said Alleyn, “will you come into the studio, for a moment or two? No need, if you can’t bear the thought.”

“I’m well trained to eccentric hours.”

“Good.”

They crossed the landing and went into the studio. The great empty canvas still stood on its easel but Troy had put away her drawings. Alleyn’s dispatch case had been removed from their bedroom and placed conspicuously on the model’s throne with a flashlight on top of it. Good for Troy, he thought.

Yesterday, sometime after Troy had been settled in the studio, a supply of drinks had been brought in and stored in a wallside unit. Alleyn wondered if this was common practice at the Lodge wherever a room was inhabited.