Alleyn examined the counter in the private tap. It was stained with dregs, fourteen days old. Abel pointed to a lighter ring.
“Thurr’s where brandy bottle stood,” he said. “ ’Ess fay, thurr’s where she was, sure enough.”
“Yes. Now, where were the people? You say you stood behind the bar?”
“ ’Ess, and young Will was in corner ’twixt bar and dart board. Rest of ’em had just finished Round-the-Clock. Bob Legge had won. They used the old darts, and when he ran home, he put ’em back in that thurr wooden rack by board. Yurr they be. Nick Harper come over generous,” said Abel, with irony, “and left us they old darts. He collared the new ’uns.”
“Ah, yes,” said Alleyn hurriedly. “What about the rest of the party?”
“I’m telling you, sir. Chap Legge’d won the bout. Mr. Watchman says, ‘By God it’s criminal, Legge. Men have been jailed for less,’ he says, in his joking way. ‘Come on,’ he says, ‘us’ll have t’other half,’ he says, ‘and then, be George, if I don’t let ’ee have a go at my hand.’ He says it joking, sir; but to my mind, Mr. Watchman knew summat about Legge, and to my mind, Legge didn’t like it.”
Abel glanced through the glass door at Will, but Will’s back was turned. The three customers gaped shamelessly at Alleyn and Fox.
“Well, now,” Abel went on, lowering his voice, “Legge paid no ’tention to Mr. Watchman, ’cept to say casual-like: ‘I’ll do it all right, but don’t try it if you feel nervous,’ which wurr very wittiest manner of speech the man could think of to egg on Mr. Watchman, to set his fancy, hellbent, on doing it. ’Ess, Legge egged the man on, did Legge. That’s while he was putting away old darts. Then he moved off, tantalizing, to t’other end of room. T’other ladies and gentlemen was round bar, ’cepting Miss Darragh, who was setting with her writing in inglenook. Thurr’s her glass on t’old settle, sir. Stone ginger, she had. Miss Dessy, that’s Miss Moore, sir, she was setting on the bar, in the corner yurr, swinging her legs. That’ll be her glass on the ledge thurr. Stone ginger. The three gentlemen, they wurr alongside bar. Mr. Cubitt next Miss Dessy, then Mr. Watchman and then Mr. Parish. I ’member that, clear as daylight, along of Miss Darragh making a joke about ’em. ‘Three graces,’ she called ’em, being a fanciful kind of middle-aged lady.”
“That leaves Mr. George Nark.”
“So it does then, the silly old parrot. ’Ess. George Nark wurr setting down by table inside of door, laying down the law, as is the foolish habit of the man. Well now, I poured out the second tot beginning with Mr. Cubitt. Then Mr. Watchman and then Mr. Parish. Then George Nark brings his glass over, with his tongue hanging out, and insults t’murdered gentleman by axing for soda in this masterpiece of a tipple, having nigh-on suffercated hisself with first tot, golloping it down ferocious. No sooner does he swallow second tot that he’s proper blind tipsy. ’Ess, so soused as a herring, wurr old George Nark. Lastly, sir, Mr. Watchman gets Legge’s glass from mantelshelf and axes me to pour out the second tot.”
“Leaving his own glass on the bar between Mr. Parish and Mr. Cubitt?”
“ ’Ess. Legge wurr going to wait till after he’d done his trick. Us knows what wurr in the evil thoughts of the man. He wanted to keep his eye in so’s he could stick Mr. Watchman with thicky murderous dart.”
“Mr. Pomeroy,” said Alleyn, “I must warn you against making statements of that sort. You might land yourself in a very pretty patch of trouble, you know. What happened next? Did you pour out Mr. Legge’s brandy for him?”
“’Ess, I did. And Mr. Watchman tuk it to him saying he’d have no refusal. Then Mr. Watchman tuk his own dram over to table by dart board. He drank ’er down slow, and then says he: ‘Now for it.’ ”
“And had Mr. Legge been anywhere near Mr. Watchman’s glass?”
