by Ngaio Marsh
“Ah!” She breathed out a sound of immense satisfaction. “As I thought. It amuses him. Perfectly! And his innocence is established, no doubt?”
Alleyn said carefully: “If the revolver produced is the one he fired, and the scars in the barrel suggest that it is, then a very good case could be made out on the lines of substitution.”
“I’m afraid I do not understand. A good case?”
“To the effect that Lord Pastern’s revolver was replaced by this other one which was loaded with the bolt that killed Rivera. That Lord Pastern fired it in ignorance of the substitution.”
She had a habit of immobility but her stillness now declared itself as if until this moment she had been restless. The creased lids came down like hoods over her eyes. She seemed to look at her hands. “Naturally,” she said, “I make no attempt to understand these assuredly very difficult complexities. It is enough, little as he deserves to escape, that my husband clears himself.”
“Nevertheless,” Alleyn said, “it remains necessary to discover the guilty person.” And he thought: “Damn it, I’m beginning to talk like a French phrase book, myself!”
“No doubt,” she said.
“And the guilty person, it seems obvious, was one of the party who dined here last night.”
Lady Pastern now closed her eyes completely. “A most distressing possibility,” she murmured.
“Hands,” Alleyn thought. “Carlisle Wayne’s hand fingering her neck. Miss Henderson’s hand jerking the photograph off the mantelpiece. Lady Pastern’s hands closing upon each other like vices. Hands.”
“Furthermore,” he said, “if the substitution theory is right, the time field is narrowed considerably. Lord Pastern put his revolver under his sombrero on the edge of the band dais, you remember.”
“I made a point of disregarding him,” his wife said instantly. “The whole affair was entirely distasteful to me. I did not notice and therefore I do not remember.”
“That’s what he did, however. The possibilities, as far as substitution goes, are therefore limited to the people who were within easy reach of his sombrero.”
“No doubt you will question the waiters. The man was of the type which makes itself insufferable to servants.”
“By Gum,” Alleyn thought, “you’re almost one up on me there, old girl!” But he said: “We must remember that the substituted weapon was charged with a bolt and blank cartridges. The bolt was made out of a section of your parasol handle and its point of a stiletto from your work-box.” He paused. Her fingers were more closely interlocked but she didn’t move or speak. “And the blanks,” he added, “were, it is almost certain, made by Lord Pastern and left in his study. The waiters are ruled out, I think.”
Her lips parted and closed again. She said: “Am I, perhaps, being stupid? It seems to me that this theory of substitution may embrace a wider field. Why could the change of weapons not have been effected before my husband appeared? He was later than the others in appearing. So, for example, was Mr. Bellairs. I believe that is the conductor’s name.”
“Lord Pastern insists that neither Bellairs nor anyone else had an opportunity to get at his revolver, which he says he carried in his hip pocket until he put it under the sombrero. I am persuaded that the change-over was effected after Lord Pastern made his entrance on the band dais and it’s obvious that the substituted revolver must have been prepared by someone who had access to your parasol…”
“In the restaurant,” she interrupted quickly. “Before the performance. The parasols must have been within reach of all of them.”
“… and also access to the study in this house.”
“Why?”
“To get the stiletto which was carried there.”
She drew in her breath sharply. “It may have been an entirely different stiletto, I imagine.”
“Then why has this particular one disappeared from the study? Your daughter took it away from the drawing-room when she left for her interview in the study with Rivera. Do you remember that?”
He could have sworn that she did if only because she made no sign whatsoever. She couldn’t conceal the start of astonishment or dismay which this statement should have produced if she hadn’t been prepared for it.
“I remember nothing of the sort,” she said.
“That is what happened however,” Alleyn said, “and it appears that the steel was removed in the study, since we found the ivory handle there.”
After a moment she lifted her chin and looked directly at him. “It is with the greatest reluctance that I remind you of the presence of Mr. Bellairs in this house last night. I believe he was in the study with my husband after dinner. He had ample opportunity to return there.”
