“You’ll have to hang on a bit longer,” Dr. Curtis said, not unkindly. “Wait a bit. We won’t let it go longer than you can manage. Hang on.”

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.

Alleyn knocked. The rattle stopped short and a chair scraped on boards. Someone walked towards the door and a voice, Edward Manx’s, said: “Hullo? Who is it?”

“Police,” Alleyn said.

In the stillness they looked speculatively at each other. Alleyn poised his knuckles at the door, waited, and said: “May we have a word with you, Mr. Manx?”

After a second’s silence the voice said: “One moment. I’ll come out.”

Alleyn glanced at Fox who moved in beside him. The word Engaged shot out of sight noisily and was replaced by Private G.P.F. A latch clicked and the door opened inwards. Manx stood there with one hand on the jamb and the other on the door. There was a wooden screen behind him.

Fox’s boot moved over the threshold.

“I’ll come out,” Manx repeated.

“On the contrary, we’ll come in, if you please,” Alleyn said.

Without any particular display of force or even brusqueness, but with great efficiency, they went past him and round the screen. He looked for a second at Nigel and seemed not to recognize him. Then he followed them and Nigel unobtrusively followed him.

There was a green-shaded lamp on a desk at which a figure was seated with its back towards them. As Nigel entered, the swivel-chair creaked and spun around. Dingily dressed and wearing a green eye-shade, Lord Pastern faced them with bunched cheeks.

CHAPTER XII

G. P. F

He made a high-pitched snarling noise as they closed round him and reached out his hand towards an inkpot on the desk.

Fox said: “Now, my lord, don’t you do anything you’ll be sorry for,” and moved the inkpot.

Lord Pastern sunk his head with a rapid movement between his shoulders. From behind them, Edward Manx said: “I don’t know why you’ve done this, Alleyn. It’ll get you no further.”

Lord Pastern said: “Shut up, Ned,” and glared at Alleyn. “I’ll have you kicked out of the force,” he said. “Kicked out, by God!” And after a silence: “You don’t get a word from me. Not a syllable.”

Alleyn pulled up a chair and sat down, facing him. “That will suit us very well,” he said. “You are going to listen, and I advise you to do so with as good a grace as you can muster. When you’ve heard what I’ve got to say you may read the statement I’ve brought with me. You can sign it, alter it, dictate another or refuse to do any of these things. But in the meantime, Lord Pastern, you are going to listen.”

Lord Pastern folded his arms tightly across his chest, rested his chin on his tie and screwed up his eyes. Alleyn took a folded typescript from his breast pocket, opened it and crossed his knees.

“This statement was prepared,” he said, “on the assumption that you are the man who calls himself G. P. Friend and writes the articles signed G.P.F. in Harmony. It is a statement of what we believe to be fact and doesn’t concern itself overmuch with motive. I, however, will deal rather more fully with motive. In launching this paper and in writing these articles, you found it necessary to observe complete anonymity. Your reputation as probably the most quarrelsome man in England, your loudly publicized domestic rows, and your notorious eccentricities would make an appearance in the role of Guide, Philosopher and Friend a fantastically bad joke. We presume, therefore, that through a reliable agent, you deposited adequate security in a convenient bank with the specimen signature of G. P. Friend as the negotiating instrument. You then set up the legend of your own anonymity and launched yourself in the rôle of oracle. With huge success.”