“He didn’t tell me.”
“ — and if, in addition, you knew Rivera was a drug merchant — ” Alleyn waited for a moment but Manx said nothing— “why then, remembering your expressed loathing of this abominable trade, something very like a motive began to appear.”
“Oh, nonsense,” Manx said lightly. “I don’t go about devising quaint deaths for everyone I happen to think a cad or a bad lot.”
“One never knows. There have been cases. And you could have changed the revolvers.”
“You’ve just told us that he wasn’t killed by the revolver.”
“Nevertheless the substitution was made by his murderer.”
Manx laughed acidly. “I give up,” he said and threw out his hands. “Get on with it.”
“The weapon that killed Rivera couldn’t have been fired from the revolver because at the time Lord Pastern pulled the trigger, Rivera had his piano-accordion across his chest and the piano-accordion is uninjured.”
“I could have told you that,” said Lord Pastern, rallying.
“It was a patently bogus affair, in any case. How, for instance, could Lord Pastern be sure of shooting Rivera with such a footling tool? A stiletto in the end of a bit of stick? If he missed by a fraction of an inch Rivera might not die instantly and might not die at all. No. You have to be sure of getting the right spot and getting it good and proper, with a bare bodkin.”
Manx lit a cigarette with unsteady hands. “Then in that case I can’t for the life of me see — ” he stopped — “whodunit,” he said, “and how.”
“Since it’s obvious Rivera wasn’t hurt when he fell,” Alleyn said, “he was stabbed after he fell.”
“But he wasn’t meant to fall. They’d altered the routine. We’ve had that till we’re sick of the sound of it.”
“It will be our contention that Rivera did not know that the routine had been altered.”
“Bosh!” Lord Pastern shouted so unexpectedly that they all jumped. “He wanted it changed. I didn’t. It was Carlos wanted it.”
“We’ll take that point a bit later,” Alleyn said. “We’re considering how, and when, he was killed. Do you remember the timing of the giant metronome? It was motionless, wasn’t it, right up to the moment when Rivera fell; motionless and pointing straight down at him. As he leant backwards its steel tip was poised rather menacingly, straight at his heart.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Manx said disgustedly. “Are you going to tell us somebody dropped the bolt out of the metronome?”
“No. I’m trying to dismiss the fancy touches, not add to them. Immediately after Rivera fell, the arm of the metronome went into action. Coloured lights winked and popped in and out along its entire surface and that of the surrounding tower frame. It swung to and fro with a rhythmic clack. The whole effect, of course carefully planned, was dazzling and unexpected. One’s attention was drawn away from the prostrate figure and what actually happened during the next ten seconds or so was quite lost on the audience. To distract attention still further from the central figure, a spot light played on the tympani where Lord Pastern could be seen in terrific action. But what seemed to happen during those ten confusing seconds?”
He waited again and then said: “Of course you remember, both of you. A waiter threw Breezy a comic wreath of flowers. He knelt down and, pretending to weep, using his handkerchief, opened Rivera’s coat and felt for his heart. He felt for his heart.”
Lord Pastern said: “You’re wrong, Alleyn, you’re wrong. I searched him. I’ll swear he had nothing on him then and I’ll swear he didn’t get a chance to pick anything up. Where the devil was the weapon? You’re wrong. I searched him.”
“As he intended you to do. Yes. Did you notice his baton while you searched him?”
“I told you, damn it. He held it above his head. Good God!” Lord Pastern added, and again, “Good God!”
“A short black rod. The pointed steel was held in his palm, protected by the cork out of an empty gun-oil bottle in your desk. Fox reminded me this morning of Poe’s story The Purloined Letter. Show a thing boldly to unsuspecting observers and they will think it’s what they expect it to be. Breezy conducted your programme last night with a piece of parasol handle and a stiletto. You saw the steel mounting glinting as usual at the tip of an ebony rod. The stiletto was concealed in his palm. It really was quite like his baton. Probably that gave him the idea when he handled the dismembered parasol in the ballroom. I think you asked him, didn’t you, to put it together.”
“Why the hell,” Lord Pastern demanded, “didn’t you tell us this straight away? Tormentin’ people. It’s a damn’ scandal. I’ll take you up on this, Alleyn, by God I will.”
