After a second’s silence the voice said: “One moment. I’ll come out.”
Alleyn glanced at Fox who moved in beside him. The word Engaged shot out of sight noisily and was replaced by Private G.P.F. A latch clicked and the door opened inwards. Manx stood there with one hand on the jamb and the other on the door. There was a wooden screen behind him.
Fox’s boot moved over the threshold.
“I’ll come out,” Manx repeated.
“On the contrary, we’ll come in, if you please,” Alleyn said.
Without any particular display of force or even brusqueness, but with great efficiency, they went past him and round the screen. He looked for a second at Nigel and seemed not to recognize him. Then he followed them and Nigel unobtrusively followed him.
There was a green-shaded lamp on a desk at which a figure was seated with its back towards them. As Nigel entered, the swivel-chair creaked and spun around. Dingily dressed and wearing a green eye-shade, Lord Pastern faced them with bunched cheeks.
CHAPTER XII
G. P. F
He made a high-pitched snarling noise as they closed round him and reached out his hand towards an inkpot on the desk.
Fox said: “Now, my lord, don’t you do anything you’ll be sorry for,” and moved the inkpot.
Lord Pastern sunk his head with a rapid movement between his shoulders. From behind them, Edward Manx said: “I don’t know why you’ve done this, Alleyn. It’ll get you no further.”
Lord Pastern said: “Shut up, Ned,” and glared at Alleyn. “I’ll have you kicked out of the force,” he said. “Kicked out, by God!” And after a silence: “You don’t get a word from me. Not a syllable.”
Alleyn pulled up a chair and sat down, facing him. “That will suit us very well,” he said. “You are going to listen, and I advise you to do so with as good a grace as you can muster. When you’ve heard what I’ve got to say you may read the statement I’ve brought with me. You can sign it, alter it, dictate another or refuse to do any of these things. But in the meantime, Lord Pastern, you are going to listen.”
Lord Pastern folded his arms tightly across his chest, rested his chin on his tie and screwed up his eyes. Alleyn took a folded typescript from his breast pocket, opened it and crossed his knees.
“This statement was prepared,” he said, “on the assumption that you are the man who calls himself G. P. Friend and writes the articles signed G.P.F. in Harmony. It is a statement of what we believe to be fact and doesn’t concern itself overmuch with motive. I, however, will deal rather more fully with motive. In launching this paper and in writing these articles, you found it necessary to observe complete anonymity. Your reputation as probably the most quarrelsome man in England, your loudly publicized domestic rows, and your notorious eccentricities would make an appearance in the role of Guide, Philosopher and Friend a fantastically bad joke. We presume, therefore, that through a reliable agent, you deposited adequate security in a convenient bank with the specimen signature of G. P. Friend as the negotiating instrument. You then set up the legend of your own anonymity and launched yourself in the rôle of oracle. With huge success.”
Lord Pastern did not stir but a film of complacency overspread his face.
“This success,” Alleyn went on, “it must always be remembered, depends entirely upon the preservation of your anonymity. Once let Harmony’s devotees learn that G.P.F. is none other than the notoriously unharmonious peer whose public quarrels have been the punctual refuge of the penny-press during the silly season — once let that be known and G.P.F. is sunk, and Lord Pastern loses a fortune. All right. Everything goes along swimmingly. You do a lot of your journalism at Duke’s Gate, no doubt, but you also make regular visits to this office wearing dark glasses, the rather shabby hat and scarf which are hanging on the wall there, and the old jacket you have on at this moment. You work behind locked doors and Mr. Edward Manx is possibly your only confidant. You enjoy yourself enormously and make a great deal of money. So, perhaps, in his degree, does Mr. Manx.”
Manx said: “I’ve no shares in the paper if that’s what you mean. My articles are paid for at the usual rate.”
“Shut up, Ned,” said his cousin automatically.
“The paper,” Alleyn continued, “is run on eccentric but profitable lines. It explodes bombs. It exposes rackets. It mingles soft-soap and cyanide. In particular it features an extremely efficient and daringly personal attack on the drug racket. It employs experts, it makes accusations, it defies and invites prosecution. Its information is accurate and if it occasionally frustrates its own professed aims by warning criminals before the police are in a position to arrest them, it is far too much inflated with crusader’s zeal and rising sales to worry its head about that.”
“Look here, Alleyn…” Manx began angrily, and simultaneously Lord Pastern shouted: “What the hell do you think you’re getting at!”
“One moment,” Alleyn said. Manx thrust his hands in his pockets and began to move about the room. “Better to hear this out, after all,” he muttered.
“Much better,” Alleyn agreed. “I’ll go on. Everything prospered in the Harmony set-up until you, Lord Pastern, discovered an urge to exploit your talents as a tympanist and allied yourself with Breezy Bellairs and His Boys. Almost immediately there were difficulties. First: your stepdaughter, for whom I think you have a great affection, became attracted by Carlos Rivera, the piano-accordionist in the band. You are an observant man; for a supreme egoist, surprisingly so. At some time of your association with the Boys, I don’t know precisely when, you became aware that Breezy Bellairs was taking drugs and, more important, that Carlos Rivera was supplying them. Through your association with Harmony, you are well up in the methods of drug distribution and you are far too sharp not to realize that the usual pattern was being followed. Bellairs was in a position to act as a minor distributing agent. He was introduced to the drug, acquired a habit for it, was forced to hand it out to clients at the Metronome and as a reward was given as much as Rivera thought was good for him at the usual exorbitant rate.”
Alleyn looked curiously at Lord Pastern, who, at that moment, met his eye and blinked twice.
“It’s an odd situation,” Alleyn said, “isn’t it? Here we have a man of eclectic, violent and short-lived enthusiasms suddenly confronted with a situation where his two reigning passions and his one enduring attachment are brought into violent opposition.”
He turned to Manx, who had stopped still and was looking fixedly at him.
“A situation of great possibilities from your professional point of view, I should imagine,” Alleyn said. “The stepdaughter whom Lord Pastern loves falls for Rivera who is engaged in an infamous trade which Lord Pastern is zealous in fighting. At the same time Rivera’s dupe is the conductor of the band in which Lord Pastern burns to perform. As a final twist in an already tricky situation, Rivera has discovered, perhaps amongst Lord Pastern’s music during a band rehearsal, some rough drafts for G.P.F.’s page, typed on Duke’s Gate letter-paper. He is using them, no doubt, to force on his engagement to Miss de Suze. ‘Either support my suit or — ’ For Rivera, in addition to running a drug racket, is an accomplished blackmailer. How is Lord Pastern to play the drums, break the engagement, preserve his anonymity as G.P.F. and explode the drug racket?”
“You can’t possibly,” Manx said, “have proof of a quarter of this. It’s the most brazen guesswork.”
“A certain amount is guesswork. But we have enough information and hard fact to carry us some way. I think that between you, you are going to fill out the rest.”
Manx laughed shortly. “What a hope!” he said.
“Well,” Alleyn murmured, “let us go on and see. Lord Pastern’s inspiration comes out of a clear sky while he is working on his copy for G.P.F.’s page in Harmony. Among the letters in his basket seeking guidance, philosophy and friendship is one from his stepdaughter.” He stopped short. “I wonder,” he said, “if at some time or other there is also one from his wife? Asking perhaps for advice in her marital problems.”