‘You see,’ he said, ‘it was a very clumsy, messy, and ill-planned murder. It seemed the most awful muddle, but it boils down to a fairly simple narrative. We hadn’t much doubt after Monday night that Garcia had set the trap for Sonia. He left his prints on the opium jar and, as Malmsley had prepared the first pipe, Garcia evidently gave himself another. He must have been in a state of partial recovery with a sort of exalted carry-over, when he got the idea of jamming the knife through the floor of the throne. Motive—Sonia had been badgering him to marry her. She was going to have his child and wouldn’t let him alone. He had exhausted her charms and her possibilities as a blackmailing off-sider, and he was nauseated by her persistence. She came between him and his work. She probably threatened to sue him for maintenance, to make a full-sized scandal, to raise hell with a big stick in a bucket. The opium suggested a beautifully simple and macabre way out of it all. I saw Sonia’s friend in the chorus—Miss O’Dawne—again this morning after the arrest. I got a rather fuller account of the blackmailing game. Sonia and Garcia were both in it. Sonia had tackled Pilgrim and threatened to tell the Methodist peer that Basil was the father of her child. He wasn’t, but that made no odds. Basil stumped up and Sonia handed the cash to Garcia. We found a note from Garcia to Valmai Seacliff in which he coolly said he’d bought painting-materials at her shop and put them down to her. The wording of the letter suggested that he had some sort of upper hand over her, and when I first saw Bobbie O’Dawne she obviously had information up her sleeve and admitted as much. She told Bathgate that Sonia had said Garcia would kill both of them if they babbled. When Sonia died Bobbie O’Dawne was certain Garcia had done it, and that she’d be the next victim if she didn’t keep quiet. Now he’s dead, and we’ve got Valmai Seacliff, Miss O’Dawne is all for a bit of front-page publicity, and told me this morning that Sonia had kept her au fait with the whole story. Garcia blackmailed Valmai Seacliff. He said he’d tell Basil Pilgrim that she’d been his—Garcia’s—mistress. He said he’d go to the Methodist peer with a story of studio parties that would throw the old boy into a righteous fury, and completely cook Seacliff’s goose. Garcia worked the whole thing out with Sonia. She was to tackle Pilgrim while he went for Valmai Seacliff. Garcia had started to work with Seacliff, who at first wouldn’t rise. But he’d done some drawings of Seacliff in the nude which he said he’d sent to old Pilgrim with a suitable letter, and he told her that Sonia was also prepared to do her bit of blackmail as well. At last, Valmai Seacliff—terrified of losing Pilgrim— said she’d meet Garcia on Friday night in the studio, when they were all safely away, and discuss payment. All this Garcia told Sonia, and Sonia told Bobbie O’Dawne, swearing her to secrecy. O’Dawne was too frightened of Garcia to tell me the Seacliff side, and I also think she honestly felt she couldn’t break her word. She’s got a sort of code, that funny hard little baggage, and she’s stuck to it. But, of course, without her evidence we’d got no motive as far as Seacliff was concerned.’