“Did you,” Alleyn asked mildly, “go out of your way to confide in us? Or did you willfully and dangerously play a silly lone hand? I think I may be forgiven, sir, for giving you a taste of your own tactics. I wish I could believe it had shaken you a bit: but that, I’m afraid, is too much to hope for.” Lord Pastern swore extensively, but Manx said, with a grin: “You know, Cousin George, I rather think we bought it. We’ve hindered the police in the execution of their duty.”
“Serve ’em damn well right.”
“I’m still sceptical,” Manx said. “Where’s your motive? Why should he kill the man who supplied him with his dope?”
“One of the servants at Duke’s Gate overheard a quarrel between Bellairs and Rivera when they were together in the ballroom. Breezy asked Rivera for cigarettes — drugged cigarettes, of course — and Rivera refused to give him any. He intimated that their association was ended and talked about writing to Harmony. Fox will tell you that sort of thing’s quite a common gambit when these people fall out.”
“Oh, yes,” Fox said. “They do it, you know. Rivera would have a cast-iron story ready to protect himself and get in first with the information. We’d pick Breezy up and be no further on. We might suspect Rivera but we wouldn’t get on to anything. Not a thing.”
“Because,” Lord Pastern pointed out, “you’re too thick-headed to get your man when he’s screamin’ for arrest under your great noses. That’s why. Where’s your initiative? Where’s your push and drive? Why can’t you — ” he gestured wildly — “stir things up? Make a dust?”
“Well, my lord,” said Fox placidly, “we can safely leave that kind of thing to papers like Harmony, can’t we?”
Manx muttered: “But to kill him — no, I can’t see it. And to think all that nonsense up in an hour — ”
“He’s a drug addict,” Alleyn said. “He’s been drawing near the end of his tether for some time, I fancy, with Rivera looming up bigger and bigger as his evil genius. It’s a common characteristic for the addict to develop an intense hatred of the purveyor upon whom he is so slavishly dependent. This person becomes a sort of Mephistopheles-symbol for the addict. When the purveyor is also a blackmailer and, for good measure, in a position where he can terrify his victim by threats of withdrawal, you get an excruciating twist to the screw. I fancy the picture of you, Lord Pastern, firing point-blank at Rivera had begun to fascinate Bellairs long before he saw you fit the section into the barrel of the gun. I believe he had already played with the idea of fooling round with the ammunition. You added fuel to his fire.”
“That be damned — ” Lord Pastern began to shout, but Alleyn went on steadily.
“Breezy,” he said, “was in an ugly state. He was frantic for cocaine, nervous about his show, terrified of what Lord Pastern would do. Don’t forget, sir, you, too, had threatened him with exposure. He planned for a right-and-left coup. You were to hang, you know, for the murder. He has always had a passion for practical jokes.”
Manx gave a snort of nervous laughter. Lord Pastern said nothing.
“But,” Alleyn went on, “it was all too technicolour to be credible. His red herrings were more like red whales. The whole set-up has the characteristic unreason and fantastic logic of the addict. A Coleridge creates Kubla Khan but a Breezy Bellairs creates a surrealistic dagger made of a parasol handle and a needlework stiletto. An Edgar Allan Poe writes ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ but a Breezy Bellairs steals a revolver and makes little scratches in the muzzle with the stiletto; he smokes it with a candle-end and puts it in his overcoat pocket. Stung to an intolerable activity by his unsatisfied lust for cocaine he plans grotesquely but with frantic precision. He may crack at any moment, lose interest or break down, but for a crucial period he goes to work like a demon. Everything falls into place. He tells the band, but not Rivera, that the other routine will be followed. Rivera has gone to the end of the restaurant to make his entrance. He persuades Skelton to look at Lord Pastern’s revolver at the last minute. He causes himself to be searched, holding his dagger over his head, trembling with strangled laughter. He conducts. He kills. He finds Rivera’s heart, and with his hands protected by a handkerchief and hidden from the audience by a comic wreath, he digs his stiletto in and grinds it round. He shows distress. He goes to the room where the body lies and shows greater distress. He changes the carefully scarred revolver in his overcoat pocket with the one Lord Pastern fired. He goes into the lavatory and makes loud retching noises while he disposes of Lord Pastern’s unscarred gun. He returns and, being now at the end of his course, frantically searches the body and probably finds the dope he needs so badly. He collapses. That, as we see it, is the case against Breezy Bellairs.”