Ngaio Marsh - A Wreath for Rivera

“I wouldn’t lose any sleep if he plugged him,” said Skelton with violence.

“Don’t talk that way, Syd,” Breezy whispered irritably. “It’s a hell of a situation. I hoped you’d help me, Syd.”

“Why don’t you have a look at the gun?”

“Me? I wouldn’t know. He wouldn’t let me near it. I tell you straight, I’m scared to go near him for fear I start him up bawling me out.”

After a long pause, Skelton said: “Are you serious about this gun?”

“Do I look as if I was kidding?”

“It’s eight minutes to eleven. We’d better go across. If I get a chance I’ll ask him to show me the ammunition.”

“Fine, Syd. That’d be swell,” said Breezy, mopping his forehead. “It’d be marvellous. You’re a pal, Syd. Come on. Let’s go.”

“Mind,” Skelton said, “I’m not passing up the other business. I’ve just about had Mr. Carlos Rivera. He’s going to find something out before he’s much older. Come on.”

They passed through the office. Rivera, who was sitting there with Caesar Bonn, disregarded them. Breezy looked timidly at him. “I’m just going to fix it with the Boys, old man,” he said. “You’ll enter by the end door, won’t you?”

“Why not?” Rivera said acidly. “It is my usual entrance. I perform as I rehearse. Naturally.”

“That’s right. Naturally. Excuse my fussiness. Let’s go, Syd.”

Caesar rose. “It is time? Then I must felicitate our new artist.”

He preceded them across the vestibule where crowds of late arrivals still streamed in. Here they encountered Félicité, Carlisle and Edward. “We’re going in to wish George luck,” said Félicité. “Hullo, Syd. Nice of you to let him have his fling. Come on, chaps.”

They all entered the band-room, which was immediately behind the dais end of the restaurant and led into the band alcove. Here they found the Boys assembled with their instruments. Breezy held up his hand and, sweating copiously, beamed at them. “Listen, boys. Get this. We’ll use the other routine, if it’s all the same with the composer. Carlos doesn’t feel happy about the fall. He’s afraid he may hurt himself on account he’s holding his instrument.”

“Here!” said Lord Pastern.

“It’s the way you wanted it, Lord Pastern, isn’t it?” Breezy gabbled. “That’s fine, isn’t it? Better egzzit altogether.”

“I faint and get carried out?”

“That’s right. The other routine. I persuaded Carlos. Everybody happy? Swell.”

The Boys began to warm up their instruments. The room was filled with slight anticipatory noises. The double-bass muttered and zoomed.

Skelton strolled over to Lord Pastern. “I had to come in and wish the new sensation all the best,” he said, looking hard at him.

“Thank yer.”

“A great night,” Caesar Bonn murmured. “It will be long remembered.”

“Would this be a loaded gun?” Skelton asked and laughed unpleasantly.

The revolver lay, together with the sombrero, near the drums. Lord Pastern took it up. Skelton raised his hands above his head. “I confess everything,” he said. “ Is it loaded?”

“With blanks.”

“By cripes,” said Skelton with a loud laugh, “I hope they are blanks.”

“George made them himself,” said Félicité.

Skelton lowered his right hand and held it out towards Lord Pastern, who put the revolver into it.

Breezy, at a distance, sighed heavily. Skelton broke the revolver, slipped a finger-nail behind the rim of a cartridge and drew it out.

“Very nice work, Lord Pastern,” he said. He spun the cylinder, drawing out and replacing one blank after the other. “Very nice work indeed,” he said.

Lord Pastern, obviously gratified, embarked on a history of the revolver, of his own prowess as a marksman, and of the circumstances under which his brother-in-law had presented the revolver to him. He pointed out the initials scratched under the butt. Skelton made a show of squinting down the barrel, snapped the revolver shut and returned the weapon to Lord Pastern. He turned away and glanced at Breezy. “O.K.,” he said. “What are we waiting for?” He began to heighten the tension of his drums. “Good luck to the new act,” he said and the drum throbbed.

“Thanks, Syd,” said Breezy.

His fingers were in his waistcoat pocket. He looked anxiously at Skelton. He felt in one pocket after another. Sweat hung in fine beads over his eyebrows.

“What’s up, boy?” said Happy Hart.

“I can’t find my tablet.”

He began pulling his pocket linings out. “I’m all to pieces, without it,” he said. “God, I know I’ve got one somewhere!”

The door leading to the restaurant opened and the Jivesters came through with their instruments. They grinned at Breezy’s Boys and looked sideways at Lord Pastern. The room was full of oiled heads, black figures and the strange shapes of saxophones, double-basses, piano-accordions and drums.

“We’d better make ourselves scarce, Fée,” Edward said. “Come on, Lisle. Good luck, Cousin George.”

“Good luck.”

“Good luck.”

They went out. Breezy still searched his pockets. The others watched him nervously.

“You shouldn’t let yourself get this way,” said Skelton. Lord Pastern pointed an accusing finger at Breezy. “Now perhaps you’ll see the value of what I was tellin’ you,” he admonished. Breezy shot a venomous glance at him.

“For heaven’s sake, boy,” said Happy Hart. “We’re on !”

“I’ve got to have it. I’m all shaky. I can’t look. One of you…”

“What is all this!” cried Lord Pastern with extreme irritation. He darted at Breezy.

“It’s only a tablet,” Breezy said. “I always take one. For my nerves.”

Lord Pastern said accusingly, “Tablet be damned!”

“For crisake, I got to have it, blast you.”

“Put your hands up.”

Lord Pastern began with ruthless efficiency to search Breezy. He hit him all over and turned out his pockets, allowing various objects to fall about his feet. He opened his cigarette case and wallet and explored their contents. He patted and prodded. Breezy giggled. “I’m ticklish,” he said foolishly. Finally Lord Pastern jerked a handkerchief out of Breezy’s breast pocket. A small white object fell from it. Breezy swooped on it, clapped his hand to his mouth and swallowed. “Thanks a lot. All set, boys? Let’s go.”

They went out ahead of him. The lights on the walls had been switched off. Only the pink table lamps glowed. A flood-light, hidden in the alcove ceiling, drove down its pool of amber on the gleaming dais; the restaurant was a swimming cave filled with dim faces, occasional jewels, many colours. The waiters flickered about inside it. Little drifts of cigarette smoke hung above the tables. From the restaurant, the band dais glowed romantically in its alcove. The players and their instruments looked hard and glossy. Above them the arm of the giant metronome pointed motionless at the floor. The Boys, smiling as if in great delight, seated themselves. The umbrellas, the sombrero and the tympani were carried in by waiters.

In the band-room Lord Pastern, standing beside Breezy, fiddled with his revolver, whistled under his breath and peered sideways through the door. Beyond the tympani, he could see the dimly glowing faces of his wife, his stepdaughter, his niece and his cousin. Félicité’s face was inclined up to Ned Manx’s. Lord Pastern suddenly gave a shrill cackle of laughter.

Breezy Bellairs glanced at him in dismay, passed his hand over his head, pulled down his waistcoat, assumed his ventriloquist’s doll smile and made his entrance. The Boys played him on with their signature tune. A patter of clapping filled the restaurant like a mild shower. Breezy smiled, bowed, turned and, using finicking sharp gestures that were expressly his own, conducted.