I
By tea time on the day after the interrupted studio party, Rosanne Manaton was beginning to show some signs of frayed nerves, unusual in one to whom habitual self-control was second nature. As she lifted down a cup and saucer she caught her hand on the edge of the shelf and the precious cup smashed to fragments on the floor. Rosanne said “Damn” vigorously and unashamedly, and then had to bite her lip to prevent herself crying. “Pull yourself together and don’t be an ass,” she said. The past eighteen hours had been trying ones. After Macdonald had left the studio the previous night, Bruce Manaton had refused to go to bed. Rosanne had gone up to her gallery bedroom but had been unable to sleep, aware that her brother was prowling restlessly round the studio. He had not put the light out until three o’clock in the morning, and even then Rosanne had lain awake, thinking she heard sounds below. When morning came, Bruce was heavily asleep, and he refused to get up until nearly midday, so that Rosanne was unable to get the studio cleared up. After a late and unsatisfactory meal, Rosanne had suggested that Bruce should go out and give her a chance to get the place cleaned. This he had refused to do, and had wandered about restlessly, getting in Rosanne’s way and preventing her settling down to anything.
After a while, Bruce took it into his head to start turning out a chest which contained old tools and working materials—a mess of old paint tubes and brushes and charcoal, wood-engraving tools and blocks, printing inks, block colours and powder colours, and all the other heterogenous messes collected by a craftsman. Bruce Manaton was as untidy in his habits as any man could well be; he seemed to make confusion instantly. If he began looking for materials, or books, or clothes or papers, the result was always the same—a chaotic muddle. Rosanne was a tidy and fastidious creature, and she was for ever working to restore order among her brother’s possessions—a thankless task.
Seeing him rummage in the old wooden chest, Rosanne called across the studio to him,
“Is it anything I can find for you, Bruce? That lot’s mainly junk, it ought to go for salvage.”
“Salvage be damned, I won’t have any of my materials chucked away. It’s difficult enough to get stuff. Hell… what’s that?”
“That” was a box of powder red, one of the harsh vivid magentas derived from anilines by the modern chemist; the bottom came out of the box and a cascade of the powder poured down over the confusion in the chest, over Bruce Manaton’s flannel bags, over his hands, over the floor. “Hell!” he muttered again.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake leave it alone and let me clear it up,” cried Rosanne. “It’ll be all over everything if you’re not careful, and it stains. It’s a filthy colour.”
“It’s a damned good colour—got some kick in it,” retorted Bruce, and Rosanne laughed.
“Your slacks will show evidence of the ‘kick’ for the rest of their natural existence,” she said. “I hope you’ll enjoy going out in them. Go out and shake yourself in the garden and see if you can get it off. It won’t wash out, you know—and leave all this to me. I’ll sweep it up. Once we get any water near it, we’re done; there’s enough powder there to stain the whole floor. Some colours I can tolerate, but not that one.”
Bruce went outside, leaving a trail of the penetrating powder as he moved, and Rosanne got a broom and endeavoured to clear up the hated colour. She shut the chest and locked it, determined to deal with its contents herself at some later date. When her brother came in again, she said,
“Why not go on with the Cardinal portrait? You can get the lay figure rigged up, Delaunier left his costume for you. You haven’t got too much time if you want to get it in for the February show.”
“Blast the Cardinal’s portrait… I tell you I’m fed up with the bloody thing. It’s no good, it never will be any good. It’s not a picture, it’s just a rotten bit of illustration. I loathe the thought of it.”
Rosanne did not answer immediately. She finished her sweeping and took the dust pan and emptied it in the stove, and then walked across to the easel and swung it round so that the light caught the charcoal drawing.
“You’re wrong,” she said quietly. “It’s a good piece of work—one of the best drawings I’ve seen you do. If it were a dud, I should know. It isn’t. It’s got strength in it, and the planes are well done. If you don’t stick to it, you’ll be a fool, and rather a feeble fool.”
She left the canvas and went to her own table and found a cigarette and lighted it, and then sat down on the edge of the table. At that moment Reeves passed outside, and Bruce Manaton muttered: “Those blasted police again… they’re haunting the place.”
“Oh, never mind the police!” cried Rosanne scornfully. “What do they matter to us? Whatever happened—out there—was nothing to do with us, was it? Weren’t you in here, drawing Delaunier, when the old man was murdered?”
