I
The vast studio had two focus-points of light; between these pools of radiance was a stretch of shadows, colourless, formless, empty. At one end of the long, barn-like structure, where the light was most strongly concentrated, was a model’s platform. A high-backed Spanish chair stood upon it, with a dark leather screen as background. On the chair sat a man arrayed in the superb scarlet of a Cardinal’s robe, the broad-brimmed Cardinal’s hat upon his head.
The lights were so arranged that they illumined the pale haughty face of the sitter, his challenging black eyes and beetling brows. Beneath his square powerful chin was a triangle of ecclesiastical purple—magenta described it more truly. His sleeves were lined and edged with cerise silk—a gorgeous clash of colour discord contrasting with the heraldic scarlet of the frock. One powerful white hand gripped the arm of his chair: the other hand rested on the jewelled cross on his breast.
Opposite to the sitter, at a distance of some ten feet, a painter’s easel supported a six-foot canvas, and the painter stood before it, blocking in his drawing in charcoal. He wore an overall of vivid butcher’s blue which made his pale face, with its sharply hewn profile, paler still. The face was heavily lined, the eyes set deep in their sockets, their shadows intensified by the strong light. Painter and sitter, both illuminated by the same set of lights, made one composition of startling primary colour, challenging and arresting.
At the farther end of the fifty-foot studio, separated from the painter and his model by the shadows which claimed the greater part of the floor-space, was another group, lower-toned, yet still of pictorial value.
Close to the stove, lighted by an electric bulb hanging immediately over their heads, two men sat on either side of a chess-board. One—the younger of the two—was a tawny-haired fellow, whose hair shone under the light. He had taken off his tweed coat and sat in a Fair Isle pull-over of green and russet and ochre, his long legs clad in brown corduroy slacks. His opponent at the chess-board was an older man, white-haired, dressed in a conventional dark lounge suit. Both men sat with their elbows on the table, their chins on their hands, utterly concentrated on their game. The beam of light which was directed down on them was shaded so that its rays did not reach the rest of the studio: the smoke from their pipes coiled up in blue wreaths, and the two players, with the board between them, achieved a sort of pattern whose composition was so precise that it seemed the result of deliberation rather than chance.
For the greater part, silence reigned in the studio. The chess players had been intent on their game for a full hour, and an occasional low-spoken “check” came from one or the other, and then a long pause as each considered the next move. Robert Cavenish, the older of the two players, sat almost immobile, a frown of concentration furrowing his fine brow as he brooded over the pieces. Ian Mackellon, tawny-headed, long-limbed, spare, a typical Scot, moved his long legs occasionally as though he were cramped at the table, and sometimes he cast a glance at the vivid robes of the Cardinal on the model’s platform. There was the glint of a smile in his deep-set blue eyes, light under their heavy brows, as though the game were going well for him, and his eyes moved back to the board with a half-smiling concentration.
At the farther end of the studio, Bruce Manaton stood at his canvas, drawing with a sort of savage determination, as much wrapped up in his task as were the chess players. Occasionally he uttered a curt admonition to his sitter, when the latter changed his pose a little as he tired.
“Chin up, chin up—to the right a little—” the low-toned, rather irritable voice punctuated the silence as did the chess players with their monotonous challenge, and the Cardinal would raise his head and recover his poise, still with the same expression of gloomy haughtiness. André Delaunier—he who was clad in the Cardinal’s scarlet—was an actor by profession, well accustomed to posing, but he demanded a rest occasionally. Once, during the first hour of the chess players’ game, he had stood up impatiently, heedless of Manaton’s irritation, and had stalked majestically across the intervening gloom to stand behind the players and to con the board, while he stretched out his shapely white hands to the stove, to catch its warmth. The month was January, the temperature outside below freezing point, and the acrid London fog seeped in to the studio, a faint sulphurous reminder of the grimy blanket which enwrapped the whole Thames basin in noxious stillness.
