Artists in Crime (19 page)

“Sorry, I’m sure, but you never know, these days, do you, with ’vasity 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 in 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 be 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 neatly 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.

“Yer dropped some money, sir,” said the charlady avidly.

“That’s — that’s for you,” said Alleyn, and to his relief the door opened.

“Take your place in the queue and don’t rush the ushers,” said Miss O’Dawne. Alleyn walked in.

Miss O’Dawne’s bed-sitting-room looked a little as if it had been suddenly slapped up and bounced into a semblance of tidiness. The cupboard doors had an air of pressure from within, the drawers looked as if they had been rammed home under protest, the divan-bed hunched its shoulders under a magenta artificial-silk counterpane. Two jade green cushions cowered against the wall at the head of the bed, the corner of the suit-case peeped out furtively from underneath. Miss O’Dawne herself was surprisingly neat. Her make-up suggested that she was a quick-change artist.

“Sit down,” she said, “and make yourself at our place. It’s not Buckingham Palace with knobs on, but you can’t do much on chorus work and ‘Hullo, girls, have you heard the news?’ Seen our show?”

“Not yet,” said Alleyn.

“I’ve got three lines in the last act and a kiss from Mr. Henry Molyneux. His breath smells of whisky, carbide and onions, but it’s great to be an actress. Well, how’s tricks?”

“Not so wonderful,” said Alleyn, feeling for the right language.

“Cheer up, you’ll soon be dead. I was going to make a cup of coffee. How does that strike you?”

“It sounds delightful,” said Alleyn.

“Well, we strive to please. Service with a smile. No charge and all questions answered by return in plain envelopes.”

She lit her gas-ring and clapped a saucepan over it.

“By the way you haven’t told me who you are?”

“My name’s Roderick Alleyn, I’m afraid— ”

“Roderick Alleyn? Sounds pretty good. You’re not in the business, are you?”

“No, I’m— ”

“Well, if you’ll excuse my freshness you look a bit more Eton and Oxford than most of Sonia’s boyfriends. Are you an artist?”

“No. I’m a policeman.”

“And then he came to. Is this where the big laugh comes, Roddy?”

“Honestly.”

“A policeman? Where’s your make-up? Pass along there, please, pass along there. Go on, you’re kidding.”

“Miss O’Dawne, I’m an official of Scotland Yard.”

She looked sharply at him.

“Here, what’s wrong?” she said.

“Was Miss Gluck a very close friend of yours?” asked Alleyn gently.

“
Was
! What d’you mean? Here, has anything happened to Sonia?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“What, God, she’s not—!”

“Yes.”

The coffee-pot bubbled and she automatically turned down the gas. Her pert little face had gone white under the make-up.

“What had she done?” she said.

“She hadn’t done anything. I think I know what you mean. She was going to have a child.”

“Yes. I know that, all right. Well — what happened?”

Alleyn told her as kindly as possible. She made the coffee as she listened to him, and her distress was so unaffected that he felt himself warm to her.

“You know I can’t sort of believe it,” she said. “Murder. That seems kind of not real, doesn’t it? Know what I mean? Why, it was only Saturday she was sitting where you are now and telling me all her bits and pieces.”

“Were you great friends?”

“Well,
you
know. We’d sort of teamed up, in a way. Mind, she’s not my real pal like Maudie Lavine or Dolores Duval, but I was quiet matey with her. Here’s your coffee. Help yourself to shoog. God, I can’t believe it. Murdered!”

She stirred her coffee and stared at Alleyn. Suddenly she made a jab at him with her spoon.

“Garcia!” she said.

Alleyn waited.

“Garcia’s done it,” said Miss O’Dawne, “you take it from me. I never liked that boy. She brought him up here once or twice and I said to her: ‘You watch your business with that gentleman,’ I said. ‘In my opinion he’s a very dirty bit of work and I don’t mind who hears me.’ Well, I mean to say! Letting a girl as good as keep him. And when the spot of trouble comes along it’s “Thanks for the buggy ride, it was O.K. while it lasted.” Had she tried the funny business with the kid? You know.”

“I don’t think so.” Alleyn took Miss O’Dawne’s letter from his pocket and handed it to her.

“We found this in her room. That’s what made me come to you.”

She looked sharply at him.

“What about it?”

“You can understand that we want to collect any information that is at all likely to lead us to an arrest.”

“I can understand that all right, all right.”

“Well, Miss O’Dawne, this letter suggests that you may be able to give us this information. It suggests, at all events, that you may know more about the Sonia-Garcia situation than we do.”

