Artists in Crime (16 page)

“Do you mean — if he was tried for murder, that I—
I
might be implicated? That is monstrous. I refuse to listen to such a suggestion. You must have a very pure mind, Inspector. Only the very pure are capable of such gross conceptions.”

“And only the very foolish attitudinise in the sort of circumstances that have risen round you and what you did on Friday afternoon. Come, Mr. Malmsley, forget your pose for a moment. To my aged perceptions it seems a little as if you were mixing Dorian Grey with one of the second-rate intellectuals of the moment. The result is something that — you must forgive me — does not inspire a policeman with confidence. I tell you quite seriously that you are in a predicament.”

“You suspect Garcia?”

“We suspect everyone and no one at the moment. We note what you have told us and we believe that Garcia was alone in the studio in a semi-drugged condition on Friday evening when we suppose the knife was thrust through the throne. We learn that you drugged him.”

“At his own suggestion,” cried Malmsley.

“Really? Will he agree to that? Or will he say that you persuaded him to smoke opium?”

“He was perfectly ready to do it. He wanted to try. And he only had one pipe. A small amount. He would sleep it off in a few hours. I tell you he was already half asleep when I left.”

“When do you think he would wake?”

“I don’t know. How should I know? The effect varies very much the first time. It is impossible to say. He would be well enough in five hours at all events.”

“Do you think,” said Alleyn very deliberately, “that Garcia set this terrible trap for Sonia Gluck?”

Malmsley was white to the lips.

“I don’t know. I know nothing about it. I thought he must have done it. You have forced me into an intolerable position. If I say I believe he did it — but not because of the opium — I refuse to accept— ”

His voice was shrill, and his lips trembled. He seemed to be near to tears.

“Very well. We shall try to establish your own movements after you left the house. You caught the six o’clock bus?”

Malmsley eagerly gave an account of his week-end. He had attended the private view, had gone on to the Savoy, and to a friend’s flat. They had sat up till three o’clock. He had spent the whole of Saturday with this friend, and with him had gone to a theatre in the evening, and again they had not gone to bed until very late. Alleyn took him through the whole business up to his return on Sunday. Malmsley seemed to be very much shaken.

“Excellent, so far,” said Alleyn. “We shall, of course, verify your statements. I have looked at your illustrations, Mr. Malmsley. They are charming.”

“You shake my pleasure in them,” said Malmsley, rallying a little.

“I particularly liked the picture of the three little men with scythes.”

Malmsley looked sharply at Alleyn but said nothing.

“Have you ever visited Chantilly?” asked Alleyn.

“Never.”

“Then you have not seen
Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
?”

“Never.”

“You have seen reproductions of the illustrations, perhaps?”

“I–I may have.”

Nigel, staring at Malmsley, wondered how he could ever have thought him a pale young man.

“Do you remember a book called
The Consolations of a Critic
?”

“I — don’t remember — I— ”

“Do you own a copy of this book?”

“No — I–I— ”

Alleyn picked up the little blue volume from under his chair and laid it on Malmsley’s knee.

“Isn’t this book your property, Mr. Malmsley?”

“I–I refuse to answer. This is intolerable.”

“It has your name on the fly-leaf.”

Nigel suddenly felt desperately sorry for Malmsley. He felt as if he himself had done something shameful. He wished ardently that Alleyn would let Malmsley go. Malmsley had embarked on a sort of explanation. Elaborate phrases faltered into lame protestations. The subconscious memory of beautiful things — all art was imitative — to refuse a model was to confess yourself without imagination. On and on he went, and ended in misery.

“All this,” said Alleyn, not too unkindly, “is quite unnecessary. I am not here to inquire into the ethics of illustrative painting. The rightness or wrongness of what you have done is between yourself, your publisher, and your conscience, if such a thing exists. All I want to know is how this book came into the possession of Sonia Gluck.”

“I don’t know. She was odiously inquisitive — I must have left it somewhere — I had it in the studio one afternoon when I — when I was alone. Someone came in and I–I put it aside. I am not in the least ashamed. I consider I had a perfect right. There are many dissimilarities.”

“That is what she was driving at when she asked you, on the morning of the experiment, where you got your ideas?”

“Yes. I suppose so. Yes.”

“Did you ask her for the book?”

“Yes.”

“And she refused to give it up?”

“It was abominable. It was not that I objected to anybody knowing.”