Bruce Manaton whipped round on her: “If you’d said you were in here, too, Rosanne, there’d be nothing to bother about. Oh, hell! You’ve got a good opinion of me, haven’t you? You think that provided I know I am safe, I don’t care a damn about you, or anything else.”
Rosanne sat very still, watching him.
“You don’t think I did it, by any chance, Bruce?”
He came over to her, and put his hands on her shoulders.
“No, my dear. I’m not such a bloody fool as that. I may be a rotter, Rosanne, and a waster… I may let you work for me, and worry for me… but I know. Oh, my dear, I know. Do you think I’ve enjoyed watching you work like a charwoman, and go without everything you’ve wanted, just to keep me out of the gutter—where I belong? You’re worth something. I’m not. If it weren’t for me, you’d have made something of your life.”
Rosanne slipped away from the table and from his gripping fingers, aware that she was trembling. She tried to answer lightly.
“Bruce, I think there’s something morbid in the atmosphere of this place. What on earth has made us all go goopy and get on each other’s nerves? Police at the window?” She laughed a little shakily and added: “We don’t need to indulge in protestations, you and I. We understand one another well enough without all that. I don’t care a damn about police at the window, Bruce. What I’m afraid of is having the brokers in, as we did before… Can’t you get on with that portrait? I believe it’d sell, it’s going to be a great shouting gorgeous piece of scarlet, like Van Gogh’s Zouave. There’s something in the drawing that’s arresting, already. It’s much finer than a portrait of Delaunier. Oh, do get on with it.”
Bruce Manaton fumbled on the table, and took Rosanne’s last cigarette.
“All right, Rosa. I’ll get on with it. God, when this damned war’s over, let’s leave this blighted country and go to Italy again, into the sunlight. How I loathe this filthy fog, mud and soot and drab dirt.”
“Look at your hands, Bruce—dirt but not drabness, stain but not soot. My dear, I told you that red powder would stain.”
Bruce Manaton glanced at his hands: they were clammy with sweat, and the red powder paint had turned the palms a livid cerise.
“‘It would the multitudinous seas incarnadine,’” he quoted, and again Rosanne laughed.
“‘Go, wash this filthy witness from your hands,’” she quoted in return, “or, if you prefer it, ‘let each man render me his bloody hand: first yours, Catullus: now Caius Casca, yours…’”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” cried Manaton, and Rosanne said quickly,
“Oh, don’t be an ass. You generally like out-quoting me. I’m going to make some tea. You can’t have any sugar, because you’ve had it all. I shall have to go out and do some shopping, but we’ll have tea first.”
She went into the “K. and B.,” put the kettle on, and was collecting the tea things when she dropped her cup. A moment later Bruce Manaton looked in on her. “What have you done?” he demanded.
“Smashed the nicest cup I possess. We’ve only got three left now, and one has no handle. What a life! Bruce, go and get on with your work and leave me alone.”
He went out and closed the door, and Rosanne waited for the kettle to boil. While she was doing so, she took down a tin box from a shelf and opened it. It was an old-fashioned “spice box,” containing smaller boxes to hold cloves and ginger, cinnamon and mace, bay leaves and pepper corns. Rosanne used it now as a cash-box, wherein she kept her money. Bruce had not discovered it yet. She knew, by bitter experience, that if her brother knew where she kept her money he would “borrow it”—as he had borrowed her last cigarette. There were five pound notes in the clove tin, one ten shilling note in the mace tin, and five shillings and sixpence in the cinnamon tin. She took out two pound notes slipped them in her pocket, and replaced the tin.
Just as the kettle boiled, Rosanne heard voices in the studio, and stood with her head cocked sideways, listening. Then the door banged, and there was silence. With the tea tray in her hands, Rosanne went into the studio.
“Wasn’t that Delaunier’s voice?” she enquired of her brother.
He nodded. “Yes. He wanted to come and pose, but I didn’t want him. The sight of him gives me the cafard somehow. He’s so damned pleased with himself.”
“You are an ass, aren’t you?” replied Rosanne. “The light’s quite good for another hour, and you’re all ready to begin painting, and your model turns up—and then you say the sight of him gives you the cafard.”
