A Caribbean Mystery (Miss Marple 15)

‘I will get him,’ said Lady Rustonbury. ‘Leave it to me.’

And being a woman of decision, she straightway ordered out the Hispano Suiza. Ten minutes later, M. Edouard Bréon’s country retreat was invaded by an agitated countess. Lady Rustonbury, once she had made her mind up, was a very determined woman, and doubtless M. Bréon realized that there was nothing for it but to submit. Himself a man of very humble origin, he had climbed to the top of his profession, and had consorted on equal terms with dukes and princes, and the fact never failed to gratify him. Yet, since his retirement to this old-world English spot, he had known discontent. He missed the life of adulation and applause, and the English county had not been as prompt to recognize him as he thought they should have been. So he was greatly flattered and charmed by Lady Rustonbury’s request.

‘I will do my poor best,’ he said, smiling. ‘As you know, I have not sung in public for a long time now. I do not even take pupils, only one or two as a great favour. But there – since Signor Roscari is unfortunately indisposed –’

‘It was a terrible blow,’ said Lady Rustonbury. ‘Not that he is really a singer,’ said Bréon.

He told her at some length why this was so. There had been, it seemed, no baritone of distinction since Edouard Bréon retired.

‘Mme Nazorkoff is singing “Tosca”,’ said Lady Rustonbury. ‘You know her, I dare say?’

‘I have never met her,’ said Bréon. ‘I heard her sing once in New York. A great artist – she has a sense of drama.’

Lady Rustonbury felt relieved – one never knew with these singers – they had such queer jealousies and antipathies.

She re-entered the hall at the castle some twenty minutes later waving a triumphant hand.

‘I have got him,’ she cried, laughing. ‘Dear M. Bréon has really been too kind, I shall never forget it.’

Everyone crowded round the Frenchman, and their gratitude and appreciation were as incense to him. Edouard Bréon, though now close on sixty, was still a fine-looking man, big and dark, with a magnetic personality.

‘Let me see,’ said Lady Rustonbury. ‘Where is Madame –? Oh! there she is.’

Paula Nazorkoff had taken no part in the general welcoming of the Frenchman. She had remained quietly sitting in a high oak chair in the shadow of the fireplace. There was, of course, no fire, for the evening was a warm one and the singer was slowly fanning herself with an immense palm-leaf fan. So aloof and detached was she, that Lady Ruston-bury feared she had taken offence.

‘M. Bréon.’ She led him up to the singer. ‘You have never yet met Madame Nazorkoff, you say.’

With a last wave, almost a flourish, of the palm leaf, Paula Nazorkoff laid it down, and stretched out her hand to the Frenchman. He took it and bowed low over it, and a faint sigh escaped from the prima donna’s lips.

‘Madame,’ said Bréon, ‘we have never sung together. That is the penalty of my age! But Fate has been kind to me, and come to my rescue.’

Paula laughed softly.

‘You are too kind, M. Bréon. When I was still but a poor little unknown singer, I have sat at your feet. Your “Rigoletto” – what art, what perfection! No one could touch you.’

‘Alas!’ said Bréon, pretending to sigh. ‘My day is over. Scarpia, Rigoletto, Radames, Sharpless, how many times have I not sung them, and now – no more!’

‘Yes – tonight.’

‘True, Madame – I forgot. Tonight.’

‘You have sung with many “Toscas”,’ said Nazorkoff arrogantly; ‘but never with me!’

The Frenchman bowed.

‘It will be an honour,’ he said softly. ‘It is a great part, Madame.’

‘It needs not only a singer, but an actress,’ put in Lady Rustonbury.

‘That is true,’ Bréon agreed. ‘I remember when I was a young man in Italy, going to a little out of the way theatre in Milan. My seat cost me only a couple of lira, but I heard as good singing that night as I have heard in the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Quite a young girl sang “Tosca”, she sang it like an angel. Never shall I forget her voice in “Vissi D’Arte”, the clearness of it, the purity. But the dramatic force, that was lacking.’

Nazorkoff nodded.

‘That comes later,’ she said quietly.

‘True. This young girl – Bianca Capelli, her name was – I interested myself in her career. Through me she had the chance of big engagements, but she was foolish – regrettably foolish.’

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘How was she foolish?’

It was Lady Rustonbury’s twenty-four-year-old daughter, Blanche Amery, who spoke. A slender girl with wide blue eyes.

The Frenchman turned to her at once politely.

‘Alas! Mademoiselle, she had embroiled herself with some low fellow, a ruffian, a member of the Camorra. He got into trouble with the police, was condemned to death; she came to me begging me to do something to save her lover.’

