Photo Finish by Ngaio Marsh

Author:Ngaio Marsh [Marsh, Ngaio]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: C429, Extratorrents, Kat
Published: 2010-01-22T13:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

Storm Continued

Alleyn wrote up his notes. He sat at the brand-new paint table Troy would never use and worked for an hour, taking great pains to be comprehensive, detailed, succinct, and lucid, bearing in mind that the notes were destined for the New Zealand police. And the sooner he handed them over and he and Troy packed their bags, the better he would like it.

The small hours came and went and with them that drained sensation accompanied by the wakefulness that replaces an unsatisfied desire for sleep. The room, the passage outside, the landing, and the silent house beyond seemed to change their character and lead a stealthy night life of their own.

It was raining again. Giant handfuls of rice seemed to be thrown across the windowpanes. The Lodge, new as it was, jolted under the onslaught. Alleyn thought of the bathing pool, below the studio windows, and almost fancied he could hear its risen waters slapping at the house.

At a few minutes short of two o'clock he was visited by an experience Troy, ever since the early days of their marriage when he had first confided in her, called his Familiar, though truly a more accurate name might be Unfamiliar or perhaps Alter Ego. He understood that people interested in such matters were well acquainted with this state of being and that it was not at all unusual. Perhaps the E.S.P. buffs had it taped. He had never cared to ask.

The nearest he could get to it was to say that without warning he would feel as if he had moved away from his own identity and looked at himself as if at a complete stranger. He felt that if he held on outside himself, something new and very remarkable would come out of it. But he never did hang on and as suddenly as normality had gone it would return. The slightest disturbance clicked it back and he was within himself again.

As now, when he caught a faint movement that had not been there before--the sense rather than the sound--of someone in the passage outside the room.

He went to the door and opened it and was face to face with the ubiquitous and serviceable Hanley.

"Oh," said Hanley, "so sorry. I was just going to knock. One saw the light under your door and wondered if--you know--one might be of use."

"You're up late. Come in."

He came in, embellishing his entrance with thanks and apologies. He wore a dressing gown of Noel Coward vintage and Moroccan slippers. His hair was fluffed up into a little crest like a baby's. In the uncompromising lights of the studio it could be seen that he was not very young.

"I think," he said, "it's absolutely fantastic of you to take on all this beastliness. Honestly!"

"Oh," Alleyn said, "I'm only treading water, you know, until the proper authorities arrived."

"A prospect that doesn't exactly fill one with rapture."

"Why are you abroad so late, Mr. Hanley?"

"Couldn't you settle for 'Ned'? 'Mr. Hanley' makes one feel like an undergraduate getting gated.

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