Artists in Crime

CHAPTER XIII Upstairs

When Fox had gone upstairs and Nigel had been left to write a very guarded story for his paper on one of Troy’s scribbling-pads, Alleyn went down the hall and into the dining-room. He found Troy and her class in a state of extreme dejection. Phillida Lee, Ormerin and Watt Hatchett were seated at the table and had the look of people who have argued themselves to a standstill. Katti Bostock, hunched on the fender, stared into the fire. Malmsley was stretched out in the only arm-chair. Valmai Seacliff and Basil Pilgrim sat on the floor in a dark corner with their arms round each other. Curled up on a cushion against the wall was Troy — fast asleep. The local constable sat on an upright chair inside the door.

Katti looked up at Alleyn and then across to Troy.

“She’s completely done up,” said Katti gruffly. “Can’t you let her go to bed?”

“Very soon now,” said Alleyn.

He walked swiftly across the room and paused, his head bent down, his eyes on Troy.

Her face looked thin. There were small shadows in the hollows of her temples and under her eyes. She frowned, her hands moved, and suddenly she was awake.

“I’m so sorry,” said Alleyn.

“Oh, it’s you,” said Troy. “Do you want me?”

“Please. Only for a moment, and then I shan’t bother you again to-night.”

Troy sat up, her hands at her hair, pushing it off her face. She rose but lost her balance. Alleyn put his arm out quickly. For a moment he supported her.

“My legs have gone to sleep,” said Troy. “Damn!”

Her hand was on his shoulder. He held her firmly by the arms and wondered if it was Troy or he who trembled.

“I’m all right now,” she said, after an hour or a second. “Thank you.” He let her go and spoke to the others.

“I am very sorry to keep you all up for so long. We have had a good deal to do. Before you go to your rooms we should like to have a glance at them. I hope nobody objects to this.”

“Anything, if we can only go to bed,” said Katti, and nobody contradicted her.

“Very well, then. If you—” he turned to Troy, — “wouldn’t mind coming with me— ”

“Yes, of course.”

When they were in the hall she said: “Do you want to search our rooms for something? Is that it?”

“Not for anything specific. I feel we should just—” He stopped short. “I detest my job,” he said; “for the first time I despise and detest it.”

“Come on,” said Troy.

They went up to a half-landing where the stairs separated into two short flights going up to their left and right.

“Before I forget,” said Alleyn, “do you know what has happened to the bottle of nitric acid that was on the top shelf in the junk-room?”

Troy stared at him.

“The acid? It’s there. It was filled up on Friday.”

“Bailey must have missed it. Don’t worry — we saw the stains and felt we ought to account for them. What about these rooms?”

“All the students’ rooms are up there,” said Troy, and pointed to the upper landing on the right. “The bathrooms, and mine, are on the other side. Through here”—she pointed to a door on the half-landing—“are the servants’ quarters, the back stairs and a little stair up to the attic-room where — where Sonia slept.”

Alleyn saw that there were lights under two of the doors on the students’ landing.

“Fox and Bailey are up there,” he said. “If you don’t mind— ”

“You’d better do my room,” said Troy. “Here it is.”

They went into the second room on the left-hand landing. It was a large room, very spacious and well-proportioned. The walls, the carpet, and the narrow bed, were white. He saw only one picture and very few ornaments, but on the mantlepiece sparkled a little glass Christmas tree with fabulous glass flowers growing on it. Troy struck a match and lit the fire.

“I’ll leave you to your job,” she said.

Alleyn did not answer.

“Is there anything else?” asked Troy.

“Only that I should like to say that if it was possible for me to make an exception— ”

“Why should you make any exceptions?” interrupted Troy. “There is no conceivable reason for such a suggestion.”

“If you will simply think of me as a ship’s steward or — or some other sexless official— ”

“How else should I think of you, Mr. Alleyn? I can assure you there is no need for these scruples — if they are scruples.”

“They were attempts at an apology. I shall make a third and ask you to forgive me for my impertinence. I shan’t keep you long.”

Troy turned at the door.

“I didn’t mean to be beastly,” she said.

“Nor were you. I see now that I made an insufferable assumption.”

