“He telephoned Gibson and me on an average twice a day.”

“Boring for you,” said the Boomer in his best public school manner.

“He was particularly agitated about the concert in the garden and the blackout. So were we for that matter.”

“He was a fuss-pot,” said the Boomer.

“Well, damn it all, he had some cause, as it turns out.”

The Boomer pursed his generous mouth into a double mulberry and raised his brows. “If you put it like that.”

“After all, he is dead.”

“True,” the Boomer admitted.

Nobody can look quite so eloquently bored as a Negro, The eyes are almost closed, showing a lower rim of white, the mouth droops, the head tilts. The whole man suddenly seems to wilt. The Boomer now exhibited all these signals of ennui and Alleyn, remembering them of old, said: “Never mind. I mustn’t keep you any longer. Could we, do you think, just settle these two points: First, will you receive the Deputy Commissioner when he comes?”

“Of course,” drawled the Boomer without opening his eyes.

“Second. Do you wish the C.I.D. to carry on inside the Embassy or would you prefer us to clear out? The decision is Your Excellency’s, of course, but we would be grateful for a definite ruling.”

The Boomer opened his slightly bloodshot eyes. He looked full at Alleyn. “Stay,” he said.

There was a tap at the door and Gibson, large, pale and apologetic, came in.

“I’m sure I beg your pardon, sir,” he said to the President. “Colonel Sinclaire, the Deputy Commissioner, has arrived and hopes to see you.”

The Boomer, without looking at Gibson, said: “Ask my equerry to bring him in.”

Alleyn walked to the door. He had caught a signal of urgency from his colleague.

“Don’t you go, Rory,” said the Boomer.

“I’m afraid I must,” said Alleyn.

Outside, in the passage, he found Mr. Whipplestone fingering his tie and looking deeply perturbed. Alleyn said: “What’s up?”

“It may not be anything,” Gibson answered. “It’s just that we’ve been talking to the Costard man who was detailed to serve in the tent.”

“Stocky, well set-up, fair-haired?”

“That’s him. Name of Chubb,” said Gibson.

“Alas,” said Mr. Whipplestone.

V

Small Hours

Chubb stood more or less to attention, looking straight before him with his arms at his sides. He cut quite a pleasing figure in Costard et Cie’s discreet livery: midnight blue shell-jacket and trousers with gold endorsements. His faded blond hair was short and well brushed, his fresh West Country complexion and blue eyes deceptively gave him the air of an outdoor man. He still wore his white gloves.

Alleyn had agreed with Mr. Whipplestone that it would be best if the latter were not present at the interview. “Though,” Alleyn said, “there’s no reason at all to suppose that Chubb, any more than my silly old brother George, had anything to do with the event.”

“I know, I know,” Mr. Whipplestone had returned. “Of course. It’s just that, however illogically and stupidly, I would prefer Chubb not to have been on duty in that wretched pavilion. Just as I would prefer him not to have odd-time jobs with Sheridan and those beastly Montforts. And it would be rather odd for me to be there, wouldn’t it? Very foolish of me, no doubt. Let it go at that.”

So Alleyn and an anonymous sergeant had Chubb to themselves in the controller’s office.

Alleyn said: “I want to be quite sure I’ve got this right. You were in and out of the pavilion with champagne which you fetched from an icebox that had been set up outside the pavilion. You did this in conjunction with one of the Embassy servants. He waited on the President and the people immediately surrounding him, didn’t he? I remember that he came to my wife and me soon after we had settled there.”

“Sir,” said Chubb.

“And you looked after the rest of the party.”

“Sir.”

“Yes. Well now, Chubb, we’ve kept you hanging about all this time in the hope that you can give us some help about what happened in the pavilion.”

“Not much chance of that, sir. I never noticed anything, sir.”

“That makes two of us, I’m afraid,” Alleyn said. “It happened like a bolt from the blue, didn’t it? Were you actually in the pavilion? When the lights went out?”

Yes, it appeared. At the back. He had put his tray down on a trestle table in preparation for the near blackout, about which the servants had all been warned. He had remained there through the first item.

“And were you still there when the singer, Karbo, appeared?” Yes, he said. Still there. He had had an uninterrupted view of Karbo, standing in his spotlight with his shadow thrown up behind him on the white screen.

“Did you notice where the guard with the spear was standing?” Yes. At the rear. Behind the President’s chair.

“On your left, would that be?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And your fellow waiter?”

“The nigger?” said Chubb, and after a glance at Alleyn, “Beg pardon, sir. The native.”

“The African, yes.”

“He was somewhere there. At the rear. I never took no notice,” said Chubb stonily.

“You didn’t speak to either of them, at all?”

“No thanks. I wouldn’t think they knew how.”

“You don’t like black people?” Alleyn said lightly.

“No, sir.”

“Well. To come to the moment when the shot was fired. I’m getting as many accounts as possible from the people who were in the pavilion, and I’d like yours too, if you will. You remember that the performer had given out one note, if that’s the way to put it. A long-drawn-out sound. And then — as you recall it — what?”

“The shot, sir.”

“Did you get an impression about where the sound came from?”

“The house, sir.”

“Yes. Well, now, Chubb. Could you just, as best as you are able, tell me your own impressions of what followed the shot. In the pavilion, I mean.”

Nothing clear-cut emerged. People had stood up. A lady had screamed. A gentleman had shouted out not to panic. (“George,” Alleyn thought.)

“Yes. But as far as what you actually saw. From where you were, at the back of the pavilion?”

Hard to say, exactly, Chubb said in his wooden voice. People moving about a bit but not much. Alleyn said that they had appeared, hadn’t they? “Like black silhouettes against the spotlit screen.” Chubb agreed.

“The guard — the man with the spear? He was on your left. Quite close to you. Wasn’t he?”

“At the start, sir, he was. Before the pavilion lights went out.”

“And afterwards?’

There was a considerable pause: “I couldn’t say, exactly, sir. Not straightaway, like.”

“How do you mean?”

Chubb suddenly erupted. “I was grabbed,” he said. “He sprung it on me. Me! From behind. Me!”

“Grabbed? Do you mean by the spearman?”

“Not him. The other black bastard.”

“The waiter?”

“Yes. Sprung it on me. From behind. Me!”

“What did he spring on you? A half-Nelson?”

“Head-lock! I couldn’t speak. And he put in the knee.”

“How did you know it was the waiter?”

“I knew all right. I knew and no error.”

“But how?”

“Bare arm for one thing. And the smell: like salad oil or something. I knew.”

“How long did this last?”

“Long enough,” said Chubb, fingering his neck. “Long enough for his mate to put in the spear, I reckon.”

“Did he hold you until the lights went up?”

“No, sir. Only while it was being done. So I couldn’t see it. The stabbing. I was doubled up. Me!” Chubb reiterated with, if possible, an access of venom. “But I heard. The sound. You can’t miss it. And the fall.”

The sergeant cleared his throat.

Alleyn said: “This is enormously important, Chubb. I’m sure you realize that, don’t you? You’re saying that the Ng’ombwanan waiter attacked and restrained you while the guard speared the Ambassador.”