As Delaunier stood considering the board, neither player acknowledged his presence by word or movement, and the actor stood with a derisive smile on his lips as he observed the trap Mackellon was contriving for the older player. Manaton’s brusque voice recalled him.
“Either you’re posing or else you’re playing chess,” he said. “You can’t do both.”
“Damn you, for the devil’s own slave-driver,” retorted Delaunier. “If I can’t move occasionally I shall just coagulate into a lump. All right, all right—don’t lose your wool,” he concluded good-temperedly, as Manaton threw down his charcoal with an irritable gesture. Delaunier strode back silently across the studio, only the swish of his heavy robes making his passage audible, and he sat down again in the high-backed chair, resuming his former pose with the skill of the actor who donned his part as easily as he donned a garment.
Neither of the chess players had moved or spoken during the sitter’s interlude. Cavenish showed by a deepening of the furrow between his brows that he was ignoring the interruption by a conscious effort, but Mackellon, his half smiling eyes on the chess-board, seemed aware of nothing but the ivory and ebony pieces of the game.
“Check,” he said again.
II
During the course of the sitting Rosanne Manaton occasionally looked in at the studio from the door which led into the kitchen. The latter was a small room built as a lean-to against the studio wall. In size, the “kitchen” was spacious in comparison with the kitchenettes to be found in most small modern flats, but Rosanne, who was a fastidious creature, had looked at the domestic offices of the studio with unconcealed disgust when she had first seen the place. The “kitchen” was also the bathroom, and when Rosanne and Bruce Manaton had inspected the property with a view to renting it, the “k & b,” as Rosanne called it, had nearly overcome her determination to get settled at any price into some quarters which she and her brother could call their own. The scabrous peeling walls, the rusty bath and the beetle-infested floor had filled her with loathing.
“It’s ghastly, Bruce,” she had said.
“Oh—what matter? We can soon clean it up. It’s the studio that matters, and that’s damn good,” he had replied.
It was Rosanne, of course, who had done the cleaning. The Manatons had had no money to spare for decorators. They oscillated between two initialled states—“B” and “A.B,” “Broke” and “Absolutely Broke.” Rosanne was an etcher and wood engraver, and her sensitive imaginative work had had some financial success in peace time: since the war her earnings, and those of her brother, had contracted to negligible amounts. The rather derelict studio in Hampstead had had cheapness to commend it, and Rosanne was always prepared to make the best of her surroundings. It was she who had first scrubbed down and later distempered the kitchen walls, re-enamelled the bath and sand-papered the rusty gas stove. She was still in process of redecorating the studio, intolerant of its dirt and dreariness. Bruce just shrugged his shoulders and left her to it. Grimy walls troubled him not at all. “I’ve seen worse in Paris,” was his only comment.
Rosanne, standing looking at the studio and its occupants, was intensely aware of the decorative quality of both of the groups in it on that foggy winter evening. She did not often paint herself now: line work was her medium, but she felt an impulse to indulge in a modern composition in which both chess players, painter, and sitter should form a pattern, irrespective of distances and planes. With one hand on her hip, the other resting against the edge of the door, Rosanne Manaton herself achieved something in the way of a design, though she was all unconscious of it. Tall, lithe, dark haired, clad in an old ski-ing costume which she had put on for its cold-resisting qualities, Rosanne was an unusual figure. The costume suited her long slender body. Very few women past the age of thirty look well in trousers, but the black ski-suit, with a vivid scarlet scarf at the neck, became Rosanne’s long-limbed slenderness, as her close-cropped black hair became her shapely head. Beautiful she was not, but she had a quality best described by the word grace. Every movement of body or limbs, hands or feet, had the same characteristic of beautiful balance and efficiency. She moved purposefully, with an economy of effort in which no movement was redundant.
