I look forward to seeing you both, my dear Bathgate, and send you my salutations the most distinguished.
Yours ever,
Roderick Alleyn.
Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn to Lady Alleyn, Danes Lodge, Bossicote, Bucks.
C.P.R.
August 15th.
My Dearest Mamma,
Your letter found me at Vancouver. Yes, please — I should like to come straight to you; We arrive at Liverpool on the 7th, and I’ll make for Bucks as fast as may be. The garden sounds very attractive, but don’t go doing too much yourself, bless you. No, darling, I did not lose my heart in the Antipodes. Would you have been delighted to welcome a strapping black Fijian lady? I might have got one to regard me with favour at Suva, perhaps, but they smell of coco-nut oil, which you would not have found particularly delicious. I expect if I ever do get it in the neck, she’ll think me no end of a dull dog and turn icy. Talking of Suva, which I was not, do you know of a place called Tatler’s End House, somewhere near Bossicote? Agatha Troy, who painted that picture we both liked so much, lives there. She joined this ship at Suva, and did a lovely thing of the wharf. Look here, mamma, if ever a Virginia Van Maes writes and asks you to receive her, you must be away, or suffering from smallpox. She’s an American beauty who looks people up in Kelly’s and collects scalps. She looked me up and — Heaven knows why — she seemed inclined to collect ours. It’s the title, I suppose. Talking of titles, how’s the blasted Baronet? She was on to him like a shot. “Gee, Mr. Alleyn, I never knew your detective force was recruited from your aristocracy. I’m crazy to know if this Sir George Alleyn is your only brother.” You see? She threatens to come to England and has already said she’s sure you must be the cutest old-world mother. She’s quite capable of muscling in on the strength of being my dearest girl-friend. So you look out, darling. I’ve told her you’re a horrid woman, but I don’t think she cares. You’ll be sixty-five on or about the day this arrives.
In thirty years I shall be nearly ten years older than you are now, and you’ll still be trying to bully me. Do you remember how I found out your real age on your thirty-fifth birthday? My first really good bit of investigation, nasty little tick that I was. Well, little mum, don’t flirt with the vicar, and be sure to have the red carpet out on the 7th.
Your dutiful and devoted son,
Roderick.
PS. — Miss Troy has done a sketch of your son which he will purchase for your birthday if it’s not too expensive.
From Lady Alleyn, Danes Lodge, Bossicote, to Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn, Chateau Frontenac, Quebec.
Dear Roderick,
Your ingenuous little letter reached me on my birthday, and I was delighted to receive it. Thank you, my dear. It will be a great joy to have you for nearly a fortnight, greedily to myself. I trust I am not one of those avaricious mammas — clutch, clutch, clutch — which, after all, is only a form of cluck, cluck, cluck.
It will be delightful to have a Troy version of you, and I hope it was not too expensive — if it was, perhaps you would let me join you, my dear. I should like to do that, but have no doubt you will ruin yourself and lie to your mother about the price. I shall call on Miss Troy, not only because you obviously wish me to do so, but because I have always liked her work, and should be pleased to meet her, as your Van Maes would say. George is with his family in Scotland. He talks of standing for Parliament, but I am afraid he will only make a fool of himself, poor dear. It’s a pity he hasn’t got your brains. I have bought a hand-loom and am also breeding Alsatians. I hope the bitch — Tunbridge Tessa — does not take a dislike to you. She is very sweet really. I always feel, darling, that you should not have left the Foreign Office, but at the same time, I am a great believer in everybody doing what he wants to, and I do enjoy hearing about your cases.
Until the 7th, my dearest son.
Your loving
Mother.
PS. — I have just discovered the whereabouts of Miss Troy’s house, Tatler’s End. It is only two miles out of Bossicote, and a nice old place. Apparently she takes students there. My spies tell me a Miss Bostock has been living in it during Miss Troy’s absence. She returns on the 3rd. How old is she?
CHAPTER III
Class Assemblies
On the 10th of September at ten o’clock in the morning, Agatha Troy opened the door in the eastward wall of her house and stepped out into the garden. It was a sunny morning with a tang of autumn about it, a bland, mellow morning. Somewhere in the garden a fire had been lit, and an aromatic trace of smouldering brushwood threaded the air. There was not a breath of wind.
“Autumn!” muttered Troy. “And back to work again. Damn! I’m getting older.” She paused for a moment to light a cigarette, and then she set off towards the studio, down on the old tennis court. Troy had built this studio when she inherited Tatler’s End House from her father. It was a solid square of decent stone with top lighting, and a single window facing south on a narrow lane. It stood rather lower than the house, and about a minute’s walk away from it. It was screened pleasantly with oaks and lilac bushes. Troy strode down the twisty path between the lilac bushes and pushed open the studio door. From beyond the heavy wooden screen inside the entrance she heard the voices of her class. She was out of patience with her class. “I’ve been too long away,” she thought. She knew so exactly how each of them would look, how their work would take shape, how the studio would smell of oil colour, turpentine, and fixative, how Sonia, the model, would complain of the heat, the draught, the pose, the cold, and the heat again. Katti would stump backwards and forwards before her easel, probably with one shoe squeaking. Ormerin would sigh, Valmai Seacliff would attitudinise, and Garcia, wrestling with clay by the south window, would whistle between his teeth.
“Oh, well,” said Troy, and marched round the screen.
Yes, there it all was, just as she expected, the throne shoved against the left-hand wall, the easels with fresh white canvases, the roaring gas heater, and the class. They had all come down to the studio after breakfast and, with the exception of Garcia and Malmsley, waited for her to pose the model. Malmsley was already at work; the drawings were spread out on a table. He wore, she noticed with displeasure, a sea-green overall. “To go with the beard, I suppose,” thought Troy. Garcia was in the south window, glooming at the clay sketch of Comedy and Tragedy. Sonia, the model, wrapped in a white kimono, stood beside him. Katti Bostock, planted squarely in the centre of the room before a large black canvas, set her enormous palette. The rest of the class, Ormerin, Phillida Lee, Watt Hatchett and Basil Pilgrim, were grouped round Valmai Seacliff.
Troy walked over to Malmsley’s table and looked over his shoulder at the drawings.
“What’s that?”
“That’s the thing I was talking about,” explained Malmsley. His voice was high-pitched and rather querulous. “It’s the third tale in the series. The female has been murdered by her lover’s wife. She’s lying on a wooden bench, impaled on a dagger. The wife jammed the dagger through the bench from underneath, and when the lover pressed her down — you see? The knife is hidden by the drape. It seems a little far-fetched, I must say. Surely it would show. The wretched publisher man insists on having this one.”
“It needn’t show if the drape is suspended a little,” said Troy. “From the back of the bench, for instance. Then as she falls down she would carry the drape with her. Anyway, the probabilities are none of your business. You’re not going a ‘before and after,’ like a strip advertisement, are you?”
“I can’t get the pose,” said Malmsley languidly. “I want to treat it rather elaborately. Deliberately mannered.”