Death At The Bar

Chapter XVII Mr. Fox Takes Sherry

i

Parish came downstairs singing “La Donna é Mobile.” He had a pleasant baritone voice which had been half-trained in the days when he had contemplated musical comedy. He sang stylishly and one could not believe that he sang unconsciously. He swung open the door of the private tap and entered on the last flourish of that impertinent, that complacently debonair refrain.

“Good evening sir,” said Abel from behind the bar. “ ’Tis pleasant to hear you’m back to your churruping ways again.”

Parish smiled wistfully.

“Ah, Abel,” he said with a slight sigh, “it’s not as easy as it sounds; but my cousin would have been the last man to want long faces, poor dear old fellow.”

“So he would, then,” rejoined Abel heartily, “the very last.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Nark, shaking his head. Norman Cubitt looked over the top of his tankard and raised his eyebrows. Legge moved into the inglenook where Miss Darragh sat knitting.

“What’ll you take, Mr. Parish?” asked Abel.

“A Treble Extra. I need it. Hullo, Norman old man,” said Parish with a sort of brave gaiety. “How’s the work going?”

“Nicely, thank you, Seb.” Cubitt glanced at the clock. It was a quarter past seven. “I’m thinking of starting a big canvas,” he said.

“Are you? What subject?”

“Decima,” said Cubitt. He put his tankard down on the bar. “She has very kindly said she’ll sit to me.”

“How’ll you paint her?” asked Parish.

“I thought on the downs by Cary Edge. She’s got a red sweater thing. It’ll be life-size. Full length.”

“Ah, now,” exclaimed Miss Darragh from the ingle-nook, “you’ve taken my advice in the latter end. Haven’t I been at you, now, ever since I got here, to take Miss Moore for your subject? I’ve never seen a better. Sure, the picture’ll be your masterpiece, for she’s a lovely young creature.”

“But my dear chap,” objected Parish, “we’re off in a day or two. You’ll never finish it.”

“I was going to break it gently to you, Seb. If you don’t object I think I’ll stay on for a bit.”

Parish looked slightly hurt.

“That’s just as you like, of course,” he said. “Don’t ask me to stay. The place is too full of memories.”

“Besides,” said Cubitt drily, “you start rehearsals to-day week, don’t you?”

“As a matter of fact I do.” Parish raised his arms and then let them fall limply to his sides. “Work!” he said. “Back to the old grind. Ah well!” And he added with an air of martyrdom, “I can go back by train.”

“I’ll drive you into Illington, of course.”

“Thank you, old boy. Yes, I’d better get back to the treadmill.”

“Keep a stiff upper lip, Seb,” said Cubitt with a grin.

The door opened and Alleyn came in. He wore a dinner jacket and stiff shirt. Someone once said of him that he looked like a cross between a grandee and a monk. In evening clothes the grandee predominated. Parish gave him a quick appraising glance, Mr. Nark goggled, and Miss Darragh looked up with a smile. Cubitt rumpled his hair and said: “Hullo! Here comes the county!”

Mr. Legge shrank back into the inglenook. Upon all of them a kind of wariness descended. They seemed to melt away from him and towards each other. Alleyn asked for two glasses of the special sherry and told Abel that he and Fox would be out till latish.

“May we have a key, Mr. Pomeroy?”

“Us’ll leave side-door open,” said Abel. “No need fur key, sir. Be no criminals in this neighbourhood. Leastways—” He stopped short and looked pointedly at Legge.

“That’s splendid,” said Alleyn. “How far is it to Colonel Brammington’s?”

“ ’Bout eight mile, sir. Shankley Court. A great masterpiece of a place, sir, with iron gates and a deer park. Carry on for mile beyond Illington and turn left at The Man of Devon.”

“Right,” said Alleyn. “We needn’t leave for half an hour.”

Cubitt went out.

Alleyn fidgeted with a piece of rag round his left hand. It was clumsily tied and fell away, disclosing a trail of red.

He twitched the handkerchief out of his breast pocket, glanced at it and swore. There was a bright red spot on the handkerchief.

“Blast that cut,” said Alleyn. “Now I’ll have to get a clean one.”

“Hurt hurrself, sir?” asked Abel.

“Tore my hand on a rusty nail in the garage.”

“In the garage!” ejaculated Mr. Nark. “That’s a powerful dangerous place to get a cut finger. Germs galore, I dessay, and as like as not some of the poison fumes still floating about”

“Aye,” said Abel angrily, “that’s right, George Nark. All my premises is still with poison. Wonder ’tis you come anigh ’em. Here, Mr. Alleyn, sir, I’ll get ’ee a dressing fur that-thurr cut.”

“If I could have a bit of rag and a dab of peroxide or something.”

