Artists in Crime (6 page)

“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.”

“O.K., 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 edges 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 recognised 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 Sonia,” 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.

“All right,” said Alleyn quietly, and walked straight in, followed by Fox and the constable. The eight faces round the table turned like automatons.

“Please forgive me for barging in like this,” said Alleyn to Troy.

“It’s all right,” said Troy. “This is the class. We were talking — about Sonia.” She looked round the table. “This is Mr. Roderick Alleyn,” she said.

“Good evening,” said Alleyn generally. “Please don’t move. If you don’t mind, I think Inspector Fox and I will join you for a moment. I shall have to ask you all the usual sort of things, you know, and we may as well get it over. May we bring up a couple of chairs?”

Basil Pilgrim jumped up and brought a chair to the head of the table.

“Don’t worry about me, sir,” said Fox. “I’ll just sit over here, thank you.”

He settled himself in a chair by the sideboard. Alleyn sat at the head of the table, and placed his notebook before him.

“The usual thing,” he said, looking pleasantly round the table, “is to interview people severally. I think I shall depart from routine for once and see if we can’t work together. I have got your names here, but I don’t know which of you is which. I’ll just read them through, and if you don’t mind— ”

He glanced at his notes.

“Reminiscent of a roll-call, I’m afraid, but here goes. Miss Bostock?”

“Here,” said Katti Bostock.

“Thank you. Mr. Hatchett?”

“That’s me.”

“Miss Phillida Lee?”

Miss Lee made a plaintive murmuring sound. Malmsley said: “Yes.” Pilgrim said: “Here.” Valmai Seacliff merely turned her head and smiled.

“That’s that,” said Alleyn. “Now then. Before we begin I must tell you that in my opinion there is very little doubt that Miss Sonia Gluck has been deliberately done to death. Murdered.”

They seemed to go very still.

“Now, as you all must realise, she was killed by precisely the means which you discussed and worked out among yourselves ten days ago. The first question I have to put to you is this. Has any one of you discussed the experiment with the dagger outside this class? I want you to think very carefully. You have been scattered during the week-end, and it is possible, indeed very likely, that you may have talked about the pose, the model, and the experiment with the knife. This is extremely important, and I ask you to give me a deliberated answer.”

He waited for quite a minute.

“I take it that none of you have spoken of this matter, then,” said Alleyn.

Cedric Malmsley, leaning back in his chair, said: “Just a moment.”

“Yes, Mr. Malmsley?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure, if it’s of any interest,” drawled Malmsley, “but Garcia and I talked about it on Friday afternoon.”

“After the others had gone up to London?”

“Oh, yes. I went down to the studio, you see, after lunch. I did some work there. Garcia was messing about with his stuff. He’s usually rather sour when he’s working, but on Friday he babbled away like the brook.”

“What about?”

“Oh,” said Malmsley vaguely, “women and things. He’s drearily keen on women, you know. Tediously over-sexed.” He turned to the others. “Did you know he and Sonia were living together in London?”

“I always said they were,” said Valmai Seacliff.

“Well, my sweet, it seems you were right.”

“I told you, Seacliff, didn’t I?” began Phillida Lee excitedly. “You remember?”

“Yes. But I thought so long before that.”

“Did you pursue this topic?” asked Alleyn.

“Oh, no, we talked about you, Seacliff.”

“About me?”

“Yes. We discussed your engagement, and your virtue and so on.”

“Very charming of you,” said Basil Pilgrim angrily.

“Oh, we agreed that you were damned lucky and so on. Garcia turned all knowing, and said— ”

“Is this necessary?” demanded Pilgrim, of Alleyn.

“Not at the moment, I think,” said Alleyn. “How did you come to discuss the experiment with the dagger, Mr. Malmsley?”

“Oh, that was when we talked about Sonia. Garcia looked at my drawing and asked me if I’d ever felt like killing my mistress just for the horror of doing it.”

And was that all?” inquired Alleyn, after a rather deadly little pause.

“Oh, yes,” said Cedric Malmsley, and lit a cigarette. “I just thought I’d better mention it.”

“Thank you. It was just as well. Did he say anything else that could possibly have a bearing on this affair?”

“I don’t think so. Oh, he did say Sonia wanted him to marry her. Then he began talking about Seacliff, you know.”