As she stood looking at the studio, brooding over its pictorial possibilities, her brother turned irritably from his canvas and called to her:
“For God’s sake either come inside or go right out, and shut that damned door. It’s draughty enough in here anyway—and I don’t want a cross light.”
Rosanne withdrew into the kitchen and closed the door behind her. She was used to her brother’s irritable and often mannerless ways, and ignored his captiousness. Bruce was always at his most disagreeable when he was working.
Rosanne returned to her cooking. She had undertaken to produce supper for five people at nine o’clock. The chess players and Delaunier had each provided a ration of something “to put into the pot,” and Rosanne was contriving a savoury stew from the miscellaneous collection brought in by the others, added to the meat and vegetables she had bought for herself. Actually she loathed cooking, but with the rare common sense which characterised her, she had taught herself to cook, and to cook well, in order to prevent Bruce squandering their slender means on restaurant meals. Rosanne, side by side with her natural artistry, had a sense of orderliness which made her intolerant of what she called “money messes.” She did not resent poverty so much, but she could not bear the squalor of indebtedness and constant borrowing which seemed to come so naturally to her brother.
As she stood by the gas cooker, studying her simmering pot, someone knocked on the door which opened from the kitchen into the sooty garden in which the studio building stood. Rosanne pulled down a shade over the bare electric bulb before she opened the door. Black-out regulations were a nightmare to her, because her impatient brother was always forgetting them, and the probability of being fined always hung over their heads.
She opened the door carefully, saying,
“Is that you, Mrs. Tubbs?”
“That’s me, dearie,” replied a cheerful Cockney voice, and a short wizened little woman negotiated the entrance and squeezed herself into the kitchen.
“Lor’! You give me quite a turn seeing you in that outfit,” said Mrs. Tubbs. “Jest like your brother you look, the dead spit of him. I got you a coupla’ pairs of lovely ’errings orf the barrow as I passed. You can’t beat ’errings for food value, and tasty at that.”
“You know, you are a dear, Mrs. Tubbs! You’re always doing me a good turn—”
“Bless you, dearie, that’s all right. Don’t you go bothering your head being grateful. I just popped in to say I’d come and lend you an ’and with the scrubbing to-morrow. What time can you get that brother of yours out of the way? ’E do fuss so. Can’t bear menfolk worriting round me when I’m working, and that’s flat.”
“He’s going out at ten to-morrow morning, Mrs. Tubbs.”
“That’ll suit me fine, dearie. I shall have time to pop in and look at my old bundle of misery and then I’ll come on to you for an hour or two, just as you likes.”
“I shall be jolly glad to have you. That studio floor is interminable, and most of it’s still filthy. I’m afraid it’s a rotten job for you, though, and I’m ashamed I can’t afford to pay you any better.”
“Now that’s all right, dearie. I’m doing fine, with me old man in the P.B.I. same as he was before, and me daughter in munitions. ‘Mum,’ she says to me, ‘why don’t you stop at ’ome, like a lady, with me making good money and that?’—but bless you, dearie, it don’t come natural just stopping at ’ome. I always done a spot of work, and I’m used to it. As for my bit of bother up there—” and she jerked her thumb expressively over her shoulder, “it ain’t what ’e pays me, that wouldn’t keep a flea, it’s just I can’t bear the thought of ’im living alone and no one going in to see if he’s alive or dead.”
Rosanne shuddered a little. “You mean old Mr. Folliner? I thought he was a horror. I went in to see him when my brother and I took the studio, and he made me feel just as I did when I saw the black beetles on this floor—all creepy-crawly. He’s a miser, too, isn’t he?—horrible old skinflint.”
“He’s all that, dearie, with knobs on. Getting worse, he is, too. Breaks ’is wicked old ’eart to part with a penny. Still, what I says is, we may all be old ’orrors in time, if we’re spared. I known ’im ten years, and ’e wasn’t that bad once. Anyway, I said to me ’usband, ‘Alf,’ I says, ‘I’m going to see ’im out, and I’ll lay ’im out wif me own ’ands if ’e dies on me, but see to ’im I must. Can’t leave ’im all alone like that, day after day.’”
