Artists in Crime

Katti Bostock’s work is known to everyone who is at all interested in modern painting. At the time of which I am writing she was painting very solidly and smoothly, using a heavy outline and a simplified method of dealing with form. She painted large figure compositions, usually with artisans as subjects. Her ‘Foreman Fitter’ had been the picture of the year at the Royal Academy, and had set all the diehards by the ears. Katti herself was a short, stocky, darkhaired individual with an air of having no nonsense about her. She was devoted to Troy in a grumbling sort of way, lived at Tatler’s End House most of the year, but was not actually a member of the class.

Valmai Seacliff was thin, blonde, and very, very pretty. She was the type that certain modern novelists write about with an enthusiasm which they attempt to disguise as satirical detachment. Her parents were well-to-do and her work was clever. You have heard Katti describe Valmai as a nymphomaniac and will be able to draw your own conclusions about the justness of this criticism.

Phillida Lee was 18, plump, and naturally gushing. Two years of Slade austerity had not altogether damped her enthusiasms, but when she remembered to shudder, she shuddered.

Watt Hatchett, Troy’s Australian protégé, was a short and extremely swarthy youth, who looked like a dago in an American talking picture. He came from one of the less reputable streets of Sydney and was astoundingly simple, cocksure, egotistical and enthusiastic. He seemed to have no aesthetic perceptions of any description, so that his undoubted talent appeared to be a sort of parasite, flowering astonishingly on an unpromising and stunted stump.

Cedric Malmsley we have noticed already. Nothing further need be said about him at this stage of the narrative.

The Hon. Basil Pilgrim, son of the incredible Primitive Methodist peer, was a pleasant-looking young man of 23, whose work was sincere, able, but still rather tentative. His father, regarding all art schools as hot-beds of vice and depravity, had only consented to Basil becoming a pupil of Troy’s because her parents had been landed gentry of Lord Pilgrim’s acquaintance, and because Troy herself had once painted a picture of a revivalist meeting. Her somewhat ironical treatment of this subject had not struck Lord Pilgrim, who was, in many ways, a remarkably stupid old man.

Francis Ormerin was a slight and delicate-looking Frenchman who worked in charcoal and wash. His drawings of the nude were remarkable for their beauty of line, and for a certain emphatic use of accent. He was a nervous over-sensitive creature, subject to fits of profound depression, due said Troy, to his digestion.

And lastly Garcia, whose first name—Wolf—was remembered by nobody. Garcia, who preserved on his pale jaws a static ten days’ growth of dark stubble which never developed into a beard, whose clothes consisted of a pair of dirty grey trousers, a limp shirt, and an unspeakable raincoat. Garcia, with his shock of unkempt brown hair, his dark impertinent eyes, his beautiful hands, and his complete unscrupulousness. Two years ago he had presented himself one morning at the door of Troy’s studio in London. He had carried there a self-portrait in clay, wrapped about with wet and dirty clothes. He walked past her into the studio and unwrapped the clay head. Troy and Garcia stood looking at it in silence. Then she asked him his name and what he wanted. He told her—‘Garcia’—and he wanted to go on modelling, but had no money. Troy talked about the head, gave him twenty pounds, and never really got rid of him. He used to turn up, sometimes inconveniently, always with something to show her. In everything but clay he was quite inarticulate. It was as if he had been allowed only one medium of expression, but that an abnormally eloquent one. He was dirty, completely devoid of ordinary scruples, interested in nothing but his work. Troy helped him, and by and by people began to talk about his modelling. He began to work in stone. He was asked to exhibit with the New Phoenix Group, was given occasional commissions. He never had any money, and to most people he was entirely without charm, but to some women he was irresistible, and of this he took full advantage.

It was to Garcia that Troy went after she had set the pose. The others shifted their easels about, skirmishing for positions. Troy looked at Garcia’s sketch in clay of the ‘Comedy and Tragedy’ for the new cinema in Westminster. He had stood it on a high stool in the south window. It was modelled on a little wooden platform with four wheels, a substitute he had made for the usual turntable. The two figures rose from a cylindrical base. Comedy was nude, but Tragedy wore an angular robe. Above their heads they held the conventional masks. The general composition suggested flames. The form was greatly simplified. The face of Comedy, beneath the grinning mask, was grave, but upon the face of Tragedy Garcia had pressed a faint smile.

He stood scowling while Troy looked at his work.

‘Well,’ said Troy, ‘it’s all right.’

‘I thought of—’ He stopped short, and with his thumb suggested dragging the drape across the feet of Comedy.