“—But you can hardly expect me to be genial when you are about to hunt through my under-garments for incriminating letters. The very fact that you suspect— ”

Alleyn strode to the door and looked down at her.

“You little fool,” he said, “haven’t you the common-or-garden gumption to see that I no more suspect you than the girl in the moon?”

Troy stared at him as if he had taken leave of his senses. She opened her mouth to speak, said nothing, turned on her heel and left the room.

“Blast!” said Alleyn. “Oh, blast and hell and bloody stink!”

He stood and looked at the door which Troy had only just not slammed. Then he turned to his job. There was a bow-fronted chest of drawers full of the sorts of garments that Alleyn often before had had to turn over. His thin fastidious hands touched them delicately, laid them in neat heaps on the bed and returned them carefully to their appointed places. There was a little drawer, rather untidy, where Troy kept her oddments. One or two letters. One that began “Troy darling” and was signed “Your foolishly devoted, John.”

“John,” thought Alleyn, “John Bellasca?” He glanced through the letters quickly, was about to return them to the drawer, but on second thoughts laid them in a row on the top of the chest. “An odious trade,” he muttered to himself. “A filthy degrading job.” Then there were the dresses in the wardrobe, the slim jackets, Troy’s smart evening dresses, and her shabby old slacks. All the pockets. Such odd things she kept in her pockets — bits of charcoal, india-rubbers, a handkerchief that had been disgracefully used as a paint-rag, and a sketch-book crammed into a pocket that was too small for it. There was a Harris tweed coat — blue. Suddenly he was back on the wharf at Quebec. The lights of Troy’s ship were reflected in the black mirror of the river. Silver-tongued bells rang out from all the grey churches. The tug, with its five globes of yellow light, moved outwards into the night tide of the St. Lawrence, and there on the deck was Troy, her hand raised in farewell, wearing blue Harris tweed. “Good-bye. Thank you for my nice party. Good-bye.” He slipped his hand into a pocket of the blue coat and pulled out Katti Bostock’s letter. He would have to read this.

The envelope was addressed to Troy at the Chateau Frontenac.

“Evidently,” thought Alleyn, “I had begun to make a nuisance of myself on board. Interrupting her work. Oh Lord!”

In a minute or two he had finished. It would have been absolutely all right if he had never asked about her room. No need for that little scene. He hung up the last garment, glanced round the room and looked for the fourth or fifth time at the photograph of a man that stood on the top of the bow-fronted chest. A good-looking man who had signed himself “John.” Alleyn, yielding to an unworthy impulse, made a hideous grimace at this photograph, turned to leave the room and saw Troy, amazed, in the doorway. He felt his face burning like a sky sign.

“Have you finished, Mr. Alleyn?”

“Quite finished, thank you.”

He knew she had seen him. There was a singular expression in her eyes.

“I have just made a face at the photograph on your tallboy,” said Alleyn.

“So I observed.”

“I have gone through your clothes, fished in your pockets and read all your letters. You may go to bed. The house will be watched, of course. Good night, Miss Troy.”

“Good morning, Mr. Alleyn.”

Alleyn went to Katti Bostock’s room where he found nothing of note. It was a great deal untidier than Troy’s room, and took longer. He found several pairs of paint-stained slacks huddled together on the floor of the wardrobe, an evening dress in close proximity to a painting-smock, and a row of stubborn-looking shoes with no trees in them. There were odds and ends in all the pockets. He plodded through a mass of receipts, colour-men’s catalogues, drawings and books. The only personal letter he found was the one Troy had written and posted at Vancouver. This had to be read. Troy’s catalogue of the students was interesting. Then he came to the passages about himself. “… turned out to be intelligent, so I felt the fool… Looks like a grandee… on the defensive about this sleuth… Took it like a gent and made me feel like a bounder.” As he read, Alleyn’s left eyebrow climbed up his forehead. He folded the letter very carefully, smoothed it out and returned it to its place among a box of half-used oil-colours. He began to whistle under his breath, polished off Katti Bostock’s effects, and went in search of Fox and Bailey. They had finished the men’s bedrooms.

Fox had found Malmsley’s opium-smoking impedimenta and had impounded it. The amount of opium was small. There were signs that the jar had at one time been full.

