A Wreath for Rivera

Suddenly and inanely Breezy yawned, a face-splitting yawn that bared his gums and showed his coated tongue. He rubbed his arms and neck. “I keep feeling as if there’s something under my skin. Worms or something,” he said fretfully.

“About the weapon,” Fox began. Breezy leant forward, his hands on his knees, aping Fox. “About the weapon?” he mimicked savagely. “You mind your business about the weapon. Coming here tormenting a chap. Whose gun was it? Whose bloody sunshade was it? Whose bloody stepdaughter was it? Whose bloody business is it? Get out!” He threw himself back in the chair, panting. “Get out. I’m within my rights. Get out.”

“Why not?” Fox agreed. “We’ll leave you to yourself. Unless Mr. Alleyn…?”

“No,” Alleyn said.

Dr. Curtis turned at the door. “Who’s your doctor, Breezy?” he asked.

“I haven’t got a doctor,” Breezy whispered. “Nothing ever used to be wrong with me. Not a thing.”

“We’ll find someone to look after you.”

“Can’t you? Can’t you look after me, Doc?”

“Well,” Dr. Curtis said. “I might.”

“Come on,” said Alleyn and they went out.

One end of Materfamilias Lane had suffered a bomb and virtually disappeared but the other stood intact, a narrow City street with ancient buildings, a watery smell, dark entries and impenitent charm.

The Harmony offices were in a tall building at a corner where Materfamilias Lane dived downhill and a cul-de-sac called Journeyman’s Steps led off to the right. Both were deserted on this Sunday afternoon. Alleyn’s and Fox’s feet rang loudly on the pavement as they walked down Materfamilias Lane. Before they reached the corner they came upon Nigel Bathgate standing in the arched entry to a brewer’s yard.

“In me,” Nigel said, “you see the detective’s ready-reckoner and pocket guide to the City.”

“I hope you’re right. What have you got for us?”

“His room’s on the ground floor with the window on this street. The nearest entrance is round the corner. If he’s there the door to his office’ll be latched on the inside with an ‘Engaged’ notice displayed. He locks himself in.”

“He’s there,” Alleyn said.

“How d’you know?”

“He’s been tailed. Our man rang through from a call box and he should be back on the job by now.”

“Up the side street if he’s got the gumption,” Fox muttered. “Look out, sir!”

“Softly does it,” Alleyn murmured.

Nigel found himself neatly removed to the far end of the archway, engulfed in Fox’s embrace and withdrawn into a recess. Alleyn seemed to arrive there at the same time.

“ ‘You cry mum and I’ll cry budget’!” Alleyn whispered. Someone was walking briskly down Materfamilias Lane. The approaching footsteps echoed in the archway as Edward Manx went by in the sunlight.

They leant motionless against the dark stone and clearly heard the bang of a door.

“Your sleuth-hound,” Nigel pointed out with some relish, “would appear to be at fault. Whom, do you suppose, he’s been shadowing? Obviously, not Manx.”

“Obviously,” Alleyn said, and Fox mumbled obscurely.

“Why are we waiting?” Nigel asked fretfully.

“Give him five minutes,” Alleyn said. “Let him settle down.”

“Am I coming in with you?”

“Do you want to?”

“Certainly. One merely,” Nigel said, “rather wishes that one hadn’t met him before.”

“May be a bit of trouble, you know,” Fox speculated.

“Extremely probable,” Alleyn agreed.

A bevy of sparrows flustered and squabbled out in the sunny street, an eddy of dust rose inconsequently and somewhere, out of sight, halliards rattled against an untenanted flagpole.

“Dull,” Fox said, “doing your beat in the City of a Sunday afternoon. I had six months of it as a young chap. Catch yourself wondering why the blazes you were there and so on.”

“Hideous,” Alleyn said.

“I used to carry my Police Code and Procedure on me and try to memorize six pages a day. I was,” Fox said simply, “an ambitious young chap in those days.”

Nigel glanced at his watch and lit a cigarette.

The minutes dragged by. A clock struck three and was followed by an untidy conclave of other clocks, overlapping each other. Alleyn walked to the end of the archway and looked up and down Materfamilias Lane.

“We may as well get under way,” he said. He glanced again up the street and made a sign with his hand. Fox and Nigel followed him. A man in a dark suit came down the foot-path. Alleyn spoke to him briefly and then led the way to the corner. The man remained in the archway.

They walked quickly by the window, which was uncurtained and had the legend Harmony painted across it, and turned into the cul-de-sac. There was a side door with a brass plate beside it. Alleyn turned the handle and the door opened. Fox and Nigel followed him into a dingy passage which evidently led back into a main corridor. On their right, scarcely discernible in the sudden twilight, was a door. The word Engaged, painted in white, showed clearly. From beyond it they heard the rattle of a typewriter.