Death at the Bar (21 page)

He turned his prominent eyes on Harper, who looked scandalized.

“After all,” said Colonel Brammington, “I did not know the victim and I frankly confess I adore a murder. Pray, Mr. Harper, do not look at me in that fashion. I want the glib and oil art to speak and purpose not I enjoy a murder and I enjoyed this one. It seemed to me that Legge had anointed the dart with malice aforethought and prussic acid, had prepared the ground with exhibitions of skill, and had deliberately thrown awry. He had overheard Watchman’s story of his idiosyncrasy for the cyanide. He had seen Pomeroy put the bottle in the cupboard. Cyanide had been found on the dart. What more did we need? True, the motive was lacking, but when I learnt that you suspected Legge of being a gaol-bird, a sufficient motive appeared. Legge had established himself in this district in a position of trust, he handled moneys, he acquired authority. Watchman, by his bantering manner, suggested that he recognized Legge. Legge feared he would be exposed. Legge therefore murdered Watchman. That was my opinion until this afternoon.”

Colonel Brammington took a prodigious swig of beer and flung himself back in his tortured chair.

“This afternoon,” he said, “I was astonished at your refusal to arrest Legge, but when I took the files away and began to read them I changed my opinion. I read the statements made by the others and I saw how positive each was that Legge had no opportunity to anoint the dart. I was impressed by your own observation that his hands were clumsy, that he was incapable of what would have amounted to an essay in legerdemain. Yet cyanide was found on the dart. Who had put it there? It is a volatile poison, therefore it must have been put on the dart not long before Oates sealed it up. I wondered if, after all, the whole affair was an accident, if there was some trace of poison on Abel Pomeroy’s clothes or upon the bar where he unpacked the darts. It was a preposterous notion and it was smashed as squat as a flounder by the fact that the small vessel in the rat-hole had been filled up with water. I was forced to believe that the cyanide had been taken from the rat-hole immediately, or soon after, old Pomeroy put it there. Any of the suspects might have done this. But only four of the suspects had handled the darts; Legge, the Pomeroys and Parish. Only Legge controlled the flight of the darts. Watchman took them out of the board after the trial throw and gave them to Legge. Now here,” said Colonel Brammington with an air of conscious modesty, “I fancy I hit on something new. Can you guess what it was?”

“I can venture to do so.” Alleyn rejoined, “did you reflect that all the darts had been thrown into the board on the trial, and then if cyanide was on any one of them it would have been effectively cleaned off?”

“Good God!” ejaculated the Chief Constable.

He was silent for some time, but at last continued with somewhat forced airiness.

“No. No, that was not my point, but by Jupiter it supports my case. I was going to say that since Watchman removed the darts and handed them to Legge, it would have been quite impossible for Legge to know which dart was tainted. This led me to an alternative. Either all the darts were poisoned or else, or else, my dear Alleyn, the dart that wounded Watchman was tainted after, and not before, the accident” He glanced at Alleyn.

“Yes, sir,” said Alleyn. “One or the other.”

“You agree? You had thought of it?”

“Will Pomeroy suggested the second altenative,” said Alleyn.

