A Wreath for Rivera

“I was all bouleversée. I know it was rather awful letting her go, but I think in a way she quite enjoyed it.” He noticed that her upper lip was fuller than the under one and that when she smiled it curved richly. “Darling Lisle,” she said, “doesn’t have much fun and she’s so madly interested always in other people’s little flutters.” She watched Alleyn out of the corners of her eyes and added: “We’re all devoted to her.”

“What do you want to ask me, Miss de Suze?”

“Please may I have the letter back? Please!”

“In due course,” he said. “Certainly.”

“Not now?”

“I’m afraid not now.”

“That’s rather a bore,” said Félicité. “I suppose I’d better come clean in a big way.”

“If it’s relevant to the matter in hand,” Alleyn agreed. “I am only concerned with the death of Mr. Carlos Rivera.”

She leant back against the bannister, stretching her arms along it and looking downwards, arranging herself for him to look at. “I’d suggest we went somewhere where we could sit down,” she said, “but here seems to be the only place where there’s no lurking minor detective.”

“Let it be here, then.”

“You are not,” Félicité said, “making this very easy.”

“I’m sorry. I shall be glad to hear what you have to say but to tell the truth, there’s a heavy day’s work in front of us.”

They stood there, disliking each other. Alleyn thought: “She’s going to be one of the tricky ones. She may have nothing to say; I know the signs but I can’t be sure of them.” And Félicité thought: “I didn’t really notice him last night. If he’d known what Carlos was like he’d have despised me. He’s taller than Ned. I’d like him to be on my side thinking how courageous and young and attractive I am. Younger than Lisle, for instance, with two men in love with me. I wonder what sort of women he likes. I suppose I’m frightened.”

She slid down into a sitting position on the stairs and clasped her hands about her knees; young and a bit boyish, a touch of the gamine.

“It’s about this wretched letter. Well, not wretched at all, really, because it’s from a chap I’m very fond of. You’ve read it, of course.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“My dear, I don’t mind. Only, as you’ve seen, it’s by way of being number one secrecy and I’ll feel a bit low if it all comes popping out, particularly as it’s got utterly no connection with your little game. It just couldn’t be less relevant.”

“Good.”

“But I suppose I’ve got to prove that, haven’t I?”

“It would be an excellent move if you can.”

“Here we go, then,” said Félicité.

Alleyn listened wearily, pinning his attention down to the recital, shutting out the thought of time sliding away and of his wife, who would soon wake and look to see if he was there. Félicité told him that she had corresponded with G.P.F. of Harmony and that his advice had been too marvellously understanding and that she had felt an urge like the kick of a mule to meet him, but that although his replies had grown more and more come-to-ish he had insisted that his identity must remain hidden. “All Cupid-and-Psyche-ish only definitely less rewarding,” she said. And then the letter had arrived and Edward Manx had appeared with a white flower in his coat and suddenly, after never having gone much for old Ned, she had felt astronomically uplifted. Because, after all, it was rather bracing, wasn’t it, to think that all the time Ned was G.P.F. and writing these really gorgeous things and falling for one like a dray-load of bricks? Here Félicité paused and then added rather hurriedly and with an air of hauteur: “You’ll understand that by this time poor Carlos had, from my point of view, become comparatively a dim figure. I mean, to be as bald as an egg about it, he just faded out. I mean it couldn’t have mattered less about Carlos because clearly I wasn’t his cup of tea and we’d both gone tepid on it and I knew he wouldn’t mind. You do see what I mean about that, don’t you?”

“Are you trying to tell me that you and Rivera had parted as friends?”

Félicité shook her head vaguely and raised her eyebrows. “Even that makes it sound too important,” she said. “It all just came peacefully unstuck.”

“And there was no quarrel, for instance when you and he were in the study between a quarter and half-past nine? Or later, between Mr. Manx and Mr. Rivera?”

There was a long pause. Félicité bent forward and jerked at the strap of her shoe. “What in the world,” she said indistinctly, “put these quaint little notions into your head?”

“Are they completely false?”

“I know,” she said loudly and cheerfully. She looked up into his face. “You’ve been gossiping with the servants.” She appealed to Fox. “Hasn’t he?” she demanded playfully.

“I’m sure I couldn’t say, Miss de Suze,” said Fox blandly.

“How you could!” she accused Alleyn. “Which of them was it? Was it Hortense? My poor Mr. Alleyn, you don’t know Hortense. She’s the world’s most accomplished liar! She just can’t help herself, poor thing. It’s pathological.”

“So there was no quarrel?” Alleyn said. “Between any of you?”

“My dear, haven’t I told you!”