Swing, Brother, Swing

by Ngaio Marsh

  ‘All right, Fox,’ Alleyn said wearily, ‘you get along.’

  ‘Very well, sir,’ said Fox. ‘Good-morning, my lord.’ He sidestepped Lord Pastern and went out leaving the door ajar. Alleyn heard him admonishing Sergeant Marks on the landing: ‘What sort of surveillance do you call this?’

  ‘I was only told to keep observation, Mr Fox. His lordship fell asleep as soon as he touched the floor. I thought he might as well be there as anywhere.’

  Fox growled majestically and passed out of hearing.

  Alleyn shut the study door and went to the window. ‘We haven’t finished in this room,’ he said, ‘but I think I may disturb it so far.’

  He drew back the curtains and opened the window. It was now quite light outside. A fresh breeze came in through the window, emphasizing, before it dismissed them, the dense enclosed odours of carpet, leather and stale smoke. The desk lamp still shed a raffish yellowness on the litter that surrounded it. Alleyn turned from the window to face Lord Pastern and found him rummaging with quick inquisitive fingers in the open drawer on the desk.

  ‘I wonder if I can show you what you’re hunting for,’ Alleyn said. He opened Fox’s bag and then took out his note-book. ‘Don’t touch anything please, but will you look in that case?’

  He did look, but impatiently, and, as far as Alleyn could see, without any particular surprise.

  ‘Where’d you find that?’ Lord Pastern demanded, pointing a not very steady finger at the ivory handle.

  ‘In the drawer. Can you identify it?’

  ‘I might be able to,’ he muttered.

  Alleyn pointed to the weapon. ‘The stiletto that’s been sunk in the end with plastic wood might have belonged to this ivory handle. We shall try it. If it fits, it came originally from Lady Pastern’s work-box in the drawing-room.’

  ‘So you say,’ said Lord Pastern insultingly. Alleyn made a note.

  ‘Can you tell me if this stiletto was in your drawer, here, sir? Before last night?’

  Lord Pastern was eyeing the revolver. He thrust out his under lip, shot a glance at Alleyn, and darted his hand towards it.

  ‘All right,’ Alleyn said, ‘you may touch it, but please answer my questions about the stiletto.’

  ‘How should I know?’ he said indifferently. ‘I don’t know.’ Without removing it from the case, he tipped the revolver over and, snatching up his lens, peered at the under side of the butt. He gave a shrill cackle of laughter.

  ‘What did you expect to see?” Alleyn asked, casually.

  ‘Hoity-toity,’ Lord Pastern rejoined. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know!’

  He stared at Alleyn. His bloodshot eyes twinkled insolently. ‘It’s devilish amusin’,’ he said. ‘Look at it whatever way you like, it’s damn’ funny.’

  He dropped into an armchair, and with an air of gloating relish rubbed his hands together.

  Alleyn shut down the lid of Fox’s case and succeeded in snatching back his temper. He stood in front of Lord Pastern and deliberately looked into his eyes. Lord Pastern immediately shut them very tight and bunched his cheeks.

  ‘I’m sleepy,’ he said.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Alleyn said. ‘Have you any idea at all of the personal danger you are in? Do you know the consequences of withholding or refusing crucial information when a capital crime has been committed? It’s my duty to tell you that you are under grave suspicion. You’ve had the formal warning. Confronted with the body of a man whom, one assumes, you were supposed to hold in some sort of regard, you’ve conducted yourself appallingly. I must tell you, sir, that if you continue in this silly affectation of frivolity, I shall ask you to come to Scotland Yard, where you will be questioned and, if necessary, detained.’

  He waited. Lord Pastern’s face had gradually relaxed during this speech. His mouth now pouted and expelled a puff of air that blew his moustache out. He was, apparently, asleep again.

  Alleyn contemplated him for some moments. He then seated himself at the desk in a position that enabled him to keep Lord Pastern in sight. After a moment’s cogitation, he pulled the typewriter towards him, took Félicité’s letter from his pocket, found a sheet of paper and began to make a copy.

  At the first rattle of the keys Lord Pastern’s eyes opened, met Alleyn’s gaze and shut again. He mumbled something indistinguishable and snored with greater emphasis. Alleyn completed his copy and laid it beside the original. They had been typed on the same machine.

