Artists in Crime (5 page)

Alleyn thought for a 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 P.C. 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 your note-book.”

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 faintly 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 excited and exaggerated accounts of it, and thought it better that the first statement should come from me.”

“I see.”

“I’ll make that 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 her 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 her 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 note-book 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 under-side 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 are 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 week-end, I fancy.”

“And the model?”

“Caught the two-thirty bus. I don’t know where she went or what she did. She came back with Malmsley, Ormerin, Katti Bostock, 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 arm-chair.

“Perhaps I may see you again before I go?”

“I’ll be in 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. “Good-bye for the moment.”

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 localised glare. Troy had installed a high-powered 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 packing-needle, 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 to-morrow. To business, Brer Fox. Here we have the studio as it was when the class assembled this morning. Paint set out on the pallettes, 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 vorticist or something.” He inspected the canvas and the paint-table in front of it.

“Here we are. The name’s on the paint-box. 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 scandalised. “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 the 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 farther 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 conversation 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. Seacliff had used a flowing, suave line. The figure was 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 water-colour 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. This 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 paint-box. 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 to-morrow, 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 modeling 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 white 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.”