“You’d better get on with your job,” said Troy. She looked like a boy with her head turned shamefacedly away. She groped in her trousers pocket and pulled out a handkerchief disgracefully stained with paint. “Oh blast!” she said, and pitched it into the wastepaper basket.

“Have mine.”

“Thank you.”

Alleyn turned away from her and leant his arms on the mantelpiece. Troy blew her nose violently.

“My mother’s so happy about my picture,” said Alleyn to the fire. “She says it’s the best present she’s ever had. She said, if you’ll forgive the implication, that you must know all about the subject. I suppose that’s the sort of lay remark that is rather irritating to a craftsman for whom the model must be a collection of forms rather than an individual.”

“Bosh!” said Troy down her nose and behind his handkerchief.

“Is it? I’m always terrified of being highfalutin’ about pictures. The sort of person, you know, who says: ‘The eyes follow you all round the room.’ It would be so remarkably rum if they didn’t when the model has looked into the painter’s eyes, wouldn’t it? I told my mamma about the thing you did at Suva. She rather fancies her little self about pictures. I think her aesthetic taste is pretty sound. Do you know she remembered the Pol de Limbourge thing that Malmsey cribbed, for one of his illustrations.”

“What?” exclaimed Troy loudly.

“Didn’t you spot it?” asked Alleyn without turning. “That’s one up to the Alleyn family, isn’t it? The drawing of the three little medieval reapers in front of the chateau; it’s Sainte Chapelle, really, I think — do you remember?”

“Golly, I believe you’re right,” said Troy. She gave a dry sob, blew her nose again, and said: “Are there any cigarettes on the mantelpiece?”

Alleyn gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. When he saw her face, marred by tears, he wanted almost overwhelmingly to kiss it.

“Little serpent!” said Troy.

“Who — Malmsley?”

“Yes. Malmsley of all people, with his beard and his precicosity.”

“There’s no such word as precicosity.”

“There may be.”

“It’s preciosity if it’s anything.”

“Well, don’t be a scold,” said Troy. “Did you face Malmsley with this?”

“Yes. He turned as red as a rose.”

Troy laughed.

“What a doody-flop for Cedric,” she said.

“I must get on with my odious job,” said Alleyn. “May I use your telephone?”

“Yes, of course. There’ll be an inquest, won’t there.”

“To-morrow, I think. It won’t be so bad. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

He turned at the doorway and said: “Lady Alleyn’s compliments to Miss Troy, and if Miss Troy would like to sample the amenities of Danes Lodge, Lady Alleyn will be very happy to offer them.”

“Your mother is very kind,” said Troy, “but I think it would be better not. Will you thank her from me? Please say I am very grateful indeed.”

Alleyn bowed.

“I’m grateful to you, too,” said Troy.

“Are you? That is rather dangerously nice of you. Good-bye.”

Before he left Tatler’s End House Alleyn rang up Superintendent Blackman and asked if there was any news of Garcia. There was none. A discreetly-worded notice had appeared in the morning papers and the B.B.C. had instructions to send out a police message. The police, within a fifty-mile radius, had made intensive inquiries.

“It looks as if he didn’t want to be found, Mr. Alleyn. The weather’s been fine and if he’d sketched as he said he intended to do, he wouldn’t have gone far in two days. It looks to me as if the bird had flown.”

“It does a bit. Of course he might have changed his plans and taken a train or bus. We’ll have to get on to the railway stations. All that deadly game. Thanks so much, Mr. Blackman. I’ll let you know if there are any developments. Inquest to-morrow?”

“No, Thursday. Our gentleman’s full up to-morrow. Bossicote Town Hall at eleven. He’s a sensible sort of chap, our man.”

“Good. I’ll call on the C.C. this morning, before I go up to London.”

“Just as well. He likes to be consulted.”

“What about the post-mortem?”

“I wanted to let you know. She was going to have a child. About a month gone, the doctor says.”

“I thought as much. Look here, I think I’ll get straight up to London. Make my apologies to the Chief Constable, will you? I want to catch a friend of Sonia Gluck’s, and I can’t risk missing her.”

“Right you are. He’ll understand. So long. See you on Thursday.”

Alleyn found Fox, who had renewed his acquaintance with the Hipkins and Sadie, and drove him back through teeming rain to Danes Lodge for breakfast.

“I’ve had a bit of a yarn with Ethel Jones,” said Fox.

“Ethel? Oh yes, the help from the village. What had she got to say for herself?”

“Quite a bit,” said Fox. He opened his note-book and put on his spectacles.

“You’re looking very bland, Brer Fox. What have you got on to?”

“Well, sir, it seems that Ethel and her boy took a walk on Friday night down the lane. They passed by the studio window on their way home from the pictures at about eleven-thirty, perhaps a bit later. There were lights going in the studio but the blind was down. They walked straight past, but when they’d gone a piece further down the lane they stopped in the shadow of the trees to have a bit of a cuddle as you might put it. Ethel doesn’t know how long it lasted. She says you’re apt to lose your idea of time on these occasions, but when they got back to earth and thought about moving on, she glanced down the lane and saw someone outside the studio window.”

“Did she, by gum! Go on, Fox!”

“Well, sir, she couldn’t see him very distinctly.”

“Him?”

“Yes. She says she could just see it was a man, and he seemed to be wearing a raincoat, and a cap or beret of some sort. He was standing quite close to the window, Ethel reckons, and was caught by a streak of light coming through the blind. I asked her about the face, of course, but she says it was in a shadow. She remembers that there was a small patch of light on the cap.”

“There’s a hole in the blind,” said Alleyn.

“Is that so, sir? That might account for it, then. Ethel says the rest of the figure was a shadow. The collar of his raincoat was turned up and she thinks his hands were in his pockets.”

“What height?”

“About medium, Ethel thought, but you know how vague they are. She said to her boy: ‘Look, there’s someone down the lane. They must have seen us,’ and I suppose she gave a bit of a giggle, like a girl would.”

“You ought to know.”

“Why not, sir? Then, she says, the man turned aside and disappeared into the darker shadow and they could just hear his footfall as he walked away. Well, I went into the lane to see if I could pick up his prints, but you’ve been there and you know there wasn’t much to be seen near the window, except the tyre-tracks where the caravan had been maneuvered about. When you get away from the window and out into the lane there are any number of them, but there’s been people and cars up and down during the week-end and there’s not much hope of picking up anything definite.”

“No.”

“I’ve looked carefully and I can’t find anything. It’s different with the car traces under the window. They’re off the beaten track, but this downpour about finished the lane as far as we’re concerned.”

“I know.”

“Well, we got a description of Garcia last night, of course, but to make sure, I asked the Hipkins and Sadie and Ethel to repeat it. They gave the same story. He always wears a very old mackintosh, whether it’s wet or fine, and it’s their belief he hasn’t got a jacket. Miss Troy gave him a grey sweater and he wears that with a pair of old flannel trousers. Mrs. Hipkin says Miss Troy has given him two shirts and Mr. Pilgrim gave him some underclothes. He doesn’t often wear anything on his head, but they have seen him in a black beret. Sadie says he looks as rough as bags. Ethel said straight out that she thought the figure outside the window was Garcia. She said so to her boy. She says it was the dead spit of Garcia, but then, we’ve got to remember it wasn’t at all distinct, and she may think differently now that she knows Garcia has gone. You know how they make up all sorts of things without scarcely knowing what they’re up to.”