“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.”