Ngaio Marsh - Death At The Bar

“’Ess, I did. And Mr. Watchman tuk it to him saying he’d have no refusal. Then Mr. Watchman tuk his own dram over to table by dart board. He drank ’er down slow, and then says he: ‘Now for it.’ ”

“And had Mr. Legge been anywhere near Mr. Watchman’s glass?”

Abel looked mulish. “No, sir, no. Not azacly. Not at all. He drank his over in inglenook, opposite Miss Darragh. ’Twasn’t then the mischief wurr done, Mr. Alleyn.”

“Well,” said Alleyn, “we shall see. Now for the accident itself.”

The story of those few minutes, a story that Alleyn was to hear many times before he reached the end of this case, was repeated by Abel and tallied precisely with all the other accounts in Harper’s file, and with the report of the inquest.

“Very well,” said Alleyn. He paused for a moment and caught sight of Will’s three customers, staring with passionate interest through the glass door. He moved out of their range of vision.

“Now we come to the events that followed the injury. You fetched the iodine from that cupboard?”

“Sure enough, sir, I did.”

“Will you show me what you did?”

“Certainly. Somebody — Legge ’twas, out of the depths of his hypocrisy, says, ‘Put a drop of iodine on it,’ he says. Right. I goes to thicky cupboard which Nick Harper has played the fool with, mucking round with his cameras and squirts of powder. I opens bottom door this way, and thurr on shelf is my first-aid box.”

Alleyn and Fox looked at the cupboard. It was a double corner cabinet, with two glass doors one above the other. Abel had opened the bottom door. At the back of the shelf was a lidless tin, containing the usual first-aid equipment, and a very nice ship’s decanter. Abel removed the decanter.

“I’ll scald and scour ’er out,” he said. “Us’ll have your sherry in this yurr, gentlemen, and I’ll join you tomorrow in fust drink to show there’s no hanky-panky.”

“We’ll be delighted if you’ll join us, Mr. Pomeroy, but I don’t think we need feel any qualms.”

“Ax George Nark,” said Abel bitterly. “Have a tell with George Nark, and get your minds pisened. I’ll look after your stomachs.”

Alleyn said hurriedly: “And that’s the first-aid equipment?”

“That’s it, sir. Bottle of iodine was laying in empty slot, yurr,” Abel explained. “I tuk it out and I tuk out bandage at same time.”

“You should keep your first-aid box shut up, Mr. Pomeroy,” said Alleyn, absently.

“Door’s air-tight, sir.”

Alleyn shone his torch into the cupboard. The triangular shelf, forming the roof of the lower cupboard and the floor of the top one, was made of a single piece of wood, and fitted closely.

“And the bottle of prussic acid solution was in the upper cupboard?” asked Alleyn.

“ ’Ess, tight-corked. Nick Harper’s taken—”

“Yes, I know. Was the upper door locked?”

“Key turned in lock, same as it be now.”

“You said at the inquest that you had used the iodine earlier in the evening.”

“So I had, then. Bob Legge had cut hisself with his razor. He said he wurr shaving hisself along of going to Illington. When storm came up — it wurr a terror— that thurr storm — us told Legge he’d better bide home-along. I reckon that’s the only thing I’ve got to blame myself for. Howsumdever the man came in for his pint at five o’clock, and I give him a lick of iodine and some sticking plaster.”

“Are you certain, Mr. Pomeroy? It’s important.”

“Bible oath,” said Abel. “Thurr y’are, sir. Bible oath. Ax the man hisself. I fetched out my first-aid box and give him the bottle. Ax him.”

“Yes, yes. And you’re certain it was at five o’clock?”

“Bob Legge,” said Abel, “has been into tap for his pint at five o’clock every day, ’cepting Sunday, fur last ten months. Us opens at five in these parts, and when I give him the iodine I glanced at clock and opened up.”

“When you put the bottle in the top cupboard on the Thursday night you wore gloves. Did you take them off before you turned the key?”

“ ’Ess fay, and pitched ’em on fire. Nick Harper come down off of his high horse furr enough to let on my finger marks is on key. Don’t that prove it?”

“It does, indeed,” said Alleyn.

Fox, who had been completely silent, now uttered a low growl.

“Yes, Fox?” asked Alleyn.

“Nothing, Mr. Alleyn.”

“Well,” said Alleyn, “we’ve almost done. We now come to the brandy Miss Moore poured out of the Courvoisier bottle into Watchman’s empty glass. Who suggested he should have brandy?”

“I’m not certain-sure, sir. I b’lieve Mr. Parish first, and then Miss Darragh, but I wouldn’t swear to her.”

“Would you swear that nobody had been near Mr. Watchman’s glass between the time he took his second nip and the time Miss Moore gave him the brandy?”

“Not Legge,” said Abel, thoughtfully. And then with that shade of reluctance with which he coloured any suggestion of Legge’s innocence: “Legge wurr out in middle o’ floor afore dart board. Mr. Watchman stood atween him and table wurr t’glass stood. Mr. Parish walked over to look at Mr. Watchman spreading out his fingers. All t’others stood hereabouts, behind Legge. No one else went anigh t’glass.”

“And after the accident? Where was everybody then?”

“Crowded round Mr. Watchman. Will stepped out of corner. I come through under counter. Miss Darragh stood anigh us, and Dessy by Will. Legge stood staring where he wurr. Reckon Mr. Parish did be closest still to glass, but he stepped forward when Mr. Watchman flopped down on settle. I be a bit mazed-like wurr they all stood. I disremember.”

“Naturally enough. Would you say anybody could have touched that glass between the moment when the dart struck and the time Miss Moore poured out the brandy?”

“I don’t reckon anybody could,” said Abel, but his voice slipped a half-tone and he looked profoundly uncomfortable.

“Not even Mr. Parish?”

Abel stared over Alleyn’s head and out of the window. His lower lip protruded and he looked as mulish as a sulky child.

“Maybe he could,” said Abel, “but he didn’t.”

i

“We may as well let him have this room,” said Alleyn, when Abel had gone. “Harper’s done everything possible in the way of routine.”

“He’s a very thorough chap, is Nick Harper.”

“Yes,” agreed Alleyn. “Except in the matter of the rat-hole jar. However, Fox, we’ll see if we can catch him out before we let the public in. Let’s prowl a bit.”

They prowled for an hour. They kept the door locked and closed the bar shutters. Dim sounds of toping penetrated from the public tap-room. Alleyn had brought Harper’s photographs and they compared these with the many chalk marks Harper had left behind him. A chalk mark under the settle showed where the iodine bottle had rolled. The plot of the bottle of Scheele’s acid was marked in the top cupboard. The shelves of the corner cupboard were very dusty, and the trace left by the bottle showed clearly. Alleyn turned to the fireplace.

“He hasn’t shifted the ashes, Br’er Fox. We may as well do that, I think.”

Fox fetched a small sieve from Alleyn’s case. The ashes at first yielded nothing of interest but in the last handful they found a small misshapen object which Alleyn dusted and took to the light.

“Glass,” he said. “They must have had a good fire. It’s melted and gone all bobbly. There’s some more. Broken glass, half-melted by the fire.”

“They probably make the fire up on the old ashes,” said Fox. “It may have lain there through two or three fires.”