‘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 building 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 lionskin 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 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 Doctor 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 a little on his rather sparse account of last night. He says 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.’
Troy removed the brush from between her teeth. ‘Stay if you like, darling,’ she said and gave her husband one of the infrequent smiles that still afforded him such deep pleasure.
‘If I’m not in the way,’ he said and contrived not to sound sardonic. Troy shook her head.
‘No, no, no,’ said The Boomer graciously. ‘We are pleased to have your company. It is permitted to converse. Provided,’ he added with a bawling laugh, ‘that one expects no reply. That is the situation. Am I right maestro?’ he asked Troy, who did not reply, ‘I do not know the feminine of maestro,’ he confessed. ‘One must not say maestress. That would be in bad taste.’
Troy made a snuffling noise.
Alleyn sat down in a veteran armchair.
‘Since I am here and as long as it doesn’t disrupt the proceedings –’ he began.
‘Nothing,’ The Boomer interposed, ‘disrupts me.’
‘Good. I wonder then if your Excellency can tell me anything about two of your last night’s guests.’
‘My Excellency can try. He is so ridiculous,’ The Boomer parenthesized to Troy, ‘with his “Excellencies”.’ And to Alleyn: ‘I have been telling your wife about our times at Davidson’s.’
‘The couple I mean are a brother and sister called Sanskrit.’
The Boomer had been smiling but his lips now closed over his dazzling teeth, ‘I think perhaps I have moved a little,’ he said.
‘No,’ Troy said. ‘You are splendidly still,’ She began to make dark, sweeping gestures on her canvas.
‘Sanskrit,’ Alleyn repeated. ‘They are enormously fat.’
‘Ah! Yes. I know the couple you mean.’
‘Is there a link with Ng’ombwana?’
‘A commercial one. Yes. They were importers of fancy goods.’
‘Were?’
‘Were,’ said The Boomer without batting an eyelid. ‘They sold out.’
‘Do you know them personally?’
‘They have been presented,’ he said.
‘Did