Ngaio Marsh - Death At The Bar

“A criminal nature?” said Alleyn.

“What else am I to think of it, sir? ’Twasnt’ accident! ’Twasn’t neglect on my part, for all they’re trying to put on me.”

“Suppose,” said Alleyn, “we begin at the beginning, Mr. Pomeroy. You’ve come to see us because you’ve information—”

Abel opened his mouth but Alleyn went on: “Information or an opinion about the death of Mr. Luke Watchman”

“Opinion!” said Abel. “That’s the word.”

“The finding at the inquest was death by cyanide-poisoning, with nothing to show exactly how it was taken.”

“And a proper fidgeting, suspicioning verdict it was,” said Abel warmly. “What’s the result? Result is George Nark, so full of silly blusteracious nonsense as an old turkey-cock, going round ’t Coombe with a story as how I killed Mr. Watchman along of criminal negligence with prussic acid. George Nark axing me of an evening if I’ve washed out glasses in my tap, because he’d prefer not to die in agony same as Mr. Watchman. George Nark talking his ignorant blusteracious twaddle to anyone as is stupid enough to listen to him.”

“Very irritating,” said Alleyn. “Who is Mr. Nark?”

“Old fool of a farmer, sir, with more long words than wits in his yed. I wouldn’t pay no attention, knowing his tongue’s apt to make a laughing-stock of the man, but other people listen and it’s bad for trade. I know,” said Abel steadily, “I know as certain-sure as I know anything in the life, that it was no fault of mine Mr. Watchman died of poison in my private tap. Because why? Because so soon as us had done with that stuff in my old stables, it was corked up proper. For all there wasn’t a drop of wetness on the bottle, I wiped it thorough and burned the rag. I carried it in with my own hands, sir, and put it in cupboard. Wearing gas mask and gloves, I was, and I chucked the gloves on the fire and washed my hands afterwards. And thurr that bottle stood, sir, for twenty-four hours; and if any drop of stuff came out of it, ’twas by malice and not by accident. I’ve axed my housekeeper and li’l maid who works for us, and neither on ’em’s been near cupboard. Too mortal scared they wurr. Nor has my boy, Will. And what’s more, sir, the glasses Mr. Watchman and company drank from that ghastly night was our best glasses, and I took ’em special, out of cupboard under bar. Now, sir, could this poison, however deadly, get itself out of stoppered bottle, through glass door, and into tumbler under my bar? Could it? I ax you!”

“It sounds rather like a conjuring trick,” agreed Alleyn with a smile.

“So it do.”

“What about the dart, Mr. Pomeroy?”

“Ah!” said Abel. “Thicky dart! When George Nark don’t be saying I did for the man in his cups, he be swearing his soul away I mussed up thicky dart with prussic acid. Mind this, sir, the darts wurrn’t arrived when us brought in poison on Thursday night, and they wurr only unpacked five minutes before the hijjus moment itself. Now!”

“Yes, they were new darts, weren’t they? I seem to remember—”

“ ’Ess fay, and never used till then. I opened ’em up myself, while company was having their last go Round-the-Clock. I opened ’em up on bar counter. Fresh in their London wrappings, they wurr. Mr. Parish and my boy, Will, they picked ’em up and looked at ’em, casual-like, and then Bob Legge, he scooped ’em up and took a trial throw with the lot. He said they carried beautiful. Then he had his shot at Mr. Watchman’s hand. They wurr clean new, they darts.”

“And yet,” said Alleyn, “the analyst found a trace of cyanide on the dart that pierced Mr. Watchman’s finger.”

Abel brought his palms down with a smack on his knees.

“ ’Od rabbit it,” he shouted, “don’t George Nark stuff that-thurr chunk of science down my gullet every time he opens his silly face? Lookee yurr, sir! ’Twas twenty-four hours, and more, since I put a bottle o’ poison in cupboard. I’d washed my hands half a dozen times since then. Bar had been swabbed down. Ax yourself, how could I infectorate they darts?”

Alleyn looked at the sweaty, earnest countenance before him, and whistled soundlessly.

“Yes,” he said at last, “it seems unlikely.”

“Unlikely! It’s slap-down impossible.”

“But—”

“If pison got on thicky dart,” said Abel, “ ’twasn’t by accident nor yet by carelessness. ’Twas by malice. ’Twas with murderacious intent. Thurr!”

“But how do you account…?”

“Account? Me?” asked old Abel, agitatedly. “I don’t. I leaves they intellectual capers to Superintendent Nicholas Harper, and a pretty poor fist he do be making of it. That’s why—”

“Yes, yes,” said Alleyn hurriedly. “But remember that Mr. Harper may be doing more than you think. Policemen have to keep their own counsel, you see. Don’t make up your mind that because he doesn’t say very much—”

“It’s not what he don’t say, it’s the silly standoffishness of what he do say. Nick Harper! Damme, I was to school with the man, and now he sits behind his desk and looks at me as if I be a fool. ‘Where’s your facts’ he says. ‘Don’t worry yourself,’ he says, ‘if there’s anything fishy, us’ll fish for it.’ Truth of the matter is, the man’s too small and ignorant for a murderous matter. Can’t raise himself above the level of motor licenses and after-hour trade, and more often than not he makes a muck of them. What’ll come to the Feathers if this talk goes on? Happen us’ll have to give up the trade, after a couple of centuries.”

“Don’t you believe it,” said Alleyn. “We can’t afford to lose our old pubs, Mr. Pomeroy, and it’s going to take more than a week’s village gossip to shake the trade at the Plume of Feathers. It is just a week since the inquest, isn’t it? It’s fresh in Mr. George Nark’s memory. Give it time to die down.”

“If this affair dies down, sir, there’ll be a murder unhung in the Coombe.”

Alleyn raised his brows.

“You feel like that about it?”

“ ’Ess, I do. What’s more, sir, I’ll put a name to the man.”

Alleyn lifted a hand but old Abel went on doggedly:

“I don’t care who hears me, I’ll put a name to him, and that-there name’s Robert Legge. Now!”

“A very positive old article,” said Alleyn, when Fox returned from seeing Abel Pomeroy down the corridor.

“I don’t see why he’s made up his mind this chap Legge is a murderer,” said Fox. “He’d only known deceased twenty-four hours. It sounds silly.”

“He says Watchman gibed at Legge,” said Alleyn. “I wonder if he did. And why.”

“I’ve heard him in court, often enough,” said Fox. “He was a prime heckler. Perhaps it was a habit.”

“I don’t think so. He was a bit malicious, though. He was a striking sort of fellow. Plenty of charm and a good deal of vanity. He always seemed to me to take unnecessary trouble to be liked. But I didn’t know him well. The cousin’s a damn’ good actor. Rather like Watchman, in a way. Oh well, it’s not our pidgin, thank the Lord. I’m afraid the old boy’s faith in us wonderful police has been shaken.”

“D’you know the Super at Illington, Mr. Alleyn?”

“Harper. Yes, I do. He was in on that arson case in South Devon in ’37. Served his apprenticeship in L. Division, You must remember him.”

“Nick Harper?”

“That’s the fellow. Devon, born and bred. I think perhaps I’d better write and warn him about Mr. Pomeroy’s pilgrimage.”

“I wonder if old Pomeroy’s statement’s correct. I wonder if he did make a bloomer with the rat-poison and is simply trying to save his face.”

“His indignation seemed to me to be supremely righteous. I fancy he thinks he’s innocent.”