“Did you go to her room?”

“I had every right when she refused. It was my property.”

“I see. You tried to recover it while she was away. On Friday, perhaps, before you left?”

“If you must know, yes.”

“And you couldn’t find your book?”

“No.”

“Where was this book, Bailey?”

“In a locked suit-case, sir, under deceased’s bed. Someone had tried to pick the lock.”

“Was that you, Mr. Malmsley?”

“I was entirely justified.”

“Was it you?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you not tell Miss Troy what had happened?”

“I — Troy might not look at it — Troy is rather British in such matters. She would confess with wonderful enthusiasm that her own work is rooted in the aesthetics of the primitives, but for someone who was courageous enough to use boldly such material from the past as seemed good to him, she would have nothing but abuse. Women — English women especially — are the most marvellous hypocrites.”

“That will do,” said Alleyn. “What was Sonia’s motive in taking this book?”

“She simply wanted to be disagreeable and infuriating.”

“Did you offer her anything if she returned it?”

“She was preposterous,” muttered Malmsley, “preposterous.”

“How much did she ask?”

“I do not admit that she asked anything.”

“All right,” said Alleyn. “It’s your mess. Stay in it if you want to.”

“What am I to understand by that?”

“Think it out. I believe I need not keep you any longer, Mr. Malmsley. I am afraid I cannot return your book just yet. I shall need a specimen of your fingerprints. We can take them from the cigarette-box you picked up when you came in, or from objects in your room which I am afraid I shall have to examine. It would help matters if you allowed Sergeant Bailey to take an official specimen now.”

Malmsley consented to this with a very ill grace, and made a great fuss over the printer’s ink left on his thick white finger-tips.

“I fail to see,” he said, “why I should have been forced to go through this disgusting performance.”

“Bailey will give you something to clean up the ink,” said Alleyn. “Good evening, Mr. Malmsley.”

“One more job for you, Bailey, I’m afraid,” said Alleyn, when Malmsley had gone. “We’ll have to look through these rooms before we let them go to bed. Are they still boxed up in the dining-room, Fox?”

“They are that,” said Fox, “and if that young Australian talks much more, I fancy we’ll have a second corpse on our hands.”

“I’ll start off on Mr. Malmsley’s room, will I, sir?” asked Bailey.

“Yes. Then tackle the other men’s. We’ll be there in a jiffy. I don’t expect to find much, but you never know in our game.”

“Very good, Mr. Alleyn,” said Bailey. He went off with a resigned look.

“What do you make of this dope story, Mr. Alleyn?” said Fox. “We’ll have to have a go at tracing the source, won’t we?”

“Oh Lord, yes. I suppose so. Malmsley will say he got it from the friend who gave him the pretty little pipe and etceteras, and I don’t suppose even Malmsley will give his dope-merchant away. Not that I think he’s far gone. I imagine he spoke the truth when he said he’d only experimented — he doesn’t look like an advanced addict. I took a pot-shot on his eyes, his breath, and the colour of his beastly face. And I remembered Sadie noticed a smell. Luckily the shot went home.”

“Smoking,” ruminated Nigel. “That’s rather out of the usual in this country, isn’t it?”

“Fortunately, yes,” agreed Alleyn. “As a matter of fact it’s less deadly than the other methods. Much less pernicious than injecting, of course.”

“Do you think Garcia may have done his stuff with the knife while he was still dopey?” asked Nigel.

“It would explain his careless ways,” said Fox, “dropping clay about the place.”

“That’s true, Brer Fox. I don’t know,” said Alleyn, “if, when he woke at, say, seven-thirty, when Sadie banged on the screen, he’d feel like doing the job. We’ll have to have expert opinion on the carry-over from opium. I’m inclined to think he might wake feeling darned unpleasant and take a pull at his whisky bottle. Had it been handled recently, Bailey?”

“Yes, sir, I’d say it had. It’s very dusty in patches, but there’s some prints that were left after the dust had settled. Only a very light film over the prints. Not more than a couple of days’ deposit.”

“That’s fairly conclusive,” said Alleyn. “Taken with Sadie’s statement it looks as if Garcia’s Friday evening dinner was a jorum of whisky.”

“What beats me,” said Fox, “is when he got his stuff away.”

“Some time on Friday night.”

“Yes, but
how
? Not by a local carrier. They’ve all been asked.”

