“Yes. That’s all very straightforward. I’ll have to ask Sir Arthur Jaynes or someone to confirm it. The usual game, you know.”
“That’s all right,” said Katti. “You want to find out whether either of us had time to sneak back here and set a death-trap for that little fool Sonia, don’t you?”
“That’s the sort of idea,” agreed Alleyn with a smile. “I know Sir Arthur slightly. Would you like me to say you’ve lost a pearl necklace and want to trace it, or— ”
“Good Lord, no. Tell him the facts of the business. Do I look like pearls? And John will fix up Troy’s alibi for her. He’ll probably come down at ninety miles an hour to say he did it himself if you’re not careful.” Katti chuckled and lit a cigarette.
“I see.” said Alleyn. And into his thoughts came the picture of Troy as she had sat before the fire with her cropped head between her long hands. There had been no ring on those hands.
“When you got back to the club after you left the Hungaria, did anyone see you?”
“The night porter let me in. I don’t remember anyone else.”
“Was your room near Miss Troy’s?”
“Next door.”
“Did you hear her return?”
“No. She says she tapped on the door, but I must have been asleep. The maid came in at seven with my tea, but I’d have had time to go out, get Troy’s car and drive down here and back, between twelve-thirty and seven, you know.”
“True,” said Alleyn. “Did you?”
“No.”
“Well — we’ll have to do our best with night porters, garage attendants, and petrol consumption.”
“Wish you luck,” said Katti.
“Thank you, Miss Bostock. You got back here for lunch, I understand. How did you spend the afternoon?”
“Dishing up bilge for The Palette. I was in here.”
“Did you at any time go to the studio?”
“No.”
“Was Miss Troy with you on Saturday afternoon?”
“She was in and out. Let’s see. She spent a good time turning out that desk over there and burning old papers. Then she tidied her sketching-kit. We had tea in here. After tea we went out to look at a place across the fields where Troy thought of doing a sketch. We dined out with some people at Bossicote — the Haworths — and got home about eleven.”
“Thank you. Sunday?”
“I was at my article for The Pallette all day. Troy painted in the morning and came in here in the afternoon. The others were all back for dinner.”
“Did you hear the model say anything about her own movements during the week-end?”
“No. Don’t think so. I fancy she said she was going to London.”
“You engaged her for this term before Miss Troy returned, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“How did you get hold of her?”
“Through Graham Barnes. He gave me her address.”
“Have you got it?”
“Oh Lord, where was it? Somewhere in Battersea, I think. Battersea Bridge Gardens. That’s it. I’ve got it written down somewhere. I’ll try and find it for you.”
“I wish you would. It would save us one item in a loathsome itinerary of dull jobs. Now, about this business with the model and your picture. The trapeze-artiste subject, I mean. Did she pose for you again after the day when there was the trouble described by Miss Phillida Lee?”
Again that dull crimson stained the broad face. Katti’s thick eyebrows came together and her lips protruded in a sort of angry pout.
“That miserable little worm Lee! I told Troy she was a fool to take her, fees or no fees. The girl’s bogus. She went to the Slade and was no doubt made to feel entirely extraneous. She tries to talk ‘Slade’ when she remembers, but the original nice-girl gush oozes out all over the place. She sweats suburbia from every pore. She deliberately sneaked in and listened to what I had to say.”
“To the model?”
“Yes. Little drip!”
“It was true, then, that you did have a difference with Sonia?”
“If I did, that doesn’t mean I killed her.”
“Of course it doesn’t. But I should be glad of an answer, Miss Bostock.”
“She was playing up, and I ticked her off. She knew I wanted to finish the thing for the Group Show, and she deliberately set out to make work impossible. I scraped the head down four times, and now the canvas is unworkable— the tooth has gone completely. Troy is always too easy with the models. She spoils them. I gave the little brute hell because she needed it.”
“And did she pose again for you?”
“No. I’ve told you the thing was dead.”
“How did she misbehave? Just fidgeting?”
Katti leant forward, her square hands on her knees. Alleyn noticed that she was shaking a little, like an angry terrier.
“I’d got the head laid in broadly — I wanted to draw it together with a dry brush and then complete it. I wanted to keep it very simple and round, the drawing of the mouth was giving me trouble. I told her not to move — she had a damnable trick of biting her lip. Every time I looked at her she gave a sort of sneering smirk. As if she knew it wasn’t going well. I mixed a touch of cadmium red for the underlip. Just as I was going to lay it down she grimaced. I cursed her. She didn’t say anything. I pulled myself together to put the brush on the canvas and looked at her. She stuck her foul little tongue out.”
“And that tore it to shreds, I imagine?”
“It did. I said everything I’d been trying not to say for the past fortnight. I let go.”
“Not surprising. It must have been unspeakably maddening. Why, do you suppose, was she so set on making things impossible?”
“She deliberately baited me,” said Katti, under her breath.
“But why?”
“Why? Because I’d treated her as if she was a model. Because I expected to get some return for the excessive wages Troy was giving her. I engaged her, and I managed things till Troy came back. Sonia resented that. Always hinting that I wasn’t her boss and so on.”
“That was all?”
“Yes.”
“I see. You say her wages were excessively generous. What was she paid?”
“Four pounds a week and her keep. She’d spun Troy some tale about doctor’s bills, and Troy, as usual, believed the sad story and stumped up. She’s anybody’s mark for sponging. It’s so damned immoral to let people get away with that sort of thing. It’s no good talking to Troy. Street-beggars see her coming a mile away. She’s got two dead-heads here now.”
“Really? Which two?”
“Garcia, of course. She’s been shelling out money to Garcia for ages. And now there’s this Austrialian wildman Hatchett. She says she makes the others pay through the nose, but Lord knows if she ever gets the money. She’s hopeless,” said Katti, with an air of exasperated affection.
“Would you call this a good photograph of Mr. Garcia?” asked Alleyn suddenly. He held out the group. Katti took it and glowered at it.
“Yes, it’s very like him,” she said. “That thing was taken last year during the summer classes. Yes — that’s Garcia all right.”
“He was here as Miss Troy’s guest then, I suppose?”
“Oh Lord, yes. Garcia never pays for anything. He’s got no sort of decency where money is concerned. No conscience at all.”
“No aesthetic conscience?”
“Um!” said Katti. “I wouldn’t say that. No — his work’s the only thing he is honest about, and he’s passionately sincere there.”
“I wish you’d give me a clear idea of him, Miss Bostock. Will you?”
“Not much of a hand at that sort of thing,” growled Katti, “but I’ll have a shot. He’s a dark, dirty, weird-looking fellow. Very paintable head. Plenty of bone. You think he murdered the model, don’t you?”