“Now you can get up.”
Sonia sat up with an ostentatious show of discomfort, reached out her hand for the kimono and shrugged herself into it. Troy pulled the drape out taut from the cushion to the floor.
“It’ll have to go down each time with the figure,” she told the class.
“As it does in the little romance,” drawled Malmsley.
“Yes, it’s quite feasible,” agreed Valmai Seacliff. “We could try it. There’s that Chinese knife in the lumber-room. May we get it, Miss Troy?”
“If you like,” said Troy.
“It doesn’t really matter,” said Malmsley languidly, getting to his feet.
“Where is it, Miss Seacliff?” asked Hatchett eagerly.
“On the top shelf in the lumber-room.”
Hatchett went into an enormous cupboard by the window, and after a minute or two returned with a long, thin-bladed knife. He went up to Malmsley’s table and looked over his shoulder at the typescript. Malmsley moved away ostentatiously.
“Aw yeah, I get it,” said Hatchett. “What a corker! Swell way of murdering somebody, wouldn’t it be?” He licked his thumb and turned the page.
“I’ve taken a certain amount of trouble to keep those papers clean,” remarked Malmsely to no one in particular.
“Don’t be so damned precious, Malmsley,” snapped Troy. “Here, give me the knife, Hatchett, and don’t touch other people’s tools in the studio. It’s not done.”
“Good oh, Miss Troy.”
Pilgrim, Ormerin, Hatchett and Valmai Seacliff began a discussion about the possibility of using the knife in the manner suggested by Malmsley’s illustration. Phillida Lee joined in.
“Where would the knife enter the body?” asked Seacliff.
“Just here,” said Pilgrim, putting his hand on her back and keeping it there. “Behind your heart, Valmai.”
She turned her head and looked at him through half-closed eyes. Hatchett stared at her, Malmsely smiled curiously. Pilgrim had turned rather white.
“Can you feel it beating?” asked Seacliff softly.
“If I move my hand — here.”
“Oh, come off it,” said the model violently. She walked over to Garcia. “I don’t believe you could kill anybody like that. Do you, Garcia?”
Garcia grunted unintelligibly. He, too, was staring at Valmai Seacliff.
“How would he know where to put the dagger?” demanded Katti Bostock suddenly. She drew a streak of background colour across her canvas.
“Can’t we try it out?” asked Hatchett.
“If you like,” said Troy. “Mark the throne before you move it.”
Basil Pilgrim chalked the position of the throne on the floor, and then he and Ormerin tipped it up. The rest of the class looked on with gathering interest. By following the chalked-out line on the throne they could see the spot where the heart would come, and after a little experiment found the plot of this spot on the underneath surface of the throne.
“Now, you see,” said Ormerin, “the jealous wife would drive the knife through from underneath.”
“Incidentally taking the edge off,” said Basil Pilgrim.
“You could force it through the crack between the boards,” said Garcia suddenly, from the window.
“How? It’d fall out when she was shoved down.”
“No, it wouldn’t. Look here.”
“Don’t break the knife and don’t damage the throne,” said Troy.
“I get you,” said Hatchett eagerly. “The dagger’s wider at the base. The boards would press on it. You’d have to hammer it through. Look, I’ll bet you it could be done. There you are, I’ll betcher.”
“Not interested, I’m afraid,” said Malmsley.
“Let’s try,” said Pilgrim. “May we, Troy?”
“Oh, do let’s,” cried Phillida Lee. She caught up her enthusiasm with an apologetic glance at Malmsley. “I adore bloodshed,” she added with a painstaking nonchalance.
“The underneath of the throne’s absolutely filthy,” complained Malmsley,
“Pity if you spoiled your nice green pinny,” jeered Sonia.
Valmai Seacliff laughed.
“I don’t propose to do so,” said Malmsley. “Garcia can if he likes.”
“Go on,” said Hackett. “Give it a pop. I betcher five bob it’ll work. Fair dinkum.”
“What does that mean?” asked Seacliff. “You must teach me the language, Hatchett.”
“Too right I will,” said Hatchett with enthusiasm. “I’ll make a dinkum Aussie out of you.”
“God forbid,” said Malmsley. Sonia giggled.
“Don’t you like Australians?” Hatchett asked her aggressively.
“Not particularly.”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing. Models at the school I went to in Sydney knew how to hold a pose for longer than ten minutes.”
“You don’t seem to have taken advantage of it, judging by your drawing.”
“And they didn’t get saucy with the students.”‘
“Perhaps they weren’t all like you.”
“Sonia,” said Troy, “that will do. If you boys are going to make your experiment, you’d better hurry up. We start again in five minutes.”
In the boards of the throne they found a crack that passed through the right spot. Hatchett slid the thin tip of the knife into it from underneath and shoved. By tapping the hilt of the dagger with an easel ledge, he forced the widening blade upwards through the crack. Then he let the throne back on to the floor. The blade projected wickedly through the blue chalk cross that marked the plot of Sonia’s heart on the throne. Basil Pilgrim took the drape, laid it across the cushion, pulled it in taut folds down to the throne, and pinned it there.
“You see, the point of the knife is lower than the top of the cushion,” he said. “It doesn’t show under the drape.”
“What did I tell you?” said Hatchett.
Garcia strolled over and joined the group.
“Go into your pose, Sonia,” he said with a grin.
Sonia shuddered.
“Don’t,” she said.
“I wonder if the tip would show under the left breast,” murmured Malmsley. “Rather amusing to have it in the drawing. With a cast shadow and a thin trickle of blood. Keep the whole thing black and white except for the little scarlet thread. After all, it is melodrama.”
“Evidently,” grunted Garcia.
“The point of suspension for the drape would have to be higher,” said Troy. “It must be higher than the tip of the blade. You could do it. If your story was a modern detective novel, Malmsley, you could do a drawing of the knife as it is now.”
Malmsley smiled and began to sketch on the edge of his paper. Valmai Seacliff leant over him, her hands on his shoulders. Hatchett, Ormerin and Pilgrim stood round her, Pilgrim with his arm across her shoulder. Phillida Lee hovered on the outskirts of the little group. Troy, looking vaguely round the studio, said to herself that her worst forebodings were likely to be realised. Watt Hatchett was already at loggerheads with Malmsley and the model. Valmai was at her Cleopatra game, and there was Sonia in a corner with Garcia. Something in their faces caught Troy’s attention. What the devil were they up to? Garcia’s eyes were on the group round Malmsley. A curious smile lifted one corner of his mouth, and on Sonia’s face, turned to him, the smile was reflected.
“You’ll have to get that thing out now, Hatchett,” said Troy.
It took a lot of working and tugging to do this, but at last the knife was pulled out, the throne put back, and Sonia, with many complaints, took the pose again.
“Over more on the right shoulder,” said Katti Bostock.
Troy thrust the shoulder down. The drape fell into folds round the figure.
“Ow!” said Sonia.
“That is when the dagger goes in,” said Malmsley.