The Art School Murders

 The Art School Murders (1943) by Moray Dalton (Katherine Dalton Renoir)

This is the tenth installment in the Inspector Hugh Collier series. Collier and Sergeant Duffield are called upon to help the local police when an artist's model is stabbed to death at the Morosini School of Art. Althea Greville had once been a beautiful, in-demand model and a bit of a femme fatale. The first time she came to pose for the students, she had quite a following of men students and even the caretaker seemed to be taken with her. But when she returns to the Morosini School, she has lost her bloom, is down on her luck, and seems a bit desperate for money. Did her desperation drive her to do something that someone thought worth killing for? Perhaps blackmail? 

Collier is a bit discouraged at the beginning of the case. There are about fifty possible suspects--with students, the two instructors, Morosini himself, the caretaker and his wife, and the nephew of John Kent (one of the instructors). Kent's nephew, Arnold Mansfield, had attended the school during Althea's first stint as model and was one of her followers. He left the school--and town--and now has, coincidentally, arrived back home just when Althea has returned. Is there a connection? The Yard men are able to whittle the fifty suspects down to five, but not before another murder takes place. 

One of the young art students had gone back into the school to retrieve a scarf she had forgotten. When Betty Haydon and her friend Cherry Garth arrive at the school next morning to find the police in possession, Betty tells Cherry that she may have seen something important..."But it might not mean anything. I'm not going to talk until I know a lot more than we do now." She doesn't get the chance. Someone must have overheard the conversation and they made sure Betty would never tell what she saw with a quick stabbing in a dark movie theatre. 

Clues and evidence begin to pile up and John Kent becomes the obvious suspect with most of them pointing to him. Too obvious? Collier isn't sure, but he knows there are a few more leads to follow up before they will get their man.

So, last year I read the very first Collier book (One by One They Disappeared) and one of my small quibbles was that the suspect was so obvious. I certainly can't make that complaint here. The culprit was definitely not on my radar and I won't cry foul, because once Dalton reveals the solution, I could definitely think back to a few clues to the motive that I didn't pay attention to. I could have done with a better groundwork for how the particular motive connected to the particular suspect (if that was there, I missed it). 

I, as is generally the case, enjoyed the school setting, though it's not quite the going concern that most of the institutions in my academic mysteries are. The war is taking its toll and Morosini, a great artist, is not such a great businessman. He's too busy being a genius to attend to the details that would make his school continue to operate in the tough times. The war also plays a part in the plot--making it difficult to keep track of suspects in the blackout. Overall, a highly entertaining and quick-paced mystery. ★★★★

Kudos to Curtis Evans from The Passing Tramp for the very informative intro.

First line: At twenty minutes past eight, Mrs. Pearce came out of the cottage at the entrance to the school grounds and trudged up the cinder path to the main door.

If there is any place more dreary than an empty theatre, it is an empty school. (Inspector Collier; p. 23)

You know how it is in cinemas. You go straight in through the vestibule, plunk down your money, and the darkness swallows you up. If there's a queue the commissionaire is too busy throwing out his chest in his fancy uniform to notice the component parts. I really wonder more people aren't bumped off at the flicks. (Sgt. Duffield; p. 96)

It don't do to shoot off your mouth when superior officers are about. They do the telling and we jump to it. (P. C. Griffiths; p. 99)

Last line: They shook hands again, and then Wbua naq Pureel* climbed onto a bus, and Collier walked on to the Yard. [*ROT13 encoded to prevent spoilers]

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Deaths = 4 [two stabbed; one pushed down stairs; one hanged]