“Well, I call it jolly decent of you. There wouldn’t be many people who’d bother about him. You’ve got more Christian charity than I have, Mrs. Tubbs.”
“Now don’t you mention them two words to me, dearie. Charity I can’t abide, and as for a Christian, I’m a proper ’eathen. I ain’t been to church since I went when me first was christened, and that one died within the year, and I said ‘What’s the good of it, any old ’ow?’ Now I must just pop off. See you in the morning, and remember you do them ’errings in oatmeal, same’s I told you. Lawks! What a night. Not fit for a dog to be out, and that’s flat.”
The cheerful old body squeezed herself out of the door, and Rosanne stood and mused for a moment, marvelling over the kindness of Mrs. Tubbs and her like. It seemed to Rosanne that there was more genuine goodness to be found among the poor and illiterate than among all the intellectuals who posed as her brother’s friends.
Before dishing up the supper, Rosanne decided to go outside to see if the studio black-out were really efficient. She had contrived screens for the big north light and was always afraid that they would fail in their purpose. Screening the kitchen light again, she slipped out into the garden and the fog closed round her like a blanket.
III
“Smells good, Rosanne, and by God, I’m hungry. Who thought to bring the beer? Delaunier? Good for you. Well—here’s luck. We need it.”
The party of five were seated round a table near the stove, and Rosanne, with Delaunier on her right and Cavenish on her left, was ladling out the stew. She paused a moment, the ladle in mid-air, and listened.
“There’s someone outside. I was certain I heard something when I went out ten minutes ago.”
“Why go outside on an evening like this?” asked Delaunier. “Hades itself couldn’t be worse. I loathe fog more than anything on earth.”
“I went out to see that there weren’t great chinks of light shining out from the north window,” said Rosanne, and Cavenish put in,
“No one need be afraid of raiders on a night like this. Fog immobilises them completely.”
“I’m not afraid of raiders. I’m afraid of being fined five pounds when I haven’t got it to pay,” retorted Rosanne. “We’ve had air-raid wardens in here complaining several times already.”
“Oh, to hell with them,” said Bruce impatiently, and Ian Mackellon put in:
“I say, there is a shemozzle of sorts going on outside. I’ll go out and see what it is. Perhaps an air-raid warden’s staggered into the dug-out.”
“Let him drown, then. The damn fool thing’s brim full of rain water,” replied Manaton, and Mackellon jumped up just as someone thumped on the studio door. Bruce Manaton got to his feet swearing angrily, and Rosanne cried out,
“Switch the big light off before you open the door.”
“What a life,” said Cavenish, and his eyes met Rosanne’s with kindly sympathy. Delaunier sat still in his place, superb in his Cardinal’s scarlet, but with a glass of beer in one hand, looking oddly unnatural in contrast with the ecclesiastical trappings. An altercation was going on at the main door of the studio.
“There isn’t a telephone, so it’s no use trying to be high and mighty.” Bruce Manaton’s resonant voice was clearly audible. “We’re poverty-stricken painters here, not plutocrats with telephones. If you want to ’phone go to the post office—first on the right and third on the left.”
“…represent the law…demand your assistance…”
A stuttering breathless voice answered Manaton’s impatient tirade and Mackellon put in:
“What’s the poor devil done, anyway?”
Rosanne jumped up and ran to the door. A screen kept the light from the doorway, and in the dimness she had a confused impression of a tall grey-headed man in navy blue who seemed to be grasping a lad in khaki, the latter tallow-faced, and leaning against the door post, panting.
“Why not come inside and explain?” asked Rosanne. “If there’s been an accident we will do our best to help.”