  On the floor, beside the chair Carlisle had used on the previous night, lay the magazine, Harmony. He took it up and ruffled the pages. A dozen or more flopped over and then the binding opened a little. He was confronted with GPF’s page and noticed, as Carlisle had noticed, the cigarette ash in the groove. He read the letter signed Toots, turned a few more pages and came upon the antidrug racket article and a dramatic review signed by Edward Manx. He once more confronted that preposterous figure in the armchair.

  ‘Lord Pastern,’ he said loudly, ‘wake up. Wake up.’

  Lord Pastern jerked galvanically, made a tasting noise with his tongue and lips, and uttered a nightmarish sound.

  ‘A-a-ah?’

  ‘Come now, you’re awake. Answer me this,’ said Alleyn, and thrust the copy of Harmony under his nose. ‘How long have you known that Edward Manx was GPF?’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Morning

  LORD PASTERN BLINKED owlishly at the paper, swung round in his chair and eyed the desk. The letter and the copy lay conspicuously beside the typewriter.

  ‘Yes,’ Alleyn said, ‘that’s how I know. Will you give me an explanation of all this?’

  Lord Pastern leant forward and, resting his forearm on his knees, seemed to stare at his clasped hands. When he spoke his voice was subdued and muffled.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ll be damned if I do. I’ll answer no questions. Find out for yourself. I’m for bed.’

  He pulled himself out of the chair and squared his shoulders. The air of truculence was still there but Alleyn thought it overlaid a kind of indecision. With the nearest approach to civility that he had yet exhibited, he added: ‘I’m within my rights, aren’t I?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Alleyn said at once. ‘Your refusal will be noted. That’s all. If you change your mind about sending for your solicitor, we shall be glad to call him in. In the meantime, I’m afraid, sir, I shall have to place you under very close observation.’

  ‘D’you mean some damn’ bobby’s goin’ to follow me about like a hulkin’ great poodle?’

  ‘If you care to put it that way. It’s no use, I imagine, for me to repeat any warnings about your own most equivocal position?’

  ‘None whatever.’ He went to the door and stood with his back to Alleyn, holding the knob and leaning heavily on it.

  ‘Get them to give you breakfast,’ he said without looking round, and went slowly out and up the stairs. Alleyn called his thanks after him and nodded to Marks who was on the landing. Marks followed Lord Pastern upstairs.

  Alleyn returned to the study, shut the window, had a last look round, packed Fox’s bag, removed it to the landing and finally locked and sealed the door. Marks had been replaced on the landing by another plain-clothes man. ‘Hallo, Jimson,’ Alleyn said. ‘Just come on?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Relieving.’

  ‘Have you seen any of the staff?’

  ‘A maid came upstairs just now, Mr Alleyn. Mr Fox left instructions they were to be kept off this floor so I sent her down again. She seemed very much put about.’

  ‘She would,’ Alleyn said. ‘All right. Tactful as you can, you know, but don’t miss anything.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  He crossed the landing and entered the ballroom where he found Thompson and Bailey packing up. Alleyn looked at the group of chairs round the grand piano and at a sheet of notepaper Bailey had collected. On it was pencilled the band programme for the previous night. Bailey pointed out the light coating of dust on the piano top and showed Alleyn where they had found clear t
races of the revolver and the parasol and umbrellas. It was odd, Bailey and Thompson thought, but it appeared that quantities of dust had fallen after these objects had rested in this place. Not so very odd, Alleyn suggested, as Lord Pastern had, on his own statement, fired off a blank round in the ballroom and that would probably have brought down quite a lot of dust from the charming but ornately moulded ceiling. ‘Happy hunting ground,’ he muttered. ‘Whose are the prints round these traces of the parasol section and knob? Don’t tell me,’ he added wearily. ‘His lordship’s?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Thompson and Bailey said together. ‘His lordship’s and Breezy’s.’ Alleyn saw them go and then came out and sealed the ballroom doors.

  He returned to the drawing-room, collected Lady Pastern’s work-box, debated with himself about locking this room up too and decided against it. He then left all his gear under the eye of the officer on the landing and went down to the ground floor. It was now six o’clock.

