‘The model suggested there had been a definite intimacy between herself and Pilgrim?’

‘Yes. She said she could tell Seacliff a thing or two about him, and if he didn’t look out she would.’

‘I see.’

‘But I don’t think there ever was. Truly. It was because she was so furious with Pilgrim for not taking any notice of her.’

‘You returned in the bus yesterday evening with the model, didn’t you?’

‘Yes. Watt—I mean Hatchett and me and Ormerin and Malmsley.’

‘Did you notice anything out of the way about her?’

‘No. She was doing a bit of a woo with Ormerin to begin with, but I think she was asleep for the last part of the trip.’

‘Did she mention what she had done in London?’

‘I think she said she’d gone to stay with a friend or something.’

‘No idea where or with whom?’

‘No, Mr Alleyn.’

‘Nothing about Mr Garcia?’

‘No.’

‘Did she ever speak much of Garcia?’

‘Not much. But she seemed as if—as if in a sort of way she was sure of Garcia. And yet he was tired of her. She’d lost her body-urge for him, if you ask me. But she seemed sure of him and yet furious with him. Of course, she wasn’t very well.’

‘Wasn’t she?’

‘No. I’m sure that was why she did that terrible thing to Troy’s portrait of Seacliff. She was ill. Only she asked me not to say anything about it, because she said it didn’t do a model any good for her to get a reputation of not being able to stand up to the work. I wouldn’t have known except that I found her one morning looking absolutely green, and I asked her if anything was the matter. She said the pose made her feel sick—it was the twist that did it, she said. She was honestly sick, and she felt sort of giddy.’

Alleyn looked at Miss Lee’s inquisitive, rather pretty, rather commonplace face and realized that her sophistication was more synthetic than even he had supposed. ‘Bless my soul,’ he thought, ‘the creature’s a complete baby—an infant that has been taught half a dozen indecorous phrases by older children.’

‘Well, Miss Lee,’ he said, ‘I think that’s all we need worry about for the moment. I’ve got your aunt’s address—’

‘Yes, but you will remember, won’t you? I mean—’

‘I shall be the very soul of tact. I shall say we are looking for a missing heiress believed to be suffering from loss of memory, and last heard of near Bossicote, and she will think me very stupid, and I shall learn that you spent the entire weekend in her company.’

‘Yes. And Watt—Hatchett, I mean.’

‘He was there too, was he?’

Again Miss Lee looked self-conscious and maidenly.