“I know all there was to know. She was going to have his kid, and he’d got sick of her. Pause for laugh. Laugh over.”

“Isn’t there a bit more to it than that?”

“How d’you mean?”

“I think I may as well tell you that we know she got a hundred pounds from Mr. Basil Pilgrim.”

“Did he tell you?”

“Yes. Was that the plan you refer to in this letter?”

“Since you’re asking, Mr. Clever, it was. Pilgrim’d had his fun and Sonia didn’t see why he shouldn’t pay for it.”

“But the child was not Pilgrim’s?”

“Oh no, dear, but for all he knew— ”

“Yes, I see. She said she’d go to his father if he didn’t pay up. Was that it?”

“That was the big idea. Or to his girl. Sonia told me this boy Basil is a bit silly. You know — one of the purity song and dance experts. He must be a bit soft, from what she told me. Said his feeongsay thought he was as pure as her. Soft music and tears in the voice. Sonia said it was a big laugh, anyway, because the girl’s not so very very ongenoo either. Anyway, Basil was all worked up and gave Sonia the cheque.”

“What did she do with his cheque?”

“Oh, she cashed it and gave the money to Garcia, dear. What do you know about that? Could you beat it? I told her she was crazy. On Saturday when she was here I said: ‘Well, did it all go big?’ and she said this boy Basil came in on his cue all right, but she’d handed the money to Garcia and asked him if they couldn’t get married straight away. And Garcia started his funny business. He said a hundred quid wasn’t enough to marry with.”

“Hadn’t she got anything out of Malmsley?”

“Listen, Mr. Blake, aren’t you wonderful? How did you get on to the Marmalade stuff?”

Alleyn folded his arms and raised his eyebrows.

“ ‘I have my methods,’ said the great sleuth.”

“Well, of course!” exclaimed Miss O’Dawne, greatly diverted. “Aren’t you a yell!”

“Please tell me,” said Alleyn. “What happened when she offered to sell Malmsley his own book?”

“He wouldn’t give more than five pounds, dear, and Sonia stuck out for twenty. Well, I mean to say, what’s five pounds to a girl in her condition? So she said she’d give him the week-end to think it over. She didn’t mind waiting. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t got—” Miss O’Dawne stopped short, gave Alleyn another of her sharp glances and lit a cigarette.

“Hadn’t got what?” asked Alleyn.

“Look here — you’re asking a lot of questions, aren’t you, dear? Keep forgetting you’re a bobby with all this upstage-and-county manners of yours. What’s wrong with a girl getting her own back like Sonia did?”

“Well, it was blackmail, you know.”

“Was it? Isn’t that a pity, I don’t suppose. Have some more coffee?”

“Thank you, it’s extremely good.”

“That’s right. I say, it’s all very funny us talking away sort of cosy like this, but when I think of Sonia — honest, I
am
upset, you know. You have to keep on cracking hardy, but just the same it’s a swine, isn’t it? You know what I mean. Help yourself to shoog. No, reely, I
am
upset.”

“I’m quite sure you are.”

“Look, Roddy. You don’t mind me calling you Roddy, do you?”

“I’m delighted,” said Alleyn.

“Well, look, if what Sonia did was blackmail, I don’t want to let everybody know the dirt about her after she’s gone. Don’t sling off at the dead’s what I’ve always said, because they can’t come in on the cross-talk and score the laughs where they are. See? You’ve got on to the Garcia-Pilgrim-Malmsley tale. All right! That’s your luck or your great big talent. But I’m not in on this scene. See?”

“Yes, I do see. But you don’t want her murderer to get off, do you?”

“Do I look funny?”

“Very well, then. I’m afraid the blackmail is bound to come out in evidence. You can’t stop that, and won’t you help us? Won’t you tell me anything you know that may throw a little light on the tragedy of her death? There is something more, I’m sure. Isn’t there?”

“Do you mean the joke with the picture of Basil’s girl?”

“No,” said Alleyn.

“D’you know about that?”

“Yes.”

‘Well, then!”

“Is there anything else about the Pilgrim stunt? Did she threaten to take any further steps?”

“With Pilgrim?” Miss O’Dawne’s sharp eyes looked thoughtfully at Alleyn. “No. She didn’t. She’d done her stuff with the Hon. Bas. Mine’s a Bass, I
don’t
suppose.”

“Well then, had Garcia any more tricks up his sleeve?”

Miss O’Dawne twisted her fingers together. “She’s frightened about something,” thought Alleyn.

“If you know anything more about Garcia,” he said, “I do beg of you to tell me what it is?”

“Yeah? And get a permanent shop where Sonia’s gone? It’s no good, dear, I’m not in on this act.”

