Ngaio Marsh - A Wreath for Rivera

He had to wait a long time for an answer. At last Breezy’s voice, detached and remote, said: “Don’t let’s talk. It’s nicer not talking.”

“Talking’s nice too, though.”

Dr. Curtis walked away from Breezy and murmured to no one in particular, “Get him started and he may go on.”

“It must have been fun at the dinner party,” Alleyn suggested. “Did Carlos enjoy himself?”

Breezy’s arm lay curved along the desk. With a luxurious sigh, he slumped further into the chair and rested his cheek on his sleeve. In a moment or two his voice began again, independently, it seemed, with no conscious volition on his part. It trailed through his scarcely moving lips in a monotone.

“I told him it was silly but that made no difference at all. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘you’re crazy!’ Well, of course I was sore on account of he held back on me, not bringing me my cigarettes.”

“What cigarettes?”

“He never did anything I asked him. I was so good to him. I was as good as gold. I told him. I said, ‘Look,’ I said, ‘she won’t take it from you, boy. She’s as sore as hell,’ I said, ‘and so’s he, and the other girl isn’t falling so what’s the point?’ I knew there’d be trouble. ‘And the old bastard doesn’t like it,’ I said. ‘He pretends it doesn’t mean a thing to him but that’s all hooey because he just naturally wouldn’t like it.’ No good. No notice taken.”

“When was this?” Alleyn asked.

“Off and on. Most of the time you might say. And when we were in the taxi and he said how the guy had hit him, I said: ‘There you are, what was I telling you?’ ”

“Who hit him?”

There was a longer pause. Breezy turned his head languidly.

“Who hit Carlos, Breezy?”

“I heard you the first time. What a gang, though! The Honourable Edward Manx in serious mood while lunching at the Tarmac with Miss Félicité de Suze who is of course connected with him on the distaff side. Her stepfather is Lord Pastern and Bagott, but if you ask me it’s a punctured romance. Cherchez la femme .”

Fox glanced up from his notes with an air of bland interest.

“The woman in this case,” Alleyn said, “being…”

“Funny name for a girl.”

“Carlisle?”

“Sounds dopey to me, but what of that? But that’s the sort of thing they do. Imagine having two names. Pastern and Bagott. And I can look after both of them, don’t you worry. Trying to swing one across me. What a chance! Bawling me out. Saying he’ll write to this bloody paper. Him and his hot-gunning and where is he now?”

“Swing one across you?” Alleyn repeated quietly. He had pitched his voice on Breezy’s level. Their voices ran into and away from each other. They seemed to the two onlookers to speak as persons in a dream, with tranquillity and secret understanding.

“He might have known,” Breezy was saying, “that I wouldn’t come at it but you’ve got to admit it was awkward. A permanent engagement. Thanks a lot. How does the chorus go?”

He laughed faintly, yawned, whispered, “Pardon me,” and closed his eyes.

“He’s going,” Dr. Curtis said.

“Breezy,” Alleyn said loudly. “ Breezy .”

“What?”

“Did Lord Pastern want you to keep him on permanently?”

“I told you. Him and his blankety-blankety blank cartridges.”

“Did he want you to sack Skelton?”

“It was all Carlos’s fault,” Breezy said quite loudly and on a plaintive note. “He thought it up. God, was he angry!”

“Was who angry?”

With a suggestion of cunning the voice murmured: “That’s telling.”

“Was it Lord Pastern?”

“Him? Don’t make me laugh!”

“Syd Skelton?”

“When I told him,” Breezy whispered faintly, “he looked like murder. Honest, I was nervy.”

He rolled his face over on his arm and fell into a profound sleep. “He won’t come out of that for eight hours,” said Dr. Curtis.

At two o’clock the cleaners came in, five middle-aged women who were admitted by the police and who walked through the foyer into the restaurant with the tools of their trade. Caesar Bonn was greatly distressed by their arrival and complained that the pressmen, who had been sent away with a meager statement that Rivera had collapsed and died, would lie in wait for these women and question them. He sent the secretary, David Hahn, after the cleaners. “They are to be silenced at all costs. At all costs, you understand.” Presently the drone of vacuum-cleaners arose in the restaurant. Two of Alleyn’s men had been there for some time. They now returned to the foyer and, joining the policemen on duty there, glanced impassively at its inhabitants.

Most of the Boys were asleep. They were sprawled in ungainly postures on their small chairs. Trails of ash lay on their clothes. They had crushed out their cigarette butts on empty packets, on the soles of their shoes, on match boxes, or had pitched them at the floor containers. The smell of dead butts seemed to hang over the entire room.

Lady Pastern appeared to sleep. She was inclined backwards in her armchair and her eyes were closed. Purplish shadows had appeared on her face and deep grooves ran from her nostrils to the corners of her mouth. Her cheeks sagged. She scarcely stirred when her husband, who had been silent for a considerable time, said: “Hi, Ned!”

“Yes, Cousin George?” Manx responded guardedly.

“I’ve got to the bottom of this.”

“Indeed?”

“I know who did it.”

“Really? Who?”

“I disagree entirely and emphatically with capital punishment,” Lord Pastern said, puffing out his cheeks at the group of police officials. “I shall therefore keep my knowledge to myself. Let ’em muddle on. Murder’s a matter for the psychiatrist, not the hangman. As for judges, they’re a pack of conceited old sadists. Let ’em get on with it. They’ll have no help from me. For God’s sake, Fée, stop fidgetin’.”

Félicité was curled up in the chair she had used earlier in the evening. From time to time she thrust her hands out of sight, exploring, it seemed, the space between the upholstered arms and seat. She did this furtively with sidelong glances at the others. Carlisle said: “What is it, Fée? What have you lost?”

“My hanky.”

“Here, take mine, for pity’s sake,” said Lord Pastern and threw it at her.

The searching had gone forward steadily. Carlisle, who liked her privacy, had found the experience galling and unpleasant. The wardress was a straw-coloured woman with large artificial teeth and firm pale hands. She had been extremely polite and uncompromising.

Now the last man to be searched, Syd Skelton, returned from the men’s cloak-room and at the same time Alleyn and Fox came out of the office. The Boys woke up. Lady Pastern opened her eyes.

Alleyn said: “As the result of these preliminary inquiries…” (“Preliminary!” Lord Pastern snorted.)… “I think we have got together enough information and may allow you to go home. I’m extremely sorry to have kept you here so long.”

They were all on their feet. Alleyn raised a hand. “There’s one restriction, I’m afraid. I think you’ll all understand and, I hope, respect it. Those of you who were in immediate communication with Rivera or who had access to the revolver used by Lord Pastern, or who seem to us, for sufficient reasons, to be in any way concerned in the circumstances leading to Rivera’s death, will be seen home by police officers. We shall provide ourselves with search-warrants. If such action seems necessary, we shall use them.”

“Of all the footlin’, pettifoggin’…” Lord Pastern began, and was interrupted.

“Those of you who come under this heading,” Alleyn said, “are Lord Pastern and the members of his party, Mr. Bellairs and Mr. Skelton. That’s all, I think. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”