Lady of the Ensemble
Before he left Tatler’s End House Alleyn rang up Superintendent Blackman and asked if there was any news of Garcia. There was none. A discreetly-worded notice had appeared in the morning papers and the B.B.C. had instructions to send out a police message. The police, within a fifty-mile radius, had made intensive inquiries.
“It looks as if he didn’t want to be found, Mr. Alleyn. The weather’s been fine and if he’d sketched as he said he intended to do, he wouldn’t have gone far in two days. It looks to me as if the bird had flown.”
“It does a bit. Of course he might have changed his plans and taken a train or bus. We’ll have to get on to the railway stations. All that deadly game. Thanks so much, Mr. Blackman. I’ll let you know if there are any developments. Inquest to-morrow?”
“No, Thursday. Our gentleman’s full up to-morrow. Bossicote Town Hall at eleven. He’s a sensible sort of chap, our man.”
“Good. I’ll call on the C.C. this morning, before I go up to London.”
“Just as well. He likes to be consulted.”
“What about the post-mortem?”
“I wanted to let you know. She was going to have a child. About a month gone, the doctor says.”
“I thought as much. Look here, I think I’ll get straight up to London. Make my apologies to the Chief Constable, will you? I want to catch a friend of Sonia Gluck’s, and I can’t risk missing her.”
“Right you are. He’ll understand. So long. See you on Thursday.”
Alleyn found Fox, who had renewed his acquaintance with the Hipkins and Sadie, and drove him back through teeming rain to Danes Lodge for breakfast.
“I’ve had a bit of a yarn with Ethel Jones,” said Fox.
“Ethel? Oh yes, the help from the village. What had she got to say for herself?”
“Quite a bit,” said Fox. He opened his note-book and put on his spectacles.
“You’re looking very bland, Brer Fox. What have you got on to?”
“Well, sir, it seems that Ethel and her boy took a walk on Friday night down the lane. They passed by the studio window on their way home from the pictures at about eleven-thirty, perhaps a bit later. There were lights going in the studio but the blind was down. They walked straight past, but when they’d gone a piece further down the lane they stopped in the shadow of the trees to have a bit of a cuddle as you might put it. Ethel doesn’t know how long it lasted. She says you’re apt to lose your idea of time on these occasions, but when they got back to earth and thought about moving on, she glanced down the lane and saw someone outside the studio window.”
“Did she, by gum! Go on, Fox!”
“Well, sir, she couldn’t see him very distinctly.”
“Him?”
“Yes. She says she could just see it was a man, and he seemed to be wearing a raincoat, and a cap or beret of some sort. He was standing quite close to the window, Ethel reckons, and was caught by a streak of light coming through the blind. I asked her about the face, of course, but she says it was in a shadow. She remembers that there was a small patch of light on the cap.”
“There’s a hole in the blind,” said Alleyn.
“Is that so, sir? That might account for it, then. Ethel says the rest of the figure was a shadow. The collar of his raincoat was turned up and she thinks his hands were in his pockets.”
“What height?”
“About medium, Ethel thought, but you know how vague they are. She said to her boy: ‘Look, there’s someone down the lane. They must have seen us,’ and I suppose she gave a bit of a giggle, like a girl would.”
“You ought to know.”
“Why not, sir? Then, she says, the man turned aside and disappeared into the darker shadow and they could just hear his footfall as he walked away. Well, I went into the lane to see if I could pick up his prints, but you’ve been there and you know there wasn’t much to be seen near the window, except the tyre-tracks where the caravan had been maneuvered about. When you get away from the window and out into the lane there are any number of them, but there’s been people and cars up and down during the week-end and there’s not much hope of picking up anything definite.”
“No.”
“I’ve looked carefully and I can’t find anything. It’s different with the car traces under the window. They’re off the beaten track, but this downpour about finished the lane as far as we’re concerned.”
“I know.”
“Well, we got a description of Garcia last night, of course, but to make sure, I asked the Hipkins and Sadie and Ethel to repeat it. They gave the same story. He always wears a very old mackintosh, whether it’s wet or fine, and it’s their belief he hasn’t got a jacket. Miss Troy gave him a grey sweater and he wears that with a pair of old flannel trousers. Mrs. Hipkin says Miss Troy has given him two shirts and Mr. Pilgrim gave him some underclothes. He doesn’t often wear anything on his head, but they have seen him in a black beret. Sadie says he looks as rough as bags. Ethel said straight out that she thought the figure outside the window was Garcia. She said so to her boy. She says it was the dead spit of Garcia, but then, we’ve got to remember it wasn’t at all distinct, and she may think differently now that she knows Garcia has gone. You know how they make up all sorts of things without scarcely knowing what they’re up to.”
“I do indeed. Had this figure by the window anything on its back — like a rucksack, for instance?”
“They say he hadn’t, but of course, if it was Garcia, he might not have picked up his gear when they saw him.”
“No.”
“I look at it this way. He might have gone through the window to take a short cut to the garage by way of the lane, and he might have stood there, having a last look at the arrangement on the model’s throne.”
“Through the hole in the blind? Rather a sinister picture, Fox. Wouldn’t they have heard him open the window?”
“Um,” said Fox.
“It makes a fair amount of noise.”
“Yes. Yes, that’s so.”
“Anything else?”
“No. They ambled off home. Hullo, sir, what’s up?”
Alleyn had pulled up and now began to turn the car in the narrow lane.
“Sorry, Fox, but we’re going back to have a look at the hole in the blind.”
And back to the studio they went. Alleyn measured the distance from the window-sill to the hole — a triangular tear, of which the flap had been turned back. He also measured the height of the lamps from the floor. He climbed on Fox’s shoulders and tied a thread to the light nearest the window. He stretched the thread to the hole in the blind. Fox stood outside in the pouring rain. Alleyn threw the window up, passed the thread through the hole to Fox, who drew it tight and held it against his diaphragm.
“You see?” said Alleyn.
“Yes,” said Fox, “I’m six foot two in my socks and it hits me somewhere — let’s see— ”
“About the end of the sternum.”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Good enough, but we’ll take a look at night. Let’s go and have breakfast.”
And a few minutes later they joined Nigel Bathgate at breakfast.
“You might have told me you were going out,” complained Nigel.
“I wouldn’t dream of interrupting your beauty sleep,” said Alleyn. “Where’s my mamma?”
“She finished her breakfast some minutes ago. She asked me to tell you she would be in her workshop. She’s going to weave me some tweed for a shooting jacket.”
“Divine creature, isn’t she? What have you written for your paper?”
“I’ll show you. I’ve left Miss Troy’s name out altogether, Alleyn. They simply appear as a group of artists in a charming old-world house in Buckinghamshire.”
“I’ll try to be a good godfather,” said Alleyn gruffly.