Breezy, it appeared, lived in a furnished flat in Pikestaff Row, off Ebury Street. To this address Scott and Watson had conveyed him, and with some difficulty put him to bed. Once there, he had slept stertorously through the rest of the night. They had combed out the flat, which, unlike Rivera’s, was slovenly and disordered. It looked, they said, as if Breezy had had a frantic search for something. The pockets of his suits had been pulled out, the drawers of his furniture disembowelled and the contents left where they lay. The only thing in the flat that was at all orderly was Breezy’s pile of band parts. Scott and Watson had sorted out a bundle of correspondence consisting of bills, dunning reminders, and his fan mail, which turned out to be largish. At the back of a small bedside cupboard they had found a hypodermic syringe which they produced and a number of torn and empty packages which were of the same sort as those found in Rivera’s safe. “Almost too easy,” said Mr. Fox with the liveliest satisfaction. “We knew it already, of course, through Skelton, but here’s positive proof Rivera supplied Bellairs with his dope. By Gum,” he added deeply, “I’d like to get this line on the dope-racket followed in to one of the high-ups. Now, I wonder. Breezy’ll be looking for his stuff and won’t know where to find it. He’ll be very upset. I ask myself if Breezy won’t be in the mood to talk.”

“You’d better remind yourself of your police code, old boy.”

“It’ll be the same story,” Fox muttered. “Breezy won’t know how Rivera got it. He won’t know.”

“He hasn’t been long on the injection method,” Alleyn said. “Curtis had a look for needle marks and didn’t find so very many.”

“He’ll be fretting for it, though,” said Fox, and after a moment’s pondering, “Oh, well. It’s a homicide we’re after.”

Nothing more of interest had been found in Breezy’s flat and Alleyn turned to the last of the men. “How did you get on with Skelton, Sallis?”

“Well, sir,” said Sallis, in a loud public-school voice, “he didn’t like me much to begin with. I picked up a search-warrant on the way and he took a very poor view of that. However, we talked sociology for the rest of the journey and I offered to lend him The Yogi and the Commissar, which bent the barriers a little. He’s Australian by birth, and I’ve been out there so that helped to establish a more matey attitude.”

“Get on with your report now,” Fox said austerely. “Don’t meander. Mr. Alleyn isn’t concerned to know how much Syd Skelton loves you.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Use your notes and get on with it,” Fox counselled.

Sallis opened his notebook and got on with it. Beyond a quantity of communistic literature there was little out of the ordinary to be found in Skelton’s rooms, which were in the Pimlico Road. Alleyn gathered that Sallis had conducted his search during a lively exchange of ideas and could imagine Skelton’s guarded response to Sallis’s pinkish, facile and consciously ironical observations. Finally, Skelton, in spite of himself, had gone to sleep in his chair and Sallis then turned his attention stealthily to a table which was used as a desk.

“I’d noticed that he seemed rather uneasy about this table, sir. He stood by it when we first came in and shuffled the papers about. I had the feeling there was something there that he wanted to destroy. When he was safely off, I went through the stuff on the table and I found this. I don’t know if it’s much cop, really, sir, but here it is.”

He gave a sheet of paper to Alleyn, who opened it up. It was an unfinished letter to Rivera, threatening him with exposure if he continued to supply Breezy Bellairs with drugs.

The other men had gone and Alleyn invited Fox to embark upon what he was in the habit of calling “a hag.” This involved the ruthless taking-to-pieces of the case and a fresh attempt to put the bits together in their true pattern. They had been engaged upon this business for about half an hour when the telephone rang. Fox answered it and announced with a tolerant smile that Mr. Nigel Bathgate would like to speak to Mr. Alleyn.

“I was expecting this,” Alleyn said. “Tell him that for once in a blue moon I want to see him. Where is he?”

“Down below.”

“Hail him up.”

Fox said sedately: “The Chief would like to see you, Mr. Bathgate,” and in a few moments Nigel Bathgate of the Evening Chronicle appeared, looking mildly astonished.

