Black As He’s Painted

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‘Not a word. It wouldn’t have done. My job was too tricky. Do you know, I got the impression that at least part of his exuberant welcome was inspired by a – well, by a wish to compensate for the ongoings of the new regime.’

‘It might be so,’ Mr Whipplestone conceded. ‘Who can say?’

Alleyn took a folded paper from his breast pocket.

‘The Special Branch has given me a list of commercial and professional firms and individuals to be kicked out of Ng’ombwana, with notes on anything in their history that might look at all suspicious.’ He glanced at the paper.

‘Does the same Sanskrit mean anything at all to you?’ he asked. ‘X. and K. Sanskrit to be exact. My dear man, what is the matter?’

Mr Whipplestone had shouted inarticulately, laid down his glass, clapped his hands and slapped his forehead.

‘Eureka!’ he cried stylishly. ‘I have it! At last. At last!’

‘Jolly for you,’ said Alleyn, ‘I’m delighted to hear it. What had escaped you?’

‘“Sanskrit, Importing and Trading Company, Ng’ombwana”.’

‘That’s it. Or was it.’

‘In Edward VIIth Avenue.’

‘Certainly, I saw it there: only they call it something else now. And Sanskrit has been kicked out. Why are you so excited?’

‘Because I saw him last night.’

‘You did!’

‘Well, it must have been. They are as alike as two disgusting pins.’

‘They?’ Alleyn repeated, gazing at his wife who briefly crossed her eyes at him.

‘How could I have forgotten!’ exclaimed Mr Whipplestone rhetorically. ‘I passed those premises every day of my time in Ng’ombwana.’

‘I clearly see that I mustn’t interrupt you.’

‘My dear Mrs Roderick, my dear Roderick, do please forgive me,’ begged Mr Whipplestone, turning pink. ‘I must explain myself: too gauche and peculiar. But you see –’

And explain himself he did, pig-pottery and all, with the precision that had eluded him at the first disclosure. ‘Admit,’ he cried when he had finished, ‘it is a singular coincidence, now isn’t it?’

‘It’s all of that,’ Alleyn said. ‘Would you like to hear what the Special Branch have got to say about the man – K. Sanskrit?’

‘Indeed I would.’

‘Here goes, then. This information, by the way, is a digest one of Fred Gibson’s chaps got from the Criminal Record Office. “Sanskrit. Kenneth, for Heaven’s sake. Age – approx 58. Height 5 foot 10. Weight: 16 stone 4. Very obese. Blond. Long hair. Dress: eccentric: Ultra modern. Bracelets. Anklet. Necklace. Wears make-up. Probably homosexual. One ring through pierced lobe. Origin: uncertain. Said to be Dutch. Name possibly assumed or corruption of a foreign name. Convicted of fraudulent practices involving the occult, London 1940. Served three months’ sentence. Sus. connection with drug traffic, 1942. Since 1950 importer of ceramics, jewellery and fancy goods into Ng’ombwana. Large, profitable concern. Owned blocks of flats and offices now possessed by Ng’ombwanan interests. Strong supporter of apartheid. Known to associate with Anti-Black and African extremists. Only traceable relative: Sister, with whom he is now in partnership, pottery business ‘The piggery’, Capricorn Mews, SW3.”’

‘There you are!’ said Mr Whipplestone, spreading out his hands.

‘Yes. There we are and not very far on. There’s no specific reason to suppose Sanskrit constitutes a threat to the safety of the President. And that goes for any of the other names on the list. Have a look at it. Does it ring any more bells? Any more coincidences?’

Mr Whipplestone screwed in his eyeglass and had a look.

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he said drily. ‘One recognizes the disillusioned African element. And the dispossessed. I can add nothing. I’m afraid, my dear fellow, that apart from the odd circumstance of one of your remote possibilities being a neighbour of mine, I am of no use to you. And none in that respect, either, if one comes to think of it. A broken reed,’ sighed Mr Whipplestone, ‘I fear, a broken reed.’

