“I’ve taken it off Bellairs. It’s in my pocket.” Fox put his glove on, produced the revolver and laid it on the table. “No known make,” he said.

“Probably been used for target-shooting,” Alleyn muttered. He laid the dart beside it. “It’d fit, Fox. Look. Had you noticed?”

“We haven’t got very far.”

“Of course not.”

“I don’t know quite what line to take about all the folk in there.” Fox jerked his head in the direction of the restaurant.

“Better get names and addresses. The waiters can do it. They’ll know a lot of them already. They can say it’s a new police procedure on extension nights. It’s our good fortune, Br’er Fox, that the public will believe any foolishness if they are told we are the authors of it. The Pastern party had better be held.”

“I’ll fix it,” Fox said. He went out, revealing for a moment the assembly in the outer office “… hang about kickin’ my heels all night…” Lord Pastern’s voice protested and was shut off abruptly.

Alleyn knelt by the body and began to search it. The coat was turned back and the breast pocket had been pulled out. Four letters and a gold cigarette case had slipped down between the body and the coat. The case was half-filled and bore an inscription: “From Félicité.” He searched the other pockets. A jade holder. Two handkerchiefs. A wallet with three pound-notes. He laid these objects out in a row and turned to the piano-accordion. It was a large, heavily ornamental affair. He remembered how it had glittered as Rivera swung it across his chest in that last cacophony before he fell. As Alleyn lifted it, it raised a metallic wail. He put it down hastily on the table and returned to his contemplation of the body. Fox came back. “That’s all fixed up,” he said.

“Good.”

Alleyn stood up. “He was a startling fellow to look at,” he said, “One felt one had seen him in innumerable Hollywood band features, ogling the camera man against an exotic background. We might cover him up, don’t you think? The management can produce a clean tablecloth.”

“The mortuary man will be outside now, Mr. Alleyn,” said Fox. He glanced down at the little collection on the floor. “Much obliged, sir,” he said. “Anything useful?”

“The letters are written in Spanish. Postmark. He’ll have to be dusted, of course.”

“I rang the Yard, Mr. Alleyn. The A.S.M.‘s compliments and he’ll be glad if you’ll take over.”

“That’s a thumping great lie,” said Alleyn mildly. “He’s in Godal-ming.”

“He’s come back, sir, and happened to be in the office. Quite a coincidence.”

“You go to hell, Fox. Damn it, I’m out with my wife.”

“I sent a message in to Mrs. Alleyn. The waiter brought back a note.”

Alleyn opened the folded paper and disclosed a lively drawing of a lady asleep in bed. Above her, encircled by a balloon, Alleyn and Fox crawled on all fours inspecting, through a huge lens, a nest from which protruded the head of a foal, broadly winking.

“A very stupid woman, I’m afraid, poor thing,” Alleyn muttered, grinning, and showed it to Fox. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll take another look at the revolver and then get down to statements.”

CHAPTER VI

DOPE

Above the door leading from the foyer of the Metronome to the office was a clock with chromium hands and figures. As the night wore on, the attention of those persons who were congregated there became increasingly drawn to this clock, so that when at one in the morning the long hand jumped to the hour, everyone observed it. A faint sigh, and a dreary restlessness, stirred them momentarily.

The members of the band who were assembled at the end of the foyer sat in dejected attitudes on gilded chairs that had been brought in from the restaurant. Syd Skelton’s hands dangled between his knees, tapping each other flaccidly. Happy Hart was stretched back with his legs extended. The light found out patches on his trousers worn shiny by the pressure of his thighs against the under-surface of his piano. The four saxophonists sat with their heads together, but they had not spoken for some time and inertia, not interest, held them in these postures of intimacy. The double-bass, a thin man, rested his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands. Breezy Bellairs, in the centre of his Boys, fidgeted, yawned, wiped his hands over his face and bit feverishly at his nails. Near the band stood four waiters and the spot-light operator, whose interrogation had just ended, quite fruitlessly.

At the opposite end of the foyer, in a muster of easier chairs, sat Lady Pastern and her guests. Alone of the whole assembly, she held an upright posture. The muscles of her face sagged a little; its lines were clogged with powder and there were greyish marks under her eyes, but her wrists and ankles were crossed composedly, her hair was rigidly in order. On her right and left the two girls drooped in their chairs. Félicité, chain-smoking, gave her attention fitfully to the matter in hand and often took a glass from her bag and looked resentfully at herself, repainting her lips with irritable gestures.

Carlisle, absorbed as usual with detail, watched the mannerisms of her companions through an increasing haze of sleepiness and was only half aware of what they said. Ned Manx listened sharply as if he tried to memorize all that he heard. Lord Pastern was never still. He would throw himself into a chair with an air of abandon and in a moment spring from it and walk aimlessly about the room. He looked with distaste at the speaker of the moment. He grimaced and interjected. At one side, removed from the two main groups, stood Caesar Bonn and the secretary, David Hahn. These two were watchful and pallid. Out of sight, in the main office, Dr. Curtis, having seen to the removal of Rivera’s body, jotted down notes for his report.

In the centre of the foyer, Inspector Fox sat at a small table with his notebook open before him and his spectacles on his nose. His feet rested side by side on the carpet and his large knees were pressed together. He contemplated his notes with raised eyebrows.

Behind Fox stood Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn, and to him the attention of the company, in some cases fitfully, in others constantly, was drawn. He had been speaking for about a minute. Carlisle, though she tried to listen to the sense of his words, caught herself thinking how deep his voice was and how free from mannerisms his habit of speech. “A pleasant chap,” she thought, and knew by the small affirmative noise Ned Manx made when Alleyn paused that he agreed with her.

“… so you see,” Alleyn was saying now, “that a certain amount of ground must be covered here and that we must ask you to stay until it has been covered. That can’t be helped.”

“Damned if I see…” Lord Pastern began and fetched up short “What’s your name?” he said. Alleyn told him. “I thought so,” said Lord Pastern with an air of having found him out in something. “Point is: are you suggestin’ I dug a dart in the chap or aren’t you? Come on.”

“It doesn’t, at the moment, seem to be a question, as far as you are concerned, sir, of digging.”

“Well, shootin’ then. Don’t split straws.”

“One may as well,” Alleyn said mildly, “be accurate.”

He turned aside to Fox’s case, which lay on a table. From it he took an open box containing the weapon that had killed Rivera. He held the box up, tilting it towards them.

“Will you look at this?” They looked at it “Do any of you recognize it? Lady Pastern?”

She had made an inarticulate sound, but now she said indifferently: “It looks like part of a parasol handle.”

“A black and white parasol?” Alleyn suggested and one of the saxophonists looked up quickly.

“Possibly,” said Lady Pastern. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t be an ass, C,” said her husband. “Obviously it’s off that French thing of yours. We borrowed it.”