Wimsey disposed quickly of his business with Sleuths Incorporated, and then made his way to a pleasant little studio overlooking the river at Chelsea. The door, which bore a neat label “Miss Marjorie Phelps,” was opened by a pleasant-looking young woman with curly hair and a blue overall heavily smudged with clay.
“Lord Peter! How nice of you. Do come in.”
“Shan’t I be in the way?”
“Not a scrap. You don’t mind if I go on working.”
“Rather not.”
“You could put the kettle on and find some food if you liked to be really helpful. I just want to finish up this figure.”
“That’s fine. I took the liberty of bringing a pot of Hybla honey with me.”
“What sweet ideas you have! I really think you are one of the nicest people I know. You don’t talk rubbish about art, and you don’t want your hand held, and your mind always turns on eating and drinking.”
“Don’t speak too soon. I don’t want my hand held, but I did come here with an object.”
“Very sensible of you. Most people come without any.”
“And stay interminably.”
“They do.”
Miss Phelps cocked her head on one side and looked critically at the little dancing lady she was modeling. She had made a line of her own in pottery figurines, which sold well and were worth the money.
“That’s rather attractive,” said Wimsey.
“Rather pretty-pretty. But it’s a special order, and one can’t afford to be particular. I’ve done a Christmas present for you, by the way. You’d better have a look at it, and if you think it offensive we’ll smash it together. It’s in that cupboard.”
Wimsey opened the cupboard and extracted a little figure about nine inches high. It represented a young man in a flowing dressing-gown, absorbed in the study of a huge volume held on his knee. The portrait was lifelike. He chuckled.
“It’s damned good, Marjorie. A very fine bit of modeling. I’d love to have it. You aren’t multiplying it too often, I hope? I mean, it won’t be on sale at Selfridges?”
“I’ll spare you that. I thought of giving one to your mother.”
“That’ll please her no end. Thanks ever so. I shall look forward to Christmas, for once. Shall I make some toast?”
“Rather!”
Wimsey squatted happily down before the gasfire, while the modeler went on with her work. Tea and figurine were ready almost at the same moment, and Miss Phelps, flinging off her overall, threw herself luxuriously into a battered armchair by the hearth.
“And what can I do for you?”
“You can tell me all you know about Miss Ann Dorland.”
“Ann Dorland? Great heavens! You haven’t fallen for Ann Dorland, have you? I’ve heard she’s coming into a lot of money.”
“You have a perfectly disgusting mind, Miss Phelps. Have some more toast. Excuse me licking my fingers. I have not fallen for the lady. If I had, I’d manage my affairs without assistance. I haven’t even seen her. What’s she like?”
“To look at?”
“Among other things.”
“Well, she’s rather plain. She has dark, straight hair, cut in a bang across the forehead and bobbed—like a Flemish page. Her forehead is broad and she has a square sort of face and a straight nose—quite good. Also, her eyes are good—gray, with nice heavy eyebrows, not fashionable a bit. But she has a bad skin and rather sticky-out teeth. And she’s dumpy.”
“She’s a painter, isn’t she?”
“M’m—well! she paints.”
“I see. A well-off amateur with a studio.”
“Yes. I will say that old Lady Dormer was very decent to her. Ann Dorland, you know, is some sort of faraway distant cousin on the female side of the Fentiman family, and when Lady Dormer first got to hear of her she was an orphan and incredibly poverty-stricken. The old lady liked to have a bit of young life about the house, so she took charge of her, and the wonderful thing is that she didn’t try to monopolize her. She let her have a big place for a studio and bring in any friends she liked and go about as she chose—in reason, of course.”
“Lady Dormer suffered a good deal from oppressive relations in her own youth,” said Wimsey.
“I know, but most old people seem to forget that. I’m sure Lady Dormer had time enough. She must have been rather unusual. Mind you, I didn’t know her very well, and I don’t really know a great deal about Ann Dorland. I’ve been there, of course. She gave parties—rather incompetently. And she comes round to some of our studios from time to time. But she isn’t really one of us.”
“Probably one has to be really poor and hardworking to be that.”
“No. You, for instance, fit in quite well on the rare occasions when we have the pleasure. And it doesn’t matter not being able to paint. Look at Bobby Hobart and his ghastly daubs—he’s a perfect dear and everybody loves him. I think Ann Dorland must have a complex of some kind. Complexes explain so much, like the blessed word hippopotamus.”
Wimsey helped himself lavishly to honey and looked receptive.
“I think really,” went on Miss Phelps, “that Ann ought to have been something in the City. She has brains, you know. She’d run anything awfully well. But she isn’t creative. And then, of course, so many of our little lot seem to be running love-affairs. And a continual atmosphere of hectic passion is very trying if you haven’t got any of your own.”
“Has Miss Dorland a mind above hectic passion?”
“Well, no. I daresay she would quite have liked—but nothing ever came of it. Why are you interested in having Ann Dorland analyzed?”
“I’ll tell you some day. It isn’t just vulgar curiosity.”
“No, you’re very decent as a rule, or I wouldn’t be telling you all this.