‘I wouldn’t,’ said Troy. ‘Break the line up. But I’ve told you I know nothing about this stuff. I’m a painter. Why did you come and plant yourself here, may I ask?’

‘Thought you wouldn’t mind.’ His voice was muffled and faintly Cockney. ‘I’ll be clearing out in a fortnight. I wanted somewhere to work.’

‘So you said in your extraordinary note. Are you broke?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where are you going in a fortnight?’

‘London. I’ve got a room to work in.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Somewhere in the East End, I think. It’s an old warehouse. I know a bloke who got them to let me use it. He’s going to let me have the address. I’ll go for a week’s holiday somewhere before I begin work in London. I’ll cast this thing there and then start on the sculping.’

‘Who’s going to pay for the stone?’

‘They’ll advance me enough for that.’

‘I see. It’s coming along very well. Now attend to me, Garcia.’ Troy lowered her voice. ‘While you’re here you’ve got to behave yourself. You know what I mean?’

‘No.’

‘Yes, you do. No nonsense with women. You and Sonia seem to be sitting in each other’s pockets. Have you been living together?’ ‘When you’re hungry,’ said Garcia, ‘you eat.’

‘Well, this isn’t a restaurant and you’ll please remember that. You understand? I noticed you making some sort of advance to Seacliff yesterday. That won’t do, either. I won’t have any bogus Bohemianism, or free love, or mere promiscuity at Tatler’s End. It shocks the servants, and it’s messy. All right?’

‘OK,’ said Garcia with a grin.

‘The pose has altered,’ said Katti Bostock from the middle of the studio.

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Watt Hatchett. The others looked coldly at him. His Sydney accent was so broad as to be almost comic. One wondered if he could be doing it on purpose. It was not the custom at Troy’s for new people to speak until they were spoken to. Watt was quite unaware of this and Troy, who hated rows, felt uneasy about him. He was so innocently impossible. She went to Katti’s easel and looked from the bold drawing in black paint to the model. Then she went up to the throne and shoved Sonia’s right shoulder down.

‘Keep it on the floor.’

‘It’s a swine of a pose, Miss Troy.’

‘Well, stick it a bit longer.’

Troy began to go round the work, beginning with Ormerin on the extreme left.

‘Bit tied up, isn’t it?’ she said after a minute’s silence.

‘She is never for one moment still,’ complained Ormerin. ‘The foot moves, the shoulders are in a fidget continually. It is impossible for me to work—impossible.’

‘Start again. The pose is right now. Get it down directly. You can do it.’

‘My work has been abominable since three months or more. All this surrealism at Malaquin’s. I cannot feel like that and yet I cannot prevent myself from attempting it when I am there. That is why I return to you. I am in a muddle.’

‘Try a little ordinary study for a bit. Don’t worry about style. It’ll come. Take a new stretcher and make a simple statement.’ She moved to Valmai Seacliff and looked at the flowing lines so easily laid down. Seacliff moved back, contriving to touch Ormerin’s shoulder. He stopped working at once and whispered in her ear.

‘I can understand French, Ormerin,’ said Troy casually, still contemplating Seacliff’s canvas. ‘This is going quite well, Seacliff. I suppose the elongation of the legs is deliberate?’

‘Yes, I see her like that. Long and slinky. They say people always paint like themselves, don’t they?’

‘Do they?’ said Troy. ‘I shouldn’t let it become a habit.’

She moved on to Katti, who creaked back from her canvas. One of her shoes did squeak. Troy discussed the placing of the figure and then went on to Watt Hatchett. Hatchett had already begun to use solid paint, and was piling pure colour on his canvas.

‘You don’t usually start off like this, do you?’

‘Naow, that’s right, I don’t, but I thought I’d give it a pop.’

‘Was that, by any chance, because you could see Miss Bostock working in that manner?’ asked Troy, not too unkindly. Hatchett grinned and shuffled his feet. ‘You stick to your own ways for a bit,’ advised Troy. ‘You’re a beginner still, you know. Don’t try to acquire a manner till you’ve got a little more method. Is that foot too big or too small?’

‘Too small.’

‘Should that space there be wider or longer?’

‘Longer.’

‘Make it so.’

‘Good oh, Miss Troy. Think that bit of colour there’s all right?’ asked Hatchett, regarding it complacently.

‘It’s perfectly good colour, but don’t choke the pores of your canvas up with paint till you’ve got the big things settled. Correct your drawing and scrape it down.’

‘Yeah, but she wriggles all the time. It’s a fair nark. Look where the shoulder has shifted. See?’

