Free Artists in Crime by Ngaio Marsh

back to Seacliff’s canvas and examined it with placid approval.
    “You seem very taken with Miss Seacliff’s effort,” said Alleyn.
    “Eh?” Fox transferred his attention sharply to Alleyn. “Now then, sir, how do you make out the name of this artist?”
    “Rather prettily, Fox. This is the only outfit that is quite in order. Very neat everything is, you’ll notice. Tidy box, clean brushes laid down carefully by the palette, fresh paint-rag all ready to use. I make a long guess that it belongs to Valmai Seacliff, because Miss Seacliff was with the model when she got her quietus. There is no reason why Miss Seacliff’s paraphernalia should show signs of disturbance. In a sense, Miss Seacliff killed Sonia Gluck. She pressed her naked body down on the knife. Not a very pleasant reflection for Miss Seacliff now, unless she happens to be a murderess. Yes, I think this painting is hers.”
    “Very neat bit of reasoning, chief. Lor’, here’s a mess.” Fox bent over Watt Hatchett’s open box. It overflowed with half-used tubes of oil-colour, many of them without caps. A glutinous mess to which all sorts of odds and ends adhered spread over the trays and brushes. Cigarette-butts, matches, bits of charcoal, were mixed up with fragments of leaves and twigs, and filthy scraps of rag.
    “This looks like chronic muck,” said Fox.
    “It does, indeed.” From the sticky depths of a tin tray Alleyn picked out a fragment of a dried leaf and smelt it.
    “Blue gum,” he said. “This will be the Australian, I suppose. Funny. He must have collected that leaf sketching in the bush, half the world away. I know this youth. He joined our ship with Miss Troy at Suva. Travelled second at her expense.”
    “Fancy that,” said Fox placidly. “Then you know this Miss Troy, sir?”
    “Yes. Now you see, even he appears to have put his hand down on his palette. He’d hardly do that in normal moments.”
    “We’ve finished, sir,” said the photographic expert.
    “Right.”
    Alleyn went over to the throne. The body lay as it was when he first saw it. He looked at it thoughtfully, remembering what Troy had said: “I’m always frightened of dead people.”
    “She was very lovely,” said Alleyn gently. He covered the body again. “Carry her over to that couch. It’s a divan-bed, I fancy. She can be taken away now. You’ll do the post-mortem to-morrow, I suppose, Dr. Ampthill?”
    “First thing,” said the doctor briskly. “The mortuary car is outside in the lane now. This studio is built into the brick wall that divides the garden from the lane. I thought it would save a lot of trouble and difficulty if we opened that window, backed the car up to it, and lifted the stretcher through.”
    “Over there?”
    Alleyn walked over to the window in the south wall. He stooped and inspected the floor.
    “This is where the modeling fellow, Garcia, did his stuff. Bits of clay all over the place. His work must have stood on the tall stool here, well in the light. Wait a moment.”
    He flashed his pocket-torch along the sill. It was scored by several cross-scratches.
    “Someone else has had your idea, Dr. Ampthill,” said Alleyn. He pulled a pair of gloves from his overcoat pocket, put them on, and opened the window. The light from the studio shone on the white body of a mortuary van drawn up in the lane outside. The air smelt cold and dank. Alleyn shone his torch on the ground under the window-sill. He could see clearly the print of car tyres in the soft ground under the window.
    “Look here, Mr. Blackman.”
    Blackman joined him.
    “Yes,” he said. “Someone’s backed a car across the lane under the window. Miss Troy says the carrier must have called for this Mr. Garcia’s stuff on Saturday morning. The maids say nobody came to the house about it. Well now, suppose Garcia left instructions for them to come straight to this window? Eh? How about that? He’d help them put the stuff through the window on to the van and then