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Artists in Crime
Ngaio Marsh


One of Ngaio Marsh’s most famous murder mysteries, which introduces Inspector Alleyn to his future wife, the irrepressible Agatha Troy.It started as a student exercise, the knife under the drape, the model’s pose chalked in place. But before Agatha Troy, artist and instructor, returns to the class, the pose has been re-enacted in earnest: the model is dead, fixed for ever in one of the most dramatic poses Troy has ever seen.It’s a difficult case for Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn. How can he believe that the woman he loves is a murderess? And yet no one can be above suspicion…









Ngaio Marsh

Artists in Crime










Copyright (#ulink_978bdcde-3c47-545d-9036-d2c4b89ecad3)


HARPER

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2009

Artists in Crime first published in Great Britain by Geoffrey Bles 1938

Copyright © Ngaio Marsh Ltd 1938

Ngaio Marsh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these works

A catalogie record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780006512561

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2009 ISBN 9780007344444

VersionL 2016-10-20


For Phyllis and John




The Characters in the Tale (#ulink_92938569-05c9-51bc-abf3-eab2bf11bf42)








Table of Contents


Cover Page (#u26a851c1-cf16-5d87-a6d9-134e01fb8efb)

Title Page (#uf461bfd1-072c-5ccd-b8e9-3d1606cb66c9)

Copyright (#ub96cb526-d428-5072-83af-4ccb7b0b4ed7)

Dedication (#u95d43b08-f40c-5a77-8b3c-536d117fb392)

The Characters in the Tale (#u04e1d7bf-be2d-54d5-a97d-fc453d7167a7)

CHAPTER 1 Prologue at Sea (#uce34e7a1-b3e0-5275-948b-f82ea98a42a9)

CHAPTER 2 Five Letters (#u9878a52b-4a38-5e14-afdd-f6198deeef70)

CHAPTER 3 Class Assembles (#udbf4f095-4d86-5519-af7c-e1ea5cd7624f)

CHAPTER 4 Case for Mr Alleyn (#udb0a478f-cbf0-55e8-8301-78622f24b6e3)

CHAPTER 5 Routine (#ua65eba1a-0d11-50a5-b9c5-52bec8fde375)

CHAPTER 6 Sidelight on Sonia (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 7 Alibi for Troy (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 8 Sidelights on Garcia (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 9 Phillida Lee and Watt Hatchett (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 10 Weekend of an Engaged Couple (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 11 Ormerin’s Nerves and Sonia’s Correspondence (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 12 Malmsley on Pleasure (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 13 Upstairs (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 14 Evidence from a Twig (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 15 Lady of the Ensemble (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 16 Back to the Yard (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 17 The Man at the Table (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 18 One of Five (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 19 Alleyn Makes a Pilgrimage (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 20 Arrest (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 21 Epilogue in a Garden (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER 1 Prologue at Sea (#ulink_1c51f63a-6663-51ad-89d7-eec729c68d86)


Alleyn leant over the deck-rail, looking at the wet brown wharf and the upturned faces of the people. In a minute or two now they would slide away, lose significance, and become a vague memory. ‘We called at Suva.’ He had a sudden desire to run a mental ring round the scene beneath him, to isolate it, and make it clear, for ever in his mind. Idly at first, and then with absurd concentration, he began to memorize, starting with a detail. The tall Fijian with dyed hair. The hair was vivid magenta against the arsenic green of a pile of fresh bananas. He trapped and held the pattern of it. Then the brown face beneath, with liquid blue half-tones reflected from the water, then the oily dark torso, fore-shortened, the white loincloth, and the sharp legs. The design made by the feet on wet planks. It became a race. How much of the scene could he fix in his memory before the ship sailed? The sound, too—he must get that—the firm slap of bare feet on wet boards, the languid murmur of voices and the snatches of song drifting from a group of native girls near those clumps of fierce magenta coral. Hie smell must not be forgotten—frangipanni, coconut oil, and sodden wood. He widened his circle, taking in more figures—the Indian woman in the shrill pink sari, sitting by the green bananas; wet roofs on the wharf and damp roads wandering aimlessly towards mangrove swamps and darkened hills. Those hills, sharply purple at their base, lost outline behind a sulky company of clouds, to jag out, fantastically peaked, against a motionless and sombre sky. The clouds themselves were indigo at the edges, heavy with the ominous depression of unshed rain. The darkness of everything and the violence of colour—it was a pattern of wet brown, acid green, magenta and indigo. The round voices of the Fijians, loud and deep, as though they spoke through resounding tubes, pierced the moist air and made it vibrant.

Everything shifted a little, stepped back a pace. The ship had parted from the wharf. Already the picture was remote, the sounds would soon fade out. Alleyn shut his eyes and found the whole impression vivid under the closed lids. When he opened them the space between vessel and land had widened. He no longer wanted to look at the wharf, and turned away.

‘And am I hart?’ the success of the ship was saying to a group of young men. ‘Oh baby! ‘I’ll say I’ve left haff a stone back there in that one-eyed lil’ burg. Hart! Phoo!’

The young men laughed adoringly.

‘It’s hotter than this in Honolulu!’ teased one of the young men.

‘Maybe. But it’s not so enervating.’

‘Very hot spot, Honolulu!’

‘Oh boy!’ chanted the success, rolling her eyes and sketching a Hawaiian movement with her hips. ‘You wait a while till I show you round the lil’ old home town. Gee, that label on my grips certainly looks good to me.’ She saw Alleyn. ‘Hello, hello, look who’s here! Come right over and join the party.’

Alleyn strolled over. Ever since they sailed from Auckland he had been uneasily aware of a certain warmth in the technique of the success where he was concerned. He supposed it was rather one up to him with all these youngsters in hot pursuit. At this stage of speculation he invariably pulled a fastidious face and thought ruefully: ‘Lord, Lord, the vanity of the male forties.’ But he was very lonely, and the thought of her almost lent a little glamour to the possible expectation of the weary routine of a shipboard flirtation.

‘Look at him!’ cried the success. ‘Isn’t he the cutest thing! That quiet English stuff certainly makes one great big appeal with this baby. And does he flash the keep-clear signal! Boys, I’ll take you right into my confidence. Listen! This Mr Alleyn is my big flop. I don’t mean a thing to him.’

‘She really is rather awful,’ thought Alleyn, and he said: ‘Ah, Miss Van Maes, you don’t know a coward when you see one.’

‘Meaning?’

‘I—I really don’t know,’ mumbled Alleyn hurriedly. ‘Hullo, we’re going through the barrier,’ said one of the youths.

They all turned to the deck-rail. The sea wrapped itself sluggishly about the thin rib of the reef and fell away on either side in an enervated pother of small breakers. Over Fiji the rain still hung in ponderable clouds. The deep purple of the islands was lit by desultory patches of livid sunshine, banana-green, sultry, but without iridescence. The ship passed through the fangs of the reef.

Alleyn slipped away, walked aft, and climbed the companion-way to the boat deck. Nobody about up there, the passengers in their shoregoing clothes were still collected on the main deck. He filled his pipe meditatively, staring back towards Fiji. It was pleasant up there. Peaceful.

‘Damn!’ said a female voice. ‘Damn, damn, damn! Oh blast!’

Startled, Alleyn looked up. Sitting on the canvas cover of one of the boats was a woman. She seemed to be dabbing at something. She stood up and he saw that she wore a pair of exceedingly grubby flannel trousers, and a short grey overall. In her hand was a long brush. Her face was disfigured by a smudge of green paint, and her short hair stood up in a worried shock, as though she had run her hands through it. She was very thin and dark. She scrambled to the bows of the boat and Alleyn was able to see what she had been at. A small canvas was propped up in the lid of an open paintbox. Alleyn drew in his breath sharply. It was as if his deliberately cultivated memory of the wharf at Suva had been simplified and made articulate. The sketch was an almost painfully explicit statement of the feeling of that scene. It was painted very directly with crisp, nervous touches. The pattern of blue-pinks and sharp greens fell across it like the linked syllables of a perfect phrase. It was very simply done, but to Alleyn it was profoundly satisfying—an expression of an emotion, rather than a record of a visual impression.

The painter, an unlit cigarette between her lips, stared dispassionately at her work. She rummaged in her trouser pockets, found nothing but a handkerchief that had been used as a paint-rag, and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘Blast!’ she repeated, and took the unlit cigarette from her lips.

‘Match?’ said Alleyn.

She started, lost her balance, and sat down abruptly.

‘How long have you been there?’ she demanded ungraciously.

‘Only just come. I—I haven’t been spying. May I give you a match?’

‘Oh—thanks. Chuck up the box, would you?’ She lit her cigarette, eyeing him over the top of her long thin hands, and then turned to look again at her work.

‘It is exceedingly good, isn’t it?’ said Alleyn.

She hunched up one shoulder as if his voice was a piercing draught in her ear, muttered something, and crawled back to her work. She picked up her palette and began mixing a streak of colour with her knife.

‘You’re not going to do anything more to it?’ said Alleyn involuntarily.

She turned her head and stared at him.

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s perfect—you’ll hurt it. I say, please forgive me. Frightful impertinence. I do apologize.’

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ she said impatiently, and screwed up her eyes to peer at the canvas.

‘I merely thought—’ began Alleyn.

‘I had an idea,’ said the painter, ‘that if I worked up here on this hideously uncomfortable perch, I might possibly have the place to myself for a bit.’

‘You shall,’ said Alleyn, and bowed to her profile. He tried to remember if he had ever before been quite so pointedly snubbed by a total stranger. Only, he reflected, by persons he was obliged to interview in the execution of his duties as an officer of Scotland Yard. On those occasions he persisted. On this an apologetic exit seemed to be clearly indicated. He walked to the top of the companion-way, and then paused.

‘But if you do anything more, you’ll be a criminal. The thing’s perfect. Even I can see that, and I—’

‘“Don’t know anything about it, but I do know what I like,”’ quoted the lady savagely.

‘I was not about to produce that particular bromide,’ said Alleyn mildly.

For the first time since he had spoken to her, she gave him her full attention. A rather charming grin lifted the corners of her mouth.

‘All right,’ she said, I’m being objectionable. My turn to apologize. I thought at first you were one of the “don’t put me in it” sort of onlookers.’

‘Heaven forbid!’

‘I wasn’t going to do too much,’ she went on, actually as if she had turned suddenly shy. It’s just that figure in the foreground—I left it too late. Worked for an hour before we sailed. There should be a repetition of the bluish grey there, but I can’t remember—’ She paused, worried.

‘But there was!’ exclaimed Alleyn. ‘The reflection off the water up the inside of the thighs. Don’t you remember?’

‘Golly—you’re right,’ she said. ‘Here—wait a bit.’

She picked up a thin brush, broke it through the colour, held it poised for a second, and then laid a delicate touch on the canvas. ‘That?’

‘Yes,’ cried Alleyn excitedly. ‘That’s done it. Now you can stop.’

‘All right, all right. I didn’t realize you were a painting bloke.’

‘I’m not. It’s simply insufferable cheek.’

She began to pack up her box.

‘Well, I must say you’re very observant for a layman. Good memory.’

‘Not really,’ said Alleyn. ‘It’s synthetic’

‘You mean you’ve trained your eye?’

‘I’ve had to try to do so, certainly.’

‘Why?’

‘Part of my job. Let me take your box for you.’

‘Oh—thank you. Mind the lid—it’s a bit painty. Pity to spoil those lovely trousers. Will you take the sketch?’

‘Do you want a hand down?’ offered Alleyn.

‘I can manage, thank you,’ she said gruffly, and clambered down to the deck.

Alleyn had propped the canvas against the rail and now stood looking at it. She joined him, eyeing it with the disinterested stare of the painter.

‘Why!’ murmured Alleyn suddenly. ‘Why, you must be Agatha Troy.’

‘That’s me.’

‘Good Lord, what a self-sufficient fathead I’ve been.’

‘Why?’ said Agatha Troy. ‘You were all right. Very useful.’

‘Thank you,’ said Alleyn humbly. ‘I saw your one-man show a year ago in London.’

‘Did you?’ she said without interest.

‘I should have guessed at once. Isn’t there a sort of relationship between this painting and the “In the Stadium”?’

‘Yes.’ She moved her eyebrows quickly. ‘That’s quite true. The arrangement’s much the same—radiating lines and a spotted pattern. Same feeling. Well, I’d better go down to my cabin and unpack.’

‘You joined the ship at Suva?’

‘Yes. I noticed this subject from the main deck. Things shove themselves at you like that sometimes. I dumped my luggage, changed, and came up.’

She slung her box over her shoulder and picked up the sketch.

‘Can I—?’ said Alleyn diffidently.

‘No, thanks.’

She stood for a moment staring back towards Fiji. Her hands gripped the shoulder-straps of her paintbox. The light breeze whipped back her short dark hair, revealing the contour of the skull and the delicate bones of the face. The temples were slightly hollow, the cheek-bones showed, the dark-blue eyes were deep-set under the thin ridge of the brows. The sun caught the olive skin with its smudge of green paint, and gave it warmth. There was a kind of spare gallantry about her. She turned quickly before he had time to look away and their gaze met.

