Black As He Is Painted ra-28

by Ngaio Marsh

  Black As He Is Painted

  ( Roderick Alleyn - 28 )

  Ngaio Marsh

  Tension mounts as Inspector Alleyn works against time to collar a vicious killer and avert a political holocaust, the repercussions of which would be felt around the world!

  Ngaio Marsh

  Black As He’s Painted

  For

  Roses and Mike

  with love

  The author’s warmest thanks are due to Sir Alister McIntosh, K.C.M.G., and P. J. Humphries, Esq., for their very kind advice on matters ambassadorial and linguistic.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Mr. Samuel Whipplestone: Foreign Office (Retired)

  Lucy Lockett: A Cat

  The Ambassador for Ng’ombwana in London

  A lady, a young gentleman, a youth: Of Messrs. Able, Virtue & Sons, Land & Estate Agents

  Chubb: House Servant

  Mrs. Chubb: His Wife

  A veterinary surgeon

  Mr. Sheridan: No. 1A, Capricorn Walk (Basement Flat)

  His Excellency Bartholomew Opala, C.B.E.: The Boomer. President of Ng’ombwana.

  An A.D.C.

  Mr. and Mrs. Pirelli: Of the Napoli, Shop-Keepers

  colonel Cockburn-Montfort: Late of the Ng’ombwanan Army (Retired)

  Mrs. Cockburn-Montfort: His Wife

  Kenneth Sanskrit: Late of Ng’ombwana. Merchant.

  Xenoclea Sanskrit: His Sister. Of the Piggie Potterie, 12, Capricorn Mews, S.W. 3.

  A mlinzi: Spear-Carrier to the Boomer

  Sir George Alleyn, K.C.M.G., etc. etc.

  Roderick Alleyn: Superintendent, C.I.D. His Brother.

  Troy Alleyn: Painter. His Wife.

  Inspector Fox: C.I.D.

  Sir James Curtis: The Celebrated Pathologist

  Superintendent Gibson: Special Branch, C.I.D.

  Jacks: A Talented Sergeant, C.I.D.

  Detective-Sergeant Bailey: A Finger-Print Expert

  Detective-Sergeant Thompson: Photographer

  Sundry police, Ng’ombwanan embassy guests and servants, and frequenters of the Capricorns, S.W.3.

  I

  Mr. Whipplestone

  The year was at the spring and the day at the morn and God may have been in His Heaven, but as far as Mr. Samuel Whipplestone was concerned the evidence was negligible. He was, in a dull, muddled sort of way, miserable. He had become possessed, with valedictory accompaniments, of two solid silver Georgian gravy-boats. He had taken his leave of Her Majesty’s Foreign Service in the manner to which his colleagues were accustomed. He had even prepared himself for the non-necessity of getting up at seven-thirty, bathing, shaving, breakfasting at eight — but there is no need to prolong the Podsnappian recital. In a word he had fancied himself tuned in to retirement and now realized that he was in no such condition. He was a man without propulsion. He had no object in life. He was finished.

  By ten o’clock he found himself unable to endure the complacent familiarity of his “service” flat It was in fact at that hour being “serviced,” a ritual which normally he avoided and now hindered by his presence.

  He was astounded to find that for twenty years he had inhabited dull, oppressive, dark and uncomely premises. Deeply shaken by this abrupt discovery he went out into the London spring.

  A ten-minute walk across the park hardly raised his spirits. He avoided the great water-shed of traffic under the quadriga, saw some inappropriately attired equestrians, passed a concourse of scarlet and yellow tulips, left the park under the expanded nostrils of Epstein’s liberated elementals, and made his way into Baronsgate.

  As he entered that flowing cacophony of changing gears and revving engines, it occurred to him that he himself must now get into bottom gear and stay there until he was parked in some-sub-fusc lay-by to await — and here the simile became insufferable — a final towing-off. His predicament was none the better for being commonplace. He walked for a quarter of an hour.

  From Baronsgate the western entry into the Capricorns is by an arched passage too low overhead to admit any but pedestrian traffic. It leads into Capricorn Mews and, further along at right angles to the Mews, Capricorn Place. He had passed by it over and over again and would have done so now if it hadn’t been for a small, thin cat.