“Well, so it does. Never mind, Rosanne, I’ll get on with the background. I’ve got an idea about that, heavy shadow, with a cross light in the corner. I noticed an interesting effect when you had the kitchen door open last night.”
“Oh, did you?—and you cursed me to high heaven for opening that door. This, my dear, is China tea, and the last Romilly biscuit the world contains, so make the best of it.”
“Madonna! How have you got China tea?”
“Saved it. Betty Mountjoy gave me some months ago—honest to God Lap San Suchong. I’ve been treasuring it like fine gold against an emergency, and somehow to-day I felt justified in using some of it. Everything looked mouldy, and I thought a decent cup of tea might cheer us both up. A pity Robert Cavenish isn’t here, he appreciates China tea.”
“Cavenish?” Bruce Manaton’s dark face grew brooding again. “You like him, don’t you, Rosa?”
“Yes. I like him. He’s sensible and reliable and kind, and he’s not condescending, nor yet a complete Philistine. Do you know, he writes good verse, Bruce. Don’t tell him I told you, but Cavenish is a poet manqué. Rather pathetic. He works all day on Government reports at the Home Office, and he’s capable of writing poetry which compares well with T. S. Eliot’s.”
“Cavenish? Good God! I know he can play chess—but poetry! I suppose you’re the only person in the world who knows about it. Why don’t you marry him, Rosanne?”
“A. He hasn’t asked me to. B. I don’t want to and shouldn’t if he did. I’m not of the marrying variety. If I’d wanted to get married, I could have done so. Have some more tea.”
Bruce pushed over his cup.
“All my fault,” he said morosely.
“You flatter yourself,” retorted Rosanne. “I have a mind of my own. Heavens! What’s that? Delaunier come back again? If it is, I’m going to tell him to pose for you, and you can get on with it, cafard or no cafard.”
II
It was not Delaunier. When Rosanne opened the studio door she saw Macdonald standing there. Quaintly enough, the first thought which flashed into her mind was, “How clean he looks.” Macdonald, tall, neat, in a well-cut dark suit, immaculate collar and black tie, made a striking contrast to Bruce Manaton, who had omitted to shave that morning.
“You are the Chief Inspector, aren’t you? Do you want to see my brother? Come in.”
Rosanne stood back from the door, and Macdonald saw the studio in daylight, with its dingy shabbiness unsoftened by the play of shaded lights. Bruce Manaton stared at the C.I.D. man with his customary hostile look, and Macdonald said:
“Good-afternoon. I’m sorry to have to bother you again.”
“Needs must,” said Rosanne: she smiled as she spoke, and Macdonald smiled in return.
“When the devil drives,” he capped her remark, adding, “the devil drives us all alike, me, and you, and the world in general these days.”
“That’s true,” said Rosanne. “Do you like China tea? There’s still some in the pot.”
“I do. I like it very much indeed,” said Macdonald, “but it’s not fair to drink other people’s China tea these days.”
“Well, it’s here, so if you’d like it you can have it. The other cup hasn’t got a handle, but that’s not uncommon these days. Do sit down.”
Rosanne sounded calm and cheerful and sensible, talking as she crossed the studio to fetch the cup from the kitchen. Bruce, sitting hunched up in his chair, enquired abruptly,
“That young chap—Neil Folliner—do you think he did the shooting?”
“I don’t know yet,” replied Macdonald. “We’re still considering all the possibilities.”
Rosanne returned, and poured out a cup of tea and handed it to Macdonald, saying,
“What do you think of my brother’s study of the Cardinal?”
Macdonald held out his cigarette case to her, and Rosanne took a cigarette saying,
“Thanks. Bruce just smoked my last one.”
Cup in hand, Macdonald went and stood in front of the canvas and studied it, while he sipped his tea appreciatively. At length he said,
“It’s impossible for a non-expert to assess the skill of work like this. I think it’s a grand drawing. It seems to me that it’s not only a striking portrait, it’s an impressive composition, too. Even in outline it’s got depth—mass—something more than mere line.”
“You mean it’s three-dimensional,” said Rosanne. “You’ve made a most intelligent commentary. Imagine it with the scarlet and cerise, and Delaunier’s black-browed face. Wouldn’t you like to buy it when it’s finished?”
“Really, Rosanne!” protested her brother. “The Chief Inspector hasn’t come here to buy a picture.”
