Read Online Artists in Crime by Ngaio Marsh - Free Book Online Page B

spectacles and stared blankly at the picture.
    “You get the posture of the figure very well there,” said Alleyn.
    They moved to Cedric Malmsley’s table.
    “This, I think, must be the illustrator,” continued Alleyn. “Yes — here’s the drawing for the story.”
    “Good God!” exclaimed Fox, greatly scandalised. “He’s made a picture of the girl after she was killed.”
    “No, no. That was the original idea for the pose. He’s merely added the dagger and the dead look. Here’s the portfolio with all the drawings. H’m, very volup. and Beardsley, with a slap of modern thrown in. Hullo!” Alleyn had turned to a delicate watercolour in which three medieval figures mowed a charming field against a background of hayricks, pollard willows, and a turreted palace. “That’s rum!” muttered Alleyn.
    “What’s up, Mr. Alleyn?”
    “It looks oddly familiar. One half of the old brain functioning a fraction ahead of the other, perhaps. Or perhaps not. No matter. Look here, Brer Fox, I think before we go any farther I’d better tell you as much as I know about the case.” And Alleyn repeated the gist of Blackman’s report and of his conversation with Troy. “This, you see,” he ended, “is the illustration for the story. It was to prove the possibility of murdering someone in this manner that they made the experiment with the dagger, ten days ago.”
    “I see,” said Fox. “Well, somebody’s proved it now all right, haven’t they?”
    “Yes,” agreed Alleyn. “It is proved — literally, up to the hilt.”
    “Cuh!” said Fox solemnly.
    “Malmsley has represented the dagger as protruding under the left breast, you see. I suppose he thought he’d add the extra touch of what
you’d
call romance, Brer Fox. The scarlet thread of gore is rather effective in a meretricious sort of way. Good Lord, this is a queer show and no mistake.”
    “Here’s what I call a pretty picture, now,” said Fox approvingly. He had moved in front of Valmai Seacliff’s canvas. Seacliff had used a flowing, suave line. The figure was exaggeratedly slender, the colour scheme a light sequence of blues and pinks.
    “Very elegant,” said Fox.
    “A little too elegant,” said Alleyn. “Hullo! Look at this.”
    Across Francis Ormerin’s water-colour drawing ran an ugly streak of dirty blue, ending in a blob that had run down the paper. The drawing was ruined.
    “Had an accident, seemingly.”
    “Perhaps. This student’s stool is overturned, you’ll notice. Fox. Some of the water in his paint-pot has slopped over and one of his brushes is on the floor.”
    Alleyn picked up the brush and dabbed it on the china palette. A half-dry smudge of dirty blue showed.
    “I see him or her preparing to flood a little of this colour on the drawing. He receives a shock, his hand jerks sideways and the brush streaks across the paper. He jumps up, overturning his stool and jolting the table. He drops the brush on the floor. Look, Fox. There are signs of the same sort of disturbance everywhere. Notice the handful of brushes on the table in front of the big canvas — I think that must be Katti Bostock’s — I remember her work. Those brushes have been put down suddenly on the palette. The handles are messed in paint. Look at this very orderly array of tubes and brushes over here. This student has dropped a tube of blue paint and then trodden on it. Here are traces leading to the throne. It’s a man’s shoe, don’t you think? He’s tramped about all over the place, leaving a blue painty trail. The modern lady — Miss Lee — has overturned a bottle of turpentine, and it’s run into her paint-box. There are even signs of disturbance on the illustrator’s table. He has put a wet brush down on the very clean typescript. The place is like a first lesson in detection.”
    “But beyond telling us they all got a start when the affair occurred, it doesn’t appear to lead us anywhere,” said Fox. “Not on the face of it.” He turned