‘Has the pose altered?’ inquired Troy at large.

‘Naow!’ said Sonia with vindictive mimicry.

‘It’s shifted a whole lot,’ asserted Hatchett aggressively. ‘I bet you anything you like—’

‘Wait a moment,’ said Troy.

‘It’s moved a little,’ said Katti Bostock.

Troy sighed.

‘Rest!’ she said. ‘No! Wait a minute.’

She took a stick of chalk from her overall pocket and ran it round the model wherever she touched the throne. The position of both legs, one flank, one hip, and one shoulder were thus traced on the boards. The blue drape was beneath the rest of the figure.

‘Now you can get up.’

Sonia sat up with an ostentatious show of discomfort, reached out her hand for the kimono and shrugged herself into it. Troy pulled the drape out taut from the cushion to the floor.

‘It’ll have to go down each time with the figure,’ she told the class.

‘As it does in the little romance,’ drawled Malmsley.

‘Yes, it’s quite feasible,’ agreed Valmai Seacliff. ‘We could try it. There’s that Chinese knife in the lumber-room. May we get it, Miss Troy?’

‘If you like,’ said Troy.

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ said Malmsley languidly getting to his feet.

‘Where is it, Miss Seacliff?’ asked Hatchett eagerly.

‘On the top shelf in the lumber-room.’

Hatchett went into an enormous cupboard by the window, and after a minute or two returned with a long, thin-bladed knife. He went up to Malmsley’s table and looked over his shoulder at the typescript. Malmsley moved away ostentatiously.

‘Aw yeah, I get it,’ said Hatchett. ‘What a corker! Swell way of murdering somebody, wouldn’t it be?’ He licked his thumb and turned the page.

‘I’ve taken a certain amount of trouble to keep those papers clean,’ remarked Malmsley to no one in particular.

‘Don’t be so damned precious, Malmsley,’ snapped Troy. ‘Here, give me the knife, Hatchett, and don’t touch other people’s tools in the studio. It’s not done.’

‘Good oh, Miss Troy.’

Pilgrim, Ormerin, Hatchett and Valmai Seacliff began a discussion about the possibility of using the knife in the manner suggested by Malmsley’s illustration. Phillida Lee joined in.

‘Where would the knife enter the body?’ asked Seacliff.

‘Just here,’ said Pilgrim, putting his hand on her back and keeping it there. ‘Behind your heart. Valmai.’

She turned her head and looked at him through half-closed eyes. Hatchett stared at her. Malmsley smiled curiously. Pilgrim had turned rather white.

‘Can you feel it beating?’ asked Seacliff softly.

‘If I move my hand—here.’

‘Oh, come off it,’ said the model violently. She walked over to Garcia. ‘I don’t believe you could kill anybody like that. Do you, Garcia?’

Garcia grunted unintelligibly. He, too, was staring at Valmai Seacliff.

‘How would he know where to put the dagger?’ demanded Katti Bostock suddenly. She drew a streak of background colour across her canvas.

‘Can’t we try it out?’ asked Hatchett.

‘If you like,’ said Troy. ‘Mark the throne before you move it.’

Basil Pilgrim chalked the position of the throne on the floor, and then he and Ormerin tipped it up. The rest of the class looked on with gathering interest. By following the chalked-out line on the throne they could see the spot where the heart would come, and after a little experiment found the plot of this spot on the underneath surface of the throne.

‘Now, you see,’ said Ormerin, ‘the jealous wife would drive the knife through from underneath.’

‘Incidentally taking the edge off,’ said Basil Pilgrim.

‘You could force it through the crack between the boards,’ said Garcia suddenly, from the window.

‘How? It’d fall out when she was shoved down.’

‘No, it wouldn’t. Look here.’

‘Don’t break the knife and don’t damage the throne,’ said Troy.

‘I get you,’ said Hatchett eagerly. ‘The dagger’s wider at the base. The boards would press on it. You’d have to hammer it through. Look, I’ll bet you it could be done. There you are, I’ll betcher.’

‘Not interested, I’m afraid,’ said Malmsley.

‘Let’s try,’ said Pilgrim. ‘May we, Troy?’

‘Oh, do let’s,’ cried Phillida Lee. She caught up her enthusiasm with an apologetic glance at Malmsley. ‘I adore bloodshed,’ she added with a painstaking nonchalance.

‘The underneath of the throne’s absolutely filthy,’ complained Malmsley.

‘Pity if you spoiled your nice green pinny,’ jeered Sonia.

Valmai Seacliff laughed.

