quarreled.
“Do you think it was really about pictures?” Tellman said dubiously as they rode in a hansom towards Kew, where they had been told the camera club was photographing interesting foliage in the tropical glasshouses. “Would anyone really commit murder over a photograph? I mean,” he added hastily, “a photograph that wasn’t of somebody doing something they shouldn’t.”
“I doubt it,” Pitt admitted. “But I suppose it could have been the start of a quarrel which got out of hand.”
Tellman sat forward morosely. “I think I’m just getting to understand people and know why they do what they do, then I get on a case like this, and I feel as if I know nothing.”
Pitt looked at his angular shoulders and dour, lantern-jawed face and saw the confusion in him. Tellman had such set ideas about society and people, about what was just and what was not. They sprang from the poverty of his youth, the underlying anger that fueled his desire to change things, to see labor rewarded and find some greater equality among people who worked and those who, as far as he could see, did not and yet possessed so much. Investigating the private tragedies of their lives constantly upset his preconceptions and obliged him to feel a pity and an understanding he did not wish to, where it would have been so much easier, and more comfortable, simply to have hated.
Now the photographs, which these privileged young men obviously cared about so much, seemed to him both beautiful and trivial, but not a comprehensible motive for murder.
Pitt was inclined to agree with him. But at the moment they had little better to pursue. No one in the area where Cathcart lived had observed anything helpful, and Lily Monderell was telling nothing more about the photographs she had removed and sold almost immediately at such an excellent profit. Once again they were back to photographs. It seemed the motive lay somewhere within them.
They traveled the rest of the way to Kew Gardens and went in to find the tropical house, a magnificent tower of glass containing giant palm trees with fronds more than a yard across, exotic ferns, trailing vines with flowers, and bromeliads blooming in pale, lustrous colors.
Tellman drew in his breath deeply, smelling the heat and the damp, the rich humus. He had never experienced anything like it before.
Pitt saw the photographers first, balancing their tripods carefully on the uneven surfaces of the earth, angling cameras up to tangled vines or intricate patterns of branches, trying to catch the light on the surface of a leaf. He knew they would be furious to be interrupted. He also knew that unless he forced his way into their attention he would stand waiting until the light faded at the end of the day.
He approached a fair-haired young man with a keen face, at that moment shading his eyes as he stared at the crown of a soaring palm.
Pitt craned his neck upward and saw a tracery of vines across the roof, erratic circles and curves against the geometry of the paned glass. It was a pity to interrupt, but necessary. Beauty and imagination would have to wait.
“Excuse me!”
The young man waved his other hand to ward off the disturbance.
“Later, sir, you may have my entire attention. Come back in half an hour, if you would be so good.”
“I’m sorry, I have not half an hour to spare,” Pitt apologized. He meant it. “I am Superintendent Pitt of the Bow Street station, and I am investigating the murder of a photographer.”
That captured the young man’s concentration. He abandoned the palm and stared at Pitt with wide blue eyes. “One of our club? Murdered? My God. . who?”
“Not one of your club, Mr. . ”
“McKellar, David McKellar. You said a photographer?”
“Delbert Cathcart.”
“Oh!” He seemed vaguely relieved. “Oh yes, of course. I read about that. Robbed and thrown into the river, so it seems. I’m terribly sorry. He was brilliant.” He colored faintly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound callous. Of course a death is terrible, whoever’s it is. From his point of view, I daresay his talent is irrelevant. But I know nothing about it. What could I tell you?”
“On the morning Mr. Cathcart was killed there was a quarrel between Orlando Antrim, the actor, and Mr. Henri Bonnard of the French Embassy,” Pitt explained.
McKellar looked startled.
“Do you know anything about it?” Pitt pressed. “It was apparently on the subject of photographs.”
“Was it?” McKellar seemed perplexed but not entirely at a loss, as he might have been were the subject to make no sense to him at all.
“Do people quarrel over photographs?” Pitt asked.
“Well. . I suppose so. What has that to do with poor Cathcart?”
“Do you sell your pictures?” Tellman said suddenly. “I mean, is there money in it?” He glanced around at the cameras and their tripods.
McKellar colored a little more deeply. “Well, sometimes. It-it helps funds, you know. Costs a bit, all this stuff. Not that. .” He trailed off and stopped, standing a little uncomfortably.
Pitt waited.
“I mean. .” McKellar fidgeted. “Look, I think I may be speaking a trifle out of turn, you know? I’ve just sold the odd picture here and there, that’s all.”
“Of vines and leaves?” Tellman said incredulously. “People pay for that?”
McKellar avoided his eyes. “No. . no, I shouldn’t think so. Mostly a nice picture of a young lady, perhaps a few flowers. . more. . more personal, more charm, that sort of thing.”
“A young lady with perhaps a few flowers,” Pitt repeated, raising his eyebrows a little. “And a gown, or not?”
McKellar looked wretched. “Well, I daresay. Sometimes. . not.” He met Pitt’s eyes and this time he was quite vehement. “Just a bit- artistic. Not vulgar!”
Pitt smiled. He carefully avoided Tellman’s glance. “I see. And these sales supplement your funds for the expense of films and so on?”
“Yes.”
“And do the young ladies in question receive part of this profit?”
“They get copies of. . of one or two of the pictures.”
“And are they aware that the rest are sold-to be bought, I presume, by the general public?” Pitt enquired.
McKellar was silent for a moment. “I. . I think so,” he said unhappily. “I mean. . the reason’s clear, isn’t it?”
“Perfectly,” Pitt agreed. “You wish to make some money in order to finance your hobby.” His voice was colder than he had meant it to be.
McKellar flushed bright pink.
“And where are these photographs sold?” Pitt pressed. “Sergeant Tellman will take down the names and addresses of all the dealers you have business with.”
“Well. . I. .”
“If you can’t remember them then we’ll accompany you to wherever you have the information, and take it from there.”
McKellar gave up. He swallowed convulsively. “It’s all quite innocent, you know!” he protested. “Just. . just pictures!”
In the afternoon Pitt and Tellman began visiting the dealers in postcards.
To begin with, all they saw were pretty pictures of a variety of young women in fairly conventional poses, their gentle faces looking out at the camera, some awkwardly self-conscious, others boldly, with a smile, even a challenge. There was nothing to be offended by, except the possibility that they had been denied a share of the profits. But then, considering the cost of cameras, film, development and so on, the profits were probably extremely small. The postcards themselves sold for a few pence, and they were of a good quality. The greatest gain from them was the pleasure in the creation and the possession.
“Is that all you have?” Pitt asked, without hope of learning anything further that was of value; it was a matter