“Which does not altogether agree with Mr. Malmsley’s little story,” grunted Alleyn. “Has Bailey tried the thing for prints?”

“Yes. Two sets, Garcia’s and Malmsley’s on the pipe, the lamp and the jar.”

“The jar. That’s interesting. Well, let’s get on with it.”

He sent Bailey into Phillida Lee’s room, while he and Fox tackled Valmai Seacliff’s. Miss Seacliff’s walls were chiefly adorned with pictures of herself. Malmsley and Ormerin had each painted her, and Pilgrim had drawn her once and painted her twice.

“The successful nymphomaniac,” thought Alleyn, remembering Katti’s letter.

A very clever pencil drawing of Pilgrim, signed “Seacliff,” stood on the bedside table. The room was extremely tidy and much more obviously feminine than Troy’s or Katti’s. Seacliff had at least three times as many clothes, and quantities of hats and berets. Alleyn noticed that her slacks were made in Savile Row, and her dresses in Paris. He was amused to find that even the Seacliff painting-bags and smock smelt of Worth. Her week-end case had not been completely unpacked. In it he found three evening dresses, a nightdress and bath-gown, shoes, three pairs of coloured gloves, two day dresses, two berets, and an evening bag containing among other things a half-full bottle of aspirin.

“Maybe Pilgrim’s,” said Alleyn, and put them in his case. “Now for the correspondence.”

They found more than enough of that. Two of her dressing-table drawers were filled with neatly tied-up packets of letters.

“Help!” said Alleyn. “We’ll have to glance at these, Fox. There might be something. Here, you take this lot. Very special. Red ribbon. Must be Pilgrim’s, I imagine. Yes, they are.”

Fox put on his spectacles and began impassively to read Basil Pilgrim’s love-letters.

“Very gentlemanly,” he said, after the first three.

“You’re out of luck. I’ve struck a most impassioned series from a young man, who compares her bitterly and obscurely to a mirage. Golly, here’s a sonnet.”

For some time there was no sound but the faint crackle of note-paper. Bailey came in and said he had drawn a blank in Phillida Lee’s room. Alleyn threw a bundle of letters at him.

“There’s something here you might like to see,” said Fox. “The last one from the Honourable Mr. Pilgrim.”

“What’s he say?”

Fox cleared his throat.

“ ‘Darling,’ ” he began, ‘I’ve got the usual sort of feelings about not being anything like good enough for you. Your last letter telling me you first liked me because I seemed a bit different from other men has made me feel rather bogus. I suppose, without being an insufferable prig, I might agree that I can at any rate bear comparison with the gang we’ve got to know — the studio lot — like Garcia and Malmsley and Co. But that’s not a hell of a compliment to myself, is it? As a matter of fact, I simply loathe seeing you in that setting. Men like Garcia have no right to be in the same room as yourself, my lovely, terrifyingly remote Valmai. I know people scream with mirth at the sound of the word “pure.” It’s gone all déclassé like “genteel.” But there is a strange sort of purity about you, Valmai, truly. If I’ve understood you, you’ve seen something of — God, this sounds frightful — something of the same sort of quality in me. Oh, darling, don’t see too much of that in me. Just because I don’t get tight and talk bawdy, I’m not a blooming Galahad, you know. This letter’s going all the wrong way. Bless you a thousand, thousand—’ I think that’s the lot, sir,” concluded Fox.

“Yes. I see. Any letters in Pilgrim’s room?”

“None. He may have taken them to Ankerton Manor, chief.”

“So he may. I’d like to see the one where Miss Seacliff praised his purity. By the Lord, Fox, she has without a doubt got a wonderful technique. She’s got that not undesirable parti, who’ll be a perfectly good peer before very long, if it’s true that old Pilgrim is failing; she’s got him all besotted and wondering if he’s good enough.” Alleyn paused and rubbed his nose. “Men turn peculiar when they fall in love, Brer Fox. Sometimes they turn damned peculiar, and that’s a fact.”

“These letters,” said Fox, tapping them with a stubby forefinger, “were all written before they came down here. They’ve evidently been engaged in a manner of speaking for about a month.”

“Very possibly.”