Abel looked mulish. “No, sir, no. Not azacly. Not at all. He drank his over in inglenook, opposite Miss Darragh. ’Twasn’t then the mischief wurr done, Mr. Alleyn.”
“Well,” said Alleyn, “we shall see. Now for the accident itself.”
The story of those few minutes, a story that Alleyn was to hear many times before he reached the end of this case, was repeated by Abel and tallied precisely with all the other accounts in Harper’s file, and with the report of the inquest.
“Very well,” said Alleyn. He paused for a moment and caught sight of Will’s three customers, staring with passionate interest through the glass door. He moved out of their range of vision.
“Now we come to the events that followed the injury. You fetched the iodine from that cupboard?”
“Sure enough, sir, I did.”
“Will you show me what you did?”
“Certainly. Somebody — Legge ’twas, out of the depths of his hypocrisy, says, ‘Put a drop of iodine on it,’ he says. Right. I goes to thicky cupboard which Nick Harper has played the fool with, mucking round with his cameras and squirts of powder. I opens bottom door this way, and thurr on shelf is my first-aid box.”
Alleyn and Fox looked at the cupboard. It was a double corner cabinet, with two glass doors one above the other. Abel had opened the bottom door. At the back of the shelf was a lidless tin, containing the usual first-aid equipment, and a very nice ship’s decanter. Abel removed the decanter.
“I’ll scald and scour ’er out,” he said. “Us’ll have your sherry in this yurr, gentlemen, and I’ll join you tomorrow in fust drink to show there’s no hanky-panky.”
“We’ll be delighted if you’ll join us, Mr. Pomeroy, but I don’t think we need feel any qualms.”
“Ax George Nark,” said Abel bitterly. “Have a tell with George Nark, and get your minds pisened. I’ll look after your stomachs.”
Alleyn said hurriedly: “And that’s the first-aid equipment?”
“That’s it, sir. Bottle of iodine was laying in empty slot, yurr,” Abel explained. “I tuk it out and I tuk out bandage at same time.”
“You should keep your first-aid box shut up, Mr. Pomeroy,” said Alleyn, absently.
“Door’s air-tight, sir.”
Alleyn shone his torch into the cupboard. The triangular shelf, forming the roof of the lower cupboard and the floor of the top one, was made of a single piece of wood, and fitted closely.
“And the bottle of prussic acid solution was in the upper cupboard?” asked Alleyn.
“ ’Ess, tight-corked. Nick Harper’s taken—”
“Yes, I know. Was the upper door locked?”
“Key turned in lock, same as it be now.”
“You said at the inquest that you had used the iodine earlier in the evening.”
“So I had, then. Bob Legge had cut hisself with his razor. He said he wurr shaving hisself along of going to Illington. When storm came up — it wurr a terror— that thurr storm — us told Legge he’d better bide home-along. I reckon that’s the only thing I’ve got to blame myself for. Howsumdever the man came in for his pint at five o’clock, and I give him a lick of iodine and some sticking plaster.”
“Are you certain, Mr. Pomeroy? It’s important.”
“Bible oath,” said Abel. “Thurr y’are, sir. Bible oath. Ax the man hisself. I fetched out my first-aid box and give him the bottle. Ax him.”
“Yes, yes. And you’re certain it was at five o’clock?”
“Bob Legge,” said Abel, “has been into tap for his pint at five o’clock every day, ’cepting Sunday, fur last ten months. Us opens at five in these parts, and when I give him the iodine I glanced at clock and opened up.”
“When you put the bottle in the top cupboard on the Thursday night you wore gloves. Did you take them off before you turned the key?”
“ ’Ess fay, and pitched ’em on fire. Nick Harper come down off of his high horse furr enough to let on my finger marks is on key. Don’t that prove it?”