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

She carried her trophy to the paint-table and placed it there. Then, with a sidelong look at her husband, she produced two clean hog-hair brushes and, using them upside down in the manner of chopsticks, fiddled open the handkerchief and stood back.

Alleyn walked over, put his arm across her shoulders and looked at what she had revealed.

A large heavy envelope, creased and burnt but not so extensively that an airmail stamp and part of the address was not still in evidence. The address was typewritten.

The Edit

The Watchma

PO Bo

NSW 14C

SY

Australia

‘Of course,’ Troy said after a considerable pause, ‘it may be of no consequence at all, may it?’

‘Suppose we have the full story?’

‘Yes. All right. Here goes, then.’

Their story was that they had gone some way with their housemaiding expedition when Troy decided to equip herself with a box-broom and a duster. They went downstairs in search of them and ran into Mrs Bacon emerging from the study. She intimated that she was nearing the end of her tether. The staff, having gone through progressive stages of hysteria and suspicion, had settled for a sort of work-to-rule attitude and, with the exception of the chef who had agreed to provide a very basic luncheon and Marco who was, said Mrs Bacon, abnormally quiet but did his jobs, either sulked in their rooms or muttered together in the staff sitting room. As far as Mrs Bacon could make out, the New Zealand ex-hotel group suspected in turn Signor Lattienzo, Marco and Maria on the score of their being Italians and Mr Reece whom they cast in the role of de facto cuckold. Rupert Bartholomew was fancied as an outside chance on the score of his having turned against the Sommita. Maria had gone to earth, supposedly in her room. Chaos, Mrs Bacon said, prevailed.

Mrs Bacon herself had rushed round the dining and drawing rooms while Marco set out the elevenses. She had then turned her attention to the study and found to her horror that the open fireplace had not been cleaned nor the fire relaid. To confirm this, she had drawn their attention to a steel ashpan she herself carried in her rubber-gloved hands.

‘And that’s when I saw it, Rory,’ Troy explained. ‘It was sticking up out of the ashes and I saw what’s left of the address.’

‘And she nudged me,’ said Dr Carmichael proudly, ‘and I saw it too.’

‘And he behaved perfectly,’ Troy intervened. ‘He said: “Do let me take that thing and tell me where to empty it.” And Mrs Bacon said, rather wildly: “In the bin. In the yard,” and made feeble protestations and at that moment we all heard the launch hooting and she became distracted. So Dr Carmichael got hold of the ashpan. And I – well – I – got hold of the envelope and put it in my pocket among your handkerchief which happened to be there.’

‘So it appears,’ Dr Carmichael summed up, ‘that somebody typed a communication of some sort to The Watchman and stamped the envelope which he or somebody else then chucked on the study fire and it dropped through the grate into the ashpan when it was only half-burnt. Or doesn’t it?’

‘Did you get a chance to have a good look at the ashes?’ asked Alleyn.

‘Pretty good. In the yard. They were faintly warm. I ran them carefully into a zinc rubbish bin already half-full. There were one or two very small fragments of heavily charred paper and some clinkers. Nothing else. I heard someone coming and cleared out. I put the ashpan back under the study grate.’

Alleyn bent over the trophy. ‘It’s a Sommita envelope,’ said Troy. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Bigger than the Reece envelope but the same paper: like the letter she wrote to the Yard.’

‘Why would she write to The Watchman?’

‘We don’t know that she did.’

‘Don’t we?’

‘Or if she did, whether her letter was in this envelope.’ He took one of Troy’s brushes and used it to flip the envelope over. ‘It may have been stuck up,’ he said, ‘and opened before the gum dried. There’s not enough left to be certain. It’s big enough to take the photograph.’

Dr Carmichael blew out his cheeks and then expelled the air rather noisily. ‘That’s a long shot, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Of course it is,’ agreed Alleyn. ‘Pure speculation.’

‘If she wrote it,’ Troy said carefully, ‘she dictated it. I’m sure she couldn’t type, aren’t you?’

‘I think it’s most unlikely. The first part of her letter to the Yard was impeccably typed and the massive postscript flamboyantly handwritten. Which suggested that she dictated the beginning or told young Rupert to concoct something she could sign, found it too moderate and added the rest herself.’

‘But why,’ Dr Carmichael mused, ‘was this thing in the study, on Reece’s desk? I know! She asked that secretary of his to type it because she’d fallen out with young Bartholomew. How’s that?’

‘Not too bad,’ said Alleyn. ‘Possible. And where, do you suggest, is the letter? It wasn’t in the envelope. And, by the way, the envelope was not visible on Reece’s desk when you and I, Carmichael, visited him last night.’

‘Really? How d’you know?’

‘Oh, my dear chap, the cop’s habit of using the beady eye, I suppose. It might have been there under some odds and ends in his “out” basket.’

Troy said: ‘Rory, I think I know where you’re heading.’

‘Do you, my love? Where?’

‘Could Marco have slid into the study to put the photograph in the postbag before Hanley had emptied the mailbox into it and could he have seen the typed and addressed envelope on the desk and thought there was a marvellous opportunity to send the photograph to The Watchman, because nobody would question it. And so he took out her letter or whatever it was and chucked it on the fire and put the photograph in the envelope and –’

Troy, who had been going great guns, brought up short. ‘Blast!’ she said.

‘Why didn’t he put it in the postbag?’ asked Alleyn.

‘Yes.’

‘Because,’ Dr Carmichael staunchly declared, ‘he was interrupted and had to get rid of it quick. I think that’s a damn good piece of reasoning, Mrs Alleyn.’

‘Perhaps,’ Troy said, ‘her letter had been left out awaiting the writer’s signature and – no, that’s no good.’

‘It’s a lot of good,’ Alleyn said warmly. ‘You have turned up trumps, you two. Damn Marco. Why can’t he make up his dirty little mind that his best move is to cut his losses and come clean. I’ll have to try my luck with Hanley. Tricky.’

He went out on the landing. Bert had resumed his guard duty and lounged back in the armchair reading a week-old sports tabloid. A homemade cigarette hung from his lower lip. He gave Alleyn the predictable sideways tip of his head.

Alleyn said: ‘I really oughtn’t to impose on you any longer, Bert. After all, we’ve got the full complement of keys now and nobody’s going to force the lock with the amount of traffic flowing through this house.’

‘I’m not fussy,’ said Bert which Alleyn took to mean that he had no objections to continuing his vigil.

‘Well, if you’re sure,’ he said.

‘She’ll be right.’

‘Thank you.’

The sound of voices indicated the emergence of the elevenses party. Miss Dancy, Sylvia Parry and Rupert Bartholomew came upstairs. Rupert, with an incredulous look at Bert and a scary one at Alleyn, made off in the direction of his room. The ladies crossed the landing quickly and ascended the next flight. Mr Reece, Ben Ruby and Signor Lattienzo made for the study. Alleyn ran quickly downstairs in time to catch Hanley emerging from the morning room.