“Well,” said Fox, “there’s nothing in these letters of Mr. Pilgrim’s to contradict any ideas we may have about Garcia, is there?”

“Nothing. What about Pilgrim’s clothes?”

“Nothing there. Two overcoats, five suits, two pairs of odd trousers and an odd jacket. Nothing much in the pockets. His week-end suit-case hasn’t been unpacked. He took a dinner suit, a tweed suit, pyjamas, dressing-gown, and toilet things.”

“Any aspirin?”

“No.”

“I fancy I found his bottle in one of Miss Seacliff’s pockets. Come on. Let’s get on with it.”

They got on with it. Presently Bailey said: “Here’s one from Garcia.”

“Let me see, will you?”

Like the note to Sonia, this was written in pencil on an odd scrap of paper. It was not dated or addressed, and the envelope was missing.

“Cool,” said Fox.

“Does this bloke live on women?” asked Bailey.

“He lives on anyone that will provide the needful, I’d say,” grunted Fox.

“That’s about it,” said Alleyn. “We’ll keep this and any other Garcia letters we find, Fox. Well, that’s all, isn’t it? Either of you got any more tender missives? All right then, we’ll pack up. Fox, you might tell them all they may turn in now. My compliments and so on. Miss Troy has gone to her room. The others, I suppose, will still be in the dining-room. Come on, Bathgate.”

A few minutes later they all met in the hall. Tatler’s End House was quiet at last. The fires had died down in all the grates, the rooms had grown cold. Up and down the passages the silence was broken only by the secret sounds made by an old house at night, small expanding noises, furtive little creaks, and an occasional slow whisper as though the house sighed at the iniquity of living men. Alleyn had a last look round and spoke to the local man who was to remain on duty in the hall. Bailey opened the door and Fox turned out the last of the lights. Nigel, huddled in an overcoat, stowed his copy away in a pocket and lit a cigarette. Alleyn stood at the foot of the stairs, his face raised, as if he listened for something.

“Right, sir?” asked Fox.

“Coming,” said Alleyn. “Good night.”

“Good night, sir,” said the local man.

“By the way — where’s the garage?”

“Round the house to the right, sir.”

“Thank you. Good night.”

The front door slammed behind them.

“Blast that fellow!” said Alleyn. “Why the devil must he wake the entire household?”

It was a still, cold night, with no moon. The gravel crunched loudly under their feet.

“I’m just going to have a look at the garage,” said Alleyn. “I’ve got the key from a nail in the lobby. I won’t be long. Give me my case, Bailey. Bathgate — you drive on.”

He switched on his torch and followed the drive round the house to an old stable-yard. The four loose-boxes had been converted into garages, and his key fitted all of them. He found an Austin, and a smart super charged sports car—“Pilgrim’s,” thought Alleyn — and in the last garage a small motor caravan. Alleyn muttered when he saw this. He examined the tyre-treads, measured the distance between the wheels and took the height from the ground to the rear doorstep. He opened the door and climbed in. He found a small lamp on a battery in the ceiling, and switched it on. It was not an elaborate interior, but it was well planned. There were two bunks, a folding table, a cupboard and plenty of lockers. He looked into the lockers and found painting gear and one or two canvases. He took one out. “Troy’s,” he said. He began to look very closely at the board floor. On the doorstep he found two dark indentations. They were shiny and looked as though they had been made by small wheels carrying a heavy load. The door opened outwards. Its inner surface had been recently scored across. Alleyn looked through a lens at the scratches. The paint had frilled up a little and the marks were clean. The floor itself bore traces of the shiny tracks, but here they were much fainter. He looked at the petrol gauge and found it registered only two gallons. He returned to the floor and crawled over it with his torch. At last he came upon a few traces of a greenish-grey substance. These he scraped off delicately and put in a small tin. He went into the driver’s cabin, taking an insufflator with him, and tested the wheel. It showed no clear prints. On the floor of the cabin Alleyn found several Player’s cigarette-butts. These he collected and examined carefully. The ray from his torch showed him a tiny white object that had dropped into the gear-change slot. He fished it out with a pair of tweezers. It was the remains of yet another cigarette and had got jammed and stuck to the inside of the slot. A fragment of red paper was mixed with the flattened wad of tobacco strands. One of Troy’s, perhaps. An old one. He had returned to the door with his insufflator, when a deep voice said:

“Have they remembered your hot-water bottle, sir, and what time would you wish to be called?”

