A Wreath for Rivera ra-15

by Ngaio Marsh

  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.”

  “Did you,” Alleyn asked mildly, “go out of your way to confide in us? Or did you willfully and dangerously play a silly lone hand? I think I may be forgiven, sir, for giving you a taste of your own tactics. I wish I could believe it had shaken you a bit: but that, I’m afraid, is too much to hope for.” Lord Pastern swore extensively, but Manx said, with a grin: “You know, Cousin George, I rather think we bought it. We’ve hindered the police in the execution of their duty.”

  “Serve ’em damn well right.”

  “I’m still sceptical,” Manx said. “Where’s your motive? Why should he kill the man who supplied him with his dope?”

  “One of the servants at Duke’s Gate overheard a quarrel between Bellairs and Rivera when they were together in the ballroom. Breezy asked Rivera for cigarettes — drugged cigarettes, of course — and Rivera refused to give him any. He intimated that their association was ended and talked about writing to Harmony. Fox will tell you that sort of thing’s quite a common gambit when these people fall out.”

  “Oh, yes,” Fox said. “They do it, you know. Rivera would have a cast-iron story ready to protect himself and get in first with the information. We’d pick Breezy up and be no further on. We might suspect Rivera but we wouldn’t get on to anything. Not a thing.”

  “Because,” Lord Pastern pointed out, “you’re too thick-headed to get your man when he’s screamin’ for arrest under your great noses. That’s why. Where’s your initiative? Where’s your push and drive? Why can’t you — ” he gestured wildly — “stir things up? Make a dust?”

  “Well, my lord,” said Fox placidly, “we can safely leave that kind of thing to papers like Harmony, can’t we?”

  Manx muttered: “But to kill him — no, I can’t see it. And to think all that nonsense up in an hour — ”

  “He’s a drug addict,” Alleyn said. “He’s been drawing near the end of his tether for some time, I fancy, with Rivera looming up bigger and bigger as his evil genius. It’s a common characteristic for the addict to develop an intense hatred of the purveyor upon whom he is so slavishly dependent. This person becomes a sort of Mephistopheles-symbol for the addict. When the purveyor is also a blackmailer and, for good measure, in a position where he can terrify his victim by threats of withdrawal, you get an excruciating twist to the screw. I fancy the picture of you, Lord Pastern, firing point-blank at Rivera had begun to fascinate Bellairs long before he saw you fit the section into the barrel of the gun. I believe he had already played with the idea of fooling round with the ammunition. You added fuel to his fire.”

  “That be damned — ” Lord Pastern began to shout, but Alleyn went on steadily.

  “Breezy,” he said, “was in an ugly state. He was frantic for cocaine, nervous about his show, terrified of what Lord Pastern would do. Don’t forget, sir, you, too, had threatened him with exposure. He planned for a right-and-left coup. You were to hang, you know, for the murder. He has always had a passion for practical jokes.”

  Manx gave a snort of nervous laughter. Lord Pastern said nothing.

  “But,” Alleyn went on, “it was all too technicolour to be credible. His red herrings were more like red whales. The whole set-up has the characteristic unreason and fantastic logic of the addict. A Coleridge creates Kubla Khan but a Breezy Bellairs creates a surrealistic dagger made of a parasol handle and a needlework stiletto. An Edgar Allan Poe writes ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ but a Breezy Bellairs steals a revolver and makes little scratches in the muzzle with the stiletto; he smokes it with a candle-end and puts it in his overcoat pocket. Stung to an intolerable activity by his unsatisfied lust for cocaine he plans grotesquely but with frantic precision. He may crack at any moment, lose interest or break down, but for a crucial period he goes to work like a demon. Everything falls into place. He tells the band, but not Rivera, that the other routine will be followed. Rivera has gone to the end of the restaurant to make his entrance. He persuades Skelton to look at Lord Pastern’s revolver at the last minute. He causes himself to be searched, holding his dagger over his head, trembling with strangled laughter. He conducts. He kills. He finds Rivera’s heart, and with his hands protected by a handkerchief and hidden from the audience by a comic wreath, he digs his stiletto in and grinds it round. He shows distress. He goes to the room where the body lies and shows greater distress. He changes the carefully scarred revolver in his overcoat pocket with the one Lord Pastern fired. He goes into the lavatory and makes loud retching noises while he disposes of Lord Pastern’s unscarred gun. He returns and, being now at the end of his course, frantically searches the body and probably finds the dope he needs so badly. He collapses. That, as we see it, is the case against Breezy Bellairs.”

&nbs
p; “Poor dope,” Manx said. “If you’re right.”

  “Poor dope. Oh, yes,” Alleyn said. “Poor dope.”

  Nigel Bathgate murmured: “Nobody else could have done it.”

  Lord Pastern glared at him but said nothing.

  “Nobody,” Fox said.

  “But you’ll never get a conviction, Alleyn.”

  “That,” Alleyn said, “may be. It won’t ruin our lives if we don’t.”

  “How young,” Lord Pastern demanded suddenly, “does a fellar have to be to get into detection?”

  “If you’ll excuse me, Alleyn,” Edward Manx said hurriedly, “I think I’ll be off.”