“He must have got hold of a vehicle of some sort and driven himself,” said Nigel.

“Half doped and three-quarters tight, Mr. Bathgate?”

“He may not have been as tight as all that,” said Alleyn. “On the other hand— ”

“Well?” asked Nigel impatiently.

“On the other hand he may have,” said Alleyn. “Come on, we’ll see how Bailey’s got on, and then we’ll go home.”

When Fox had gone upstairs and Nigel had been left to write a very guarded story for his paper on one of Troy’s scribbling-pads, Alleyn went down the hall and into the dining-room. He found Troy and her class in a state of extreme dejection. Phillida Lee, Ormerin and Watt Hatchett were seated at the table and had the look of people who have argued themselves to a standstill. Katti Bostock, hunched on the fender, stared into the fire. Malmsley was stretched out in the only arm-chair. Valmai Seacliff and Basil Pilgrim sat on the floor in a dark corner with their arms round each other. Curled up on a cushion against the wall was Troy — fast asleep. The local constable sat on an upright chair inside the door.

Katti looked up at Alleyn and then across to Troy.

“She’s completely done up,” said Katti gruffly. “Can’t you let her go to bed?”

“Very soon now,” said Alleyn.

He walked swiftly across the room and paused, his head bent down, his eyes on Troy.

Her face looked thin. There were small shadows in the hollows of her temples and under her eyes. She frowned, her hands moved, and suddenly she was awake.

“I’m so sorry,” said Alleyn.

“Oh, it’s you,” said Troy. “Do you want me?”

“Please. Only for a moment, and then I shan’t bother you again to-night.”

Troy sat up, her hands at her hair, pushing it off her face. She rose but lost her balance. Alleyn put his arm out quickly. For a moment he supported her.

“My legs have gone to sleep,” said Troy. “Damn!”

Her hand was on his shoulder. He held her firmly by the arms and wondered if it was Troy or he who trembled.

“I’m all right now,” she said, after an hour or a second. “Thank you.” He let her go and spoke to the others.

“I am very sorry to keep you all up for so long. We have had a good deal to do. Before you go to your rooms we should like to have a glance at them. I hope nobody objects to this.”

“Anything, if we can only go to bed,” said Katti, and nobody contradicted her.

“Very well, then. If you—” he turned to Troy, — “wouldn’t mind coming with me— ”

“Yes, of course.”

When they were in the hall she said: “Do you want to search our rooms for something? Is that it?”

“Not for anything specific. I feel we should just—” He stopped short. “I detest my job,” he said; “for the first time I despise and detest it.”

“Come on,” said Troy.

They went up to a half-landing where the stairs separated into two short flights going up to their left and right.

“Before I forget,” said Alleyn, “do you know what has happened to the bottle of nitric acid that was on the top shelf in the junk-room?”

Troy stared at him.

“The acid? It’s there. It was filled up on Friday.”

“Bailey must have missed it. Don’t worry — we saw the stains and felt we ought to account for them. What about these rooms?”

“All the students’ rooms are up there,” said Troy, and pointed to the upper landing on the right. “The bathrooms, and mine, are on the other side. Through here”—she pointed to a door on the half-landing—“are the servants’ quarters, the back stairs and a little stair up to the attic-room where — where Sonia slept.”

Alleyn saw that there were lights under two of the doors on the students’ landing.

“Fox and Bailey are up there,” he said. “If you don’t mind— ”

“You’d better do my room,” said Troy. “Here it is.”

They went into the second room on the left-hand landing. It was a large room, very spacious and well-proportioned. The walls, the carpet, and the narrow bed, were white. He saw only one picture and very few ornaments, but on the mantlepiece sparkled a little glass Christmas tree with fabulous glass flowers growing on it. Troy struck a match and lit the fire.

“I’ll leave you to your job,” she said.

Alleyn did not answer.

“Is there anything else?” asked Troy.

“Only that I should like to say that if it was possible for me to make an exception— ”

“Why should you make any exceptions?” interrupted Troy. “There is no conceivable reason for such a suggestion.”

“If you will simply think of me as a ship’s steward or — or some other sexless official— ”

“How else should I think of you, Mr. Alleyn? I can assure you there is no need for these scruples — if they are scruples.”

“They were attempts at an apology. I shall make a third and ask you to forgive me for my impertinence. I shan’t keep you long.”