‘I don’t propose to do so,’ said Malmsley. ‘Garcia can if he likes.’

‘Go on,’ said Hatchett. ‘Give it a pop. I betcher five bob it’ll work. Fair dinkum.’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Seacliff. ‘You must teach me the language, Hatchett.’

‘Too right I will,’ said Hatchett with enthusiasm. ‘I’ll make a dinkum Aussie out of you.’

‘God forbid,’ said Malmsley. Sonia giggled.

‘Don’t you like Australians?’ Hatchett asked her aggressively.

‘Not particularly.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you one thing. Models at the school I went to in Sydney knew how to hold a pose for longer than ten minutes.’

‘You don’t seem to have taken advantage of it, judging by your drawing.’

‘And they didn’t get saucy with the students.’

‘Perhaps they weren’t all like you.’

‘Sonia,’ said Troy, ‘that will do. If you boys are going to make your experiment, you’d better hurry up. We start again in five minutes.’

In the boards of the throne they found a crack that passed through the right spot. Hatchett slid the thin tip of the knife into it from underneath and shoved. By tapping the hilt of the dagger with an easel ledge, he forced the widening blade upwards through the crack. Then he let the throne back on to the floor. The blade projected wickedly through the blue chalk cross that marked the plot of Sonia’s heart on the throne. Basil Pilgrim took the drape, laid it across the cushion, pulled it in taut folds down to the throne, and pinned it there.

‘You see, the point of the knife is lower than the top of the cushion,’ he said. It doesn’t show under the drape.’

‘What did I tell you?’ said Hatchett.

Garcia strolled over and joined the group.

‘Go into your pose, Sonia,’ he said with a grin.

Sonia shuddered.

‘Don’t,’ she said.

‘I wonder if the tip should show under the left breast,’ murmuring Malmsley. ‘Rather amusing to have it in the drawing. With a cast shadow and a thin trickle of blood. Keep the whole thing black and white except for the little scarlet thread. After all, it is melodrama.’

‘Evidently,’ grunted Garcia.

‘The point of suspension for the drape would have to be higher,’ said Troy. ‘It must be higher than the tip of the blade. You could do it. If your story was a modern detective novel, Malmsley, you could do a drawing of the knife as it is now.’

Malmsley smiled and began to sketch on the edge of his paper. Valmai Seacliff leant over him, her hands on his shoulders. Hatchett, Ormerin and Pilgrim stood round her, Pilgrim with his arm across her shoulder. Phillida Lee hovered on the outskirts of the little group. Troy, looking vaguely round the studio, said to herself that her worst forebodings were likely to be realized. Watt Hatchett was already at loggerheads with Malmsley and the model. Valmai was at her Cleopatra game, and there was Sonia in a corner with Garcia. Something in their faces caught Troy’s attention. What the devil were they up to? Garcia’s eyes were on the group round Malmsley. A curious smile lifted one corner of his mouth, and on Sonia’s face, turned to him, the smile was reflected.

‘You’ll have to get that thing out now, Hatchett,’ said Troy.

It took a lot of working and tugging to do this, but at last the knife was pulled out, the throne put back, and Sonia, with many complaints, took the pose again.

‘Over more on the right shoulder,’ said Katti Bostock.

Troy thrust the shoulder down. The drape fell into folds round the figure.

‘Ow!’ said Sonia.

‘That is when the dagger goes in,’ said Malmsley.

‘Don’t—you’ll make me sick,’ said Sonia.

Garcia gave a little chuckle.

‘Right through the ribs and coming out under the left breast,’ murmured Malmsley.

‘Shut up!’

‘Spitted like a little chicken.’

Sonia raised her head.

‘I wouldn’t be too damn funny, Mr Malmsley,’ she said. ‘Where do you get your ideas from, I wonder? Books? Or pictures?’

Malmsley’s brush slipped from his fingers to the paper, leaving a trace of paint. He looked fixedly at Sonia, and then began to dab his drawing with a sponge. Sonia laughed.

‘For God’s sake,’ said Katti Bostock, ‘let’s get the pose.’

‘Quiet,’ said Troy, and was obeyed. She set the pose, referring to the canvases. ‘Now get down to it, all of you. The Phoenix Group Show opens on the 16th. I suppose most of us want to go up to London for it. Very well, I’ll give the servants a holiday that weekend, and we’ll start work again on the Monday.’

‘If this thing goes decently,’ said Katti, ‘I want to put it in for the Group. If it’s not done, it’ll do for B. House next year.’

‘I take it,’ said Troy, ‘you’ll all want to go up for the Group’s private view?’