Blanche Amery was staring at him. ‘And did you?’ she asked breathlessly. ‘Me, Mademoiselle, what could I do? A stranger in the country.’

‘You might have had influence?’ suggested Nazorkoff, in her low vibrant voice.

‘If I had, I doubt whether I should have exerted it. The man was not worth it. I did what I could for the girl.’

He smiled a little, and his smile suddenly struck the English girl as having something peculiarly disagreeable about it. She felt that, at that moment, his words fell far short of representing his thoughts.

‘You did what you could,’ said Nazorkoff. ‘That was kind of you, and she was grateful, eh?’

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.

‘The man was executed,’ he said, ‘and the girl entered a convent. Eh, voilà! The world has lost a singer.’

Nazorkoff gave a low laugh.

‘We Russians are more fickle,’ she said lightly.

Blanche Amery happened to be watching Cowan just as the singer spoke, and she saw his quick look of astonishment, and his lips that half-opened and then shut tight in obedience to some warning glance from Paula.

The butler appeared in the doorway.

‘Dinner,’ said Lady Rustonbury, rising. ‘You poor things, I am so sorry for you, it must be dreadful always to have to starve yourself before singing. But there will be a very good supper afterwards.’

‘We shall look forward to it,’ said Paula Nazorkoff. She laughed softly. ‘Afterwards!’

Inside the theatre, the first act of Tosca had just drawn to a close. The audience stirred, spoke to each other. The royalties, charming and gracious, sat in the three velvet chairs in the front row. Everyone was whispering and murmuring to each other, there was a general feeling that in the first act Nazorkoff had hardly lived up to her great reputation. Most of the audience did not realize that in this the singer showed her art, in the first act she was saving her voice and herself. She made of La Tosca a light, frivolous figure, toying with love, coquettishly jealous and exciting. Bréon, though the glory of his voice was past its prime, still struck a magnificent figure as the cynical Scarpia. There was no hint of the decrepit roué in his conception of the part. He made of Scarpia a handsome, almost benign figure, with just a hint of the subtle malevolence that underlay the outward seeming. In the last passage, with the organ and the procession, when Scarpia stands lost in thought, gloating over his plan to secure Tosca, Bréon had displayed a wonderful art. Now the curtain rose up on the second act, the scene in Scarpia’s apartments.

This time, when Tosca entered, the ar

t of Nazorkoff at once became apparent. Here was a woman in deadly terror playing her part with the assurance of a fine actress. Her easy greeting of Scarpia, her nonchalance, her smiling replies to him! In this scene, Paula Nazorkoff acted with her eyes, she carried herself with deadly quietness, with an impassive, smiling face. Only her eyes that kept darting glances at Scarpia betrayed her true feelings. And so the story went on, the torture scene, the breaking down of Tosca’s composure, and her utter abandonment when she fell at Scarpia’s feet imploring him vainly for mercy. Old Lord Leconmere, a connoisseur of music, moved appreciatively, and a foreign ambassador sitting next to him murmured:

‘She surpasses herself, Nazorkoff, tonight. There is no other woman on the stage who can let herself go as she does.’

Leconmere nodded.

And now Scarpia has named his price, and Tosca, horrified, flies from him to the window. Then comes the beat of drums from afar, and Tosca flings herself wearily down on the sofa. Scarpia standing over her, recites how his people are raising up the gallows – and then silence, and again the far-off beat of drums. Nazorkoff lay prone on the sofa, her head hanging downwards almost touching the floor, masked by her hair. Then, in exquisite contrast to the passion and stress of the last twenty minutes, her voice rang out, high and clear, the voice, as she had told Cowan, of a choir boy or an angel.

‘Vissi d’arte, vissi d’arte, no feci mai male ad anima viva. Con man furtiva quante miserie conobbi, aiutai.’

It was the voice of a wondering, puzzled child. Then she is once more kneeling and imploring, till the instant when Spoletta enters. Tosca, exhausted, gives in, and Scarpia utters his fateful words of double-edged meaning. Spoletta departs once more. Then comes the dramatic moment, whe Tosca, raising a glass of wine in her trembling hand, catches sight of the knife on the table, and slips it behind her.

Bréon rose up, handsome, saturnine, inflamed with passion. ‘Tosca, finalmente mia!’ The lightning stabs with the knife, and Tosca’s hiss of vengeance:

‘Questo e il bacio di Tosca!’ (‘It is thus that Tosca kisses.’)

Never had Nazorkoff shown such an appreciation of Tosca’s act of vengeance. That last fierce whispered ‘Muori dannato,’ and then in a strange, quiet voice that filled the theatre: