Swing, Brother, Swing

by Ngaio Marsh

  Raised above them, close to them, a figure gestured wildly among the tympani. This was a vivid picture because it was contained by a pool of light. Lord Pastern’s baldish head darted and bobbed. Metallic highlights flashed among his instruments. The spotlight shifted and there, in the centre of the stage, was Rivera, bent backwards, hugging his piano accordion to his chest. Eyes, teeth, and steel and mother-of-pearl ornament glittered. The arm of the metronome pointed fixedly at his chest. Behind, half-shadowed, a plump hand jerked up and down, beating the air with its miniature baton. A wide smile glistened in a moon face. Now Lord Pastern faced Rivera on the perimeter of the light pool. His revolver pointed at the contorted figure, flashed, and Rivera fell. Then the further shots and comic falls and then…In the deserted restaurant Alleyn brought his hands down sharply on the table. It had been then, and not until then, that the lights began their infernal blinking. They popped in and out down the length of the metronome and about its frame, in and out, red, green, blue, green, red. Then, and not until then had the arm swung away from the prostrate figure and, with the rest of that winking stuttering bedazzlement, gone into action.

  Alleyn got up and mounted the bandstand. He stood on the spot where Rivera had fallen. The skeleton tower of the metronome framed him. The reverse side of this structure revealed its electrical equipment. He looked up at the pointer of the giant arm which was suspended directly above his head. It was a hollow steel or plastic casting studded with miniature lights, and for a moment reminded him fantastically of the jewelled dart. To the right of the bandroom door and hidden from the audience by the piano, a small switchboard was sunk in the wall. Happy Hart, they had told Alleyn, was in charge of the lights. From where he sat at the piano and from where he fell to the floor he could reach out to the switches. Alleyn did so, now, pulling down the one marked ‘Motor’. A hidden whirring sound prefaced the first loud ‘clack’. The giant downward-pointing arm swept semi-circularly across, back, across and back to its own ratchet-like accompaniment. He switched on the lights and stood for a moment, an incongruous figure, motionless at the core of his kaleidoscopic setting. The point of the arm, flashing its lights, swept within four inches of his head and away and back and away again. ‘If you watched the damn’ thing for long enough, I believe it’d mesmerize you,’ he thought, and turned off the switches.

  Back in the offices he found Mr Fox in severe control of two plumbers who were removing their jackets in the lavatory.

  ‘If we can’t find anything fishing with wires, Mr Alleyn,’ Fox said, ‘it’ll be a case of taking down the whole job.’

  ‘I don’t hold out ecstatic hopes,’ Alleyn said, ‘but get on with it.’

  One of the plumbers pulled the chain and contemplated the ensuing phenomena.

  ‘Well?’ said Fox.

  ‘I wouldn’t say she was a sweetly running job,’ the plumber diagnosed, ‘and yet again she works if you can understand me.’ He raised a finger, and glanced at his mate.

  ‘Trap-trouble?’ ventured his mate.

  ‘Ar.’

  ‘We’ll leave you to it,’ Alleyn said, and withdrew Fox into the office. ‘Fox,’ he said, ‘let’s remind ourselves of the key pieces in this jig-saw atrocity. What are they?’

  Fox said promptly: ‘The set-up at Duke’s Gate. The drug racket. Harmony. The substitution. The piano accordion. The nature of the weapon.’

  ‘Add one more. The metronome was motionless when Rivera played. It started its blasted tick-tack stuff after he fell and after the other rounds had been fired.’

  ‘I get you, sir. Yes,’ said Fox, placidly, ‘there’s that too. Add the metronome.’

  ‘Now, let’s mug over the rest of the material and see where we are.’

  Sitting in Caesar Bonn’s stale office, they sorted, discarded, correlated and dissociated the fragments of the case. Their voices droned on to the intermittent accompaniment of plumbers’ aquatics. After twenty minutes Fox shut his note-book, removed his spectacles and looked steadily at his superior officer.

  ‘It amounts to this,’ he said. ‘Setting aside a handful of insignificant details, we’re short of only one piece.’ He poised his hand, palm down, over the table. ‘If we can lay hold of that and if, when we’ve got it, it fits; well, our little picture’s complete.’

  ‘If,’ Alleyn said, ‘and when.’

  The door of the inner office opened and the senior plumber entered. With an air of false modesty he extended a naked arm and bleached hand. On the palm of the hand dripped a revolver. ‘Would this,’ he asked glumly, ‘be what you was wanting?’

