A Wreath for Rivera

“Good night, Miss Wayne.”

They went out, followed by the plain-clothes man.

“I should like to have a word with you, Mr. Skelton,” Alleyn said. “The rest of you” — he turned to the Boys, the waiters and the spotlight man — “may go. You will be given notice of the inquest. Sorry to have kept you up so late. Good night.”

The waiters and the electrician went at once. The band moved forward in a group. Happy Hart said: “What about Breezy?”

“He’s sound asleep and will need a bit of rousing. I shall see he’s taken home.”

Hart shuffled his feet and looked at his hands. “I don’t know what you’re thinking,” he said, “but he’s all right. Breezy’s O.K. really. I mean he’s just been making the pace a bit too hot for himself as you might say. He’s a very nervy type, Breezy. He suffers from insomnia. He took the stuff for his nerves. But he’s all right.”

“He and Rivera got on well, did they?”

Several of the Boys said quickly: “That’s right. Sure. They were all right.” Hart added that Breezy was very good to Carlos and gave him his big chance in London.

All the Boys agreed fervently with this statement except Skelton. He stood apart from his associates. They avoided looking at him. He was a tall darkish fellow with narrow eyes and a sharp nose. His mouth was small and thin-lipped. He stooped slightly.

“Well, if that’s all,” Happy Hart said uneasily, “we’ll say good night.”

“We’ve got their addresses, haven’t we, Fox? Good. Thank you. Good night.”

They filed out, carrying their instruments. In the old days when places like the Metronome and Quags and the Hungaria kept going up to two in the morning the Boys had worked through, sometimes going on to parties in private houses. They were Londoners who turned homewards with pale faces and blue jaws at the time when fans of water from giant hose pipes strike across Piccadilly and Whitehall. They had been among the tag-ends of the night in those times, going soberly to their beds as the first milk carts jangled. In summer-time they had undressed in the dawn to the thin stir of sparrows. They shared with taxi drivers, cloak-room attendants, waiters and commissionaires a specialized disillusionment.

Alleyn watched them go and then nodded to Fox. Fox approached Caesar Bonn and David Hahn, who lounged gloomily near the office door. “Perhaps you gentlemen wouldn’t mind coming into the office,” he suggested. They followed him in. Alleyn turned to Skelton. “Now, Mr. Skelton.”

“What’s the idea,” Skelton said, “keeping me back? I’ve got a home, same as everybody else. Though how the hell I’m going to get there’s nobody’s business.”

“I’m sorry. It’s a nuisance for you, I know, but it can’t be helped.”

“I don’t see why.”

The office door was opened from inside. Two constables came out with Breezy Bellairs hanging between them like a cumbersome puppet. His face was lividly pale, his eyes half open. He breathed stertorously and made a complaining noise like a wretched child. Dr. Curtis followed. Bonn and Hahn watched from inside the office.

“All right?” Alleyn said.

“He’ll do. We’ll just get him into his coat.”

They held Breezy up while Curtis, with difficulty, crammed him into his tight-fitting overcoat. During this struggle Breezy’s baton fell to the floor. Hahn came forward and picked it up. “You wouldn’t think,” Hahn said, contemplating it sadly, “how good he was. Not to look at him now.”

Dr. Curtis yawned. “These chaps’ll see him into his bed,” he said. “I’ll be off, if you don’t want me, Rory.”

“Right.” The dragging procession disappeared. Fox returned to the office and shut the door.

“That’s a nice way,” Skelton said angrily, “for a first-class band leader to be seen going home. Between a couple of flatties.”

“They’ll be very tactful,” Alleyn rejoined. “Shall we sit down?”

Skelton said he’d sat down for so long that his bottom was numb. “Let’s get cracking for God’s sake. I’ve had it. What’s the idea?”

Alleyn took out his notebook.

“The idea,” he said, “is further information. I think you can give it to us. By all means let’s get cracking.”

“Why pick on me? I know no more than the others.”

“Don’t you?” Alleyn said vaguely. He glanced up. “What’s your opinion of Lord Pastern as a tympanist?”

“Dire. What of it?”

“Did the others hold this opinion?”

“They knew. Naturally. It was a cheap stunt. Playing up the snob value.” He thrust his hands down in his pockets and began to walk to and fro, impelled, it seemed, by resentment. Alleyn waited.

“It’s when something like this turns up,” Skelton announced loudly, “that you see how rotten the whole set-up really is. I’m not ashamed of my work. Why the hell should I be? It interests me. It’s not easy. It takes doing and anybody that tells you there’s nothing to the best type of our kind of music talks through his hat. It’s got something. It’s clever and there’s a lot of hard thinking behind it.”

“I don’t know about music,” Alleyn said, “but I can imagine that from the technical point of view your sort can be almost purely intellectual. Or is that nonsense?”