“At his own suggestion,” cried Malmsley.
“Really? Will he agree to that? Or will he say that you persuaded him to smoke opium?”
“He was perfectly ready to do it. He wanted to try. And he only had one pipe. A small amount. He would sleep it off in a few hours. I tell you he was already half asleep when I left.”
“When do you think he would wake?”
“I don’t know. How should I know? The effect varies very much the first time. It is impossible to say. He would be well enough in five hours at all events.”
“Do you think,” said Alleyn very deliberately, “that Garcia set this terrible trap for Sonia Gluck?”
Malmsley was white to the lips.
“I don’t know. I know nothing about it. I thought he must have done it. You have forced me into an intolerable position. If I say I believe he did it — but not because of the opium — I refuse to accept— ”
His voice was shrill, and his lips trembled. He seemed to be near to tears.
“Very well. We shall try to establish your own movements after you left the house. You caught the six o’clock bus?”
Malmsley eagerly gave an account of his week-end. He had attended the private view, had gone on to the Savoy, and to a friend’s flat. They had sat up till three o’clock. He had spent the whole of Saturday with this friend, and with him had gone to a theatre in the evening, and again they had not gone to bed until very late. Alleyn took him through the whole business up to his return on Sunday. Malmsley seemed to be very much shaken.
“Excellent, so far,” said Alleyn. “We shall, of course, verify your statements. I have looked at your illustrations, Mr. Malmsley. They are charming.”
“You shake my pleasure in them,” said Malmsley, rallying a little.
“I particularly liked the picture of the three little men with scythes.”
Malmsley looked sharply at Alleyn but said nothing.
“Have you ever visited Chantilly?” asked Alleyn.
“Never.”
“Then you have not seen Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry?”
“Never.”
“You have seen reproductions of the illustrations, perhaps?”
“I–I may have.”
Nigel, staring at Malmsley, wondered how he could ever have thought him a pale young man.
“Do you remember a book called The Consolations of a Critic?”
“I — don’t remember — I— ”
“Do you own a copy of this book?”
“No — I–I— ”
Alleyn picked up the little blue volume from under his chair and laid it on Malmsley’s knee.
“Isn’t this book your property, Mr. Malmsley?”
“I–I refuse to answer. This is intolerable.”
“It has your name on the fly-leaf.”
Nigel suddenly felt desperately sorry for Malmsley. He felt as if he himself had done something shameful. He wished ardently that Alleyn would let Malmsley go. Malmsley had embarked on a sort of explanation. Elaborate phrases faltered into lame protestations. The subconscious memory of beautiful things — all art was imitative — to refuse a model was to confess yourself without imagination. On and on he went, and ended in misery.
“All this,” said Alleyn, not too unkindly, “is quite unnecessary. I am not here to inquire into the ethics of illustrative painting. The rightness or wrongness of what you have done is between yourself, your publisher, and your conscience, if such a thing exists. All I want to know is how this book came into the possession of Sonia Gluck.”
“I don’t know. She was odiously inquisitive — I must have left it somewhere — I had it in the studio one afternoon when I — when I was alone. Someone came in and I–I put it aside. I am not in the least ashamed. I consider I had a perfect right. There are many dissimilarities.”
“That is what she was driving at when she asked you, on the morning of the experiment, where you got your ideas?”
“Yes. I suppose so. Yes.”
“Did you ask her for the book?”
“Yes.”
“And she refused to give it up?”
“It was abominable. It was not that I objected to anybody knowing.”
“Did you go to her room?”
“I had every right when she refused. It was my property.”
“I see. You tried to recover it while she was away. On Friday, perhaps, before you left?”
“If you must know, yes.”
“And you couldn’t find your book?”
“No.”
“Where was this book, Bailey?”
“In a locked suit-case, sir, under deceased’s bed. Someone had tried to pick the lock.”
“Was that you, Mr. Malmsley?”
“I was entirely justified.”
“Was it you?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you not tell Miss Troy what had happened?”
“I — Troy might not look at it — Troy is rather British in such matters. She would confess with wonderful enthusiasm that her own work is rooted in the aesthetics of the primitives, but for someone who was courageous enough to use boldly such material from the past as seemed good to him, she would have nothing but abuse. Women — English women especially — are the most marvellous hypocrites.”
“That will do,” said Alleyn. “What was Sonia’s motive in taking this book?”
“She simply wanted to be disagreeable and infuriating.”
“Did you offer her anything if she returned it?”
“She was preposterous,” muttered Malmsley, “preposterous.”
“How much did she ask?”
“I do not admit that she asked anything.”
“All right,” said Alleyn. “It’s your mess. Stay in it if you want to.”
“What am I to understand by that?”
“Think it out. I believe I need not keep you any longer, Mr. Malmsley. I am afraid I cannot return your book just yet. I shall need a specimen of your fingerprints. We can take them from the cigarette-box you picked up when you came in, or from objects in your room which I am afraid I shall have to examine. It would help matters if you allowed Sergeant Bailey to take an official specimen now.”
Malmsley consented to this with a very ill grace, and made a great fuss over the printer’s ink left on his thick white finger-tips.
“I fail to see,” he said, “why I should have been forced to go through this disgusting performance.”
“Bailey will give you something to clean up the ink,” said Alleyn. “Good evening, Mr. Malmsley.”
“One more job for you, Bailey, I’m afraid,” said Alleyn, when Malmsley had gone. “We’ll have to look through these rooms before we let them go to bed. Are they still boxed up in the dining-room, Fox?”
“They are that,” said Fox, “and if that young Australian talks much more, I fancy we’ll have a second corpse on our hands.”
“I’ll start off on Mr. Malmsley’s room, will I, sir?” asked Bailey.
“Yes. Then tackle the other men’s. We’ll be there in a jiffy. I don’t expect to find much, but you never know in our game.”
“Very good, Mr. Alleyn,” said Bailey. He went off with a resigned look.
“What do you make of this dope story, Mr. Alleyn?” said Fox. “We’ll have to have a go at tracing the source, won’t we?”
“Oh Lord, yes. I suppose so. Malmsley will say he got it from the friend who gave him the pretty little pipe and etceteras, and I don’t suppose even Malmsley will give his dope-merchant away. Not that I think he’s far gone. I imagine he spoke the truth when he said he’d only experimented — he doesn’t look like an advanced addict. I took a pot-shot on his eyes, his breath, and the colour of his beastly face. And I remembered Sadie noticed a smell. Luckily the shot went home.”
“Smoking,” ruminated Nigel. “That’s rather out of the usual in this country, isn’t it?”
“Fortunately, yes,” agreed Alleyn. “As a matter of fact it’s less deadly than the other methods. Much less pernicious than injecting, of course.”