“Parlez, monsieur, je vous en prie, plus lentement, et peut-être je vous er-— er — comprendrerai — No, blast it, as you were, je vous pouverai — ”
Alleyn pushed open the door and discovered Mr. Fox, seated cosily before a steaming cup of coffee, flanked by Spence and a bevy of attentive ladies and vis-à-vis a dark imposing personage in full chefs regalia.
There was only a fractional pause while Alleyn surveyed this tableau. Fox then rose.
“Perhaps you’d like a cup of coffee, Mr. Alleyn,” he suggested and, addressing the chef, added carefully: “C’est, Monsieur — er — le chef-inspecteur Alleyn, Monsieur. Mr. Alleyn, this is Miss Parker, the housekeeper, and Mademoiselle Hortense. And these girls are Mary and Myrtle. This is Mr. Spence and this is Monsieur Dupont and the young chap over there is William. Well!” concluded Fox, beaming upon the company, “this is what I call cosy.”
Alleyn took the chair placed for him by William and stared fixedly at his subordinate. Fox responded with a bland smile. “I was just leaving, sir,” he said, “when I happened to run into Mr. Spence. I knew you’d want to inform these good people of our little contretemps so here, in point of fact, I am.”
“Fancy,” said Alleyn.
Fox’s technique on the working side of the green baize doors was legendary at the Yard. This was the first time Alleyn had witnessed it in action. But even now, he realized, the fine bloom of the exotic was rubbed off and it was his own entrance which had destroyed it. The atmosphere of conviviality had stiffened. Spence had risen, the maids hovered uneasily on the edges of their chairs. He did his best and it was a good best, but evidently Fox, who was an innocent snob, had been bragging about him and they all called him “sir.”
“Well,” he said cheerfully, “if Mr. Fox has been on this job there’ll be no need for me to bother any of you. This is the best coffee I’ve drunk for years.”
“I am gratified,” said Monsieur Dupont in fluent English. “At present, of course, one cannot obtain the fresh bean as readily as one desires.”
Mademoiselle Hortense said, “Naturally,” and the others made small affirmative noises.
“I suppose,” Fox said genially, “his lordship’s very particular about his coffee. Particular about everything, I daresay?” he added, invitingly.
William, the footman, laughed sardonically and was checked by a glance from Spence. Fox prattled on. It would be her ladyship, of course, who was particular about coffee, being of Mademoiselle’s Hortense’s and Monsieur Dupont’s delightful nationality. He attempted this compliment in French, got bogged down and told Alleyn that Monsieur Dupont had been giving him a lesson. Mr. Alleyn, he informed the company, spoke French like a native. Looking up, Alleyn found Spence gazing at him with an expression of anxiety.
“I’m afraid this is a great nuisance for all of you,” Alleyn said.
“It’s not that, sir,” Spence rejoined slowly, “it does put us all about very much, I can’t deny. Not being able to get things done in the usual way — ”
“I’m sure,” Miss Parker intervened, “I don’t know what her ladyship’s going to say about the first floor. Leaving everything. It’s very awkward.”
“Exactly. But the worrying thing,” Spence went on, “is not knowing what it’s all about. Having the police in, sir, and everything. Just because the party from this house happens to be present when this Mr. Rivera passes away in a restaurant.”
“Quite so,” said Miss Parker.
“The circumstances,” Alleyn said carefully, “are extraordinary. I don’t know if Inspector Fox has told you — ”
Fox said that he had been anxious not to distress the ladies. Alleyn, who thought that the ladies looked as if they were half-dead with curiosity, agreed that Fox had shown great delicacy but added that it would have to come out sometime. “Mr. Rivera,” he said, “was killed.”
They stirred attentively. Myrtle, the younger of the maids, ejaculated, “Murdered?” clapped her hands over her mouth and suppressed a nervous giggle. Alleyn said it looked very much like it and added that he hoped they would all co-operate as far as they were able in helping to clear the ground. He had known, before he met it, what their response would be. People were all very much alike when it came to homicide cases. They wanted to be removed to a comfortable distance where curiosity could be assuaged, prestige maintained and personal responsibility dissolved. With working people this wish was deepened by a heritage of insecurity and the necessity to maintain caste. They were filled with a kind of generic anxiety: at once disturbed by an indefinite threat and stimulated by a crude and potent assault on their imagination.
“It’s a matter,” he said, “of clearing innocent people, of tidying them up. I’m sure you will be glad to help us in this, if you can.”
He produced Lord Pastern’s time-table, spread it out before Spence and told them who had compiled it.
“If you can help us check these times, any of you, we shall be very grateful,” he said.
Spence put on his spectacles and with an air of slight embarrassment began to read the time-table. The others, at Alleyn’s suggestion, collected round him, not altogether unwillingly.
“It’s a bit elaborate, isn’t it?” Alleyn said. “Let’s see if it can be simplified at all. You see that between half-past eight and nine the ladies left the dining-room and went to the drawing-room. So we get the two groups in the two rooms. Can any of you add to or confirm that?”
Spence could. It was a quarter to nine when the ladies went to the drawing-room. When he came away from serving their coffee he passed Lord Pastern and Mr. Bellairs on the landing. They went into his lordship’s study. Spence continued on through the dining-room, paused there to see that William had served coffee to the gentlemen and noticed that Mr. Manx and Mr. Rivera were still sitting over their wine. He then went into the servants’ hall where a few minutes later he heard the nine o’clock news on the wireless.
“So now,” Alleyn said, “we have three groups. The ladies in the drawing-room, his lordship and Mr. Bellairs in the study, and Mr. Manx and Mr. Rivera in the dining-room. Can anyone tell us when the next move came and who made it?”
Spence remembered coming back into the dining-room and finding Mr. Manx there alone. His reticence at this point became more marked, but Alleyn got from him the news that Edward Manx had helped himself to a stiff whiskey. He asked casually if there was anything about his manner which was at all remarkable, and got the surprising answer that Mr. Edward seemed to be very pleased and said he’d had a wonderful surprise.
“And now,” Alleyn said, “Mr. Rivera has broken away from the other groups. Where has he gone? Mr. Manx is in the dining-room, his lordship and Mr. Bellairs in the study, the ladies in the drawing-room, and where is Mr. Rivera?”
He looked round the group of faces with their guarded unwilling expressions until he saw William, and in William’s eye he caught a zealous glint. William, he thought, with any luck read detective magazines and spent his day-dreams sleuthing. “Got an idea?” he asked.
“Well, sir,” William said, glancing at Spence, “if you’ll excuse me, I think his lordship and Mr. Bellairs have parted company where you’ve got to. I was tidying the hall, sir, and I heard the other gentleman, Mr. Bellairs, come out of the study. I glanced up at the landing, like. And I heard his lordship call out he’d join him in a minute and I saw the gentleman go into the ballroom. I went and got the coffee tray from the drawing-room, sir. The ladies were all there. I put it down on the landing and was going to set the study to rights, when I heard the typewriter in there. His lordship doesn’t like being disturbed when he’s typing, sir, so I took the tray by the staff stairs to the kitchen and after a few minutes came back. And his lordship must have gone into the ballroom while I was downstairs because I could hear him talking very loud to Mr. Bellairs, sir.”