  This animal flashed out from under the traffic and shot past him into the passageway. It disappeared at the far end. He heard a scream of tyres and of a living creature.

  This sort of thing upset Mr. Whipplestone. He disliked this sort of thing intensely. He would have greatly preferred to remove himself as quickly as possible from the scene and put it out of his mind. What he did, however, was to hurry through the passageway into Capricorn Mews.

  The vehicle, a delivery van of sorts, was disappearing into Capricorn Place. A group of three youths outside a garage stared at the cat, which lay like a blot of ink on the pavement.

  One of them walked over to it. “Had it,” he said.

  “Poor pussy!” said one of the others and they laughed objectionably.

  The first youth moved his foot as if to turn the cat over. Astonishingly and dreadfully it scrabbled with its hind legs. He exclaimed, stooped down and extended his hand.

  It was on its feet. It staggered and then bolted. Towards Mr. Whipplestone, who had come to a halt. He supposed it to be concussed, or driven frantic by pain or fear. In a flash it gave a great spring and was on Mr. Whipplestone’s chest, clinging with its small claws and — incredibly — purring. He had been told that a dying cat will sometimes purr. It had blue eyes. The tip of its tail for about two inches was snow white, but the rest of its person was perfectly black. He had no particular antipathy to cats.

  He carried an umbrella in his right hand, but with his left arm he performed a startled reflex gesture. He sheltered the cat. It was shockingly thin, but warm and tremulous.

  “One of ’er nine lives gawn for a burton,” said the youth. He and his friends guffawed themselves into the garage.

  “Drat,” said Mr. Whipplestone, who long ago had thought it amusing to use spinsterish expletives.

  With some difficulty he hooked his umbrella over his left arm and with his right hand inserted his eyeglass and then explored the cat’s person. It increased its purrs, interrupting them with a faint mew when he touched its shoulder. What was to be done with it?

  Obviously, nothing in particular. It was not badly injured, presumably it lived in the neighborhood, and one had always understood its species to have a phenomenal homing instinct. It thrust its nut-like head under Mr. Whipplestone’s jacket and into his waistcoat. It palpated his chest with its paws. He had quite a business detaching it.

  He set it down on the pavement. “Go home,” he said. It stared up at him and went through the motion of mewing, opening its mouth and showing its pink tongue but giving no sound. “No,” he said, “go home!” It was making little preparatory movements of its haunches as if about to spring again.

  He turned his back on it and walked quickly down Capricorn Mews. He almost ran.

  It is a quiet little street, cobbled and very secluded. It accommodates three garages, a packing agency, two dozen or so small mid-Victorian houses, a minute bistro and four shops. As he approached one of these, a flower shop, he could see reflected in its side windows Capricorn Mews with himself walking towards him. And behind him, trotting in a determined manner, the little cat. It was mewing.

  He was extremely put out and had begun to entertain a confused notion of telephoning the R.S.P.C.A. when a van erupted from a garage immediately behind him. It passed him, and when it had gone the cat had disappeared: frightened, Mr. Whipplestone supposed, by the noise.

  Beyond the flower shop and on the opposite side of the Me
ws was the corner of Capricorn Place, leading off to the left. Mr. Whipplestone, deeply ruffled, turned into it

  A pleasing street: narrow, orderly, sunny, with a view, to the left, of tree-tops and the dome of the Baronsgate Basilica. Iron railings and behind them small well-kept Georgian and Victorian houses. Spring flowers in window-boxes. From somewhere or another the smell of freshly brewed coffee.

  Cleaning ladies attacked steps and door-knockers. Household ladies were abroad with shopping baskets. A man of Mr. Whipplestone’s own age who reeked of the army and was of an empurpled complexion emerged from one of the houses. A perambulator with a self-important baby and an escort of a pedestrian six-year-old, a female propellant and a large dog headed with a purposeful air towards the park. The postman was going his rounds.

