Ngaio Marsh - Black As He Is Painted

“Do let’s have a drink,” he said. “Whisky and soda? I’ll just get the soda. Sit down, do. I won’t be a jiffy.”

He went out with something of his old sprightly air.

He had turned on the light above the picture over the fireplace. Troy had painted it quite a long time ago. It was a jubilant landscape half-way to being an abstract. Alleyn remembered it well.

“Ah!” said Mr. Whipplestone, returning with a syphon in his hands and Lucy weaving in and out between his feet. “You’re looking at my treasure. I acquired it at one of the Group shows, not long after you married, I think. Look out, cat, for pity’s sake! Now: shall we go into the dining-room, where I can lay out the exhibits on the table? But first, our drinks. You begin yours while I search.”

“Steady with the Scotch. I’m supposed to keep a clear head. Would you mind if I rang Troy up?”

“Do, do, do. Over there on the desk. The box I want is upstairs. It’ll take a little digging out.”

Troy answered the telephone almost at once. “Hello, where are you?” Alleyn asked.

“In the studio.”

“Broody?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m at Sam Whipplestone’s and will be most probably for the next hour or so. Have you got a pencil handy?”

“Wait a bit.”

He had a picture of her feeling about in the pocket of her painting smock.

“I’ve got a bit of charcoal,” she said.

“It’s only to write down the number.”

“Hold on. Right.”

He gave it to her. “In case anyone wants me,” he said. “You, for instance.”

“Rory?”

“What?”

“Do you mind very much? About me painting the Boomer? Are you there?”

“I’m here all right. I delight in what you’re doing and I deplore the circumstances under which you’re doing it.”

“Well,” said Troy, “that’s a straight answer to a straight question. Good night, darling.”

“Good night,” he said, “darling.”

Mr. Whipplestone was gone for some considerable time. At last he returned with a large old-fashioned photograph album and an envelope full of press cuttings. He opened the connecting doors to the dining-room, laid his findings out on the table, and displaced Lucy, who affected a wayward interest in them.

“I was a great hoarder in those days,” he said. “Everything’s in order and dated. There should be no difficulty.”

There was none. Alleyn examined the album, which had the faded melancholy aspect of all such collections, while Mr. Whipplestone looked through the cuttings. When the latter applied to items in the former, they had been carefully pasted beside the appropriate photographs. It was Alleyn who first struck oil.

“Here we are,” he said. And there, meticulously dated and annotated in Mr. Whipplestone’s neat hand, were three photographs and a yellowing page from the Ng’ombwana Times with the headline: Gomez Trial, Verdict, Scene in Court.

The photographs showed, respectively, a snapshot of a bewigged judge emerging from a dark interior; a crowd, mostly composed of black people, waiting outside a sun-baked court of justice; and an open car driven by a black chauffeur with two passengers in tropical kit, one of whom, a trim, decorous-looking person of about forty, was recognizable as Mr. Whipplestone himself. “Going to the Trial.” The press photographs were more explicit. There, unmistakably himself, in wig and gown, was the young Boomer. “Mr. Bartholomew Opala, Counsel for the Prosecution.” And there, already partially bald, dark, furious and snarling, a man handcuffed between two enormous black policemen and protected from a clearly menacing crowd of Ng’ombwanans. “After the Verdict. The Prisoner,” said the caption. “Leaving the Court.”

The letter-press carried an account of the trial with full journalistic appreciation of its dramatic highlights. There was also an editorial.

“And that,” Alleyn said, “is the self-same Sheridan in your basement flat.”

“You would recognize him at once?”

“Yes. I thought I’d seen him for the first time — and that dimly — tonight, but it turns out that it was my second glimpse. He was sitting outside the pub this afternoon when the Boomer called on Troy.”

“No doubt,” said Mr. Whipplestone drily, “you will be seeing quite a lot more of him. I don’t like this, Alleyn.”

“How do you think I enjoy it!” said Alleyn, who was reading the press cutting. “The vows of vengeance,” he said, “are quite Marlovian in their inventiveness, aren’t they?”

“You should have heard them! And every one directed at your Boomer,” said Mr. Whipplestone. He bent over the album. “I don’t suppose I’ve looked at this,” he said, “for over a decade. It was stowed away in a trunk with a lot of others in my old flat. Even so, I might have remembered, one would have thought.”

“I expect he’s changed. After all — twenty years!”

“He hasn’t changed all that much in looks and I can’t believe he’s changed at all in temperament.”

“And you’ve no notion what became of him when he got out?”

“None. Portuguese East, perhaps. Or South America. Or a change of name. Ultimately, by fair means or foul, a British passport.”

“And finally whatever he does in the City?”

“Imports coffee perhaps,” sniffed Mr. Whipplestone.

“His English is non-committal?”

“Oh, yes. No accent, unless you count a lisp, which I suppose is a hangover. Let me give you a drink.”

“Not another, thank you, Sam. I must keep my wits about me, such as they are.” He hesitated for a moment and then said: “There’s one thing I think perhaps you should know. It’s about the Chubbs. But before I go any further I’m going to ask you, very seriously indeed, to give an undertaking not to let what I tell you make any difference — any difference at all — to your normal manner with the Chubbs. If you’d rather not make a blind commitment like this, then I’ll keep my big mouth shut and no bones broken.”

Mr. Whipplestone said quietly: “Is it to their discredit?”

“No,” Alleyn said slowly, “not directly. Not specifically. No.”

“I have been trained in discretion.”

“I know.”

“You may depend upon me.”

“I’m sure I can,” Alleyn said, and told Mr. Whipplestone about the girl in the photograph. For quite a long time after Alleyn had finished he made no reply, and then he took a turn about the room and said, more to himself than to Alleyn: “That is a dreadful thing. I am very sorry. My poor Chubbs.” And after another pause: “Of course, you see this as a motive.”

“A possible one. No more than that.”

“Yes. Thank you for telling me. It will make no difference.”

“Good. And now I mustn’t keep you up any longer. It’s almost midnight. I’ll just give Fox a shout.”

Fox came through loud, clear and patient on the radio.

“Dead on cue, Mr. Alleyn,” he said. “Nothing till now but I think they’re breaking up. A light in a staircase window. Keep with me.”

“Right you are,” said Alleyn, and waited. He said to Mr. Whipplestone: “The party’s over. We’ll have Sheridan-Gomez and Chubb back in a minute.”

“Hullo,” said Fox.

“Yes?”

“Here they come. The Cockburn-Montforts. Far side of the street from me. Not talking. Chubb, this side, walking fast. Hold on. Wait for it, Mr. Alleyn.”

“All right.”

Alleyn could hear the advancing and retreating steps.

“There he goes,” Fox said. “He’ll be with you in a minute, and now here comes Mr. Sheridan, on his own. Far side of the street. The C.-M.’s have turned their corner. I caught a bit of one remark. From her. She said: ‘I was a fool. I knew at the time,’ and he seemed to shut her up. That’s all. Over and — hold on. Hold on, Mr. Alleyn.”