  The dining-room was already prepared for breakfast. The bowl of white carnations, he noticed, had been removed to a side-table. As he halted before a portrait of some former Settinjer who bore a mild resemblance to Lord Pastern, he heard a distant mingling of voices beyond the service door. The servants, he thought, having their first snack. He pushed open the door, found himself in a servery with a further door which led, it appeared, into the servants’ hall. The best of all early morning smells, that of freshly brewed coffee, was clearly discernible. He was about to go forward when a voice, loud, dogged and perceptibly anxious, said very slowly:

  ‘Parlez, monsieur, je vous en prie, plus lentement, et peut être je vous er er—comprendari—No, blast it, as you were, je vous pouverai—’

  Alleyn pushed open the door and discovered Mr Fox seated cosily before a steaming cup of coffee, flanked by Spence and a bevy of attentive ladies and vis-à-vis with a dark imposing personage in full chef’s regalia.

  There was only a fractional pause while Alleyn surveyed this tableau. Fox then rose.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like a cup of coffee, Mr Alleyn,’ he suggested, and addressing the chef, added carefully: ‘C’est Monsieur—er—le chef—Inspecteur Alleyn, monsieur. Mr Alleyn, this is Miss Parker, the housekeeper, and Mademoiselle Hortense. And these girls are Mary and Myrtle. This is Mr Spence and this is Monsieur Dupont and the young chap over there is William. Well!’ concluded Fox, beaming upon the company, ‘this is what I call cosy.’

  Alleyn took the chair placed for him by William and stared fixedly at his subordinate. Fox responded with a bland smile. ‘I was just leaving, sir,’ he said, ‘when I happened to run into Mr Spence. I knew you’d want to inform these good people of our little contretemps so here, in point of fact, I am.’

  ‘Fancy,’ said Alleyn.

  Fox’s technique on the working side of the green baize doors was legendary at the Yard. This was the first time Alleyn had witnessed it in action. But even now, he realized, the fine bloom of the exotic was rubbed off and it was his own entrance which had destroyed it. The atmosphere of conviviality had stiffened. Spence had risen, the maids hovered uneasily on the edges of their chairs. He did his best and it was a good best, but evidently Fox, who was an innocent snob, had been bragging about him and they all called him ‘sir’.

  ‘Well,’ he said cheerfully, ‘if Mr Fox has been on this job there’ll be no need for me to bother any of you. This is the best coffee I’ve drunk for years.’

  ‘I am gratified,’ said M Dupont in fluent English. ‘At present, of course, one cannot obtain the fresh beans as readily as one desires.’

  Mademoiselle Hortense said: ‘Naturally,’ and the others made small affirmative noises.

  ‘I suppose,’ Fox said genially, ‘his lordship’s very particular about his coffee. Particular about everything, I dare say?’ he added, invitingly.

  William, the footman, laughed sardonically and was checked by a glance from Spence. Fox prattled on. It would be her ladyship, of course, who was particular about coffee. Being of Mlle Hortense’s and M Dupont’s delightful nationality. He attempted this compliment in French, got bogged down, and told Alleyn that M Dupont had been giving him a lesson. Mr Alleyn, he informed the company, spoke French like a native. Looking up, Alleyn found Spence gazing at him with an expression of anxiety.

  ‘I’m afraid this is a great nuisance for all of you,’ Alleyn said.

  ‘It’s not that, sir,’ Spence rejoined slowly, ‘it does put us all about very much, I can’t deny. Not being able to get things done in the usual way—’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Miss Parker intervened, ‘I don’t know what her ladyship’s going to say about the first floor. Leaving everything. It’s very awkward.’

  ‘Exactly. But the worrying thing,’ Spence went on, ‘is not knowing what it’s all about. Having the police in, sir, and everything. Just because the party from this house happens to be present when this Mr Rivera passes away in a restaurant.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Miss Parker.

  ‘The circumstances,’ Alleyn said carefully, ‘are extraordinary. I don’t know if Inspector Fox has told you—’ Fox said that he had been anxious not to distress the ladies. Alleyn thought that the ladies looked as if they were half dead with curiosity, agreed that Fox had shown great delicacy but added that it would have to come out sometime.

  ‘Mr Rivera,’ he said, ‘was killed.’

