The Ngaio Marsh Collection
Photo-Finish
Ngaio Marsh
For Fredaneve with love
Table of Contents
| Isabella Sommita (née Pepitone) | |
| Ben Ruby | Her manager |
| Montague V. Reece | Her friend |
| Rupert Bartholomew | Her protégé |
| Maria | Her maid |
| Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn CID | |
| Troy Alleyn RA | His wife |
| His Assistant Commissioner, Scotland Yard | |
| Bert | A chauffeur |
| Les | A launchman |
| Marco | A manservant |
| Ned Hanley | Mr Reece’s secretary |
| Signor Beppo Lattienzo | The Sommita’s Master of Singing |
| Hilda Dancy | A contralto |
| Eru Johnstone | A bass |
| Sylvia Parry | A mezzo-soprano |
| Rodolfo Romano | A tenor |
| Sir David Baumgartner | A critic |
| Mrs Bacon | Housekeeper |
| Dr John Carmichael, MD | A guest |
| Inspector Hazelmere | Rivermouth Constabulary |
| Detective-Sergeant Franks | Rivermouth Constabulary |
| Detective-Sergeant Barker | Rivermouth Constabulary |
| Dr Winslow |
One of the many marvels of Isabella Sommita’s technique was her breathing: it was totally unobservable. Even in the most exacting passages, even in the most staggering flights of coloratura, there was never the slightest disturbance of the corsage.
‘You could drop an ice cube down her cleavage,’ boasted her manager, Ben Ruby, ‘and not a heave would you get for your trouble.’
He had made this observation when sitting in a box immediately above the diva at the Royal Festival Hall and had spoken no more than the truth. Offstage, when moved by one of her not infrequent rages, La Sommita’s bosom would heave with the best of them.
It did so now, in her private suite at the Château Australasia in Sydney. She was en negligé and it was sumptuously evident that she was displeased and that the cause of her displeasure lay on the table at her elbow: a newspaper folded to expose a half-page photograph with a banner headline, CROSS-PATCH? and underneath, LA SOMMITA IS NOT AMUSED!
It had been taken yesterday in Double Bay, Sydney. The photographer, wearing a floppy white hat, a white scarf over his mouth and dark spectacles had stepped out from an alleyway and gone snap. She had not been quick enough to turn her back but her jaw had dropped and her left eye had slewed; its habit when rage overtook her. The general effect was that of a gargoyle at the dentist’s: an elderly and infuriated gargoyle. The photograph was signed Strix.
She beat on the paper with her largish white fist and her rings cut into it. She panted lavishly.
‘Wants horsewhipping,’ Montague Reece mumbled. He was generally accepted as the Sommita’s established lover and he filled this role in the manner commonly held to be appropriate, being large, rich, muted, pale, dyspeptic and negative. He was said to wield a great deal of power in his own world.
‘Of course he needs horsewhipping,’ shouted his dear one. ‘But where’s the friend who will go out and do it?’ She laughed and executed a wide contemptuous gesture that included all present. The newspaper fluttered to the carpet.
‘Personally,’ Ben Ruby offered, ‘I wouldn’t know one end of a horsewhip from the other.’ She dealt him a glacial stare. ‘I didn’t mean to be funny,’ he said.