i

It was some years ago, in a transatlantic steamer, that Alleyn had met Annabella Wells: the focal point of shipboard gossip to which she had seemed to be perfectly indifferent. She had watched him with undisguised concentration for four hours and had then sent her secretary with an invitation for drinks. She herself drank pretty heavily and, he thought, was probably a drug addict. He had found her an embarrassment and was glad when she suddenly dropped him. Since then she had turned up from time to time as an onlooker at criminal trials where he appeared for the police. She was, she told him, passionately interested in criminology.

In the English theatre her brilliance had been dimmed by her outrageous eccentricities, but in Paris, particularly in the motion-picture studios, she was still one of the great ones. She retained a ravaged sort of beauty and an individuality which would be arresting when the last of her good looks had been rasped away. A formidable woman, and an enchantress still.

She gave him her hand and the inverted and agonized smile for which she was famous. “They said you were a big-game hunter,” she said. “I couldn’t wait.”

“It was nice of them to get that impression.”

“An accurate one, after all. Are you on the prowl down here? After some master-felon?”

“I’m on a holiday with my wife and small boy.”

“Ah, yes! The beautiful woman who paints famous pictures. I am told by Baradi and Glande that she is beautiful. There is no need to look angry, is there?”

“Did I look angry?”

“You looked as if you were trying not to show a certain uxorious irritation.”

“Did I, indeed?” said Alleyn.

“Baradi is a bit lush. I will allow and must admit that he’s a bit lush. Have you seen Oberon?”

“For a few moments.”

“What did you think of him?”

“Isn’t he your host?”

“Honestly,” she said, “you’re not true. Much more fabulous, in your way, than Oberon.”

“I’m interested in what I have been told of his philosophy.”

“So they said. What sort of interest?”

“Personal and academic.”

“My interest is personal and unacademic.” She opened her cigarette case. Alleyn glanced at the contents. “I see,” he said, “that it would be useless to offer you a Capstan.”

“Will you have one of these? They’re Egyptian. The red won’t come off on your lips.”

“Thank you. They would be wasted on me.” He lit her cigarette. “I wonder,” he said, “if I could persuade you to say nothing about my job.”

“Darling,” she rejoined — she called everyone, “darling” —“you could persuade me to do anything. My trouble was, you wouldn’t try. Why do you look at me like that?”

“I was wondering if any dependence could be placed on a heroin addict. Is it heroin?”

“It is. I get it,” said Miss Wells, “from America.”

“How very tragic.”

“Tragic?”

“You weren’t taking heroin when you played Hedda Gabler at the Unicorn in ’42. Could you give a performance like that now?”

“Yes,” she said vehemently.

“But what a pity you don’t!”

“My last film is the best thing I’ve ever done. Everyone says so.” She looked at him with hatred. “I can still do it,” she said.

“On your good days, perhaps. The studio is less exacting than the theatre. Will the cameras wait when the gallery would boo? I couldn’t know less about it.”

She walked up to him and struck him across the face with the back of her hand.

“You have deteriorated,” said Alleyn.

“Are you mad? What are you up to? Why are you here?”

“I brought a woman who may be dying to your Dr. Baradi. All I want is to go away as I came in — a complete nonentity.”

“And you think that by insulting me you’ll persuade me to oblige you.”

“I think you’ve already talked to your friends about me and that they’ve sent you here to find out if you were right.”

“You’re a very conceited man. Why should I talk about you?”

“Because,” Alleyn said, “you’re afraid.”

“Of you?”

“Specifically. Of me.”

“You idiot,” she said. “Coming here with a dying spinster and an arty-crafty wife and a dreary little boy! For God’s sake, get out and get on with your holiday.”

“I should like it above all things.”

“Why don’t you want them to know who you are?”

“It would quite spoil my holiday.”

“Which might mean anything.”

“It might.”

“Why do you say I’m afraid?”

“You’re shaking. That may be a carry-over from alcohol or heroin, or both, but I don’t think it is. You’re behaving like a frightened woman. You were in a blue funk when you hit me.”

“You’re saying detestable, unforgivable things to me.”

“Have I said anything that is untrue?”

“My life’s my own. I’ve a right to do what I like with it.”

“What’s happened to your intelligence? You should know perfectly well that this sort of responsibility doesn’t end with yourself. What about those two young creatures? The girl?”

“I didn’t bring them here.”

“No, really,” Alleyn said, going to the door, “you’re saying such very stupid things. I’ll go down to the front and see if my car’s come. Goodbye to you.”

She followed him and put her hand on his arm. “Look!” she said. “Look at me. I’m terrifying, aren’t I? A wreck? But I’ve still got more than my share of what it takes. Haven’t I?”

“For Baradi and his friends?”

“Baradi!” she said contemptuously.

“I really didn’t want to insult you with Oberon.”

“What do you know about Oberon?”

“I’ve seen him.”

She left her hand on him, but with an air of forgetfulness. A tremor communicated itself to his arm. “You don’t know,” she said. “You don’t know what he’s like. Its no good thinking about him in the way you think about other men. There are hommes fatals, too, you know. He’s terrifying and he’s marvellous. You can’t understand that, can you?”

“No. To me, if he wasn’t disgusting, he’d be ludicrous. A slug of a man.”

“Do you believe in hypnotism?”

“Certainly. If the subject is willing.”

“Oh,” she said hopelessly. “I’m willing enough. Not that it’s as simple as hypnotism.” She hung her head, looking, with that gesture, like the travesty of a shamed girl. He couldn’t hear all she said but caught one phrase: “… wonderful degradation…”

“For God’s sake,” Alleyn said, “what nonsense is this?”

She frowned and looked at him out of her disastrous eyes. “Could you help me?” she said.

“I have no idea. Probably not.”

“I’m in a bad way.”

“Yes.”

“If I were to keep faith? I don’t know what you’re up to, but if I were to keep faith and not tell them who you are? Even if it ruined me? Would you think you could help me then?”

“Are you asking me if I could help you to cure yourself of drugging? I couldn’t. Only an expert could do that. If you’ve still got enough character and sense of purpose to keep faith, as you put it, perhaps you should have enough guts to go through with a cure. I don’t know.”

“I suppose you think I’m trying to bribe you?”

“In a sense — yes.”

“Do you know,” she said discontentedly, “you’re the only man I’ve ever met—” She stopped and seemed to hesitate. “I can’t get this right,” she said. “With you it’s not an act, is it?”

Alleyn smiled for the first time. “I’m not attempting the well-known gambit of rudeness introduced with a view to amorous occasions,” he said. “Is that what you mean?”

“I suppose it is.”

“You should stick to classical drama. Shakespeare’s women don’t fall for the insult-and-angry-seduction stuff. Sorry. I’m forgetting Richard III.”

“Beatrice and Benedick? Petruchio and Katharina?”

“I was excluding comedy.”

“How right you were. There’s nothing very funny about my situation.”

“No, it seems appalling.”

“What can I do? Tell me, what I can do?”