Ngaio Marsh - A Wreath for Rivera

“Are you suggesting, my lord, that Bellairs might have worked the substitution after the murder was committed?”

“I’m not suggestin’ anything.”

“In which case,” Fox continued imperturbably, “perhaps you’ll tell me how Rivera was killed?”

Lord Pastern gave a short bark of laughter. “No, really,” he said, “it’s beyond belief how bone-headed you are.”

Fox said: “May I press this point a little further, Mr. Alleyn?”

From behind Lord Pastern, Alleyn returned Fox’s inquiring glance with a dubious one. “Certainly, Fox,” he said.

“I’d like to ask his lordship if he’d be prepared to swear an oath that the weapon he handed Bellairs after the fatality was the one that is missing.”

“Well, Lord Pastern,” Alleyn said, “will you answer Mr. Fox?”

“How many times am I to tell you I won’t answer any of your tom-fool questions? I gave you a time-table, and that’s all the help you get from me.”

For a moment the three men were silent: Fox by the piano, Alleyn near the door and Lord Pastern midway between them like a truculent Pekinese — an animal, it occurred to Alleyn, he closely resembled.

“Don’t forget, my lord,” Fox said, “that last night you stated yourself that anybody could have got at the revolver while it was under the sombrero. Anybody, you remarked, for all you’d have noticed.”

“What of it?” he said, bunching his cheeks.

“There’s this about it, my lord. It’s a tenable theory that one of the party at your own table could have substituted the second gun, loaded with the bolt, and that you could have fired it at Rivera without knowing anything about the substitution.”

“That cat won’t jump,” Lord Pastern said, “and you know it. I didn’t tell anybody I was going to put the gun under my sombrero. Not a soul.”

“Well, my lord,” Fox said, “we can make inquiries about that.”

“You can inquire till you’re blue in the face and much good may it do you.”

“Look here, my lord,” Fox burst out, “do you want us to arrest you?”

“Not sure I don’t. It’d be enough to make a cat laugh.” He thrust his hands in his trouser pockets, walked round Fox, eyeing him, and fetched up in front of Alleyn. “Skelton,” he said, “saw the gun. He handled it just before he went on, and when he came out while I waited for my entrance he handled it again. While Breezy did the speech about me, it was.”

“Why did he handle it this second time?” Alleyn asked.

“I was a bit excited. Nervy work, hangin’ about for your entrance. I was takin’ a last look at it and I dropped it and he picked it up and squinted down the barrel in a damn-your-eyes supercilious sort of way. Professional jealousy.”

“Why didn’t you mention this before, my lord?” Fox demanded and was ignored. Lord Pastern grinned savagely at Alleyn. “Well,” he said with gloating relish, “what about this arrest? I’ll come quietly.”

Alleyn said: “You know, I do wish that for once in a blue moon you’d behave yourself.”

For the first time, he thought, Lord Pastern was giving him his full attention. He was suddenly quiet and wary. He eyed Alleyn with something of the air of a small boy who is not sure if he can bluff his way out of a misdemeanour.

“You really are making the most infernal nuisance of yourself, sir,” Alleyn went on, “and, if you will allow me, the most appalling ass of yourself into the bargain.”

“See here, Alleyn,” Lord Pastern said with a not entirely convincing return to his former truculence, “I’m damned if I’ll take this. I know what I’m up to.”

“Then have the grace to suppose we know what we’re up to, too. After all, sir, you’re not the only one to remember that Rivera played the piano-accordion.”

For a moment, Lord Pastern stood quite still with his jaw dropped and his eyebrows half-way up his forehead. He then said rapidly: “I’m late. Goin’ to m’club,” and incontinently bolted from the room.

“Well, Mr. Alleyn,” said Fox, “that settles it, in my mind. It’s going to turn out the way you said. Cut loose the trimmings and you come to the — well, the corpus delicti as you might say.”

They were sitting in a police car outside the house in Duke’s Gate. Both of them looked past the driver, and through the wind-screen, at a jaunty and briskly moving figure, its hat a little to one side and swinging its walking stick.

“There he goes,” Fox said, “as cock-sure and perky as you please, and there goes our chap after him. Say what you like, Mr. Alleyn, the art of tailing your man isn’t what it was in the service. These young fellows think they signed on for the sole purpose of tearing about the place with the Flying Squad.” And having delivered himself of his customary grumble, Fox, still contemplating the diminishing figure of Lord Pastern, added: “Where do we go from here, sir?”

“Before we go anywhere you’ll be good enough to explain why your duties led you back to Duke’s Gate and, more particularly, to playing that old antic’s boogie-woogie on the piano.”

Fox smiled in a stately manner. “Well, sir,” he said, “as to what brought me, it was a bit of stale information, and another bit that’s not so stale. Skelton rang up after you left, to say he had inspected his lordship’s revolver the second time and was sorry he hadn’t mentioned it last night. He said that he and our Mr. Eton-and-Oxford Detective-Sergeant Sallis got into a discussion about the petite bourgeoisie or something and it went out of his head. I thought it better not to ring you at Duke’s Gate. Extension wires all over the shop in that house. So, as it seemed to settle the question about which gun his lordship took on the platform with him, I thought I’d pop along and tell you.”

“And Pastern saved you the trouble.”

“Quite so. And as to the piano, there was his lordship saying he’d been inspired, so to speak, with a new composition and wanted someone to try it over. He was making a great to-do over the ballroom being sealed. Our chaps have finished in there so there seemed no harm in obliging him. I thought it might establish friendly relations,” Fox added sadly, “but I can’t say it did in the end. Shall we tell this chap where we’re going, sir?”

Alleyn said: “We’ll call at the Metronome, then we’ll have a look at Breezy and see how the poor swine’s shaping up this morning. Then we’ll have a very brief snack, Br’er Fox, and when that’s over it’ll be time to visit G.P.F. in his den. If he’s there, blast him.”

“Ah, by the way,” Fox said, as they moved off, “that’s the other bit of information. Mr. Bathgate rang the Yard and said he’d got hold of someone who writes regularly for this paper Harmony and it seems that Mr. Friend is generally supposed to be in the office on the afternoon and evening of the last Sunday in the month, on account of the paper going to press the following week. This gentleman told Mr. Bathgate that nobody on the regular staff except the editor ever sees Mr. Friend. The story is he deals direct with the proprietors of the paper but popular opinion in Fleet Street reckons he owns the show himself. They reckon the secrecy business is nothing but a build-up.”

“Silly enough to be incredible,” Alleyn muttered. “But we’re knee-deep in imbecility. I suppose we can take it. All the same, I fancy we’ll turn up a better reason for Mr. Friend’s elaborate incognito before this interminable Sunday is out.”

Fox said, with an air of quiet satisfaction: “I fancy we shall, sir. Mr. Bathgate’s done quite a nice little job for us. It seems he pressed this friend of his a bit further and got him on to the subject of Mr. Manx’s special articles for the paper and it came out that Mr. Manx is often in their office.”