“Damn! However! Legge, I had decided, was not capable of anointing one, much less six, darts during the few seconds he held them in his hand before doing his trick. Legge would scarcely implicate himself by anointing the dart after he had seen Watchman die. Therefore someone had tried to implicate Legge. I was obliged to bow to your wisdom, my dear Alleyn. I dismissed Legge. I finished your report and I considered the other suspects. Who, of these seven persons, for they are seven if we include Miss Darragh and Miss Moore, could most easily have taken cyanide from the small vessel in the rat-hole? One of the Pomeroys, since their presence in or about the out-houses would not be remarked. Abel Pomeroy’s finger-prints, and only his, were found on the small vessel. Who of the seven had an opportunity to smear cyanide on the dart? Abel Pomeroy, since he unpacked the darts. Who, in the first instance, had cyanide brought into the premises? Abel Pomeroy. Putting motive on one side, I felt that Abel Pomeroy was my first choice. My second fancy — and don’t look so wryly upon me, Harper, a Chief Constable may have fancies as well as the next man — my second fancy fell upon Will Pomeroy. Your interview with the unspeakable Nark, my dear Alleyn, was not barren of interest. Amidst a plethora of imbecilities, Nark seemed to make one disclosure of interest. He said, or rather from your report I understood him to hint, that he had, on the occasion of Watchman’s first visit to Ottercombe overheard an amorous encounter between Watchman and Miss Moore. He hinted, moreover, that as he crept farther along Apple Lane, he came upon Will Pomeroy, lurking and listening in the hedge. Now, thought I, if this were true, here is the beginning of motive; for, in the interim, the courtship between young Pomeroy and Miss Moore ripened. Suppose, on Watchman’s return, that the rustic lover thought he saw a renewal of attentions? Suppose Parish or Cubitt hinted at the scene they interrupted by the furze-bushes? But ignoring motive, what of opportunity? Will Pomeroy handled the darts after they were unpacked by his father. Could he have had a phial of cyanide-solution in his pocket? Nobody watched Will Pomeroy with the close attention that they all gave to Legge. Your observation on the trial throw shatters this theory… Do I see another bottle of this superb beer? Thank you…

“On the whole I preferred Pomeroy senior. There seemed no reason to doubt young Pomeroy’s violent defence of Legge. He would not have thrown suspicion on Legge and then vehemently defended him. Old Pomeroy, on the other hand, detests Legge and has, from the first, accused him of the murder. But I was determined to look with an equal eye upon the field of suspects. I turned, with, I hope, becoming reluctance, to the ladies. On Miss Darragh I need not dwell. Harper has told me of your discovery of her link with Legge and it is obvious that she merely took what may be described as a family interest in him. The family tree in this instance being unusually shady… Ha! But Miss Moore, if Nark is to be believed, cannot be so dismissed. There had been amorous passages between Miss Moore and Watchman. Miss Moore denied this in the course of your interview. Could love have turned into the proverbial hatred? What happened when those ambiguous heelmarks were printed in the turf behind the furze-bush? A quarrel? Was she afraid her lover would betray her to her fiancé? And opportunity? Could she have introduced poison into the glass? Who better, since she poured out the brandy? But here, as with young Pomeroy, I had to pause. Whoever poisoned Watchman took peculair pains to implicate Legge, but ever since the investigation began, Miss Moore has been ardent to the point of rashness in her defence of Legge. She has braved everything for Legge, and there is a ring of urgency in her defence that bears the very tinct of sincerity. I dismissed Miss Moore. I turned, at last, to Sebastian Parish and Norman Cubitt. Here it was impossible to ignore motive. Motive in the form of handsome inheritances was as conspicuous as a pitchfork in Paradise. What of fact? Cubitt did not handle the darts but, on my second alternative, he could have tainted the poisoned dart after Watchman threw it down. But if the dart was a blind and didn’t kill Watchman, what did? The brandy? We are told that criminals repeat the manner of their crimes and this attempt upon you and Fox supports the theory. The murderer had killed Watchman by the method of putting cyanide in his brandy? The murderer hoped to kill you by putting cyanide in your sherry? To return. The fingerprint and rat-hole objection applies to Cubitt and Parish, as it does to everyone but Pomeroy senior. Of course it is possible that the murderer drew the poison off with some instrument and without touching the vessel. This brings me to Parish.”

Colonel Brammington darted a raffish glance at Alleyn and accepted a fresh cigarette.