“I promise you that no harm— ”

“No, dear, there’s nothing doing. I don’t know anything that you haven’t found out.”

“Was Garcia off on a separate line?”

“You go for Garcia,” said Miss O’Dawne. “That’s all I’m going to say. Go for Garcia. Have you arrested him?”

“No. He’s gone on a walking tour.”

“Well, that’s a scream — I bloody well don’t think. Pardon my refinement,” said Miss O’Dawne.

Alleyn cursed himself secretly and heartily for that unlucky word “blackmail.” Miss Bobbie O’Dawne refused, pointblank, to give him any further information that might possibly come under that heading. He seemed to have come up against a tenet. If Sonia had committed blackmail and Sonia was dead, Bobbie O’Dawne wasn’t going to give her away. However, she told him quite willingly how Sonia had spent the week-end, and pretty well proved that Sonia could not possibly have gone down to Tatler’s End House between Friday and Monday. With this Alleyn had to be content. He thanked his hostess and promised to go and see her show.

“That’s right, dear, you come along. It’s a bright show. I don’t have much to do, you know. I hope you don’t think any the worse of me for minding my own business about Sonia?”

“No. But if it comes to — well — if it comes to the arrest of an innocent person and you know you could save them, what would you do then?”

“Garcia’s not innocent, dear, not so’s you’d notice it.”

“It might not be Garcia.”

“Come off it. Listen. Do you know Garcia told the poor kid that if she let on to anybody that the child was his, he’d do for her? Now! She told me that herself. She was dead scared I’d forget and let something out. She made me swear I wouldn’t. She said he’d do for both of us if we talked. Isn’t that good enough?”

“It’s sufficiently startling,” said Alleyn. “Well, I suppose I’d better be off. I do ask you, very seriously, Miss O’Dawne, to think over what I have said. There is more than one kind of loyalty, you know.”

“I wouldn’t have said a thing about the kid if I didn’t know you’d find out. Anyway, that’s the sort of thing that might happen to any girl. But I’m not going to do the dirty and have them calling her criminal names, and it’s no good asking me to. Are you going, dear? Well, so long. See you some more.”

“Suppose I sent a man along from one of the evening papers, would you care to give him an interview?”

“Who, me? Well, I don’t pretend a bit of publicity doesn’t help you in the business,” said Miss O’Dawne honestly. “D’you mean the ‘Sonia Gluck as I knew her’ gag?”

“Something like that.”

“With perhaps my picture along of hers? I’ve got a nice picture of Sonia. You know — wound up in georgette with the light behind her. Very nice. Well, as long as they don’t want the dirt about her, I wouldn’t mind the ad., dear. You know. It sounds hard, but it’s a hard old world.”

“I’ll come again, if I may.”

“Welcome, I’m sure. Be good.”

Alleyn went thoughtfully to Scotland Yard. He saw his Assistant Commissioner and went over the case with him. Then he went to his office. He had been for a year in the south of the world and the room looked at once strange and familiar. The respectably worn leather chairs, his desk, the untidy groove where he had once let a cigarette burn itself out, the little dark print of a medieval town above the mantelpiece — there they all were, as it seemed, waiting for him after a period of suspension. He sat at his desk and began to work on the report of this case. Presently Fox came in. Alleyn realised that he had clicked right back into his socket in the vast piece of machinery that was Scotland Yard. New Zealand, the wharf at Suva, the night tide of the St. Lawrence — all had receded into the past. He was back on his job.

He related to Fox the gist of his interview with Miss O’Dawne.

“What about yourself?” he asked when he had finished. “Any news, Brer Fox?”

“The city’s been set going on the warehouse business. It’s a bit of a job and no mistake. According to Miss Troy’s reckoning, we’ve got sixty miles to account for. That correct, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. Well, supposing Garcia didn’t tell lies about his warehouse, it’s somewhere in London. It’s twenty miles to Shepherd’s Bush from the house. There and back, forty. Of course, he might not have come in by the Uxbridge Road, but it’s by far the most direct route and it would be the one he was familiar with. For the sake of argument say he took it. That leaves us a radius of ten miles, roughly, from Shepherd’s Bush to wherever the warehouse is. Twenty, there and back.”

“Total, sixty.”

“Yes. Of course, if this warehouse is somewhere, west, north-west, or south-west, he might have branched off before he got to Shepherd’s Bush, but he said Holloway to Miss Seacliff and if he went to Holloway he’d go by Shepherd’s Bush. Then on by way of, say, Albany Street and the Camden Road. As the crow flies, Holloway Prison is only about five miles from Shepherd’s Bush, but the shortest way by road would be nearer eight or nine. Holloway fits in all right as far as the petrol consumption goes. Of course, it’s all very loose,” added Fox, looking over his spectacles at Alleyn, “but so’s our information.”

