“Yes. That’s right. That’s what I thought,” said Dr. Carmichael uneasily.
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s just — rather an unpleasant thought.”
“About the third key?”
“Yes!”
“Rupert Bartholomew had it. Maria came to his room, very late in the night, and said I’d sent her for it.”
“Did she, by God!”
“He gave it to her. Bert, asleep in the chairs across the doorway, woke up to find Maria trying to stretch across him and put the key in the lock.”
“She must have been dotty. What did she think she’d do? Open the door and swarm over his sleeping body?”
“Open the door, yes. It opens inwards. And chuck the key into the room. She was hell-bent on our finding it there. Close the door, which would remain unlocked: she couldn’t do anything about that. And when, as is probable, Bert wakes, throw a hysterical scene with all the pious drama about praying for the soul of the Sommita and laying her out.”
“Actually what did happen?”
“Bert woke up to find her generous personal equipment dangling over him. She panicked, dropped the key on him, and bolted. He collected it and gave it to me. So she is still keyless.”
“Could you ever prove all these theories?”
“If the plan works.”
“Maria, eh?” said Dr. Carmichael. “Well, of course, she does look — I mean to say—”
“We’ve got to remember,” Alleyn said, “that from the time Maria and Reece left the room and went downstairs and he joined his guests for dinner, Maria was in the staff sitting room perparing the hot drink. Mrs. Bacon and Marco and others of the staff can be called to prove it.”
Carmichael stared at him. “An alibi?” he said. “For Maria? That’s awkward.”
“In this game,” Alleyn said, “one learns to be wary of assumption.”
“I suppose I’m making one now. Very reluctantly.”
“The boy?”
“Yes.”
“Well, of course, he’s the prime suspect. One can turn on all the clichés: ‘lust turned to hatred,’ ‘humiliation,’ ‘breaking point’—the lot. He was supposedly in his room at the crucial time but could have slipped out, and he had his key to her room. He had motive and opportunity and he was in an extremely unstable condition.”
“Do the rest of them think—?”
“Some of them do. Hanley does, or behaves and drops hints as if he does. Maria, and Marco I fancy, have been telling everyone he’s the prime suspect. As I daresay the rest of the domestic staff believe, being aware, no doubt, of the changed relationship between the boy and the diva. And of course most of them witnessed the curtain speech and the fainting fit.”
“What about Lattienzo?”
‘Troy and I overheard the jocund maestro in the shrubbery or near it, and in far from merry pin, threatening an unseen person with an evidently damaging exposure if he or she continued to spread malicious gossip. He spoke in Italian and the chopper was approaching so I missed whole chunks of his discourse.”
“Who was he talking to?”
“Somebody perfectly inaudible.”
“Maria?”
“I think so. When we emerged she was handy. On the front steps watching the chopper. Lattienzo was not far off.”
“I thought Lattienzo was not in his usual ebullient form when he came up here just now.”
“You were right,” said Alleyn and gave an account of the interview.
“The Italian element with a vengeance,” said the doctor thoughtfully.
“I must go along and fix things up in that room and then hie me to the library and Mr. Reece’s displeasure. Look in on Troy, like a good chap, would you, and tell her this studio’s free? Do you mind? She’s in our bedroom.”
“I’m delighted,” said the gallant doctor.
And so Alleyn returned to the Sommita’s death chamber and found Sergeants Franks and Barker in dubious consultation. A brace and a selection of bits was laid out on a sheet of newspaper on the floor.
“The boss said you’d put us wise, sir,” said Franks.
“Right,” said Alleyn. He stood with his back to one of the exuberantly carved and painted wardrobe doors, felt behind him and bent his knees until his head was on a level with the stylized sunflower which framed it like a formalized halo. He made a funnel of his hand and looked through it at the covered body on the bed. Then he moved to the twin door and went through the same procedure.
“Yes,” he said, “it’ll work. It’ll work all right.”
He opened the doors.
The walk-in wardrobe was occupied but not crowded with dresses. He divided them and slid them on their hangers to opposite ends of the interior. He examined the inside of the doors, came out, and locked them.
He inspected the bits.
“This one will do,” he said and gave it, with the brace, to Sergeant Franks. “Plumb in the middle,” he said, putting his finger on the black center of the sunflower. “And slide that newspaper under to catch the litter. Very careful, now. No splintering, whatever you do. Which of you’s the joiner?”
“Aw heck!” said Franks to Barker, “what about you having a go, Merv.”
“I’m not fussy, thanks,” said Barker, backing off.
They looked uncomfortably at Alleyn.
“Well,” he said, “I asked for it and it looks as if I’ve bought it. If I make a fool of myself I can’t blame anyone else, can I? Give it here, Franks. Oh, God, it’s one of those push-me-pull-you brutes that shoot out at you when you least expect it.” He thumbed a catch and the business end duly shot out. “What did I tell you? You guide it, Franks, and hold it steady. Dead center. Anyone’d think we were defusing a bomb. Come on.”
“She’s new, sir. Sharp as a needle and greased.”
“Good.”
He raised the brace and advanced it. Franks guided the point of the bit. “Dead center, sir,” he said.
“Here goes, then,” said Alleyn.
He made a cautious preliminary pressure. “How’s that?”
“Biting, sir.”
“Straight as we go, then.” Alleyn pumped the brace.
A little cascade of wood dust trickled through the elaborate carving and fell on the newspaper.
“Nearly there,” he grunted presently, and a few seconds later the resistance was gone and he disengaged the tool.
At the black center of the sunflower was a black hole as wide as the iris of an eye and very inconspicuous. Alleyn blew away the remnants of wood dust that were trapped in curlicues, twisted a finger in the hole, and stood back. “Not too bad,” he said.
He opened the door. The hole was clean-cut.
“Now for the twin,” he said and gave the companion door the same treatment.
Then he went into the wardrobe and shut the doors. The interior smelt insufferably of La Sommita’s scent. He looked through one of the holes. He saw the body. Neatly framed. Underneath the black satin cover its arm, still raised in cadaveric spasm, seemed to point at him. He came out, shut and locked the wardrobe doors, and put the key in his pocket.
“It’ll do,” he said. “Will you two clean up? Very thoroughly? Before you do that, I think you should know why you’ve been called on to set this up and what we hope to achieve by it. Don’t you?”
They intimated by sundry noises that they did think so and he then told them of the next steps that would be taken, the procedure to be followed, and the hoped-for outcome. “And now I think perhaps one of you might relieve poor old Bert on the landing, and I’d suggest the other reports for duty to Mr. Hazelmere, who will probably be in the library. It opens off the entrance hall. Third on the right from the front. I’m going down there now. Here’s the key to this room. O.K.?”