“Fox!” said Alleyn, “I am sorry. Have I been very long?”

“Oh no, sir. Bert Bailey’s in his beauty sleep in the back of our car, and Mr. Bathgate has gone off in his to her ladyship’s. Mr. Bathgate asked me to tell you, sir, that he proposed to make the telephone wires burn while the going was good.”

“I’d like to see him try. Fox, we’ll seal up this caravan and then we really will go home. Look here, you send Bailey back to London and stay the night with us. My mother will be delighted. I’ll lend you some pyjamas, and we’ll snatch a few hours’ sleep and start early in the morning. Do come.”

“Well, sir, that’s very kind of you. I’d be very pleased.”

“Splendid!”

Alleyn sealed the caravan door with tape, and then the door of the garage. He put the key in his pocket.

“No little jaunts for them to-morrow,” he said coolly. “Come along, Fox. Golly, it’s cold.”

They saw Bailey, arranged to meet him at the Yard in the morning, and drove back to Danes Lodge.

“Well have a drink before we turn in,” said Alleyn softly, when they were indoors. “In here.”

Fox tiptoed after him towards Lady Alleyn’s boudoir. At the door they paused and looked at each other. A low murmur of voices came from the room beyond.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Alleyn, and walked in. A large fire crackled in the open fireplace. Nigel sat before it cross-legged on the heathrug. Curled up in a wing-backed chair was Lady Alleyn. She wore a blue dressing-gown and a lace cap and her feet were tucked under her.

“Ma’am!” said Alleyn.

“Hullo, darling! Mr. Bathgate’s been telling me all about your case. It’s wonderfully interesting, and we have already solved it in three separate ways.”

She looked round the corner of her chair and saw Fox.

“This is disgraceful,” said Alleyn. “A scene of license and depravity. May I introduce Mr. Fox, and will you give him a bed?”

“Of course I will. This is perfectly delightful. How do you do, Mr. Fox?”

Fox made his best bow and took the small, thin hand in his enormous fist.

“How d’you do, my lady?” he said gravely. “It’s very kind of you.”

“Roderick, bring up some chairs, darling, and get yourselves drinks. Mr. Bathgate is drinking whisky, and I am drinking port. It’s not a bit kind of me, Mr. Fox. I have hoped so much that we might meet. Do you know, you look exactly as I have always thought you would look, and that is very flattering to me and to you. Roderick has told me so much about you. You’ve worked together on very many cases, haven’t you?”

“A good many, my lady,” said Fox. He sat down and contemplated Lady Alleyn placidly. “It’s been a very pleasant association for me. Very pleasant. We’re all glad to see Mr. Alleyn back.”

“Whisky and soda, Fox?” said Alleyn. “Mamma, what will happen to your bright eyes if you swill port at one a.m.? Bathgate?”

“I’ve got one, thank you. Alleyn, your mother is quite convinced that Garcia is not the murderer.”

“No,” said Lady Alleyn. “I don’t say he isn’t the murderer, but I don’t think he’s the man you’re after.”

“That’s a bit baffling of you,” said Alleyn. “How d’you mean?”

“I think he’s been made a cat’s-paw by somebody. Probably that very disagreeable young man with a beard. From what Mr. Bathgate tells me— ”

“I should be interested to know what Bathgate has told you.”

“Don’t be acid, darling. He’s given me a perfectly splendid acount of the whole thing — as lucid as Lucy Lorrimer,” said Lady Alleyn.

“Who’s Lucy Lorrimer?” asked Nigel.

“She’s a prehistoric peep. Old Lord Banff’s eldest girl she was, and never known to finish a sentence. She always got lost in the thickets of secondary thoughts that sprang up round her simplest remarks, so everybody used to say ‘as lucid as Lucy Lorrimer.’ No, but really, Roderick, Mr. Bathgate was as clear as glass over the whole affair. I am absolutely au fait, and I feel convinced that Garcia has been a cat’s-paw. He sounds so unattractive, poor fellow.”