‘Oh,’ Alleyn said lightly, ‘you never know, do you? By the way, the Ng’ombwanan Embassy is in your part of the world, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, indeed. I run into old Karumba sometimes. Their Ambassador. We take our constitutional at the same hour. Nice old boy.’

‘Worried?’

‘Hideously, I should have thought.’

‘You’d have been right. He’s in a flat spin and treating the SB to a hell of a work-out. And what’s more he’s switched over to me. Never mind about security not being my proper pigeon. He should worry! I know The Boomer and that’s enough. He wants me to teach the SB its own business. Imagine! If he had his wish there’d be total alarm devices in every ornamental urn and a security man under The Boomer’s bed. I must say I don’t blame him. He’s giving a reception. I suppose you’ve been invited?’

‘I have, yes. And you?’

‘In my reluctant role as The Boomer’s old school chum. And Troy, of course,’ Alleyn said, putting his hand briefly on hers.

Then followed rather a long pause.

‘Of course,’ Mr Whipplestone said, at last, ‘these things don’t happen in England. At receptions and so on. Madmen at large in kitchens or wherever it was.’

‘Or at upstairs windows in warehouses?’

‘Quite.’

The telephone rang and Troy went out of the room to answer it.

‘I ought to forbear,’ Alleyn said, ‘from offering the maddening observation that there’s always a first time.’

‘Oh, nonsense!’ flustered Mr Whipplestone. ‘Nonsense, my dear fellow! Really! Nonsense! Well,’ he added uneasily, ‘one says that.’

‘Let’s hope one’s right.’

Troy came back. ‘The Ng’ombwanan Ambassador,’ she said, ‘would like a word with you, darling.’

‘God bless his woolly grey head,’ Alleyn muttered and cast up his eyes. He went to the door but checked. ‘Another Sanskrit coincidence for you, Sam. I rather think I saw him, too, three weeks ago in Ng’ombwana, outside his erstwhile emporium, complete with anklet and earring. The one and only Sanskrit, or I’m a displaced Dutchman with beads and blond curls.’

IV

The Chubbs raised no particular objection to Lucy: ‘So long as it’s not unhealthy, sir,’ Mrs Chubb said, ‘I don’t mind. Keep the mice out, I dare say.’

In a week’s time Lucy improved enormously. Her coat became glossy, her eyes bright and her person plumpish. Her attachment to Mr Whipplestone grew more marked and he, as he confided in his diary, was in some danger of making an old fool of himself over her. ‘She is a beguiling little animal,’ he wrote, ‘I confess I find myself flattered by her attentions. She has nice ways.’ The nice ways consisted of keeping a close watch on him, of greeting him on his reappearance after an hour’s absence as if he had returned from the North Pole, of tearing about the house with her tail up, affecting astonishment when she encountered him and of sudden onsets of attachment when she would grip his arm in her forelegs, kick it with her hind legs, pretend to bite him and then fall into a little frenzy of purrs and licks.

She refused utterly to accommodate to her red harness but when Mr Whipplestone took his evening stroll, she accompanied him: at first to his consternation. But although she darted ahead and pranced out of hiding places at him, she kept off the street and their joint expeditions became a habit.

Only one circumstance upset them and that was a curious one. Lucy would trot contentedly down Capricorn Mews until they had passed the garage and were within thirty yards of the pottery-pigs establishment. At that point she would go no further. She either bolted home under her own steam or performed her familiar trick of leaping into Mr Whipplestone’s arms. On these occasions he was distressed to feel her trembling. He concluded that she remembered her accident and yet he was not altogether satisfied with this explanation.

She fought shy of the Napoli because of the dogs tied up outside but on one visit when there happened to be no customers and no dogs she walked in. Mr Whipplestone apologized and picked her up. He had become quite friendly with Mr and Mrs Pirelli and told them about her. Their response was a little strange. There were ejaculations of ‘poverina’ and the sorts of noises Italians make to cats. Mrs Pirelli advanced a finger and crooned. She then noticed the white tip of Lucy’s tail and looked very hard at her. She spoke in Italian to her husband, who nodded portentously and said ‘Si’ some ten times in succession.

