Artists in Crime

by Ngaio Marsh

  Alleyn gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. When he saw her face, marred by tears, he wanted almost overwhelmingly to kiss it.

  ‘Little serpent!’ said Troy.

  ‘Who—Malmsley?’

  ‘Yes. Malmsley of all people, with his beard and his precicosity.’

  ‘There’s no such word as precicosity.’

  ‘There may be.’

  ‘It’s preciosity if it’s anything.’

  ‘Well, don’t be a scold,’ said Troy. ‘Did you face Malmsley with this?’

  ‘Yes. He turned as red as a rose.’

  Troy laughed.

  ‘What a doody-flop for Cedric,’ she said.

  ‘I must get on with my odious job,’ said Alleyn. ‘May I use your telephone?’

  ‘Yes, of course. There’ll be an inquest, won’t there?’

  ‘Tomorrow, I think. It won’t be so bad. Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  He turned at the doorway and said: ‘Lady Alleyn’s compliments to Miss Troy, and if Miss Troy would like to sample the amenities of Danes Lodge, Lady Alleyn will be very happy to offer them.’

  ‘Your mother is very kind,’ said Troy, ‘but I think it would be better not. Will you thank her from me? Please say I am very grateful indeed.’

  Alleyn bowed.

  ‘I’m grateful to you too,’ said Troy.

  ‘Are you? That is rather dangerously nice of you. Goodbye.’

  CHAPTER 15

  Lady of the Ensemble

  Before he left Tatler’s End House Alleyn rang up Superintendent Blackman and asked if there was any news of Garcia. There was none. A discreetly-worded notice had appeared in the morning papers and the B.B.C. had instructions to send out a police message. The police, within a fifty-mile radius, had made intensive inquiries.

  ‘It looks as if he didn’t want to be found, Mr Alleyn. The weather’s been fine and if he’d sketched as he said he intended to do, he wouldn’t have gone far in two days. It looks to me as if the bird had flown.’

  ‘It does a bit. Of course, he might have changed his plans and taken a train or bus. We’ll have to get on to the railway stations. All that deadly game. Thanks so much, Mr Blackman. I’ll let you know if there are any developments. Inquest tomorrow?’

  ‘No, Thursday. Our gentleman’s full up tomorrow. Bossicote Town Hall at eleven. He’s a sensible sort of chap, our man.’

  ‘Good. I’ll call on the C.C. this morning, before I go up to London.

  ‘Just as well. He likes to be consulted.’

  ‘What about the post-mortem?’

  ‘I wanted to let you know. She was going to have a child. About a month gone, the doctor says.’

  ‘I thought as much. Look here, I think I’ll get straight up to London. Make my apologies to the Chief Constable, will you? I want to catch a friend of Sonia Gluck’s, and I can’t risk missing her.’

  ‘Right you are. He’ll understand. So long. See you on Thursday.’

  Alleyn found Fox, who had renewed his acquaintance with the Hipkins and Sadie, and drove him back through teeming rain to Danes Lodge for breakfast.

  ‘I’ve had a bit of a yarn with Ethel Jones,’ said Fox.

  ‘Ethel? Oh yes, the help from the village. What had she got to say for herself?’

  ‘Quite a bit,’ said Fox. He opened his notebook and put on his spectacles.

  ‘You’re looking very bland, Brer Fox. What have you got on to?’

  ‘Well, sir, it seems that Ethel and her boy took a walk on Friday night down the lane. They passed by the studio window on their way home from the pictures at about eleven-thirty, perhaps a bit later. There were lights going in the studio but the blind was down. They walked straight past, but when they’d gone a piece further down the lane they stopped in the shadow of the trees to have a bit of a cuddle as you might put it. Ethel doesn’t know how long it lasted. She says you’re apt to lose your idea of time on these occasions, but when they got back to earth and thought about moving on, she glanced down the lane and saw someone outside the studio window.’

  ‘Did she, by gum! Go on, Fox!’

  ‘Well, sir, she couldn’t see him very distinctly.’

  ‘Him?’

  ‘Yes. She says she could just see it was a man, and he seemed to be wearing a raincoat, and a cap or beret of some sort. He was standing quite close to the window, Ethel reckons, and was caught by a streak of light coming through the blind. I asked her about the face, of course, but she says it was in shadow. She remembers that there was a small patch of light on the cap.’