“Accident? There has been a dastardly crime, a deplorable outrage.” The big man in dark blue was getting his breath back. “I must summon assistance, and I have the right to call on all law-abiding citizens to assist me in my duty. I have arrested this miscreant—”
“Oh come off it, and don’t try any more jargon on me,” said Manaton flippantly, and Rosanne put in quickly,
“Well, whether you’ve arrested him or not, why not come in and shut the door, and he looks half dead himself anyway.”
“I’ve twisted my damned ankle so that I can’t stand,” put in the lad in khaki. “If it weren’t for that I could have got away.”
“I call you to witness that statement,” said the grey-headed man. “Come inside, quietly now. Resistance will do you no good. You are under arrest, and I warn you that anything you say may be taken down in writing and used as evidence.”
He propelled the soldier inside and banged the door to behind him. Rosanne saw that he was in the uniform of a special constable, a big prosperous-looking man of sixty. The Tommy winced as he tried to put his foot to the ground and staggered, and Mackellon shoved a chair forward saying:
“Let him sit down anyway. He’s all in.”
Delaunier strode forward in his Cardinal’s scarlet, and his appearance added the last touch of fantasy to the group: the Tommy looked bemusedly from the scarlet figure to Rosanne, tall and slim in her black ski costume.
“It’s not real—I must be dreaming,” he said, “or else I’m mad… the whole show’s stark crazy.”
“What the hell is it all about?” demanded Manaton, and the Special Constable replied:
“A dastardly murder has been committed in the house adjoining this studio. I have arrested this man—arrested him red-handed—and I must see that he is secured before I summon assistance. Is there a cellar or other apartment where he can be locked up? I shall hold all of you persons responsible for him, remember.”
“Who has he murdered, anyway?” demanded Manaton, and the Tommy burst out:
“I haven’t murdered anyone, I tell you. I don’t know a damned thing about it. Someone else did the old man in—not me.”
He was a Canadian, Rosanne noticed, very young, his fair face tanned, but pallid and drawn.
“Silence!” commanded the Special Constable. “There is to be no discussion at all. I asked you, sir, about a cellar or other apartment suitable for a lock-up. I have no time to waste on arguing.”
“And I have no cellar, nor yet any apartment suitable for a lock-up,” replied Manaton coolly, and Cavenish spoke for the first time.
“Look here, sir. It’s no use talking about lock-ups in a studio which hasn’t a single door which locks properly. Leave this chap here while you go and telephone or find another officer. There are four of us here, and he can’t get away. He’s obviously in no state to get away, and he can hardly stand, let alone run.”
The big grey-headed man seemed to be mollified by the quiet voice and sober bearing of Cavenish. He replied less pompously:
“Yes, yes. That is true—but you see my difficulty. I am alone—my fellow-constable is ill, and I must have assistance.”
“Quite so—and the best thing for you to do is to go and telephone to your headquarters, leaving your prisoner here,” replied Cavenish. “You probably know the locality better than we do—we are all newcomers here—and you will get the co-operation you need more quickly if you do the explaining yourself. We shan’t run away—and your captive can’t run.”
“It’s all very irregular,” said the Special, and Bruce Manaton put in:
“It’s not my idea of regularity either, having murder at supper time. So far as I am concerned, the sooner you get the assistance you need, the better. I want my supper.”
“Your levity is misplaced, sir. This is a serious matter,” boomed the big Special, and Rosanne broke out:
“Do you think we don’t realise it’s serious? It’s horrible—for all of us,” and Ian Mackellon put in quickly,
“Look here, sir, this is just quibbling. Do you want one of us to go out and try to find a telephone, or are you going to do it yourself? As Cavenish says, you’re safe enough in leaving this fellow here with the four of us to look after him, but we don’t want to behave as though we were in a Russian novel, and talk about it all night.”
“I will go myself and telephone—but you people must be responsible for my captive until I return,” replied the big man pompously. “I must ask your names before I leave you, and—er—see your identity cards.”
“The official mind at work,” said Bruce Manaton softly.