“To Parish,” he repeated. “And here we must not ignore a point that I feel is extremely important. Parish purchased the cyanide solution. It was he who suggested, to the certifiable Noggins, that it should be gingered up, as he put it. It was he who carried it back to the inn. Old Pomeroy said that the wretched Noggins’ sealing-wax was unbroken when Parish gave him the bottle. Is it possible to substitute one drop of sealing-wax by another? And if this had been done, why the interference with the rat-hole? But suppose the wrapping and seal were intact. Suppose that Parish made sure of obtaining a strong enough poison, delivered the bottle, sealed as he had received it, and later went to the rat-hole; why, then he would be acting more wisely, he would be removing suspicion one step away from himself. His defence would be: ‘If I had intended to use this damnable poison, surely I would have taken the opportunity to extract it from the bottle when it was actually in my hands.’ I began to think I had got on the trail at last. I inspected the notes made by your man, Oates, when the memory of the night’s events were still fresh, or as fresh as the aftermath of Courvoisier would allow. It was Parish, equally with Watchman, who suggested they should have the brandy, Parish who applauded and encouraged the suggestion that Legge should try the experiment with the darts. I began to wonder if this was an opportunity Parish had awaited, if he had the cyanide concealed about him in readiness for use. Could he have reasoned that Legge, full of brandy, was likely to make a blunder in throwing the dart, and that if he did blunder, here was Parish’s opportunity to bring off his plan? This was purely conjectural, my dear Alleyn, but before long I came upon a thumping fact. Up to the moment when Miss Moore poured out the brandy that failed to restore Watchman, Parish, and only Parish, had an opportunity of putting anything in Watchman’s glass. Parish knew that if Legge wounded Watchman, Watchman would turn queasy. Parish encouraged the brandy-drinking and dart-throwing. Parish stood near the glass until it was used.”

Colonel Brammington thumped the arm of his chair and pointed a hairy finger at Alleyn.

“Above all,” he shouted, “Parish has done nothing but murmur against Legge. Suspicions, Bacon remarked, that are artificially nourished by the tales and whisperings of others, have stings. This, Parish foresaw. This he hoped would prove true. My case against Parish is that he took cyanide from the rat-hole as soon as he could after Abel Pomeroy put it there. Or, I offer it as an alternative, that he took cyanide from the original bottle, replaced the small amount with water, and contrived to re-wrap and seal the bottle, and, as a blind, upset the vessel in the rat-hole without disturbing Pomeroy’s prints, and filled it with water. This suggests a subtlety of reasoning which may or may not appeal to you. But to the burden of my tale. Parish had, that very evening, heard of Watchman’s idiosyncrasy for cyanide, he had been reminded of Watchman’s habit of turning faint at the sight of his own blood, he had heard Watchman baiting Legge and Legge’s offer to perform his trick with Watchman’s hand, he had heard Watchman half-promise to let him try. The following night, when the brandy was produced and drunk, he saw his chance. He encouraged the drinking and the projected experiment. When Legge wounded Watchman and Watchman turned faint, Parish stood near the glass. He had the cyanide about him. Brandy was suggested. Parish put his poison in the glass. The lights went out. Parish groped on the floor, bumped his head against Cubitt’s legs, found the dart and infected it. He then ground whatever phial he had about him into powder, together with the broken tumbler on the floor, and finding a more solid piece under his heel, threw it into the fire. And from then onwards, gentlemen, I maintain that everything the fellow did or said, is consistent with the theory that he murdered his cousin. I plump for Parish.”

Colonel Brammington stared about him with an unconvincing air of modesty tinged with a hint of anxiety.

“Well,” he said, “there you are. An essay in Watsoniana. Am I to be set down? Shall I perceive my mentor wafting his eyes to the contrary and falling a lip of much contempt?”

“No, indeed,” said Alleyn. “I congratulate you, sir, A splindid marshalling of facts and a magnificent sequence of deductions.”

If so large and red a man could be said to simper, Colonel Brammington simpered.

“Really” he said. “I have committed no atrocious blunder? My deductions march with yours?”

“Almost all the way. We shall venture to disagree on one or two points.”

“I make no claim to infallibility,” said the Chief Constable. “What are the points? Let us have them?”

“Well,” said Alleyn apologetically, and with an uncomfortable glance at Harper and at Fox, “there’s only one point of any importance. I–In our view of the case — you’ve — you’ve hit on the wrong man.”

i

For a second or two Alleyn wondered if there would be an explosion or, worse, a retreat into heavy silence. Fearing that the expression of gloating delight upon Harper’s face might turn the scales, Alleyn had placed himself between the Chief Constable and his Superintendent. But Colonel Brammington behaved admirably. He goggled for a moment, he became rather more purple in the face, and he made a convulsive movement that caused his shirt-front to crackle sharply, but finally he spoke with composure.

