Black As He Is Painted

VI Afternoon in the Capricorns

When, in response to a telephone call taken by Troy, Alleyn called on the following afternoon at No. 1, Capricorn Walk, he was received on the front steps by Lucy Lockett, the cat. She sat with a proprietory air on the top step and had a good look at him.

“I know who you are,” said Alleyn. “Good afternoon, my dear.” He extended his forefinger. Lucy rose, stretched elaborately, yawned, and advanced her whiskers to within an inch of the fingertip. Mr. Whipplestone looked out of his open bow window.

“There you are,” he said. “I won’t be a second.”

Lucy sprang adroitly from the steps to the window-sill and thence into the bosom of her master, who presently opened the front door, still carrying her.

“Come in, do, do,” he said. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“What a nice house you’ve got.”

“Do you think so? I must say I like it.”

“You hadn’t far to walk last night — or this morning.”

“No. Do you know, Alleyn, when I was coming home at whatever eldrich hour, I caught myself wondering — well, almost wondering — if the whole affair could have been some sort of hallucination. Rather like that dodging-about-in-time nonsense they do in science fiction plays, as if it had happened off the normal temporal plane. The whole thing so very — ah — off-beat. Wasn’t it?”

“Was and is,” Alleyn agreed.

He found Mr. Whipplestone himself rather off-beat as he sat primly on his desk chair in his perfectly tailored suit, with his Trumper-style hair-cut, his discreet necktie, his elegant cufflinks, his eyeglass and, pounding away at his impeccable waistcoat, his little black cat.

“About Chubb,” he said anxiously. “I’m awfully bothered about Chubb. You see, I don’t know — and he hasn’t said anything — and I must say Mrs. Chubb looks too ghastly for words.”

“He hasn’t told you the black waiter attacked him?”

“He hasn’t told me anything. I felt it was not advisable for me to make any approach.”

“What’s your opinion of Chubb? What sort of impression have you formed, by and large, since the Chubbs have been looking after you?”

Mr. Whipplestone had some difficulty in expressing himself, but it emerged that from his point of view the Chubbs were as near perfection as made no difference. In fact, Mr. Whipplestone said wistfully, one had thought they no longer existed except perhaps in the employment of millionaires.

“I’ve sometimes wondered if they were too good to be true. Ominous foreboding!” he said.

“Didn’t you say Chubb seemed to have taken a scunner on blacks?”

“Well, yes. I rather fancied so. It was when I looked over this house. We were in the room upstairs and — oh, Lord, it was the poor old boy himself — the Ambassador — walked down the street. The Chubbs were near the window and saw him. It was nothing, really. They stared. My dear Alleyn, you won’t take from this any grotesque suggestion that Chubb — well, no, of course you won’t.”

“I only thought a prejudice of that sort might colour any statement he offered. He certainly made no bones about his dislike when we talked to him.”

“Not surprising when you tell me one of them had half-strangled him!”

“He told me that.”

“Don’t you believe him?”

“I don’t know,” Alleyn said with an odd twist in his voice. “Perhaps. But with misgivings.”

“Surely,” Mr. Whipplestone said, “it can be a very straightforward affair, after all. For whatever motive, the Ng’ombwanan guard and the waiter conspire to murder either the Ambassador or the President. At the crucial moment the servant finds Chubb in the way and doubles him up, leaving the guard free to commit the crime. The guard kills the Ambassador. To the President he professes himself to be what my poor Chubb calls clobbered.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “As neat as a new pin — almost.”

“So you see — you see!” cried Mr. Whipplestone, stroking the cat.

“And the pistol shot?”

“Part of the conspiracy — I don’t know — yes. That awful lady says it was a black person, doesn’t she? Well, then!”

“Whoever it was probably fired a blank.”

“Indeed? There you are, then. A diversion. A red-herring calculated to attract the attention of all of you away from the pavilion and to bring the President to his feet.”

“As I said,” Alleyn conceded. “New pins aren’t in it.”

“Then—why—?”

“My dear man, I don’t know. I promise you, I don’t know. It’s by the pricking of my thumbs or some other intimation not admissible in the police manuals. It just all seems to me to be a bit too much of a good thing. Like those fish in aspic that ocean-going cruisers display in the tropics and never serve.”

“Oh, come!”

“Still, there are more tenable queries to be raised. Item. Mrs. C.-M.’s black thug with a stocking over his head. Seen dimly against the loo window, unseen during the assault in the dressing-room. Rushed out of the ladies’ into the entrance hall — there’s no other exit — where there were four of Gibson’s men, one of them hard-by the door. They all had torches. None of them got any impression of anybody emerging precipitately into the hall. Incidentally, there was another S.B. man near the master-switch in the rear passage who killed the blackout about ten seconds after he heard the pistol shot. In those ten seconds the murder was done.”

“Well?”

