Artists in Crime (20 page)

He moved restlessly about the room.

“There’s something missing,” he said. “I’m positive there’s something missing.”

“Garcia,” said Fox. “He’s missing all right.”

“No, blast you, not Garcia. Though Lord knows, we’ll have to get him. No, there was something else that the O’Dawne had on the tip of her tongue. By gum, Fox, I wonder — Look here.”

Alleyn was still talking when the telephone rang to say Nigel Bathgate had arrived.

“Send him up,” said Alleyn. And when Nigel appeared Alleyn talked about Bobbie O’Dawne and suggested that Nigel should get a special interview.

“This is extraordinarily decent of you, Alleyn,” said Nigel.

“It’s nothing of the sort. You’re the tool of the Yard, my boy, and don’t you forget it. Now listen carefully and I’ll tell you what line you’re to take. You must impress upon her that you are to be trusted. If she thinks you’ll publish every word she utters, she’ll say nothing to the point. If you can, write the interview there and then and read it to her. Assure her that you will print nothing without her permission. Photograph the lady in every conceivable position. Then get friendly. Let her think you are becoming indiscreet. You may say that you have had instructions from the Yard to publish a story about Sonia’s blackmailing activities unless we can hear, privately, exactly what they were. You may say that we think of publishing an appeal through the paper to any of her victims, asking them to come forward and tell us without prejudice what they paid her. We hope that this will lead to the arrest of Garcia. Emphasise this. It’s Garcia we’re after, but we can’t lay it home to him without the evidence of the people Sonia blackmailed. We think Sonia refused to give him any more of the proceeds and he killed her to get them. It’s a ridiculous tarradiddle, but I think if you are low and cunning she may believe you. She’ll tell you about Pilgrim and Malmsley, I fancy, because she knows we have already got hold of that end of the stick. If, however, she thinks she may save Sonia’s name by going a bit farther, there’s just a chance she may do it. Do you understand?”

“I think so.”

“If you fail, we’ll be no worse off than we were before. Off you go.”

“Very well,” Nigel hesitated, his hand in his coat pocket.

“What is it?” asked Alleyn.

“Do you remember that I made a sort of betting list on the case last time you allowed me to Watson for you?”

“I do.”

“Well — I’ve done it again,” said Nigel modestly.

“Let me have a look.”

Nigel took a sheet of foolscap from his pocket and laid it before Alleyn with an anxious smile.

“Away you go,” said Alleyn. “Collect your cameraman and use your wits.”

Nigel went out and Alleyn looked at his analysis of the case.

“I’d half a mind to do something of the sort myself, Fox.” he said. “Let us see what he makes out.”

Fox looked over his shoulder. Nigel had headed his paper:

Alleyn pointed a long finger at Nigel’s final sentence.

“Mr. Bathgate’s bright idea for the day,” he said.

“Yes,” said Fox. “It looks nice and simple just jotted down like that.”

“The thing’s quite neat in its way, Fox.”

“Yes, sir. And I think he’s got the right idea, you know.”

“Garcia?”

“Yes. Don’t you?”

“Oh Lord, Fox, you’ve heard my trouble. I don’t see how we can be too sure.”

“There’s that bit of clay with his print on it,” said Fox. “On the drape, where it had no business.”

“Suppose it was planted? There’d be any number of bits like that lying on the floor by the window. We found some. Let’s get Bailey’s further report on the prints, shall we?”

Alleyn rang through to Bailey’s department and found that Bailey had finished his work and was ready to make a report. In a minute or two he appeared with a quantity of photographs.

“Anything fresh?” asked Alleyn.

“Yes, sir, in a sort of a way there is,” said Bailey, with the air of making a reluctant admission.

“Let’s have it.”

Bailey laid a set of photographs on Alleyn’s desk.

