Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 10: Last Ditch, Black As He’s Painted, Grave Mistake. Ngaio Marsh
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in the little street.
A dark, pale and completely bald man, well-dressed in formal clothes, who had been reading a paper at a table outside the little pub, put on his hat and strolled away. Several people crossed the street. The policeman on duty asked them to stand back.
‘What is all this?’ asked The Boomer.
‘Perhaps it has escaped your notice that the media has not been idle. There’s a front page spread with banner headlines in the evening papers.’
‘I would have thought they had something better to do with the space.’ He slapped Alleyn on the back. ‘Bless you,’ he roared. He got into the car, shouted, ‘I’ll be back at half past nine in the morning. Do try to be at home,’ and was driven off. ‘Bless you,’ Alleyn muttered to the gracious salutes The Boomer had begun to turn on for the benefit of the bystanders. ‘God knows you need it.’
The police car led the way, turning off into a side exit which would bring them eventually into the main street. The Ng’ombwanan car followed it. There were frustrated manifestations from the crowd at the far end which gradually dispersed. Alleyn, full of misgivings, went back to the house. He mixed two drinks and took them to the studio, where he found Troy still in her painting smock, stretched out in an armchair scowling at her canvas. On such occasions she always made him think of a small boy. A short lock of hair overhung her forehead, her hands were painty and her expression brooding. She got up, abruptly, returned to her easel and swept down a black line behind the head that started up from its tawny surroundings. She then backed away towards him. He moved aside and she saw him.
‘How about it?’ she asked.
‘I’ve never known you so quick. It’s staggering.’
‘Too quick to be right?’
‘How can you say such a thing? It’s witchcraft.’
She leant against him. ‘He’s wonderful,’ she said. ‘Like a symbol of blackness. And there’s something – almost desperate. Tragic? Lonely? I don’t know. I hope it happens on that thing over there.’
‘It’s begun to happen. So we forget the comic element?’
‘Oh that! Yes, of course, he is terribly funny. Victorian music-hall, almost. But I feel it’s just a kind of trimming. Not important. Is that my drink?’
‘Troy, my darling, I’m going to ask you something irritating.’
She had taken her drink to the easel and was glowering over the top of her glass at the canvas. ‘Are you?’ she said vaguely. ‘What?’
‘He’s sitting for you again in the morning. Between now and then I want you not to let anybody or anything you don’t know come into the house. No gas-meter inspectors or window-cleaners, no parcels addressed in strange hands. No local body representatives. Nothing and nobody that you can’t account for.’
Troy, still absently, said, ‘All right,’ and then suddenly aware: ‘Are you talking about bombs?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Good Lord!’
‘It’s not a silly notion, you know. Well, is it?’
‘It’s a jolly boring one, though.’
‘Promise.’
‘All right,’ Troy said, and squeezed out a dollop of cadmium red on her palette. She put down her drink and took up a brush.
Alleyn wondered how the hell one kept one’s priorities straight. He watched her nervous, paint-stained hand poise the brush and then use it with the authority of a fiddler. What she’s up to, he thought, and what I am supposed to be up to are a stellar journey apart and yet ours, miraculously, is a happy marriage. Why?
Troy turned round and looked at him. ‘I was listening,’ she said, ‘I do promise.’
‘Well – thank you, my love,’ he said.
II
That evening, at about the same time as The Boomer dined royally at Buckingham Palace, Alleyn, with Fox in attendance, set out to keep observation upon Mr Sheridan in his basement flat at No. la, Capricorn Walk. They drove there in a ‘nondescript’ equipped with a multichannel radio set. Alleyn remembered that there had been some talk of Mr Whipplestone dining with his sister who had come up to London for the night, so there was no question of attracting his attention.
They had been advised by a panda on Unit Beat that the occupant of the basement flat was at home but his window curtains must be very heavy because they completely excluded the light. Alleyn and Fox approached from Capricorn Square and parked in the shadow of the plane trees. The evening was sultry and overcast and the precincts were given over to their customary quietude. From the Sun in Splendour, further back in the Square, came the sound of voices, not very loud.
‘Hold on a bit. I’m in two minds about this one, Fox.’ Alleyn said, ‘It’s a question of whether the coterie as a whole is concerned in last night’s abortive attempt if that’s what it was, or whether Mrs C-M and the Colonel acted quite independently under their own alcoholic steam. Which seems unlikely. If it was a concerted affair they may very well have called a meeting to review the situation. Quite possibly to cook up another attempt.’
‘Or to fall out among themselves,’ said Fox.
‘Indeed. Or to fall out.’
‘Suppose, for instance,’ Fox said in his plain way, ‘Chubb did the job, thinking it was the President: they won’t be best pleased with him. And you tell me he seems to be nervous.’
‘Very nervous.’
‘What’s in your mind, then? For now?’
‘I thought we might lurk here for a bit to see if Mr Sheridan has any callers or if, alternatively, he himself steps out to take the air.’
‘Do you know what he looks like?’
‘Sam Whipplestone says he’s dark, bald, middle height, well-dressed and speaks with a lisp. I’ve never seen him to my knowledge.’ A pause. ‘He’s peeping,’ said Alleyn.
A vertical sliver of light had appeared in the basement windows of No. la. After a second or two it was shut off.
‘I wouldn’t have thought,’ Fox said, ‘they’d fancy those premises for a meeting. Under the circs. With Mr Whipplestone living up above and all.’
‘Nor would I.’
Fox grunted comfortably and settled down in his seat. Several cars passed down Capricorn Walk towards Baronsgate, the last being a taxi which stopped at No. 1. A further half-dozen cars followed by a delivery van passed between the watchers and the taxi and were held up, presumably by a block in Baronsgate itself. It was one of those sudden and rare incursions of traffic into the quiet of the Capricorns at night. When it had cleared a figure was revealed coming through the gate at the top of the basement steps at No. 1: a man in a dark suit and scarf wearing a ‘City’ hat. He set off down the Walk in the direction of Baronsgate. Alleyn waited for a little and then drove forward, he turned the corner, passed No. 1 and parked three houses further along.
‘He’s going into the Mews,’ he said. And, sure enough, Mr Sheridan crossed the street, turned right and disappeared.
‘What price he’s making a call on the pottery pigs?’ Alleyn asked. ‘Or do you fancy the gallant Colonel and his lady? Hold on, Fox.’
He left Fox in the car, crossed the street and walked rapidly past the Mews for some twenty yards. He then stopped and returned to a small house-decorator’s shop on the corner where he was able to look through the double windows down the Mews past the Napoli and the opening into Capricorn Place, where the Cockburn-Montforts lived, to the pottery at the far end. Mr Sheridan kept straight on, in and out of the rather sparse lighting until he reached the pottery. Here he stopped at a side-door, looked about him and raised his hand to the bell.