Ngaio Marsh - Death At The Bar

They struck out to the right and hadn’t gone many yards before they came to a downward slope where the turf was trampled. Alleyn stooped and examined it.

“Camp-stool,” he muttered. “And here’s an empty tube. Water-colour. The Darragh spoor, I imagine. An eventful stretch of country, this. I wonder if she was here on that Friday. You can’t see the other place from here, Fox. You might hear voices though.”

“If they were raised a bit.”

“Yes. Angry voices. Well, on we go.”

As they drew nearer Cubitt continued to paint, but Parish kept turning his head to look at them. When they came within earshot, Cubitt shouted at them over his shoulder.

“I hope to God you haven’t come here to ask questions. I’m busy.”

“All right,” said Alleyn. “We’ll wait.”

He walked beyond them, out of sight of the picture. Fox followed him. Alleyn lay on the lip of the headland. Beneath them, the sea boomed and thudded against a rosy cliff. Wreaths of seaweed endlessly wove suave patterns about Coombe Rock. A flight of gulls mewed and circled, in and out of the sunlight.

“What a hullabaloo and a pother,” said Alleyn. “How many thousands of times, before they come adrift, do these strands of seaweed slither out and swirl and loop and return? Their gestures are so beautiful that it is difficult to realize they are meaningless. They only show us the significance of the water’s movements but for themselves they are helpless. And the sea is helpless too, and the winds which it obeys, and the wider laws that rule the winds, themselves are ruled by passive rulers. Dear me, Fox, what a collection of ordered inanities! Rather like police investigations. I can’t look over any more, I’ve no head for heights.”

“Here comes Mr. Cubitt, sir,” said Fox. Alleyn rolled over and saw Cubitt, a vast figure against the sky.

“We’re resting now,” said Cubitt. “Sorry to choke you off but I was on a tricky bit.”

“We are extremely sorry to bother you,” said Alleyn. “I know it is beyond a painter’s endurance to be interrupted at a critical moment.”

Cubitt dropped down on the grass beside him. “I’m trying to keep a wet skin of paint all over the canvas,” he said. “You have to work at concert pitch for that.”

“Good Lord!” Alleyn exclaimed. “You don’t mean you paint right through that surface in three hours?”

“It keeps wet for two days. I’ve got a new brand of slow-drying colours. Even so, it’s a bit of an effort.”

“I should think so, on a thing that size.” Parish appeared on the brow of the hill.

“Aren’t you coming to see my portrait?” he cried.

Cubitt glanced at Alleyn and said: “Do, if you’d like to.”

“I should, enormously.” They walked back to the easel. The figure had come up darkly against the formalized sky. Though the treatment was one of extreme simplification, there was no feeling of emptiness. The portrait was at once rich and austere. There was no bravura in Cubitt’s painting. It seemed that he had pondered each brushmark, gravely and deeply, and had then laid it down on a single impulse and left it so.

“Lord, it’s good,” said Alleyn. “It’s grand, isn’t it?”

Parish stood with his head on one side and said, “Do you like it?” but Cubitt said: “Do you paint, Alleyn?”

“No, not I. My wife does.”

“Does she exhibit at all?”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “Her name is Troy.”

“Oh God!” said Cubitt. “I’m sorry.”

“She’s good, isn’t she?” said Alleyn humbly.

“To my mind,” answered Cubitt, “the best we’ve got.”

“Do you think it’s like me?” asked Parish. “I tell Norman he hasn’t quite got my eyes. Judging by my photographs, you know. Not that I don’t like it. I think it’s marvellous, old boy, you know that.”

“Seb,” said Cubitt, “your price is above rubies. So long as you consider it a pretty mockery of nature, I am content.”

“Oh,” said Parish, “I’m delighted with it, Norman, really. It’s only a suggestion about the eyes.”

“How long have you been at it?” asked Alleyn.

“This is the sixth day. I had two mornings before the catastrophe. We shelved it for a bit after that.”

“Naturally,” added Parish solemnly. “We didn’t feel like it.”

“Naturally,” agreed Cubitt drily.

“Tell me,” said Alleyn, “did you ever pass Mr. Watchman on your way to or from this place?”

Cubitt had laid a streak of blue across his palette with the knife. His fingers opened and the knife fell into the paint. Parish’s jaw dropped. He looked quickly at Cubitt as if asking him a question.

“How do you mean?” asked Cubitt. “He was only here one day. He died the night after he got here.”

“That was the Friday,” said Alleyn. “Did you work here on the Friday morning?”

“Yes.”

“Well, was Mr. Watchman with you?”

“Oh no,” said Cubitt quickly, “he was still in bed when we left.”

“Did you see him on the way home?”

“I don’t think we did,” said Parish.

“In a little hollow this side of a furze-bush and just above the main road.”

“I don’t think so,” said Parish.

“No,” said Cubitt, a little too loudly. “We didn’t. Why?”

“He was there some time,” said Alleyn vaguely.

Cubitt said: “Look here, do you mind if I get going again? The sun doesn’t stand still in the heavens.”

“Of course,” said Alleyn quickly.

Parish took up the pose. Cubitt looked at him and filled a brush with the colour he had mixed. He raised the brush and held it poised. Alleyn saw that his hand trembled.

“It’s no good,” said Cubitt abruptly, “we’ve missed it. The sun’s too far round.”

“But it’s not ten yet,” objected Parish.

“Can’t help it,” said Cubitt and put down his palette.

“For pity’s sake,” said Alleyn, “don’t go wrong with it now.”

“I’ll knock off, I think.”

“We’ve been a hell of a nuisance. I’m sorry.”

“My dear chap,” said Parish, “you’re nothing to the modest Violet. It’s a wonder she hasn’t appeared. She puts up her easel about five yards behind Norman’s and brazenly copies every stroke he makes.”

“It’s not as bad as that, Seb.”

“Well, personally,” said Parish, “I’ve had quite as much as I want of me brother Terence and me brother Brian and me unfortunate cousin poor Bryonie.”

“What!” exclaimed Alleyn.

“She has a cousin who is a noble lord and got jugged for something.”

“Bryonie,” said Alleyn. “He was her cousin, was he?”

“So it seems. Do you remember the case?”

“Vaguely,” said Alleyn. “Vaguely. Was Miss Darragh anywhere about on that same morning?”

“She was over there,” said Parish. “Back in the direction you’ve come from. She must have stayed there for hours. She came in, drenched to the skin and looking like the wrath of Heaven, late in the afternoon.”

“An enthusiast,” murmured Alleyn. “Ah well, we mustn’t hang round you any longer. We’re bound for Cary Edge Farm.”

Something in the look Cubitt gave him reminded Alleyn of Will Pomeroy.

Parish said: “To call on the fair Decima? You’ll be getting into trouble with Will Pomeroy.”

“Seb,” said Cubitt, “pray don’t be kittenish. Miss Moore is out on Saturday mornings, Alleyn.”

“So Will Pomeroy told us, but we hoped to meet her on her way to Ottercombe. Good luck to the work. Come along, Fox.”

ii

A few yards beyond the headland they struck a rough track that led inland and over the downs.

“This will take us there, I expect,” said Alleyn. “Fox, those gentlemen lied about Watchman and the furze-bush.”