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Skelton wetted his lips. “The drug racket,” he said, “is like any other racket in a capitalistic government. The real criminals are the bosses, the barons, the high-ups. They don’t get pulled in. It’s the little blokes that get caught. You have to think it out. Silly sentiment and big talk won’t work. I’ve got no tickets on the police department in this country. A fairly efficient machine working for the wrong ideas. But drug-taking’s no good from any point of view. All right. I’ll co-operate this far. I’ll tell you where Breezy got his dope.”

“And where,” said Alleyn patiently, “did Breezy get his dope?”

“From Rivera,” said Skelton. “Now! From Rivera.”

CHAPTER VII

DAWN

Skelton had gone home, and Caesar Bonn and David Hahn. The cleaners had retired into some remote part of the building. Only the police remained: Alleyn and Fox, Bailey, Thompson, the three men who had searched the restaurant and band-room and the uniformed constable who would remain on duty until he was relieved after daybreak. The time was now twenty minutes to three.

“Well, Foxkin,” said Alleyn, “where are we? You’ve been very mousy and discreet. Let’s have your theory. Come on.”

Fox cleared his throat and placed the palms of his hands on his knees. “A very peculiar case,” he said disapprovingly. “Freakish, you might say. Silly. Except for the corpse. Corpses,” Mr. Fox observed with severity, “are never silly.”

Detective-Sergeants Bailey and Thompson exchanged winks.

“In the first place, Mr. Alleyn,” Fox continued, “I ask myself: Why do it that way? Why fire a bit of an umbrella handle from a revolver when you might fire a bullet? This applies in particular to his lordship. And yet it seems it must have been done. You can’t get away from it. Nobody had a chance of stabbing the chap while he was performing, did they now?”

“Nobody.”

“All right then. Now, if anybody pushed this silly weapon up the gun after Skelton examined it, they had the thing concealed about their person. Not much bigger than a fountain pen but sharp as hell. Which brings us to Bellairs, for one. If you consider Bellairs, you have to remember that his lordship seems to have searched him very thoroughly before he went out to perform.”

“Moreover his lordship in the full tide of his own alleged innocence declares that the wretched Breezy didn’t get a chance to pocket anything after he had been searched, or to get at the gun.”

“Does he really?” said Fox. “Fancy!”

“In fact his lordship, who, I submit, is no fool, has been at peculiar pains to clear everybody but himself.”

“No fool, perhaps,” Fox grunted, “but would you say a bit off the plumb mentally?”

“Everybody else says so, at all events. In any case, Fox, I’ll give sworn evidence that nobody stabbed Rivera before or at the time he was shot at. He was a good six feet away from everybody except Lord Pastern, who was busy with his blasted gun.”

“There you are! And it wasn’t planted among the music stands because they were used by the other band. And anyway none of the musicians went near his lordship’s funny hat where the gun was. And being like that, I asked myself, isn’t his lordship the most likely to use a silly fanciful method if he’d made up his mind to do a man in? It all points to his lordship. You can’t get away from it. And yet he seems so pleased with himself and kind of unruffled. Of course you do find that attitude in homicidal mania.”

“You do. What about motive?”

“Do we know what he thought of his stepdaughter keeping company with the deceased? The other young lady suggested that he didn’t seem to care one way or the other but you never know. Something else may turn up. Personally, as things stand at the moment, I favor his lordship. What about you, Mr. Alleyn?”

Alleyn shook his head. “I’m stumped,” he said. “Perhaps Skelton could have got the thing into the revolver when he examined it but Lord Pastern, who undoubtedly is as sharp as a needle, swears he didn’t. They were alone together for a minute while Breezy made his announcement but Skelton says he didn’t go near Lord Pastern, who had the gun in his hip pocket. It’s not likely to be a lie because Pastern could deny it. You didn’t hear Skelton. He’s an odd chap — a truculent communist. Australian, I should say. A hard, determined thinker. Nobody’s fool and completely sincere. One-track minded. There’s no doubt he detested Rivera, both on general principles and because Rivera backed up Lord Pastern’s appearance to-night. Skelton bitterly resented this and says so. He felt he was prostituting what he is pleased to regard as his art and conniving at something entirely against his social principles. I believe him to be fanatically sincere in this. He looked on Rivera and Lord Pastern as parasites. Rivera, by the way, supplied Breezy Bellairs with his dope, whatever it is. Curtis says cocaine, and it looks as if he found himself something to go on when he searched the body. We’ll have to follow that one up, Fox.”

“Dope,” said Fox profoundly. “There you are! When we do get a windfall it’s a dead man. Still, there may be something in his rooms to give us a lead. South America, now. That may link up with the Snowy Santos gang. They operate through South America. It’d be nice,” said Mr. Fox, whose talents for some time had been concerned with the sale of illicit drugs, “if d be lovely, in fact, to get the tabs on Snowy Santos.”

“Lovely, wouldn’t it?” Alleyn agreed absently, “Get on with your argument, Fox.”

“Well, now, sir. Seeing Rivera wasn’t meant to fall down and did, you can say he was struck at that moment. I know that sounds like a glimpse of the obvious, but it cuts out any idea that there was some kind of jiggery-pokery after he fell because nobody knew he was going to fall. And unless you feel like saying somebody threw the weapon like a dart at the same time as his lordship fired the first shot — Well,” said Fox disgustedly, “that would be a fat-headed sort of notion wouldn’t it? So we come back to the idea it was fired from the revolver. Which is supported by the scratches in the barrel. Mind, we’ll have to get the experts going there.”

“We shall, indeed.”

“But saying, for the moment, that the little jewelled clip, acting as a sort of stop, did mark the barrel, we come to Skelton’s statement that the scratches were not there when he examined it. And that looks like his lordship again. Look at it how you will, you get back to his lordship, you know.”

“Miss de Suze,” Alleyn said, rubbing his nose in vexation, “did grope under the damned sombrero. I saw her and so did Manx and so did the waiter. Manx seemed to remonstrate and she laughed and withdrew her hand. She couldn’t have got the weapon in then but it shows that it was possible for anyone sitting on her chair to get at the gun. Lady Pastern was left alone at their table while the others danced.”

Fox raised his eyebrows and looked puffy. “Very icy,” he said. “A haughty sort of lady and with a will and temper of her own. Look how she’s stood up to his lordship in the past. Very masterful.”

Alleyn glanced at his old colleague and smiled. He turned to the group of waiting men. “Well, Bailey,” he said, “we’ve about got to you. Have you found anything new?”

Bailey said morosely: “Nothing to write home about, Mr. Alleyn. No prints on this dart affair. I’ve packed it up with protection and can have another go at it.”

“The revolver?”

“Very plain sailing, there, Mr. Alleyn. Not a chance for latents.”

“That’s why I risked letting him handle it.”

“Yes, sir. Well now,” said Bailey with a certain professional relish, “the revolver. Lord Pastern’s prints on the revolver. And this band leader’s. Breezy Bellairs or whatever he calls himself.”