“Well, our girlfriend has it that after the shot her assailant, having chucked her out of the loo, emerged still in the blackout, kicked her about a bit and then bolted, leaving her prone and in the dark. And then, she says, the loo-ladies, including your blushing sergeant, emerged and fell about all over her. Still in the dark. The loo-ladies, on the other hand, maintain they erupted into the anteroom immediately after the shot.”

“They were confused, no doubt.”

“The sergeant wasn’t.”

“Drat!” said Mr. Whipplestone. “What’s all this got to do with my wretched Chubb?”

“I’ve not the remotest idea. But it tempts me to suspect that when it comes to equivocation your black candidates have nothing on Mrs. Cockburn-Montfort.”

Mr. Whipplestone thought this over. Lucy tapped his chin with her paw and then fell asleep.

“Do I take it,” he asked at last, “that you think Mrs. C.-M. lied extensively about the black man with the stocking over his head?”

“I think she invented him.”

“Then who the devil fired the shot?”

“Oh,” Alleyn said. “No difficulty with that one, I fancy. She did.”

Mr. Whipplestone was much taken aback by this pronouncement. He gave himself time to digest its implications. He detached his cat and placed her on the floor, where with an affronted and ostentatious air she set about cleaning herself. He brushed his waistcoat, crossed his legs, joined his fingertips and finally said: “How very intriguing.” After a further pause he asked Alleyn if he had any more specific material to support his startling view of Mrs. Cockburn-Montfort’s activities.

Not specific, perhaps, Alleyn conceded. But be pointed out that a black male person planning to fire the pistol, whether or not it was loaded with a blank, would have been much better advised to do so from the men’s lavatory, where his presence would not be noticed, than from the women’s, where it extravagantly would. In the men’s he would be taken for an attendant if he was in livery and for a guest if he was not.

“Really,” Alleyn said, “it would be the height of dottiness for him to muscle in to the female offices, where he might — as indeed according to Mrs. C.-M. he did—disturb a lady already in situ.”

“True,” said Mr. Whipplestone moodily. “True. True. True.”

“Moreover,” Alleyn continued, “the sergeant, who, however naughty her lapse, displayed a certain expertise in the sequel, is persuaded that no rumpus beyond the shot and subsequent screams of Mrs. C.-M. disturbed the seclusion of those premises.”

“I see.”

“As for the weapon, an examination of the barrel, made by an expert this morning, confirms that the solitary round was probably a blank. There are no finger-prints. This is negative evidence except that the sergeant, supported by the two orthodox attendants, says that Mrs. C.-M. was wearing shoulder-length gloves. The normal practice under these circumstances is for such gloves to be peeled off the hand from the wrist. The glove is then tucked back into the arm-piece, which remains undisturbed. But the lady was fully gloved and buttoned, and according to her own account certainly had no chance to effect this readjustment. She would hardly sit on the floor putting on gloves and yelling pen-and-ink.”

“All very plausible,” said Mr. Whipplestone. Alleyn thought that he was hurriedly rearranging his thoughts to accommodate this new development.

“I fancy,” Alleyn said, “it’s a bit better than that. I can’t for the life of me think of any other explanation that will accommodate all the discrepancies in the lady’s tarradiddle. And what’s more she was taking dirty great sniffs at her own smelling salts to make herself cry. At any rate I’m going to call upon her.”

“When!” quite shouted Mr. Whipplestone.

“When I leave you. Why? What’s up?”

“Nothing,” he said in a hurry, “nothing really. Except that you’ll probably be admitted by Chubb.”

“By Chubb!”

“He — ah — he ’does for’ the Cockburn-Montforts on Friday afternoons. There’s nothing in that, you know, Alleyn. The Chubbs have one or two, as it were, casual jobs about the neighbourhood. They baby-sit every other Sunday at No. 17, for instance. It’s an arrangement.”

“And Mrs. Chubb obliges your tenant in the basement, doesn’t she?”

“An hour every other day. She will give us tea, by the way.” He glanced at the clock. “Any second now. I asked for it very early, hoping you would join me. Mrs. Alleyn said something about your not having had time for luncheon.”

“How very kind, I shall enjoy it.”

Lucy, after some preparatory clawing at the foot of the door into the hall, succeeded in opening it wide enough to make an exit, which she effected with her tail up and an ambiguous remark.

“Sometimes,” said Mr. Whippiest one, “I’ve felt almost inclined to pump the Chubbs.”

“About Sheridan and the Cockburn-Montforts?”

“Discreetly. Yes. But of course one doesn’t do that sort of thing. Or,” Mr. Whipplestone said with a self-deprecatory lift of his hand, “I don’t.”

“No,” Alleyn said, “I don’t suppose you do. Do you mind, though, if I have a word with Mrs. Chubb?”

“Here? Now?” he said, evidently dismayed by the suggestion.

“Well — later if you’d rather.”

“She’s awfully upset. About Chubb being man-handled by that black waiter and interviewed afterwards.”