Alleyn was immediately conscious of a clarification of his emotions. As she stood before him, her face slowly reddening under his gaze, she seemed oddly familiar. He felt that he already knew her next movement, and the next inflexion of her clear, rather cold voice. It was a little as though he had thought of her a great deal, but never met her before. These impressions held him transfixed, for how long he never knew, while he still kept his eyes on hers. Then something clicked in his mind, and he realized that he had stared her out of countenance. The blush had mounted painfully to the roots of her hair and she had turned away.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Alleyn steadily. ‘I’m afraid I was looking at the green smudge on your cheek.’

She scrubbed at her face with the cuff of her smock.

‘I’ll go down,’ she said, and picked up the sketch.

He stood aside, but she had to pass close to him, and again he was vividly aware of her, still with the same odd sense of surprised familiarity. She smelt of turpentine and paint, he noticed.

‘Well—good evening,’ she said vaguely.

Alleyn laughed a little.

‘Good evening, madam.’

She started off down the ladder, moving sideways and holding the wet sketch out over the hand-rail. He turned away and lit a cigarette. Suddenly a terrific rumpus broke out on the deck below. The hot cheap reek of frangipanni blossoms drifted up, and with it the voice of the success of the ship.

‘Oh, pardon me. Come right down. Gangway, fellows. Oh say, pardon me, but have you been making a picture? Can I have a keek? I’m just crazy about sketching. Look, boys—isn’t that cute? The wharf? My, my, it’s a shame you haven’t been able to finish it, isn’t it? It would have been swell! Look, boys, it’s the wharf. Maybe a snapshot would help. We’ll surely have to watch our step with an artist on board. Say, let’s get acquainted. We’ve been celebrating and we feel fine. Meet the mob. I’m Virginia Van Maes.’

‘My name’s Troy,’ said a voice that Alleyn could scarcely recognize. A series of elaborate introductions followed.

‘Well, Miss Troy, I was going to tell you how Caley Burt painted my portrait in Noo York. You’ve heard of Caley Burt? I guess he’s one of the most exclusive portraitists in America. Well, it seems he was just crazy to take my picture—’

The anecdote was a long one. Agatha Troy remained silent throughout.

‘Well, when he was through—and say, did I get tired of that dress? —it certainly was one big success. Poppa bought it, and it’s in our reception-hall at Honolulu. Some of the crowd say it doesn’t just flatter, but it looks good to me. I don’t pretend to know a whole lot about art, Miss Troy, but I know what I like.’

‘Quite,’ said Agatha Troy. ‘Look here, I think I’d better get down to my cabin. I haven’t unpacked yet. If you’ll excuse me—’

‘Why, certainly. We’ll be seeing you. Say, have you seen that guy Alleyn around?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know—’

‘He’s tall and thin, and I’ll say he’s good looking. And is he British? Gee! I’m crazy about him. I got a little gamble with these boys, I’ll have him doing figure eights trying to dope out when the petting-party gets started.’

‘I’ve kissed goodbye to my money,’ one of the youths said.

‘Listen to him, will you, Miss Troy? But we certainly saw Mr Alleyn around this way a while back.’

‘He went up to the boat deck,’ said a youth.

‘Oh,’ said Miss Troy clearly. ‘That man! Yes, he’s up there now.’

‘Atta-boy!’

‘Whooppee!’

‘Oh damn!’ said Alleyn softly.

And the next thing that happened was Miss Van Maes showing him how she’d made a real Honolulu lei out of Fijian frangipanni, and asking him to come down with the crowd for a drink.

‘Has this party gone cuckoo or something? We’re three rounds behind the clock. C’m on!’

‘Virginia,’ said a youth, ‘you’re tight.’

‘What the hell! Is it my day to be sober? You coming, Mr Alleyn?’

‘Thank you so much,’ said Alleyn, ‘but if you’ll believe it, I’m a non-drinker at the moment. Doctor’s orders.’

‘Aw, be funny!’

‘Fact. I assure you.’

‘Mr Alleyn’s thinking of the lady with the picture,’ said a youth.

‘What—her? With her face all mussed in green paint. Mr Alleyn’s not screwy yet, is he? Gee, I’ll say a woman’s got no self-respect to go around that way in public. Did you get a look at that smock? And the picture! Well, I had to be polite and say it was cute, but it’s nobody’s big sorrow she didn’t finish it. The wharf at Suva! Seems I struck it lucky, but what it’s meant for’s just anyone’s guess. C’m on, Mr Strong-Silent Sleuth, put me out of my agony and say she don’t mean one thing to you.’

‘Miss Van Maes,’ said Alleyn, ‘do you know that you make me feel very middle-aged and inexpressibly foolish? I haven’t got the smallest idea what the right answer is to any single one of your questions.’

‘Maybe I could teach you. Maybe I could teach you a whole lot of fun, honey.’

‘You’re very kind, but, do you know, I’m afraid I’m past the receptive age.’

She widened her enormous eyes. The mascaraed lashes stuck out round them like black toothpicks. Her ash-fair hair was swept back from her very lovely face into a cluster of disciplined and shining curls. She had the un-human good looks of a film star. Undoubtedly she was rather tight.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘my bet with the boys is still good. Twenty-five’ll get anybody fifty you kiss me before we hit Honolulu. And I don’t mean maybe.’

‘I should be very much honoured—’

‘Yeah? And I don’t mean the get-by-the-censor stuff, either. No, sir!’

She stared at him, and upon her normally blank and beautiful face there dawned a look of doubt.

‘Say,’ she said, ‘you’re not going to tell me you got a yen for that woman?’

‘I don’t know what a yen is,’ Alleyn said, ‘but I’ve got nothing at all for Miss Troy, and I can assure you she has got even less than that for me.’




CHAPTER 2 Five Letters (#ulink_5a94c320-98b6-56df-990e-84dd6e41357b)


From Miss Agatha Troy to her friend, Miss Katti Bostock, the well-known painter of plumbers, miners and Negro musicians:

S. S. Niagara, August 1st.

Dear Katti,

I am breaking this journey at Quebec, so you’ll get this letter about a fortnight before I get home. I’m glad everything is fixed up for next term. It’s a bore in some ways having to teach, but now I’ve reached the giddy heights of picking and choosing I don’t find it nearly so irksome. Damn good of you to do all the arranging for me. If you can, get the servants into the house by Sept. 1st—I get back on the 3rd—they ought to have everything fixed up by the 10th, when we start classes. Your air mail reached Suva the day we sailed. Yes, book Sonia Gluck for model. The little swine’s beautiful and knows how to pose as long as she behaves herself. You yourself might do a big nude for the Group Show on the 16th or thereabouts. You paint well from the nude and I think you shouldn’t remain wedded to your plumbers—your stuff will get static if you don’t look out. I don’t think I told you who is coming next term. Here is the list!

(1) Francis Ormerin. He’s painting in Paris at the moment, but says the lot at Malaquin’s has come all over surrealist and he can’t see it and doesn’t want to. Says he’s depressed about his work or something.

(2) Valmai Seacliff. That’s the girl that did those dabby Rex Whistlerish posters for the Board of Trade. She says she wants to do some solid work from the model. Quite true, she does; but I rather fancy she’s on the hunt.

(3) Basil Pilgrim. If I’m not mistaken, Basil is Valmai’s quarry. He’s an Hon., you know, and old Lord Pilgrim is doddering to the grave. He’s the ‘Peer that became a Primitive Methodist’ a few years ago—you remember. The papers were full of it. He comes to light with the odd spot of hell-fire on the subject of birth-control, every now and then. Basil’s got six elder sisters, and Lady Pilgrim died when he was born, so we don’t know what she thought about it. I hardly think Valmai Seacliff will please the old gentleman. Basil’s painting nearly drove him into the Salvation Army, I fancy.

(4) Watt Hatchett. This is new blood. He’s an Australian youth I found working in Suva. Very promising stuff. Simplified form and swinging lines. He’s as keen as mustard, and was practically living on bananas and cheek when I ran into him. His voice is like the crashing together of old tin cans, and he can talk of nothing but his work, his enthusiasms, and his dislikes. I’m afraid he’ll get on their nerves and they may put him on the defensive. Still, his work is good.

(5) Cedric Malmsley. He’s got a job illustrating some de luxe edition of medieval romances, and wants to get down to it with a model handy. It ought to work in all right. I told him to get in touch with you. I hear he’s grown a blond beard that parts in the middle and wears sandals —Cedric, not the beard.

(6) Wolf Garcia, I had a letter from Garcia. No money, but a commission to do Comedy and Tragedy in marble for the new cinema in Westminster, so will I let him stay with me and do the clay model? No stamp on the envelope and written in conte chalk on lavatory paper. He will probably turn up long before you get this letter. Let him use the studio, will you, but look out, if you’ve got Sonia there. Garcia’s got the use of someone’s studio in London after the 20th, and hopes to have a cast ready by then, so it won’t be for long. Now don’t bully me, Katti. You know the creature is really—Heaven save the mark—a genius; and the others all pay me through the nose, so I can afford to carry a couple of dead-heads. Yes, you’re quite right. Hatchett is the other.

(7) One Phillida Lee. Just left the Slade, Rich father. She sent me some of her stuff and a rather gushing little request to work under me ‘because she has always longed’, etc., etc. I wrote back asking the earth in fees and she snapped at it.

(8) You, bless you. I’ve told them all to fix up with you. Malmsley, Ormerin and Pilgrim can have the dormitory; Garcia one attic, and Hatchett the other. You have the yellow room as usual, and put Valmai Seacliff and the Lee child in the blue. The great thing is to segregate Garcia. You know what he is, and I won’t have that sort of thing—it’s too muddly. On second thoughts it might be better to put him in the studio and the model in the attic. I rather think they were living together in London. By the way, I’m going to do a portrait of Valmai Seacliff. It’ll do for Burlington House and the Salon, drat them. She’ll be good enough to paint in the slap-up grand manner.

I’m scratching this off in the writing-room on my first night out from Suva. Did a small thing looking down on the wharf before we sailed. Came off rather well. I was interrupted by a man whom I thought was a fool, and who turned out to be intelligent, so I felt the fool. There’s an American ex-cinema actress running about this ship half tight. She looks like one of their magazine covers and behaves like the wrath of God. The man seems to be her property, so perhaps he is a fool, after all.

If anything amusing happens, I’ll add to this. It’s been an interesting holiday, and I’m glad I did it. Your letters have been grand. Splendid the work goes on so well. I look forward to seeing it. Think about a nude for the Group. You don’t want to be called the Plumber’s Queen.

Later. We get into Vancouver tomorrow. It’s been a peaceful trip since Honolulu, where the Ship’s Belle left us. Before that it was rather hellish. Unfortunately someone had the number of The Palette that ran a special supplement of my show. The Belle got hold of it and decided I must be a real artist after all. When she saw the reproduction of the Royal portrait she laid her ears back and settled down to a steady pursuit. Wouldn’t it be just wonderful if I did a portrait of her before we got to Honolulu? Her poppa would be tickled to death. She changed her clothes six times a day and struck a new attitude whenever she caught my eye. I had to pretend I’d got neuritis in my hand, which was a curse, as I rather wanted to do a head of one of the other passengers—a very paintable subject with plenty of good bone. However, I got down to it after Honolulu. The subject is a detective and looks like a grandee. Sounds like it, too—very old-world and chivalrous and so on. Damn! that looks like a cheap sneer, and it’s not meant to. I’m rather on the defensive about this sleuth—I was so filthily rude to him, and he took it like a gent and made me feel like a bounder. Very awkward. The head is fairly successful.

Well, Katti, old lady, we meet on the 3rd. I’ll come straight to Tatler’s End. Best love.

Yours ever, Troy

PS.—Perhaps you’d better give Garcia a shakedown in the studio and lock him in. We’ll hope he’ll have gone by the 20th.