“Nor yet to drink China tea,” replied Macdonald, “but having accepted the tea, I see no reason why he shouldn’t enjoy the picture. You didn’t do all that in one sitting, did you?” he asked of Manaton.
“No. Two. I blocked the main proportions in on Tuesday, and the details—face and hands—last night. Damn all! It might have been my best picture, if only… Oh, well. What have you come to tell us?”
“I’m afraid I’ve come to make a nuisance of myself. We believe it probable that old Mr. Folliner was robbed. We don’t know yet who the murderer was, nor the thief, but we do know that three people who were in that house last night also came into this studio.”
“Which three?” demanded Rosanne.
“You know that already. Young Folliner, the Special Constable, and Mrs. Tubbs. We have searched the house, and found nothing. We have searched the garden and drained the dug-out, as you know, and found nothing.”
“And now you want to search the studio,” said Rosanne. “Well, search away. I have no objections to offer. If you find any beetles—and you will—please kill them.”
Macdonald’s lips twitched, and Bruce put in:
“I don’t think my sister was referring to ‘beetle crushers,’ Chief Inspector. She’s much too polite.”
“I’m sure she is,” replied Macdonald, “but I will deal faithfully with the beetles if I find any.”
Bruce Manaton went on: “I can’t quite see your point about searching here, all the same. Neither young Folliner nor the Special had the faintest chance of hiding anything while they were here. We were all watching them—five of us—and the thing is just impossible. As for Mrs. Tubbs—well, we just don’t believe it.”
“There’s nothing like looking facts in the face, Bruce,” Rosanne’s voice was calm and clear. “I was out in the black-out last night, and that latch-key was on the kitchen table. So far as I am concerned, I say ‘search,’—as thoroughly as possible.” She turned and looked at Macdonald. “I wonder… if I were the guilty party, should I have had the nerve to leave that key on the table, just to look innocent?”
“I don’t know,” said Macdonald. “I deal mainly in facts, you see. It is a fact that you had not handled the key since Mrs. Tubbs grasped it. The prints on it were fragmentary, but very clear. They were not your prints. I’m not an expert at fingerprint reading, but the difference between the lines on your hands and fingers and those of Mrs. Tubbs are very marked.”
“Well I’m damned!” There was marked relief in Bruce Manaton’s voice. “And I wanted to chuck that blasted latch-key into the dug-out,” he went on, “only Rosanne wouldn’t let me. Look here, do you want us to clear out while you search the place?”
“Certainly not. We’ll be as little nuisance as possible. I’ve got a very skilled helper—a woman—and we’ll leave everything exactly as it was.”
“You’re going to have some fun when you hunt through my brother’s painting materials,” said Rosanne. “You probably have no idea what dirt and mess and muddle mean. Now you’re going to find out. You won’t look quite so clean when you have finished.”
“I expect that I know as much about dirt and mess and muddle as anybody in this world, and a lot more about it than you do, Miss Manaton,” replied Macdonald. “A detective’s work leads him into strange places, most of which are neither clean nor tidy nor pleasant. I have been in studios beside which this one looks like the abode of an academician. As for kitchens—have you seen the one in number 25?”
“No, thank heaven. I haven’t, the old man’s room was quite enough. I’ve got to go out, Chief Inspector, or we shan’t have anything to eat for supper. I’ll leave you to ransack the place. I don’t care what you look at, though it would be all the same if I did. I know that.”
“It’s true that a woman detective will look through your personal belongings, Miss Manaton, since you have given permission. I know it’s repugnant to have one’s belongings searched, but it’s a very impersonal search.”
“Thanks. I understand what you mean. I doubt if any woman in the world has fewer personal belongings than I have—you can look through them yourself for all I care.” She nodded towards the gallery. “Now I’m going to do some shopping, and I’ll leave you to it.” She turned to Bruce. “You might as well get on with that painting. It’s suddenly occurred to me, it may be valuable, apart from its artistic possibilities.”
She broke off, nodded to Macdonald, and went out by the kitchen door. A moment later Macdonald saw her pass the window, fastening up her coat collar as she walked.