“According to Lord Pastern’s time-table, to which you have all subscribed, he had from about a quarter to ten until half past when, with the exception of Rivera and Mr. Edward Manx, the rest of the party was upstairs. Mr. Manx, I remember, said he was in the drawing-room during this period. He had, by the way, punched Rivera on the ear shortly beforehand.”
“Ah!” Lady Pastern breathed out her small ejaculation. She took a moment or two over digesting this information and Alleyn thought she was very well pleased with it. She said, “Dear Edward is immensely impulsive.”
“He was annoyed, I gather, because Rivera had taken it upon himself to kiss Miss Wayne.”
Alleyn would have given a lot to have Lady Pastern’s thoughts floating above her head in clear letters, encased by a balloon as in one of Troy’s little drawings, or to have heard them through spectral earphones. Were there four elements? Desire that Manx should be concerned only with Félicité? Gratification that Manx should have gone for Rivera? Resentment that Carlisle and not Félicité had been the cause? And fear — fear that Manx should be more gravely involved? Or some deeper fear?
“Unfortunately,” she said, “he was a totally impossible person. It is, I feel certain, an affair of no significance. Dear Edward.”
Alleyn said abruptly, “Do you ever see a magazine called Harmony?” and was startled by her response. Her eyes widened. She looked at him as if he had uttered some startling impropriety.
“Never!” she said loudly. “Certainly not. Never.”
“There is a copy in the house. I thought perhaps…”
“The servants may take it. I believe it is the kind of thing they read.”
“The copy I saw was in the study. It has a correspondence page, conducted by someone who calls himself G.P.F.”
“I have not seen it. I do not concern myself with this journal.”
“Then,” Alleyn said, “there’s not much point in my asking if you suspected that Edward Manx was G.P.F.”
It was not possible for Lady Pastern to leap to her feet: her corsets alone prevented such an exercise. But, with formidable energy and comparative speed, she achieved a standing position. He saw with astonishment that her bosom heaved and that her neck and face were suffused with a brickish red.
“Impossible!” she panted. “Never! I shall never believe it. An insufferable suggestion.”
“I don’t quite see…” Alleyn began but she shouted him down. “Outrageous! He is utterly incapable.” She shot a fusillade of adjectives at him. “I cannot discuss such a fantasy. Incredible! Monstrous! Libellous. Libel of the grossest kind. Never!”
“But why do you say that? On account of the literary style?” Lady Pastern’s mouth twice opened and shut. She stared at him with an air of furious indecision. “You may say so,” she said at last. “You may put it in that way. Certainly. On account of style.”
“And yet you have never read the magazine?”
“Obviously it is a vulgar publication. I have seen the cover.”
“Let me tell you,” Alleyn suggested, “how the theory has arisen. I really should like you to understand that it’s not based on guesswork. May we sit down?”
She sat down abruptly. He saw, and was bewildered to see, that she was trembling. He told her about the letter
Félicité had received and showed her the copy he had made. He reminded her of the white flower in Manx’s coat and of Félicité’s change of manner after she had seen it. He said that Félicité believed Manx to be G.P.F. and had admitted as much. He said they had discovered original drafts of articles that had subsequently appeared on G.P.F.’s page and that these drafts had been typed on the machine in the study. He reminded her that Manx had stayed at Duke’s Gate for three weeks. Throughout this recital she sat bolt upright, pressing her lips together and staring, inexplicably, at the top right-hand drawer of her desk. In some incomprehensible fashion he was dealing her blow after shrewd blow, but he kept on and finished the whole story. “So you see, don’t you,” he ended, “that, at least, it’s a probability?”
“Have you asked him?” she said pallidly. “What does he say?”
“I have not asked him yet. I shall do so. Of course, the whole question of his identity with G.P.F. may be irrelevant as far as this case is concerned.”
“Irrelevant!” she ejaculated as if the suggestion were wildly insane. She was looking again at her desk. Every muscle of her face was controlled but tears now began to form in her eyes and trickle over her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Alleyn said, “that you find this distressing.”