“I’ll try not to add to her woes. It really is just routine, Sam, as far as I know.”

“Well, I do hope it doesn’t turn out to be — anything else. Sh!”

He held up his finger. From somewhere outside the room came a series of intermittent bumps or taps. They grew louder.

Alleyn went to the door left ajar by Lucy Lockett and looked out.

To see Lucy herself backing down the stairs crab-wise and dragging some small object by a chain. It bumped from step to wooden step. When she arrived at the bottom she contrived with some difficulty to take the object up in her mouth. Giving out distorted mews, she passed Alleyn, re-entered the drawing-room, and dropped her trophy at Mr. Whipplestone’s feet

“Oh no, oh no!” he cried out. “Not again. For pity’s sake, not again!”

But it was, in fact, a white pottery fish.

While he still gazed at it with the liveliest dismay, a clink of china sounded in the passage. With extraordinary swiftness Alleyn scooped up the fish and dropped it in his pocket.

“Not a word,” he said.

Mrs. Chubb came in with a tea-tray.

Alleyn gave her good-afternoon and brought forward a small table to Mr. Whipplestone’s chair. “Is this the right drill?” he asked, and she thanked him nervously and set down her tray. When she had left and he had heard her go upstairs he said: “It’s not Sheridan’s fish. She brought it from above.”

Mr. Whipplestone’s jaw dropped. He stared at Alleyn as if he had never seen him before. “Show me,” he said at last.

Alleyn produced the object and dangled it by its chain in front of Mr. Whipplestone, who said: “Yes. It is. I’ve remembered.”

“What have you remembered?”

“I think I told you. The first time she stole it. Or rather one like it. From down below. I had the curious feeling I’d seen it before. And then again, that evening when I returned it to Sheridan. Round that ghastly fellow Sanskrit’s fat neck. The same feeling. Now I’ve remembered: it was on the day I inspected the premises. The fish was in the Chubbs’ room upstairs. Hanging from a photograph of a girl with black ribbon attached to the frame. Rather morbid. And this,” said Mr. Whipplestone, ramming home his point, “is it.” He actually covered his face with his hands. “And that,” he said, “is very uncomfortable news.”

“It may turn out to be of no great matter after all. I wouldn’t get too up-tight about it, if I were you. This may simply be the outward and visible sign of some harmlessly potty little cult they all belong to.”

“Yes, but Chubb? And those dubious — those more than dubious Cockburn-Montforts and those frankly appalling Sanskrits. No, I don’t like it,” said Mr. Whipplestone. “I don’t like it at all.” His distracted gaze fell upon Lucy, who was posed tidily couchant with her paws tucked under her chest. “And the cat!” he remembered. “The cat, of whose reprehensible habits I say nothing, took fright at the very sight of that ghastly pair. She bolted. And the Pirellis at the Napoli think she belonged to the Sanskrit woman. And she had been ill-treated.”

“I don’t quite see…”

“Very well. Very well. Let it pass. Have some tea,” Mr. Whipplestone distractedly invited, “and tell me what you propose to do about that thing: that medallion, that — fish.”

Alleyn took it from his pocket and turned it over in his hand. A trademark like a wavy X had been fired into the reverse side.

“Roughish little job,” he said. “Lucky she didn’t break it. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go upstairs and return it to its owner. It gives me the entrée, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose so. Yes. Well. If you must.”

“It’ll save you a rather tricky confrontation, Sam.”

“Yes. Thank you. Very good. Yes.”

“I’ll nip up before she has time to return to her kitchen. Which is their sitting-room?”

“First door on the landing.”

“Right.”

He left Mr. Whipplestone moodily pouring tea, climbed the stairs, and tapped at the door.

After a pause it was opened by Mrs. Chubb, who stared at him with something like terror in her eyes. He asked her if he might come in for a moment, and for a split second wondered if she was going to say no and shut the door in his face. But she stood aside with her fingers at her lips and he went in.

He saw, at once, the photograph on the wall. A girl of about sixteen with a nice, round, fresh-looking face very like Mrs. Chubb’s. The black ribbons had been made into rosettes and fastened to the top corners of the frame. On the photograph itself, neatly written, was a legend: April 4, 1953-May 1, 1969.

Alleyn took the medallion from his pocket. Mrs. Chubb made a strange little falsetto noise in her throat.

He said: “I’m afraid Lucy has been up to her tricks again. Mr. Whipplestone tells me she’s done this sort of thing before. Extraordinary animals, cats, aren’t they? Once they get a notion into their heads, there’s no stopping them. It belongs here, doesn’t it?”

She made no move to take it. A drawing-pin lay on the table under the photograph. Alleyn pushed it back into its hole and looped the chain over it. “The cat must have pulled it out,” he said, and then: “Mrs. Chubb, you’re feeling poorly, aren’t you? I’m so sorry. Sit down, won’t you, and let me see if I can do something about it? Would you like a drink of water? No. Then, do sit down.”