  Dr Curtis waited for them outside the main entrance to Breezy’s flat.

  ‘Sorry to drag you out, Curtis,’ Alleyn said, ‘but we may need your opinion about his fitness to make a statement. This is Fox’s party. He’s the drug baron.’

  ‘How do you expect he’ll be, Doctor?’ Fox asked.

  Dr Curtis stared at his shoes and said guardedly: ‘Heavy hangover. Shaky. Depressed. May be resentful. May be placatory. Can’t tell.’

  ‘Suppose he decides to talk, is it likely to be truthful?’

  ‘Not very. They usually lie.’

  Fox said: ‘What’s the line to take? Tough or coaxing?’

  ‘Use your own judgement.’

  ‘You might tip us the wink, though, Doctor.’

  ‘Well,’ said Curtis, ‘let’s take a look at him.’

  The flats were of the more dubious modern kind and brandished chromium steel almost in the Breezy Bellairs Manner—showily and without significance. Alleyn, Fox and Curtis approached the flat by way of a rococo lift and a tunnel-like passage. Fox pressed a bell and a plain-clothes officer answered the door. When he saw them he snibbed back the lock and closed the door behind him.

  ‘How is he?’ Alleyn asked.

  ‘Awake, sir. Quiet enough, but restless.’

  ‘Said anything?’ Fox asked. ‘To make sense, I mean.’

  ‘Nothing much, Mr Fox. Very worried about the deceased, he seems to be. Says he doesn’t know what he’s going to do without him.’

  ‘That makes sense at all events,’ Fox grunted. ‘Shall we go in, sir?’

  It was an expensive and rather characterless flat, only remarkable for its high content of framed and signed photographs and its considerable disorder. Breezy, wearing a dressing-gown of unbelievable sumptuousness, sat in a deep chair into which he seemed to shrink a little further as they came in. His face was the colour of an uncooked fowl and as flabby. As soon as he saw Dr Curtis he raised a lamentable wail.

  ‘Doc,’ he whined, ‘I’m all shot to heaps. Doc, for Pete’s sake take a look at me and tell them.’

  Curtis picked up his wrist.

  ‘Listen,’ Breezy implored him, ‘you know a sick man when you see one—listen—’

  ‘Don’t talk.’

  Breezy pulled at his lower lip, blinked at Alleyn and, with the inconsequence of a ventriloquist’s doll, flashed his celebrated smile.

  ‘Excuse us,’ he said.

  Curtis tested his reflexes, turned up his eyelid and looked at his tongue.

  ‘You’re a bit of a mess,’ he said, ‘but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t answer any questions these gentlemen like to put to you.’ He glanced at Fox. ‘He’s quite able to take in the usual warning,’ he said.

  Fox administered it and drew up a chair, facing Breezy, who shot out a quavering finger at Alleyn.

  ‘What’s the idea,’ he said, ‘shooting this chap on to me? What’s wrong with talking to me yourself?’

  ‘Inspector Fox,’ Alleyn said, ‘is concerned with investigations about the illicit drug trade. He wants some information from you.’

  He turned away and Fox went into action.

  ‘Well, now, Mr Bellairs,’ Fox said, ‘I think it’s only fair to tell you what we’ve ascertained so far. Save quite a bit of time, won’t it?’

  ‘I can’t tell you a thing. I don’t know a thing.’

  ‘We’re aware that you’re in
the unfortunate position,’ Fox said, ‘of having formed the taste for one of these drugs. Gets a real hold on you, doesn’t it, that sort of thing?’

  Breezy said: ‘It’s only because I’m overworked. Give me a break and I’ll cut it out. I swear I will. But gradually. You have to make it gradual. That’s right, isn’t it, Doc?’

  ‘I believe,’ Fox said comfortably, ‘that’s the case. That’s what I understand. Now, about the supply. We’ve learnt on good authority that the deceased, in this instance, was the source of supply. Would you care to add anything to that statement, Mr Bellairs?’

  ‘Was it the old bee told you?’ Breezy demanded. ‘I bet it was the old bee. Or Syd. Syd knew. Syd’s had it in for me. Dirty bolshevik! Was it Syd Skelton?’

  Fox said that the information had come from more than one source and asked how Lord Pastern knew Rivera had provided the drugs. Breezy replied that Lord Pastern nosed out all sorts of things. He refused to be drawn further.