  ‘There’s a hole in the blind,’ said Alleyn.

  ‘Is that so, sir? That might account for it, then. Ethel says the rest of the figure was in shadow. The collar of his raincoat was turned up and she thinks his hands were in his pockets.’

  ‘What height?’

  ‘About medium, Ethel thought, but you know how vague they are. She said to her boy: ‘Look, there’s someone down the lane. They must have seen us,’ and I suppose she gave a bit of a giggle, like a girl would.’

  ‘You ought to know.’

  ‘Why not, sir? Then, she says, the man turned aside and disappeared into the darker shadow and they could just hear his footfall as he walked away. Well, I went into the lane to see if I could pick up his prints, but you’ve been there and you know there wasn’t much to be seen near the window, except the tyre-tracks where the caravan had been manoeuvred about. When you get away from the window and out into the lane there are any number of them, but there’s been people and cars up and down during the weekend, and there’s not much hope of picking up anything definite.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ve looked carefully and I can’t find anything. It’s different with the car traces under the window. They’re off the beaten track, but this downpour about finishes the lane as far as we’re concerned.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well, we got a description of Garcia last night, of course, but to make sure, I asked the Hipkins and Sadie and Ethel to repeat it. They gave the same story. He always wears a very old mackintosh, whether it’s wet or fine, and it’s their belief he hasn’t got a jacket. Miss Troy gave him a grey sweater and he wears that with a pair of old flannel trousers. Mrs Hipkin says Miss Troy had given him two shirts and Mr Pilgrim gave him some underclothes. He doesn’t often wear anything on his head, but they have seen him in a black beret. Sadie says he looks as rough as bags. Ethel said straight out that she thought the figure outside the window was Garcia. She said so to her boy. She says it was the dead spit of Garcia, but then, we’ve got to remember it wasn’t at all distinct, and she may think differently now that she knows Garcia has gone. You know how they make up all sorts of things without scarcely knowing what they’re up to.’

  ‘I do indeed. Had this figure by the window anything on its back— like a rucksack, for instance?’

  ‘They say he hadn’t, but of course, if it was Garcia, he might not have picked up his gear when they saw him.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I look at it this way. He might have gone through the window to take a short cut to the garage by way of the lane, and he might have stood there, having a last look at the arrangement on the model’s throne.’

  ‘Through the hole in the blind? Rather a sinister picture, Fox. Wouldn’t they have heard him open the window?’

  ‘Um,’ said Fox.

  ‘It makes a fair amount of noise.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, that’s so.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No. They ambled off home. Hullo, sir, what’s up?’

  Alleyn had pulled up and now began to turn the car in the narrow lane.

  ‘Sorry, Fox, but we’re going back to have a look at the hole in the blind.’

  And back to the studio they went. Alleyn measured the distance from the window-sill to the hole—a triangular tear, of which the flap had been turned back. He also measured the height of the lamps from the floor. He climbed on Fox’s shoulders and tied
a thread to the light nearest the window. He stretched the thread to the hole in the blind. Fox stood outside in the pouring rain. Alleyn threw the window up, passed the thread through the hole to Fox, who drew it tight and held it against his diaphragm.

  ‘You see?’ said Alleyn.

  ‘Yes,’ said Fox, ‘I’m six foot two in my socks and it hits me somewhere—let’s see—’

  ‘About the end of the sternum.’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘Good enough, but we’ll take a look at night. Let’s go and have breakfast.’

  And a few minutes later they joined Nigel Bathgate at breakfast.

  ‘You might have told me you were going out,’ complained Nigel.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of interrupting your beauty sleep,’ said Alleyn. ‘Where’s my mamma?’

  ‘She finished her breakfast some minutes ago. She asked me to tell you she would be in her workshop. She’s going to weave me some tweed for a shooting jacket.’

  ‘Divine creature, isn’t she? What have you written for your paper?’

  ‘I’ll show you. I’ve left Miss Troy’s name out altogether, Alleyn. They simply appear as a group of artists in a charming old-world house in Buckinghamshire.’

  ‘I’ll try to be a good godfather,’ said Alleyn gruffly.