III
Bruce Manaton stood before his canvas with brooding eyes, a deep frown of concentration on his face. Macdonald stood in the centre of the studio, his hands in his pockets, considering the general lay-out. The long barn-like structure ran east and west, the west end nearest to the house. The corrugated iron of the pent roof was covered with some material like asbestos, now stained and discoloured. The north light was set in the sloping roof towards the eastern end. At the west end was the small gallery, with a ladder leading up to it: a curtain—or rather several curtains of varying material—screened the gallery from the floor; otherwise it had only a hand-rail supported by occasional bars. The kitchen door was at the farther end, in the southeast corner of the studio. The stove, an old-fashioned iron affair, stood so that its iron chimney-pipe ran up to the roof just clear of the gallery. There was a blocked-up fireplace in the west wall, under the gallery, and Macdonald guessed from the general arrangement that the gallery had been added some time after the original structure was put up, and that the iron stove superseded the original fireplace. The space under the gallery held a divan bed and a chest of drawers, as well as a number of boxes, old easels, canvases, drawing boards, a small printing press, portfolios, and piles of books, mostly stacked on the floor against the wall. The “front door” of the studio was in the north-west corner under the gallery, with a screen and a curtain arranged for necessities of black-out.
Macdonald took in the whole arrangement very quickly, checking up on the impression he had gained the previous evening, when the different lighting had made the place seem larger and more mysterious. Now, in the cold grey light of late afternoon, the studio looked shabby and sordid.
“What did she mean?”
Bruce Manaton was still standing inspecting his canvas, and Macdonald turned at the question, guessing that it referred to Rosanne’s parting remark.
“I expect your sister meant that your picture will acquire a ‘sensation value,’ so to speak,” said Macdonald. “It’s not often that artist and sitter are likely to be called as witnesses in a murder case. If it weren’t for the war, you’d have had a crowd of cameramen here demanding facilities for photographing your canvas, yourself, and your sitter.”
Manaton frowned more deeply than ever, and turned away from the canvas.
“That settles it,” he said. “I loathed the sight of the damned thing before, now it nauseates me. Oh, hell, who’s that?”
“My department,” replied Macdonald. “I need an electrician to fix an adequate light. I’ll explain in a minute.”
He went to the door and admitted a man and a woman, while Bruce Manaton stood and stared. The woman—a neat, sensible-looking creature in a well-cut suit and natty hat, went straight up the steps to the gallery at a word from Macdonald, and the man betook himself to the kitchen end.
“He wants to look at your fuse-boxes and so forth,” said Macdonald. “We don’t want to blow all your fuses. It’s like this: in a case of this kind we don’t want to waste time—or to irritate you—by a detailed search of everything. Given a proper light, it’s possible to tell if things have been moved recently—dust deposits tell us a lot. We shan’t bother about the books and boxes and so forth which obviously haven’t been moved or opened for weeks. An expert searcher can tell that at a glance.”
Manaton nodded. “I see. You’ve got an idea that some body came in here and just shoved something among the junk. Well, I suppose it’s not impossible. It’s extraordinary how little one notices of another person’s actions if one’s not concentrating on them.”
“It is. Ask any conjurer. He depends for his success on the fact that few people can concentrate on more than one point at one time. While I’m waiting for the electrician to get a flex fixed up, will you tell me anything you happen to know about the previous tenant in this place?”
“I don’t know anything about them, except that they were dirty tykes. Ask Rosanne. All the sink runaways were stopped up, and there was the filth of ages everywhere.”
“Did they leave anything interesting—paintings, or anything of that kind?”
Bruce Manaton snorted. “If they’d left any canvases I might have been grateful to them. Have you any idea how difficult it is to get a thing like this?” He indicated the canvas on his easel. “Why are you interested in the last tenants?” he added.
“Because it occurs to me that the last tenants might have been interested in their eccentric landlord. There were some paintings on the walls of one of the downstairs rooms in number 25 which interested me. Portraits, I think. They have been obliterated, painted out with rough smudges.”
Manaton stood and pondered, his face frowning. “I don’t know anything about them,” he said. “I didn’t paint them, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“No, that hadn’t occurred to me. From what’s left of them I should say they’re miles below your standard. I just wondered if the previous tenant had left a self-portrait anywhere about. If one of the frescoes in that house represented Mr. Stort—well, it’s been very carefully obliterated, that’s all. Do you mind if we black-out now, then we can get going.”
IV
While Macdonald searched, Bruce Manaton prowled restlessly round the studio, watching.