  ‘I understand,’ Fox went on, ‘that his lordship tackled you in the matter last evening.’

  Breezy at once became hysterical. ‘He’d ruin me! That’s what he’d do. Look! Whatever happens don’t let him do it. He’s crazy enough to do it. Honest. Honest he is.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Like what he said. Write to that bloody paper about me.’

  ‘Harmony?’ Fox asked, at a venture. ‘Would that be the paper?’

  ‘That’s right. He said he knew someone—God, he’s got a thing about it. You know—the stuff. Damn and blast him,’ Breezy screamed out, ‘he’ll kill me. He killed Carlos and now what’ll I do, where’ll I get it? Everybody watching and spying and I don’t know. Carlos never told me. I don’t know.’

  ‘Never told you?’ Fox said peacefully. ‘Fancy that now! Never let on how he got it! And I bet he made it pretty hot when it came to paying up. Um?’

  ‘God, you’re telling me!’

  ‘And no reduction made, for instance, if you helped him out?’

  Breezy shrank back in his chair. ‘I don’t know anything about that. I don’t get you at all.’

  ‘Well, I mean to say,’ Fox explained, ‘there’d be opportunities, wouldn’t there? Ladies, or it might be their partners, asking the band leader for a special number. A note changes hands and it might be a tip or it might be payment in advance, and the goods delivered next time. We’ve come across instances. I wondered if he got you to oblige him. You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to, mind. We’ve the names and addresses of all the guests last night and we’ve got our records. People that are known to like it, you know. So I won’t press it. Don’t let it worry you. But I thought that he might have had some arrangement with you. Out of gratitude as you might put it—’

  ‘Gratitude!’ Breezy laughed shrilly. ‘You think you know too much,’ he said profoundly, and drew in his breath. He was short of breath and had broken into a sallow, profuse sweat. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do without Carlos,’ he whispered. ‘Someone’ll have to help me. It’s all the old bee’s fault. Him and the girl. If I could just have a smoke—’ He appealed to Dr Curtis. ‘Not a prick. I know you won’t give me a prick. Just one little smoke. I don’t usually in the mornings but this is exceptional, Doc. Doc, couldn’t you—’

  ‘You’ll have to hang on a bit longer,’ Dr Curtis said, not unkindly. ‘Wait a bit. We won’t let it go longer than you can manage. Hang on.’

  Suddenly and inanely Breezy yawned, a face-splitting yawn that bared his gums and showed his coated tongue. He rubbed his arms and neck. ‘I keep feeling as if there’s something under my skin. Worms or something,’ he said, fretfully.

  ‘About the weapon,’ Fox began.

  Breezy leant forward, his hands on his knees, aping Fox. ‘About the weapon?’ he mimicked savagely. ‘You mind your business about the weapon. Coming here tormentin’ a chap. Whose gun was it? Whose bloody sunshade was it? Whose bloody stepdaughter was it? Whose bloody business is it? Get out!’ He threw himself back in his chair, panting. ‘Get out. I’m within my rights. Get out.’

  ‘Why not?’ Fox agreed. ‘We’ll leave you to yourself. Unless Mr Alleyn…?’

  ‘No,’ Alleyn said.

  Dr Curtis turned at the door. ‘Who’s your doctor, Breezy?’ he asked.

  ‘I haven’t got a doctor,’ Breezy whispered. ‘Nothing ever used to be wrong with me. Not a thing.’

  ‘We’ll find someone to look after you.’

  ‘Can’t you? Can’t you look after me, Doc?’

  ‘Well,’ Dr Curtis said, ‘I might.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Alleyn, and they went out.

  One end of Materfamilias Lane had suffered a bomb and virtually disappeared, but the other stood intact, a narrow City street with ancient buildings, a watery smell, dark entries and impertinent charm.

  The Harmony offices were in a tall building at a corner where Materfamilias Lane dived downhill and a cul-de-sac called Journeyman’s Steps led off to the right. Both were deserted on this Sunday afternoon: Alleyn’s and Fox’s feet rang loudly on the pavement as they walked down Materfamilias Lane. Before they reached the corner they came upon Nigel Bathgate standing in the arched entry to a brewer’s yard.

  ‘In me,’ Nigel said, ‘you see the detective’s ready reckoner and pocket-guide to the City.’

  ‘I hope you’re right. What have you got for us?’