Katti Bostock to Agatha Troy:

Tatler’s End House, Bossicote, Bucks. August 14th

Dear Troy,

You are a gump to collect these bloodsuckers. Yes, I know Garcia is damn good at sculping, but he’s a nasty little animal, and thinks everyone else is born to keep him. God knows how much he’s got out of you already. All right, I’ll shut him up in the studio, but if he’s after Sonia or anyone else, he’ll crawl out by the ventilator. And if you imagine you’ll get rid of him before the 20th, you’re wandering. And who in the name of Bacchus is this Australian blight? You’re paying his fare home, of course. Well, I suppose I can’t talk, as you’ve given me the run of your house for twelve months. It’s been a godsend, and I’ve done my best work here. Been working on a thing of two Negro saxophonists, worm’s-eye view of, with cylindrical background. Not bad, I fancy. It’s finished now. I’ve started on a big thing, using that little devil Sonia Gluck. It’s a standing pose and she’s behaving abominably, blast her! However, she agreed to come next term for the usual exorbitant fee, as soon as she heard Garcia and Pilgrim were to be in the class. Malmsley arrived today. The beard is there all right, and looks like the Isle of Patmos gone decadent. He’s full of the book-illustration job, and showed me some of the sketches—quite good. I’ve met Pilgrim several times, and like him and his work. I hear he’s always to be seen with the Seacliff blight, so I suppose she’s after the title. That girl’s a nymphomaniac, and a successful one at that. Funny this ‘It’ stuff. I’ve never inspired a thought that wasn’t respectable, and yet I get on with men all right. You’re different. They’d fall for you if you’d let them, only you’re so unprovocative they never know where they are, and end by taking you at your own valuation. The Seacliff and Pilgrim arrive tomorrow. I’ve seen Miss Phillida Lee. She’s very would-be Slade. Wears hand-printed clothes with high necks, and shudders and burbles alternately. She comes on the 9th, and so does Ormerin, who writes from Paris and sounds very depressed. Nice bloke. I don’t know whether it’s struck you what a rum brew the class will be this term. It’s impossible to keep Sonia in her place, wherever a model’s place may be. Garcia, if he’s here, will either be in full cry after her, which will be unpleasant, or else sick of her, which will be worse. Valmai Seacliff will naturally expect every male on the premises to be hot on her trail, and if that comes off, Sonia will get the pip. Perhaps with Basil Pilgrim on the tapis, the Seacliff will be less catholic, but I doubt it. Oh, well, you know your own business best, and I suppose will float through on the good old recipe of not noticing. You are such a bloody aristocrat. Your capacity for ignoring the unpleasant is a bit irritating to a plebeian like myself.

The servants are all right. The two Hipkins and Sadie Welsh from the village. They only tolerate me and are thrilled over your return. So am I, actually. I want your advice over the big thing of Sonia, and I’m longing to see your own stuff. You say don’t forward any more letters, so I won’t. Your allusions to a detective are quite incomprehensible, but if he interrupted you in your work, you had every right to bite his head off. What had you been up to, anyway?—Well, so long until the 3rd—Katti. PS.—Garcia has just sent a case of clay and a lot of material—carriage forward, of course—so I suppose I may expect to be honoured with his company any time now. We’ll probably get a bill for the clay.

PPS.—Plumber’s Queen yourself.

PPPS.—The bill for Garcia’s material has come.

Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn, CID., to Mr Nigel Bathgate, journalist:

S.S. Niagara (At Sea). August 6th

Dear Bathgate,

How is it with Benedict, the married man? I was extremely sorry to be away for the wedding, and thought of you both on my mountain fastness in New Zealand. What a perfect place that would have been for a honeymoon. A primitive but friendly back-country pub, a lovely lake, tall mountains and nothing else for fifty miles. But I suppose you and your Angela were fashionably on the Riviera or somewhere. You’re a lucky young devil, and I wish you both all the happiness in the world, and send you my blessing. I’m glad my offering met with Mrs Angela’s approval.

We get to Vancouver in no time now, and leave the same day on the C.P.R. Most of the passengers are going on. I am breaking my journey at Quebec, a place I have always wanted to see. That will still give me fifteen days in England before I climb back into the saddle. My mother expects me to spend a fortnight with her, and if I may, I’ll come on to you about the 21st?

The passengers on this ship are much like all passengers on all ships. Sea voyages seem to act as rather searching re-agents on character. The essential components appear in alarming isolation. There is the usual ship’s belle, this time a perfectly terrific American cinema lady who throws me into a fever of diffidence and alarm, but who exhibits the closeup type of loveliness to the nth degree of unreality. There is the usual sprinkling of pleasant globetrotters, bounders, and avid women. The most interesting person is Miss Agatha Troy, the painter. Do you remember her one-man show? She has done a miraculous painting of the wharf at Suva. I long to ask what the price will be, but am prevented by the circumstances of her not liking me very much. She bridles like a hedgehog (yes, they do) whenever I approach her, and as I don’t believe I suffer from any of those things in the strip advertisements, I’m rather at a loss to know why. Natural antipathy, perhaps. I don’t share it. Oddly enough, she suddenly asked me in a very gruff stand-offish voice if she might paint my head. I’ve never been took a likeness of before—it’s a rum sensation when they get to the eyes; such a searching impersonal sort of glare they give you. She even comes close sometimes and peers into the pupils. Rather humiliating, it is. I try to return a stare every bit as impersonal, and find it tricky. The painting seems to me to be quite brilliant, but alarming.

Fox has written regularly. He seems to have done damn well over that arson case. I rather dread getting back into the groove, but suppose it won’t be so bad when it comes. Hope I don’t have to start off with anything big—if Mrs Angela thinks of putting rat’s-bane in your Ovaltine, ask her to do it out of my division.

I look forward to seeing you both, my dear Bathgate, and send you my salutations the most distinguished.

Yours ever,

Roderick Alleyn

Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn to Lady Alleyn, Danes Lodge, Bossicote, Bucks:

C.P.R. August 15th.

My Dearest Mamma,

Your letter found me at Vancouver. Yes, please—I should like to come straight to you. We arrive at Liverpool on the 7th, and I’ll make for Bucks as fast as may be. The garden sounds very attractive, but don’t go doing too much yourself, bless you. No, darling, I did not lose my heart in the Antipodes. Would you have been delighted to welcome a strapping black Fijian lady? I might have got one to regard me with favour at Suva, perhaps, but they smell of coconut oil, which you would not have found particularly delicious. I expect if I ever do get it in the neck, she’ll think me no end of a dull dog and turn icy. Talking of Suva, which I was not, do you know of a place called Tatler’s End House, somewhere near Bossicote? Agatha Troy, who painted that picture we both liked so much, lives there. She joined this ship at Suva, and did a lovely thing of the wharf. Look here, Mamma, if ever a Virginia Van Maes writes and asks you to receive her, you must be away, or suffering from smallpox. She’s an American beauty who looks people up in Kelly’s and collects scalps. She looked me up and—Heaven knows why—she seemed inclined to collect ours. It’s the title, I suppose. Talking of titles, how’s the blasted Baronet? She was on to him like a shot. ‘Gee, Mr Alleyn, I never knew your detective force was recruited from your aristocracy. I’m crazy to know if this Sir George Alleyn is your only brother.’ You see? She threatens to come to England and has already said she’s sure you must be the cutest old-world mother. She’s quite capable of muscling in on the strength of being my dearest girlfriend. So you look out, darling, I’ve told her you’re a horrid woman, but I don’t think she cares. You’ll be 65 on or about the day this arrives. In 30 years I shall be nearly 10 years older than you are now, and you’ll still be trying to bully me. Do you remember how I found out your real age on your thirty-fifth birthday? My first really good bit of investigation, nasty little trick that I was. Well, little mum, don’t flirt with the vicar, and be sure to have the red carpet out on the 7th.

Your dutiful and devoted son,

Roderick

PS.—Miss Troy has done a sketch of your son which he will purchase for your birthday if it’s not too expensive.

From Lady Alleyn, Danes Lodge, Bossicote, to Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn, Château Frontenac, Quebec:

Dear Roderick,

Your ingenuous little letter reached me on my birthday, and I was delighted to receive it. Thank you, my dear. It will be a great joy to have you for nearly a fortnight, greedily to myself. I trust I am not one of those avaricious mammas—clutch, clutch, clutch—which, after all, is only a form of cluck, cluck, cluck. It will be delightful to have a Troy version of you, and I hope it was not too expensive—if it was, perhaps you would let me join you, my dear. I should like to do that, but have no doubt you will ruin yourself and lie to your mother about the price. I shall call on Miss Troy, not only because you obviously wish me to do so, but because I have always liked her work, and should be pleased to meet her, as your Van Maes would say. George is with his family in Scotland. He talks of standing for Parliament, but I am afraid he will only make a fool of himself, poor dear. It’s a pity he hasn’t got your brains. I have brought a hand-loom and am also breeding Alsatians. I hope the bitch— Tunbridge Tessa—does not take a dislike to you. She is very sweet really. I always feel, darling, that you should not have left the Foreign Office, but at the same time, I am a great believer in everybody doing what he wants, and I do enjoy hearing about your cases.

Until the 7th, my dearest son.

Your loving Mother

PS.—I have just discovered the whereabouts of Miss Troy’s house, Tatler’s End. It is only two miles out of Bossicote, and a nice old place. Apparently she takes students there. My spies tell me a Miss Bostock has been living in it during Miss Troy’s absence. She returns on the 3rd. How old is she?




CHAPTER 3 Class Assembles (#ulink_eeabadf4-daca-5842-bb6a-89ef82bd3e1b)


On the 10th of September at ten o’clock in the morning, Agatha Troy opened the door in the eastward wall of her house and stepped out into the garden. It was a sunny morning with a tang of autumn about it, a bland, mellow morning. Somewhere in the garden a fire had been lit, and an aromatic trace of smouldering brushwood threaded the air. There was not a breath of wind.

‘Autumn!’ muttered Troy. ‘And back to work again. Damn! I’m getting older.’ She paused for a moment to light a cigarette, and then she set off towards the studio, down on the old tennis court. Troy had built this studio when she inherited Tatler’s End House from her father. It was a solid square of decent stone with top lighting, and a single window facing south on a narrow lane. It stood rather lower than the house, and about a minute’s walk away from it. It was screened pleasantly with oaks and lilac bushes. Troy strode down the twisty path between the lilac bushes and pushed open the studio door. From beyond the heavy wooden screen inside the entrance she heard the voices of her class. She was out of patience with her class. ‘I’ve been too long away,’ she thought. She knew so exactly how each of them would look, how their work would take shape, how the studio would smell of oil colour, turpentine, and fixative, how Sonia, the model, would complain of the heat, the draught, the pose, the cold, and the heat again. Katti would stump backwards and forwards before her easel, probably with one shoe squeaking. Ormerin would sigh, Valmai Seacliff would attitudinize, and Garcia, wrestling with clay by the south window, would whistle between his teeth.

‘Oh, well,’ said Troy, and marched round the screen.

Yes, there it all was, just as she expected, the throne shoved against the left-hand wall, the easels with fresh white canvases, the roaring gas heater, and the class. They had all come down to the studio after breakfast and, with the exception of Garcia and Malmsley, waited for her to pose the model. Malmsley was already at work: the drawings were spread out on a table. He wore, she noticed with displeasure, a sea-green overall. ‘To go with the beard, I suppose,’ thought Troy. Garcia was in the south window, glooming at the clay sketch of Comedy and Tragedy. Sonia, the model wrapped in a white kimono, stood beside him. Katti Bostock, planted squarely in the centre of the room before a large black canvas, set her enormous palette. The rest of the class, Ormerin, Phillida Lee, Watt Hatchett, and Basil Pilgrim, were grouped round Valmai Seacliff.

Troy walked over to Malmsley’s table and looked over his shoulder at the drawings.

‘What’s that?’

‘That’s the thing I was talking about,’ explained Malmsley. His voice was high-pitched and rather querulous. It’s the third tale in the series. The female has been murdered by her lover’s wife. She’s lying on a wooden bench, impaled on a dagger. The wife jammed the dagger through the bench from underneath, and when the lover pressed her down—you see? The knife is hidden by the drape. It seems a little far-fetched, I must say. Surely it would show. The wretched publisher man insists on having this one.’

‘It needn’t show if the drape is suspended a little,’ said Troy. ‘From the back of the bench, for instance. Then as she falls down she would carry the drape with her. Anyway, the probabilities are none of your business. You’re not doing a “before and after”, like a strip advertisement, are you?’

‘I can’t get the pose,’ said Malmsley languidly. ‘I want to treat it rather elaborately. Deliberately mannered.’

‘Well, you can’t go in for the fancy touches until you’ve got the flesh and blood to work from. That pose will do us as well as another, I dare say. I’ll try it. You’d better make a separate drawing as a study.’

‘Yes, I suppose I had,’ drawled Malmsley. ‘Thanks most frightfully.’

‘Of course,’ Valmai Seacliff was saying, ‘I went down rather well in Italy. The Italians go mad when they see a good blonde. They used to murmur when I passed them in the streets. “Bella” and “Bellissima”. It was rather fun.’

‘Is that Italian?’ asked Katti morosely, of her flake-white.

‘It means beautiful, darling,’ answered Miss Seacliff.

‘Oh hell!’ said Sonia, the model.

‘Well,’ said Troy loudly. ‘I’ll set the pose.’

They all turned to watch her. She stepped on the throne, which was the usual dais on wheels, and began to arrange a seat for the model. She threw a cerise cushion down, and then from a chest by the wall she got a long blue length of silk. One end of this drape she threw across the cushion and pinned, the other she gathered carefully in her hands, drew round to one side, and then pinned the folds to the floor of the dais.

