For an alarming second or two Alleyn felt himself to be at explosion point. With difficulty he controlled his voice and suggested, fairly mildly, that if any attempts made upon the Boomer turned out to be fiascos it would be entirely due to the vigilance and efficiency of the despised Gibson and his men.
“Why don’t you arrest this person?” the Boomer asked casually.
“Because, as you very well know, we can’t make arrests on what would appear to be groundless suspicion. He has done nothing to warrant an arrest.”
The Boomer scarcely seemed to listen to him, a non-reaction that didn’t exactly improve his temper.
“There is one more member of this coterie,” Alleyn said. “A servant called Chubb. Is he known to you?”
“Chubb? Chubb? Ah! Yes, by the way! I believe I have heard of Chubb. Isn’t he Mr. Samuel Whipplestone’s man? He came up with drinks while I was having a word with his master, who happened to mention it. You’re not suggesting—!”
“That Sam Whipplestone’s involved? Indeed I’m not. But we’ve discovered that the man is.”
The Boomer seemed scarcely to take this in. The enormous creature suddenly leapt to his feet. For all his great size he was on them, like an animal, in one co-ordinated movement.
“What am I thinking of!” he exclaimed. “To bring myself here! To force my attention upon your wife with this silly dangerous person who, bombs or no bombs, is liable to make an exhibition of himself and kick up dirt in the street. I will take myself off at once. Perhaps I may see her for a moment to apologize and then I vanish.”
“She won’t take much joy of that,” Alleyn said. “She has gone a miraculously long way in an unbelievably short time with what promises to be the best portrait of her career. It’s quite appalling to think of it remaining unfinished.”
The Boomer gazed anxiously at him and then, with great simplicity, said: “I get everything wrong.”
He had made this observation as a solitary black schoolboy in his first desolate term and it had marked the beginning of their friendship. Alleyn stopped himself from saying: “Don’t look like that,” and instead picked up the great bouquet of roses, put them in his hands, and said: “Come and see her.”
“Shall I?” he said, doubtful but greatly cheered. “Really? Good!”
He strode to the door and flung it open. “Where is my mlinzi?” he loudly demanded.
Fox, who was in the hall, said blandly: “He’s outside Mrs. Alleyn’s studio, Your Excellency.. He seemed to think that was where he was wanted.”
“We may congratulate ourselves,” Alleyn said, “that he hasn’t brought his spear with him.”
Alleyn had escorted the Boomer to the studio and seen him established on his throne. Troy, tingling though she was with impatience, had praised the roses and put them in a suitable pot. She had also exultantly pounced upon the Afghan hound, who, with an apparent instinct for aesthetic values, had mounted the throne and posed himself with killing effect against the Boomer’s left leg and was in process of being committed to canvas.
Alleyn, possessed by a medley of disconnected anxieties and attachments, quitted the unlikely scene and joined Fox in the hall.
“Is it all right?” Fox asked, jerking his head in the direction of the studio. “All that?”
“If you can call it all right for my wife to be settled cosily in there painting a big black dictator with a suspected murderer outside the door and the victim’s dog posing for its portrait, it’s fine. Fine!”
“Well, it’s unusual,” Fox conceded. “What are you doing about it?”
“I’m putting one of those coppers on my doorstep outside the studio where he can keep the mlinzi company. Excuse me for a moment, Fox.”
He fetched the constable, a powerful man, from the pavement and gave him his directions.
“The man doesn’t speak much English, if any,” he said, “and I don’t for a moment suppose he’ll do anything but squat in the sun and stare. He’s not armed and normally he’s harmless. Your job’s to keep close obbo on him till he’s back in the car with Master.”
“Very good, sir,” said the officer, and proceeded massively in the required direction.
Alleyn rejoined Fox.
“Wouldn’t it be simpler,” Fox ventured, “under the circumstances, I mean, to cancel the sittings?”
“Look here, Br’er Fox,” Alleyn said. “I’ve done my bloody best to keep my job out of sight of my wife and by and large I’ve made a hash of it. But I’ll tell you what: if ever my job looks like so much as coming between one dab of her brush and the surface of her canvas, I’ll chuck it and set up a prep school for detectives.”
After a considerable pause Mr. Fox said judicially: “She’s lucky to have you.”
“Not she,” said Alleyn. “It’s entirely the other way round. In the meantime, what’s cooking? Where’s Fred?”
“Outside. He’s hoping for a word with you. Just routine, far as I know.”
Mr. Gibson sat in a panda a little way down the cul-de-sac and not far from the pub. Uniform men were distributed along the street and householders looked out of upstairs windows. The crowd at the entrance had thinned considerably.
Alleyn and Fox got into the panda.
“What’s horrible?” they asked each other. Gibson reported that to the best of his belief the various members of the group were closetted in their respective houses. Mrs. Chubb had been out-of-doors shopping but had returned home. He’d left a couple of men with radio equipment to patrol the area.
He was droning on along these lines when the door of Alleyn’s house opened and the large officer spoke briefly to his colleague in the street. The latter was pointing towards the panda.
“This is for me,” Alleyn said. “I’ll be back.”
It was Mr. Whipplestone on the telephone, composed but great with tidings. He had paid his plumbing call on Mr. Sheridan and found him in a most extraordinary state.
“White to the lips, shaking, scarcely able to pull himself together and give me a civil hearing. I had the impression that he was about to leave the flat. At first I thought he wasn’t going to let me in, but he shot a quick look up and down the street and suddenly stepped back and motioned with his head for me to enter. We stood in the lobby. I really don’t think he took in a word about the plumbers, but he nodded and — not so much grinned as bared his teeth from time to time.”
“Pretty!”
“Not very delicious, I assure you. Do you know, I was transported back all those years, into that court of justice in Ng’ombwana. He might have been standing in the dock again.”
“That’s not an over-fanciful conceit, either. Did you say anything about the Sanskrits?”
“Yes. I did. I ventured. As I was leaving. I think I may say I was sufficiently casual. I asked him if he knew whether the pottery in the Mews undertook china repairs. He looked at me as if I was mad and shook his head.”
“Has he gone out?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know. You may be sure I was prepared to watch. I had settled to do so, but Mrs. Chubb met me in the hall. She said Chubb was not well and would I mind if she attended to my luncheon — served it and so on. She said it was what she called a ‘turn’ that he’s subject to and he had run out of whatever he takes for it and would like to go to the chemist’s. I, of course, said I could look after myself and she could go to the chemist’s. I said I would lunch out if it would help. In any case it was only ten o’clock. But she was distressed, poor creature, and I couldn’t quite brush her aside and go into the drawing-room, so I can’t positively swear Sheridan-Gomez-didn’t leave. It’s quite possible that he did. As soon as I’d got rid of Mrs. Chubb I went to the drawing-room window. The area gate was open and I’m certain I shut it.”