“Your manners, my dear Alleyn,” he said, “are, as always, worthy of a Chesterfield. I am pinked on the very point of a compliment. The wrong man? Indeed? Then I must be ludicrously at fault. I have made some Gargantuan error. My entire sequence of deductions—”

“No, no, sir. Your case against Parish is supported by facts, but not by all the facts. Parish might so nearly have murdered Watchman, by either of the two methods you’ve described…”

“Then… Well!”

“The circumstance that excludes Parish, excludes his only means of murder. If he did it, it was by poisoning the brandy, and he couldn’t tell which glass would be used. Not possibly. But we’ll come to that in a minute. Our case, and I’m afraid it’s a dubious one at the moment, is that there are one or two scraps of evidence that fit into the pattern only if they are allowed to point in one direction, and that is not towards Parish.”

“What are they?… More beer, I implore you.”

“To begin with,” said Alleyn, filling Colonel Brammington’s glass, “the two iodine bottles…”

“What!”

“Shall we take them, sir, as they turn up?”

“Let us, for God’s sake.”

“You, sir, ended with Sebastian Parish. I shall begin with him. If Parish was a murderer, how lucky he was! How all occasions did inform against Watchman and favour Parish! It was on the evening after his decision that the brandy was produced, so
that
was pure luck. He didn’t know Legge would wound Watchman, he only hoped that under the influence of brandy, he might miss his mark. When it so fell out, he had to make up his mind very rapidly and plan a series of delicate and dangerous manœuvres. And how oddly he behaved! He risked his own immunity by handling the darts, and this, when his whole object was that Legge should seem to be the poisoner. After the accident, instead of putting cyanide in the brandy glass and moving away from it, he stood beside it, in a position that was likely to be remembered. And again, how could he tell that Miss Moore would use that glass? There were seven other glasses about the room. She might have taken a clean glass. Parish made no attempt to force that glass upon her. She chose it. More stupendous luck. Now, with the exception of Miss Moore, this objection applies to the supposition that any of them put cyanide in the brandy-glass. They couldn’t be sure it would be used. Only Miss Moore could be sure of that, for she chose it.”

“You surely don’t… Go on,” said Colonel Brammington.

“I entirely agree that, ruling out Legge, — and assuming that the whole arrangement of the business was an attempt to implicate Legge, — Cubitt, Miss Darragh, Will Pomeroy and Miss Moore must be counted out, since they have all declared that Legge was unable to meddle with the darts. Our case rests on a different assumption.”

“Here, wait a bit,” cried the Colonel. “No. All right. Go on.”

“Abel Pomeroy and Parish were the only ones openly to accuse Legge. Abel Pomeroy was particularly vehement in his insistence that Legge deliberately killed Watchman. He came up to London to tell me about it.”

“Old Pomeroy was my earlier choice.”

“Yes, sir. To return to the brandy. For the reason I have given you, and for reasons that I hope to make clear, we are persuaded that there was no cyanide in the brandy. We are certain that cyanide was put on the dart after, and not before, it pierced Watchman’s finger. Otherwise it would have been removed by the trial throw into the cork board or, if there was any trace left, possibly washed off by the blood that flowed freely from Watchman’s finger and with which the dart was greatly stained. The cyanide was found on the point of the dart. Watchman, we think, was poisoned, not by the dart nor by the brandy. How, then?”

“But my dear fellow, there was no cyanide in the iodine bottle. They found the bottle. There was no cyanide.”

“None. Now here, sir, we have a bit of evidence that is new to you. I feel sure that if you’d had it earlier to-day, it would have made a difference in your view of the case. We have found out that within a few hours of the murder, a bottle of iodine disappeared from the bathroom cupboard upstairs.”

Colonel Brammington stared a little wildly at Alleyn, made as if to speak, and evidently thought better of it. He waved his hand.

“The bottle of iodine that was originally in the down-stairs first-aid box,” Alleyn continued, “was an entirely innocent bottle, with Abel’s prints on it and only his. Legge’s prints were added when he borrowed this bottle to doctor a cut on his chin. Abel gave it to him. Now that innocent and original bottle is, I consider, the one that was found under the settle. All that is left of the bottle Abel Pomeroy used, when he poured iodine into Watchman’s wound, is represented, or so we believe, by the surplus amount of glass Mr. Harper swept up from the floor and by the small misshapen fragments we found in the ashes.”