‘Now, Sonia,’ she said. ‘Something like this.’

Keeping away from the drape, Troy knelt and then slid sideways into a twisted recumbent pose on the floor. The right hip was raised, the left took the weight of the pose. The torso was turned upwards from the waist so that both shoulders touched the boards. Sonia, noticing that twist, grimaced disagreeably.

‘Get into it,’ said Troy, and stood up. ‘Only you lie across the drape with your head on the cushions. Lie on your left side, first.’

Sonia slid out of the white kimono. She was a most beautiful little creature, long-legged, delicately formed and sharp-breasted. Her black hair was drawn tightly back from the suave forehead. The bony structure of her face was sharply defined, and suggested a Slavonic mask.

‘You little devil, you’ve been sunbathing,’ said Troy. ‘Look at those patches.’

‘Well they don’t like nudism, at Bournemouth,’ said Sonia.

She lay across the drape on her left side, her head on the cerise cushion. Troy pushed her right shoulder over until it touched the floor. The drape was pressed down by the shoulders and broke into uneven blue folds about the body.

‘That’s your pose, Malmsley,’ said Troy. ‘Try it from where you are.’

She walked round the studio, eyeing the model.

‘It’s pretty good from everywhere,’ she said. ‘Right! Get going, everybody.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘You can hold that for forty minutes, Sonia.’

‘It’s a terrible pose, Miss Troy,’ grumbled Sonia. ‘All twisted like this.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Troy briskly.

The class began to settle itself.

Since each member of Troy’s little community played a part in the tragedy that followed ten days later, it may be well to look a little more closely at them.

Katti Bostock’s work is known to everyone who is at all interested in modern painting. At the time of which I am writing she was painting very solidly and smoothly, using a heavy outline and a simplified method of dealing with form. She painted large figure compositions, usually with artisans as subjects. Her ‘Foreman Fitter’ had been the picture of the year at the Royal Academy, and had set all the diehards by the ears. Katti herself was a short, stocky, darkhaired individual with an air of having no nonsense about her. She was devoted to Troy in a grumbling sort of way, lived at Tatler’s End House most of the year, but was not actually a member of the class.

Valmai Seacliff was thin, blonde, and very, very pretty. She was the type that certain modern novelists write about with an enthusiasm which they attempt to disguise as satirical detachment. Her parents were well-to-do and her work was clever. You have heard Katti describe Valmai as a nymphomaniac and will be able to draw your own conclusions about the justness of this criticism.

Phillida Lee was 18, plump, and naturally gushing. Two years of Slade austerity had not altogether damped her enthusiasms, but when she remembered to shudder, she shuddered.

Watt Hatchett, Troy’s Australian protégé, was a short and extremely swarthy youth, who looked like a dago in an American talking picture. He came from one of the less reputable streets of Sydney and was astoundingly simple, cocksure, egotistical and enthusiastic. He seemed to have no aesthetic perceptions of any description, so that his undoubted talent appeared to be a sort of parasite, flowering astonishingly on an unpromising and stunted stump.

Cedric Malmsley we have noticed already. Nothing further need be said about him at this stage of the narrative.

The Hon. Basil Pilgrim, son of the incredible Primitive Methodist peer, was a pleasant-looking young man of 23, whose work was sincere, able, but still rather tentative. His father, regarding all art schools as hot-beds of vice and depravity, had only consented to Basil becoming a pupil of Troy’s because her parents had been landed gentry of Lord Pilgrim’s acquaintance, and because Troy herself had once painted a picture of a revivalist meeting. Her somewhat ironical treatment of this subject had not struck Lord Pilgrim, who was, in many ways, a remarkably stupid old man.

Francis Ormerin was a slight and delicate-looking Frenchman who worked in charcoal and wash. His drawings of the nude were remarkable for their beauty of line, and for a certain emphatic use of accent. He was a nervous over-sensitive creature, subject to fits of profound depression, due said Troy, to his digestion.

And lastly Garcia, whose first name—Wolf—was remembered by nobody. Garcia, who preserved on his pale jaws a static ten days’ growth of dark stubble which never developed into a beard, whose clothes consisted of a pair of dirty grey trousers, a limp shirt, and an unspeakable raincoat. Garcia, with his shock of unkempt brown hair, his dark impertinent eyes, his beautiful hands, and his complete unscrupulousness. Two years ago he had presented himself one morning at the door of Troy’s studio in London. He had carried there a self-portrait in clay, wrapped about with wet and dirty clothes. He walked past her into the studio and unwrapped the clay head. Troy and Garcia stood looking at it in silence. Then she asked him his name and what he wanted. He told her—‘Garcia’—and he wanted to go on modelling, but had no money. Troy talked about the head, gave him twenty pounds, and never really got rid of him. He used to turn up, sometimes inconveniently, always with something to show her. In everything but clay he was quite inarticulate. It was as if he had been allowed only one medium of expression, but that an abnormally eloquent one. He was dirty, completely devoid of ordinary scruples, interested in nothing but his work. Troy helped him, and by and by people began to talk about his modelling. He began to work in stone. He was asked to exhibit with the New Phoenix Group, was given occasional commissions. He never had any money, and to most people he was entirely without charm, but to some women he was irresistible, and of this he took full advantage.

It was to Garcia that Troy went after she had set the pose. The others shifted their easels about, skirmishing for positions. Troy looked at Garcia’s sketch in clay of the ‘Comedy and Tragedy’ for the new cinema in Westminster. He had stood it on a high stool in the south window. It was modelled on a little wooden platform with four wheels, a substitute he had made for the usual turntable. The two figures rose from a cylindrical base. Comedy was nude, but Tragedy wore an angular robe. Above their heads they held the conventional masks. The general composition suggested flames. The form was greatly simplified. The face of Comedy, beneath the grinning mask, was grave, but upon the face of Tragedy Garcia had pressed a faint smile.

He stood scowling while Troy looked at his work.

‘Well,’ said Troy, ‘it’s all right.’

‘I thought of—’ He stopped short, and with his thumb suggested dragging the drape across the feet of Comedy.

‘I wouldn’t,’ said Troy. ‘Break the line up. But I’ve told you I know nothing about this stuff. I’m a painter. Why did you come and plant yourself here, may I ask?’

‘Thought you wouldn’t mind.’ His voice was muffled and faintly Cockney. ‘I’ll be clearing out in a fortnight. I wanted somewhere to work.’

‘So you said in your extraordinary note. Are you broke?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where are you going in a fortnight?’

‘London. I’ve got a room to work in.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Somewhere in the East End, I think. It’s an old warehouse. I know a bloke who got them to let me use it. He’s going to let me have the address. I’ll go for a week’s holiday somewhere before I begin work in London. I’ll cast this thing there and then start on the sculping.’

‘Who’s going to pay for the stone?’

‘They’ll advance me enough for that.’

‘I see. It’s coming along very well. Now attend to me, Garcia.’ Troy lowered her voice. ‘While you’re here you’ve got to behave yourself. You know what I mean?’

‘No.’

‘Yes, you do. No nonsense with women. You and Sonia seem to be sitting in each other’s pockets. Have you been living together?’ ‘When you’re hungry,’ said Garcia, ‘you eat.’

‘Well, this isn’t a restaurant and you’ll please remember that. You understand? I noticed you making some sort of advance to Seacliff yesterday. That won’t do, either. I won’t have any bogus Bohemianism, or free love, or mere promiscuity at Tatler’s End. It shocks the servants, and it’s messy. All right?’

‘OK,’ said Garcia with a grin.

‘The pose has altered,’ said Katti Bostock from the middle of the studio.

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Watt Hatchett. The others looked coldly at him. His Sydney accent was so broad as to be almost comic. One wondered if he could be doing it on purpose. It was not the custom at Troy’s for new people to speak until they were spoken to. Watt was quite unaware of this and Troy, who hated rows, felt uneasy about him. He was so innocently impossible. She went to Katti’s easel and looked from the bold drawing in black paint to the model. Then she went up to the throne and shoved Sonia’s right shoulder down.

‘Keep it on the floor.’

‘It’s a swine of a pose, Miss Troy.’

‘Well, stick it a bit longer.’

Troy began to go round the work, beginning with Ormerin on the extreme left.

‘Bit tied up, isn’t it?’ she said after a minute’s silence.

‘She is never for one moment still,’ complained Ormerin. ‘The foot moves, the shoulders are in a fidget continually. It is impossible for me to work—impossible.’

‘Start again. The pose is right now. Get it down directly. You can do it.’

‘My work has been abominable since three months or more. All this surrealism at Malaquin’s. I cannot feel like that and yet I cannot prevent myself from attempting it when I am there. That is why I return to you. I am in a muddle.’

‘Try a little ordinary study for a bit. Don’t worry about style. It’ll come. Take a new stretcher and make a simple statement.’ She moved to Valmai Seacliff and looked at the flowing lines so easily laid down. Seacliff moved back, contriving to touch Ormerin’s shoulder. He stopped working at once and whispered in her ear.

‘I can understand French, Ormerin,’ said Troy casually, still contemplating Seacliff’s canvas. ‘This is going quite well, Seacliff. I suppose the elongation of the legs is deliberate?’

‘Yes, I see her like that. Long and slinky. They say people always paint like themselves, don’t they?’

‘Do they?’ said Troy. ‘I shouldn’t let it become a habit.’

She moved on to Katti, who creaked back from her canvas. One of her shoes did squeak. Troy discussed the placing of the figure and then went on to Watt Hatchett. Hatchett had already begun to use solid paint, and was piling pure colour on his canvas.

‘You don’t usually start off like this, do you?’

‘Naow, that’s right, I don’t, but I thought I’d give it a pop.’

‘Was that, by any chance, because you could see Miss Bostock working in that manner?’ asked Troy, not too unkindly. Hatchett grinned and shuffled his feet. ‘You stick to your own ways for a bit,’ advised Troy. ‘You’re a beginner still, you know. Don’t try to acquire a manner till you’ve got a little more method. Is that foot too big or too small?’

‘Too small.’

‘Should that space there be wider or longer?’

‘Longer.’

‘Make it so.’

‘Good oh, Miss Troy. Think that bit of colour there’s all right?’ asked Hatchett, regarding it complacently.

‘It’s perfectly good colour, but don’t choke the pores of your canvas up with paint till you’ve got the big things settled. Correct your drawing and scrape it down.’

‘Yeah, but she wriggles all the time. It’s a fair nark. Look where the shoulder has shifted. See?’

‘Has the pose altered?’ inquired Troy at large.

‘Naow!’ said Sonia with vindictive mimicry.

‘It’s shifted a whole lot,’ asserted Hatchett aggressively. ‘I bet you anything you like—’

‘Wait a moment,’ said Troy.

‘It’s moved a little,’ said Katti Bostock.

Troy sighed.

‘Rest!’ she said. ‘No! Wait a minute.’

She took a stick of chalk from her overall pocket and ran it round the model wherever she touched the throne. The position of both legs, one flank, one hip, and one shoulder were thus traced on the boards. The blue drape was beneath the rest of the figure.

‘Now you can get up.’

Sonia sat up with an ostentatious show of discomfort, reached out her hand for the kimono and shrugged herself into it. Troy pulled the drape out taut from the cushion to the floor.

‘It’ll have to go down each time with the figure,’ she told the class.

‘As it does in the little romance,’ drawled Malmsley.

‘Yes, it’s quite feasible,’ agreed Valmai Seacliff. ‘We could try it. There’s that Chinese knife in the lumber-room. May we get it, Miss Troy?’

‘If you like,’ said Troy.

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ said Malmsley languidly getting to his feet.

‘Where is it, Miss Seacliff?’ asked Hatchett eagerly.

‘On the top shelf in the lumber-room.’

Hatchett went into an enormous cupboard by the window, and after a minute or two returned with a long, thin-bladed knife. He went up to Malmsley’s table and looked over his shoulder at the typescript. Malmsley moved away ostentatiously.

‘Aw yeah, I get it,’ said Hatchett. ‘What a corker! Swell way of murdering somebody, wouldn’t it be?’ He licked his thumb and turned the page.

‘I’ve taken a certain amount of trouble to keep those papers clean,’ remarked Malmsley to no one in particular.

‘Don’t be so damned precious, Malmsley,’ snapped Troy. ‘Here, give me the knife, Hatchett, and don’t touch other people’s tools in the studio. It’s not done.’

‘Good oh, Miss Troy.’

Pilgrim, Ormerin, Hatchett and Valmai Seacliff began a discussion about the possibility of using the knife in the manner suggested by Malmsley’s illustration. Phillida Lee joined in.

‘Where would the knife enter the body?’ asked Seacliff.

‘Just here,’ said Pilgrim, putting his hand on her back and keeping it there. ‘Behind your heart. Valmai.’

She turned her head and looked at him through half-closed eyes. Hatchett stared at her. Malmsley smiled curiously. Pilgrim had turned rather white.

‘Can you feel it beating?’ asked Seacliff softly.

