A Wreath for Rivera (26 page)

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.”

“Discussing his special articles. Picking up his galley sheets or whatever they do.”

“Better than that, Mr. Alleyn. This gentleman told Mr. Bathgate that Mr. Manx has been noticed coming out of G.P.F.’s room on several occasions, one of them being a Sunday afternoon.”

“Oh.”

“Fits, doesn’t it?”

“Like a glove. Good for Bathgate. We’ll ask him to meet us at the
Harmony
offices. This being the last Sunday in the month, Br’er Fox, we’ll see what we can see. But first — the Metronome.”

When Carlisle left the Yard, it was with a feeling of astonishment and aimless boredom. So it wasn’t Uncle George’s revolver after all. So there had been an intricate muddle that someone would have to unravel. Alleyn would unravel it and then someone else would be arrested and she ought to be alarmed and agitated because of this. Perhaps, in the hinterland of her emotions, alarm and agitation were already established and waited to pounce, but in the meantime she was only drearily miserable and tired. She was pestered by all sorts of minor considerations. The thought of returning to Duke’s Gate and trying to cope with the situation there was intolerable. It wasn’t so much the idea that Uncle George or Aunt Cile or Fée might have murdered Carlos Rivera that Carlisle found appalling: it was the prospect of their several personalities forcing themselves upon her own; their demands upon her attention and courtesy. She had a private misery, a galling unhappiness, and she wanted to be alone with it.

While she walked irresolutely towards the nearest bus stop, she remembered that not far from here, in a
cul-de-sac
called Coster’s Row, was Edward Manx’s flat. If she walked to Duke’s Gate she would pass the entry into this blind street. She was persuaded that she did not want to see Edward, that an encounter would, indeed, be unbearable; yet, aimlessly, she began to walk on. Church-going people returning home with an air of circumspection made a pattering sound in the empty streets. Groups of sparrows flustered and pecked. The day was mildly sunny. The Yard man, detailed to keep observation on Carlisle, threaded his way through a trickle of pedestrians and recalled the Sunday dinners of his boyhood. Beef, he thought, Yorkshire pudding, gravy, and afterwards a heavy hour or so in the front room. Carlisle gave him no trouble at all but he was hungry.

He saw her hesitate at the corner of Coster’s Row and himself halted to light a cigarette. She glanced along the file of house fronts and then, at a more rapid pace, crossed the end of the row and continued on her way. At the same time a dark young man came out of a house six doors down Coster’s Row and descended the steps in time to catch a glimpse of her. He shouted, “Lisle!” and waved his arm. She hurried on, and once past the corner, out of his sight, broke into a run. “Hi, Lisle!” he shouted. “Lisle!” and loped after her. The Yard man watched him go by, turn the corner and overtake her. She spun round at the touch of his hand on her arm and they stood face to face.

A third man who had come out from some doorway further up the
cul-de-sac
walked briskly down the path on the same side as the Yard man. They greeted each other like old friends and shook hands. The Yard man offered cigarettes and lit a match. “How’s it going, Bob?” he said softly. “That your bird?”

“That’s him. Who’s the lady?”

“Mine,” said the first, whose back was turned to Carlisle.

“Not bad,” his colleague muttered, glancing at her.

“I’d just as soon it was my dinner, though.”

“Argument?”

“Looks like it.”

“Keeping their voices down.”

Their movements were slight and casual: acquaintances pausing for a rather aimless chat.

“What’s the betting?” said the first.

“They’ll separate. I never have the luck.”

“You’re wrong, though.”

“Going back to his place?”

“Looks like it.”

“I’ll toss you for it.”

“O.K.” The other pulled his clenched hand out of his pocket. “Your squeak,” he said.

“Heads.”

“It’s tails.”

“I never get the luck.”

“I’ll ring in then and get something to eat. Relieve you in half an hour, Bob.”

They shook hands again heartily as Carlisle and Edward Manx, walking glumly towards them, turned into Coster’s Row.

Carlisle had seen Edward Manx out of the corner of her eye as she crossed the end of the
cul-de-sac
. Unreasoned panic took hold of her. She lengthened her stride, made a show of looking at her watch and, when he called her name, broke into a run. Her heart pounded and her mouth was dry. She had the sensation of a fugitive in a dream. She was the pursued and, since even in her sudden alarm she was confusedly aware of something in herself that frightened her, she was also the pursuer. This nightmarish conviction was intensified by the sound of his feet clattering after her and of his voice, completely familiar but angry, calling her to stop.

Her feet were leaden, he was overtaking her quite easily. Her anticipation of his seizing her from behind was so vivid that when his hand actually closed on her arm it was something of a relief. He jerked her round to face him and she was glad to feel angry.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he said breathlessly.

