Artists in Crime Read Online Free PDF Page A

Valmai Seacliff was saying, “I went down rather well in Italy. The Italians go mad when they see a good blonde. They used to murmur when I passed them in the streets. ‘
Bella
’ and ‘
Bellissima
.’ It was rather fun.”
    “Is that Italian?” asked Katti morosely, of her flake-white.
    “It means beautiful, darling,” answered Miss Seacliff.
    “Oh hell!” said Sonia, the model.
    “Well,” said Troy loudly, “I’ll set the pose.”
    They all turned to watch her. She stepped on the throne, which was the usual dais on wheels, and began to arrange a seat for the model. She threw a cerise cushion down, and then, from a chest by the wall she got a long blue length of silk. One end of this drape she threw across the cushion and pinned, the other she gathered carefully in her hands, drew round to one side, and then pinned the folds to the floor of the dais.
    “Now, Sonia,” she said. “Something like this.”
    Keeping away from the drape, Troy knelt and then slid sideways into a twisted recumbent pose on the floor. The right hip was raised, the left took the weight of the pose. The torso was turned upwards from the waist so that both shoulders touched the boards. Sonia, noticing the twist, grimaced disagreeably.
    “Get into it,” said Troy, and stood up. “Only you lie across the drape with your head on the cushion. Lie on your left side, first.”
    Sonia slid out of the white kimono. She was a most beautiful little creature, long-legged, delicately formed and sharp-breasted. Her black hair was drawn tightly back from the suave forehead. The bony structure of her face was sharply defined, and suggested a Slavonic mask.
    “You little devil, you’ve been sunbathing,” said Troy. “Look at those patches.”
    “Well, they don’t like nudism at Bournemouth,” said Sonia.
    She lay across the drape on her left side, her head on the cerise cushion. Troy pushed her right shoulder over until it touched the floor. The drape was pressed down by the shoulders and broke into uneven blue folds about the body.
    “That’s your pose, Malmsley,” said Troy. “Try it from where you are.”
    She walked round the studio, eyeing the model.
    “It’s pretty good from everywhere,” she said. “Right! Get going, everybody.” She glanced at her watch. “You can hold that for forty minutes, Sonia.”
    “It’s a terrible pose, Miss Troy,” grumbled Sonia. “All twisted like this.”
    “Nonsense,” said Troy briskly.
    The class began to settle itself.
    Since each member of Troy’s little community played a part in the tragedy that followed ten days later, it may be well to look a little more closely at them.
    Katti Bostock’s work is known to everyone who is at all interested in modern painting. At the time of which I am writing she was painting very solidly and smoothly, using a heavy outline and a simplified method of dealing with form. She painted large figure compositions, usually with artisans as subjects. Her “Foreman Fitter” had been the picture of the year at the Royal Academy, and had set all the die-hards by the ears. Katti herself was a short, stocky, dark-haired individual with an air of having no nonsense about her. She was devoted to Troy in a grumbling sort of way, lived at Tatler’s End House most of the year, but was not actually a member of the class.
    Valmai Seacliff was thin, blonde, and very, very pretty. She was the type that certain modern novelists write about with an enthusiasm which they attempt to disguise as satirical detachment. Her parents were well-to-do and her work was clever. You have heard Katti describe Valmai as a nymphomaniac and will be able to draw your own conclusions about the justness of this criticism.
    Phillida Lee was eighteen, plump, and naturally gushing. Two years of Slade austerity had not altogether damped her enthusiasms, but when she remembered to shudder, she shuddered.
    Watt Hatchett, Troy’s Australian protégé, was a short and extremely swarthy youth, who