“These are from the empty whisky bottle under Garcia’s bed. We got them again from different parts of the bed-frame, the box underneath and the stool he used for his work. Some of them cropped up on the window-sill and there’s a good thumb and forefinger off the light switch above his bed. These”—he pointed to a second group—“come from bits of clay that were lying about the floor. Some of them were no good, but there’s a couple of clear ones. They’re made by the same fingers as the first lot. I’ve marked them ‘Garcia.’ ”

“I think we may take it they are his,” said Alleyn.

“Yes. Well then, sir, here’s the ones off the opium-box and the pipe. Four of those I’ve identified as Mr. Malmsley’s. The others are Garcia’s. Here’s a photo of the clay pellet I found in the drape. Garcia again. This set’s off the edge of the throne. There were lots of prints there, some of them Mr. Hatchett’s some Mr. Pilgrim’s and some the French bloke’s — this Mr. Ormerin. They seem to have had blue paint on their fingers, which was useful. But this set is Garcia’s again and I found it on top of the others. There were traces of clay in this lot, which helped us a bit.”

Alleyn and Fox examined the prints without comment. Bailey produced another photograph and laid it on the desk.

“I got that from the drape. Took a bit of doing. Here’s the enlargement.”

“Garcia,” said Alleyn and Fox together.

“I reckon it is,” said Bailey. “We’d never have got it if it hadn’t been for the clay. It looks to me, Mr. Alleyn, as if he’d only half done the job. There’s no prints on the knife, so I supposed he held that with a cloth or wiped it after he’d only half done the job. There’s nothing on the knife but a smudge of blue. You may remember there were the same blue smudges on the throne and the easel-ledge that was used to hammer in the dagger. Now, this print we got from the bit of paint-rag that you suggested was used to wipe off the prints. Some of the paint on the rag was only half dry, and took a good impression. It matches the paint smudges on the knife. Blue.”

“Garcia’s.”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“This about settles it, Mr. Alleyn,” said Fox.

“That Garcia laid the trap? I agree with you.”

“We’ll have to ask for more men. It’s going to be a job getting him, sir. He had such a big start. How about letting these alibis wait for to-day, Mr. Alleyn?”

“I think we’d better get through them, but I tell you what, Fox. I’ll ask for another man and leave the alibi game to the pair of you. I’m not pulling out the plums for myself, Foxkin.”

“I’ve never known you to do that, Mr. Alleyn, don’t you worry. We’ll get through these alibis,” said Fox. “I’d like to see what our chaps are doing round the Holloway district.”

“And I,” said Alleyn, “think of going down to Brixton.”

“Is that a joke?” asked Fox suspiciously, after a blank pause.

“No, Fox.”

“Brixton? Why Brixton?”

“Sit down for a minute,” said Alleyn, “and I’ll tell you.”

At four o’clock on the following afternoon, Wednesday, September 21st, Alleyn turned wearily into the last land and estate agents’ office in Brixton. A blond young man advanced upon him.

“Yes, sir? What can I have the pleasure of doing for you?”

“It’s not much of a pleasure, I’m afraid. If you will,
and
if you can, tell me of any vacant warehouses in this district, or of any warehouses that have let part of themselves to artists, or of any artists who, having rented such premises, have taken themselves off to foreign parts and lent the premises to a young man who sculps. As you will probably have guessed, I am an officer of Scodand Yard. Here’s my card. Do you mind awfully if I sit down?”

“Er — yes. Of course not. Do,” said the young man in some surprise.

“It’s a weary world,” said Alleyn. “The room would be well lit. I’d better show you my list of all the places I have already inspected.”

The list was a long one. Alleyn had continued his search at eleven o’clock that morning.

The blond young man ran through it, muttering to himself. Occasionally he cast a glance at his immaculately dressed visitor.

“I suppose,” he said at last, with an avid look towards an evening paper on the corner of his desk, “I suppose this wouldn’t happen to have any connection with the missing gentleman from Bucks?”

“It would,” said Alleyn.

“By the name of Garcia?”

“Yes. We believe him to be ill and suffering from loss of memory. It is thought he may have wandered in this direction, poor fellow.”