‘If I move my hand—here.’

‘Oh, come off it,’ said the model violently. She walked over to Garcia. ‘I don’t believe you could kill anybody like that. Do you, Garcia?’

Garcia grunted unintelligibly. He, too, was staring at Valmai Seacliff.

‘How would he know where to put the dagger?’ demanded Katti Bostock suddenly. She drew a streak of background colour across her canvas.

‘Can’t we try it out?’ asked Hatchett.

‘If you like,’ said Troy. ‘Mark the throne before you move it.’

Basil Pilgrim chalked the position of the throne on the floor, and then he and Ormerin tipped it up. The rest of the class looked on with gathering interest. By following the chalked-out line on the throne they could see the spot where the heart would come, and after a little experiment found the plot of this spot on the underneath surface of the throne.

‘Now, you see,’ said Ormerin, ‘the jealous wife would drive the knife through from underneath.’

‘Incidentally taking the edge off,’ said Basil Pilgrim.

‘You could force it through the crack between the boards,’ said Garcia suddenly, from the window.

‘How? It’d fall out when she was shoved down.’

‘No, it wouldn’t. Look here.’

‘Don’t break the knife and don’t damage the throne,’ said Troy.

‘I get you,’ said Hatchett eagerly. ‘The dagger’s wider at the base. The boards would press on it. You’d have to hammer it through. Look, I’ll bet you it could be done. There you are, I’ll betcher.’

‘Not interested, I’m afraid,’ said Malmsley.

‘Let’s try,’ said Pilgrim. ‘May we, Troy?’

‘Oh, do let’s,’ cried Phillida Lee. She caught up her enthusiasm with an apologetic glance at Malmsley. ‘I adore bloodshed,’ she added with a painstaking nonchalance.

‘The underneath of the throne’s absolutely filthy,’ complained Malmsley.

‘Pity if you spoiled your nice green pinny,’ jeered Sonia.

Valmai Seacliff laughed.

‘I don’t propose to do so,’ said Malmsley. ‘Garcia can if he likes.’

‘Go on,’ said Hatchett. ‘Give it a pop. I betcher five bob it’ll work. Fair dinkum.’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Seacliff. ‘You must teach me the language, Hatchett.’

‘Too right I will,’ said Hatchett with enthusiasm. ‘I’ll make a dinkum Aussie out of you.’

‘God forbid,’ said Malmsley. Sonia giggled.

‘Don’t you like Australians?’ Hatchett asked her aggressively.

‘Not particularly.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you one thing. Models at the school I went to in Sydney knew how to hold a pose for longer than ten minutes.’

‘You don’t seem to have taken advantage of it, judging by your drawing.’

‘And they didn’t get saucy with the students.’

‘Perhaps they weren’t all like you.’

‘Sonia,’ said Troy, ‘that will do. If you boys are going to make your experiment, you’d better hurry up. We start again in five minutes.’

In the boards of the throne they found a crack that passed through the right spot. Hatchett slid the thin tip of the knife into it from underneath and shoved. By tapping the hilt of the dagger with an easel ledge, he forced the widening blade upwards through the crack. Then he let the throne back on to the floor. The blade projected wickedly through the blue chalk cross that marked the plot of Sonia’s heart on the throne. Basil Pilgrim took the drape, laid it across the cushion, pulled it in taut folds down to the throne, and pinned it there.

‘You see, the point of the knife is lower than the top of the cushion,’ he said. It doesn’t show under the drape.’

‘What did I tell you?’ said Hatchett.

Garcia strolled over and joined the group.

‘Go into your pose, Sonia,’ he said with a grin.

Sonia shuddered.

‘Don’t,’ she said.

‘I wonder if the tip should show under the left breast,’ murmuring Malmsley. ‘Rather amusing to have it in the drawing. With a cast shadow and a thin trickle of blood. Keep the whole thing black and white except for the little scarlet thread. After all, it is melodrama.’

‘Evidently,’ grunted Garcia.

‘The point of suspension for the drape would have to be higher,’ said Troy. ‘It must be higher than the tip of the blade. You could do it. If your story was a modern detective novel, Malmsley, you could do a drawing of the knife as it is now.’

Malmsley smiled and began to sketch on the edge of his paper. Valmai Seacliff leant over him, her hands on his shoulders. Hatchett, Ormerin and Pilgrim stood round her, Pilgrim with his arm across her shoulder. Phillida Lee hovered on the outskirts of the little group. Troy, looking vaguely round the studio, said to herself that her worst forebodings were likely to be realized. Watt Hatchett was already at loggerheads with Malmsley and the model. Valmai was at her Cleopatra game, and there was Sonia in a corner with Garcia. Something in their faces caught Troy’s attention. What the devil were they up to? Garcia’s eyes were on the group round Malmsley. A curious smile lifted one corner of his mouth, and on Sonia’s face, turned to him, the smile was reflected.

‘You’ll have to get that thing out now, Hatchett,’ said Troy.

It took a lot of working and tugging to do this, but at last the knife was pulled out, the throne put back, and Sonia, with many complaints, took the pose again.

‘Over more on the right shoulder,’ said Katti Bostock.

Troy thrust the shoulder down. The drape fell into folds round the figure.

‘Ow!’ said Sonia.

‘That is when the dagger goes in,’ said Malmsley.

‘Don’t—you’ll make me sick,’ said Sonia.

Garcia gave a little chuckle.

‘Right through the ribs and coming out under the left breast,’ murmured Malmsley.

‘Shut up!’

‘Spitted like a little chicken.’

Sonia raised her head.

‘I wouldn’t be too damn funny, Mr Malmsley,’ she said. ‘Where do you get your ideas from, I wonder? Books? Or pictures?’

Malmsley’s brush slipped from his fingers to the paper, leaving a trace of paint. He looked fixedly at Sonia, and then began to dab his drawing with a sponge. Sonia laughed.

‘For God’s sake,’ said Katti Bostock, ‘let’s get the pose.’

‘Quiet,’ said Troy, and was obeyed. She set the pose, referring to the canvases. ‘Now get down to it, all of you. The Phoenix Group Show opens on the 16th. I suppose most of us want to go up to London for it. Very well, I’ll give the servants a holiday that weekend, and we’ll start work again on the Monday.’

‘If this thing goes decently,’ said Katti, ‘I want to put it in for the Group. If it’s not done, it’ll do for B. House next year.’

‘I take it,’ said Troy, ‘you’ll all want to go up for the Group’s private view?’

‘I don’t,’ said Garcia. ‘I’ll be pushing off for my holiday about then.’

‘What about us?’ asked Valmai Seacliff of Basil Pilgrim.

‘What do you think, darling?’

‘“Us”?’ said Troy. ‘“Darling”? What’s all this?’

‘We may as well tell them, Basil,’ said Valmai sweetly. ‘Don’t faint, anybody. We got engaged last night.’




CHAPTER 4 Case for Mr Alleyn (#ulink_85173329-b644-5f53-af3d-a92fd85d5b23)


Lady Alleyn knelt back on her gardening-mat and looked up at her son.

‘I think we have done enough weeding for today, darling. You bustle off with that barrow-load and then we’ll go indoors and have a glass of sherry and a chat. We’ve earned it.’

Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn obediently trundled off down the path, tipped his barrow-load on the smudge fire, mopped his brow and went indoors for a bath. Half an hour later he joined his mother in the drawing-room.

‘Come up to the fire, darling. There’s the sherry. It’s a bottle of the very precious for our last evening.’

‘Ma’am,’ said Alleyn, ‘you are the perfect woman.’

‘No, only the perfect mamma. I flatter myself I am a very good parent. You look charming in a dinner jacket, Roderick. I wish your brother had some of your finish. George always looks a little too hearty.’

‘I like George,’ said Alleyn.

‘I quite like him, too,’ agreed his mother.

‘This is really a superlative wine. I wish it wasn’t our last night, though. Three days with the Bathgates, and then my desk, my telephone, the smell of the yard, and old Fox beaming from ear to ear, bless him. Ah well, I expect I shall quite enjoy it once I’m there.’

‘Roderick,’ said Lady Alleyn, ‘why wouldn’t you come to Tatler’s End House with me?’

‘For the very good reason, little mum, that I should not have been welcomed.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Miss Troy doesn’t like me.’

‘Nonsense! She’s a very intelligent young woman.’

‘Darling!’

‘The day I called I suggested she should dine with us while you were here. She accepted.’

‘And put us off when the time came.’

‘My dear man, she had a perfectly good excuse.’

‘Naturally,’ said Alleyn. ‘She is, as you say, a very intelligent young woman.’

Lady Alleyn looked at the portrait head that hung over the mantelpiece.

‘She can’t dislike you very much, my dear. That picture gives the lie to your theory.’

‘Aesthetic appreciation of a paintable object has nothing to do with personal preferences.’

‘Bosh! Don’t talk pretentious nonsense about things you don’t understand.’

Alleyn grinned.

‘I think you are being self-conscious and silly,’ continued Lady Alleyn grandly.

‘It’s the lady that you should be cross about, not me.’

‘I’m not cross, Roderick. Give yourself another glass of sherry. No, not for me.’

‘Anyway,’ said Alleyn, ‘I’m glad you like the portrait.’

‘Did you see much of her in Quebec?’

‘Very little, darling. We bowed to each other at mealtimes and had a series of stilted conversations in the lounge. On the last evening she was there I took her to the play.’

‘Was that a success?’

‘No. We were very polite to each other.’

‘Ha!’ said Lady Alleyn.

‘Mamma,’ said Alleyn, ‘you know I am a detective.’ He paused, smiling at her. ‘You look divine when you blush,’ he added.

‘Well, Roderick, I shan’t deny that I would like to see you married.’

‘She wouldn’t dream of having me, you know. Put the idea out of your head, little mum. I very much doubt if I shall ever have another stilted conversation with Miss Agatha Troy.’

The head parlourmaid came in.

‘A telephone call from London for Mr Roderick, m’lady.’

‘From London?’ asked Alleyn. ‘Oh Lord, Clibborn, why didn’t you say I was dead?’

Clibborn smiled the tolerant smile of a well-trained servant, and opened the door.

‘Excuse me, please, Mamma,’ said Alleyn, and went to the telephone.

As he unhooked the receiver, Alleyn experienced the little prick of foreboding that so often accompanies an unexpected long-distance call. It was the smallest anticipatory thrill and was succeeded at once by the unhappy reflection that probably Scotland Yard was already on his track. He was not at all surprised when a familiar voice said:

‘Mr Alleyn?’

‘That’s me. Is it you, Watkins?’

‘Yes, sir. Very pleasant to hear your voice again. The Assistant

Commissioner would like to speak to you, Mr Alleyn.’

‘Right!’

‘Hullo, Mr Alleyn?’ said a new voice.

‘Hullo, sir.’

‘You can go, Watkins.’ A pause, and then: ‘How are you, Rory?’

‘Very fit, thanks, sir.’

‘Ready for work?’

‘Yes. Oh, rather!’

‘Well now, look here. How do you feel about slipping into the saddle three days before you’re due? There’s a case cropped up a few miles from where you are, and the local people have called us in. It would save time and help the department if you could take over for us.’

‘Certainly, sir,’ said Alleyn, with a sinking heart. ‘When?’

‘Now. It’s a homicide case. Take the details. Address, Tatler’s End House.’

‘What! I beg your pardon, sir. Yes?’

‘A woman’s been stabbed. Do you know the place, by any chance?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Thrrree minutes.’

‘Extend the call, please. Are you there, Rory?’

‘Yes,’ said Alleyn. He noticed suddenly that the receiver was clammy.

‘It belongs to the artist, Miss Agatha Troy.’

‘I know.’

‘You’ll get the information from the local super—Blackman—who’s there now. The model has been killed, and it looks like murder.

‘I—can’t—hear.’

‘The victim is an artist’s model. I’ll send Fox down with the other people and your usual kit. Much obliged. Sorry to drag you back before Monday.’

‘That’s all right, sir.’

‘Splendid. I’ll expect your report. Nice to see you again. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye, sir.’

Alleyn went back to the drawing-room.

‘Well?’ began his mother. She looked up at him, and in a moment was at his side. ‘What’s the matter, old man?’

‘Nothing, ma’am. It was the Yard. They want me to take a case near here. It’s at Tatler’s End House.’

‘But what is it?’

‘Murder, it seems.’

‘Roderick!’

‘No, no. I thought that, too, for a moment. It’s the model. I’ll have to go at once. May I have the car?’

‘Of course, darling.’ She pressed a bell-push, and when Clibborn came, said: ‘Mr Roderick’s overcoat at once, Clibborn, and tell French to bring the car round quickly.’ When Clibborn had gone she put her hand on Alleyn’s. ‘Please tell Miss Troy that if she would like to come to me—’

‘Yes, darling. Thank you. But I must see what it’s all about first. It’s a case.’

‘Well, you won’t include Agatha Troy among your suspects, I hope?’