‘I don’t,’ said Garcia. ‘I’ll be pushing off for my holiday about then.’

‘What about us?’ asked Valmai Seacliff of Basil Pilgrim.

‘What do you think, darling?’

‘“Us”?’ said Troy. ‘“Darling”? What’s all this?’

‘We may as well tell them, Basil,’ said Valmai sweetly. ‘Don’t faint, anybody. We got engaged last night.’

CHAPTER 4 Case for Mr Alleyn

Lady Alleyn knelt back on her gardening-mat and looked up at her son.

‘I think we have done enough weeding for today, darling. You bustle off with that barrow-load and then we’ll go indoors and have a glass of sherry and a chat. We’ve earned it.’

Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn obediently trundled off down the path, tipped his barrow-load on the smudge fire, mopped his brow and went indoors for a bath. Half an hour later he joined his mother in the drawing-room.

‘Come up to the fire, darling. There’s the sherry. It’s a bottle of the very precious for our last evening.’

‘Ma’am,’ said Alleyn, ‘you are the perfect woman.’

‘No, only the perfect mamma. I flatter myself I am a very good parent. You look charming in a dinner jacket, Roderick. I wish your brother had some of your finish. George always looks a little too hearty.’

‘I like George,’ said Alleyn.

‘I quite like him, too,’ agreed his mother.

‘This is really a superlative wine. I wish it wasn’t our last night, though. Three days with the Bathgates, and then my desk, my telephone, the smell of the yard, and old Fox beaming from ear to ear, bless him. Ah well, I expect I shall quite enjoy it once I’m there.’

‘Roderick,’ said Lady Alleyn, ‘why wouldn’t you come to Tatler’s End House with me?’

‘For the very good reason, little mum, that I should not have been welcomed.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Miss Troy doesn’t like me.’

‘Nonsense! She’s a very intelligent young woman.’

‘Darling!’

‘The day I called I suggested she should dine with us while you were here. She accepted.’

‘And put us off when the time came.’

‘My dear man, she had a perfectly good excuse.’

‘Naturally,’ said Alleyn. ‘She is, as you say, a very intelligent young woman.’

Lady Alleyn looked at the portrait head that hung over the mantelpiece.

‘She can’t dislike you very much, my dear. That picture gives the lie to your theory.’

‘Aesthetic appreciation of a paintable object has nothing to do with personal preferences.’

‘Bosh! Don’t talk pretentious nonsense about things you don’t understand.’

Alleyn grinned.

‘I think you are being self-conscious and silly,’ continued Lady Alleyn grandly.

‘It’s the lady that you should be cross about, not me.’

‘I’m not cross, Roderick. Give yourself another glass of sherry. No, not for me.’

‘Anyway,’ said Alleyn, ‘I’m glad you like the portrait.’

‘Did you see much of her in Quebec?’

‘Very little, darling. We bowed to each other at mealtimes and had a series of stilted conversations in the lounge. On the last evening she was there I took her to the play.’

‘Was that a success?’

‘No. We were very polite to each other.’

‘Ha!’ said Lady Alleyn.

‘Mamma,’ said Alleyn, ‘you know I am a detective.’ He paused, smiling at her. ‘You look divine when you blush,’ he added.

‘Well, Roderick, I shan’t deny that I would like to see you married.’

‘She wouldn’t dream of having me, you know. Put the idea out of your head, little mum. I very much doubt if I shall ever have another stilted conversation with Miss Agatha Troy.’

The head parlourmaid came in.

‘A telephone call from London for Mr Roderick, m’lady.’

‘From London?’ asked Alleyn. ‘Oh Lord, Clibborn, why didn’t you say I was dead?’

Clibborn smiled the tolerant smile of a well-trained servant, and opened the door.

‘Excuse me, please, Mamma,’ said Alleyn, and went to the telephone.

As he unhooked the receiver, Alleyn experienced the little prick of foreboding that so often accompanies an unexpected long-distance call. It was the smallest anticipatory thrill and was succeeded at once by the unhappy reflection that probably Scotland Yard was already on his track. He was not at all surprised when a familiar voice said:

‘Mr Alleyn?’

‘That’s me. Is it you, Watkins?’

‘Yes, sir. Very pleasant to hear your voice again. The Assistant

Commissioner would like to speak to you, Mr Alleyn.’

‘Right!’

‘Hullo, Mr Alleyn?’ said a new voice.

‘Hullo, sir.’

‘You can go, Watkins.’ A pause, and then: ‘How are you, Rory?’

‘Very fit, thanks, sir.’

‘Ready for work?’