“Yes, I dare say it is, but if the new people just do their best to make you feel they don’t want you, it’s worse than that. That was why I left the Slade, really, Mr. Alleyn. The instructors just used to come round once in a blue moon and look at one’s things and sigh. And the students never even seemed to see one, and if they did they looked as if one smelt. And at first this place was just as bad, though of course Miss Troy’s marvellous. Malmsley was at the Slade, and he’s typical. Seacliff’s worse. Anyway, Seacliff never sees another female, much less speaks to her. And all the men just beetle round Seacliff and never give anyone else a thought. It was a bit better after she said she was engaged to Pilgrim. Sonia felt like I did about Seacliff, and we talked about her a bit — and — well, we sort of sympathised about her.” The thin voice with its faint echo of the Midlands went on and on.
Alleyn, listening, could see the two of them, Phillida Lee, sore and lonely, God knew how angry and miserable, taking comfort in mutual abuse of Valmai Seacliff.
“So you made friends?” he asked.
“Sort of. Yes, we did. I’m not one to look down my nose at a girl because she’s a model. I’m a communist, anyway. Sonia was furious about Seacliff. She called her awful names — all beginning with B, you know. She said somebody ought to tell Pilgrim what Seacliff was like. She — she — said— ”
Miss Lee stopped abruptly.
“Yes?”
“I don’t know whether I ought to — I mean — I like Pilgrim awfully and — well, I mean— ”
“Is it something that the model said about Miss Seacliff?” said Alleyn.
“About her! Ooo no! I wouldn’t mind what anybody said about her. But I don’t believe it was true about Pilgrim. I don’t think he was ever attracted to Sonia. I think she just made it up.”
“Made what up, Miss Lee? Did she suggest there had been anything like a romance between herself and Mr. Pilgrim?”
“Well, if you can call it romance. I mean she said — I mean, it was only once ages ago, after a party, and I mean I think men and women ought to be free to follow their sex-impulses anyway, and not repress them. But I mean I don’t think Pilgrim ever did because he doesn’t seem as if he would somehow, but anyway, I don’t see why not, because as Garcia once said, if you’re hungry—” Miss Lee, scarlet with determination, shut her eyes and added: “you eat.”
“Quite so,” said Alleyn, “but you needn’t guzzle, of course.”
“Oh well — no, I suppose you needn’t. But I mean I should think Pilgrim never did.”
“The model suggested there had been a definite intimacy between herself and Pilgrim?”
“Yes. She said she could tell Seacliff a thing or two about him, and if he didn’t look out she would.”
“I see.”
“But I don’t think there ever was. Truly. It was because she was so furious with Pilgrim for not taking any notice of her.”
“You returned in the bus yesterday evening with the model, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Watt — I mean Hatchett and me and Ormerin and Malmsley.”
“Did you notice anything out of the way about her?”
“No. She was doing a bit of a woo with Ormerin to begin with, but I think she was asleep for the last part of the trip.”
“Did she mention what she had done in London?”
“I think she said she’d gone to stay with a friend or something.”
“No idea where or with whom?”
“No, Mr. Alleyn.”
“Nothing about Mr. Garcia?”
“No.”
“Did she ever speak much of Garcia?”
“Not much. But she seemed as if — as if in a sort of way she was sure of Garcia. And yet he was tired of her. She’d lost her body-urge for him, if you ask me. But she seemed sure of him and yet furious with him. Of course, she wasn’t very well.”
“Wasn’t she?”
“No. I’m sure that was why she did that terrible thing to Troy’s portrait of Seacliff. She was ill. Only she asked me not to say anything about it, because she said it didn’t do a model any good for her to get a reputation of not being able to stand up to the work. I wouldn’t have known except that I found her one morning looking absolutely green, and I asked her if anything was the matter. She said the pose made her feel sick — it was the twist that did it, she said. She was honestly sick, and she felt sort of giddy.”
Alleyn looked at Miss Lee’s inquisitive, rather pretty, rather commonplace face and realised that her sophistication was more synthetic than even he had supposed. “Bless my soul,” he thought, “the creature’s a complete baby — an infant that has been taught half a dozen indecorous phrases by older children.”
“Well, Miss Lee,” he said, “I think that’s all we need worry about for the moment. I’ve got your aunt’s address— ”
“Yes, but you will remember, won’t you? I mean— ”
“I shall be the very soul of tact. I shall say we are looking for a missing heiress believed to be suffering from loss of memory, and last heard of near Bossicote, and she will think me very stupid, and I shall learn that you spent the entire week-end in her company.”
“Yes. And Watt — Hatchett, I mean.”
“He was there too, was he?”
Again Miss Lee looked self-conscious and maidenly.
“Well, I mean, not all the time. I mean he didn’t stay with us, but he came to lunch and tea — and dinner on Saturday and lunch on Sunday. Of course he is rough, and he does speak badly, but I told auntie he can’t help that because everybody’s like that in Australia. Some of the others were pretty stinking to him too, you know. They made him feel dreadfully out of it. I was sorry for him, and I thought they were such snobs. And anyway, I think his work is frightfully exciting.”
“Where did he stay?”
“At a private hotel near us, in the Fulham Road. We went to the flicks on Saturday night. Oh, I told you that, didn’t I?”
“Yes, thank you. When you go back to the dining-room, will you ask Mr. Hatchett to come and see me in ten minutes’ time?”
“Yes, I will.”
She got up and gazed at Alleyn. He saw a sort of corpse-side expression come into her face.
“Oh, Mr. Alleyn,” she said, “Isn’t it all awful?”
“Quite frightful,” responded Alleyn cheerfully. “Good evening, Miss Lee.”
She walked away with an air of bereavement, and shut the door softly behind her.
“Oy!” said Nigel from the arm-chair.
“Hullo!”
“I’m moving over to the fire till the next one comes along. It’s cold in this corner.”
“All right.”
Fox, who had remained silently at the writing-desk throughout the interview with Miss Lee, joined Alleyn and Nigel at the fire.
“That was a quaint little piece of Staffordshire,” said Nigel.
“Little simpleton! All that pseudo-modern nonsense! See here, Bathgate, you’re one of the young intelligentsia, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean? I’m a pressman.”
“That doesn’t actually preclude you from the intelligentsia, does it?”
“Of course it doesn’t.”
“Very well then. Can you tell me how much of this owlishness is based on experience, and how much on handbooks and hearsay?”
“You mean their ideas on sex?”