Troy turned at the door.

“I didn’t mean to be beastly,” she said.

“Nor were you. I see now that I made an insufferable assumption.”

“—But you can hardly expect me to be genial when you are about to hunt through my under-garments for incriminating letters. The very fact that you suspect— ”

Alleyn strode to the door and looked down at her.

“You little fool,” he said, “haven’t you the common-or-garden gumption to see that I no more suspect you than the girl in the moon?”

Troy stared at him as if he had taken leave of his senses. She opened her mouth to speak, said nothing, turned on her heel and left the room.

“Blast!” said Alleyn. “Oh, blast and hell and bloody stink!”

He stood and looked at the door which Troy had only just not slammed. Then he turned to his job. There was a bow-fronted chest of drawers full of the sorts of garments that Alleyn often before had had to turn over. His thin fastidious hands touched them delicately, laid them in neat heaps on the bed and returned them carefully to their appointed places. There was a little drawer, rather untidy, where Troy kept her oddments. One or two letters. One that began “Troy darling” and was signed “Your foolishly devoted, John.”

“John,” thought Alleyn, “John Bellasca?” He glanced through the letters quickly, was about to return them to the drawer, but on second thoughts laid them in a row on the top of the chest. “An odious trade,” he muttered to himself. “A filthy degrading job.” Then there were the dresses in the wardrobe, the slim jackets, Troy’s smart evening dresses, and her shabby old slacks. All the pockets. Such odd things she kept in her pockets — bits of charcoal, india-rubbers, a handkerchief that had been disgracefully used as a paint-rag, and a sketch-book crammed into a pocket that was too small for it. There was a Harris tweed coat — blue. Suddenly he was back on the wharf at Quebec. The lights of Troy’s ship were reflected in the black mirror of the river. Silver-tongued bells rang out from all the grey churches. The tug, with its five globes of yellow light, moved outwards into the night tide of the St. Lawrence, and there on the deck was Troy, her hand raised in farewell, wearing blue Harris tweed. “Good-bye. Thank you for my nice party. Good-bye.” He slipped his hand into a pocket of the blue coat and pulled out Katti Bostock’s letter. He would have to read this.

The envelope was addressed to Troy at the Chateau Frontenac.

“Evidently,” thought Alleyn, “I had begun to make a nuisance of myself on board. Interrupting her work. Oh Lord!”

In a minute or two he had finished. It would have been absolutely all right if he had never asked about her room. No need for that little scene. He hung up the last garment, glanced round the room and looked for the fourth or fifth time at the photograph of a man that stood on the top of the bow-fronted chest. A good-looking man who had signed himself “John.” Alleyn, yielding to an unworthy impulse, made a hideous grimace at this photograph, turned to leave the room and saw Troy, amazed, in the doorway. He felt his face burning like a sky sign.

“Have you finished, Mr. Alleyn?”

“Quite finished, thank you.”

He knew she had seen him. There was a singular expression in her eyes.

“I have just made a face at the photograph on your tallboy,” said Alleyn.

“So I observed.”

“I have gone through your clothes, fished in your pockets and read all your letters. You may go to bed. The house will be watched, of course. Good night, Miss Troy.”

“Good morning, Mr. Alleyn.”

Alleyn went to Katti Bostock’s room where he found nothing of note. It was a great deal untidier than Troy’s room, and took longer. He found several pairs of paint-stained slacks huddled together on the floor of the wardrobe, an evening dress in close proximity to a painting-smock, and a row of stubborn-looking shoes with no trees in them. There were odds and ends in all the pockets. He plodded through a mass of receipts, colour-men’s catalogues, drawings and books. The only personal letter he found was the one Troy had written and posted at Vancouver. This had to be read. Troy’s catalogue of the students was interesting. Then he came to the passages about himself. “… turned out to be intelligent, so I felt the fool… Looks like a grandee… on the defensive about this sleuth… Took it like a gent and made me feel like a bounder.” As he read, Alleyn’s left eyebrow climbed up his forehead. He folded the letter very carefully, smoothed it out and returned it to its place among a box of half-used oil-colours. He began to whistle under his breath, polished off Katti Bostock’s effects, and went in search of Fox and Bailey. They had finished the men’s bedrooms.

Fox had found Malmsley’s opium-smoking impedimenta and had impounded it. The amount of opium was small. There were signs that the jar had at one time been full.