“It distresses me,” she said, “because I find it is true. I am in some confusion of mind. If there is nothing more…”
He got up at once. “There’s nothing more,” he said. “Good-bye, Lady Pastern.”
She recalled him before he reached the door. “One moment.”
“Yes?”
“Let me assure you, Mr. Alleyn,” she said, pressing her handkerchief against her cheek, “that my foolishness is entirely unimportant. It is a personal matter. What you have told me is quite irrelevant to this affair. It is of no consequence whatever, in fact.” She drew in her breath with a sound that quivered between a sigh and a sob. “As for the identity of the person who has perpetrated this outrage — I mean the murder, not the journalism — I am persuaded it was one of his own kind. Yes, certainly,” she said more vigorously, “one of his own kind. You may rest assured of that.” And finding himself dismissed, he left her.
As Alleyn approached the first landing on his way down he was surprised to hear the ballroom piano. It was being played somewhat unhandily and the strains were those of hotly syncopated music taken at a funeral pace. Detective-Sergeant Jimson was on duty on the landing. Alleyn jerked his head at the ballroom doors, which were ajar. “Who’s that playing?” he asked. “Is it Lord Pastern? Who the devil opened that room?”
Jimson, looking embarrassed and scandalized, replied that he thought it must be Lord Pastern. His manner was so odd that Alleyn walked past him and pushed open the double doors. Inspector Fox was discovered seated at the piano with his spectacles on his nose. He was inclined forward tensely, and followed with concentration a sheet of music in manuscript. Facing him, across the piano, was Lord Pastern, who, as Alleyn entered, beat angrily, but rhythmically, upon the lid and shouted: “No, no, my good ass, not a bit like it. N’yah — yo. Bo bo bo. Again.” He looked up and saw Alleyn. “Here!” he said. “Can you play?”
Fox rose, without embarrassment, and removed his spectacles.
“Where have you come from?” Alleyn demanded.
“I had a little matter to report, sir, and as you were engaged for the moment I’ve been waiting in here. His lordship was looking for someone to try over a piece he’s composing but I’m afraid…”
“I’ll have to get one of these women,” Lord Pastern cut in impatiently. “Where’s Fée? This chap’s no good.”
“I haven’t sat down to the piano since I was a lad,” said Fox mildly.
Lord Pastern made for the door but Alleyn intercepted him. “One moment, sir,” he said.
“It’s no good worryin’ me with any more questions,” Lord Pastern snapped at him. “I’m busy.”
“Unless you’d prefer to come to the Yard, you’ll answer this one, if you please. When did you first realize that the revolver we produced after Rivera was killed was not the one you loaded in the study and carried on to the band platform?”
Lord Pastern smirked at him. “Nosed that out for yourselves, have you?” he remarked. “Fascinatin’, the way our police work.”
“I still want to know when you made this discovery.”
“About eight hours before you did.”
“As soon as you were shown the substitute and noticed there were no initials?”
“Who told you about initials? Here!” Lord Pastern said with some excitement. “Have you found my other gun?”
“Where do you suggest we look for it?”
“If I knew where it was, my good fathead, I’d have got it for meself. I value that gun, by God!”
“You handed over the weapon you fired at Rivera to Breezy Bellairs,” Fox said suddenly. “Was it that one, my lord? The one with the initials? The one you loaded in this house? The one that’s missing?”
Lord Pastern swore loudly. “What d’you think I am?” he shouted. “A bloody juggler? Of course it was.”
“And Bellairs walked straight into the office with you and I took it off him a few minutes later and it wasn’t the same gun. That won’t wash, my lord,” said Fox, “if you’ll excuse my saying so. It won’t wash.”
“In that case,” Lord Pastern said rudely, “you can put up with it dirty.” Alleyn made a slight, irritated sound and Lord Pastern instantly turned on him. “What are you snufflin’ about?” he demanded and before Alleyn could answer he renewed his attack on Fox. “Why don’t you ask Breezy about it?” he said. “I should have thought even you’d have got at Breezy.”
“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.
CHAPTER XI
EPISODES IN TWO FLATS AND AN OFFICE
“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.”
