Photo Finish

He paused.

For a moment or two nobody spoke and then Mr. Reece cleared his throat and said he was sure they all “appreciated the situation.” Signor Lattienzo, still unlike his usual ebullient self, muttered “Naturalmente” and waved a submissive hand.

“O.K., O.K.,” Ben Ruby said impatiently. “Anything to wrap it up and get shut of it all. Far as I’m concerned, I’ve always thought Maria was a bit touched. Right from the start I’ve had this intuition and now you tell me that’s the story. She did it.”

Alleyn said: “If you mean she killed her mistress single-handed, we don’t think she did any such thing.”

Mr. Reece drew back his feet as if he was about to rise but thought better of it. He continued to swing his keys.

Signor Lattienzo let out a strong Italian expletive and Ben Ruby’s jaw dropped and remained in that position without his uttering a word. Hanley said “What!” on a shrill note and immediately apologized.

“In that case,” Mr. Reece asked flatly, “why have you arrested her?”

The others made sounds of resentful agreement.

“For impaling the dead body with the stiletto thrust through the photograph,” said Alleyn.

“This is diabolical,” said Signor Lattienzo. “It is disgusting.”

“What possible proof can you have of it?” Mr. Reece asked. “Do you know, now positively, that Marco is Strix and took the photograph?”

“Yes. He has admitted it.”

“In that case how did she obtain it?”

“She came into this room when he was putting it into an envelope addressed to the Watchman in typescript, on Madame Sommita’s instructions, by Mr. Hanley.”

“That’s right—” Hanley said. “The envelope was meant for her letter to the Watchman when she’d signed it. I’ve told you—” And then, on a calmer note, “I see what you mean. Marco would have thought it would be posted without— anybody—me—thinking anything of it. Yes, I see.”

“Instead of which we believe Maria caught sight of Marco pushing the photograph into the envelope. Her curiosity was aroused. She waited until Marco had gone, and took it out. She kept it, and made the mistake of throwing the envelope into the fire. It fell, half burnt, through the bars of the grate into the ashpan, from where we recovered it.”

“If this is provable and not merely conjecture,” said Mr. Reece, swinging his keys, “do you argue that at this stage she anticipated the crime?”

“If the murder was the last in a long series of retributative crimes, it would appear so. In the original case an incriminating letter was transfixed to the body.”

There followed a long silence. “So she was right,” said Mr. Reece heavily. “She was right to be afraid. I shall never forgive myself.”

Ben Ruby said Mr. Reece didn’t want to start thinking that way. “We none of us thought there was anything in it,” he pleaded. “She used to dream up such fu

Signor Lattienzo threw up his hands. “Wolf. Wolf,” he said.

“I’ve yet to be convinced,” Mr. Reece said. “I ca

“I see I must now give some account of the puzzle of the keys.”

“The keys? Whose keys?” asked Mr. Reece, swinging his own.

Alleyn suppressed a crazy impulse to reply, “The Queen’s keys,” in the age-old challenge of the Tower of London. He merely gave as clean an account as possible of the enigma of the Sommita’s key and the impossibility of her having had time to remove it from a bag in the bottom drawer of the dressing table and lock the bedroom door in the seconds that elapsed between her kicking out Mr. Reece and Maria and their hearing it click in the lock.

Mr. Reece chewed this over and then said: “One can only suppose that at this stage her bag was not in the drawer but close at hand.”

“Even so: ask yourself. She orders you out, you shut the door and immediately afterwards hear it locked: a matter of perhaps two seconds.”

“It may have already been in her hand.”

“Do you remember her hands during the interview?”

“They were clenched. She was angry.”

“Well — it could be argued, I suppose. Just. But there is a sequel,” Alleyn said. And he told them of Maria’s final performance and arrest.

“I’m afraid,” he ended, “that all the pious protestations, all her passionate demands to perform the last duties, were an act. She realized that she had blundered, that we would, on her own statement, expect to find her mistress’s key in the room, and that she must at all costs get into the room and push it under the body, where we would find it in due course.”

“What did she say when you arrested her?” Lattienzo asked.

“Nothing. She hasn’t spoken except—”

“Well? Except?”

“She accused Rupert Bartholomew of murder.”

Hanley let out an exclamation. Lattienzo stared at him. “You spoke, Mr. Hanley?” he said.

“No, no. Nothing. Sorry.”

Ben Ruby said: “All the same, you know — well, I mean you can’t ignore — I mean to say, there was that scene, wasn’t there? I mean she had put him through it, no kidding. And the curtain speech and the way he acted. I mean-to-say, he’s the only one of us who you could say had motive and opportunity— I mean—”

“My good Ben,” Lattienzo said wearily, “we all know in general terms, what you mean. But when you say ‘opportunity,’ what precisely do you mean? Opportunity to murder? But Mr. Alleyn tells us he does not as yet accuse the perpetrator of the dagger-and-photograph operation of the murder. And Mr. Alleyn convinces me, for what it’s worth, that he knows what he’s talking about. I would like to ask Mr. Alleyn if he links Maria, who has been arrested for the photograph abomination, with the murder and if so what that link is. Or are we to suppose that Maria, on reentering the room, hot drink in hand, discovered the dead body and was inspired to go downstairs, unobserved by the milling crowd, remove the dagger from the wall, collect the photograph from wherever she’d put it, return to the bedroom, perform her atrocity, and then raise the alarm? Is that, as dear Ben would put it, the story?” ”

“Not quite,” said Alleyn.

“Ah!” said Lattienzo. “So I supposed.”

“I didn’t say we don’t suspect her of murder: on the contrary, I merely said she was arrested on the charge of mutilating the body, not on a charge of murder.”

“But that may follow?”

Alleyn was silent.

“Which is as much as to say,” Ben Ruby said, “that you reckon it’s a case of conspiracy and that Maria is half of the conspiracy and that one of us — I mean of the people in this house — was the principal. Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Charming!” said Mr. Ruby.

“Are we to hear any more?” Mr. Reece asked. “After all apart from the modus operandi in Maria’s case, we have learned nothing new, have we? As, for instance, whether you have been able to clear any of us of suspicion. Particularly the young man — Bartholomew.”

“Monty, my dear,” said Lattienzo, who had turned quite pale, “how right you are. And here I would like to say, with the greatest emphasis, that I resist vehemently any suggestion, open or covert, that this unfortunate boy is capable of such a crime. Mr. Alleyn, I beg you to consider! What does such a theory ask us to accept? Consider his behavior.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said, “consider it. He makes what amounts to a public a