“I must say,” he said, shaking hands, “that this is uncommonly civil óf you, Alleyn. Have you run out of invectives or do you at last realize where the brains lie?”

“If you think I asked you up with the idea of feeding you with banner headlines you’re woefully mistaken. Sit down.”

“Willingly. How are you, Mr. Fox?”

“Nicely, thank you, sir. And you?”

Alleyn said: “Now, you attend to me. Can you tell me anything about a monthly called Harmony?”

“What sort of things? Have you been confiding in G.P.F., Alleyn?”

“I want to know who he is.”

“Has this got anything to do with the Rivera case?”

“Yes, it has.”

“I’ll make a bargain with you. I want a nice meaty bit of stuff straight from the Yard’s mouth. All about old Pastern and how you happened to be there and the shattered romance…”

“Who’ve you been talking to?”

“Charwomen, night porters, chaps in the band. And I ran into Ned Manx, a quarter of an hour ago.”

“What had he got to say for himself?”

“He hung out on me, blast him. Wouldn’t utter. And he’s not on a daily, either. Unco-operative twerp.”

“You might remember he’s the chief suspect’s cousin.”

“Then there’s no doubt about it being old Pastern?”

“I didn’t say so and you won’t suggest it.”

“Well, hell, give me a story.”

“About this paper. Do you know G.P.F.? Come on?”

Nigel lit a cigarette and settled down. “I don’t know him,” he said. “And I don’t know anyone who does. He’s a chap called G. P. Friend, I’m told, and he’s supposed to own the show. If he does, he’s on to a damn useful thing. It’s a mystery, that paper. It breaks all the rules and rings the bell. It first came out about two years ago with a great fanfare of trumpets. They bought out the old Triple Mirror, you know, and took over the plant and the paper and in less than no time trebled the sales. God knows why. The thing’s a freak. It mixes sound criticism with girly-girly chat and runs top-price serials alongside shorts that would bring a blush to the cheeks of Pegs Weekly. They tell me it’s G.P.F.’s page that does the trick. And look at it! That particular racket blew out before the war and yet he gets by with it. I’m told the personal letters at five bob a time are a gold mine in themselves. He’s said to have an uncanny knack of hitting on the things all these women want him to say. The types that write in are amazing. All the smarties. Nobody ever sees him. He doesn’t get about with the boys and the chaps who free-lance for the rag never get past a sub who’s always very bland and entirely uncommunicative. There you are. That’s all I can tell you about G.P.F.”

“Ever heard what he looks like?”

“No. There’s a legend he wears old clothes and dark glasses. They say he’s got a lock on his office door and never sees anybody on account he doesn’t want to be recognized. It’s all part of an act. Publicity. They play it up in the paper itself — ‘Nobody knows who G.P.F. is.’ ”

“What would you think if I told you he was Edward Manx?”

“Manx! You’re not serious.”

“Is it so incredible?”

Nigel raised his eyebrows. “On the face of it, yes. Manx is a reputable and very able specialist. He’s done some pretty solid stuff. Leftish and fairly authoritative. He’s a coming man. He’d turn sick in his stomach at the sight of G.P.F., I’d have thought.”

“He does their dramatic reviews.”

“Yes, I know, but that’s where they’re freakish. Manx has got a sort of damn-your-eyes view about theatre. It’s one of his things. He wants state ownership and he’ll scoop up any chance to plug it. And I imagine their anti-vice parties wouldn’t be unpleasing to Manx. He wouldn’t go much for the style, which is tough and coloured, but he’d like the policy. They gave battle in a big way, you know. Names all over the place and a general invitation to come on and sue us for libel and see how you like it. Quite his cup of tea. Yes, I imagine Harmony runs Manx to give the paper cachet and Manx writes for Harmony to get at their public. They pay. Top prices.” Nigel paused and then said sharply: “But Manx as G.P.F.! That’s different. Have you actually good reason to suspect it? Are you on to something?”