Ngaio Marsh - Death At The Bar

Alleyn dropped Fox at Woolworth’s and went on to Dr. Shaw’s house at the end of the principal street. He was shown into a surgery that smelt of leather, iodine, and ether. Here he found Dr. Shaw, who was expecting him. Alleyn liked the look of Dr. Shaw. He had an air of authority and a pleasing directness of manner.

“I hope I’m not an infernal nuisance, coming at this hour,” said Alleyn. “Your patients—”

“That’s all right. Surgery doesn’t start till two. Old trot sitting out there in the waiting room… Malade imaginaire … Do her good to wait a bit, she plagues my life out. Sit down. What do you want to talk about?”

“Principally about the wound and the dart. I’ve read the police report of the inquest.”

“Thought it rather full of gaps? So it is. Mordant, the coroner you know, is a dry old stick, but he’s got his wits about him. Respectable bacteriologist in his day. He and Harper got their heads together, I imagine, and decided just how much would be good for the jury. What about the wound?”

“Were there any traces of cyanide, prussic acid, or whatever the blasted stuff is?”

“No. We got a man from London, you know. One of your tame experts. Good man. Mordant and I were both there when he made his tests. We didn’t expect a positive result from the wound.”

“Why not?”

“Two reasons. He’d bled pretty freely and, if the stuff was introduced on the dart, what wasn’t absorbed would be washed away by blood. Also, the stuff’s very volatile.”

“They found the trace on the dart.”

“Yes. Oates kept his head and put the dart into a clean soda-water bottle and corked it up. Couldn’t do that with the finger.”

“Even so, wouldn’t you expect the stuff to evaporate on the dart?”

Dr. Shaw uttered a deep growl and scratched his cheek.

“Perfectly correct,” he said, “you would. Puzzling.”

“Doesn’t it look as if the Scheele’s acid, or rather the fifty-per-cent prussic acid solution, must have been put on the dart a very short time before Oates bottled it up?”

“It does. Thought so all along.”

“How long was it, after the event, that you got there?”

“Within half an hour after his death.”

“Yes. Now, look here. For private consumption only, would you expect a cyanide solution, however concentrated, to kill a man after that fashion?”

Dr. Shaw thrust his hands in his pockets and stuck out his lower lip.

“I’m not a toxicologist,” he said. “Mordant is, and we’ve taken the king-pin’s opinion. Watchman, on his own statement, had a strong idiosyncrasy for cyanide. He told Parish and Cubitt about this the night before the tragedy.”

“Yes. I saw that in the files. It’s good enough, you think?”

“We’ve got no precedent for the affair. The experts seem to think it good enough. That dart was thrown with considerable force. It penetrated to the bone, or rather, it actually entered the finger at such an angle that it must have lain along the bone. It’s good enough.”

“There was no trace of cyanide in the mouth?”

“None. But that doesn’t preclude the possibility of his having taken it by the mouth.”

“Oh Lord!” sighed Alleyn, “nor it does. Did the room stink of it?”

“No, it stank of brandy. So did the body. Brandy, by the way, is one of the antidotes given for cyanide poisoning. Along with artificial respiration, potassium permanganate, glucose, and half a dozen other remedies, none of which is much use if the cyanide has got into the blood stream.”

“Have you a pair of scales?” asked Alleyn abruptly. “Chemical scales or larger, but accurate scales?”

“What? Yes. Yes, I have. Why?”

“Fox, my opposite number, will be here in a minute. He’s calling at the police station for the fragments of broken tumbler. I’ve got a rather fantastic notion. Nothing in it I dare say. We’ve a pair of scales at the pub but I thought you might be amused if we did a bit of our stuff here.”

“Of course I would. Wait a moment while I get rid of that hypochondriacal crone. Shan’t be long. Don’t move. She only wants a flea in her ear.”

Dr. Shaw went into the waiting room. Alleyn could hear his voice raised in crisp admonishment.

“… Pull yourself together, you know — sound as a bell… Take up a hobby… Your own physician… Be a sensible woman…”

A doorbell rang and in a moment Fox and Superintendent Harper were shown into the surgery.

“Hullo, hullo!” said Harper. “What’s all this I hear? Thought I’d come along. Got an interesting bit of news for you.” He dropped his voice. “I sent a chap up to London by the milk train. He’s taken the dart to Dabs and they’ve just rung through. The prints are good enough. What do you think they’ve found?”

“I can see they’ve found something, Nick,” said Alleyn, smiling.

“You bet they have. Those prints belong to Mr. Montague Thringle, who did four years for embezzlement and came out of Broadmoor twenty-six months ago.”

“Loud cheers,” said Alleyn, “and much laughter.”

“Eh? Yes, and that’s not the best of it. Who do you think defended one of the accused and shifted all the blame on to Thringle?”

“None other than Luke Watchman, the murdered K.C.?”

“You’re right. Legge’s a gaol-bird who owes, or thinks he owes, his sentence to Watchman. He’s just dug himself in pretty, with a nice job and lots of mugs eating out of his hand, and along comes the very man who can give him away.”

“Now I’ll tell you something you don’t know,” said Alleyn. “Who do you think was implicated with Montague Thringle and got off with six months?”

“Lord Bryonie. Big scandal it was.”

“Yes. Miss Darragh’s unfortunate cousin, the Lord Bryonie.”

“You don’t tell me that! Miss Darragh! I’d put her right out of the picture.”

“She holds a watching-brief for Thringle-alias-Legge, I fancy,” said Alleyn, and related the morning’s adventure.

“By gum!” cried Harper, “I think it’s good enough. I reckon we’re just about right for a warrant. With the fact that only Legge could have known the dart would hit — what d’you think? Shall we pull him in?”

“I don’t think we’ll make an arrest just yet, Nick.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I think the result would be what the highbrows call a miscarriage of justice. I’ll tell you why.”

ii

But before he had finished telling them why, an unmistakable rumpus in the street announced the arrival of Colonel Brammington’s car. And presently Colonel Brammington himself came charging into the room with Dr. Shaw on his heels.

“I saw your car outside,” he shouted. “A galaxy of all the talents with Æsculapius to hold the balance. Æsculapius usurps that seat of justice, poetic justice with her lifted scale.”

Dr. Shaw put a small pair of scales on the table and grinned. Colonel Brammington took one of Alleyn’s cigarettes and hurled himself into a chair.

“Curiosity,” he said, “was praised by the great Doctor, as one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect His namesake, the rare Ben, remarked that he did love to note and to observe. With these noble precedents before me, I shall offer no excuse, but following the example of Beatrice, shall like a lapwing run, close to the ground to hear your confidence. An uncomfortable feat and one for which my great belly renders me unfit. Have you any matches? Ah, thank you.”

Harper, with his back to the Chief Constable, turned his eyes up for the edification of Fox. He laid a tin box on the table.

“Here you are, Mr. Alleyn.”

“Good.” Alleyn weighed the box speculatively in his hands and then emptied its contents into the scale.