  ‘Good enough,’ said Nigel. ‘Can I publish a picture of the girl?’

  ‘Sonia? Yes, if you can rake one up. I can give you one of Garcia. Just talk about him as a very brilliant young sculptor, mention the job for the cinema if you like, and if you can manage it, suggest that we suspect the thing to be the work of some criminal lunatic who had got wind of the way the model was posed. Far-fetched, but I understand the tallest, the most preposterous tarradiddle will be gulped down whole by your public. You may even suggest that we have fears for Garcia’s safety. Do anything but cast suspicion on him. Is all this quite impossible, Bathgate?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Nigel thoughtfully. ‘It can be brought out with what I have already written. There’s nothing in this morning’s paper. That’s an almost miraculous bit of luck. Blackman and Co. must have been extraordinarily discreet.’

  ‘The hunt will be up and the murder out, at any moment now. Show me your stuff. We’re for London in twenty minutes.’

  ‘May I come with you? I’ve telephoned the office. I’ll make a bit of an entrance with this story.’

  Alleyn vetted the story and Nigel made a great to-do at each alteration, but more as a matter of routine than anything else. He then went to the telephone to ring up his office, and his Angela. Alleyn left Fox with the morning paper and ran upstairs to his mother’s workshop. This was a large, sunny room, filled with what Lady Alleyn called her insurances against old age. An enormous hand-loom stood in the centre of the room. In the window was a bench for book-binding. On one wall hung a charming piece of tapestry worked by Lady Alleyn in a bout of enthusiasm for embroidery and on another wall was an oak shrine executed during a wave of intense wood-carving. She had made the rugs on the floor, she had woven the curtains on the walls, she had created the petit-point on the backs of the chairs, and she had done all these things extremely and surprisingly well.

  At the moment she was seated before her hand-loom, sorting coloured wools. She looked solemn. Turnbridge Tessa, an Alsatian bitch, lay at her feet.

  ‘Hullo, darling,’ said Lady Alleyn. ‘Do you think Mr Bathgate could wear green and red? His eyes are grey, of course. Perhaps grey and purple.’

  ‘His eyes!’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Roderick. I’ve promised him some tweed. Yours is finished. It’s in the chest over there. Go and look at it.’

  ‘But—your dog!’

  ‘What about her? She’s obviously taken a fancy to you.’

  ‘Do you think so? She certainly has had her eye on me.’

  Alleyn went to the hand-carved chest, closely followed by Tunbridge Tessa. He found his tweed.

  ‘But, darling, it really is quite amazingly good,’ he said. ‘I’m delighted with it.’

  ‘Are you?’ asked his mother a little anxiously.

  ‘Indeed I am.’

  ‘Well, your eyes are so blue it was easy for me. Mr Bathgate has told me all about the baby coming. We’ve had a lovely talk. How did you get on at Tatler’s End House, Roderick?’

  ‘Better, thank you. We’re off now, darling. I hope I’m going to spend the rest of the morning in a chorus lady’s bed-sit in Chelsea.’

  ‘Are you?’ said his mother vaguely. ‘Why?’

  ‘Routine.’

  ‘It seems to lead you into strange places. I’ll come downstairs and see you off. You may take the car, Roderick.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘I’ve already told Finch to drive you in. I’ve a job for him in Sloane Street.’

  When they were half-way downstairs she said:

  ‘Roderick, shall I ring her up? Would you like me to ring her up?’

  ‘Very much,’ said Alleyn.

  He collected Fox and Nigel. They wrote their names in Lady Alleyn’s book.

  ‘And you will come again whenever you like?’ she said.

  ‘That will be very soon, I’m afraid,’ Nigel told her.

  ‘Not too soon. What about Mr Fox?’

  ‘It has been very pleasant indeed, my lady,’ said Fox. He straightened up, pen in hand, and gravely unhooked his spectacles. ‘I shall like to think about it. It’s been quite different, you see, from my usual run of things. Quite an experience, you might say, and a very enjoyable one. If I may say so, you have a wonderful way with you, my lady. I felt at home.’

  Alleyn abruptly took his arm.

  ‘You see, ma’am,’ he said, ‘we have courtiers at the Yard.’

  ‘Something a little better than that. Goodbye, my dear.’

