Artists in Crime

‘I see,’ said Fox. ‘Well, somebody’s proved it now all right, haven’t they?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Alleyn. ‘It is proved—literally, up to the hilt.’

‘Cuh!’ said Fox solemnly.

‘Malmsley has represented the dagger as protruding under the left breast, you see. I suppose he thought he’d add the extra touch of what you’d call romance, Brer Fox. The scarlet thread of gore is rather effective in a meretricious sort of way. Good Lord, this is a queer show and no mistake.’

‘Here’s what I call a pretty picture, now,’ said Fox approvingly. He had moved in front of Valmai Seacliff’s canvas. Exaggeratedly slender, the colour scheme a light sequence of blues and pinks.

‘Very elegant,’ said Fox.

‘A little too elegant,’ said Alleyn. ‘Hullo! Look at this.’

Across Francis Ormerin’s watercolour drawing ran an ugly streak of dirty blue, ending in a blob that had run down the paper. The drawing was ruined.

‘Had an accident, seemingly.’

‘Perhaps. This student’s stool is overturned, you’ll notice, Fox. Some of the water in his paint-pot has slopped over and one of his brushes is on the floor.’

Alleyn picked up the brush and dabbed it on the china palette. A half-dry smudge of dirty blue showed.

‘I see him or her preparing to flood a little of this colour on the drawing. He receives a shock, his hand jerks sideways and the brush streaks across the paper. He jumps up, overturning his stool and jolting the table. He drops the brush on the floor. Look, Fox. There are signs of the same sort of disturbance everywhere. Notice the handful of brushes on the table in front of the big canvas—I think that must be Katti Bostock’s —I remember her work. Those brushes have been put down suddenly on the palette. The handles are messed in paint. Look at this very orderly array of tubes and brushes over here. The student has dropped a tube of blue paint and then trodden on it. Here are traces leading to the throne. It’s a man’s shoe, don’t you think? He’s tramped about all over the place, leaving a blue painty trail. The modern lady—Miss Lee—has overturned a bottle of turpentine, and it’s run into her paintbox. There are even signs of disturbance on the illustrator’s table. He has put a wet brush down on the very clean typescript. The place is like a first lesson in detection.’

‘But beyond telling us they all got a start when the affair occurred, it doesn’t appear to lead us anywhere,’ said Fox. ‘Not on the face of it.’ He turned back to Seacliff’s canvas and examined it with placid approval.

‘You seem very taken with Miss Seacliff’s effort,’ said Alleyn.

‘Eh?’ Fox transferred his attention sharply to Alleyn. ‘Now then, sir, how do you make out the name of this artist?’

‘Rather prettily, Fox. This is the only outfit that is quite in order. Very neat everything is, you’ll notice. Tidy box, clean brushes laid down carefully by the palette, fresh paint-rag all ready to use. I make a long guess that it belongs to Valmai Seacliff, because Miss Seacliff was with the model when she got her quietus. There is no reason why Miss Seacliff’s paraphernalia should show signs of disturbance. In a sense, Miss Seacliff killed Sonia Gluck. She pressed her naked body down on the knife. Not a very pleasant reflection for Miss Seacliff now, unless she happens to be a murderess. Yes, I think this painting is hers.’

‘Very neat bit of reasoning, chief. Lor’, here’s a mess.’ Fox bent over Watt Hatchett’s open box. It overflowed with half-used tubes of oil-colour, many of them without caps. A glutinous mess, to which all sorts of odds and ends adhered, spread over the trays and brushes. Cigarette butts, matches, bits of charcoal, were mixed up with fragments of leaves and twigs and filthy scraps of rag.

‘This looks like chronic muck,’ said Fox.

‘It does indeed.’ From the sticky depths of a tin tray Alleyn picked out a fragment of a dried leaf and smelt it.

‘Blue gum,’ he said. ‘This will be the Australian, I suppose. Funny. He must have collected that leaf sketching in the bush, half the world away. I know this youth. He joined our ship with Miss Troy at Suva. Travelled second at her expense.’

‘Fancy that,’ said Fox placidly. ‘Then you know this Miss Troy, sir?’

‘Yes. Now you see, even he appears to have put his hand down on his palette. He’d hardly do that in normal moments.’

‘We’ve finished, sir,’ said the photographic expert.

‘Right.’

Alleyn went over to the throne. The body lay as it was when he first saw it. He looked at it thoughtfully, remembering what Troy had said: ‘I’m always frightened of dead people.’

‘She was very lovely,’ said Alleyn gently. He covered the body again. ‘Carry her over to that couch. It’s a divan-bed, I fancy. She can be taken away now. You’ll do the post-mortem tomorrow, I suppose, Dr Ampthill?’

‘First thing,’ said the doctor briskly. ‘The mortuary car is outside in the lane now. This studio is built into the brick wall that divides the garden from the lane. I thought it would save a lot of trouble and difficulty if we opened that window, backed the car up to it, and lifted the stretcher through.’

‘Over there?’

Alleyn walked over to the window in the south wall. He stooped and inspected the floor.

‘This is where the modelling fellow, Garcia, did his stuff. Bits of clay all over the place. His work must have stood on the tall stool here, well in the light. Wait a moment.’

He flashed his pocket-torch along the sill. It was scored by several cross-scratches.

‘Someone else has had your idea, Dr Ampthill,’ said Alleyn. He pulled a pair of gloves from his overcoat pocket, put them on, and opened the window. The light from the studio shone on the whole body of a mortuary van drawn up in the lane outside. The air smelt cold and dank. Alleyn shone his torch on the ground under the window-sill. He could see clearly the print of car tyres in the soft ground under the window.

‘Look here, Mr Blackman.’

Blackman joined him.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Someone’s backed a car across the lane under the window. Miss Troy says the carrier must have called for this Mr Garcia’s stuff on Saturday morning. The maids say nobody came to the house about it. Well now, suppose Garcia left instructions for them to come straight to this window? Eh? How about that? He’d help them put the stuff through the window on to the van and then push off himself to wherever he was going.’

‘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.’

‘OK, 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.’