Ngaio Marsh - Artists in Crime

He waited while the charlady absently swilled the rat round and round in the oil and soot before slopping it over the top stair. The door opened a few inches and then widely enough to admit the passage of a mop of sulphur-coloured curls and a not unattractive face.

“Oh,” said the face, “pardon me, I’m afraid— ”

“I’m sorry to disturb you so early,” said Alleyn, “but I would be most grateful if you could see me for a moment.”

“I don’t want anything,” said Miss O’Dawne dangerously.

“And I’m not selling anything,” smiled Alleyn.

“Sorry, I’m sure, but you never know, these days, do you, with ’vasity boys travelling in anything from vacuums to foundation garments.”

“It’s about Sonia Gluck,” said Alleyn.

“Sonia? Are you a pal of hers? Why didn’t you say so at first? Half a tick, and I’ll get dressed. Pardon the stage-wait but the lonely west wing’s closed on account of the ghost and the rest of the castle’s a ruin.”

“Don’t hurry,” said Alleyn, “the morning’s before us.”

“I’ll say! Tell yourself stories and be good!”

The door slammed. Alleyn lit a cigarette. The charlady descended three steps backwards in a toad-like posture.

“Cold morning,” she said suddenly.

“Very cold,” agreed Alleyn, noticing with a pang that her old hands were purple.

“You a theatrical?”

“No, no. Nothing so interesting, I’m afraid.”

“Not a traveller neither?”

“No — not even a traveller.”

“You look too classy now I come to look atcher. I was in service for ten years.”

“Were you?”

“Yers. In service. Lidy be the name of Wells. Then she died of dibeets and I’adter come down to daily. It’s all right in service, you know. Comferble. Meals and that. Warm.”

“It’s beastly to be cold,” said Alleyn.

“That’s right,” she said dimly.

Alleyn felt unhappily in his pocket and she watched him. Inside the room Miss O’Dawne began to whistle. On the next landing a door banged, and a young man in a tight fitting royal blue suit tripped lightly downstairs, singing professionally. He had a good stare at Alleyn and said: “ ’Morning, ma? How’s tricks?”

“ ’Mornin’, Mr. Chumley.”

“Look out, now, I don’t want to kick the bucket just yet.” He vaulted neatly over the wet steps and disappeared in full voice.

“ ’E’s in the choreus,” said the charlady. “They get a lot of money in the choreus.”

She had left her dustpan on the landing. Alleyn dropped his gloves, and as he stooped he put two half-crowns under the dustpan. He did it very neatly and quickly but not neatly enough, it seemed.

“Yer dropped some money, sir,” said the charlady avidly.

“That’s — that’s for you,” said Alleyn, and to his relief the door opened.

“Take your place in the queue and don’t rush the ushers,” said Miss O’Dawne. Alleyn walked in.

Miss O’Dawne’s bed-sitting-room looked a little as if it had been suddenly slapped up and bounced into a semblance of tidiness. The cupboard doors had an air of pressure from within, the drawers looked as if they had been rammed home under protest, the divan-bed hunched its shoulders under a magenta artificial-silk counterpane. Two jade green cushions cowered against the wall at the head of the bed, the corner of the suit-case peeped out furtively from underneath. Miss O’Dawne herself was surprisingly neat. Her make-up suggested that she was a quick-change artist.

“Sit down,” she said, “and make yourself at our place. It’s not Buckingham Palace with knobs on, but you can’t do much on chorus work and ‘Hullo, girls, have you heard the news?’ Seen our show?”

“Not yet,” said Alleyn.

“I’ve got three lines in the last act and a kiss from Mr. Henry Molyneux. His breath smells of whisky, carbide and onions, but it’s great to be an actress. Well, how’s tricks?”

“Not so wonderful,” said Alleyn, feeling for the right language.

“Cheer up, you’ll soon be dead. I was going to make a cup of coffee. How does that strike you?”

“It sounds delightful,” said Alleyn.

“Well, we strive to please. Service with a smile. No charge and all questions answered by return in plain envelopes.”

She lit her gas-ring and clapped a saucepan over it.

“By the way you haven’t told me who you are?”

“My name’s Roderick Alleyn, I’m afraid— ”

“Roderick Alleyn? Sounds pretty good. You’re not in the business, are you?”

“No, I’m— ”

“Well, if you’ll excuse my freshness you look a bit more Eton and Oxford than most of Sonia’s boyfriends. Are you an artist?”

“No. I’m a policeman.”

“And then he came to. Is this where the big laugh comes, Roddy?”

“Honestly.”

“A policeman? Where’s your make-up? Pass along there, please, pass along there. Go on, you’re kidding.”

“Miss O’Dawne, I’m an official of Scotland Yard.”

She looked sharply at him.

“Here, what’s wrong?” she said.

“Was Miss Gluck a very close friend of yours?” asked Alleyn gently.

“ Was ! What d’you mean? Here, has anything happened to Sonia?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“What, God, she’s not—!”

“Yes.”

The coffee-pot bubbled and she automatically turned down the gas. Her pert little face had gone white under the make-up.

“What had she done?” she said.

“She hadn’t done anything. I think I know what you mean. She was going to have a child.”

“Yes. I know that, all right. Well — what happened?”

Alleyn told her as kindly as possible. She made the coffee as she listened to him, and her distress was so unaffected that he felt himself warm to her.

“You know I can’t sort of believe it,” she said. “Murder. That seems kind of not real, doesn’t it? Know what I mean? Why, it was only Saturday she was sitting where you are now and telling me all her bits and pieces.”

“Were you great friends?”

“Well, you know. We’d sort of teamed up, in a way. Mind, she’s not my real pal like Maudie Lavine or Dolores Duval, but I was quiet matey with her. Here’s your coffee. Help yourself to shoog. God, I can’t believe it. Murdered!”

She stirred her coffee and stared at Alleyn. Suddenly she made a jab at him with her spoon.

“Garcia!” she said.

Alleyn waited.

“Garcia’s done it,” said Miss O’Dawne, “you take it from me. I never liked that boy. She brought him up here once or twice and I said to her: ‘You watch your business with that gentleman,’ I said. ‘In my opinion he’s a very dirty bit of work and I don’t mind who hears me.’ Well, I mean to say! Letting a girl as good as keep him. And when the spot of trouble comes along it’s “Thanks for the buggy ride, it was O.K. while it lasted.” Had she tried the funny business with the kid? You know.”

“I don’t think so.” Alleyn took Miss O’Dawne’s letter from his pocket and handed it to her.

“We found this in her room. That’s what made me come to you.”

She looked sharply at him.

“What about it?”

“You can understand that we want to collect any information that is at all likely to lead us to an arrest.”

“I can understand that all right, all right.”

“Well, Miss O’Dawne, this letter suggests that you may be able to give us this information. It suggests, at all events, that you may know more about the Sonia-Garcia situation than we do.”

“I know all there was to know. She was going to have his kid, and he’d got sick of her. Pause for laugh. Laugh over.”

“Isn’t there a bit more to it than that?”