“Couple of snotty little bounders,” grunted Katti Bostock unexpectedly.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Malmsley, with an air of sweet reasonableness. “Seacliff likes being discussed, don’t you, my angel? She knows she’s simply lousy with It.”

“Don’t be offensive, please, Malmsley,” said Pilgrim dangerously.

“Good heavens! Why so sour? I thought you’d like to know we appreciated her.”

“That will do, Malmsley,” said Troy very quietly.

Alleyn said: “When did you leave the studio on Friday afternoon, Mr. Malmsley?”

“At five. I kept an eye on the time because I had to bathe and change and catch the six o’clock bus.”

“You left Mr. Garcia still working?”

“Yes. He said he wanted to pack up the clay miniature ready to send it up to London the next morning.”

“He didn’t begin to pack it while you were there?”

“Well, he got me to help him carry in a zinc-lined case from the junk-room. He said it would do quite well.”

“He would,” said Troy grimly. “I paid fifteen shillings for that case.”

“How would it be managed?” asked Alleyn. “Surely a clay model is a ticklish thing to transport?”

“He’d wrap masses of damp cloths round it,” explained Troy.

“How about lifting it? Wouldn’t it be very heavy?”

“Oh, he’d thought all that out,” said Malmsley, yawning horribly. “We put the case on a tall stool in the window with the open end sideways, beside the tall stool he worked on. The thing was on a platform with wheels. He just had to wheel it into the case and fill the case with packing.”

“How about getting it into the van?”

“Dear me. Isn’t this all rather tedious?”

“Extremely. A concise answer would enable us to move on to a more interesting narrative.”

Troy gave an odd little snort of laughter.

“Well, Mr. Malmsley?” said Alleyn.

“Garcia said the lorry would back into the window from the lane outside. The sill is only a bit higher than the stools. He said they’d be able to drag the case on to the sill and get it in the lorry.”

“Did he say anything about arranging for the lorry?”

“He asked me if there was a man in the village,” said Troy. “I told him Burridge would do it.”

The policeman at the door gave a deprecatory cough.

“Hullo!” said Alleyn, slewing round in his chair. “Thought of something?”

“The super asked Burridges’ if they done it, sir, and they says no.”

“Right. Thank you. Now, Mr. Malmsley, did you get any idea when Mr. Garcia proposed to put the case on board the lorry?”

“He said early next morning — Saturday.”

“I see. There was no other mention of Miss Gluck, the pose, or Mr. Garcia’s subsequent plans?”

“No.”

“He didn’t tell you where the clay model was to be delivered?”

“No. He just said he’d got the loan of a disused warehouse in London.”

“He told me he was going on a sketching-tramp for a week before he started work,” said Valmai Seacliff.

“To me also, he said this.” Francis Ormerin leant forward, glancing nervously at Alleyn. “He said he wished to paint landscape for a little before beginning this big work.”

“He painted?” asked Alleyn.

“Oh, yes,” said Troy. “Sculping was his long suit, but he painted and etched a bit as well.”

“Very interesting stuff,” said Katti Bostock.

“Drearily representational though, you must own,” murmured Malmsley.

“I don’t agree,” said Ormerin.

“Good God!” exclaimed Basil Pilgrim, “we’re not here to discuss aesthetics.”

“Does anyone here,” Alleyn cut in firmly, “know who lent this warehouse to Garcia, where it was, when he proposed to go there, or in what direction he has supposedly walked away?”

Silence.

“He is possibly the most uncommunicative young man in England,” said Troy suddenly.

“It would seem so, indeed,” agreed Alleyn.

“There’s this, though,” added Troy. “He told me the name of the man who commissioned the ‘Comedy and Tragedy.’ It’s Charleston, and I think he’s secretary to the board of the New Palace Theatre, Westminster. Is that any help?”

“It may be a lot of help.”

“Do you think Garcia murdered Sonia?” asked Malmsley vaguely. “I must say I don’t.”

“The next point is this,” said Alleyn, exactly as though Malmsley had not spoken. “I want to arrive at the order in which you all left the studio on Friday at midday. I believe Miss Troy and Miss Bostock came away together as soon as the model got down. Any objection to that?”

There were none apparently.

“Well, who came next?”