‘If there’s a question of that,’ said Alleyn, ‘I’ll leave the service. Good night. Don’t sit up. I may be late.’

Clibborn came in with his overcoat.

‘Finish your sherry,’ ordered his mother. He drank it obediently. ‘And, Roderick, look in at my room, however late it is.’

He bowed, kissed her lightly, and went out to the car.

It was a cold evening with a hint of frost on the air. Alleyn dismissed the chauffeur and drove himself at breakneck speed towards Tatler’s End House. On the way, three vivid little pictures appeared, one after another, in his mind. The wharf at Suva. Agatha Troy, in her old smock and grey bags, staring out over the sea while the wind whipped the short hair back from her face. Agatha Troy saying goodbye at night on the edge of the St Lawrence.

The headlights shone on rhododendrons and tree-trunks, and then on a closed gate and the figure of a constable. A torch flashed on Alleyn’s face.

‘Excuse me, sir—’

‘All right. Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn from the Yard.’

The man saluted.

‘They’re expecting you, sir.’

The gate swung open, and Alleyn slipped in his clutch. It was a long winding drive, and it seemed an age before he pulled up before a lighted door. A second constable met him and showed him into a pleasant hall where a large fire burned.

‘I’ll tell the superintendent you’ve arrived, sir,’ said the man, but as he spoke, a door on Alleyn’s left opened and a stout man with a scarlet face came out.

‘Hullo, hullo! This is very nice. Haven’t seen you for ages.’

‘Not for ages,’ said Alleyn. They shook hands. Blackman had been superintendent at Bossicote for six years, and he and Alleyn were old acquaintances. ‘I hope I haven’t been too long.’

‘You’ve been very quick indeed, Mr Alleyn. We only rang the Yard half an hour ago. They told us you were staying with her ladyship. Come in here, will you?’

He led the way into a charming little drawing-room with palegrey walls and cerise-and-lemon-striped curtains.

‘How much did they tell you from the Yard?’

‘Only that a model had been knifed.’

‘Yes. Very peculiar business. I don’t mind telling you I’d have liked to tackle it myself, but we’ve got our hands full with a big burglary case over at Ronald’s Cross, and I’m short-staffed just now. So the Chief Constable thought, all things considered, and you being so handy, it’d better be the Yard. He’s just gone. Sit down, and I’ll give you the story before we look at the body and so on. That suit you?’

‘Admirably,’ said Alleyn.

Blackman opened a fat pocketbook, settled his chins, and began.

‘This property, Tatler’s End House, is owned and occupied by Miss Agatha Troy, R.A., who returned here after a year’s absence abroad, on September 3rd. During her absence the house was occupied by a Miss Katti Bostock, another painter. Miss Troy arranged by letter to take eight resident pupils from September to December, and all of these were already staying in the house when she arrived. There was also a Sonia Gluck, spinster aged 22, an artist’s model, engaged by Miss Bostock for the coming term. The classes began officially on the 10th, but they had all been more or less working together since the 3rd. From the 10th to Friday the 16th they worked from the model every morning in the studio. On the 16th, three days ago, the class disbanded for the weekend, in order that members might attend a function in London. The servants were given Friday night off, and went to a cinema in Baxtonbridge. One student, Wolf Garcia, no permanent address, remained alone in the studio. The house was closed. Garcia is believed to have left on Saturday the 17th, the day before yesterday. Miss Troy returned on Saturday at midday and found Garcia had gone. The others came back on Sunday, yesterday, by car, and by the evening bus. This morning, September 19th, the class reassembled in the studio, which is a detached building situated about a hundred yards to the south-east of the rear eastward corner of the house. Here’s the sketch plan of the house and studio,’ said the superintendent in a more normal voice. ‘And here’s another of the studio interior.’

‘Splendid,’ said Alleyn, and spread them out before him on a small table. Mr Blackman coughed and took up the burden of his recital.

‘At ten-thirty the class, with the exception of Garcia, who, as we have seen, had left, was ready to begin work. Miss Troy had given instructions that they were to start without her. This is her usual practice, except on the occasions when a new pose is to be set. The model lay down to resume the pose which she had been taking since September 10th. It was a recumbent position on her back. She lay half on a piece of silk material and half on the bare boards of the dais known as the model’s “throne”. The model was undraped. She lay first of all on her right side. One of the students, Miss Valmai Seacliff, of No. 8, Partington Mews, WC4, approached the model, placed her hands on Gluck’s shoulders and thrust the left shoulder firmly over and down. This was the usual procedure. Gluck cried out “Don’t!” as if in pain, but as she habitually objected to the pose, Miss Seacliff paid no attention, shifted her hands to the model’s chest, and pressed down. Gluck made another sound, described by Miss Seacliff as a moan, and seemed to jerk and then relax. Miss Seacliff then said: “Oh, don’t be such a fool, Sonia,” and was about to rise from her stooping posture when she noticed that Gluck was in an abnormal condition. She called for the others to come. Miss Katti Bostock followed by two students, Mr Watt Hatchett, an Australian, and Mr Francis Ormerin, a Frenchman, approached the throne. Hatchett said: “She’s taken a fit.” Miss Bostock said: “Get out of the way.” She examined the body. She states that the eyelids fluttered and the limbs jerked slightly. Miss Bostock attempted to raise Gluck. She placed her hand behind the shoulders and pulled. There was a certain amount of resistance, but after a few seconds the body came up suddenly. Miss Seacliff cried out loudly that there was blood on the blue silk drape. Mr Ormerin said: “Mong dew, the knife!”’

Mr Blackman cleared his throat and turned a page.

‘It was then seen that a thin triangular blade protruded vertically through the drape. It appeared to be the blade of some sort of dagger that had been driven through a crack in the dais from underneath. It has not been moved. It seems that later on, when Miss Troy arrived, she stopped anybody from touching the dais as soon as she saw what had occurred. On examining Gluck a wound was discovered in the back somewhere about the position of the fourth rib and about three inches to the left of the spine. There was an effusion of blood. The blade was stained with blood. Miss Bostock attempted to staunch the wound with a rag. At this point Miss Troy arrived, and immediately sent Mr Basil Pilgrim, another student, to ring up the doctor. Dr Ampthill arrived ten minutes later and found life was extinct. Miss Troy states that Gluck died a few minutes after she—Miss Troy—arrived at the studio. Gluck made no statement before she died.’

Mr Blackman closed his notebook, and laid it on the table.

‘That’s just from notes,’ he said modestly. ‘I haven’t got it down in a ship-shape report yet.’

‘It is sufficiently clear,’ said Alleyn. ‘You might have been giving it to a jury.’

An expression of solemn complacency settled down among the superintendent’s chins.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘we haven’t had a great deal of time. It’s a curious business. We’ve taken statements from all this crowd, except, of course, the man called Garcia. He’s gone, and we haven’t got a line on him. That looks a bit funny on the face of it, but it seems he said he’d be leaving for a hiking trip on Saturday morning, and is due to turn up at some place in London in about a week’s time. He left his luggage to be forwarded to this London address, and it had all gone when Miss Troy returned on Saturday about three o’clock. We’re trying to get on to the carrier that called for it, but haven’t got hold of anybody yet. It was all in the studio. It seems Garcia slept in the studio and had his gear there. I’ve got into touch with the police stations for fifty miles round and asked them to look out for this Garcia. Here’s the description of him: Height— about five foot nine; sallow complexion, dark eyes, very thin. Thick dark hair, rather long. Usually dressed in old grey flannel trousers and a raincoat. Does not wear a hat. Probably carrying a rucksack containing painting materials. It seems he does a bit of sketching as well as sculping. We got that in the course of the statements made by the rest of this crowd. Will you look at the statements before you see anybody?’

Alleyn thought for moment.

‘I’ll see Miss Troy first,’ he said. ‘I have met her before.’

‘Have you, really? I suppose with her ladyship being as you might say a neighbour—’

‘The acquaintance is very slight,’ said Alleyn. ‘What about the doctors?’

‘I said I’d let Ampthill know as soon as you came. He is the police surgeon. He heads the list in the directory, so Mr Pilgrim rang him first.’

‘Very handy. Well, Mr Blackman, if you wouldn’t mind getting hold of him while I see Miss Troy—’

‘Right.’

‘Fox and Co. ought to be here soon. We’ll go and look at the scene of action when they arrive. Where is Miss Troy?’

‘In the study. I’ll take you there. It’s across the hall.’

‘Don’t bother—I’ll find my way.’

‘Right you are—I’ll ring the doctor and join you there. I’ve got the rest of the class penned up in the dining-room with a PC on duty. They’re a rum lot and no mistake.’ said Blackman, leading the way into the hall. ‘Real artistic freaks. You know. There’s the library door. See you in a minute.’

Alleyn crossed the hall, tapped on the door, and walked in.

It was a long room with a fireplace at the far end. The only light there was made by the flicker of flames on the book-lined walls. Coming out of the brightly lit hall, he was at first unable to see clearly and stood for a moment inside the door.

‘Yes’ said a quick voice from the shadows. ‘Who is it? Do you want me?’

A slim, dark shape, outlined by a wavering halo of light, rose from a chair by the fire.

‘It’s me,’ said Alleyn. ‘Roderick Alleyn.’

‘You!’

‘I’m sorry to come in unannounced. I thought perhaps you would rather—’

‘But—yes, please come in.’

The figure moved forward a little and held out a hand. Alleyn said apologetically.

‘I’m coming as fast as I can. It’s rather dark.’

‘Oh!’ There was a moment’s pause, a movement, and then a shaded lamp came to life and he saw her clearly. She wore a long plain dress of a material that absorbed the light and gave off none. She looked taller than his remembrance of her. Her face was white under the short black hair. Alleyn took her hand, held it lightly for a second, and then moved to the fire.

‘It was kind of you to come,’ said Troy.

‘No, it wasn’t. I’m here on duty.’

She stiffened at once.

‘I’m sorry. That was stupid of me.’

‘If I was not a policeman,’ Alleyn said, ‘I think I should still have come. You could have brought about a repetition of our first meeting and sent me about my business.’

‘Must you always remind me of my ill manners?’

‘That was not the big idea. Your manners did not seem ill to me. May we sit down, please?’

‘Do.’

They sat in front of the fire.

‘Well,’ said Troy, ‘get out your notebook.’

Alleyn felt in the inside pocket of his dinner jacket.

‘It’s still there,’ he said. ‘The last time I used it was in New Zealand. Here we are. Have you had any dinner, by the way?’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Come, come,’ said Alleyn, ‘you mustn’t turn into a hostile witness before there’s anything to be hostile about.’

‘Don’t be facetious. Oh damn! Rude again. Yes, thank you, I toyed with a chunk of athletic hen.’

‘Good! A glass of port wouldn’t do you any harm. Don’t offer me any, please: I’m not supposed to drink on duty, unless it’s with a sinister purpose. I suppose this affair has shaken you up a bit?’

Troy waited for a moment and then she said: ‘I’m terrified of dead people.’

‘I know,’ said Alleyn. ‘I was, at first. Before the war. Even now they are not quite a commonplace to me.’

‘She was a silly little creature. More like a beautiful animal than a reasonable human. But to see her suddenly, like that—everything emptied away. She looked fairly astonished—that was all.’

‘It’s so often like that. Astonished, but sort of knowing. Are there any relatives to be informed?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea. She lived alone—officially.’

‘We’ll have to try and find out.’

‘What do you want me to do now?’ asked Troy.

‘I want you to bring this girl to life for me. I know the circumstances surrounding her death—the immediate circumstances—and as soon as my men get here from London, I’ll look at the studio. In the meantime I’d like to know if any possible explanation for this business has occurred to you. I must thank you for having kept the place untouched. Not many people think like that on these occasions.’

‘I’ve no explanation, reasonable or fantastic, but there’s one thing you ought to know at once. I told the class they were not to speak of it to the police. I knew they’d all give exaggerated accounts of it, and thought it better that the first statement should come from me.’

‘I see.’

‘I’ll make the statement now.’

‘An official statement?’ asked Alleyn lightly.

‘If you like. When you move the throne you will find that a dagger has been driven through the boards from underneath.’

‘Shall we?’

‘Yes. You don’t say ‘How do you know?’

‘Well, I expect you’re going on to that, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. On the 10th, the first morning when I set this pose, I arranged it to look as if the figure had been murdered in exactly this way. Cedric Malmsley, one of my students, was doing a book illustration of a similar incident.’ She paused for a moment, looking into the fire. ‘During the rest they began arguing about the possibilities of committing a crime in this way. Hatchett, another student, got a knife that is in the junk-room, and shoved it through from underneath. Ormerin helped him. The throne was roughly knocked up for me in the village and the boards have warped apart. The blade is much narrower at the tip than at the hilt. The tip went through easily, but he hammered at the hilt to force it right up. The boards gripped the wider end. You will see all that when you look at it.’

‘Yes.’ Alleyn made a note in his book and waited.