He put his hand under her arm. She was standing in front of a chair and dropped into it as if she couldn’t help herself. She was as white as a sheet and trembling.

Alleyn drew up another chair for himself.

“Mr. Whipplestone told me you’d been very much upset by what happened last night and now I’m afraid I’ve gone and made matters worse,” he said.

Still she didn’t speak, and he went on: “I don’t expect you know who I am. It was I who interviewed your husband last night. I’m an old friend of Mr. Whipplestone’s and I know how greatly he values your service.”

Mrs. Chubb whispered: “The police?”

“Yes, but there’s no need to worry about that. Really.”

“He set on ’im,” she said. “That—” she shut her eyes for a second—“black man. Set on ’im.”

“I know. He told me.”

“It’s the truth.” And with startling force she repeated this, loudly. “It’s the truth. Sir. Do you believe that, sir? Do you believe it’s the truth?”

Alleyn thought: “ ‘Do I believe this, do I believe the other thing?’ Everybody asking what one believes. The word becomes meaningless. It’s what one knows that matters in this muddle.” He waited for a moment and then said. “A policeman may only believe what he finds out for himself, without any possible doubt, to be true. If your husband was attacked, as he says he was, we shall find out.”

“Thank Gawd,” she whispered. And then: “I’m sorry, I’m sure, to give way like this. I can’t think what’s come over me.”

“Never mind.”

He got up and moved towards the photograph. Mrs. Chubb blew her nose.

“That’s an attractive face,” Alleyn said. “Is it your daughter?”

“That’s right,” she said. “Was.”

“I’m sorry. Long ago?”

“Six years.”

“An illness?”

“An accident.” She made as if to speak, pressed her lips together and then shot out, as if defiantly: “She was the only one, our Glynis was.”

“I can see the likeness.”

“That’s right.”

“Was the medallion special to her, perhaps?”

She didn’t answer. He turned round and found her staring at the photograph and wetting her lips. Her hands were clasped.

“If it was,” he said, “of course you’d be very upset when you thought you’d lost it.”

“It wasn’t hers.”

“No?”

“I hadn’t noticed it wasn’t there. It gave me a turn, like. When you — you held it out.”

“I’m sorry,” Alleyn repeated.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Was it in London — the accident?”

“Yes,” she said, and shut her mouth like a trap.

Alleyn said lightly: “It’s a rather unusual-looking medallion, isn’t it? An order or a badge or something of that sort perhaps?”

She pulled her hands apart as if the gesture needed force to accomplish it.

“It’s my husband’s,” she said. “It’s Chubb’s.”

“A club badge, perhaps?

“You could call it that, I suppose.”

She had her back to the door. It opened and her husband stood on the threshold.

“I don’t know anything about it,” she said loudly. “It’s got nothing to do with anything. Nothing.”

Chubb said: “You’re wanted downstairs.”

She got up and left the room without a glance at Alleyn or at her husband.

“Were you wanting to see me, sir?” Chubb asked woodenly. “I’ve just come in.”

Alleyn explained about the cat and the medallion. Chubb listened impassively. “I was curious,” Alleyn ended, “about the medallion itself and wondered if it was a badge.”

He said at once and without hesitation, “That’s correct, sir. It’s a little social circle with an interest in E.S.P. and so forth. Survival and that.”

“Mr. and Miss Sanskrit are members, aren’t they?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“And Mr. Sheridan?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you?” Alleyn said lightly.

“They was kind enough to make me an honorary member, like. Seeing I go in and do the servicing for some of their meetings, sir. And seeing I was interested.”

“In survival after death, do you mean?”

“That kind of thing.”

“Your wife doesn’t share your interest?”

He said flatly: “She doesn’t come into it, does she? It’s kind of complimentary to my services, isn’t it? Like wearing a livery button used to be.”

“I see. You must find a different place for it, mustn’t you?” Alleyn said easily. “Out of reach of Lucy Lockett. Good afternoon to you, Chubb.”

Chubb mouthed rather than sounded his response to this, and Alleyn left him, almost as bleached as his wife had been five minutes earlier.

Mr. Whipplestone was still sipping tea. Lucy was discussing a saucer of milk on the hearthrug.

“You must have some tea at once,” Mr. Whipplestone said, pouring it out “And some anchovy toast. I hope you like anchovy toast. It’s still quite eatable, I think.” He tipped back the lid of the hot-server and up floated the smell that of all others recalled Alleyn to his boyhood days with the Boomer. He took a piece of toast and his tea.

“I can’t stay long,” he said. “I oughtn’t to stay at all, in fact, but here goes.”