  In the car Alleyn and Fox thumbed over their notebooks and occasionally exchanged remarks. Nigel, next the chauffeur, spent the time in pleasurable anticipation of his reception at the office. They cut through from Shepherd’s Bush to Holland Road and thence into Chelsea. Alleyn gave the man directions which finally brought them into a narrow and not very smart cul-de-sac behind Smith Street.

  ‘This is Batchelors Gardens,’ said Alleyn. ‘And there’s No. 4. You can put me down here. If I don’t come out in five minutes take Mr Fox to the Yard and Mr Bathgate to his office, will you, French? Goodbye, Bathgate. Meet you at the Yard somewhere round noon, Fox.’

  He waved his hand and crossed the street to No. 4, a set of flats that only just escaped the appearance of a lodging-house. Alleyn inspected the row of yellowing cards inside the front door. Miss Bobbie O’Dawne’s room was up two flights. He passed the inevitable charwoman with her bucket of oil and soot, and her obscene grey wiper so like a drowned rat.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Alleyn, ‘is Miss O’Dawne at home, can you tell me?’

  ‘At ‘ome,’ said the charlady, viciously wringing the neck of the rat. “Er! She won’t be out of ‘er bed!’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Alleyn and tapped at Miss O’Dawne’s door. He tapped three times, closely watched by the charlady, before a submerged voice called out: ‘All right.’ There were bumping noises, followed by the sound of bare feet on thin carpet. The voice, now much nearer, asked: ‘Who is it?’

  ‘May I speak to Miss O’Dawne?’ called Alleyn. ‘I’ve an important message for her.’

  ‘For me?’ said the voice in more refined accents. ‘Wait a moment, please.’

  He waited while the charlady absently swilled the rat round and round in the oil and soot before slopping it over the top stair. The door opened a few inches and then widely enough to admit the passage of a mop of sulphur-coloured curls and a not unattractive face.

  ‘Oh,’ said the face, ‘pardon me, I’m afraid—’

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you so early,’ said Alleyn, ‘but I would be most grateful if you could see me for a moment.’

  ‘I don’t want anything,’ said Miss O’Dawne
dangerously.

  ‘And I’m not selling anything,’ smiled Alleyn.

  ‘Sorry, I’m sure, but you never know, these days, do you, with ‘varsity boys travelling in anything from vacuums to foundation garments.’

  ‘It’s about Sonia Gluck,’ said Alleyn.

  ‘Sonia? Are you a pal of hers? Why didn’t you say so at first? Half a tick, and I’ll get dressed. Pardon the stage-wait, but the lonely west wing’s closed on account of the ghost, and the rest of the castle’s a ruin.’

  ‘Don’t hurry,’ said Alleyn, ‘the morning’s before us.’

  ‘I’ll say! Tell yourself stories and be good!’

  The door slammed. Alleyn lit a cigarette. The charlady descended three steps backwards with a toad-like posture.

  ‘Cold morning,’ she said suddenly.

  ‘Very cold,’ agreed Alleyn, noticing with a pang that her old hands were purple.

  ‘You a theatrical?’

  ‘No, no. Nothing so interesting, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Not a traveller neither?’

  ‘No—not even a traveller.’

  ‘You look too classy now I come to look atcher. I was in service for ten years.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Yers. In service. Lidy by the name of Wells. Then she died of dibeets and I ‘adter come down to daily. It’s all right in service, you know. Comferble. Meals and that. Warm.’

  ‘It’s beastly to be cold,’ said Alleyn.

  ‘That’s right,’ she said dimly.

  Alleyn felt unhappily in his pocket and she watched him. Inside the room Miss O’Dawne began to whistle. On the next landing a door banged, and a young man in a tight fitting royal blue suit tripped lightly downstairs, singing professionally. He had a good stare at Alleyn and said: “Morning, ma! How’s tricks?’

  “Mornin’, Mr Chumley.’

  ‘Look out, now, I don’t want to kick the bucket just yet.’ He vaulted over the wet steps and disappeared in full voice.

  “E’s in the choreus,’ said the charlady. ‘They get a lot of money in the choreus.’

  She had left her dustpan on the landing. Alleyn dropped his gloves, and as he stooped he put two half-crowns under the dustpan. He did it very neatly and quickly but not neatly enough, it seemed.