Ngaio Marsh - Black As He Is Painted

But there, as he approached, was the window legend The Piggie Potterieand the nondescript sign-board: X. & K. Sanskrit. And there, deep in the interior 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 lowered 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.”

“Oh,” she said, without turning.

“You were with your brother, I think. And I believe I saw your brother a few weeks ago when I was in Ng’ombwana.”

No reply.

“Quite a coincidence,” said Alleyn. “Good afternoon.”

As he walked away and turned the corner into Capricorn Place he thought: “Now, I wonder if that was a good idea. She’s undoubtedly rattled, as far as one can think of blubber rattling. She’ll tell Big Brother and what will they cook up between them? That I’m fishing after membership? In which case, will they get in touch with the other fish to see what they know? Or will she suspect the worst of me and start at once, on her own account, ringing round the circle to warn them all? In which case she’ll hear I’m a cop in as short a time as it takes Mrs. Cockburn-Montfort to throw a temperament. And in that case we’ll have to take damn’ good care she and Big Brother don’t shoot the moon. I don’t mind betting,” he thought as he approached No. 19, the Place, “that those dubious premises accommodate more than pottery pigs. Has Brother quite given up the drug connection? A nice point. Here we go again.”

No. 19, Capricorn Place, although larger, was built in much the same style as Mr. Whipplestone’s little house. The windowboxes, however, were more commonplace, being given over to geraniums. As Alleyn crossed the street he saw, behind the geraniums, Mrs. Cockburn-Montfort’s bizarre face looking much the worse for wear and regarding him with an expression of horror. It dodged away.

He had to ring three times before the Colonel opened the door on a wave of gin. For a moment Alleyn thought, as he had with Chubb, that it might be slammed in his face. Inside the house someone was speaking on the telephone.

The Colonel said: “Yes?”

“If it’s not inconvenient I’d like to have two words with Mrs. Cockburn-Montfort,” Alleyn said.

“Out of the question, I’m ’fraid. She’s unwell. She’s in bed.”

“I’m sorry. In that case, with you, if you’ll be so good as to put up with me.”

“It doesn’t suit at the moment. I’m sorry. Any case we’ve nothing to add to what we said last night.”

“Perhaps, Colonel, you’d rather come down to the Yard. We won’t keep you long.”

He glared, red-eyed, at nothing in particular and then said: “Damn! All right. You’d better come in.”

“Thank you so much,” said Alleyn and did so, pretty smartly, passing the Colonel into a hall with a flight of stairs and two doors, the first of which stood ajar.

Inside the room a voice, hushed but unmistakably Mrs. Cockburn-Montfort’s, was speaking. “Xenny,” she was saying. “It’s true. Here! Now! I’m ringing off.”

“Not that door. The next,” shouted the Colonel, but Alleyn had already gone in.

She was dressed in a contemporary version of a garment that Alleyn had heard his mother refer to as a tea-gown: an elaborate confection worn, he rather thought, over pyjamas and held together by ribbons. Her hair had been arranged but insecurely, so that it almost looked more dishevelled than it would have if left to itself. The same appraisement might have been made of her face. She was smoking.

When she saw Alleyn she gestured with both hands rather as if something fluttered near her nose. She took a step backwards and saw her husband in the doorway.

“Why’ve you come down, Chrissy?” he said. “You’re meant to stay in bed.”

“I–I’d run out of cigarettes.” She pointed a shaky finger at Alleyn. “You again!” she said with a pretty awful attempt at playfulness.

“Me again, I’m afraid,” he said. “I’m sorry to pounce like this but one or two things have cropped up.”

Her hands were at her hair. “I’m in no state — Too shaming!” she cried. “What will you think!”

“You’d better go back to bed,” her husband said brutally. “Here! I’ll take you.”

“She’s signalled,” Alleyn thought. “I can’t prevent this.”

“I’ll just tidy up a bit,” she said. “That’s what I’ll do.”

They went out, he holding her arm above the elbow.

“And now,” Alleyn thought, “she’ll tell him she’s telephoned the Sanskrit. If it was the Sanskrit and I’ll lay my shirt on it. They’re cooking up what they’re going to say to me.”

He heard a door slam upstairs.

He looked round the drawing-room. Half conventional, half “contemporary.” Different-coloured walls and “with-it” ornaments. One or two collages and a mobile mingled disconsolately with pouffes. Simpering water-colours and martial photographs of the Colonel, one of which showed him in shorts and helmet with a Ng’ombwanan regiment forming a background. A lady-like desk upon which the telephone now gave out a click.