“About the Chubbs?” Mr. Whipplestone ventured. Alleyn gave him a concise account of his visit upstairs. On the whole it seemed to comfort him. “As you suggested,” he said, “the emblem of some insignificant little coterie, and Chubb has been made a sort of non-commissioned officer in recognition of his serving them sandwiches and drinks. Perhaps they think he’s psychic. That makes perfectly good sense. Well, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, of course. It’s not without interest — do you agree?” Alleyn asked—“that Sanskrit is on the police records for fraudulent practice as a fortune-teller? And he’s done time for the odd spot of drug trafficking.”

“I am not in the least surprised,” Mr. Whipplestone energetically declared. “In the realms of criminal deception he is, I feel sure, capable de tout. From that point of view, if from no other, I do of course deplore the Chubb connection.”

“And there’s Mrs. Cockburn-Montfort, who seems to be a likely candidate for the attempt-on-the-President stakes. Not a nice influence either, would you say?”

“Oh drat!” said Mr. Whipplestone. “Very well, my dear fellow. I’m a selfish, square old bachelor and I don’t want anything beastly to happen to my Chubbs because they make life pleasant for me.” His exasperated gaze fell upon his cat. “As for you,” he scolded, “if you’d be good enough to keep your paws to yourself this sort of thing wouldn’t happen. Mind that!”

Alleyn finished his tea and toast and stood up.

“Are you going, my dear chap?” Mr. Whipplestone asked rather wistfully.

“Needs must. Thank you for my lovely cuppa. Goodbye, my dear,” he said to Lucy Lockett. “Unlike your boss, I’m much obliged to you. I’m off.”

“To see Mrs. C.-M.?”

“On the contrary. To see Miss Sanskrit. She now takes precedence over the C.-M.”

Alleyn had not come face-to-face with the Sanskrits at the Embassy. Like all the guests who had not been in or near the pavilion, they had been asked for their names and addresses by Inspector Fox, ticked off on the guest list, and allowed to go home. He didn’t think, therefore, that Miss Sanskrit would recall his face or, if she did, would attach more importance to it than to any that she had seen among a hundred others at the reception.

He walked down Capricorn Mews, past the Napoli grocery shop, the flower shop and the garages. The late afternoon was warm, scents of coffee, provender, carnations and red roses drifted on the air, and for some reason the bells in the Basilica were ringing.

At the far end of the Mews, at its junction with the passageway into Baronsgate, was the coverted stable now devoted to the sale of pottery pigs. It faced up the Mews and was, therefore, in full view for their entire length. Alleyn, advancing towards it, entertained somewhere in the back of his thought a prospect of stamping and sweating horses, industrious stablemen, ammoniacal fumes and the rumble of Dickensian wheels. Pigeons, circling overhead and intermittently flapping down to the cobbled passage, lent a kind authenticity to his fancies.

But there, as he approached, was the window legend The Piggie Potterie and 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.

Alleyn was beside it. He lifted the receiver and heard someone dialling. The ringing sound set in. After a longish pause a muffled voice said, “Yes?”

“That you, Xenoclea?” the Colonel said. “Chrissy rang you a moment ago, didn’t she? All right. He’s here.”

“Be careful.” (The Sanskrit, sure enough.)

“Of course. This is only to warn you.”

“Have you been drinking?’

“My dear Xenny! Look! He may call on you.”

“Why?”

“God knows. I’ll come round later. Or ring. ’Bye.”

A click and then the dialling tone.

Alleyn hung up and walked over to the window.

He was gazing at the distant prospect of the Basilica when the Colonel re-entered the room. Alleyn saw at once that he had decided on a change of manner. He came in jauntily.

“Ah!” he said. “There we are! Chrissy’s insisting on making herself presentable. She’ll be down in a moment. Says she feels quite equal to it. Come and take a pew. I think a drink while we wait is indicated, don’t you? What shall it be?”

“Very civil of you,” Alleyn said, speaking the language, “but it’s not on for me, I’m afraid. Please don’t let me stop you, though.”

“Not when you’re on guard duty, what? Bad luck! Well, just to show there’s no ill-feeling,” said the Colonel, “I think I will.”

He opened a door at the far end of the room and went into what evidently was his study. Alleyn saw a martial collection of sword, service automatic and a massive hunting rifle hung on the wall. The Colonel returned with a bottle in one hand and a very large gin in the other.

“Your very good health,” he said, and drank half of it. Fortified and refreshed, it seemed, he talked away easily about the assassination. He took it for granted, or appeared to do so, that the spearman had killed the Ambassador in mistake for the President. He said that you never could tell with blacks, that he knew them, that he’d had more experience of them, he ventured to claim, than most. “Bloody good fighting men, mind you, but you can’t trust them beyond a certain point.” He thought you could depend upon it that when the President and his entourage had got back to Ng’ombwana the whole thing would be dealt with in their way and very little would be heard of it. “There’ll be a new mlinzi on duty and no questions asked, I wouldn’t wonder. On the other hand, he may decide to make a public example.”

“By that do you mean a public execution?”

“Don’t take me up on that, old man,” said the Colonel, who was helping himself to another double gin. “He hasn’t gone in for that particular exercise, so far. Not like the late lamented, f instance.”

