“We may return these now, I think,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll be glad to see the Plume of Feathers set right again.”
“Thanks,” said Will. He stretched out his hand and took the keys.
“The point we’d like to talk about,” said Alleyn, “is the possibility of the dart that injured Mr. Watchman being tainted with the stuff used for rat-poison — the acid was kept in the corner cupboard of the private tap. Now, your father—”
“I know what my father’s been telling you,” interrupted Will, “and I don’t hold with it. My father’s got a damn’ crazy notion in his head.”
“What notion is that?” asked Alleyn.
Will looked sharply at him, using that trick of lowering his eyelashes. He did not answer.
“Do you mean that your father’s ideas about Mr. Robert Legge are crazy?”
“That’s right. Father’s got his knife into Bob Legge because of his views. There’s no justice nor sense in what he says. I’ll swear, Bible oath, Bob Legge never interfered with the dart. I’ll swear it before any judge or jury in the country.”
“How can you be so positive?”
“I was watching the man. I was in the corner between the dart board and the bar. I was watching him.”
“All the time? From the moment the darts were unpacked until he threw them?”
“Yes,” said Will, doggedly. “All the time.”
“Why?”
“Eh?”
“Why did you watch him so closely?”
“Because of what the man was going to do. We all watched him.”
“Suppose,” said Alleyn, “that for the sake of argument I told you we knew positively that Mr. Legge, while he held the darts in his left hand, put his right hand in his pocket for a moment—”
“I’d say it was a lie. He didn’t. He never put his hand in his pocket.”
“What makes you so positive, Mr. Pomeroy?”
“For one thing he was in his shirt-sleeves.”
“What about his waistcoat and trousers pockets?”
“He hadn’t a waistcoat. His sleeves was rolled up and I was watching his hands. They never went near his trousers’ pockets. He held the darts in his left hand, and I was watching the way he felt the points, delicate-like, with the first finger of his other hand. He was saying they was right-down good darts, well made and well balanced.” Will leant forward and scowled earnestly at Alleyn.
“Look ’ee here, sir,” he said. “If Bob Legge meant any harm to they darts would he have talked about them so’s we all looked at the damn’ things? Would he, now?”
“That’s a very sound argument,” agreed Alleyn. “He would not.”
“Well, then!”
“Right. Now the next thing he did, was to throw all six darts, one after the other, into the board. He had six, hadn’t he?”
“Yes. There were six new ’uns in the packet. Usual game’s only three, but he took all six for this trick.”
“Exactly. Now, what did he do after he’d thrown them?”
“Said they carried beautiful. He’d thrown the lot round the centre, very pretty. Mr. Watchman pulled ’em out and looked at ’em. Then Mr. Watchman spread out his left hand on the board and held out the darts with his right. ‘Fire ahead,’ he says, or something like that”
Alleyn uttered a short exclamation and Will looked quickly at him.
“That wasn’t brought out at the inquest,” said Alleyn.
“Beg pardon? What wasn’t?”
“That Mr. Watchman pulled out the darts and gave them to Mr. Legge.”
“I know that, sir. I only thought of it to-day. I’d have told Mr. Harper next time I saw him.”
“It’s a little odd that you should not remember this until a fortnight after the event.”
“Is it, then?” demanded Will. “I don’t reckon it is. Us didn’t think anything at the time. Ask any of the others. Ask my father. They’ll remember, all right, when they think of it.”
“All right,” said Alleyn. “I suppose it’s natural enough you should forget.”
“I know what it means,” said Will quickly. “I know that, right enough. Mr. Watchman handled those darts, moving them round in his hands, like. How could Bob Legge know which was which, after that?”
“Not very easily one would suppose. What next?”
“Bob took the darts and stepped back. Then he began to blaze away with ’em. He never so much as glanced at ’em, I know that. He played ’em out quick.”
“Until the fourth one stuck into the finger?”
“Yes,” said Will doggedly, “till then.”
Alleyn was silent. Fox, note-book in hand, moved over to the window and stood looking over the roofs of Ottercombe at the sea.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Will suddenly.
“Yes?” asked Alleyn.
“I reckon the poison on those dart’s a blind.”
He made this announcement with an air of defiance, and seemed to expect it would bring some sort of protest from the other two. But Alleyn took it very blandly.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s possible, of course.”
“See what I mean?” said Will eagerly. “The murderer had worked it out he’d poison Mr. Watchman. He’d worked it out he’d put the stuff in his drink, first time he got a chance. Then, when Bob Legge pricks him by accident, the murderer says to himself: ‘There’s a rare chance.’ He’s got the stuff on him. He puts it in the brandy glass and afterwards, while we’re all fussing round Mr. Watchman, he smears it on the dart. The brandy glass gets smashed to pieces but they find poison on the dart. That’s how I work it out. I reckon whoever did this job tried, deliberate, to fix it on Bob Legge.”
Alleyn looked steadily at him.
“Can you give us anything to support this theory?”
Will hesitated. He looked from Alleyn to Fox, made as if to speak, and then seemed to change his mind.
“You understand, don’t you,” said Alleyn, “that I am not trying to force information. On the other hand, if you do know of anything that would give colour to the theory you have yourself advanced, it would be advisable to tell us about it.”
“I know Bob Legge didn’t interfere with the dart.”
“After it was all over, and the constable looked for the dart, wasn’t it Legge who found it?”
“Sure-ly! And that goes to show. Wouldn’t he have taken his chance to wipe the dart if he’d put poison in it?”
“That’s well reasoned,” said Alleyn. “I think he would. But your theory involves the glass. Who had an opportunity to put prussic acid in the glass?”
Will’s fair skin reddened up to the roots of his fox-coloured hair.
“I’ve no wish to accuse anybody,” he said. “I know who’s innocent and I speak up for him. There won’t be many who’ll do that. His politics are not the colour to make powerful friends for him when he’s in trouble. I know Bob Legge’s innocent, but I say nothing about the guilty.”
“Now, look here,” said Alleyn, amiably, “you’ve thought this thing out for yourself and you seem to have thought it out pretty thoroughly. You must see that we can’t put a full-stop after your pronouncement on the innocence of Mr. Legge. The best way of establishing Legge’s innocence is to find where the guilt lies.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Really?”
“Yes, sir,” said Will. “Really.”
“I see. Well, can you tell us if Mr. Legge stood anywhere near the brandy glass, before he threw the darts?”
“He was nowhere near it. Not ever. It was on the table by the board. He never went near it.”
“Do you remember who stood near the table?”
Will was silent. He compressed his lips into a hard line.
“For instance,” Alleyn pursued, “was Mr. Sebastian Parish anywhere near the table?”