“I–I think I did,” said Phillida Lee, “and I think I ought to tell you about an
extraordinary
thing that I heard Garcia say to Sonia one day— ”

“Thank you so much, Miss Lee. I’ll come to that later, if I may. At the moment we’re talking about the order in which you left the studio on Friday at noon. You followed Miss Troy and Miss Bostock?”

“Yes,” said Miss Lee restlessly.

“Good. Are you sure of that, Miss Lee?”

“Yes. I mean I know I did because I was absolutely
exhausted
. It always takes it out of me most
frightfully
when I paint. It simply drains every
ounce
of my energy. I even forget to
breathe
.”

“That must be most uncomfortable,” said Alleyn gravely. “You came out to breathe, perhaps?”

“Yes. I mean I felt I must get away from it all. So I simply put down my brushes and walked out. Miss Troy and Bostock were just ahead of me.”

“You went straight to the house?”

“Yes, I think so. Yes, I did.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Watt Hatchett loudly. “You came straight up here because I was just after you, see? I saw you through the dining-room window. This window here, Mr. Alleyn. That’s right, Miss Lee. You went up to the sideboard and began eating something.”

“I–I don’t remember that,” said Miss Lee in a high voice. She darted an unfriendly glance at Hatchett.

“Well,” said Alleyn briskly, “that leaves Miss Seacliff, Messrs. Ormerin, Pilgrim, Malmsley and Garcia, and the model. Who came next?”

“We all did — except Garcia and Sonia,” said Valmai Seacliff. “Sonia hadn’t dressed. I remember I went into the junk-room and washed my brushes under the tap. Ormerin and Malmsley and Basil followed me there.”

She spoke with a slight hesitation, the merest shadow of a stutter, and with a markedly falling inflexion. She had a trick of uttering the last words of a phrase on an indrawn breath. Everything she looked and did, Alleyn felt, was the result of a carefully concealed deliberation. She managed now to convey the impression that men followed her inevitably, wherever she went.

“They were in the way,” she went on. “I told them to go. Then I finished washing my brushes and came up to the house.”

“Garcia was in the junk-room, too, I think,” said Ormerin.

“Oh, yes,” agreed Seacliff softly. “He came in, as soon as you’d gone. He would, you know. Sonia was glaring through the door — furious, of course.” Her voice died away and was caught up on that small gasp. She looked through her eyelashes at Alleyn. “I walked up to the house with the other three.”

“That is so,” agreed Ormerin.

“Leaving Mr. Garcia and the model in the studio?” asked Alleyn.

“I suppose so.”

“Yes,” said Pilgrim.

“You say the model was furious, Miss Seacliff,” said Alleyn. “Why was that?”

“Oh, because Garcia was making passes at me in the junk-room. Nothing much. He can’t help himself — Garcia.”

“I see,” said Alleyn politely. “Now, please. Did any of you revisit the studio before you went up to London?”

“I did,” said Ormerin.

“At what time?”

“Immediately after lunch. I wished to look again at my work. I was very troubled about my work. Everything was difficult. The model—” He stopped short.

“Yes?”

“Never for a second was she still. It was impossible. Impossible! I believe that she did it deliberately.”

“She’s dead now,” said Phillida Lee, on muted strings. “Poor little Sonia.”

“Spare us the
nil nisi
touch, for God’s sake,” begged Malmsley.

“Did you all notice the model’s restlessness?”

“You bet!” said Watt Hatchett. “She was saucy, that’s what she was. Seemed to have got hold of the idea she amounted to something. She gave me a pain in the neck, dinkum, always slinging off about Aussie.”

“ ‘Aussie,’ ” groaned Malmsley. “ ‘Ausie,’ ‘Tassie,’ ‘a goo-dee,’ ‘a badee.’ Pray spare me these bloody abbreviations.”

“Look, Mr. Malmsley, I’d sooner talk plain honest Australian than make a noise like I’d got a fish-bone stuck in me gullet. Aussie’ll do me. And one other thing, too. If you walked down Bondi beach with that half-chewed mouthful of hay sprouting out of your dial, they’d phone the Zoo something was missing.”

“Hatchett,” said Troy. “Pipe down.”

“Good oh, Miss Troy.”

“I gather,” said Alleyn mildly, “that you didn’t altogether like the model?”

“Who, me? Too right I didn’t. I’m sorry the poor kid’s coughed out. Gosh, I reckon it’s a fair cow, but just the same she gave me a pain in the neck. I asked her one day had she got fleas or something, the way she was twitching. And did she go crook!” Hatchett uttered a raucous yelp of laughter. Malmsley shuddered.