“What an extraordinary thing!” exclaimed the young man.

“Too odd for words,” murmured Alleyn. “He’s a little bit ga-ga, we understand. Clever, but dottyish. Do you think you can help us?”

“Well now, let me see. This list is pretty comprehensive. I don’t know if— ”

He bit his finger and opened a large book. Alleyn closed his eyes.

“It’s not exactly in our line, really,” said the young man. “I mean to say, any of the warehouses round here might have a room to let and we’d never hear of it. See what I mean?”

“Alas, yes,” said Alleyn.

“Now there’s Solly and Perkins. Big place. Business not too good, they tell me. And there’s Anderson’s shirt factory, and Lacker and Lampton’s used-car depot. That’s in Guiper Row, off Cornwall Street. Just by the waterworks. Opposite the prison. Quite in your line, Inspector.”

He laughed shrilly.

“Damn’ funny,” agreed Alleyn.

“Lacker and Lampton’s foreman was in here the other day. He’s taken a house from us. Now, he did say something about there being a lot of room round at their place. He said something about being able to store his furniture there if they went into furnished rooms. Yes. Now, I wonder. How about Lacker and Lampton’s?”

“I’ll try it. Could you give me the foreman’s name?”

“McCully’s the name. Ted McCully. He’s quite a pal of mine. Tell him I sent you. James is my name. Look here, I’ll come round with you, if you like.”

“I wouldn’t dream of troubling you,” said Alleyn firmly. “Thank you very much indeed. Good-bye.”

He departed hurriedly, before Mr. James could press his offer home. A fine drizzle had set in, the sky was leaden, and already the light had begun to fade. Alleyn turned up the collar of his raincoat, pulled down the brim of his hat and strode off in the direction of Brixton Prison. Cornwall Street ran along one side of the waterworks and Guiper Row was a grim and deadly little alley off Cornwall Street. Lacker and Lampton’s was at the far end. It was a barn of a place and evidently combined wrecking activities with the trade in used cars. The ground floor was half full of spare parts, chassis without wheels, engines without chassis, and bodies without either.

Alleyn asked for Mr. Ted McCully, and in a minute or two a giant in oil-soaked dungarees came out of a smaller workshop, wiping his hands on a piece of waste.

“Yes, sir?” he asked cheerfully.

“I’m looking for an empty room with a good light to use as a painting-studio,” Alleyn began. “I called in at the estate agents, behind the prison, and Mr. James, there, said he thought you might have something.”

“Bert James?” said Mr. McCully with a wide grin. “What’s he know about it? Looking for a commission as per usual, I’ll bet.”

“Have a cigarette. Will that thing stand my weight?”

“Thank you, sir. I wouldn’t sit there; it’s a bit greasy. Take the box.”

Alleyn sat on a packing-case.

“Have you any vacant rooms that would do to paint in?”

“Not here, we haven’t, but it’s a funny thing you should ask.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, it’s a bit of a coincidence,” said Mr. McCully maddeningly.

“Oh?”

“Yes. The world’s a small place, you know, sir. Isn’t it, now?”

“No bigger than a button,” agreed Alleyn.

“That’s right. Look at this little coincidence, now. I dare say you’ve had quite a ramble looking for this room you want.”

“I have rambled since eleven o’clock this morning.”

“Is that a fact? And then you look in on Bert James and he sends you round here. And I’ll swear Bert knows nothing about it, either. Which makes it all the more of a coincidence.”

“Makes what, though?” asked Alleyn, breathing through his nostrils.

“I was just going to tell you,” said Mr. McCully. “You see, although we haven’t got the sort of thing you’d be wanting, on the premises, there’s a bit of a storehouse round the corner that would do you down to the ground. Skylight. Paraffin heater. Electric light. Plenty of room. Just the thing.”

“May I— ”

“Ah! Wait a bit, though. It’s taken. It’s in use in a sort of way.”

