She was on the third step from the foot of the stairs, standing there boldly, aware of the picture she made. “Lisle told me,” she said, “about you and the letter. Getting it from her, I mean. I suppose you take rather a dim view of my sending Lisle to do my dirty work, don’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I was all bouleversée. I know it was rather awful letting her go, but I think in a way she quite enjoyed it.” He noticed that her upper lip was fuller than the under one and that when she smiled it curved richly. “Darling Lisle,” she said, “doesn’t have much fun and she’s so madly interested always in other people’s little flutters.” She watched Alleyn out of the corners of her eyes and added: “We’re all devoted to her.”
“What do you want to ask me, Miss de Suze?”
“Please may I have the letter back? Please!”
“In due course,” he said. “Certainly.”
“Not now?”
“I’m afraid not now.”
“That’s rather a bore,” said Félicité. “I suppose I’d better come clean in a big way.”
“If it’s relevant to the matter in hand,” Alleyn agreed. “I am only concerned with the death of Mr. Carlos Rivera.”
She leant back against the bannister, stretching her arms along it and looking downwards, arranging herself for him to look at. “I’d suggest we went somewhere where we could sit down,” she said, “but here seems to be the only place where there’s no lurking minor detective.”
“Let it be here, then.”
“You are not,” Félicité said, “making this very easy.”
“I’m sorry. I shall be glad to hear what you have to say but to tell the truth, there’s a heavy day’s work in front of us.”
They stood there, disliking each other. Alleyn thought: “She’s going to be one of the tricky ones. She may have nothing to say; I know the signs but I can’t be sure of them.” And Félicité thought: “I didn’t really notice him last night. If he’d known what Carlos was like he’d have despised me. He’s taller than Ned. I’d like him to be on my side thinking how courageous and young and attractive I am. Younger than Lisle, for instance, with two men in love with me. I wonder what sort of women he likes. I suppose I’m frightened.”
She slid down into a sitting position on the stairs and clasped her hands about her knees; young and a bit boyish, a touch of the gamine.
“It’s about this wretched letter. Well, not wretched at all, really, because it’s from a chap I’m very fond of. You’ve read it, of course.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“My dear, I don’t mind. Only, as you’ve seen, it’s by way of being number one secrecy and I’ll feel a bit low if it all comes popping out, particularly as it’s got utterly no connection with your little game. It just couldn’t be less relevant.”
“Good.”
“But I suppose I’ve got to prove that, haven’t I?”
“It would be an excellent move if you can.”
“Here we go, then,” said Félicité.
Alleyn listened wearily, pinning his attention down to the recital, shutting out the thought of time sliding away and of his wife, who would soon wake and look to see if he was there. Félicité told him that she had corresponded with G.P.F. of Harmony and that his advice had been too marvellously understanding and that she had felt an urge like the kick of a mule to meet him, but that although his replies had grown more and more come-to-ish he had insisted that his identity must remain hidden. “All Cupid-and-Psyche-ish only definitely less rewarding,” she said. And then the letter had arrived and Edward Manx had appeared with a white flower in his coat and suddenly, after never having gone much for old Ned, she had felt astronomically uplifted. Because, after all, it was rather bracing, wasn’t it, to think that all the time Ned was G.P.F. and writing these really gorgeous things and falling for one like a dray-load of bricks? Here Félicité paused and then added rather hurriedly and with an air of hauteur: “You’ll understand that by this time poor Carlos had, from my point of view, become comparatively a dim figure. I mean, to be as bald as an egg about it, he just faded out. I mean it couldn’t have mattered less about Carlos because clearly I wasn’t his cup of tea and we’d both gone tepid on it and I knew he wouldn’t mind. You do see what I mean about that, don’t you?”
“Are you trying to tell me that you and Rivera had parted as friends?”
Félicité shook her head vaguely and raised her eyebrows. “Even that makes it sound too important,” she said. “It all just came peacefully unstuck.”
“And there was no quarrel, for instance when you and he were in the study between a quarter and half-past nine? Or later, between Mr. Manx and Mr. Rivera?”
There was a long pause. Félicité bent forward and jerked at the strap of her shoe. “What in the world,” she said indistinctly, “put these quaint little notions into your head?”
“Are they completely false?”
“I know,” she said loudly and cheerfully. She looked up into his face. “You’ve been gossiping with the servants.” She appealed to Fox. “Hasn’t he?” she demanded playfully.
“I’m sure I couldn’t say, Miss de Suze,” said Fox blandly.
“How you could!” she accused Alleyn. “Which of them was it? Was it Hortense? My poor Mr. Alleyn, you don’t know Hortense. She’s the world’s most accomplished liar! She just can’t help herself, poor thing. It’s pathological.”
“So there was no quarrel?” Alleyn said. “Between any of you?”
“My dear, haven’t I told you!”
“Then why,” he asked, “did Mr. Manx punch Mr. Rivera over the ear?”
Félicité’s eyes and mouth opened. Then she hunched her shoulders and caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth. He could have sworn she was astonished and in a moment it was evident that she was gratified.
“No!” she said. “Honestly? Ned did? Well, I must say I call that a handsome tribute. When did it happen? Before we went down to the Met? After dinner? When?”
Alleyn looked steadily at her. “I thought,” he said, “that perhaps you could tell me that.”
“I? But I promise you…”
“Had he got a trickle of blood on his ear when you talked to him in the study? On the occasion, you know, when you say there was no quarrel?”
“Let me think,” said Félicité, and rested her head on her crossed arms. But the movement was not swift enough. He had seen the blank look of panic in her eyes. “No,” her voice, muffled by her arms, said slowly, “no, I’m sure…”
There was some change of light above, where the stairs ran up to the first landing. He looked up. Carlisle Wayne stood there in the shadow. Her figure and posture still retained the effect of movement, as if while she came downstairs she had suddenly been held in suspension as the action of a motion picture may be suspended to give emphasis to a specific moment. Over Félicité’s bent head, Alleyn with a slight movement of his hand arrested Carlisle’s descent. Félicité had begun to speak again.
“After all,” she was saying, “one is a bit uplifted. It’s not every day in the week that people give other people cauliflower ears for love of one’s bright eyes.” She raised her face and looked at him. “How naughty of Ned, but how sweet of him. Darling Ned!”
“No, really!” said Carlisle strongly. “This is too much!”
Félicité, with a stifled cry, was on her feet.
Alleyn said: “Hullo, Miss Wayne. Good morning to you. Have you any theory about why Mr. Manx gave Rivera a clip over the ear? He did give him a clip, you know. Why?”
“If you must know,” Carlisle said in a high voice, “it was because Rivera kissed me when we met on the landing.”