“You’re dead right. The case blew out. They knew their man but they never got it tied up.”

“No. Never.”

“He was coloured,” Fox said. “A coloured chap, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “He was. He was black. And what’s more — Here! We’ll get on to the Unsolved file for this one and we’ll do it now, by gum.”

It didn’t take long. The Unsolved Homicide file for May 1969 had a succinct account of the murder of Chubb, Glynis, aged sixteen, by a black person believed but never proved to be a native of Ng’ombwana.

VII

Mr. Sheridan’s Past

When they had closed the file for unsolved homicide, subsection rape and asphyxiation, 1969, Fox remarked that if Chubb hadn’t seemed to have a motive before he certainly had one now. Of a far-fetched sort, Fox allowed, but a motive nevertheless. And in a sort of fashion, he argued, this went some way to showing that the society — he was pleased to call it the “fishy society”—had as its objective the confusion, subjection and downfall of the Black.

“I began to fancy Chubb,” said Fox.

At this point Alleyn’s telephone rang. To his great surprise it was Troy, who was never known to call him at the Yard. He said: “Troy! Anything wrong?”

“Not really and I’m sorry about this,” she said rapidly, “but I thought you’d better know at once. It’s your Boomer on the blower.”

“Wanting me?”

“Strangely enough, no. Wanting me.”

“Oh?” said Alleyn with an edge in his voice. “Well, he’ll have to wait. What for? No, don’t tell me. It’s about his portrait.”

“He’s coming. Now. Here. In full fig to be painted. He says he can give me an hour and a half. I tried to demur but he just roared roughshod over my bleating. He said time was of the essence because his visit is to be cut short. He said the conversation can be continued in a few minutes when he arrives, and with that he hung up and I think I hear him arriving.”

“By God, he’s a daisy. I’ll be with you in half an hour or earlier.”

“You needn’t. It’s not that I’m in the least flustered. It’s only I thought you should know.”

“Yon couldn’t be more right. Stick him up in the studio and get cracking. I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

Alleyn clapped down his receiver and said to Fox: “Did you get the gist of that? Whistle me up a car, Fox, and see if you can get the word through to Fred Gibson. I suppose he’s on to this caper, but find out. And you stay here in case anything comes through, and if it does call me at home. I’m off.”

When he arrived at the pleasant cul-de-sac where he and Troy had their house, he found the Ng’ombwanan ceremonial car, its flag flying, drawn up at the kerb. A poker-faced black chauffeur sat at the wheel. Alleyn was not surprised to see, a little way along the street on the opposite side, a “nondescript,” which is the police term for a disguised vehicle, this time a delivery van. Two men with short haircuts sat in the driver’s compartment. He recognized another of Mr. Gibson’s stalwarts sitting at a table outside the pub. A uniformed constable was on duty outside the house. When Alleyn got out of the police car this officer, looking self-conscious, saluted him.

“How long have you lot been keeping obbo on my pad?” Alleyn asked.

“Half an hour, sir. Mr. Gibson’s inside, sir. He’s only just arrived and asked me to inform you.”

“I’ll bet he did,” Alleyn said, and let himself in.

Gibson was in the hall. He showed something like animation on greeting Alleyn and appeared to be embarrassed. The first thing he had heard of the President’s latest caper, he said, was a radio message that the ambassadorial Rolls, with the Ng’ombwanan flag mounted, had drawn up to the front entrance of the Embassy. His sergeant had spoken to the driver, who said the President had ordered it and was going out. The sergeant reached Mr. Gibson on radio, but before he got to the spot the President, followed by his bodyguard, came out, swept aside the wretched sergeant’s attempts to detain him, and shouting out the address to his driver had been driven away. Gibson and elements of the security forces outside the Embassy had then given chase and taken up the appropriate stations where Alleyn had seen them. When they arrived the President and his mlinzi were already in the house.

“Where is he now?”

“Mrs. Alleyn,” said Gibson, coughing slightly, “took him to the studio. She said I was to tell you. ‘The studio,’ she said. He was very sarcastic about me being here. Seemed to think it funny,” said Gibson resentfully.

“What about the prime suspect?”

“Outside the studio door. I’m very, very sorry, but without I took positive action I couldn’t remove him. Mrs. Alleyn didn’t make a complaint. I’d’ve loved to’ve borrowed that chap then and there,” said Gibson.

“All right, Fred. I’ll see what I can do. Give yourself a drink. In the dining-room, there. Take it into the study and settle down.”

“Ta,” said Gibson wearily. “I could do with it.”

The studio was a separate room at the back of the house and had been built for a Victorian Academician of preposterous fame. It had an absurd entrance approached by a flight of steps with a canopy supported by a brace of self-conscious plaster caryatids that Troy had thought too funny to remove. Between these, in stunning incongruity, stood the enormous mlinzi, only slightly less impressive in a dark suit than he had been in his lion-skin and bracelets. He had his right forearm inside his jacket. He completely filled the entrance.

Alleyn said: “Good evening.”

“Good day. Sir,” said the mlinzi.

“I-am-going-in,” said Alleyn very distinctly. When no move was made, he repeated this announcement, tapping his chest and pointing to the door.

The mlinzi rolled his eyes, turned smartly, knocked on the door and entered. His huge voice was answered by another, even more resonant, and by a matter-of-fact comment from Troy: “Oh, here’s Rory,” Troy said.

The mlinzi stood aside and Alleyn, uncertain about the degree of his own exasperation, walked in.

The model’s throne was at the far end of the studio. Hung over a screen Troy used for backgrounds was a lion’s skin. In front of it, in full ceremonials, ablaze with decorations, gold lace and accoutrements, legs apart and arms akimbo, stood the Boomer.

Troy, behind a four-foot canvas, was setting her palette. On the floor lay two of her rapid exploratory charcoal drawings. A brush was clenched between her teeth. She turned her head and nodded vigorously at her husband, several times.

“Ho-ho!” shouted the Boomer. “Excuse me, my dear Rory, that I don’t descend. As you see, we are busy. Go away!” he shouted at the mlinzi and added something curt in their native tongue. The man went away.

“I apologize for him!” the Boomer said magnificently. “Since last night he is nervous of my well-being. I allowed him to come.”

“He seems to be favouring his left arm.”

“Yes. It turns out that his collar-bone was fractured.”

“Last night?”

“By an assailant, whoever he was.”

“Has he seen a doctor?”

“Oh, yes. The man who looks after the Embassy. A Dr. Gomba. He’s quite a good man. Trained at St. Luke’s.”

“Did he elaborate at all on the injury?”

“A blow, probably with the edge of the hand, since there is no indication of a weapon. It’s not a break — only a crack.”

“What does the mlinzi himself say about it?”

“He has elaborated little on his rather sparse account of last night: that someone struck him on the base of the neck and seized his spear. He has no idea of his assailant’s identity. I must apologize,” said the Boomer affably, “for my unheralded appearance, my dear old man. My stay in London has been curtailed. I am determined that no painter but your wife shall do the portrait and I am impatient to have it. Therefore I cut through the codswallop, as we used to say at Davidson’s, and here, as you see, I am.”