“Very loose. Holloway’s a large district.”

“Yes. Still, it squares up, more or less, with what we’ve got.”

“True enough.”

“Well, sir, following out your suggestion we’ve concentrated on Holloway and we’re raking it for warehouses.”

“Yes, it’s got to be done.”

“On the other hand,” continued Fox stolidly, “as you pointed out on the trip up, it may not be in Holloway at all. Suppose Garcia lied about the position of the warehouse, having already planned the job when he spoke to Miss Seacliff. Suppose he deliberately misled her, meaning to use this warehouse as a hideout after the job was done?”

“It doesn’t look like that, Fox. She says Garcia tried to persuade her to visit him there alone. He actually gave her a sketch-map of how to get to the studio. She’s lost it, of course.”

“Look here,” said Fox. “The idea was that Pilgrim should drive her up. I wonder if there’s a chance she handed the sketch-map to Pilgrim and he knows where the place is?”

“Yes. If he does know he didn’t bother to mention it when I asked them all about the warehouse. Of course, that might have been bluff, but the whole warehouse story is rather tricky. Suppose Garcia planned this murder in cold blood. He would have to give up all idea of carrying out his commission for the marble group unless he meant to brazen it out, go for his walk, and turn up at the warehouse to get on with his work. If he meant to do this it would be no good to tell preliminary lies about the site, would it? Suppose, on the other hand, he meant to disappear. He wouldn’t have mentioned a warehouse at all if he meant to lie doggo in it.”

“That’s right enough. Well, sir, what if he planned the murder while he was still dopey after the opium?”

“That, to me, seems more probable. Malmsley left the pipe, the jar and the lamp in a box under Garcia’s bed because he was afraid of your friend Sadie catching him if he returned them to his bedroom. Bailey found Garcia’s as well as Malmsley’s prints on the jar. There’s less opium than Malmsley said there would be. It’s at least possible that Garcia had another go at it after Malmsley had gone. He may have woken up, felt very dreary, and sought to recapture the bliss. He may have smoked another pipe or taken a pull at his whisky. He may have done both. He may even have laid the trap with the dagger while still under the influence of the opium and — or — whisky. This is shamefully conjectural, Fox, but it seems to me that it is not too fantastic. The macabre character of the crime is not inconsistent, I fancy, with the sort of thing one might expect from a man in Garcia’s condition. So far — all right. Possible, at any rate. But would he be sensible enough to get Miss Troy’s caravan, back it, however clumsily, up to the window, put the empty case on board and wheel the model through the window and into the case? And what’s more, my old Foxkin, would he have the gumption to drive to this damnable warehouse, dump his stuff, return the caravan to Tatler’s End House, and set out on his walking tour? Would he not rather sink into a drugged and disgusting slumber lasting well into Saturday morning? And having come to himself would he not undo his foul trap for Sonia?”

“But if he
wanted
her out of the way?” persisted Fox.

“I know, I know. But if he was going to bolt he had so much to lose. His first big commission!”

“Well, perhaps he’ll turn up and brazen it out. He doesn’t know he dropped the pellet of clay with his thumb-print. He doesn’t know Miss Lee overheard his conversation with Sonia. He doesn’t know Sonia told anyone she was going to have his child. He’ll think the motive won’t appear.”

“He’ll know what will appear at the post-mortem. What’s worrying me is the double aspect of the crime, if Garcia’s the criminal. There’s no reason to suppose Malmsley lied about giving Garcia opium. It’s the sort of thing he’d suppress if he could. Very well. The planning of the murder and the laying of the trap might have been done under the influence of a pipe or more of opium. The subsequent business with the caravan has every appearance of the work of a cool and clearheaded individual.”

“Someone else in it?”

“Who?”

“Gawd knows,” said Fox.

“Meanwhile Garcia does not appear.”

“Do you think he may have got out of the country?”

“I don’t know. He had a hundred pounds.”

“Where d’you get that, chief?”

“From Miss Bobbie O’Dawne. Sonia gave him the hundred pounds she got from Basil Pilgrim.”

“I’ve fixed up with the people at the ports,” said Fox, “he won’t get by, now. But has he already slipped through? That’s what’s worrying me.”

“If he left Tatler’s End House on his flat feet in the early hours of Saturday morning,” said Alleyn, “well pick up his track.”

“If?”