‘The drape was arranged to hide the knife and it all looked quite convincing. Sonia was—she was quite—frightened. Hatchett pulled the knife out—it needed some doing—and we put everything straight again.’

‘What happened to the knife?’

‘Let me see. I think Hatchett put it away.’

‘From a practical point of view, how could you be sure that the knife would come through at exactly the right place to do what it has done?’

‘The position of the figure is chalked on the floor. When she took the pose, Sonia fitted her right hip and leg into the chalk marks, and then slid down until the whole of her right side was on the floor. One of the students would move her until she was inside the marks. Then she let the torso go over until her left shoulder touched the floor. The left hip was off the ground. I could draw it for you.’

Alleyn opened his notebook at a clean page and handed it to her with his pencil. Troy swept a dozen lines down and gave it back to him.

‘Wonderful!’ said Alleyn, ‘to be able to do that—so easily.’

‘I’m not likely to forget that pose,’ said Troy dryly.

‘What about the drape? Didn’t that cover the chalk-marks?’

‘Only in places. It fell from a suspension-point on the cushion to the floor. As she went down, she carried it with her. The accidental folds that came that way were more interesting than any laboured arrangement. When the students made their experiment they found the place where the heart would be, quite easily, inside the trace on the floor. The crack passed through this point. Hatchett put a pencil through the crack and they marked the position on the underside of the throne.’

‘Is there any possibility that they repeated this performance for some reason on Friday and forgot to withdraw the dagger?’

‘I thought of that at once, naturally. I asked them. I begged them to tell me.’ Troy moved her long hands restlessly. ‘Anything,’ she said, ‘anything rather than the thought of one of them deliberately—there’s no reason. I—I can’t bear to think of it. As if a beastly unclean thing was in one of their minds, behind all of us. And then, suddenly, crawled out and did this.’

He heard her draw in her breath sharply. She turned her head away.

Alleyn swore softly.

‘Oh, don’t pay any attention to me,’ said Troy impatiently. ‘I’m all right. About Friday. We had the morning class as usual from ten o’clock to twelve-thirty, with that pose. We all lunched at one. Then we went up to London. The private view of the Phoenix Group Show was on Friday night, and several of us had things in it. Valmai Seacliff and Basil Pilgrim, who were engaged to be married, left in his two-seater immediately after lunch. Neither of them was going to the private view. They were going to his people’s place, to break the engagement news, I imagine. Katti Bostock and I left in my car at about half-past two. Hatchett, Phillida Lee and Ormerin caught the three o’clock bus. Malmsley wanted to do some work, so he stayed behind until six, went up in the six-fifteen bus and joined us later at the show. I believe Phillida Lee and Hatchett had a meal together and went to a show. She took him to her aunt’s house in London for the weekend, I fancy.’

‘And the model?’

‘Caught the three o’clock bus. I don’t know where she went or what she did. She came back with Malmsley, Ormerin, Hatchett and Phillida Lee by yesterday evening’s bus.’

‘When Friday’s class broke up, did you all leave the studio together and come up to the house?’

‘I—let me think for a moment. No, I can’t remember; but usually we come up in dribbles. Some of them go on working, and they have to clean up their palettes and so on. Wait a second. Katti and I came up together before the others. That’s all I can tell you.’

‘Would the studio be locked before you went to London’

‘No.’ Troy turned her head and looked squarely at him.

‘Why not?’ asked Alleyn.

‘Because of Garcia.’

‘Blackman told me about Garcia. He stayed behind, didn’t he?’

‘Yes.’

‘Alone?’

‘Yes,’ said Troy unhappily. ‘Quite alone.’

There was a tap at the door. It opened and Blackman appeared, silhouetted against the brightly lit hall.

‘The doctor’s here, Mr Alleyn, and I think the car from London is just arriving.’

‘Right,’ said Alleyn. ‘I’ll come.’

Blackman moved away. Alleyn rose and looked down at Troy in her armchair.

‘Perhaps I may see you again before I go?’

‘I’ll be here or with the others in the dining-room. It’s a bit grim sitting round there under the eye of the village constable.’

‘I hope it won’t be for very long,’ said Alleyn.

Troy suddenly held out her hand.

‘I’m glad it’s you,’ she said.

They shook hands.

‘I’ll try to be as inoffensive as possible,’ Alleyn told her.

‘Goodbye for the moment.’




CHAPTER 5 Routine (#ulink_907aa36c-dcc6-5716-9b56-22610f7a0f22)


When Alleyn returned to the hall he found it full of men. The Scotland Yard officials had arrived, and with their appearance the case, for the first time, seemed to take on a familiar complexion. The year he had spent away from England clicked back into the past at the sight of those familiar overcoated and bowler-hatted figures with their cases and photographic impedimenta. There, beaming at him, solid, large, the epitome of horse-sense, was old Fox.

‘Very nice indeed to have you with us again, sir.’

‘Fox, you old devil, how are you?’

And there, looking three degrees less morose, was Detective-Sergeant Bailey, and behind him Detective-Sergeant Thompson. A gruff chorus began:

‘Very nice indeed—’

A great shaking of hands, while Superintendent Blackman looked on amicably, and then a small, clean, bald man came forward. Blackman introduced him.

‘Inspector Alleyn, this is Dr Ampthill, our divisional surgeon.’

‘How d’you do, Mr Alleyn? Understand you want to see me. Sorry if I’ve kept you waiting.’

‘I’ve not long arrived,’ said Alleyn. ‘Let’s have a look at the scene of action, shall we?’

Blackman led the way down the hall to a side passage at the end of which there was a door. Blackman unlocked it and ushered them through. They were in the garden. The smell of box borders came up from their feet. It was very dark.

‘Shall I lead the way?’ suggested Blackman.

A long pencil of light from a torch picked up a section of flagged path. They tramped along in single file. Tree-trunks started up out of the darkness, leaves brushed Alleyn’s cheek. Presently a rectangle of deeper dark loomed up.

Blackman said. ‘You there, Sligo?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said a voice close by.

There was a jangle of keys, the sound of a door opening.

‘Wait till I find the light switch,’ said Blackman. ‘Here we are.’

The lights went up. They walked round the wooden screen inside the door, and found themselves in the studio.

Alleyn’s first impression was of a reek of paint and turpentine, and of a brilliant and localized glare. Troy had installed a highpowered lamp over the throne. This lamp was half shaded, so that it cast all its light on the throne, rather as the lamp above an operating-table is concentrated on the patient. Blackman had only turned on one switch, so the rest of the studio was in darkness. The effect at the moment could scarcely have been more theatrical. The blue drape, sprawled across the throne, was so brilliant that it hurt the eyes. The folds fell sharply from the cushion into a flattened mass. In the middle, stupidly irrelevant, was a spike. It cast a thin shadow irregularly across the folds of the drape. On the margin of this picture, disappearing abruptly into shadow, was a white mound.

‘The drapery and the knife haven’t been touched since the victim died,’ explained Blackman. ‘Of course, they disarranged the stuff a bit when they hauled her up.’

‘Of course,’ said Alleyn. He walked over to the throne and examined the blade of the knife. It was rather like an oversized packingneedle, sharp, three-edged, and greatly tapered towards the point. It was stained a rusty brown. At the base, where it pierced the drape, there was the same discoloration, and in one or two of the folds small puddles of blood had seeped through the material and dried. Alleyn glanced at Dr Ampthill.

‘I suppose there would be an effusion of blood when they pulled her off the knife?’

‘Oh yes, yes. The bleeding would probably continue until death. I understand that beyond lifting her away from the knife, they did not move her until she died. When I arrived the body was where it is now.’

He turned to the sheeted mound that lay half inside the circle of light.

‘Shall I?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Alleyn.

Dr Ampthill drew away the white sheet.

Troy had folded Sonia’s hands over her naked breast. The shadow cut sharply across the wrists so that the lower half of the torso was lost. The shoulders, hands and head were violently lit. The lips were parted rigidly, showing the teeth. The eyes were only half closed. The plucked brows were raised as if in astonishment.

‘Rigor mortis is well established,’ said the doctor. ‘She was apparently a healthy woman, and this place was well heated. The gas fire was not turned off until some time after she died. She has been dead eleven hours.’

‘Have you examined the wound, Dr Ampthill?’

‘Superficially. The knife-blade was not absolutely vertical, evidently. It passed between the fourth and fifth ribs, and no doubt pierced the heart.’

‘Let us have a look at the wound.’

Alleyn slid his long hands under the rigid body and turned it on its side. The patches of sunburn showed clearly on the back. About three inches to the left of the spine was a dark puncture. It looked very small and neat in spite of the traces of blood that surrounded it.

‘Ah, yes,’ said Alleyn. ‘As you say. We had better have a photograph of this. Bailey, you go over the body for prints. You’d better tackle the drape, and the knife, and the top surface of the throne. Not likely to prove very useful, I’m afraid, but do your best.’

While Thompson set up his camera, Alleyn turned up the working-lamps and browsed about the studio. Fox joined him.

‘Funny sort of case, sir,’ said Fox. ‘Romantic.’

‘Good heavens, Fox, what a macabre idea of romance you’ve got.’

‘Well, sensational,’ amended Fox. ‘The papers will make a big thing of it. We’ll have them all down in hordes before the night’s over.’

‘That reminds me—I must send a wire to the Bathgates. I’m due there tomorrow. To business, Brer Fox. Here we have the studio as it was when the class assembled this morning. Paint set out on the palettes, you see. Canvases on all the easels. We’ve got seven versions of the pose.’

‘Very useful, I dare say,’ conceded Fox. ‘Or, at any rate, the ones that look like something human may come in handy. That affair over on your left looks more like a set of worms than a naked female. I suppose it is meant for the deceased, isn’t it?’

‘I think so,’ said Alleyn. ‘The artist is probably a surrealist or a vorticalist or something.’ He inspected the canvas and the painttable in front of it.

‘Here we are. The name’s on the paintbox. Phillida Lee. It is a rum bit of work, Fox, no doubt of it. This big thing next door is more in our line. Very solid and simple.’

He pointed to Katti Bostock’s enormous canvas.

‘Bold,’ said Fox. He put on his spectacles and stared blankly at the picture.

‘You get the posture of the figure very well there,’ said Alleyn.

They moved to Cedric Malmsley’s table.

‘This, I think, must be the illustrator,’ continued Alleyn. ‘Yes— here’s the drawing for the story.’

‘Good God!’ exclaimed Fox, greatly scandalized. ‘He’s made a picture of the girl after she was killed.’

‘No, no. That was the original idea for the pose. He’s merely added a dagger and the dead look. Here’s the portfolio with all the drawings. H’m, very volup. and Beardsley, with a slap of modern thrown in. Hullo!’ Alleyn had turned to a delicate watercolour in which three medieval figures mowed a charming field against a background of hayricks, pollard willows, and a turreted palace. ‘That’s rum!’ muttered Alleyn.

‘What’s up, Mr Alleyn?’

‘It looks oddly familiar. One half of the old brain functioning a fraction ahead of the other, perhaps. Or perhaps not. No matter. Look here, Brer Fox, I think before we go any further I’d better tell you as much as I know about the case.’ And Alleyn repeated the gist of Blackman’s report and of his conversations with Troy. ‘This, you see,’ he ended, ‘is the illustration for the story. It was to prove the possibility of murdering someone in this manner that they made the experiment with the dagger, ten days ago.’

‘I see,’ said Fox. ‘Well, somebody’s proved it now all right, haven’t they?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Alleyn. ‘It is proved—literally, up to the hilt.’

‘Cuh!’ said Fox solemnly.

‘Malmsley has represented the dagger as protruding under the left breast, you see. I suppose he thought he’d add the extra touch of what you’d call romance, Brer Fox. The scarlet thread of gore is rather effective in a meretricious sort of way. Good Lord, this is a queer show and no mistake.’

‘Here’s what I call a pretty picture, now,’ said Fox approvingly. He had moved in front of Valmai Seacliff’s canvas. Exaggeratedly slender, the colour scheme a light sequence of blues and pinks.

‘Very elegant,’ said Fox.

‘A little too elegant,’ said Alleyn. ‘Hullo! Look at this.’

Across Francis Ormerin’s watercolour drawing ran an ugly streak of dirty blue, ending in a blob that had run down the paper. The drawing was ruined.

‘Had an accident, seemingly.’

‘Perhaps. This student’s stool is overturned, you’ll notice, Fox. Some of the water in his paint-pot has slopped over and one of his brushes is on the floor.’

Alleyn picked up the brush and dabbed it on the china palette. A half-dry smudge of dirty blue showed.