“Hah!” ejaculated the Colonel. “Now I have you. A lethal bottle, taken from the bathroom and infected, was substituted for the innocent bottle in the first-aid box. Only Abel Pomeroy’s prints were found on the cupboard door and so on. Abel Pomeroy himself took the bottle from the box and himself poured the iodine into the wound. Splendid!”

“Exactly, sir,” said Alleyn.

“Well, Alleyn, I readily abandon my second love. I return, chastened, to my first love. How will you prove it?”

“How indeed! We hope that an expert will be able to tell us that the fragments of glass are, in fact, of the same type as that used for iodine bottles. That’s not much, but it’s something, and we
have
got other strings to our bow.”

“What’s his motive?”

“Whose motive, sir?”

“Old Pomeroy’s.”

Alleyn looked at him apologetically.

“I’m sorry, sir. I hadn’t followed you. Abel Pomeroy had no motive, as far as I know, for wishing Watchman dead.”

“What the hell d’you mean.”

“I didn’t think Abel Pomeroy was strictly your first love, sir. May I go on? You see, once we accept the iodine theory, we must admit that the murderer knew Watchman would be wounded by the dart. Nobody knew that, sir, but Legge.”

ii

It took the second half of the last bottle of Treble Extra to mollify the Chief Constable, but he was mollified in the end.

“I invited it,” he said, “and I got it. In a sense, I suppose I committed the unforgivable offence of failing to lead trumps. Legge was trumps. Go on, my dear Alleyn. Expound. Is it Locke who says that it is one thing to show a man he is in error and another to convince him of the truth? You have shown me my error. Pray reveal the whole truth.”

“From the first,” said Alleyn, “it seemed obvious that Legge was our Man. Mr. Harper realized that, and so, sir, did you. This afternoon I told Harper that Fox and I had arrived at the same conclusion. You asked me not to give you our theory before, but before and after you came into Illington, we discussed the whole thing. Harper was for arresting him there and then, and I, mistakenly perhaps, thought that we should give him more rope. I thought that on our evidence, which rests so much upon conjecture, we would not establish a
prima-facie
case.”

“What is your evidence beyond the tedious — well, go on.”

“As we see it,” said Alleyn, “Legge planned the whole affair to look like accident. No doubt he hoped that it would go no further than the inquest. His behaviour has been consistent with the theory of accident. He has shown us a man overwrought by the circumstance of having unwittingly killed someone. That describes his behaviour after Watchman died, at the inquest, and subsequently. He chanced everything on the accident theory. It is easy, now, to say he took an appalling risk, but he very nearly got away with it. If old Abel hadn’t raised such a dust about the good name of his public house, and if Mr. Nark and others had not driven Harper, here, to fury, you might very well have got no further. Legge’s motive was the one we have recognized: It harks back to the days when he was Montague Thringle and stood his trial for large-size embezzlement, and all the rest of it. At least three, of the enormous number of people he ruined, committed suicide. There was the usual pitiful list of old governesses and retired clerks. A shameful affair. Now, in defending Lord Bryonie, Watchman was able to throw almost the entire blame on Legge, or Thringle as I suppose we must learn to call him. Let him be Legge for the moment. Watchman made a savage attack on Legge, and it was in no small measure due to him that Legge got such a heavy sentence. He had an imperial and moustaches in those days, and had not turned grey. His appearance was very greatly changed when he came out of gaol. After various vicissitudes in Liverpool and London, he came down here, suffering from a weak chest and some complaint of the ear, for which he uses a lotion and a dropper. Harper found the dropper when he searched Legge’s room on the morning after Watchman died. It’s not there now.”

“That’s right,” said Harper heavily.

