Ngaio Marsh - Artists in Crime

“Sorry, Fox, but we’re going back to have a look at the hole in the blind.”

And back to the studio they went. Alleyn measured the distance from the window-sill to the hole — a triangular tear, of which the flap had been turned back. He also measured the height of the lamps from the floor. He climbed on Fox’s shoulders and tied a thread to the light nearest the window. He stretched the thread to the hole in the blind. Fox stood outside in the pouring rain. Alleyn threw the window up, passed the thread through the hole to Fox, who drew it tight and held it against his diaphragm.

“You see?” said Alleyn.

“Yes,” said Fox, “I’m six foot two in my socks and it hits me somewhere — let’s see— ”

“About the end of the sternum.”

“That’s right, sir.”

“Good enough, but we’ll take a look at night. Let’s go and have breakfast.”

And a few minutes later they joined Nigel Bathgate at breakfast.

“You might have told me you were going out,” complained Nigel.

“I wouldn’t dream of interrupting your beauty sleep,” said Alleyn. “Where’s my mamma?”

“She finished her breakfast some minutes ago. She asked me to tell you she would be in her workshop. She’s going to weave me some tweed for a shooting jacket.”

“Divine creature, isn’t she? What have you written for your paper?”

“I’ll show you. I’ve left Miss Troy’s name out altogether, Alleyn. They simply appear as a group of artists in a charming old-world house in Buckinghamshire.”

“I’ll try to be a good godfather,” said Alleyn gruffly.

“Good enough,” said Nigel. “Can I publish a picture of the girl?”

“Sonia? Yes, if you can rake one up. I can give you one of Garcia. Just talk about him as a very brilliant young sculptor, mention the job for the cinema if you like, and if you can manage it, suggest that we suspect the thing to be the work of some criminal lunatic who had got wind of the way the model was posed. Far-fetched, but I understand the tallest, the most preposterous tarradiddle will be gulped down whole by your public. You may even suggest that we have fears for Garcia’s safety. Do anything but cast suspicion on him. Is all this quite impossible, Bathgate?”

“I don’t think so,” said Nigel thoughtfully. “It can be brought out with what I have already written. There’s nothing in this morning’s paper. That’s an almost miraculous bit of luck. Blackman and Co. must have been extraordinarily discreet.”

“The hunt will be up and the murder out, at any moment now. Show me your stuff. We’re for London in twenty minutes.”

“May I come with you? I’ve telephoned the office. I’ll make a bit of an entrance with this story.”

Alleyn vetted the story and Nigel made a great to-do at each alteration, but more as a matter of routine than anything else. He then went to the telephone to ring up his office, and his Angela. Alleyn left Fox with the morning paper and ran upstairs to his mother’s workshop. This was a large, sunny room, filled with what Lady Alleyn called her insurances against old age. An enormous hand-loom stood in the centre of the room. In the window was a bench for bookbinding. On one wall hung a charming piece of tapestry worked by Lady Alleyn in a bout of enthusiasm for embroidery and on another was an oak shrine executed during a wave of intensive wood-carving. She had made the rugs on the floor, she had woven the curtains on the walls, she had created the petit-point on the backs of the chairs, and she had done all these things extremely and surprisingly well.

At the moment she was seated before her hand-loom, sorting coloured wools. She looked solemn. Tunbridge Tessa, an Alsatian bitch, lay at her feet.

“Hullo, darling,” said Lady Alleyn. “Do you think Mr. Bathgate could wear green and red? His eyes are grey, of course. Perhaps grey and purple.”

“His eyes!”

“Don’t be silly, Roderick. I’ve promised him some tweed. Yours is finished. It’s in the chest over there. Go and look at it.”

“But — your dog!”

“What about her? She’s obviously taken a fancy to you.”

“Do you think so? She certainly has her eye on me.”

Alleyn went to the hand-carved chest, closely followed by Tunbridge Tessa. He found his tweed.

“But, darling, it really is quite amazingly good,” he said. “I’m delighted with it.”

“Are you?” asked his mother a little anxiously.

“Indeed I am.”

“Well, your eyes are so blue it was easy for me. Mr. Bathgate has told me all about the baby coming. We’ve had a lovely talk. How did you get on at Tatler’s End House, Roderick?”

“Better, thank you. We’re off now, darling. I hope I’m going to spend the rest of the morning in a chorus lady’s bed-sit, in Chelsea.”

“Are you?” said his mother vaguely. “Why?”

“Routine.”

“It seems to lead you into strange places. I’ll come downstairs and see you off. You may take the car, Roderick.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“I’ve already told French to drive you in. I’ve got a job for him in Sloane Street.”

When they were half-way downstairs she said: “Roderick, shall I ring her up? Would you like me to ring her up?”

“Very much,” said Alleyn.

He collected Fox and Nigel. They wrote their names in Lady Alleyn’s book.

“And you will come again whenever you like?” she said.

“That will be very soon, I’m afraid,” Nigel told her.

“Not too soon. What about Mr. Fox?”

“It has been very pleasant indeed, my lady,” said Fox. He straightened up, pen in hand, and gravely unhooked his spectacles. “I shall like to think about it. It’s been quite different, you see, from my usual run of things. Quite an experience, you might say, and a very enjoyable one. If I may say so, you have a wonderful way with you, my lady. I felt at home.”

Alleyn abruptly took his arm.

“You see, ma’am,” he said, “we have courtiers at the Yard.”

“Something a little better than that. Good-bye, my dear.”

In the car Alleyn and Fox thumbed over their notebooks and occasionally exchanged remarks. Nigel, next the chauffeur, spent the time in pleasurable anticipation of his reception at the office. They cut through from Shepherd’s Bush to Holland Road, and thence into Chelsea. Alleyn gave the man directions which finally brought them into a narrow and not very smart cul-de-sac behind Smith Street.

“This is Batchelors Gardens,” said Alleyn. “And there’s No. 4. You can put me down here. If I don’t come out in five minutes take Mr. Fox to the Yard and Mr. Bathgate to his office, will you, French? Good-bye, Bathgate. Meet you at the Yard somewhere round noon, Fox.”

He waved his hand and crossed the street to No. 4, a set of flats that only just escaped the appearance of a lodging-house. Alleyn inspected the row of yellowing cards inside the front door. Miss Bobbie O’Dawne’s room was up two flights. He passed the inevitable charwoman with her bucket of oil and soot, and her obscene grey wiper so like a drowned rat.

“Good morning,” said Alleyn, “is Miss O’Dawne at home,” can you tell me?”

“At ’ome,” said the charlady, viciously wringing the neck of the rat. “ ’Er! She won’t be out of ’er bed!”

“Thank you,” said Alleyn and tapped at Miss O’Dawne’s door. He tapped three times, closely watched by the charlady, before a submerged voice called out: “All right .” There were bumping noises, followed by the sound of bare feet on thin carpet. The voice, now much nearer, asked: “Who is it?”

“May I speak to Miss O’Dawne?” called Alleyn. “I’ve an important message for her.”

“For me?” said the voice in more refined accents. “Wait a moment, please.”