“The Ambassador?”

“That’s right. He had a pretty lurid past in that respect. Between you and me and the gatepost.”

“Really?”

“As a young man. Ran a sort of guerilla group. When we were still there. Never brought to book but it’s common knowledge. He’s turned respectable of late years.”

His wife made her entrance: fully clothed, coiffured and regrettably made up.

“Time for dinkies?” she asked. “Super! Give me one, darling: kick-sticks.”

Alleyn thought: “She’s already given herself one or more. This is excessively distasteful.”

“In a minute,” said her husband. “Sit down, Chris.”

She did, with an insecure suggestion of gaiety. “What have you two been gossiping about?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” Alleyn said, “to bother you at an inopportune time and when you’re not feeling well, but there is one question I’d like to ask you, Mrs. Cockburn-Montfort.”

“Me? Is there? What?”

“Why did you fire off that Luger and then throw it in the pond?”

She gaped at him, emitted a strange whining sound that, incongruously enough, reminded him of Mrs. Chubb. Before she could speak her husband said: “Shut up, Chris. I’ll handle it. I mean that. Shut up.”

He turned on Alleyn. The glass in his hand was unsteady, but Alleyn thought he was in pretty good command of himself: one of those heavy drinkers who are seldom really drunk. He’d had a shock but he was equal to it.

He said: “My wife will not answer any questions until we have consulted our solicitor. What you suggest is obviously unwarranted and quite ridiculous. And ’stremely ’fensive. You haven’t heard the last of this, whatever-your-rank-is Alleyn.”

“I’m afraid you’re right, there,” Alleyn said. “And nor have you, perhaps. Good evening to you. I’ll show myself out.”

“And the odd thing about that little episode, Br’er Fox, is this: my bit of personal bugging on the Cockburn-Montfort telephone exchange copped Miss Xenoclea Sanskrit — Xenny for short — in an apparently motiveless lie. The gallant Colonel said, ‘He—’ meaning me—‘may call on you,’ and instead of saying, ‘He has called on me,’ she merely growled, ‘Why?’ Uncandid behaviour from a comrade, don’t you think?”

“If,” said Fox carefully, “this little lot, meaning the Colonel and his lady, the Sanskrit combination, the Sheridan gentleman and his chap Chubb, are all tied up in some hate-the-blacks club, and if, as seems possible, seeing most of them were at the party, and seeing the way the lady carried on, they’re mixed up in the fatality—” He drew breath.

“I can’t wait,” Alleyn said.

“I was only going to say it wouldn’t, given all these circumstances, be anything out of the way if they got round to looking sideways at each other.” He sighed heavily. “On the other hand,” he said, “and I must say on the face of it this is the view I’m inclined to favour, we may have a perfectly straightforward job. The man with the spear used the spear and what else took place round about in the dark has little or no bearing on the matter.”

“How about Mrs. C.-M. and her Luger in the ladies’ loo?”

“Blast!” said Fox.

“The whole thing’s so bloody untidy,” Alleyn grumbled.

“I wouldn’t mind going over the headings,” Fox confessed.

“Plough ahead and much good may it do you.”

“A,” said Fox, massively checking it off with finger and thumb. “A. The occurrence. Ambassador killed by spear. Spearman stationed at rear in handy position. Says he was clobbered and his spear taken off him. Savs he’s innocent. B. Chubb. Ex-commando. Also at rear. Member of this secret society or whatever it is. Suggestion that he’s a black-hater. Says he was clobbered by black waiter. C. Mrs. C-M. Fires shot, probably blank, from ladies’ conveniences. Why? To draw attention? To get the President on his feet so’s he could be speared? By whom? This is the nitty-gritty one,” said Fox. “If the club’s an anti-black show would they collaborate with the spearman or the waiter? The answer is: unlikely. Very unlikely. Where does this take us?”

“Hold on to your hats, boys.”

“To Chubb,” said Fox. “It takes us to Chubb. Well, doesn’t it? Chubb, set up by the club, clobbers the spearman and does the job on the Ambassador, and afterwards says the waiter clobbered him and held him down.”

“But the waiter maintains that he stumbled in the dark and accidentally grabbed Chubb. If Chubb was the spearman what are we to make of this?”

“Mightn’t it be the case, though? Mightn’t he have stumbled and momentarily clung to Chubb?”

“Before or after Chubb clobbered the spearman and grabbed the spear?”

Fox began to look disconcerted. “I don’t like it much,” he confessed. “Still, after a fashion it fits. After a fashion it does.”

“It’s a brave show, Br’er Fox, and does you credit. Carry on.”

“I don’t know that I’ve all that much more to offer. This Sanskrit couple, now. At least there’s a CRO on him. Fraud, fortune-telling and hard drugs, I think you mentioned. Big importer into Ng’ombwana until the present government turned him out. They’re members of this club if Mr. Whipplestone’s right when he says he saw them wearing the medallion.”