  In London there are still, however precarious their state, many little streets of the character of the Capricorns. They are upper-middle-class streets and therefore, Mr. Whipplestone had been given to understand, despicable. Being, of that class himself, he did not take this view. He found the Capricorns uneventful, certainly, but neither tiresomely quaint nor picturesque nor smug; pleasing, rather, and possessed of a quality which he could only think of as “sparkling.” Ahead of him was a pub, the Sun in Splendour. It had an honest untarted look about it and stood at the point where the Place leads into Capricorn Square: the usual railed enclosure of plane trees, grass and a bench or two, well-kept. He turned to the right down one side of it, making for Capricorn Walk.

  Moving towards him at a stately pace came a stout, superbly dressed coal-black gentleman leading a white Afghan hound with a scarlet collar and leash.

  “My dear Ambassador!” Mr. Whipplestone exclaimed. “How very pleasant!”

  “Mr. Whipplestone!” resonated the Ambassador for Ng’ombwana. “I am delighted to see you. You live in these parts?”

  “No, no: a morning stroll. I’m — I’m a free man now, Your Excellency.”

  “Of course. I had heard. You will be greatly missed.”

  “I doubt it. Your Embassy — I had forgotten for the moment — is quite close by, isn’t it?”

  “In Palace Park Gardens. I too enjoy a morning stroll with Ahman. We are not, alas, unattended.” He waved his gold-mounted stick in the direction of a large person looking anonymously at a plane tree.

  “Alas!” Mr. Whipplestone agreed. “The penalty of distinction,” he added, neatly, and patted the Afghan.

  “You are kind enough to say so.”

  Mr. Whipplestone’s highly specialized work in the Foreign Service had been advanced by a happy manner with foreign — and particularly with African — plenipotentiaries. “I hope I may congratulate Your Excellency,” he said and broke into his professional style of verbless exclamation.

  “The increased rapproachement! The treaty! Masterly achievements!”

  “Achievements — entirely — of our great President, Mr. Whipplestone.”

  “Indeed, yes. Everyone is delighted about the forthcoming visit. An auspicious occasion.”

  “As you say. Immensely significant.” The Ambassador waited for a moment and then slightly reduced the volume of his superb voice. “Not,” he said, “without its anxieties, however. As you know, our great President does not welcome”—he again waved his stick at his bodyguard—“that sort of attention.” A sigh escaped him. “He is to stay with us,” he said.

  “Quite.”

  “The responsibility!” sighed the Ambassador. He broke off and offered his hand. “You will be at the reception, of course,” he said. “We must meet more often! I shall see that something is arranged. Au revoir, Mr. Whipplestone.”

  They parted. Mr. Whipplestone walked on, passing and, tactfully, ignoring the escort.

  Facing him at the point where the Walk becomes the northeast border of the Square was a small house between two large ones. It was painted white with a glossy black front door and consisted of an attic, two floors and a basement. The first-floor windows opened on a pair of miniature balconies, the ground-floor ones were bowed. He was struck by the arrangement of the window-boxes. Instead of the predictable daffodil one saw formal green swags that might have enriched a della Robbia relief. They were growing vines of some sort which swung between the pots where they rooted and were cunningly trimmed so that they swelled at the lowest point of the arc and symmetrically tapered to either end.

  Some workmen with ladders were putting up a sign.

  He had begun to feel less depressed. Persons who do not live there will talk about “the London feeling.” They will tell you that as they walk down a London street they can be abruptly made happy, uplifted in spirit, exhilarated. Mr. Whipplestone had always taken a somewhat incredulous view of these transports but he had to admit that on this occasion he was undoubtedly visited by a liberated sensation. He had a singular notion that the little house had induced this reaction. No. 1, as he now saw, Capricorn Walk.

  He approached the house. It was touched on its chimneys and the eastern slope of its roof by sunshine. “Facing the right way,” thought Mr. Whipplestone. “In the winter it’ll get all the sun there is, I daresay.” His own flat faced north.

  A postman came whistling down the Walk as Mr. Whipplestone crossed it. He mounted the steps of No. 1, clapped something through the brass flap, and came down so briskly that they nearly collided.

  “Woops-a-daisy,” said the postman. “Too eager, that’s my trouble. Lovely morning, though innit?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Whipplestone, judiciously conceding the point. “It is. Are the present occupants—” He hesitated.