“Homicides are inclined to be unattractive, darling,” said Alleyn.

“What about Mr. Smith? George Joseph? You can’t say that of him with all those wives. The thing that makes me so cross with Mr. Smith,” continued Lady Alleyn, turning to Fox, “is his monotony. Always in the bath and always a pound of tomatoes. In and out of season, one supposes.”

“If we consider Mr. Malmsley, Lady Alleyn,” said Fox with perfect gravity, “his only motive, as far as we know, would be vanity.”

“And a very good motive too, Mr. Fox. Mr. Bathgate tells me Malmsley is an extremely affected and conceited young man. No doubt this poor murdered child threatened him with exposure. No doubt she said she would make a laughing-stock of him by telling everybody that he cribbed his illustration from Pol de Limbourge. I must say, Roderick, he showed exquisite taste. It is the most charming little picture imaginable. Do you remember we saw it at Chantilly?”

“I do, but I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t at first spot it when I looked at his drawing.”

“That was rather slow of you, darling. Too gay and charming for words. Well, Mr. Fox, suppose this young Malmsley deliberately stayed behind on Friday, deliberately gave Garcia opium, deliberately egged him on to set the trap, and then came away, hoping that Garcia would do it. How about that?”

“You put it very neatly indeed, my lady,” said Fox, looking at Lady Alleyn with serious approval. “May I relieve you of your glass?”

“Thank you. Well now, Roderick, what about Basil Pilgrim?”

“What about him, little mum?”

“Of course, he might easily be unbalanced. Robert Pilgrim is as mad as a March hare, and I think that unfortunate wife of his was a cousin of sorts, so there you are. And she simply set to work and had baby after baby after baby — all gels, poor thing — until she had this boy Basil, and died of exhaustion. Not a very good beginning. And Robert turned into a Primitive Methodist in the middle of it all, and used to ask everybody the most ill-judged questions about their private lives. I remember quite well when this boy was born, Roderick, your father said Robert’s methods had been too primitive for Alberta. Her name was Alberta. Do you think the boy could have had anything to do with this affair?”

“Has Bathgate told you all about our interview with Pilgrim?” asked Alleyn.

“He was in the middle of it when you came in. What sort of boy has he grown into? Not like Robert, I hope?”

“Not very. He’s most violently in love.”

“With this Seacliff gel. What kind of gel is she, Roderick? Modern and hard? Mr. Bathgate says beautiful.”

“She’s very good-looking and a bit of a huntress?”

“At all murderish, do you imagine?”

“Darling, I don’t know. Do you realise you ought to be in bed, and that you’ve led Bathgate into the father and mother of a row for talking out of school?”

“Mr. Bathgate knows I’m as safe as the Roman Wall, don’t you, Mr. Bathgate?”

“I’m so much in love with you, Lady Alleyn,” said Nigel, “that I wouldn’t care if you were the soul of indiscretion. I should still open my heart to you.”

“There now, Roderick,” said his mother, “isn’t that charming? I think perhaps I will go to bed.”

Ten minutes later, Alleyn tapped on his mother’s door. The familiar, high-pitched voice called: “Come in, darling,” and he found Lady Alleyn sitting bolt upright in her bed, a book in her hand, and spectacles on her nose.

“You look like a miniature owl,” said Alleyn and sat on the bed.

“Are they tucked away comfortably?”

“They are. Both besotted with adoration of you.”

“Darling! Did I show off?”

“Shamelessly.”

“I do like your Mr. Fox, Roderick.”

“Isn’t he splendid? Mum— ”

“Yes, darling?”

“This is a tricky business.”

“I suppose so. How is she?”

“Who?”

“Don’t be affected, Roderick.”

“We had two minor rows and one major one. I forgot my manners.”

“You shouldn’t do that. I don’t know, though. Perhaps you should. Who do you think committed this horrible crime, my dear?”

“Garcia.”

“Because he was drugged?”

“I don’t know. You won’t say anything about— ”

“Now, Roderick!”

“I know you won’t.”

“Did you give her my invitation?”

“Unfortunately we were not on them terms. I’ll be up betimes in the morning.”

“Give me a kiss, Rory. Bless you, dear. Good night.”

“Good night, little mum.”