Artists in Crime
One of Ngaio Marsh’s most famous murder mysteries, which introduces Inspector Alleyn to his future wife, the irrepressible Agatha Troy.It started as a student exercise, the knife under the drape, the model’s pose chalked in place. But before Agatha Troy, artist and instructor, returns to the class, the pose has been re-enacted in earnest: the model is dead, fixed for ever in one of the most dramatic poses Troy has ever seen.It’s a difficult case for Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn. How can he believe that the woman he loves is a murderess? And yet no one can be above suspicion…
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Ngaio Marsh
Artists in Crime
HARPER
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2009
Artists in Crime first published in Great Britain by Geoffrey Bles 1938
Copyright © Ngaio Marsh Ltd 1938
Ngaio Marsh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these works
A catalogie record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780006512561
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2009 ISBN 9780007344444 VersionL 2016-10-20
For Phyllis and John
| Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn, CID | |
| Miss Van Maes | The success of the ship |
| Agatha Troy, RA | Of Tatlerâs End House, Bossicote, Bucks. Painter |
| Katti Bostock | Well-known painter of plumbers and Negro musicians |
| Nigel Bathgate | Journalist |
| Lady Alleyn | Of Danes Lodge, Bossicote, Bucks; mother of Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn |
| Cedric Malmsley | A student with a beard |
| Garcia | A sculptor |
| Sonia Gluck | A model |
| Francis Ormerin | A student from Paris |
| Phillida Lee | A student from the Slade |
| Watt Hatchett | A student from Australia |
| The Hon. Basil Pilgrim | A student from the nobility |
| Valmai Seacliff | A student with sex-appeal |
| Superintendent Blackman | Of the Buckingham Constabulary |
| Detective-Inspector Fox, CID | |
| Detective-Sergeant Bailey, CID | A fingerprint expert |
| Detective-Sergeant Thompson, CID | A photographic expert |
| Dr Ampthill | Police surgeon at Bossicote, Bucks. |
| PC Sligo | Of Bossicote Police Force |
| A charlady | |
| Bobbie OâDawne | A lady of the Ensemble |
| An estate agent | |
| Ted McCully | Foreman at a car depot |
| Dr Curtis | Police surgeon, CID |
| Captain Pascoe | Of Boxover |
| His servant |
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 8 Sidelights on Garcia
CHAPTER 9 Phillida Lee and Watt Hatchett
CHAPTER 10 Weekend of an Engaged Couple
CHAPTER 11 Ormerinâs Nerves and Soniaâs Correspondence
CHAPTER 12 Malmsley on Pleasure
CHAPTER 14 Evidence from a Twig
CHAPTER 15 Lady of the Ensemble
CHAPTER 17 The Man at the Table
CHAPTER 19 Alleyn Makes a Pilgrimage
Alleyn leant over the deck-rail, looking at the wet brown wharf and the upturned faces of the people. In a minute or two now they would slide away, lose significance, and become a vague memory. âWe called at Suva.â He had a sudden desire to run a mental ring round the scene beneath him, to isolate it, and make it clear, for ever in his mind. Idly at first, and then with absurd concentration, he began to memorize, starting with a detail. The tall Fijian with dyed hair. The hair was vivid magenta against the arsenic green of a pile of fresh bananas. He trapped and held the pattern of it. Then the brown face beneath, with liquid blue half-tones reflected from the water, then the oily dark torso, fore-shortened, the white loincloth, and the sharp legs. The design made by the feet on wet planks. It became a race. How much of the scene could he fix in his memory before the ship sailed? The sound, tooâhe must get thatâthe firm slap of bare feet on wet boards, the languid murmur of voices and the snatches of song drifting from a group of native girls near those clumps of fierce magenta coral. Hie smell must not be forgottenâfrangipanni, coconut oil, and sodden wood. He widened his circle, taking in more figuresâthe Indian woman in the shrill pink sari, sitting by the green bananas; wet roofs on the wharf and damp roads wandering aimlessly towards mangrove swamps and darkened hills. Those hills, sharply purple at their base, lost outline behind a sulky company of clouds, to jag out, fantastically peaked, against a motionless and sombre sky. The clouds themselves were indigo at the edges, heavy with the ominous depression of unshed rain. The darkness of everything and the violence of colourâit was a pattern of wet brown, acid green, magenta and indigo. The round voices of the Fijians, loud and deep, as though they spoke through resounding tubes, pierced the moist air and made it vibrant.
