Ngaio Marsh - Death At The Bar

“It’s right in so far as I’ll continue to hold me tongue.”

“Ugh!” said Alleyn with a rueful grin. “You are being firm with me, aren’t you? Well, here we go again. I think that if Mr. Legge had not been to gaol, you would laugh like mad and tell me what a fool I was.”

“You do, do you?”

“Yes. And what’s more I do seriously advise you to tell me what you know about Legge. If you won’t do that, urge Legge to come out of the thicket, and tell me himself. Tell him that we’ve always got the manslaughter charge up our sleeves. Tell him that his present line of behaviour is making us extremely suspicious.” Alleyn paused and looked earnestly at Miss Darragh.

“You said something to this effect this morning, I know,” he added. “Perhaps it’s no good. I don’t see why I should finesse. I asked Legge to let me take impressions of his fingerprints. Good prints would have been helpful but they’re not essential. He picked up the dart, it had been tested and we’ve got results. I asked him for impressions because I already suspected he had done time and I wanted to see how he’d respond. His response convinced me that I was right. We’ve asked the superintendent at Illington to send the dart to the Fingerprint Bureau. Tomorrow they will telephone the result.”

“Let ’um,” said Miss Darragh cheerfully.

“You know, you’re withholding information. I ought to be very stiff with you.”

“It’s not meself, I mind,” she said. “I’m just wishing you’d leave the poor fellow alone. You’re wasting your time and you’re going to do ’um great harm in the end. Let ’um alone.”

“We can’t,” said Alleyn. “We can’t let any of you alone.”

She began to look very distressed and beat the palms of her hands together.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” she said. “I’ll accuse no one; but look further and look nearer home.”

And when he asked her what she meant she only repeated very earnestly: “Look further and look nearer home. I’ll say no more.”

i

“Fox,” said Alleyn. “Get your hat. We’ll walk to Cary Edge Farm and call on Miss Moore. Miss Darragh says it’s a mile and a quarter over the downs from the mouth of the tunnel. She says we shall pass Cubitt painting Parish on our way. An eventful trip. Let us take it.”

Fox produced the particularly rigid felt hat that appears when his duties take him into the country. Will Pomeroy was in the front passage and Alleyn asked him if he might borrow one of a collection of old walking sticks behind the door.

“Welcome,” said Will, shortly.

“Thank you so much. To get to Cary Edge Farm we turn off to the right from the main road, don’t we?”

“Cary Edge?” repeated Will and glared at them.

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “That’s where Miss Moore lives, isn’t it?”

“She won’t be up-along this morning.”

“What’s that, sonny?” called old Abel, from the private tap-room. “Be the gentlemen looking for Miss Dessy? She’s on her way over by this time for Saturday marketing.”

Will moved his shoulders impatiently.

“You know everyone’s business, Father,” he muttered.

“Thank you, Mr. Pomeroy,” called Alleyn. “We’ll meet her on the way, perhaps.”

“Less she do drive over in old car,” said Abel, coming to the door. “But most times her walks.”

He looked apprehensively at Will and turned back into the bar.

“We’ll risk it,” said Alleyn. “Back to lunch, Mr. Pomeroy.”

“Thank’ee, sir.”

Alleyn and Fox walked up to the tunnel mouth. When they reached it Alleyn glanced back at the Plume of Feathers. Will stood in the doorway looking after them. As Alleyn turned, Will moved back into the pub.

“He will now telephone Cary Edge in case Miss Moore has not left yet,” observed Alleyn. “No matter. She’ll have been expecting us to arrive sooner or later. Come on.” They entered the tunnel.

“Curious, Fox, isn’t it” said Alleyn, and his voice rang hollow against the rock walls. “Ottercombe must have been able to shut itself up completely on the landward side. I bet some brisk smuggling went forward in the old days. Look out, it’s slippery. Miss Moore must be an intrepid driver if she motors through here in all weathers.”

They came out into the sunshine. The highway, a dusty streak, ran from the tunnel. On each side the downs rolled along the coast in a haze of warmth, dappled by racing cloud shadows. Farther inland were the hills and sunken lanes, the prettiness of Devon; here was a sweep of country where Englishmen for centuries had looked coastwards, while ships sailed across their dreams, and their thoughts were enlarged beyond the seaward horizon.

“Turn to the right,” said Alleyn.

They climbed the bank and rounded a furze-bush, in a sunken hollow.

“Good spot for a bit of courting,” said Fox, looking at the flattened grass.

“Yes, you old devil. You may invite that remarkably buxom lady who brought our breakfast, to stroll up here after hours.”

“Mrs. Ives?”

“Yes. You’ll have to get in early, it’s a popular spot. Look at those cigarette butts, squalid little beasts. Hullo!”

He stooped and picked up two of them.

“The cigarette butt,” he said, “has been derided by our detective novelists. It has lost caste and now ranks with the Chinese and datura. No self-respecting demi-highbrow will use it. That’s because old Conan Doyle knew his job and got in first. But you and I, Br’er Fox, sweating hacks that we are, are not so superior. This cigarette was a Dahabieh, an expensive Egyptian. Harper said they found some Egyptian cigarettes in Watchman’s pockets. Not many Dahabieh-smokers in Ottercombe, I imagine. Parish and Cubitt smoke Virginians. This one has lip stick on it. Orange-brown.”

“Not Miss Darragh,” said Fox.

“No, Fox. Nor yet Mrs. Ives. Let’s have a peer. There’s been rain since the Dahabiehs were smoked. Look at those heel marks. Woman’s heels. Driven into the bank.”

“She must have been sitting down,” said Fox. “Or lying. Bit of a struggle seemingly. What had the gentleman been up to?”

“What indeed. What did Miss Darragh mean by her ‘Look further and look nearer home’? We’ve no case for a jury yet, Fox. We mustn’t close down on a theory. Can you find any masculine prints? Yes. Here’s one. Not a very good one.”

“Watchman’s?”

“We may have to find out. May be nothing in it. Wait a bit though. I’m going back to the pub.”

Alleyn disappeared over the ridge and was away for some minutes. He returned with two stones, a bit of an old box, and a case.

“Better,” he said, “in your favourite phrase, Br’er Fox, to be sure than sorry.”

He opened the case. It contained a rubber cup, a large flask of water, some plaster-of-Paris, and a spray-pump. Alleyn sprayed the footprints with shellac, and collected twigs from under the furze-bushes, while Fox mixed plaster. They took casts of the four clearest prints, reinforcing the plaster with the twigs and adding salt to the mixture. Alleyn removed the casts when they had set, covered the footprints with the box, weighted it with stones, and dragged branches of the furze-bush down over the whole. The casts, he wrapped up and hid.

“You never know,” he said, “let’s move on.”

They mounted the rise and, away on the headland, saw Cubitt, a manikin, moving to and fro before his easel.

“We’ll have to join the infamous company of gapers,” said Alleyn. “Look, he’s seen us. How eloquent of distaste that movement was! There’s Parish beyond. He’s doing a big thing. I believe I’ve heard Troy [Mrs. Roderick Alleyn, R.A.] speak of Norman Cubitt’s work. Let’s walk along the cliffs, shall we?”