Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 10: Last Ditch, Black As He’s Painted, Grave Mistake

Chubb said at once and without hesitation, ‘That’s correct, sir. It’s a little social circle with an interest in ESP and so forth. Survival and that.’

‘Mr and Miss Sanskrit are members, aren’t they?’

‘That’s correct, sir.’

‘And Mr Sheridan?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And you?’ Alleyn said lightly.

‘They was kind enough to make me an honorary member, like. Seeing I go in and do the servicing for some of their meetings, sir. And seeing I was interested.’

‘In survival after death, do you mean?’

‘That kind of thing.’

‘Your wife doesn’t share your interest?’

He said flatly: ‘She doesn’t come into it, does she? It’s kind of complementary to my services, isn’t it? Like wearing a livery button used to be.’

‘I see. You must find a different place for it, mustn’t you?’ Alleyn said easily. ‘Out of reach of Lucy Lockett. Good afternoon to you, Chubb.’

Chubb mouthed rather than sounded his response to this and Alleyn left him, almost as bleached as his wife had been five minutes earlier.

Mr Whipplestone was still sipping tea. Lucy was discussing a saucer of milk on the hearthrug.

‘You must have some tea at once?’ Mr Whipplestone said, pouring it out. ‘And some anchovy toast. I hope you like anchovy toast. It’s still quite eatable, I think.’ He tipped back the lid of the hot-server and up floated the smell that of all others recalled Alleyn to his boyhood days with The Boomer. He took a piece of toast and his tea.

‘I can’t stay long,’ he said. ‘I oughtn’t to stay at all, in fact, but here goes.’

‘About the Chubbs?’ Mr Whipplestone ventured. Alleyn gave him a concise account of his visit upstairs. On the whole it seemed to comfort him. ‘As you suggested,’ he said, ‘the emblem of some insignificant little coterie and Chubb has been made a sort of non-commissioned officer in recognition of his serving them sandwiches and drinks. Perhaps they think he’s psychic. That makes perfectly good sense. Well, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, of course. It’s not without interest, do you agree,’ Alleyn asked, ‘that Sanskrit is on the police records for fraudulent practice as a fortune-teller and a phoney medium? And he’s suspected of the odd spot of drug trafficking’

‘I am not in the least surprised,’ Mr Whipplestone energetically declared. ‘In the realms of criminal deception he is, I feel sure, capable de tout. From that point of view, if from no other, I do of course deplore the Chubb connection.’

‘And there’s Mrs Cockburn-Montfort, who seems to be a likely candidate for the attempt-on-the-President stakes. Not a nice influence either, would you say?’

‘Oh drat!’ said Mr Whipplestone. ‘Very well, my dear fellow. I’m a selfish, square old bachelor and I don’t want anything beastly to happen to my Chubbs because they make life pleasant for me.’ His exasperated gaze fell upon his cat. ‘As for you,’ he scolded. ‘If you’d be good enough to keep your paws to yourself this sort of thing wouldn’t happen. Mind that!’

Alleyn finished his tea and toast and stood up.

‘Are you going, my dear chap?’ Mr Whipplestone asked rather wistfully.

‘Needs must. Thank you for my lovely cuppa. Goodbye, my dear,’ he said to Lucy Lockett. ‘Unlike your boss, I’m much obliged to you. I’m off.’

‘To see Mrs C-M?’

‘On the contrary. To see Miss Sanskrit. She now takes precedence over the C-M.’

III

Alleyn had not come face to face with the Sanskrits at the Embassy. Like all the guests who had not been in or near the pavilion, they had been asked for their names and addresses by Inspector Fox, ticked off on the guest list and allowed to go home. He didn’t think, therefore, that Miss Sanskrit would recall his face or, if she did, would attach more importance to it than to any that she had seen among a hundred others at the reception.

He walked down Capricorn Mews, past the Napoli grocery shop, the flower shop and the garages. The late afternoon was warm, scents of coffee, provender, carnations and red roses drifted on the air and, for some reason, the bells in the Basilica were ringing.

At the far end of the Mews, at its junction with the passageway into Baronsgate, was the converted stable now devoted to the sale of pottery pigs. It faced up the Mews and was, therefore, in full view for their entire length. Alleyn, advancing towards it, entertained somewhere in the back of his thoughts a prospect of stamping and sweating horses, industrious stablemen, ammoniacal fumes and the rumble of Dickensian wheels. Pigeons, wheeling overhead, and intermittently flapping down to the cobbled passage, lent a kind authenticity to his fancies.

But there, as he approached, was the nondescript signboard ‘K. & X. Sanskrit. Pigs.’ And there, deep in the interior and in a sort of alcove at the far end, was a faint red glow indicating the presence of a kiln and, looming over it, the dim bulk of Miss Sanskrit.

He made as if to turn off into the passageway, checked, and stopped to peer through the window at the exhibits ranked on shelves nearest to it. A particularly malevolent pig with forget-me-nots on its flanks glowered at him rather in the manner of Miss Sanskrit herself, who had turned her head in the shadows and seemed to stare at him. He opened the door and walked in.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said.

She rose heavily and lumbered towards him, emerging from the alcove, he thought, like some dinosaur from its lair.

‘I wonder,’ Alleyn said, as if suddenly inspired, ‘if you can help me by any chance. I’m looking for someone who could make castings of a small ceramic emblem. It’s to be the badge for a newly-formed club.’

‘We don’t,’ rumbled an astonishingly deep voice inside Miss Sanskrit, ‘accept commissions.’

‘Oh. Pity. In that case,’ Alleyn said, ‘I shall do what I came to do and buy one of your pigs. The doorstop kind. You don’t have pottery cats, I suppose? With or without flowers?’

‘There’s one doorstop cat. Bottom shelf. I’ve discontinued the line.’

It was indeed the only cat: a baleful, lean, black, upright cat with blue eyes and buttercups on its haunches. Alleyn bought it. It was very heavy and cost five pounds.

‘This is perfectly splendid!’ he prattled while Miss Sanskrit busied her fat, pale hands in making a clumsy parcel. ‘Actually it’s a present for a cat. She lives at No. 1, Capricorn Walk and is positively the double of this one. Except that she’s got a white tip to her tail. I wonder what she’ll make of it.’

Miss Sanskrit had paused for a second in her wrapping. She said nothing.

He rambled chattily on. ‘She’s quite a character, this cat. behaves more like a dog, really. Retrieves things. Not above indulging in the odd theft, either.’

She turned her back on him. The paper crackled. Alleyn waited. Presently she faced round with the parcel in her hands. Her embedded eyes beneath the preposterous beetroot-coloured fringe were fixed on him.

‘Thank you,’ she growled and he took the parcel.

‘I suppose,’ he said apologetically, ‘you couldn’t recommend anybody for this casting job? It’s quite small. Just a white fish with its tail in its mouth. About that size.’

There was something in the way she looked at him that recalled, however grotesquely, the interview with Mrs Chubb. It was a feral look: that of a creature suddenly alarmed and on guard and he was very familiar with it. It would scarcely be too fanciful to imagine she had given out a self-defensive smell.

‘I’m afraid,’ she said, ‘I can’t help you. Good afternoon.’ She had turned her back and begun to waddle away when he said:

‘Miss Sanskrit.’

She stopped.

‘I believe we were both at the same party last night. At the Ng’ombwana Embassy.’