‘I see him or her preparing to flood a little of this colour on the drawing. He receives a shock, his hand jerks sideways and the brush streaks across the paper. He jumps up, overturning his stool and jolting the table. He drops the brush on the floor. Look, Fox. There are signs of the same sort of disturbance everywhere. Notice the handful of brushes on the table in front of the big canvas—I think that must be Katti Bostock’s —I remember her work. Those brushes have been put down suddenly on the palette. The handles are messed in paint. Look at this very orderly array of tubes and brushes over here. The student has dropped a tube of blue paint and then trodden on it. Here are traces leading to the throne. It’s a man’s shoe, don’t you think? He’s tramped about all over the place, leaving a blue painty trail. The modern lady—Miss Lee—has overturned a bottle of turpentine, and it’s run into her paintbox. There are even signs of disturbance on the illustrator’s table. He has put a wet brush down on the very clean typescript. The place is like a first lesson in detection.’

‘But beyond telling us they all got a start when the affair occurred, it doesn’t appear to lead us anywhere,’ said Fox. ‘Not on the face of it.’ He turned back to Seacliff’s canvas and examined it with placid approval.

‘You seem very taken with Miss Seacliff’s effort,’ said Alleyn.

‘Eh?’ Fox transferred his attention sharply to Alleyn. ‘Now then, sir, how do you make out the name of this artist?’

‘Rather prettily, Fox. This is the only outfit that is quite in order. Very neat everything is, you’ll notice. Tidy box, clean brushes laid down carefully by the palette, fresh paint-rag all ready to use. I make a long guess that it belongs to Valmai Seacliff, because Miss Seacliff was with the model when she got her quietus. There is no reason why Miss Seacliff’s paraphernalia should show signs of disturbance. In a sense, Miss Seacliff killed Sonia Gluck. She pressed her naked body down on the knife. Not a very pleasant reflection for Miss Seacliff now, unless she happens to be a murderess. Yes, I think this painting is hers.’

‘Very neat bit of reasoning, chief. Lor’, here’s a mess.’ Fox bent over Watt Hatchett’s open box. It overflowed with half-used tubes of oil-colour, many of them without caps. A glutinous mess, to which all sorts of odds and ends adhered, spread over the trays and brushes. Cigarette butts, matches, bits of charcoal, were mixed up with fragments of leaves and twigs and filthy scraps of rag.

‘This looks like chronic muck,’ said Fox.

‘It does indeed.’ From the sticky depths of a tin tray Alleyn picked out a fragment of a dried leaf and smelt it.

‘Blue gum,’ he said. ‘This will be the Australian, I suppose. Funny. He must have collected that leaf sketching in the bush, half the world away. I know this youth. He joined our ship with Miss Troy at Suva. Travelled second at her expense.’

‘Fancy that,’ said Fox placidly. ‘Then you know this Miss Troy, sir?’

‘Yes. Now you see, even he appears to have put his hand down on his palette. He’d hardly do that in normal moments.’

‘We’ve finished, sir,’ said the photographic expert.

‘Right.’

Alleyn went over to the throne. The body lay as it was when he first saw it. He looked at it thoughtfully, remembering what Troy had said: ‘I’m always frightened of dead people.’

‘She was very lovely,’ said Alleyn gently. He covered the body again. ‘Carry her over to that couch. It’s a divan-bed, I fancy. She can be taken away now. You’ll do the post-mortem tomorrow, I suppose, Dr Ampthill?’

‘First thing,’ said the doctor briskly. ‘The mortuary car is outside in the lane now. This studio is built into the brick wall that divides the garden from the lane. I thought it would save a lot of trouble and difficulty if we opened that window, backed the car up to it, and lifted the stretcher through.’

‘Over there?’

Alleyn walked over to the window in the south wall. He stooped and inspected the floor.

‘This is where the modelling fellow, Garcia, did his stuff. Bits of clay all over the place. His work must have stood on the tall stool here, well in the light. Wait a moment.’

He flashed his pocket-torch along the sill. It was scored by several cross-scratches.

‘Someone else has had your idea, Dr Ampthill,’ said Alleyn. He pulled a pair of gloves from his overcoat pocket, put them on, and opened the window. The light from the studio shone on the whole body of a mortuary van drawn up in the lane outside. The air smelt cold and dank. Alleyn shone his torch on the ground under the window-sill. He could see clearly the print of car tyres in the soft ground under the window.

‘Look here, Mr Blackman.’

Blackman joined him.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Someone’s backed a car across the lane under the window. Miss Troy says the carrier must have called for this Mr Garcia’s stuff on Saturday morning. The maids say nobody came to the house about it. Well now, suppose Garcia left instructions for them to come straight to this window? Eh? How about that? He’d help them put the stuff through the window on to the van and then push off himself to wherever he was going.’

‘On his walking tour,’ finished Alleyn. ‘You’re probably right. Look here, if you don’t mind, I think we’ll take the stretcher out through the door and along the path. Perhaps there’s a door in the wall somewhere. Is there?’

‘Well, the garage yard is not far off. We could take it through the yard into the lane, and the van could go along and meet them there.’

‘I think it would be better.’

Blackman called through the window.

‘Hullo there! Drive along to the back entrance and send the stretcher in from there. Keep over on the far side of the lane.’

‘OK, super,’ said a cheerful voice.

‘Sligo, you go along and show the way.’

The constable at the door disappeared, and in a minute or two returned with two men and a stretcher. They carried Sonia’s body out into the night.

‘Well, I’ll push off,’ said Dr Ampthill.

‘I’d like to get away, too, if you’ll let me off, Mr Alleyn,’ said Blackman. ‘I’m expecting a report at the station on this other case. Two of my chaps are down with flu and I’m rushed off my feet. I needn’t say we’ll do everything we can. Use the station whenever you want to.’

‘Thank you so much. I’ll worry you as little as possible. Good night.’

The door slammed and the voices died away in the distance. Alleyn turned to Fox, Bailey and Thompson.

‘The old team.’

‘That’s right, sir,’ said Bailey. ‘Suits us all right.’

‘Well,’ said Alleyn, ‘it’s always suited me. Let’s get on with it. You’ve got your photographs and prints. Now we’ll up-end the throne. Everything’s marked, so we can get it back. Let me take a final look at the drape. Yes. You see, Fox, it fell taut from the cushion to the floor, above the point of the knife. Nobody would dream of disturbing it, I imagine. As soon as Miss Seacliff pressed the model over, the drape went with her, pulling away the drawing-pin that held it to the boards. That’s all clear enough. Over with the throne.’

They turned the dais on its side. The light shone through the cracks in the roughly built platform. From the widest of these cracks projected the hilt of the dagger. It was a solid-looking round handle, bound with tarnished wire and protected by a crossbar guard. One side of the guard actually dug into the platform. The other just cleared it. The triangular blade had bitten into the edge of the planks. The end of the hilt was shiny.

‘It’s been hammered home at a slight angle, so that the blade would be at right-angles to the inclined plane of the body. It’s an ingenious, dirty, deliberated bit of work, this. Prints, please, Bailey, and a photograph. Go over the whole of the under-surface. You won’t get anything, I’m afraid.’

While Bailey and Thompson worked, Alleyn continued his tour of the room. He pulled back the cover of the divan and saw an unmade bed beneath it. ‘Bad mark for Mr Garcia.’ Numbers of stretched canvases stood with their faces to the wall. Alleyn began to inspect them. He thought he recognized a large picture of a trapeze artiste in pink tights and spangles as the work of Katti Bostock. That round, high-cheeked face was the one he had seen dead a few minutes ago. The head and shoulders had been scraped down with a knife. He turned another big canvas round and exclaimed softly.

‘What’s up, sir?’ asked Fox.

‘Look.’

It was a portrait of a girl in a green velvet dress. She stood, very erect, against a white wall. The dress fell in austere folds about the feet. It was most simply done. The hands looked as though they had been put down with twelve direct touches. The form of the girl shone through the heavy dress, in great beauty. It was painted with a kind of quiet thoughtfulness.

But across the head where the paint was wet, someone had scrubbed a rag, and scratched with red paint an idiotic semblance of a face with a moustache.

‘Lor’,’ said Fox, ‘is that a modern idea, too, sir?’

‘I hardly think so,’ murmured Alleyn. ‘Good God, Fox, what a perfectly filthy thing to do. Don’t you see, somebody’s wiped away the face while the paint was wet, and then daubed this abortion on top of the smudge. Look at the lines of paint—you can see a kind of violence in them. The brush has been thrust savagely at the canvas so that the tip has spread. It’s as if a nasty child had done it in a fit of temper. A stupid child.’

‘I wonder who painted the picture, sir. If it’s a portrait of this girl Sonia Gluck, it looks as if there’s been a bit of spite at work. By gum, it’d be a rum go if the murderer did it.’

‘I don’t think this was Soma,’ said Alleyn. ‘There’s a smudge of blonde hair left. Sonia Gluck was dark. As for the painter—’ He paused. ‘I don’t think there’s much doubt about that. The painter was Agatha Troy.’

‘You can pick the style, can you?’

‘Yes.’

With a swift movement Alleyn turned the canvas to the wall. He lit a cigarette and squatted on his heels.

‘Let us take what used to be called a “lunar” at the case. In a little while I must start interviewing people, but I’d like you fellows to get as clear an idea as possible of the case as we know it. At the moment we haven’t got so much as a smell of motive. Very well. Eight students, the model, and Miss Troy have used this studio every morning from Saturday the 10th until last Friday, the 16th. On Friday they used it until twelve-thirty, came away in dribbles, lunched at the house, and then, at different intervals, all went away with the exception of Wolf Garcia, a bloke who models and sculps. He stayed behind, saying that he would be gone when they returned on Sunday. The studio was not locked at any time, unless by Garcia, who slept in it. They reopened this morning with this tragedy. Garcia and his belongings had gone. That’s all. Any prints, Bailey?’

‘There’s a good many blue smears round the edge, sir, but it’s unplaned wood underneath, and we can’t do much with it. It looks a bit as if someone had mopped it up with a painty rag.’

‘There’s a chunk of paint-rag on the floor there. Is it dusty?’

‘Yes, thick with it.’

‘Possibly it was used for mopping up. Have a go at it.’

Alleyn began to prowl round the back of the throne.

‘Hullo! More grist for the mill.’ He pointed to a strip of wood lying in a corner of the studio. ‘Covered with indentations. It’s the ledge off an easel. That’s what was used for hammering. Take it next, Bailey. Let’s find an easel without a ledge. Detecting is so simple when you only know how. Mr Hatchett has no ledge on his easel—therefore Mr Hatchett is a murderer. Q.E.D. This man is clever. Oh, lawks-a-mussy me, I suppose I’d better start off on the statements. How goes it, Bailey?’

‘This paint-rag’s a mucky bit of stuff,’ grumbled Bailey. ‘It’s been used for dusting all right. You can see the smudges on the platform. Same colour. I thought I might get a print off some of the smears of paint on the rag. They’re still tacky in places. Yes, here’s something. I’ll take this rag back and have a go at it, sir.’

‘Right. Now the ledge.’

Bailey used his insufflator on the strip of wood.

‘No,’ he said, after a minute or two. ‘It’s clean.’

‘All right. We’ll leave the studio to these two now, Fox. Try to get us as full a record of footprints as you can, Bailey. Go over the whole show. I can’t tell you what to look out for. Just do your stuff. And, by the way, I want photographs of the area round the window and the tyre-prints outside. You’d better take a cast of them and look out for any other manifestations round about them. If you come across any keys, try them for prints. Lock the place up when you’ve done. Good sleuthing.’

Fox and Alleyn returned to the house.

‘Well, Brer Fox,’ said Alleyn on the way, ‘how goes it with everybody?’

‘The Yard’s still in the same old place, sir. Pretty busy lately.’

‘What a life! Fox, I think I’ll see Miss Valmai Seacliff first. On the face of it she’s a principal witness.’

‘What about Miss Troy, sir?’ asked Fox.

Alleyn’s voice came quietly out of the darkness:

‘I’ve seen her. Just before you came.’

‘What sort of a lady is she?’

‘I like her,’ said Alleyn. ‘Mind the step. Here’s the side door. I suppose we can use it. Hullo! Look here. Fox.’

He paused, his hand on Fox’s arm. They were close by a window. The curtains had been carelessly drawn and a wide band of light streamed through the gap. Alleyn stood a little to one side of this light and looked into the room. Fox joined him. They saw a long refectory table at which eight people sat. In the background, half in shadow, loomed the figure of a uniformed constable. Seven of the people round the table appeared to listen to the eighth, who was Agatha Troy. The lamplight was full on her face. Her lips moved rapidly and incisively; she looked from one attentive face to the other. No sound of her voice came to Alleyn and Fox, but it was easy to see that she spoke with urgency. She stopped abruptly and looked round the table as if she expected a reply. The focus of attention shifted. Seven faces were turned towards a thin, languid-looking young man with a blond beard. He seemed to utter a single sentence, and at once a stocky woman with black straight hair cut in a bang, sprang to her feet to answer him angrily. Troy spoke again. Then nobody moved. They all sat staring at the table.

‘Come on,’ whispered Alleyn.

He opened the side door and went along the passage to a door on the left. He tapped on this door. The policeman answered it.




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