‘Have you recognized the cat?’ asked Mr Whipplestone in alarm. They said they thought they had. Mrs Pirelli had very little English. She was a very large lady and she now made herself a great deal larger in eloquent mime, curving both arms in front of her and blowing out her cheeks. She also jerked her head in the direction of Capricorn Passage. ‘You mean the pottery person,’ cried Mr Whipplestone. ‘You mean she was that person’s cat!’

He realized bemusedly that Mrs Pirelli had made another gesture, an ancient one. She had crossed herself. She laid her hand on Mr Whipplestone’s arm. ‘No, no, no. Do not give back. No. Cattivo. Cattivo,’ said Mrs Pirelli.

‘Cat?’

‘No, signor,’ said Mr Pirelli. ‘My wife is saying “bad”. They are bad, cruel people. Do not return to them your little cat.’

‘No,’ said Mr Whipplestone confusedly. ‘No, I won’t. Thank you. I won’t.’

And from that day he never took Lucy into the Mews.

Mrs Chubb, Lucy accepted as a source of food and accordingly performed the obligatory ritual of brushing round her ankles. Chubb, she completely ignored.

She spent a good deal of time in the tub garden at the back of the house making wild balletic passes at imaginary butterflies.

At 9.30 one morning, a week after his dinner with the Alleyns, Mr Whipplestone sat in his drawing-room doing The Times crossword. Chubb was out shopping and Mrs Chubb, having finished her housework, was ‘doing for’ Mr Sheridan in the basement. Mr Sheridan, who was something in the City, Mr Whipplestone gathered, was never at home on weekday mornings. At 11 o’clock Mrs Chubb would return to see about Mr Whipplestone’s luncheon. The arrangement worked admirably.

Held up over a particularly cryptic clue, Mr Whipplestone’s attention was caught by a singular noise, a kind of stifled complaint as if Lucy was mewing with her mouth full. This proved to be the case. She entered the room backwards with sunken head, approached crab-wise and dropped something heavy on his foot. She then sat back and gazed at him with her head on one side and made the inquiring trill that he found particularly fetching.

‘What on earth have you got there?’ he asked.

He picked it up. It was a ceramic no bigger than a medallion but it was heavy and must have grievously taxed her delicate little jaws. A pottery fish, painted white on one side and biting its own tail. It was pierced by a hole at the top.

‘Where did you get this?’ he asked severely.

Lucy lifted a paw, lay down, looked archly at him from under her arm and then incontinently jumped up and left the room.

‘Extraordinary little creature,’ he muttered. ‘It must belong to the Chubbs.’

And when Mrs Chubb returned from below he called her in and showed it to her. ‘Is this yours, Mrs Chubb?’ he asked.

She had a technique of not replying immediately to anything that was said to her and she used it now. He held the thing out to her but she didn’t take it.

‘The cat brought it in,’ explained Mr Whipplestone, who always introduced a tone of indifference in mentioning Lucy Lockett to the Chubbs. ‘Do you know where it came from?’

‘I think – it must be – I think it’s Mr Sheridan’s, sir,’ Mrs Chubb said at last. ‘One of his ornaments, like. The cat gets through his back window, sir, when it’s open for airing. Like when I done it just now. But I never noticed.’

‘Does she? Dear me! Most reprehensible! You might put it back, Mrs Chubb, could you? Too awkward if he should miss it!’

Mrs Chubb’s fingers closed over it. Mr Whipplestone looking up at her, saw with surprise that her apple-pink cheeks had blanched. He thought of asking her if she was unwell but her colour began to reappear unevenly.

‘All right, Mrs Chubb?’ he asked.

She seemed to hover on the brink of some reply. Her lips moved and she brushed them with her fingers. At last she said: ‘I haven’t liked to ask, sir, but I hope we give satisfaction, Chubb and me.’

‘Indeed you do,’ he said warmly. ‘Everything goes very smoothly.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ she said and went out. He thought: ‘That wasn’t what she was about to say.’

He heard her go upstairs and thought: ‘I wish she’d return that damn’d object.’ But almost immediately she came back.