Ngaio Marsh - A Wreath for Rivera

Fox unlocked the door on to the landing and turned the handle.

The door flew inwards, striking his shoulder. He stepped back with an oath and Lord Pastern’s body fell across his feet.

It remained there for perhaps three seconds. Its eyes were open and glared furiously. Fox bent over it and the mouth also opened.

“What the hell d’you think you’re doin’?” Lord Pastern demanded.

He rolled over neatly and got to his feet. His jaw and cheeks glistened with a sort of hoar-frost, his eyes were bloodshot and his evening dress disordered. A window on the landing shed the cruel light of early morning upon him and he looked ghastly in it. His manner, however, had lost little of its native aggressiveness. “What are you starin’ at?” he added.

“We might fairly ask you,” Alleyn rejoined, “what you were up to, sitting, it appears, on the landing with your back to the door.”

“I dozed off. Pretty state of affairs when a man’s kept out of his own rooms at five o’clock in the morning.”

“All right, Fox,” Alleyn said wearily, “you get along.”

“Very well, sir,” said Fox. “Good morning, my lord.” He sidestepped Lord Pastern and went out, leaving the door ajar. Alleyn heard him admonishing Sergeant Marks on the landing: “What sort of surveillance do you call this?”

“I was only told to keep observation, Mr. Fox. His lordship fell asleep as soon as he touched the floor. I thought he might as well be there as anywhere.” Fox growled majestically and passed out of hearing.

Alleyn shut the study door and went to the window. “We haven’t finished in this room,” he said, “but I think I may disturb it so far.”

He drew back the curtains and opened the window. It was now quite light outside. A fresh breeze came in through the window, emphasizing, before it dismissed them, the dense enclosed odors of carpet, leather and stale smoke. The study looked inhospitable and unkempt. The desk lamp still shed a raffish yellowness on the litter that surrounded it. Alleyn turned from the window to face Lord Pastern and found him rummaging with quick inquisitive fingers in the open drawer on the desk.

“I wonder if I can show you what you’re hunting for,” Alleyn said. He opened Fox’s bag and then took out his notebook. “Don’t touch anything please, but will you look in that case?”

He did look, but impatiently, and, as far as Alleyn could see, without any particular surprise.

“Where’d you find that?” Lord Pastern demanded, pointing a not very steady finger at the ivory handle.

“In the drawer. Can you identify it?”

“I might be able to,” he muttered.

Alleyn pointed to the weapon. “The stiletto that’s been sunk in the end with plastic wood might have belonged to this ivory handle. We shall try it. If it fits, it came originally from Lady Pastern’s work-box in the drawing-room.”

“So you say,” said Lord Pastern insultingly. Alleyn made a note.

“Can you tell me if this stiletto was in your drawer here, sir? Before last night?”

Lord Pastern was eyeing the revolver. He thrust out his underlip, shot a glance at Alleyn, and darted his hand towards it.

“All right,” Alleyn said, “you may touch it, but please answer my question about the stiletto.”

“How should I know?” he said indifferently. “I don’t know.” Without removing it from the case, he tipped the revolver over and, snatching up his lens, peered at the underside of the butt. He gave a shrill cackle of laughter.

“What did you expect to see?” Alleyn asked casually.

“Hoity-toity,” Lord Pastern rejoined. “ Wouldn’t you like to know!”

He stared at Alleyn. His bloodshot eyes twinkled insolently. “It’s devilish amusin’,” he said. “Look at it whatever way you like, it’s damn funny.”

He dropped into an armchair, and with an air of gloating relish rubbed his hands together.

Alleyn shut down the lid of Fox’s case and succeeded in snatching back his temper. He stood in front of Lord Pastern and deliberately looked into his eyes. Lord Pastern immediately shut them very tight and bunched up his cheeks.

“I’m sleepy,” he said.

“Listen to me,” Alleyn said. “Have you any idea at all of the personal danger you are in? Do you know the consequences of withholding or refusing crucial information when a capital crime has been committed? It’s my duty to tell you that you are under grave suspicion. You’ve had the formal warning. Confronted with the body of a man whom, one assumes, you were supposed to hold in some sort of regard, you’ve conducted yourself appallingly. I must tell you, sir, that if you continue in this silly affectation of frivolity, I shall ask you to come to Scotland Yard where you will be questioned and, if necessary, detained.”

He waited. Lord Pastern’s face had gradually relaxed during this speech. His mouth now pouted and expelled a puff of air that blew his moustache out. He was, apparently, asleep again.

Alleyn contemplated him for some moments. He then seated himself at the desk in a position that enabled him to keep Lord Pastern in sight. After a moment’s cogitation, he pulled the typewriter towards him, took Félicité’s letter from his pocket, found a sheet of paper and began to make a copy.

At the first rattle of the keys Lord Pastern’s eyes opened, met Alleyn’s gaze and shut again. He mumbled something indistinguishable and snored with greater emphasis. Alleyn completed his copy and laid it beside the original. They had been typed on the same machine.

On the floor, beside the chair Carlisle had used on the previous night, lay the magazine Harmony . He took it up and ruffled the pages. A dozen or more flopped over and then the binding opened a little. He was confronted with G.P.F.’s page and noticed, as Carlisle had noticed, the cigarette ash in the groove. He read the letter signed “Toots,” turned a few more pages and came upon the anti-drug-racket article and a dramatic review signed by Edward Manx. He once more confronted that preposterous figure in the armchair.

“Lord Pastern,” he said loudly, “wake up. Wake up.”

Lord Pastern jerked galvanically, made a tasting noise with his tongue and lips and uttered a nightmarish sound.

“A-a-ah?”

“Come now, you’re awake. Answer me this,” said Alleyn and thrust the copy of Harmony under his nose. “How long have you known that Edward Manx was G.P.F.?”

Lord Pastern blinked owlishly at the paper, swung round in his chair and eyed the desk. The letter and the copy lay conspicuously beside the typewriter.

“Yes,” Alleyn said, “that’s how I know. Will you give me an explanation of all this?”

Lord Pastern leant forward and, resting his forearm on his knees, seemed to stare at his clasped hands. When he spoke his voice was subdued and muffled.

“No,” he said, “I’ll be damned if I do. I’ll answer no questions. Find out for yourself. I’m for bed.”

He pulled himself out of the chair and squared his shoulders. The air of truculence was still there but Alleyn thought it overlaid a kind of indecision. With the nearest approach to civility that he had yet exhibited he added: “I’m within my rights, aren’t I?”

“Certainly,” Alleyn said at once. “Your refusal will be noted. That’s all. If you change your mind about sending for your solicitor, we shall be glad to call him in. In the meantime, I’m afraid, sir, I shall have to place you under very close observation.”

“D’you mean some damn bobby’s goin’ to follow me about like a bulkin’ great poodle?”

“If you care to put it that way. It’s no use, I imagine, for me to repeat any warnings about your own most equivocal position.”