“It’s the blasted psychology of the brute that’s got me down,” said Alleyn with unusual violence. “We’ve got a very fair picture of Garcia from all these people. They all agree that he lives entirely for his work, that he will sacrifice himself and everyone else to his work, that his work is quite remarkably good. I can’t see a man of this type deliberately committing a crime that would force him to give up the biggest job he has ever undertaken.”

“But if the opium’s to blame? Not to mention the whisky?”

“If they’re to blame I don’t think he’s responsible for the rest of the business with the caravan. He’d either sleep it off there in the studio or wander away without taking any particular pains to cover his tracks. In that case we’d have found him by now.”

“Then do you think there’s any likelihood of someone else driving him up to London and hiding him in this blasted warehouse? What about the man Ethel and her boy saw in the lane? Say it wasn’t Garcia but someone else. Could he have found Garcia under the weather and offered to drive him up to London with the stuff and return the caravan?”

“Leaving the knife where it was?” said Alleyn. “Yes, that’s possible, of course. He may not have noticed the knife, this lurker in the lane. On the other hand— ”

Alleyn and Fox stared thoughtfully at each other.

“As soon as I got here this morning,” said Fox at last, “I looked up this Mr. Charleson, the secretary to the board of the New Palace Theatre in Westminster. Had a bit of luck, he was on the premises and answered the telephone. He’s coming in at eleven-thirty, but beyond confirming the business about this statue he can’t help us. Garcia was to order the marble and start work on next Monday. They offered him two hundred pounds and they were going to pay for the marble after he’d chosen it. Mr. Charleson says they’d never get anyone else at that price whose work is as good as Garcia’s.”

“Bloodsucker,” grunted Alleyn.

“But he’s no idea where the work was to be done.”

“Helpful fellow. Well, Fox, we’d better get a move on. We’re going to spend a jolly day checking up alibis. I’ll take Miss Troy’s and Miss Bostock’s to begin with. You start off with young Hatchett and Phillida Lee. To your lot will fall the breaded intelligentsia of the Vortex Experimental Studio theatre, the Lee aunt, and the Hatchett boardinghouse keeper. To mine Sir Arthur Jaynes, Cattcherley’s hairdressing establishment, Mr. Graham Barnes, and the staff of the United Arts Club.”

“And this Mr. John Bellasca, sir, Miss Troy’s friend.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “Me too.”

“And then what?”

“If we get done to-day we’ll run down to Boxover in the morning and see the people with whom Pilgrim and Miss Seacliff stayed on Friday night.”

He opened a drawer in his desk and took out the photograph of the group at Tatler’s End House.

“How tall is Garcia?” he asked. “Five foot nine according to the statement Blackman gave us. Yes. Pilgrim looks about two and a half inches taller in this photograph, doesn’t he? You get a very good idea of the comparative heights. Ormerin, Hatchett and Garcia are all within an inch of each other. Miss Bostock, Miss Seacliff and Miss Lee are much shorter. The model is a little taller than Miss Bostock, but not so tall as the others. Miss Troy is taller than the first batch, but about two inches shorter than Pilgrim. Pilgrim is the tallest of the lot. Alas, alas, Fox, how little we know about these people! We interview them under extraordinary circumstances and hope to get a normal view of their characters. We ask them alarming questions and try to draw conclusions from their answers. How can we expect to discover them when each must be secretly afraid that his most innocent remark may cast suspicion upon himself? How would you or I behave if we came within the range of conjecture in a murder case? Well, damn it, let’s get on with the job.”

The desk telephone rang and he answered it.

“It’s me,” said Nigel’s voice winningly.

“What do you want?”

“I’d like to come and see you, Alleyn.”

“Where are you?”

“In a call-box about five minutes away.”

“Very well, come up. I’ve got a job for you.”

“I’ll be there.”

Alleyn hung up the receiver.

“It’s Bathgate. I’ll send him round to get an exclusive story from Miss Bobbie O’Dawne. There’s just a remote hope she may become less discreet under the influence of free publicity. I’m damn’ well positive she’s keeping something up her sleeve about the blackmailing activities. She’s rather an attractive little creature, Fox. Hard as nails and used to the seamy side of life, but a curious mixture of simplicity and astuteness. She knew we’d find out about the child and had no qualms in talking about it, but as soon as the word blackmail cropped up she doubled up like a hedgehog. I don’t think it had occurred to her that Sonia’s gentle art of extracting money was in any sense criminal. And I — blundering booby that I was — must needs enlighten her. She’s terrified of Garcia. She’s convinced he murdered Sonia and I honestly think she believes he’d go for her if she informed against him.”