“Not only that,” Alleyn said. He opened a drawer in his desk and produced his black pottery cat. “Take a look at this,” he said, and exhibited the base. It bore, as a trademark, a wavy X. “That’s on the reverse of the medallions, too,” he said. “X for Xenoclea, I suppose. Xenny not only wears a medallion, she makes ’em in her little kiln, fat witch that she is.”

“You’re building up quite a case, Mr. Alleyn, aren’t you? But against whom? And for what?”

“You tell me. But whatever turns up in the ambassadorial department, I’ll kick myself all round the Capricorns if I don’t get something on the Sanskrits. What rot they talk when they teach us we should never get involved. Of course we get involved: we merely learn not to show it.”

“Oh, come now! You never do, Mr. Alleyn.”

“Don’t I? All right, Foxkin, I’m talking through my hat. But I’ve taken a scunner on la belle Xenny and Big Brother and I’ll have to watch it. Look, let’s get the CRO file and have a look for ourselves. Fred Gibson wasn’t all that interested at that stage. One of his henchmen looked it up for him. There was nothing there that directly concerned security and he may not have given me all the details.”

So they called on the Criminal Records Office for the entry under Sanskrit.

Alleyn said, “Just as Fred quoted it. Fraudulent practices. Fortune-telling. Drag peddling, for which he did bird. All in the past before he made his pile as an importer of fancy goods in Ng’ombwana. And he did, apparently, make a tidy pile before he was forced to sell out to a Ng’ombwanan interest.”

“That was recently?”

“Quite recently. I actually happened to catch sight of him standing outside his erstwhile premises when I was over there. He doesn’t seem to have lost face — and God knows he’s got plenty to lose — or he wouldn’t have been asked to the party.”

“Wouldn’t you say it was a bit funny their being invited anyway?”

“Yes,” Alleyn agreed thoughtfully. “Yes, I think I would.”

“Would you reckon this pottery business of the sister’s was a money-spinner?”

“Not on a big scale.”

“Was she involved in any of the former charges?”

“She hasn’t got a CRO. Wait a bit, though. There’s a cross-reference. ‘See McGuigan, O.’ Fetch us down the Macs.” The sergeant on duty obliged.

“Here you are,” said Mr. Fox presently. “Take a look,” and without waiting for Alleyn to do so he continued in the slightly catarrhal voice he kept for reading aloud:

“ ‘McGuigan, Olive, supposed widow of Sean McGuigan, of whom nothing known. Sister of Kenneth Sanskrit q.v. Later assumed as first name, Xenoclea. Sus. drug traffic with brother. Charged with fortune-telling, for which fined, June, 1953. Reported to R.S.P.C.A. cruelty to cat, 1967. Charged and convicted. Fined with costs.’ Fred Gibson’s henchman left this out. He’ll be getting some ‘advice’ on this one,” said Fox.

“Ah. And Sam Whipplestone thinks she ill-treated his cat. Pretty little picture we’re building up, aren’t we? I must say I thought the ‘Xenoclea’ bit was too good to be true,” Alleyn grunted.

“Is it a made-up job, then, that name?”

“Not by her at least. Xenoclea was a mythical prophetess who wouldn’t do her stuff for Hercules because he hadn’t had a bath. After his Augean stables job, perhaps. I bet la belle Xenny re-christened herself and reverted to her maiden name when she took to her fortune-telling lay.”

“Where do they live?”

“Above the pottery pigs. There seems to be a flat up there: quite a sizable one by the look of it.”

“Does the brother live there with her — wait a bit,” said Fox, interrupting himself. “Where’s the guest list we made last night?”

“In my office, but you needn’t worry. I looked it up. That’s their joint address. While we’re at it, Br’er Fox, let’s see, for the hell of it, whether there’s anything on Sheridan, A.R.G., 1a, Capricorn Walk.”

But Mr. Sheridan had no criminal record.

“All the same,” Alleyn said, “we’ll have to get him sorted out. Even if it comes to asking the President if there’s a Ng’ombwanan link. He wasn’t asked to the reception, of course. Oh well, press on.”

They left the CRO and returned to Alleyn’s rooms, where he managed to reach Superintendent Gibson on the telephone.

“What’s horrible, Fred?”

“Nothing to report,” said the colourless man. “All quiet inside the premises, seemingly. We’ve stopped the demolition. Routine precaution.”

“Demolition?”

“Clearing up after the party. The Vistas people and the electrics. It’s silly really, seeing we can’t go in. If nothing develops they may as well get on with it.”

“Any ingoings or outcomings of interest?”

“"Post. Tradesmen. We looked over all deliveries, which wasn’t very popular. Callers offering condolences and leaving cards. The media of course. One incident.”

“What?”

“His Nibs, believe it or not."

“The President?”

