“I don’t know who murdered the model.”
“Well, I think he did. It’s just the sort of thing he would do. He’s absolutely ruthless and as cold-blooded as a flat-fish. He asked Malmsley if he ever felt like murdering his mistress, didn’t he?”
“So Mr. Malmsley told us.”
“I’ll bet it’s true. If Sonia interfered with his work and put him off his stride, and he couldn’t get rid of her any other way, he’d get rid of her that way. She may have refused to give him any more money.”
“Did she give him money?”
“I think so. Ormerin says she was keeping him last year. He wouldn’t have the slightest qualms about taking it. Garcia just looks upon money as something you’ve got to have to keep you going. How you get it is of no importance. He could have got a well-paid job with a monumental firm. Troy got on to it for him. When he saw the tombstones with angels and open Bibles he said something indecent and walked out. He was practically starving that time,” said Katti, half to herself, and with a sort of reluctant admiration, “but he wouldn’t haul his flag down.”
“You think the model was really attached to him?”
Katti took another cigarette and Alleyn lit it for her.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not up in the tender passion. I’ve got an idea that she’d switched over to Basil Pilgrim, but whether it was to try and make Garcia jealous or because she’d fallen for Pilgrim is another matter. She was obviously livid with Seacliff. But then Garcia had begun to hang round Seacliff.”
“Dear me,” said Alleyn, “what a labyrinth of untidy emotions.”
“You may say so,” agreed Katti. She hitched herself out of her chair. “Have you finished with me, Mr. Alleyn?”
“Yes, do you know, I think I have. We shall have a statement in longhand for you to look at and sign, if you will, later on.”
She glared at Fox. “Is that what he’s been up to?”
“Yes.”
“Pah!”
“It’s only to establish your movements. Of course, if you don’t want to sign it— ”
“Who said I didn’t? Let me wait till I see it.”
“That’s the idea, miss,” said Fox, looking benignly at her over the top of his spectacles.
“Will you show Miss Bostock out, please, Fox?”
“Thank you, I know my way about this house,” said Katti with a prickly laugh. She stumped off to the door. Fox closed it gently behind her.
“Rather a tricky sort of lady, that,” he said.
“She is a bit. Never mind. She gave us some sidelights on Garcia.”
“She did that all right.”
There was a rap on the door and one of the local men looked in.
“Excuse me, sir, but there’s a gentlemen out here says he wants to see you very particular.”
“What’s his name?”
“He just said you’d be very glad indeed to see him, sir. He never gave a name.”
“Is he a journalist?” asked Alleyn sharply. “If he is, I shall be very glad indeed to kick him out. We’re too busy for the Press just now.”
“Well, sir, he didn’t say he was a reporter. He said — er— er — er— ”
“What?”
“His words was, sir, that you’d scream the place down with loud cries of gladness when you clapped eyes on him.”
“That’s no way to ask to see the chief,” said Fox. “You ought to know that.”
“Go and ask him to give his name,” said Alleyn.
The policeman retired.
Fox eyed Alleyn excitedly.
“By gum, sir, you don’t think it may be this Garcia? By all accounts he’s eccentric enough to send in a message like that.”
“No,” said Alleyn, as the door opened. “I rather fancy I recognize the style. I rather fancy, Fox, that an old and persistent friend of ours has got in first on the news.”
“Unerring as ever, Mr. Alleyn,” said a voice from the hall, and Nigel Bathgate walked into the room.
CHAPTER IX
Phillida Lee and Wait Hatchett
Where the devil did you spring from?” asked Alleyn. Nigel advanced with a shamless grin.
“ ‘Where did I come from, ’Specky dear?
The blue sky opened and I am here!’ ”
“Hullo, Fox!”
“Good evening, Mr. Bathgate,” said Fox.
“I suppose you’ve talked to my mamma on the telephone,” said Alleyn as they shook hands.
“There now,” returned Nigel, “aren’t you wonderful, Inspector? Yes, Lady Alleyn rang me up to say you’d been sooled on to the trail before your time, and she thought the odds were you’d forget to let us know you couldn’t come and stay with us.”
“So you instantly motored twenty miles in not much more than as many minutes in order to tell me how sorry you were?”
“That’s it,” said Nigel cheerfully. “You read me like a book. Angela sends her fondest love. She’d have come too only she’s not feeling quite up to long drives just now.”
He sat down in one of the largest chairs.
“Don’t let me interrupt,” he said. “You can give me the story later on. I’ve got enough to go on with from the local cop. I’ll ring up the office presently and give them the headlines. Your mother — divine woman — has asked me to stay.”
“Has my mother gone out of her mind?” asked Alleyn of nobody in particular.
“Come, come, Inspector,” reasoned Nigel, with a trace of nervousness in his eye, “you know you’re delighted to have me.”
“There’s not the smallest excuse for your bluffing your way in, you know. I’ve a damn’ good mind to have you chucked out.”
“Don’t do that. I’ll take everything down in shorthand and nobody will see me if I turn the chair round. Fox will then be able to fix the stammering witnesses with a basilisk glare. All will go like clock-work. All right?”
“All right. It’s quite irregular, but you occasionally have your uses. Go into the corner there.”
Nigel hurried into a shadowy corner, turned a high armchair with its back to the room and dived into it.
“ ‘I am invisible,’ ” he said. “ ‘And I shall overhear their conference,’ The Bard.”
“I’ll deal with you later,” said Alleyn grimly. “Tell them to send another of these people along, Fox.”
When Fox had gone Nigel asked hoarsely from the armchair if Alleyn had enjoyed himself in New Zealand.
“Yes,” said Alleyn.
“Funny you getting a case there,” ventured Nigel. “Rather a busman’s holiday, wasn’t it?”
“I enjoyed it. Nobody interfered and the reporters were very well-behaved.”
“Oh,” said Nigel.
There was a short silence broken by Nigel.
“Did you have a slap-and-tickle with the American lady on the boat deck?”
“I did not.”
“Oh! Funny coincidence about Agatha Troy. I mean she was in the same ship, wasn’t she? Lady Alleyn tells me the portrait is quite miraculously like you.”
“Don’t prattle,” said Alleyn. “Have you turned into a gossip hound?”
“No. I say!”
“What!”
“Angela’s started a baby.”
“So I gathered, and so no doubt Fox also gathered, from your opening remarks.”
“I’m so thrilled I could yell it in the teeth of the whole police force.”
Alleyn smiled to himself.
“Is she all right?” he asked.
“She’s not sick in the mornings any more. We want you to be a godfather. Will you, Alleyn?”
“I should be charmed.”
“Alleyn!”
“What?”
“You might tell me a bit about this case. Somebody’s murdered the model, haven’t they?”