  They stirred attentively. Myrtle, the younger of the maids, ejaculated ‘Murdered?’ clapped her hand over her mouth and suppressed a nervous giggle. Alleyn said it looked very much like it and added that he hoped they would all co-operate as far as they were able in helping to clear the ground. He had known, before he met it, what their response would be. People were all very much alike when it came to homicide cases. They wanted to be removed to a comfortable distance where curiosity could be assuaged, prestige maintained, and personal responsibility dissolved. With working people this wish was deepened by a heritage of insecurity and the necessity to maintain caste. They were filled with a kind of generic anxiety: at once disturbed by an indefinite threat and stimulated by a crude and potent assault on their imagination.

  ‘It’s a matter,’ he said, ‘of clearing innocent people, of tidying them up. I’m sure you would be glad to help us in this, if you can.’

  He produced Lord Pastern’s time-table, spread it out before Spence, and told them who had compiled it.

  ‘If you can help us check these times, any of you, we shall be very grateful,’ he said.

  Spence put on his spectacles and with an air of slight embarrassment began to read the time-table. The others, at Alleyn’s suggestion, collected round him, not altogether unwillingly.

  ‘It’s a bit elaborate, isn’t it?’ Alleyn said. ‘Let’s see if it can be simplified at all. You see that between half-past eight and nine the ladies left the dining-room and went to the drawing-room. So we get the two groups in the two rooms. Can any of you add to or confirm that?’

  Spence could. It was a quarter to nine when the ladies went to the drawing-room. When he came away from serving their coffee he passed Lord Pastern and Mr Bellairs on the landing. They went into his lordship’s study. Spence continued on through the dining-room, paused there to see that William had served coffee to the gentlemen and noticed that Mr Manx and Mr Rivera were still sitting over their wine. He then went into the servants’ hall, where a few minutes later he heard the nine o’clock news on the wireless.

  ‘So now,’ Alleyn said, ‘we have three groups. The ladies in the drawing-room, his lordship and Mr Bellairs in the study, and Mr Manx and Mr Rivera in the dining-room. Can anyone tell us when the next move came and who made it?’

  Spence remembered coming back into the dining-room and finding Mr Manx there alone. His reticence at this point became more marked, but Alleyn got from him the news that Edward Manx had helped himself to a stiff whisky. He asked casually if there was anything about his manner which was at all remarkable, and got the surprising answer that Mr Edward seemed t
o be very pleased and said he’d had a wonderful surprise.

  ‘And now,’ Alleyn said, ‘Mr Rivera has broken away from the other groups. Where has he gone? Mr Manx is in the dining-room, his lordship and Mr Bellairs in the study, the ladies in the drawing-room, and where is Mr Rivera?’

  He looked round the group of faces with their guarded unwilling expressions until he saw William, and in William’s eye he caught a zealous glint. William, he thought, with any luck read detective magazines and spent his day-dreams sleuthing.

  ‘Got an idea?’ he asked.

  ‘Well sir,’ William said, glancing at Spence, ‘if you’ll excuse me, I think his lordship and Mr Bellairs have parted company where you’ve got to. I was tidying the hall, sir, and I heard the other gentleman, Mr Bellairs, come out of the study. I glanced up at the landing, like. And I heard his lordship call out he’d join him in a minute and I saw the gentleman go into the ballroom. I went and got the coffee-tray from the drawing-room, sir. The ladies were all there. I put it down on the landing and was going to set the study to rights, when I heard the typewriter in there. His lordship doesn’t like being disturbed when he’s typing, sir, so I took the tray by the staff stairs to the kitchen and after a few minutes came back. And his lordship must have gone into the ballroom while I was downstairs because I could hear him talking very loudly to Mr Bellairs, sir.’

  ‘What about, do you remember?’

  William glanced again at Spence and said: ‘Well, sir, it was something about his lordship telling somebody something if Mr Bellairs didn’t want to. And then there was a terrible loud noise. Drums. A report like a gun. They all heard it down here in the hall, sir.’

  Alleyn looked at the listening staff. Miss Parker said coldly that his lordship was no doubt practising, as if Lord Pastern was in the habit of loosing off firearms indoors and there was nothing at all remarkable in the circumstances. Alleyn felt that both she and Spence were on the edge of giving William a piece of their minds and he hurried on.