  “Gawn. Out last week,” said the postman. “But I’m not to know, am I? People ought to make arrangements, din’ they sir?” He went off, whistling.

  The workmen came down their ladders and prepared to make off. They had erected a sign.

  FOR SALE

  ALL ENQUIRIES TO

  ABLE, VIRTUE & SONS

  17, CAPRICORN STREET, S.W.3

  The Street is the most “important” of the Capricorns. It is wider and busier than the rest. It runs parallel to the Walk and in fact Messrs. Able and Virtue’s premises lie exactly back-to-back with the little house at No. 1.

  “Good morning,” said the roundabout lady at the desk on the left-hand side. “Can I help you?” she pleaded brightly.

  Mr. Whipplestone pulled out the most non-committal stop in his F.O. organ and tempered its chill with a touch of whimsy.

  “You may satisfy my idle curiosity if you will be so good,” he said. “Ah — concerning No. 1, Capricorn Walk.”

  “No. 1, the Walk?” repeated the lady. “Yes. Our notice, ackshally, has only just gone up. For sale with stipulations regarding the basement. I’m not quite sure—” She looked across at the young man with a Pre-Raphaelite hair-do behind the right-hand desk. He was contemplating his fingernails and listening to his telephone. “What is it about the basement, No. 1, the Walk?” she asked.

  He clapped a languid hand over the receiver: “Ay’m coping,” he said and unstopped the receiver. “The basement of No. 1,” he rattled into it, “is at present occupied as a pied-à-terre by the owner. He wishes to retain occupancy. The Suggested Arrangement is that total ownership pass to the purchaser and that he, the vendor, become the tenant of the basement at an agreed rent for a specified period.” He listened for a considerable interval. “No,” he said, “ay’m afraid it’s a firm stipulation. Quate. Quate. Yes. Theng you, madam. Good morning.”

  “That,” said the lady, offering it to Mr. Whipplestone, “is the situation.”

  Mr. Whipplestone, conscious of a lightness in his head, said: “And the price?” He used the voice in which he had been wont to say: “This should have been dealt with at a lower level.”

  “Was it thirty-nine?” the lady asked her colleague.

  “Thirty-eight”

  “Thirty-eight thousand,” she relayed to Mr. Whipplestone, who caught back his breath in a civilized little hiss.

  “Indeed?” he sai
d. “You amaze me.”

  “It’s a Desirable District,” she replied indifferently. “Properties are at a premium in the Capricorns.” She picked up a document and glanced at it. Mr. Whipplestone was nettled.

  “And the rooms?” he asked sharply. “How many? Excluding, for the moment, the basement.”

  The lady and the Pre-Raphaelite young gentleman became more attentive. They began to speak in unison and begged each other’s pardon.

  “Six,” gabbled the lady, “in all. Excluding kitchen and Usual Offices. Wall-to-wall carpets and drapes included in purchase price. And the Usual Fitments: fridge, range et cetera. Large recep’ with adjacent dining-room, ground floor. Master bedroom and bathroom with toilet, first floor. Two rooms with shower and toilet, second floor. Late tenant used these as flat for married couple.”

  “Oh?” said Mr. Whipplestone, concealing the emotional disturbance that seemed to be lodged under his diaphragm. “A married couple? You mean?”

  “Did for him,” said the lady.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Serviced him. Cook and houseman. There was an Arrangement by which they also cleaned the basement flat.”

  The young man threw in: “Which it is hoped will continue. They are Strongly Recommended to purchaser with Arrangement to be arrived at for continued weekly servicing of basement. No obligation, of course.”

  “Of course not.” Mr. Whipplestone gave a small dry cough. “I should like to see it,” he said.

  “Certainly,” said the lady crisply. “When would you—?”

  “Now, if you please.”

  “I think that would suit. If you’ll just wait while I—”

  She used her telephone. Mr. Whipplestone bumped into a sudden qualm of near-panic. “I am beside myself,” he thought. “It’s that wretched cat.” He pulled himself together. After all, he was committed to nothing. An impulse, a mere whim, induced he dared say by unaccustomed idleness. What of it?