The electrician had fixed up his flex, and he carried round a portable lamp whose harsh brilliance threw a vivid white light into every corner. Its merciless beam showed up dust and cobweb, smudge and stain, and Manaton began to understand what Macdonald had said about being able to tell if things had been moved recently. If the light beam was penetrating and thorough, so was the work of the two searchers. Swift, dexterous and amazingly quiet, the Chief Inspector and his helper “inspected” with a thoroughness which left nothing to chance. Bruce Manaton pulled out a drawing-board and began to block in a composition with a carpenter’s pencil.
“Detectives at play,” he said to Macdonald. “You get some damned queer light effects with that outfit of yours. My God! Imagine that I had hidden something in this place, and had to stand helpless and watch while you searched, watching you get nearer and nearer. I should go raving mad, stark staring mad… That fireplace was blocked years ago, incidentally. It was a damned idiotic place to put a fireplace anyway.”
The fireplace was very effectively blocked, with a sheet of metal nailed up to the surround. Having inspected it, Macdonald came out into the main part of the studio and glanced at Manaton’s sketches.
“Lord! I wish I could draw like that—it’s uncanny how you do it, a sort of major miracle.”
The sketches represented Macdonald and his assistant peering into a corner, their figures in black silhouette while the white glare of the portable lamp was somehow conveyed by contrast with the black cast shadows.
“Well, I’ve had some varying experiences in the course of my detective career,” said Macdonald, “but I’ve never been made a picture of while on duty.”
“And I’ve done some queer things during the course of my painting career,” replied Manaton, “but I’ve never been in my own studio and watched the police ransack my belongings. Be careful with that box: there’s a lot of very virulent red powder-paint upset inside it—and it’s tenacious. I don’t believe it ever comes off.”
Macdonald and his man made “a good job” of the studio. Apart from the confusion of Bruce Manaton’s materials, the place was very sparsely equipped. Two beds to sleep on—and not overmuch bedding—a couple of tables, half a dozen chairs, a minimum of china and glass and kitchen equipment: the place was furnished with bare necessities and no more. The woman detective who had been sent up to the gallery bedroom to search Rosanne’s quarters spent but a short time in her task. She said to Macdonald afterwards:
“She’s got as many belongings as would fill a good-sized week-end case. No books, or letters, no pictures, or pretties, no cosmetics or creature-comforts.”
When Macdonald had finished, Bruce Manaton said to him:
“Well, did you find anything interesting?”
“From a detective’s point of view, nothing,” said Macdonald.
The painter grinned, not unmaliciously, Macdonald thought.
“The answer’s a lemon, then. Can’t say I enjoyed seeing you at it, but I’m glad it’s over and done with. I’m glad my sister kept out of the way while you were on the job. I haven’t much pride left. It’s a luxury which the penniless are better without, but Rosanne still retains a few Bourgeois complexes.” He paused, and then added: “I’d like to tell you something else, just because you’re the sort of chap you are. Yesterday evening, after that poor devil of a Tommy had been haled off in your Black Maria, we talked things over. Rosanne said she had been outside in the black-out. I wanted her to say she’d been in here, with us, all the time. We’d have sworn to it, you know—even Cavenish, with his nice sense of ethics. She wouldn’t have it. She preferred to tell the truth.” He leant forward towards Macdonald with his dark eyes blazing in their deep sockets. “If you think that Rosanne had anything to do with murder, or theft—well, God help you for the bloodiest fool who ever aped intelligence.”
Macdonald stood perfectly still, his grey eyes meeting the other’s furious regard.
“I might hazard another question, though I don’t expect you to answer it,” he said. “Why were you so anxious that it should be established that your sister was not out in the black-out just before nine yesterday evening?”
He did not wait for Manaton to answer, but turned towards the door, adding, “In my job a lot of things have to be done which can be regarded as repugnant in the ordinary way of life. Only one thing justifies them, the fact that crime—crimes of meanness and envy and malice and violence—are the most repugnant of all. Meantime, I’m grateful to you and to your sister, for making it possible to do a necessary job here without protest on your parts. I realise all that that implies.”
Manaton drew a deep breath, and flung something across the floor. It was the fragments of a pencil which he had snapped between his fingers.
“I hope to God you’ve finished,” he said.