Ngaio Marsh - Death At The Bar

“I’ll sheer off it if it can be done. It was not the first time you’d had difficulty with Watchman?”

She paused and then said: “We hadn’t actually— come to blows before.”

“Blows? Literally?”

“I’m afraid so.”

She stood up. Alleyn thought she mustered her self-assurance. When she spoke again it was in a different key, ironically and with composure.

“Luke,” she said, “was amorous by habit. No doubt it was not the first time he’d miscalculated. He wasn’t in the least disconcerted. He — wasn’t in the least in love with me.”

“No?”

“It’s merely a squalid little incident which I had rather hoped to forget. It was, I suppose, very magnificent of Seb and Norman to lie about it, but the gesture was too big for the theme.”

“Now she’s being grand at me,” thought Alleyn. “We are back in St. Margaret’s Hall.”

He said: “And Watchman had never made himself objectionable before that morning?”

“I did not usually find him particularly objectionable.”

“I intended,” said Alleyn, “to ask you if he had ever made love to you before?”

“I have told you he wasn’t in the least in love with me.”

“I’m unlucky in my choice of words, I see. Had he ever kissed you, Miss Moore?”

“This is very tedious,” said Decima. “I have tried to explain that my acquaintance with Luke Watchman was of no interest or significance to either of us, or, if you will believe me, to you.”

“Then why,” asked Alleyn mildly, “don’t you give me an answer and have done with it?”

“Very well,” said Decima breathlessly. “You can have your answer. I meant nothing to him and he meant less to me. Until last Friday he’d never been anything but the vaguest acquaintance.” She turned on Fox. “Write it down. You’ll get no other answer. Write it down.”

“Thank you, Miss,” said Fox civilly, “I don’t think I’ve missed anything. I’ve got it down.”

ii

“Well, have you finished?” demanded Decima, who had succeeded in working herself up into a satisfactory temper. “Is there anything else you want to know? Do you want a list in alphabetical order of my encounters with any other little Luke Watchmans who have come my way?”

“No,” said Alleyn. “No. We limit our impertinences to the police code. Our other questions are, I hope, less offensive. They concern the brandy you gave Mr. Watchman, the glass into which you poured it, and the bottle from which it came.”

“All right. What about them?”

“May we have your account of that particular phase of the business?”

“I told Oates and I told the coroner. Someone suggested brandy. I looked round and saw Luke’s glass on the table, between the settle where he lay and the dart board. There wasn’t any brandy left in it. I saw the bottle on the bar. I was very quick about it. I got it and poured some into the glass. I didn’t put anything but brandy in the glass. I can’t prove I didn’t, but I didn’t.”

“But perhaps we can prove it. Was anyone near the table? Did anyone watch you pour the brandy?”

“Oh God!” said Decima wearily. “How should I know? Sebastian Parish was nearest to the table. He may have noticed. I don’t know. I took the glass to Luke. I waited for a moment, while Abel Pomeroy put iodine on Luke’s finger, and then I managed to pour a little brandy between his lips. It wasn’t much. I don’t think he even swallowed it, but I suppose you won’t believe that.”

“Miss Moore,” said Alleyn suddenly, “I can’t tell you how pathetically anxious we are to accept the things people tell us.” He hesitated and then said: “You see, we spend most of our working life asking questions. Can you, for your part, believe that we get a kind of sixth sense and sometimes feel very certain indeed that a witness is speaking the truth, or, as the case may be, is lying? We’re not allowed to recognize our sixth sense, and when it points a crow’s flight towards the truth we may not follow it. We must cut it dead and follow the dreary back streets of collected evidence. But if they lead us anywhere at all it is almost always to the same spot.”

“Eminently satisfactory,” said Decima. “Everything for the best in the best of all possible police forces.”

“That wasn’t quite what I meant. Was it after you had given him the brandy that Mr. Watchman uttered the single word ‘poisoned’?”

“Yes.”

“Did you get the impression that he spoke of the brandy?”

“No. I don’t know if your sixth sense will tell you I’m lying, but it seemed to me he tried to take the brandy, and perhaps did swallow a little, and that it was when he found he couldn’t drink that he said— that one word. He said it between his clenched teeth. I had never seen such a look of terror and despair. Then he jerked his hand. Miss Darragh was going to bandage it. Just at that moment the lights went out.”

“For how long were they out?”

“Nobody knows. It’s impossible to tell. I can’t. It seemed an age. Somebody clicked the switch. I remember that. To see if it had been turned off accidentally, I suppose. It was a nightmare. The rain sounded like drums. There was broken glass everywhere — crunch, crunch, squeak. And his voice. Not like a human voice, like a cat, mewing. And his heels, drumming on the settle. And everybody shouting in the dark.”

Decima spoke rapidly and twisted her fingers together.

“It’s funny,” she said, “I either can’t talk about it at all, or I can’t stop talking about it. Once you start, you go on and on. It’s rather queer. I suppose he was in great pain. I suppose it was torture. As bad as the rack, or disembowelling. I’ve got a terror of physical pain. I’d recant anything first.”

“Not,” said Alleyn, “your political views?”

“No,” agreed Decima, “not those. I’d contrive to commit suicide or something. Perhaps it was not pain that made him cry like that, and drum with his heels. Perhaps it was only reflex-something. Nerves.”

“I think,” said Alleyn, “that your own nerves have had a pretty shrewd jolt.”

“What do you know about nerves?” demanded Decima with surprising venom. “Nerves! These things are a commonplace to you. Luke Watchman’s death-throes are so much data. You expect me to give you a neat statement about them. Describe, in my own words, the way he clenched his teeth and drew back his lips.”

“No,” said Alleyn. “I haven’t asked you about those things. I have asked you two questions of major importance. One was about your former relationship with Watchman and the other about the brandy you gave him before he died.”

“I’ve answered you. If that’s all you want to know you’ve got it. I can’t stand any more of this. Let me—”

The voice stopped as if someone had switched it off.

She looked beyond Alleyn and Fox to the brow of the hillock. Her eyes were dilated.

Alleyn turned. Norman Cubitt stood against the sky.

“Norman!” cried Decima.

He said: “Wait a bit, Decima,” and strode down towards her. He stood and looked at her and then lightly picked up her hands.

“What’s up?” asked Cubitt.

“I can’t stand it, Norman.”

Without looking at Alleyn or Fox, he said: “You don’t have to talk to these two precious experts if it bothers you. Tell ’em to go to hell.” And then he turned her round and over her shoulder grinned, not very pleasantly, at Alleyn.

“I’ve made a fool of myself,” whispered Decima.

She was looking at Cubitt as though she saw him for the first time. He said: “What the devil are you badgering her for?”

“Just,” said Alleyn, “out of sheer wanton brutality.”