Ngaio Marsh - A Wreath for Rivera

“ I told you that meself.”

“Exactly. Your policy throughout has been to pile up evidence against yourself. A sane man, and we are presuming you sane, doesn’t do that sort of thing unless he believes he has an extra trick or two in hand, some conclusive bits of evidence that must clear him. It was obvious that you thought you could produce some such evidence and you took great glee in exhibiting the devastating frankness of complete innocence. Another form of figure-skating on thin ice. You would let us blunder about making clowns of ourselves, and, when the sport palled or the ice began to crack, you would, if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor, plank down the extra tricks.”

A web of thread-like veins started out on Lord Pastern’s blanched cheek-bones. He brushed up his moustache and, finding his hand shook, looked quickly at it and thrust it inside the breast of his coat.

“It seemed best,” Alleyn said, “to let you go your own gait and see how far it would take you. You wanted us to believe that Mr. Manx was G.P.F.; there was nothing to be gained, we thought, and there might be something lost in letting you see we recognized the equal possibility of your being G.P.F. yourself. This became a probability when the drafts of copy turned up amongst Rivera’s blackmailing material. Because Rivera had never met Manx but was closely associated with you.”

Alleyn glanced up at his colleague. “It was Inspector Fox,” he said, “who first pointed out that you had every chance, during the performance, while the spot light was on somebody else, to load the revolver with the fantastic bolt. All right. But there remained your first trump card — the substituted weapon; the apparently irrefutable evidence that the gun we recovered from Breezy was not the one you brought down to the Metronome. But when we found the original weapon in the lavatory beyond the inner office that difficulty, too, fell into place in the general design. We had got as far as abundant motive and damning circumstance. Opportunity began to appear.”

Alleyn stood up and with him Lord Pastern, who pointed a quivering finger at him.

“You bloody fool!” he said, drawing his lips back from his teeth. “You can’t arrest me — you — ”

“I believe I could arrest you,” Alleyn rejoined, “but not for murder. Your second trump card is unfortunately valid. You didn’t kill Rivera because Rivera was not killed by the revolver.”

He looked at Manx. “And now,” he said, “we come to you.”

Edward Manx turned from the window and walked towards Alleyn with his hands in his pockets. “All right,” he said. “You come to me. What have you nosed out about me?”

“This and that,” Alleyn rejoined. “On the face of it there’s the evidence that you quarrelled with Rivera and clipped him over the ear. Nosing, as you would put it, beneath the surface, there’s your association with Harmony . You, and perhaps you alone, knew that Lord Pastern was G.P.F. If he told you Rivera was blackmailing him — ”

“He didn’t tell me.”

“ — and if, in addition, you knew Rivera was a drug merchant — ” Alleyn waited for a moment but Manx said nothing— “why then, remembering your expressed loathing of this abominable trade, something very like a motive began to appear.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Manx said lightly. “I don’t go about devising quaint deaths for everyone I happen to think a cad or a bad lot.”

“One never knows. There have been cases. And you could have changed the revolvers.”

“You’ve just told us that he wasn’t killed by the revolver.”

“Nevertheless the substitution was made by his murderer.”

Manx laughed acidly. “I give up,” he said and threw out his hands. “Get on with it.”

“The weapon that killed Rivera couldn’t have been fired from the revolver because at the time Lord Pastern pulled the trigger, Rivera had his piano-accordion across his chest and the piano-accordion is uninjured.”

“I could have told you that,” said Lord Pastern, rallying.

“It was a patently bogus affair, in any case. How, for instance, could Lord Pastern be sure of shooting Rivera with such a footling tool? A stiletto in the end of a bit of stick? If he missed by a fraction of an inch Rivera might not die instantly and might not die at all. No. You have to be sure of getting the right spot and getting it good and proper, with a bare bodkin.”

Manx lit a cigarette with unsteady hands. “Then in that case I can’t for the life of me see — ” he stopped — “whodunit,” he said, “and how.”

“Since it’s obvious Rivera wasn’t hurt when he fell,” Alleyn said, “he was stabbed after he fell.”

“But he wasn’t meant to fall. They’d altered the routine. We’ve had that till we’re sick of the sound of it.”

“It will be our contention that Rivera did not know that the routine had been altered.”

“Bosh!” Lord Pastern shouted so unexpectedly that they all jumped. “He wanted it changed. I didn’t. It was Carlos wanted it.”

“We’ll take that point a bit later,” Alleyn said. “We’re considering how, and when, he was killed. Do you remember the timing of the giant metronome? It was motionless, wasn’t it, right up to the moment when Rivera fell; motionless and pointing straight down at him. As he leant backwards its steel tip was poised rather menacingly, straight at his heart.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Manx said disgustedly. “Are you going to tell us somebody dropped the bolt out of the metronome?”

“No. I’m trying to dismiss the fancy touches, not add to them. Immediately after Rivera fell, the arm of the metronome went into action. Coloured lights winked and popped in and out along its entire surface and that of the surrounding tower frame. It swung to and fro with a rhythmic clack. The whole effect, of course carefully planned, was dazzling and unexpected. One’s attention was drawn away from the prostrate figure and what actually happened during the next ten seconds or so was quite lost on the audience. To distract attention still further from the central figure, a spot light played on the tympani where Lord Pastern could be seen in terrific action. But what seemed to happen during those ten confusing seconds?”

He waited again and then said: “Of course you remember, both of you. A waiter threw Breezy a comic wreath of flowers. He knelt down and, pretending to weep, using his handkerchief, opened Rivera’s coat and felt for his heart. He felt for his heart.”

Lord Pastern said: “You’re wrong, Alleyn, you’re wrong. I searched him. I’ll swear he had nothing on him then and I’ll swear he didn’t get a chance to pick anything up. Where the devil was the weapon? You’re wrong. I searched him.”

“As he intended you to do. Yes. Did you notice his baton while you searched him?”

“I told you, damn it. He held it above his head. Good God!” Lord Pastern added, and again, “Good God!”

“A short black rod. The pointed steel was held in his palm, protected by the cork out of an empty gun-oil bottle in your desk. Fox reminded me this morning of Poe’s story The Purloined Letter . Show a thing boldly to unsuspecting observers and they will think it’s what they expect it to be. Breezy conducted your programme last night with a piece of parasol handle and a stiletto. You saw the steel mounting glinting as usual at the tip of an ebony rod. The stiletto was concealed in his palm. It really was quite like his baton. Probably that gave him the idea when he handled the dismembered parasol in the ballroom. I think you asked him, didn’t you, to put it together.”

“Why the hell,” Lord Pastern demanded, “didn’t you tell us this straight away? Tormentin’ people. It’s a damn’ scandal. I’ll take you up on this, Alleyn, by God I will.”