“Thank you, Mr. Hatchett,” said Alleyn firmly. “The next point I want to raise is this. Have there been any definite quarrels with the model? Any scenes, any rows between Miss Gluck and somebody else?”

He looked round the table. Everyone seemed disconcerted. There was a sudden feeling of tension. Alleyn waited. After a silence of perhaps a minute, Katti Bostock said slowly:

“I suppose you might say there were a good many scenes.”

“You had one with her yourself, Bostock,” said Malmsley.

“I did.”

“What was that about, Miss Bostock?”

“Same thing. Wriggling. I’m doing — I was doing a big thing. I wanted to finish it in time for the Group Show. It opened last Friday. She was to give me separate sittings — out of class, you know. She seemed to have the devil in her. Fidgeting, going out when I wanted her. Complaining. Drove me dotty. I didn’t get the thing finished, of course.”

“Was that the trapeze-artiste picture?” asked Alleyn.

Katti Bostock scowled.

“I dislike people looking at my things before they’re finished.”

“I’m sorry; it is beastly, I know,” said Alleyn. “But, you see, we’ve got to do our nosing round.”

“I suppose you have. Well”—she laughed shortly—“it’ll never be finished now.”

“It wouldn’t have been finished anyway, though, would it?” asked Phillida Lee. “I meant I heard you tell her you hated the sight of her, and she could go to the devil.”

“What d’you mean?” demanded Katti Bostock harshly. “You were not there when I was working.”

“I happened to come in on Thursday afternoon. I only got inside the door, and you were having such a
frightful
row I beetled off again.”

“You’d no business to hang about and eavesdrop,” said Miss Bostock. Her broad face was dull crimson; she leant forward, scowling.

“There’s no need to lose your temper with
me
,” squeaked Miss Lee. “I didn’t eavesdrop. I simply walked in. You couldn’t see me because of the screen inside the door, and anyway, you were in such a
seething
rage you wouldn’t have noticed the Angel Gabriel himself.”

“For Heaven’s sake let’s keep our sense of proportion,” said Troy. “The poor little wretch was infuriating, and we’ve all lost our tempers with her again and again.” She looked at Alleyn. “Really, you might say each of us has felt like murdering her at some time or another.”

“Yes, Miss Troy,” said Phillida Lee, still staring at Katti Bostock, “but we haven’t all said so, have we?”

“My God— ”

“Katti,” said Troy. “Please!”

“She’s practically suggesting that— ”

“No, no,” said Ormerin. “Let us, as Troy says, keep our sense of proportion. If exasperation could have stabbed this girl, any one of us might be a murderer. But whichever one of us
did
— ”

“I don’t see why it need be one of us,” objected Valmai Seacliff placidly.

“Nor I,” drawled Malmsley. “The cook may have taken a dislike to her and crawled down to the studio with murder in her heart.”

“Are we meant to laugh at that?” asked Hatchett.

“It is perfectly clearly to be seen,” Ormerin said loudly, “what is the view of the police. This gentleman, Mr. Alleyn, who is so quiet and so polite, who waits in silence for us to make fools of ourselves — he knows as each of us must know in his heart that the murderer of this girl was present in the studio on the morning we made the experiment with the dagger. That declares itself. There is no big motive that sticks out like a bundle in a haystack, so Mr. Alleyn sits and says nothing and hears much. And we — we talk.”

“Mr. Ormerin,” said Alleyn, “you draw up the blinds on my technique, and leave it blinking foolishly in the light of day. I see that I may be silent no longer.”

“Ah-ah-ah! It is as I have said.” Ormerin wagged his head sideways, shrugged up his shoulders and threw himself back in his chair. “But as for this murder — it is the
crime passionnel
, depend upon it. The girl was very highly sexed.”

“That doesn’t necessarily lead to homicide,” Alleyn pointed out, with a smile.

“She was jealous,” said Ormerin; “she was yellow with jealousy and chagrin. Every time Garcia looks at Seacliff she suffers as if she is ill. And when Pilgrim announces that he is affianced with Seacliff, again Sonia feels as if a knife is twisted inside her.”

“That’s absolute bosh,” said Basil Pilgrim violently. “You don’t know what you are talking about, Ormerin.”