“Legge got on well in Illington and Ottercombe. He’d got his philatelic job, and he was treasurer to a growing society. We shall inspect the books of the Coombe Left Movement. If he has not yet fallen into his old ways, on a smaller scale, it is, I am sure, only because the funds at his disposal are not yet large enough. All was going like clockwork until, out of a clear sky, came Watchman in his car. That collision of theirs must have given Legge an appalling shock. Watchman didn’t recognize him, though, and later while Legge sat unseen in the tap-room, he overheard Watchman tell Parish of the collision and say, as Parish admitted he said, that he did not know the man who ran into him. But before Legge could go out that night, Watchman came across and tried to make friends with him. Legge doesn’t seem to have been very responsive but he stuck it out. The rat-poisoning party returned and Legge’s skill with darts was discussed. Legge took up Watchman’s bet and won. I think it must have amused him to do that. Now, it was soon after this that Watchman began to twit Legge about his job and his political opinions. I’ve gone over the events of this first evening with the witnesses. Though they are a bit hazy, they agree that Watchman’s manner was offensive. He ended by inviting Legge to a game of Round-the-Clock and the manner of the invitation was this: he said, ‘Have you ever done time, Mr. Legge?’ I think that throughout the whole evening Watchman, having recognized Legge, played cat-and-mouse with him. I knew Watchman. He has a curious feline streak of cruelty in him. I think it must have been then that Legge made up his mind Watchman had recognized him. Legge went into the public bar for a time. I believe he also went into the garage and sucked up cyanide in the little dropper he used for his lotion. Just, as they say, ‘in case’!”

“Damned ingenious,” said Colonel Brammington, “but conjectural.”

“I know. We are only halfway through the case. It has changed its complexion with Oates’s arrest of Legge for assault. We’ve only been here some thirty hours, you see. If we can check the time Legge appeared in the public bar with the time he left the private one, and all that dreary game, we shall be a step nearer. But dismiss all this conjecture and we still have the facts. We still know that only Legge controlled the flight of the dart.”

“Yes.”

“The next day was the fatal one. Legge stayed out of sight all day. Late in the afternoon, he left it as late as possible, and just before the others came in, he went down to the bar with a razor-cut on his chin and asked Abel for some iodine. Abel got the box out of the corner cupboard and gave it to Legge. Legge returned it a few minutes later. He had dabbed iodine on his chin. He had also substituted, for the iodine bottle in the box, the iodine bottle he had taken from the bathroom. This he had doctored with prussic acid from the rat-hole. By this really neat manœuvre he got Abel to do the dirty work and accounted for any prints of his own that might afterwards be found on the bottle. In the evening Legge had a perfectly genuine appointment in Illington. At about five o’clock the storm broke, and I think that, like a good villain, Mr. Legge made plans to the tune of thunder off-stage. The storm was a fair enough reason for staying indoors. The failing lights were propitious. The Pomeroys both told him he couldn’t get through the tunnel. When Will Pomeroy went up to Legge’s room in the evening, he found him rather thoughtful. However, he came down and joined the party in the bar. I think he had made up his mind that, if Watchman suggested the trick should be done that night, he would wound Watchman. Abel, so keen on antisepsis, would produce the first-aid set from the cupboard. So it worked out. Two points are interesting. The first is the appearance and the consumption of the brandy. That was an unexpected development but he turned it to good account. He sat in the inglenook and appeared to get quietly and thoroughly soaked. That would account nicely for his missing with the trick. In the wood-basket beside his seat we found a newspaper into which liquid had been poured. The newspaper had been there since that night. Fox and I think we can detect a trace of the fruitful vine in the stains. But he must have watched the others anxiously. Would they be too tight to remember he had no chance to monkey with the darts? Luckily for him Will, Abel, Miss Darragh, and Miss Moore all remained sober. That brings us to the second point. Legge’s great object was to provide himself with an alibi for doctoring the darts. That was why he fell in with Abel’s suggestion that he should use the new darts. Legge stood under the central light and waited for the darts to be handed to him. He was in shirt-sleeves and they were rolled back like a conjurer’s. Parish, Will, Abel and Watchman all handled the darts. When Legge got them he at once threw them one by one into the board as a trial. That was his first mistake, but it would have looked odd for him not to do it. Watchman spread out his hand and the sequel followed. There were six people ready to swear Legge had done nothing to the darts.”