“And did she pose again for you?”

“No. I’ve told you the thing was dead.”

“How did she misbehave? Just fidgeting?”

Katti leant forward, her square hands on her knees. Alleyn noticed that she was shaking a little, like an angry terrier.

“I’d got the head laid in broadly — I wanted to draw it together with a dry brush and then complete it. I wanted to keep it very simple and round, the drawing of the mouth was giving me trouble. I told her not to move — she had a damnable trick of biting her lip. Every time I looked at her she gave a sort of sneering smirk. As if she knew it wasn’t going well. I mixed a touch of cadmium red for the underlip. Just as I was going to lay it down she grimaced. I cursed her. She didn’t say anything. I pulled myself together to put the brush on the canvas and looked at her. She stuck her foul little tongue out.”

“And that tore it to shreds, I imagine?”

“It did. I said everything I’d been trying not to say for the past fortnight. I let go.”

“Not surprising. It must have been unspeakably maddening. Why, do you suppose, was she so set on making things impossible?”

“She deliberately baited me,” said Katti, under her breath.

“But why?”

“Why? Because I’d treated her as if she was a model. Because I expected to get some return for the excessive wages Troy was giving her. I engaged her, and I managed things till Troy came back. Sonia resented that. Always hinting that I wasn’t her boss and so on.”

“That was all?”

“Yes.”

“I see. You say her wages were excessively generous. What was she paid?”

“Four pounds a week and her keep. She’d spun Troy some tale about doctor’s bills, and Troy, as usual, believed the sad story and stumped up. She’s anybody’s mark for sponging. It’s so damned immoral to let people get away with that sort of thing. It’s no good talking to Troy. Street-beggars see her coming a mile away. She’s got two dead-heads here now.”

“Really? Which two?”

“Garcia, of course. She’s been shelling out money to Garcia for ages. And now there’s this Austrialian wildman Hatchett. She says she makes the others pay through the nose, but Lord knows if she ever gets the money. She’s hopeless,” said Katti, with an air of exasperated affection.

“Would you call this a good photograph of Mr. Garcia?” asked Alleyn suddenly. He held out the group. Katti took it and glowered at it.

“Yes, it’s very like him,” she said. “That thing was taken last year during the summer classes. Yes — that’s Garcia all right.”

“He was here as Miss Troy’s guest then, I suppose?”

“Oh Lord, yes. Garcia never pays for anything. He’s got no sort of decency where money is concerned. No conscience at all.”

“No aesthetic conscience?”

“Um!” said Katti. “I wouldn’t say that. No — his work’s the only thing he is honest about, and he’s passionately sincere there.”

“I wish you’d give me a clear idea of him, Miss Bostock. Will you?”

“Not much of a hand at that sort of thing,” growled Katti, “but I’ll have a shot. He’s a dark, dirty, weird-looking fellow. Very paintable head. Plenty of bone. You think he murdered the model, don’t you?”

“I don’t know who murdered the model.”

“Well, I think he did. It’s just the sort of thing he would do. He’s absolutely ruthless and as cold-blooded as a flat-fish. He asked Malmsley if he ever felt like murdering his mistress, didn’t he?”

“So Mr. Malmsley told us.”

“I’ll bet it’s true. If Sonia interfered with his work and put him off his stride, and he couldn’t get rid of her any other way, he’d get rid of her that way. She may have refused to give him any more money.”

“Did she give him money?”

“I think so. Ormerin says she was keeping him last year. He wouldn’t have the slightest qualms about taking it. Garcia just looks upon money as something you’ve got to have to keep you going. How you get it is of no importance. He could have got a well-paid job with a monumental firm. Troy got on to it for him. When he saw the tombstones with angels and open Bibles he said something indecent and walked out. He was practically starving that time,” said Katti, half to herself, and with a sort of reluctant admiration, “but he wouldn’t haul his flag down.”

“You think the model was really attached to him?”

Katti took another cigarette and Alleyn lit it for her.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not up in the tender passion. I’ve got an idea that she’d switched over to Basil Pilgrim, but whether it was to try and make Garcia jealous or because she’d fallen for Pilgrim is another matter. She was obviously livid with Seacliff. But then Garcia had begun to hang round Seacliff.”

“Dear me,” said Alleyn, “what a labyrinth of untidy emotions.”

“You may say so,” agreed Katti. She hitched herself out of her chair. “Have you finished with me, Mr. Alleyn?”

“Yes, do you know, I think I have. We shall have a statement in longhand for you to look at and sign, if you will, later on.”

She glared at Fox. “Is that what he’s been up to?”

“Yes.”

“Pah!”

“It’s only to establish your movements. Of course, if you don’t want to sign it— ”

“Who said I didn’t? Let me wait till I see it.”

“That’s the idea, miss,” said Fox, looking benignly at her over the top of his spectacles.

“Will you show Miss Bostock out, please, Fox?”

“Thank you, I know my way about this house,” said Katti with a prickly laugh. She stumped off to the door. Fox closed it gently behind her.

“Rather a tricky sort of lady, that,” he said.

“She is a bit. Never mind. She gave us some sidelights on Garcia.”

“She did that all right.”

There was a rap on the door and one of the local men looked in.

“Excuse me, sir, but there’s a gentlemen out here says he wants to see you very particular.”

“What’s his name?”

“He just said you’d be very glad indeed to see him, sir. He never gave a name.”

“Is he a journalist?” asked Alleyn sharply. “If he is, I shall be very glad indeed to kick him out. We’re too busy for the Press just now.”

“Well, sir, he didn’t say he was a reporter. He said — er— er — er— ”

“What?”

“His words was, sir, that you’d scream the place down with loud cries of gladness when you clapped eyes on him.”

“That’s no way to ask to see the chief,” said Fox. “You ought to know that.”

“Go and ask him to give his name,” said Alleyn.

The policeman retired.

Fox eyed Alleyn excitedly.

“By gum, sir, you don’t think it may be this Garcia? By all accounts he’s eccentric enough to send in a message like that.”

“No,” said Alleyn, as the door opened. “I rather fancy I recognize the style. I rather fancy, Fox, that an old and persistent friend of ours has got in first on the news.”

“Unerring as ever, Mr. Alleyn,” said a voice from the hall, and Nigel Bathgate walked into the room.