‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Seacliff softly. ‘He came in, as soon as you’d gone. He would, you know. Sonia was glaring through the door— furious, of course.’ Her voice died away and was caught up on that small gasp. She looked through her eyelashes at Alleyn. ‘I walked up to the house with the other three.’

‘That is so,’ agreed Ormerin.

‘Leaving Mr Garcia and the model in the studio?’ asked Alleyn.

‘I suppose so.’

‘Yes,’ said Pilgrim.

‘You say the model was furious, Miss Seacliff,’ said Alleyn. ‘Why was that?’

‘Oh, because Garcia was making passes at me in the junk-room. Nothing much. He can’t help himself—Garcia.’

‘I see,’ said Alleyn politely. ‘Now, please. Did any of you revisit the studio before you went up to London?’

‘I did,’ said Ormerin.

‘At what time?’

‘Immediately after lunch. I wished to look again at my work. I was very troubled about my work. Everything was difficult. The model—’ He stopped short.

‘Yes?’

‘Never for a second was she still. It was impossible. Impossible! I believe that she did it deliberately.’

‘She’s dead now,’ said Phillida Lee, on muted strings. ‘Poor little Sonia.’

‘Spare us the nil nisi touch, for God’s sake,’ begged Malmsley.

‘Did you all notice the model’s restlessness?’

‘You bet!’ said Watt Hatchett. ‘She was saucy, that’s what she was. Seemed to have got hold of the idea she amounted to something. She gave me a pain in the neck, dinkum, always slinging off about Aussie.’

‘“Aussie,”’ groaned Malmsley, ‘“Aussie,”, “Tassie,” “a goodee,” “a badee.” Pray spare me those bloody abbreviations.’

‘Look, Mr Malmsley, I’d sooner talk plain honest Australian than make a noise like I’d got a fish-bone stuck in me gullet. Aussie’ll do me. And one other thing, too. If you walked down Bondi beach with that half-chewed mouthful of hay sprouting out of your dial, they’d phone the Zoo something was missing.’

‘Hatchett,’ said Troy. ‘Pipe down.’

‘Good oh, Miss Troy.’

‘I gather,’ said Alleyn mildly, ‘that you didn’t altogether like the model?’

‘Who, me? Too right I didn’t. I’m sorry the poor kid’s coughed out. Gosh, I reckon it’s a fair cow, but just the same she gave me a pain in the neck. I asked her one day had she got fleas or something, the way she was twitching. And did she go crook!’ Hatchett uttered a raucous yelp of laughter. Malmsley shuddered.

‘Thank you, Mr Hatchett,’ said Alleyn firmly. ‘The next point I want to raise is this. Have there been any definite quarrels with the model? Any scenes, any rows between Miss Gluck and somebody else?’

He looked round the table. Everyone seemed disconcerted. There was a sudden feeling of tension. Alleyn waited. After a silence of perhaps a minute, Katti Bostock said slowly:

‘I suppose you might say there were a good many scenes.’

‘You had one with her yourself, Bostock,’ said Malmsley.

‘I did.’