“What sort of way?”

“That’s the funny thing. It was taken by an artist like yourself.”

Alleyn flicked the ash off his cigarette.

“Really?” he said.

“Yes. Gentleman by the name of Gregory. He used to look in here pretty often. He once took a picture of this show. What a thing to want to take a photo of, I said, but he seemed to enjoy it. I wouldn’t have the patience myself.”

“Is he in his studio this afternoon?”

“Hasn’t been there for three months. He’s in Hong Kong.”

“Indeed,” murmured Alleyn, and he thought: “Easy now. Don’t flutter the brute.”

“Yes. In Hong Kong taking pictures of the Chinks.”

“Would he sublet, do you know?”

“I don’t know whether he
would
but he
can’t
.”

“Why not?”

“Because he promised the loan of it to someone else.”

“I see. Then somebody else is using it?”

“That’s where the funny part comes in. He isn’t. Never turned up.”

“Gosh!” thought Alleyn.

“Never turned up,” repeated Mr. McCully. “As a matter of fact I asked the boss only yesterday if I might store some bits of furniture there during Christmas because the wife and I are moving and it’s a bit awkward what with this and that and the other thing— ”

He rambled on. Alleyn listened with an air of sympathetic attention.

“… so the boss said it would be all right if this other chap didn’t turn up, but all Mr. Gregory said was that he’d offered the room to this other chap and given him his key, and he’d just come in when he wanted it. So that’s how it stands.”

“What was this other man’s name, do you know?”

“Have I heard it now?” ruminated Mr. McCully, absently accepting another of Alleyn’s cigarettes. “Wait a bit now. It was a funny sort of name. Reminded me of something. What was it? By crikey, I remember. It reminded me of the rubbish van — you know — the chaps that come round for the garbage tins.”

“Garbage?”

“Garbage — that’s the name. Or nearly.”

“Something like Garcia, perhaps.” And Alleyn thought: “Has he read the evening paper or hasn’t he?”

“That’s it! Garcia! Well, fancy you getting it. Garcia! That’s the chap. Garcia.” Mr. McCully laughed delightedly.

Alleyn stood up.

“Look here,” he said, “I wish you’d just let me have a look at this place, will you? In case there is a chance of my getting it.”

“Well, I suppose there’s nothing against that. The boss is away just now, but I don’t see how he could object. Not that there’s anything to see. We don’t go near it from one week to another. I’ll just get our key and take you along. Fred!”

“Hooray?” said a voice in the workshop.

“I’m going round to the shed. Back before knock-off.”

“Right-oh.”

Mr. McCully got a key from behind a door, hooked an old tarpaulin over his shoulders and, talking incessantly, led the way out of the garage by a side door into a narrow alley.

It was now raining heavily. The alley smelt of soot, grease, and stagnant drainage. Water streamed down from defective gutters and splashed about their feet. The deadliness and squalor of the place seemed to close about them. Their footsteps echoed at the far end of the alley.

“Nasty weather,” said Mr. McCully. “It’s only a step.”

They turned to the left into a wider lane that led back towards Cornwall Street. McCully stopped in front of a pair of rickety double-doors fastened with a padlock and chain.

“Here we are, sir. Just half a tick and I’ll have her opened. She’s a bit stiff.”

While he fitted the key in the padlock Alleyn looked up the lane. He thought how like this was to a scene in a modern talking-picture of the realistic school. The sound of the rain, the grime streaked with running trickles, the distant mutter of traffic, and their own figures, black against grey — it was almost a Dostoievsky setting. The key grated in the lock, the chain rattled and McCully dragged the reluctant doors back in their grooves.

“Darkish,” he said. “I’ll turn up the light.”

It was very dark inside the place they had come to. A greyness filtered through dirty skylights. The open doors left a patch of light on a wooden floor, but the far end was quite lost in shadow. McCully’s boots clumped over the boards.