“Which does not altogether agree with Mr. Malmsley’s little story,” grunted Alleyn. “Has Bailey tried the thing for prints?”

“Yes. Two sets, Garcia’s and Malmsley’s on the pipe, the lamp and the jar.”

“The jar. That’s interesting. Well, let’s get on with it.”

He sent Bailey into Phillida Lee’s room, while he and Fox tackled Valmai Seacliff’s. Miss Seacliff’s walls were chiefly adorned with pictures of herself. Malmsley and Ormerin had each painted her, and Pilgrim had drawn her once and painted her twice.

“The successful nymphomaniac,” thought Alleyn, remembering Katti’s letter.

A very clever pencil drawing of Pilgrim, signed “Seacliff,” stood on the bedside table. The room was extremely tidy and much more obviously feminine than Troy’s or Katti’s. Seacliff had at least three times as many clothes, and quantities of hats and berets. Alleyn noticed that her slacks were made in Savile Row, and her dresses in Paris. He was amused to find that even the Seacliff painting-bags and smock smelt of Worth. Her week-end case had not been completely unpacked. In it he found three evening dresses, a nightdress and bath-gown, shoes, three pairs of coloured gloves, two day dresses, two berets, and an evening bag containing among other things a half-full bottle of aspirin.

“Maybe Pilgrim’s,” said Alleyn, and put them in his case. “Now for the correspondence.”

They found more than enough of that. Two of her dressing-table drawers were filled with neatly tied-up packets of letters.

“Help!” said Alleyn. “We’ll have to glance at these, Fox. There might be something. Here, you take this lot. Very special. Red ribbon. Must be Pilgrim’s, I imagine. Yes, they are.”

Fox put on his spectacles and began impassively to read Basil Pilgrim’s love-letters.

“Very gentlemanly,” he said, after the first three.

“You’re out of luck. I’ve struck a most impassioned series from a young man, who compares her bitterly and obscurely to a mirage. Golly, here’s a sonnet.”

For some time there was no sound but the faint crackle of note-paper. Bailey came in and said he had drawn a blank in Phillida Lee’s room. Alleyn threw a bundle of letters at him.

“There’s something here you might like to see,” said Fox. “The last one from the Honourable Mr. Pilgrim.”

“What’s he say?”

Fox cleared his throat.

“ ‘Darling,’ ” he began, ‘I’ve got the usual sort of feelings about not being anything like good enough for you. Your last letter telling me you first liked me because I seemed a bit different from other men has made me feel rather bogus. I suppose, without being an insufferable prig, I might agree that I can at any rate bear comparison with the gang we’ve got to know — the studio lot — like Garcia and Malmsley and Co. But that’s not a hell of a compliment to myself, is it? As a matter of fact, I simply loathe seeing you in that setting. Men like Garcia have no right to be in the same room as yourself, my lovely, terrifyingly remote Valmai. I know people scream with mirth at the sound of the word “pure.” It’s gone all
déclassé
like “genteel.” But there is a strange sort of purity about you, Valmai, truly. If I’ve understood you, you’ve seen something of — God, this sounds frightful — something of the same sort of quality in me. Oh, darling, don’t see
too
much of that in me. Just because I don’t get tight and talk bawdy, I’m not a blooming Galahad, you know. This letter’s going all the wrong way. Bless you a thousand, thousand—’ I think that’s the lot, sir,” concluded Fox.

“Yes. I see. Any letters in Pilgrim’s room?”

“None. He may have taken them to Ankerton Manor, chief.”

“So he may. I’d like to see the one where Miss Seacliff praised his purity. By the Lord, Fox, she has without a doubt got a wonderful technique. She’s got that not undesirable parti, who’ll be a perfectly good peer before very long, if it’s true that old Pilgrim is failing; she’s got him all besotted and wondering if he’s good enough.” Alleyn paused and rubbed his nose. “Men turn peculiar when they fall in love, Brer Fox. Sometimes they turn damned peculiar, and that’s a fact.”

“These letters,” said Fox, tapping them with a stubby forefinger, “were all written before they came down here. They’ve evidently been engaged in a manner of speaking for about a month.”

“Very possibly.”

“Well,” said Fox, “there’s nothing in these letters of Mr. Pilgrim’s to contradict any ideas we may have about Garcia, is there?”