“That’s right. Suddenly comes out by the front entrance with a dirty great dog on a leash and says he’s taking it for a walk in the park.”

Alleyn swore vigorously.

“What’s that?” asked Gibson.

“Never mind. Go on.”

“My sergeant, on duty at the entrance, tries to reason with him. I’m doing a cruise round in a job car and they give me a shout and I come in and try to reason with him. He’s very la-de-da, making out we’re fussy. It’s awkward,” said Mr. Gibson drearily.

“How did you handle it, Fred?”

“I’m stuck with it, aren’t I? So I say we’ll keep with it, and he says if it’s a bodyguard I’m worried about he’s got the dog and his own personal protection, and with that the door opens and guess who appears?” invited Mr. Gibson without animation.

“The spearman of last night?”

“That’s correct. The number one suspect in my book who we’d’ve borrowed last night, there and then, if we’d had a fair go. There he was, large as life.”

“You don’t surprise me. What was the upshot?”

“Ask yourself. In flocks the media, telly, press, the lot. He says ‘No comment’ and off he goes to his constitutional with the dog and the prime sus. and five of my chaps and a panda doing their best in the way of protection. So they all go and look at Peter Pan,” said Mr. Gibson bitterly, “and nobody shoots anybody or lobs in a bomb and they come home again. Tonight it’s the Palace caper.”

“That’s been scaled down considerably, hasn’t it?”

“Yes. Nondescript transport. Changed route. Small party.”

“At least he’s not taking the spearman with him.”

“Not according to my info. It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Poor Fred!”

“Well, it’s not what you’d pick in the way of a job,” said Gibson. “Oh, yes, and there’s another thing. He wants to see you. Or talk to you.”

“Why? Did you gather?”

“No. He just chucks it over his shoulder when he walks away. He’s awkward.”

“The visit may be cut short.”

“Can’t be too short for me,” said Gibson, and they took leave of each other.

“It’s a case,” Alleyn said when he’d replaced the receiver, “of ‘Where do we go for honey?’ I dunno, Br’er Fox. Press on, press on, but in what direction?”

“This Mr. Sheridan,” Fox ruminated. “He seems to have been kind of side-tracked, doesn’t he? I mean from the secret society or what-have-you angle.”

“I know he does. He wasn’t at the party. That’s why.”

“But he is a member of whatever they are.”

“Yes. Look here, Fox. The only reason — the only tenable reason — we’ve got for thinking there was some hanky-panky based on this idiot-group is the evidence, if you can call it that, of Mrs. C.-M. having loosed off a Luger with a blank charge, in the ladies’ loo. I’m quite convinced, if only because of their reaction — hers and the gallant Colonel’s — that she’s the girl who did it, though proving it will be something else again. All right. The highly suspect, the generally inadmissible word ‘coincidental’ keeps on rearing its vacant head in these proceedings, but I’ll be damned if I accept any argument based on the notion that two entirely unrelated attempts at homicide occurred within the same five minutes at an ambassadorial party.”

“You mean,” said Fox, “the idea that Mrs. C.-M. and this little gang had something laid on and never got beyond the first move because the spearman hopped in and beat them to it?”

“Is that what I mean? Yes, of course it is, but blow me down flat if it sounds as silly as I expected it to.”

“It sounds pretty silly to me.”

“You can’t entertain the notion?”

“It’d take a big effort.”

“Well, God knows. You may have to make it. I tell you what, Foxkin. We’ll try and get a bit more on Sheridan, if only for the sake of tidiness. And we’ll take a long shot and give ourselves the dreary task of finding out how a girl of sixteen was killed in London on the first of May, 1969. Name Glynis Chubb.”

“Car accident?”

“We don’t know. I get the impression that although the word accident was used, it was not used correctly. Lurking round the fringe of my rotten memory there’s something or another, and it may be so much nonsense, about the name Chubb in connection with an unsolved homicide. We weren’t involved. Not on our ground.”

“Chubb,” mused Fox. “Chubb, now. Yes. Yes, there was something. Now, what was it? Wait a bit, Mr. Alleyn. Hold on.”

Mr. Fox went into a glazed stare at nothing in particular, from which he was roused by Alleyn bringing his palm down smartly on his desk.

“Notting Hill Gate,” Alleyn said. “May 1969. Raped and strangled. Man seen leaving the area but never knocked off. That’s it. We’ll have to dig it out, of course, but I bet you that’s it. Still open. He left a red scarf behind and it was identified.”

“You’re dead right. The case blew out. They knew their man but they never got it tied up.”

“No. Never.”

“He was coloured,” Fox said. “A coloured chap, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “He was. He was black. And what’s more — Here! We’ll get on to the Unsolved file for this one and we’ll do it now, by gum.”

It didn’t take long. The Unsolved Homicide file for May 1969 had a succinct account of the murder of Chubb, Glynis, aged sixteen, by a black person believed but never proved to be a native of Ng’ombwana.