  “Where are you goin’, Ned?”

  “To see Lisle, Cousin George. We lunched,” he explained, “at cross-purposes. I thought she meant she knew it was you. I thought she meant the letter was the one Fée got from Harmony. But I see now: she thought it was me.”

  “What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Good-bye.”

  “Hi, wait a minute. I’ll come with you.” They went out into the deserted sunlight, Lord Pastern locking the door behind him.

  “I’ll be off too, Alleyn,” said Nigel as they stood watching the two figures, one lean and loose-jointed, the other stocky and dapper, walk briskly away up Materfamilias Lane. “Unless — what are you going to do?”

  “Have you got the warrant, Fox?”

  “Yes, Mr. Alleyn.”

  “Come on, then.”

  “The Judges’ Rules,” Fox said, “may be enlightened but there are times when they give you the pip. I suppose you don’t agree with that, Mr. Alleyn.”

  “They keep you and me in our place, Br’er Fox, and I fancy that’s a good thing.”

  “If we could confront him,” Fox burst out. “If we could break him down.”

  “Under pressure he might make a hysterical confession. It might not be true. That would appear to be the idea behind the Judges’ Rules.”

  Fox muttered unprintably.

  Nigel Bathgate said: “Where are we heading?”

  “We’ll call on him,” Alleyn grunted. “And with any luck we’ll find he already has a visitor. Caesar Bonn of the Metronome.”

  “How d’you know?”

  “Information received,” said Fox. “He made an arrangement over the telephone.”

  “And so, what do you do about it?”

  “We pull Bellairs in, Mr. Bathgate, for receiving and distributing drugs.”

  “Fox,” said Alleyn, “thinks there’s a case against him. Through the customers.”

  “Once he’s inside,” Fox speculated dismally, “he may talk. In spite of the Usual Caution. Judges’ Rules!”

  “He’s a glutton for limelight,” Alleyn said unexpectedly.

  “So what?” Nigel demanded.

  “Nothing. I don’t know. He may break out somewhere. Here we go.”

  It was rather dark in the tunnel-like passage that led to Breezy’s flat. Nobody was about but a plain-clothes man on duty at the far end: a black figure against a mean window. Walking silently on the heavy carpet, they came up to him. He made a movement of his head, murmured something that ended with the phrase, “hammer and tongs.”

  “Good,” Alleyn said and nodded. The man stealthily opened the door into Breezy’s flat.

  They moved into an entrance lobby where they found a second man with a notebook pressed against the wall and a pencil poised over it. The four silent men almost filled the cramped lobby.

  In the living-room beyond, Caesar Bonn was quarrelling with Breezy Bellairs.

  “Publicity!” Caesar was saying. “But of what a character! No, no! I am sorry. I regret this with all my heart. For me as for you it is a disaster.”

  “Listen, Caesar, you’re all wrong. My public won’t let me down. They’d want to see me.” The voice rose steeply. “They love me,” Breezy cried out, and after a pause: “You bloody swine, they love me.”

  “I must go.”

  “All right. You’ll see. I’ll ring Carmarelli. Carmarelli’s been trying to get me for years. Or the Lotus Tree. They’ll be fighting for me. And your bloody clientele’ll follow me. They’ll eat us. I’ll ring Stein. There’s not a restaurateur in town — ”

  “One moment.” Caesar was closer to the door. “To spare you discomfiture I feel I must warn you. Already I have discussed this matter with these gentlemen. An informal meeting. We are all agreed. It will not be possible for you to appear at any first-class restaurant or club.”

  They heard a falsetto whining. Caesar’s voice intervened. “Believe me,” he said, “when I say I mean this kindly. After all, we are old friends. Take my advice. Retire. You can afford to do so, no doubt.” He gave a nervous giggle. Breezy had whispered. Evidently they were close together on the other side of the door. “No, no!” Caesar said loudly. “I can do nothing about it. Nothing! Nothing!”

  Breezy screamed out abruptly: “I’ll ruin you!” and the pencil skidded across the plain-clothes officer’s notebook.

  “You have ruined yourself,” Caesar gabbled. “You will keep silence. Understand me: there must be complete silence. For you there is no more spot light. You are finished. Keep off!” There was a scuffle, and a stifled ejaculation. Something thudded heavily against the door and slid down its surface. “There, now!” Caesar panted. He sounded scandalized and breathlessly triumphant. Unexpectedly, after a brief pause, he went on in a reflective voice: “No, truly, you are too stupid. This decides me. I am resolved. I inform the police of your activities. You will make a foolish appearance in court. Everyone will laugh a little and forget you. You will go to gaol or perhaps to a clinic. If you are of good behaviour you may, in a year or so, be permitted to conduct a little band.”

  “Christ! Tell them, then! Tell them!” Beyond the door Breezy stumbled to his feet. His voice broke into falsetto. “But it’s me that’ll tell the tale, me! If I go to the dock, by God, I’ll wipe the grins off all your bloody faces. You haven’t heard anything yet. Try any funny business with ME! Finished! By God, I’ve only just started. You’re all going to hear how I slit up a bloody Dago’s heart for him.”

  “This is it,” Alleyn said, and opened the door.

  The End

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