“Really? Spiteful? You surprise me.”
“Well, look at him. Take, take, take. Everything she could give. But everything. All caught up with the opera nonsense and then when it flopped, turning round and making a public fool of himself. And her. I could see right through the high tragedy bit, don’t you worry: it was an act. He blamed her for the disaster. For egging him on. He was getting back at her.” Hanley had spoken rapidly in a high voice. He stopped short, swung round, and stared at Alleyn.
“I suppose,” he said, “I shouldn’t say these things to you. For Christ’s sake don’t go reading something awful into it all. It’s just that I got so bored with the way everyone fell for the boy beautiful. Everyone. Even the Boss Man. Until he chickened out and said he wouldn’t go on with the show. That put a different complexion on the affaire, didn’t it? Well, on everything, really. The Boss Man was livid. Such a change!”
He stood up and carefully replaced his glass on the tray. “I’m a trifle tiddly,” he said, “but quite clear in the head. Is it true or did I dream it that the British press used to call you the Handsome Sleuth? Or something like that?”
“You dreamt it,” said Alleyn. “Good night.”
ii
At twenty to three Alleyn had finished his notes. He locked them away in his dispatch case, looked around the studio, turned out the lights, and, carrying the case, went out into the passage, locking the door behind him.
And now how quiet was the Lodge. It smelled of new carpets, of dying fires, and of the aftermath of food, champagne, and cigarettes. It was not altogether silent. There were minuscule sounds suggestive of its adjusting to the storm. As he approached the landing there were Bert’s snores to be heard, rhythmic but not very loud.
Alleyn had, by now, a pretty accurate knowledge, acquired on the earlier search, of the Lodge and its sleeping quarters. The principal bedrooms and the studio were all on this floor and opened onto two passages that led off, right and left, from the landing, each taking a right-angled turn after three rooms had been passed. The guests’ names were inserted in neat little slots on their doors: à la Versailles, thought Alleyn; they might as well have gone the whole hog while they were about it and used the discriminating pour. It would be “Pour Signor Lattienzo.” But he suspected merely “Dr. Carmichael.”
He crossed the landing. Bert had left the shaded table lamp on, and it softly illuminated his innocent face. As Alleyn passed him he stopped snoring and opened his eyes. They looked at each other for a second or two. Bert said “Gidday” and went back to sleep.
Alleyn entered the now dark passage on the right of the landing, passed his own bedroom door and thought how strange it was that Troy should be in there and that soon he would be able to join her. He paused for a moment and as he did so heard a door open somewhere beyond the turn of the passage.
The floor, like all floors in this padded house, was thickly carpeted, but nevertheless he felt rather than heard somebody walking toward him.
Realizing that he might be silhouetted against the dimly glowing landing, he flattened himself against the wall and slid back to where he remembered seeing a switch for the passage lights. After some groping his hand found it. He turned it on and there, almost within touching distance, was Rupert Bartholomew.
For a moment he thought Rupert would bolt. He had jerked up his hands as if to guard his face. He looked quickly behind him, hesitated, and then seemed to pull himself together.
“It’s you,” he whispered. “You gave me a shock.”
“Wasn’t Signor Lattienzo’s pill any good?”
“No. I’ve got to get to the lavatory. I can’t wait.”
“There isn’t one along here, you must know that.”
“Oh God!” said Rupert loudly. “Lay off me, can’t you?”
“Don’t start anything here, you silly chap. Keep your voice down and come to the studio.”
“No.”
“Oh, yes, you will. Come on.”
He took him by the arm.
Down the passage, back across the landing, back past Bert Smith, back into the studio. Will this night never end? Alleyn wondered, putting down his dispatch case.
“If you really want the Usual Offices,” he said, “there’s one next door, which you know as well as I do, and I don’t mind betting there’s one in your own communicating bathroom. But you don’t want it, do you?”
“Not now.”
“Where were you bound for?”
“I’ve told you.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters, you ass. Ask yourself.”
Silence.
“Well?”
“I left something. Downstairs.”
“What?”
“The score.”
“Of The Alien Corn?”
“Yes.”
“Couldn’t it wait till daylight? Which is not far off.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I want to burn it. The score. All the parts. Everything. I woke up and kept thinking of it. There, on the hall fire, burn it, I thought.”
“The fire will probably be out.”
“I’ll blow it together,” said Rupert.
“You’re making this up as you go along. Aren’t you?”
“No. No. Honestly. I swear not. I want to burn it.”
“And anything else?”
He caught back his breath and shook his head.
“Are you sure you want to burn it?”
“How many times do I have to say!”
“Very well,” said Alleyn.
“Thank God.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No. I mean there’s no need. I won’t,” said Rupert with a wan attempt at lightness, “get up to any funny business.”
“Such as?”
“Anything. Nothing. I just don’t want an audience. I’ve had enough of audiences,” said Rupert and contrived a laugh.
“I’ll be unobtrusive.”
“You suspect me. Don’t you?”
“I suspect a round half-dozen of you. Come on.”
Alleyn took him by the arm.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Rupert said and broke away.
“If you’re thinking I’ll go to bed and then you’ll pop down by yourself, you couldn’t be more mistaken. I’ll sit you out.”
Rupert bit his finger and stared at Alleyn. A sudden battering by the gale sent some metal object clattering across the patio down below. Still blowing great guns, thought Alleyn.
“Come along,” he said. “I’m sorry I’ve got to be bloody-minded but you might as well take it gracefully. We don’t want to do a cinematic roll down the stairs in each other’s arms, do we?”
Rupert turned on his heel and walked out of the room. They went together, quickly, to the stairs and down them to the hill
It was a descent into almost total darkness. A red glow at the far end must come from the embers of the fire, and there was a vague, scarcely perceptible luminosity filtered down from the lamp on the landing. Alleyn had put Troy’s torch in his pocket and used it. Its beam dodged down the stairs ahead of them.
“There’s your fire,” he said. “Now, I suppose, for the sacrifice.”
He guided Rupert to the back of the hall and through the double doors that opened into the concert chamber. When they were there he shut the doors and turned on the wall lamps. They stood blinking at a litter of discarded programs, the blank face of the stage curtain, the piano and the players’ chairs and music stands with their sheets of manuscript. How long, Alleyn wondered, had it taken Rupert to write them out? And then on the piano, the full score. On the cover “The Alien Corn” painstakingly lettered, “by Rupert Bartholomew.” And underneath: “Dedicated to Isabella Sommita.”