began to go round the work, beginning with Ormerin on the extreme left.
‘Bit tied up, isn’t it?’ she said after a minute’s silence.
‘She is never for one moment still,’ complained Ormerin. ‘The foot moves, the shoulders are in a fidget continually. It is impossible for me to work—impossible.’
‘Start again. The pose is right now. Get it down directly. You can do it.’
‘My work has been abominable since three months or more. All this surrealism at Malaquin’s. I cannot feel like that and yet I cannot prevent myself from attempting it when I am there. That is why I return to you. I am in a muddle.’
‘Try a little ordinary study for a bit. Don’t worry about style. It’ll come. Take a new stretcher and make a simple statement.’ She moved to Valmai Seacliff and looked at the flowing lines so easily laid down. Seacliff moved back, contriving to touch Ormerin’s shoulder. He stopped working at once and whispered in her ear.
‘I can understand French, Ormerin,’ said Troy casually, still contemplating Seacliff’s canvas. ‘This is going quite well, Seacliff. I suppose the elongation of the legs is deliberate?’
‘Yes, I see her like that. Long and slinky. They say people always paint like themselves, don’t they?’
‘Do they?’ said Troy. ‘I shouldn’t let it become a habit.’
She moved on to Katti, who creaked back from her canvas. One of her shoes did squeak. Troy discussed the placing of the figure and then went on to Watt Hatchett. Hatchett had already begun to use solid paint, and was piling pure colour on his canvas.
‘You don’t usually start off like this, do you?’
‘Naow, that’s right, I don’t, but I thought I’d give it a pop.’
‘Was that, by any chance, because you could see Miss Bostock working in that manner?’ asked Troy, not too unkindly. Hatchett grinned and shuffled his feet. ‘You stick to your own ways for a bit,’ advised Troy. ‘You’re a beginner still, you know. Don’t try to acquire a manner till you’ve got a little more method. Is that foot too big or too small?’
‘Too small.’
‘Should that space there be wider or longer?’
‘Longer.’
‘Make it so.’
‘Good oh, Miss Troy. Think that bit of colour there’s all right?’ asked Hatchett, regarding it complacently.
‘It’s perfectly good colour, but don’t choke the pores of your canvas up with paint till you’ve got the big things settled. Correct your drawing and scrape it down.’
‘Yeah, but she wriggles all the time. It’s a fair nark. Look where the shoulder has shifted. See?’
‘Has the pose altered?’ inquired Troy at large.
‘Naow!’ said Sonia with vindictive mimicry.
‘It’s shifted a whole lot,’ asserted Hatchett aggressively. ‘I bet you anything you like—’
‘Wait a moment,’ said Troy.
‘It’s moved a little,’ said Katti Bostock.
Troy sighed.
‘Rest!’ she said. ‘No! Wait a minute.’
She took a stick of chalk from her overall pocket and ran it round the model wherever she touched the throne. The position of both legs, one flank, one hip, and one shoulder were thus traced on the boards. The blue drape was beneath the rest of the figure.
‘Now you can get up.’
Sonia sat up with an ostentatious show of discomfort, reached out her hand for the kimono and shrugged herself into it. Troy pulled the drape out taut from the cushion to the floor.
‘It’ll have to go down each time with the figure,’ she told the class.
‘As it does in the little romance,’ drawled Malmsley.
‘Yes, it’s quite feasible,’ agreed Valmai Seacliff. ‘We could try it. There’s that Chinese knife in the lumber-room. May we get it, Miss Troy?’
‘If you like,’ said Troy.
‘It doesn’t really matter,’ said Malmsley languidly getting to his feet.
‘Where is it, Miss Seacliff?’ asked Hatchett eagerly.
‘On the top shelf in the lumber-room.’
Hatchett went into an enormous cupboard by the window, and after a minute or two returned with a long, thin-bladed knife. He went up to Malmsley’s table and looked over his shoulder at the typescript. Malmsley moved away ostentatiously.
‘Aw yeah, I get it,’ said Hatchett. ‘What a corker! Swell way of murdering somebody, wouldn’t it be?’ He licked his thumb and turned the page.
‘I’ve taken a certain amount of trouble to keep those papers clean,’ remarked Malmsley to no one in particular.
‘Don’t be so damned precious, Malmsley,’ snapped Troy. ‘Here, give me the knife, Hatchett, and don’t touch other people’s tools in the studio. It’s not done.’
‘Good oh, Miss Troy.’
Pilgrim, Ormerin, Hatchett and Valmai Seacliff began a discussion about the possibility of using the knife in the manner suggested by Malmsley’s illustration. Phillida Lee joined in.
‘Where would the knife enter the body?’ asked Seacliff.
‘Just here,’ said Pilgrim, putting his hand on her back and keeping it there. ‘Behind your heart. Valmai.’
She turned her head and looked at him through half-closed eyes. Hatchett stared at her. Malmsley smiled curiously. Pilgrim had turned rather white.
‘Can you feel it beating?’ asked Seacliff softly.
‘If I move my hand—here.’
‘Oh, come off it,’ said the model violently. She walked over to Garcia. ‘I don’t believe you could kill anybody like that. Do you, Garcia?’
Garcia grunted unintelligibly. He, too, was staring at Valmai Seacliff.
‘How would he know where to put the dagger?’ demanded Katti Bostock suddenly. She drew a streak of background colour across her canvas.
‘Can’t we try it out?’ asked Hatchett.
‘If you like,’ said Troy. ‘Mark the throne before you move it.’
Basil Pilgrim chalked the position of the throne on the floor, and then he and Ormerin tipped it up. The rest of the class looked on with gathering interest. By following the chalked-out line on the throne they could see the spot where
