A Wreath for Rivera

“He’s had a pretty solid shot,” Dr. Curtis said. “I don’t know what he’d been up to before but it seems to have packed him up a bit. But he’s all right. He can answer questions, can’t you, Bellairs?”

“I’m fine,” Breezy rejoined dreamily. “Box of birds.”

“Well…” Alleyn said dubiously. Fox added in a sepulchral undertone: “Faute de mieux.” “Exactly,” Alleyn said and, drawing up a chair, placed himself in front of Breezy.

“I’d like you to tell me something,” he said. Breezy lazily withdrew his gaze from the opposite wall and Alleyn found himself staring into eyes that, because of the enormous size of their pupils, seemed mere structures and devoid of intelligence.

“Do you remember,” he said, “what you did at Lord Pastern’s house?”

He had to wait a long time for an answer. At last Breezy’s voice, detached and remote, said: “Don’t let’s talk. It’s nicer not talking.”

“Talking’s nice too, though.”

Dr. Curtis walked away from Breezy and murmured to no one in particular, “Get him started and he may go on.”

“It must have been fun at the dinner party,” Alleyn suggested. “Did Carlos enjoy himself?”

Breezy’s arm lay curved along the desk. With a luxurious sigh, he slumped further into the chair and rested his cheek on his sleeve. In a moment or two his voice began again, independently, it seemed, with no conscious volition on his part. It trailed through his scarcely moving lips in a monotone.

“I told him it was silly but that made no difference at all. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘you’re crazy!’ Well, of course I was sore on account of he held back on me, not bringing me my cigarettes.”

“What cigarettes?”

“He never did anything I asked him. I was so good to him. I was as good as gold. I told him. I said, ‘Look,’ I said, ‘she won’t take it from you, boy. She’s as sore as hell,’ I said, ‘and so’s he, and the other girl isn’t falling so what’s the point?’ I knew there’d be trouble. ‘And the old bastard doesn’t like it,’ I said. ‘He pretends it doesn’t mean a thing to him but that’s all hooey because he just naturally wouldn’t like it.’ No good. No notice taken.”

“When was this?” Alleyn asked.

“Off and on. Most of the time you might say. And when we were in the taxi and he said how the guy had hit him, I said: ‘There you are, what was I telling you?’ ”

“Who hit him?”

There was a longer pause. Breezy turned his head languidly.

“Who hit Carlos, Breezy?”

“I heard you the first time. What a gang, though! The Honourable Edward Manx in serious mood while lunching at the Tarmac with Miss Félicité de Suze who is of course connected with him on the distaff side. Her stepfather is Lord Pastern and Bagott, but if you ask me it’s a punctured romance. Cherchez la femme.”

Fox glanced up from his notes with an air of bland interest.

“The woman in this case,” Alleyn said, “being…”

“Funny name for a girl.”

“Carlisle?”

“Sounds dopey to me, but what of that? But that’s the sort of thing they do. Imagine having two names. Pastern and Bagott. And I can look after both of them, don’t you worry. Trying to swing one across me. What a chance! Bawling me out. Saying he’ll write to this bloody paper. Him and his hot-gunning and where is he now?”

“Swing one across you?” Alleyn repeated quietly. He had pitched his voice on Breezy’s level. Their voices ran into and away from each other. They seemed to the two onlookers to speak as persons in a dream, with tranquillity and secret understanding.

“He might have known,” Breezy was saying, “that I wouldn’t come at it but you’ve got to admit it was awkward. A permanent engagement. Thanks a lot. How does the chorus go?”

He laughed faintly, yawned, whispered, “Pardon me,” and closed his eyes.

“He’s going,” Dr. Curtis said.

“Breezy,” Alleyn said loudly. “Breezy.”

“What?”

“Did Lord Pastern want you to keep him on permanently?”

“I told you. Him and his blankety-blankety blank cartridges.”

“Did he want you to sack Skelton?”

“It was all Carlos’s fault,” Breezy said quite loudly and on a plaintive note. “He thought it up. God, was he angry!”

“Was who angry?”

With a suggestion of cunning the voice murmured: “That’s telling.”

“Was it Lord Pastern?”

“Him? Don’t make me laugh!”

“Syd Skelton?”

“When I told him,” Breezy whispered faintly, “he looked like murder. Honest, I was nervy.”

He rolled his face over on his arm and fell into a profound sleep. “He won’t come out of that for eight hours,” said Dr. Curtis.