Ngaio Marsh - Death At The Bar

“It’s all right,” said Decima. “He didn’t badger, really. He’s only doing his loathsome job.”

Her eyes were brilliant with tears, her lips not quite closed, and still she looked with a sort of amazement into Cubitt’s face.

“Oh, Norman!” she said, “I’ve been so inconsistent and fluttery and feminine. Me!”

“You,” said Cubitt.

“In a moment,” thought Alleyn, “he’ll kiss her.” And he said: “Thank you so much, Miss Moore. I’m extremely sorry to have distressed you. I hope we shan’t have to bother you again.”

“Look here, Alleyn,” said Cubitt, “if you do want to see Miss Moore again I insist on being present, and that’s flat.”

Before Alleyn could answer this remarkable stipulation Decima said: “But my dear man, I’m afraid you can’t insist on that. You’re not my husband, you know.”

“That can be attended to,” said Cubitt. “Will you marry me?”

“Fox,” said Alleyn, “what are you staring at? Come back to Ottercombe.”

iii

“Well, Mr. Alleyn,” said Fox when they were out of earshot, “we see some funny things in our line of business, don’t we? What a peculiar moment, now, for him to pick on for a proposal. Do you suppose he’s been courting her for a fair while, or did he spring it on her sudden?”

“Suddenish, I fancy, Fox. Her eyes were wet and that, I suppose, went to his head. I must say she’s a very lovely creature. Didn’t you think so?”

“A very striking young lady,” agreed Fox. “But I thought the Super said she was keeping company with young Pomeroy?”

“He did.”

“She’s a bit on the classy side for him, you’d think.”

“You would, Fox.”

“Well, now, I wonder what she’ll do. Throw him over and take Mr. Cubitt? She looked to me to be rather inclined that way.”

“I wish she’d told the truth about Watchman,” said Alleyn.

“Think there’d been something between them, sir? Relations? Intimacy?”

“Oh Lord, I rather think so. It’s not a very pleasant thought.”

“Bit of a femme fatale ,” said Fox carefully. “But there you are. They laugh at what we used to call respectability, don’t they? Modern women—”

Alleyn interrupted him.

“I know, Fox, I know. She is very sane and intellectual and modern, but I don’t mind betting there’s a strong dram of rustic propriety that pops up when she least expects it. I think she’s ashamed of the Watchman episode, whatever it was, and furious with herself for being ashamed. What’s more, I don’t believe she knew, until today, that Legge was an old lag. All guesswork. Let’s forget it. We’ll have an early lunch and call on Dr. Shaw. I want to ask him about the wound in the finger. Come on.”

They returned by way of the furze-bush, collecting the casts and Alleyn’s case. As they disliked making entrances with mysterious bundles, they locked their gear in the car and went round to the front of the Feathers. But here they walked into a trap. Sitting beside Abel Pomeroy on the bench outside the front door was an extremely thin and tall man with a long face, a drooping moustache, and foolish eyes. He stared very fixedly at Fox, who recognized him as Mr. George Nark and looked the other way.

“Find your road all right, gentlemen?” asked Abel.

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Pomeroy,” said Alleyn.

“It’s a tidy stretch, sir. You’ll be proper warmed up.”

“We’re not only warm but dry,” said Alleyn.

“Ripe for a pint, I dessay, sir?”

“A glorious thought,” said Alleyn.

Mr. Nark cleared his throat. Abel threw a glance of the most intense dislike at him and led the way into the private bar.

“ ’Morning,” said Mr. Nark, before Fox could get through the door.

“Morning, Mr. Nark,” said Fox.

“Don’t know but what I wouldn’t fancy a pint myself,” said Mr. Nark firmly, and followed them into the Private.

Abel drew Alleyn’s and Fox’s drinks.

“ ’Alf-’n-’alf, Abel,” said Mr. Nark, grandly.

Somewhat ostentatiously Abel wiped out a shining pint-pot with a spotless cloth. He then drew the mild and bitter.

“Thank ’ee,” said Mr. Nark. “Glad to see you’re acting careful. Not but what, scientifically speaking, you ought to bile them pots. I don’t know what the law has to say on the point,” continued Mr. Nark, staring very hard at Alleyn. “I’d have to look it up. The law may touch on it and it may not.”

“Don’t tell us you’m hazy on the subject,” said Abel bitterly. “Us can’t believe it.”

Mr. Nark smiled in an exasperating manner and took a pull at his beer. He made a rabbit-like noise with his lips, snapping them together several times with a speculative air. He then looked dubiously into his pint-pot.

“Well,” said Abel tartly, “what’s wrong with it? You’m not p’isoned this time, I suppose?”

“I dessay it’s all right,” said Mr. Nark. “New barrel, b’ain’t it?”

Abel disregarded this enquiry. The ship’s decanter, that they had seen in the cupboard, now stood on the bar counter. It was spotlessly clean. Abel took the bottle of Amontillado from a shelf above the bar. He put a strainer in the neck of the decanter and began, carefully, to pour the sherry through it.

“What jiggery-pokery are you up to now, Abel?” enquired Mr. Nark. “Why, Gor’dang it, that thurr decanter was in the pi’son cupboard.”

Abel addressed himself exclusively to Alleyn and Fox. He explained the various methods used by Mrs. Ives to clean the decanter. He poured himself out a glass of the sherry and invited them to join him. Under the circumstances they could scarcely refuse. Mr. Nark watched them with extraordinary solicitude and remarked that they were braver men than himself.

“Axcuse me for a bit if you please, gentlemen,” said Abel elaborately, to Alleyn and Fox. “I do mind me of summat I’ve got to tell Mrs. Ives. If you’d be so good as to ring if I’m wanted.”

“Certainly, Mr. Pomeroy,” said Alleyn.

Abel left them with Mr. Nark.

“Fine morning, sir,” said Mr. Nark.

Alleyn agreed.

“Though I suppose,” continued Mr. Nark wooingly, “all weathers and climates are one to a man of your calling? Science,” continued Mr. Nark, drawing closer and closer to Alleyn, “is a powerful highhanded mistress. Now, just as a matter of curiosity, sir, would you call yourself a man of science?”

“Not I,” said Alleyn, good-naturedly. “I’m a policeman, Mr. Nark.”

“Ah! That’s my point. See? That’s my point. Now sir, with all respect, you did ought to make a power more use of the great wonders of science. I’ll give in your fingerprints. There’s an astonishing thing, now! To think us walks about unconscious-like, leaving our pores and loops all over the shop for science to pick up and have the laugh on us.”

It was a peculiarity of Mr. Nark’s conversational style that as he drew nearer to his victim he raised his voice. His face was now about twenty inches away from Alleyn’s and he roared like an infuriated auctioneer.

“I’m a reader,” shouted Mr. Nark. “I’m a reader and you might say a student. How many printed words would you say I’d absorbed in my life? At a guess, now?”

“Really,” said Alleyn. “I don’t think I could possibly—”

“Fifty-eight million!” bawled Mr. Nark. “Nigh on it. Not reckoning twice-overs. I’ve soaked up four hundred words, some of ’em as much as five syllables, mind you, every night for the last forty years. Started in at the age of fifteen. ‘Sink or swim,’ I said, ‘I’ll improve my brain to the tune of four hundred words per day till I passes out or goes blind!’ And I done it. I don’t suppose you know a piece of work called The Evvylootion of the Spices ?”