Read Artists in Crime for Free Online Page B

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.
    “Don’t — you’ll make me sick,” said Sonia.
    Garcia gave a little chuckle.
    “Right through the ribs and coming out under the left breast,” murmured Malmsley.
    “Shut up!”
    “Spitted like a little chicken.”
    Sonia raised her head.
    “I wouldn’t be too damn’ funny, Mr. Malmsley,” she said. “Where do you get your ideas from, I wonder? Books? Or pictures?”
    Malmsley’s brush slipped from his fingers to the paper, leaving a trace of paint. He looked fixedly at Sonia, and then began to dab his drawing with a sponge. Sonia laughed.
    “For God’s sake,” said Katti Bostock, “let’s get the pose.”
    “Quiet!” said Troy, and was obeyed. She set the pose, referring to the canvases. “Now get down to it, all of you. The Phoenix Group Show opens on the 16th. I suppose most of us want to go up to London for it. Very well, I’ll give the servants a holiday that week-end, and we’ll start work again on Monday.”
    “If this thing goes decently,” said Katti, “I want to put it in for the Group. It it’s not done, it’ll do for B. House next year.”
    “I take it,” said Troy, “you’ll all want to go up for the Group’s private view?”
    “I don’t,” said Garcia. “I’ll be pushing off for my holiday about then.”
    “What about us?” asked Valmai Seacliff of Basil Pilgrim.
    “What do you think, darling?”
    “ ‘Us?’ ” said Troy. “ ‘Darling’? What’s all this?”
    “We may as well tell them, Basil,” said Valmai sweetly. “Don’t faint, anybody. We got engaged last night.”

CHAPTER IV
Case for Mr. Alleyn
    Lady Alleyn knelt back on her gardening-mat and looked up at her son.
    “I think we have done enough weeding for to-day, darling. You bustle off with that barrow-load and then we’ll go indoors and have a glass of sherry and a chat. We’ve earned it.”
    Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn obediently trundled off down the path, tipped his barrow-load on the smudge fire, mopped his brow and went indoors for a bath. Half an hour later he joined his mother in the drawing-room.
    “Come up to the fire, darling. There’s the sherry. It’s a bottle of the very precious for our last evening.”
    “Ma’am,” said Alleyn, “you are the perfect woman.”
    “No, only the perfect mamma. I flatter myself I am a
very
good parent. You look charming in a dinner jacket, Roderick. I wish your brother had some of your finish. George always looks a little too hearty.”
    “I like George,” said Alleyn.
    “I quite like him, too,” agreed their mother.
    “This is really a superlative wine. I wish it wasn’t our last night, though. Three days with the Bathgates, and then my desk, my telephone, the smell of the Yard, and old Fox beaming from ear to ear, bless him. Ah well, I expect I shall quite enjoy it once I’m there.”
    “Roderick,” said