“I don’t just remember where the switch is,” he said, and his voice echoed away into the shadows. Alleyn stood like a figure of stone in the entrance, waiting for the light. McCully’s hand fumbled along the wall. There was a click and a dull yellow globe, thick with dust, came to life just inside the door.

“There we are, sir.”

Alleyn walked in.

The place at first looked almost empty. A few canvases stood at intervals with their faces to the wall. Half-way down there was a large studio easel, and beyond it, far away from the light, stood a packing-case with a few old chairs and some shadowy bundles. Beyond that again, deep in shadow, Alleyn could distinguish the corner of a table. An acrid smell hung on the air. McCully walked on towards the dark.

“Kind of lonesome, isn’t it?” he said. “Not much comfort about it. Bit of a smell, too? There was some storage batteries in here. Wonder if he broke one of them.”

“Wait a moment,” said Alleyn, but McCully did not hear him.

“There’s another light at this end. I’ll find the switch in a minute,” he said. “It’s very dark, isn’t it, sir? Cripes, what a stink. You’d think he’d— ”

His voice stopped as if someone had gagged him. He stood still. The place was filled with the sound of rain and with an appalling stench.

“What’s the matter?” asked Alleyn sharply.

There was no answer.

“McCully! Don’t move.”

“Who’s that!” said McCully violently.

“Where? Where are you?”

“Here — who —
Christ
!”

Alleyn strode swiftly down the room.

“Stay where you are,” he said.

“There’s someone sitting at the table,” McCully whispered.

Alleyn came up with him and caught him by the arm. McCully was trembling like a dog.

“Look! Look there!”

In the shadow cast by the packing-case Alleyn saw the table. The man who sat at it leant across the top and stared at them. His chin seemed to be on the surface of the table. His arms were stretched so far that his hands reached the opposite edge. It was an uncouth posture, the attitude of a scarecrow. They could see the lighter disc that was his face and the faint glint of his eyeballs. Alleyn had a torch in his pocket. He groped for it with one hand and held McCully’s arm with the other. McCully swore endlessly in a whisper.

The sharp beam of light ran from the torch to the table. It ended in the man’s face. It was the face of a gargoyle. The eyeballs started from their sockets, the protruding tongue was sulphur yellow. The face was yellow and blue. McCully wrenched his arm from Alleyn’s grasp and flung it across his eyes.

Alleyn walked slowly towards the table. The area of light widened to take in an overturned cup and a bottle. There was a silence of a minute broken by McCully.

“Oh, God!” said McCully. “Oh, God, help me! Oh, God!”

“Go back to your office,” said Alleyn. “Telephone Scotland Yard. Give this address. Say the message is from Inspector Alleyn. Ask them to send Fox, Bailey, and the divisional surgeon. Here!”

He turned McCully round, marched him towards the door and propped him against the wall.

“I’ll write it down.” He took out his note-book wrote rapidly and then looked at McCully. The large common face was sheet-white and the lips were trembling.

“Can you pull yourself together?” asked Alleyn. “Or had I better come with you? It would help if you could do it. I’m a C.I.D. officer. We’re looking for this man. Come now, can you help me?”

McCully drew the back of his hand across his mouth.

“He’s dead,” he said.

“Bless my soul, of course he is. Will you take this message? I don’t want to bully you. I just want you to tell me if you can do it.”

“Give us a moment, will you?”

“Of course.”

Alleyn looked up and down the alley.

“Wait here a minute,” he said.

He ran through the pelting rain to the top of the alley and looked into Cornwall Street. About two hundred yards away he saw a constable, walking along the pavement towards him. Alleyn waited for him, made himself known, and sent the man off to the nearest telephone. Then he returned to McCully.

“It’s all right, McCully, I’ve found a P.C. Sit down on this box. Here.” He pulled a flask from his pocket and made McCully drink. “Sorry I let you in for this,” he said. “Now wait here and don’t admit anyone. When I’ve turned up the light at the back of this place, close the doors. You needn’t look round.”