“Full?” said Alleyn sharply. “When did you see it?”
“The next morning.”
“Was the stuff in the jar analyzed?”
Harper turned brick-red.
“No,” he said, “Abel swore he’d filled it and the jar’s only got his prints on it. And, I tell you, it was full.”
“Have you got the stuff?”
“Yes. I poured it off and kept it. Seeing there’s a shortage, the stuff on the dart must have come from the bottle.”
“For how long was the bottle uncorked?”
“What? Oh, he said that when he used it he uncorked the bottle and put it on the shelf above the hole, with the cork beside it. He was very anxious we should know he’d been careful, and he said he didn’t want to handle the cork more than was necessary. He said he was just going to pour the stuff in the jar, when he thought he’d put the jar in position first. He did that and then filled it, holding the torch in his other hand. He swears he didn’t spill any, and he swears nobody touched the bottle. The others were standing in the doorway.”
“So the bottle may have been uncorked for a minute or two?”
“I suppose so. He plugged up the hole with rag, before he did anything else. He had the bottle on the floor beside him.”
“And then?”
“Well, then he took up the bottle and corked it. I suppose,” said Harper, “I should have had the stuff analyzed, but we’ve no call to suspect Abel Pomeroy. There was none missing from the jar and there are only his prints on it, and there’s the extra quarter-ounce missing from the bottle. No, it’s gone from the bottle. Must have. And, see here, Mr. Alleyn, the stuff was found on the dart and nowhere else. What’s more, if it was the dart that did the trick, and it’s murder, then Legge’s our bird, because only Legge controlled the flight of the dart.”
“Silly sort of way to kill a man,” said Fox, suddenly. “It’d be asking for a conviction, Super, now wouldn’t it?”
“Maybe he reckoned he’d get a chance to wipe the dart,” said Harper.
“He had his chance,” said Alleyn, quickly. “Wasn’t it brought out that Legge helped the constable— Oates, isn’t it? — to find the dart? He had his chance, then, to wipe it.”
“And if he was guilty, why didn’t he?” ended Fox.
“You’re asking me,” said Superintendent Harper. “Here’s the Colonel.”
iii
The Chief Constable was an old acquaintance of Alleyn’s. Alleyn liked Colonel Brammington. He was a character, an oddity, full of mannerisms that amused rather than irritated Alleyn. He was so unlike the usual county-minded chief constable, that it was a matter for conjecture how he ever got the appointment for he spent half his life in giving offence and was amazingly indiscreet. He arrived at Illington Police Station in a powerful racing-car that was as scarred as a veteran. It could be heard from the moment it entered the street and Harper exclaimed agitatedly:
“Here he comes! He knows that engine’s an offence within the meaning of the Act and he doesn’t care. He’ll get us all into trouble one of these days. There are complaints on all sides. On all sides!”
The screech of heavy tyres and violent braking announced Colonel Brammington’s arrival and in a moment he came in. He was a vast red man with untidy hair, prominent eyes, and a loud voice. The state of his clothes suggested that he’d been dragged by the heels through some major disaster.
He shouted an apology at Harper, touched Alleyn’s hand as if it was a bomb, stared at Fox, and then hurled himself into a seagrass chair with such abandon that he was like to break it.
“I should have been here half an hour ago,” shouted Colonel Brammington, “but for my car, my detestable, my abominable car.”
“What was the matter, sir?” asked Harper.
“My good Harper, I have no notion. Fortunately I was becalmed near a garage. The fellow thrust his head among her smoking entrails, uttered some mumbojumbo, performed suitable rites with oil and water, and I was enabled to continue.”
He twisted his bulk in the creaking chair and stared at Alleyn.
“Perfectly splendid that you have responded with such magnificent celerity to our cri du coeur, Alleyn. We shall now resume, thankfully, the upholstered leisure of the not-too-front front stall.”
“Don’t be too sure of that, sir,” said Alleyn. “It looks as if there’s a weary grind ahead of us.”
“Oh God, how insupportably dreary! What, hasn’t the solution been borne in upon you in a single penetrating flash? Pray expect no help from me. Have you got a cigarette, Harper?”
Alleyn offered his case.
“Thank you. I haven’t even a match, I’m afraid. Ah, thank you.” Colonel Brammington lit his cigarette and goggled at Alleyn. “I suppose Harper’s given you the whole tedious rigmarole,” he said.
“He’s given me the file. I suggest that Fox and I take it with us to Ottercombe and digest it.”
“Oh Lord! Yes, do. Yes, of course. But you’ve discussed the case?”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Harper has given me an excellent survey of the country.”
“It’s damned difficult country. Now, on the face of it, what’s your opinion; accident or not?”
“On the face of it,” said Alleyn, “not.”
“Oh Lord!” repeated Colonel Brammington. He got up, with surprising agility, from his tortured chair and moved restlessly about the room. “Yes,” he said, “I agree with you. The fellow was murdered. And of all the damned unconscionable methods of despatching a man! An envenom’d stick, by God! How will you hunt it home to this fellow?”
“Which fellow, sir?”
“The murderer, my dear man. Legge! A prating, soap-box-orator of a fellow, I understand — some squalid little trouble-hatcher. Good God, my little Alleyn, of course he’s your man! I’ve said so from the beginning. There was cyanide on the dart. He threw the dart. He deliberately pinked his victim.”
“Harper,” said Alleyn, with a glance at the superintendent’s shocked countenance, “tells me that several of the others agree that Legge had no opportunity to anoint the dart, with cyanide or anything else.”
“Drunk!” cried Colonel Brammington. “Soaked in a damn’ good brandy, the lot of ’em. My opinion.”
“It’s possible, of course.”
“It’s the only answer. My advice, for what it’s worth, is, haul him in for manslaughter. Ought to have been done at first, only that drooling old pedagogue Mordant didn’t put it to the jury. However, you must do as you think best.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Alleyn gravely. Brammington grinned.
“The very pineapple of politeness,” he quoted. “Come and dine with me to-morrow. Both of you.”
“May I ring up?”
“Yes, yes,” said Colonel Brammington impatiently. “Certainly.”
He hurried to the door as if overcome by an intolerable urge to move on somewhere. In the doorway he turned.
“You’ll come round to my view,” he said, “I’ll be bound you will.”
“At the moment, sir,” said Alleyn, “I have no view of my own.”
“Run him in on the minor charge,” added Colonel Brammington, raising his voice to a penetrating shout as he disappeared into the street, “and the major charge will follow as the night the day.”
A door slammed and in a moment the violence of his engines was reawakened.
“Well, now,” said Alleyn. “I wonder.”