  ‘His room’s on the ground floor with the window in this street. The nearest entrance is round the corner. If he’s there the door to his office’ll be latched on the inside with an “Engaged” notice displayed. He locks himself in.’

  ‘He’s there,’ Alleyn said.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘He’s been tailed. Our man rang through from a call-box and he should be back on the job by now.’

  ‘Up the side street if he’s got the gumption,’ Fox muttered. ‘Look out, sir!’

  ‘Softly does it,’ Alleyn murmured.

  Nigel found himself neatly removed to the far end of the archway, engulfed in Fox’s embrace and withdrawn into a recess. Alleyn seemed to arrive there at the same time.

  ‘You cry mum and I’ll cry budget!’ Alleyn whispered. Someone was walking briskly down Materfamilias Lane. The approaching footsteps echoed in the archway as Edward Manx went by in the sunlight.

  They leant motionless against the dark stone and clearly heard the bang of a door.

  ‘Your sleuth-hound,’ Nigel pointed out with some relish, ‘would appear to be at fault. Whom do you suppose he’s been shadowing? Obviously, not Manx.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Alleyn said, and Fox mumbled obscurely.

  ‘Why are we waiting?’ Nigel asked fretfully.

  ‘Give him a few minutes,’ Alleyn said. ‘Let him settle down.’

  ‘Am I coming in with you?’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Certainly. One merely,’ Nigel said, ‘rather wishes that one hadn’t met him before.’

  ‘May be a bit of trouble, you know,’ Fox speculated.

  ‘Extremely probable,’ Alleyn agreed.

  A bevy of sparrows fluttered and squabbled out in the sunny street, an eddy of dust rose inconsequently, and somewhere, out of sight, halliards rattled against an untenanted flagpole.

  ‘Dull,’ Fox said, ‘doing your beat in the City on a Sunday afternoon. I had six months of it as a young chap. Catch yourself wondering why the blazes you were there and so on.’

  ‘Hideous,’ Alleyn said.

  ‘I used to carry my Police Code and Procedure on me and try to memorize six pages a day. I was,’ Fox said simply, ‘an ambitious young chap in those days.’

  Nigel glanced at his watch and lit a cigarette.

  The minutes dragged by. A clock struck three and was followed by an untidy conclave of other clocks, overlapping each other. Alleyn walked to the far end of the archway and looked up and down Materfamilias Lane.

  ‘We may as well get under way,’ he said. He glanced again up the street an
d made a sign with his hand. Fox and Nigel followed him. A man in a dark suit came down the footpath. Alleyn spoke to him briefly and then led the way to the corner. The man remained in the archway.

  They walked quickly by the window, which was uncurtained and had the legend Harmony painted across it, and turned into the cul-de-sac. There was a side door with a brass plate beside it. Alleyn turned the handle and the door opened. Fox and Nigel followed him into a dingy passage which evidently led back into a main corridor. On their right, scarcely discernible in the sudden twilight, was a door. The word ‘Engaged’, painted in white, showed clearly. From beyond it they heard the rattle of a typewriter.

  Alleyn knocked. The rattle stopped short and a chair scraped on the boards. Someone walked towards the door and a voice, Edward Manx’s, said: ‘Hallo? Who is it?’

  ‘Police,’ Alleyn said.

  In the stillness they looked speculatively at each other. Alleyn poised his knuckles at the door, waited, and said: ‘May we have a word with you, Mr Manx?’

  After a second’s silence the voice said: ‘One moment. I’ll come out.’

  Alleyn glanced at Fox, who moved in beside him. The word ‘Engaged’ shot out of sight noisily and was replaced by the letters ‘GPF.’ A latch clicked and the door opened inwards. Manx stood there with one hand on the jamb and the other on the door. There was a wooden screen behind him.

  Fox’s boot moved over the threshold.

  ‘I’ll come out,’ Manx repeated.

  ‘On the contrary, we’ll come in, if you please,’ Alleyn said.

  Without any particular display of force or even brusqueness, but with great efficiency, they went past him and round the screen. He looked for a second at Nigel and seemed not to recognize him. Then he followed them and Nigel unobtrusively followed him.

  There was a green-shaded lamp on a desk at which a figure was seated with its back towards them. As Nigel entered, the swivel-chair creaked and spun round. Dingily dressed and wearing a green eyeshade, Lord Pastern faced them with bunched cheeks.