“That’s my business,” she panted, and added defiantly, “I’m late. I’ll be late for lunch. Aunt Cile will be furious.”

“Don’t be an ass, Lisle. You ran when you saw me. You heard me call out and you kept on running. What the devil d’you mean by it?”

His heavy eyebrows were drawn together and his lower lip jutted out.

“Please let me go, Ned,” she said. “I really am late.”

“That’s utterly childish and you know it. I’m getting to the bottom of this. Come back to the flat. I want to talk to you.”

“Aunt Cile…”

“Oh for God’s sake! I’ll ring Duke’s Gate and say you’re lunching here.”

“No.”

For a moment he looked furious. He still held her arm and his fingers bit into it, hurting her. Then he said more gently: “You can’t expect me to let a thing like this pass — it’s a monstrous state of affairs. I must know what’s gone wrong. Last night, after we got back from the Metronome, I could tell there was something. Please, Lisle. Don’t let’s stand here snarling at each other. Come back to the flat.”

“I’d rather not. Honestly. I know I’m behaving queerly.”

He had slipped the palm of his hand inside her arm, pressing it against him. His hand was gentler now but she couldn’t escape it. He began to speak persuasively and she remembered how, even when they were children, she had never been able to resist his persuasiveness. “You will, Lisle, won’t you? Don’t be queer, I can’t bear all this peculiarity. Come along.”

She looked helplessly at the two men on the opposite corner, thinking vaguely that she had seen one of them before. “I wish I knew him,” she thought. “I wish I could stop and speak to him.”

They turned into Coster’s Row. “There’s some food, in the flat. It’s quite a nice flat. I want you to see it. We’ll have lunch together, shan’t we? I’m sorry I was churlish, Lisle.”

His key clicked in the lock of the blue door. They were in a small lobby. “It’s a basement flat,” he said, “but not at all bad. There’s even a garden. Down those stairs.”

“You go first,” she said. She actually wondered if that would give her a chance to bolt and if she would have the nerve to do it. He looked fixedly at her.

“I don’t believe I trust you,” he said lightly. “On you go.”

He followed close on her heels down the steep stairs and took her arm again as he reached past her and unlocked the second door. “Here we are,” he said, pushing it open. He gave her a little shove forward.

It was a large, low-ceilinged room, whitewashed and oak-beamed. French windows opened on a little yard with potted flowers and plane-trees in tubs. The furniture was modern: steel chairs with rubber-foam upholstery, a carefully planned desk, a divan bed with a scarlet cover. A rigorous still-life hung above the fireplace, the only picture in the room. The bookshelves looked as if they had been stocked completely from a Left Book Shop. It was a scrupulously tidy room.

“The oaken beams are strict stockbroker’s Tudor,” he was saying. “Completely functionless, of course, and pretty revolting. Otherwise not so bad, do you think? Sit down while I find a drink.”

She sat on the divan and only half listened to him. His belated pretence that, after all, this was a pleasant and casual encounter did nothing to reassure her. He was still angry. She took the drink he brought and found her hand was shaking so much she couldn’t carry the glass to her lips. The drink spilled. She bent her head down and took a quick gulp at it, hoping this would steady her. She rubbed furtively with her handkerchief at the splashes on the cover and knew, without looking, that he watched her.

“Shall we go in, boots and all, or wait till after lunch?” he said.

“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m sorry to be such an ass but after all it was a bit of a night. I suppose murder doesn’t suit me.”

“Oh, no,” he said, “that won’t do. You don’t bolt like a rabbit at the sight of me because somebody killed a piano-accordionist.” And after a long pause, he added smoothly, “Unless, by any chance, you think I killed him. Do you?”

“Don’t be a dolt,” she said, and by some fortuitous mischance, an accident quite beyond her control and unrelated to any recognizable impulse, her answer sounded unconvincing and too violent. It was the last question she had expected from him.

“Well, at least I’m glad of that,” he said. He sat on the table near to her. She did not look up at him but straight before her at his left hand, lying easily across his knee. “Come on,” he said, “what have I done? There
is
something I’ve done. What is it?”

She thought: “I’ll have to tell him something — part of it. Not the real thing itself but the other bit that doesn’t matter so much.” She began to search for an approach, a line to take, some kind of credible presentation, but she was deadly tired and she astonished herself by saying abruptly and loud: “I’ve found out about G.P.F.”

His hand moved swiftly, out of her range of sight. She looked up expecting to be confronted by his anger or astonishment but he had turned aside, skewing round to put his glass down on the table behind him.

“Have you?” he said. “That’s awkward, isn’t it?” He moved quickly away from her and across the room to a wall cupboard which he opened. With his back turned to her he said: “Who told you? Did Cousin George?”