Photo Finish

“That may be true. But you may also have had a collaborator.”

“You are mad.”

“I am telling you how the police will think.”

“It is a trap. You try to trap me.”

“If you choose to put it like that. I want, if you didn’t do it, to satisfy myself that you didn’t. I want to get you out of the way. I believe you to be Strix, and as Strix I think your activities were despicable, but I do not accuse you of murder. I simply want you to tell me if you put the photograph in the postbag. In an envelope addressed to the Watchman.”

There followed a silence. The sun now shone in at the studio windows on the blank canvas and the empty model’s throne. Outside a tui sang: a deep lucid phrase, uncivilized as snow water and ending in a consequential clatter as if it cleared its throat. You darling, thought Troy, standing by the window, and knew that she could not endure to stay much longer inside this clever house with its arid perfections and its killed woman in the room on the landing.

Marco said: “I surmise it was in the postbag. I do not know. I do not say I put it there.”

“And the bag was in the study?”

“That is where it is kept.”

“When was the letter put in it? Immediately after the photograph was taken? Or perhaps only just before the postbox was emptied into it and it was locked.”

Marco shrugged.

“And finally — crucially — when was the photograph removed, and by whom, and stabbed onto the body?”

“Of that I know nothing. Nothing, I tell you,” said Marco and then with sudden venom, “but I can guess.”

“Yes?”

“It is simple. Who clears the postbox always? Always! Who? I have seen him. He puts his arms into the bag and rounds it with his hands to receive the box and then he opens the box and holds it inside the bag to empty itself. Who?”

“Mr. Hanley?”

“Ah. The secretary. Il favorito,” said Marco and achieved an angry smirk. He bowed in Troy’s direction. “Excuse me, madam,” he said. “It is not a suitable topic.”

“Did you actually see Mr. Hanley do this, last evening?”

“No, sir.”

“Very well,” said Alleyn. “You may go.”

He went out with a kind of mean flourish and did not quite bang the door.

“He’s a horrible little man,” said Troy, “but I don’t think he did it.”

“Nor I,” Dr. Carmichael agreed.

“His next move,” said Alleyn, “will be to hand in his notice and wait for the waters to subside.”

“Sling his hook?”

“Yes.”

“Will you let him?”

“I can’t stop him. The police may try to, or I suppose Reece could simply deny him transport.”

“Do you think Reece believes Marco is Strix?”

“If ever there was a clam, its middle name was Reece, but I think he does.”

“Are you any further on?” asked the doctor.

“A bit. I wish I’d found out whether Marco knows who took his bloody snapshot out of the bag. If ever it was in the bloody bag, which is conjectural. It’s so boring of him not to admit he put it in. If he did.”

“He almost admitted something, didn’t he?” said Troy.

“He’s trying to work it out whether it would do him more good or harm to come clean.”

“I suppose,” hazarded Dr. Carmichael, “that whoever it was, Hanley or anyone else, who removed the photograph, it doesn’t follow he was the killer.”

“Not as the night the day. No.”

Troy suddenly said: “Having offered to make beds, I suppose I’d better make them. Do you think Miss Dancy would be outraged if I asked her to bear a hand? I imagine the little Sylvia is otherwise engaged.”

“Determined to maintain the house party tone against all hazards, are you, darling?” said her husband.

“That’s right. The di

Dr. Carmichael gazed at Troy in admiration and surprise. “I must say, Mrs. Alleyn, you set us all an example. How many beds do you plan to make?”

“I haven’t counted.”

“The round dozen or more,” teased Alleyn, “and God help all those who sleep in them.”

“He’s being beastly,” Troy remarked. “I’m not all that good at bed-making. I’ll just give Miss Dancy a call, I think.”

She consulted the list of room numbers by the telephone. Dr. Carmichael joined Alleyn at the windows. “It really is clearing,” he said. “The wind’s dropping. And I do believe the Lake’s settling.”

“Yes, it really is.”

“What do you suppose will happen first, the telephone be reco

“Lord knows.”

Troy said into the telephone, “Of course I understand. Don’t give it another thought. We’ll meet at lunchtime. Oh. Oh, I see. I’m 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 ma

“That’s big of you, Carmichael,” said Alleyn. “I daresay 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 hamfisted 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 joky. 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 bed-making nonsense might turn out to be handy. I’ve no authority to search, of course, but you two might just keep your eyes ski

“Anything in particular?”

“Not a thing. But you never know. The ski

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

ii

Alleyn wondered if he were 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 cape 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 around 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.