Artists in Crime

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 localized glare. Troy had installed a highpowered 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 packingneedle, 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 tomorrow. To business, Brer Fox. Here we have the studio as it was when the class assembled this morning. Paint set out on the palettes, 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 vorticalist or something.’ He inspected the canvas and the painttable in front of it.

‘Here we are. The name’s on the paintbox. 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 scandalized. ‘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 a 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 further 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 conversations 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.’