“Doan’t you have anything out of that fatal cupboard,” said Mr. Nark. “Not if you value the purity of your blood stream.”

“You know as well as I do,” said Abel, “that thurr cupboard’s been scrubbed and fumigated. Not that thurr’s anything in it. Thurr b’ain’t. Nicholas Harper made off with my first-aid set, innocent though it wurr.”

“And the iodine bottle,” pointed out Mr. Nark, “so you can’t give the inspector iodine, lethal or otherwise.”

“Thurr’s another first-aid box upstairs,” said Abel. “In bathroom cupboard. Will!” He looked into the public bar. “Will! Get t’other out of bathroom cupboard, my sonny. Look lively.”

“It doesn’t matter, Mr. Pomeroy,” said Alleyn. “Don’t bother. I’ll use this handkerchief.”

“No trouble, sir, and you’ll need a bit of antiseptic in that cut if you took it off a rusty nail. I’m a terror fur iodine, sir. I wurr a surgeon’s orderly in France, Mr. Alleyn, and learned hospital ways. Scientific ideas b’ain’t George Nark’s private property though you might think they wurr.”

Will Pomeroy came downstairs and into the private bar. He put a small first-aid box on the counter and returned to the public bar. Abel opened the box.

“ ’Tis spandy-new,” he said, “I bought it from a traveller only couple of days afore accident. Hullo! Yurr, Will!”

“What’s up?” called Will.

“Iodine bottle’s gone.”

“Eh?”

“Where’s iodine?”

“I dunno. It’s not there!” shouted Will.

“Who’s had it?”

“I dunno. I haven’t.”

“It really doesn’t matter, Mr. Pomeroy,” said Alleyn. “It’s bled itself clean. Perhaps there wasn’t any iodine.”

“Course there wurr,” said Abel. “Yurr’s lil’ bed whurr it lay. Damme, who’s been at it? Mrs. Ives!”

He stumped out and could be heard roaring angrily about the back premises.

Alleyn put a bit of lint over his finger and Miss Darragh stuck it down with strapping. He went upstairs, carrying his own glass of sherry and Fox’s. Fox was standing before the looking-glass in his room, knotting a sober tie. He caught sight of Alleyn in the glass.

“Lucky I brought my blue suit,” said Fox, “and lucky you brought your dress clothes, Mr. Alleyn.”

“Why didn’t you let me tell Colonel Brammington that we’d neither of us change, Foxkin?”

“No, no, sir. It’s the right thing for you to dress, just as much as it’d be silly for me to do so. Well, it’d be an affected kind of way for me to act, Mr. Alleyn. I never get a black coat and boiled shirt on my back except at the Lodge meetings and when I’m on a night-club job. The Colonel would only think I was trying to put myself in a place where I don’t belong. Did you find what you wanted, Mr. Alleyn?”

‘“Abel bought another first-aid set, two days before Watchman died. The iodine has been taken. He can’t find it.”

“Is that so?”

Fox brushed the sleeves of his coat and cast a final searching glance at himself in the glass. “I washed that razor blade,” he said.

“Thank you, Fox. I was a little too free with it. Bled all over Abel’s bar. Most convincing. What’s the time? Half-past seven. A bit early yet. Let’s think this out.”

“Right-o, sir,” said Fox. He lifted his glass of sherry. “Good luck, Mr. Alleyn,” he said.

ii

Decima had promised to come to Coombe Head at eight o’clock. Cubitt lay on the lip of the cliff and stared at the sea beneath him, trying, as Alleyn had tried, to read order and sequence into the hieroglyphics traced by the restless seaweed. The sequence was long and subtle, unpausing, unhurried. Each pattern seemed significant but all melted into fluidity and he decided, as Alleyn had decided, that the forces that governed these beautiful but inane gestures ranged beyond the confines of his imagination. He fell to appraising the colour and the shifting tones of the water, translating these things into terms of paint, and he began to think of how, in the morning, he would make a rapid study from the lip of the cliff.

“But I must fix one pattern only in my memory and watch for it to appear in the sequence, like a measure in some intricate saraband.”

He was so intent on this project that he did not hear Decima come and was startled when she spoke to him.

“Norman?”

Her figure was dark and tall against the sky. He rose and faced her.

“Have you risen from the sea?” he asked. “You are lovely enough.”

She did not answer and he took her hand and led her a little way over the headland to a place where their figures no longer showed against the sky. Here they faced each other again.

“I am so bewildered,” said Decima. “I have tried since this morning to feel all sorts of things. Shame. Compassion for Will. Anxiety. I can feel none of them. I can only wonder why we should so suddenly have fallen in love.”

“It was only sudden for you,” said Cubitt. “Not for me.”

“But — Is that true? How long…?”

“Since last year. Since the first week of last year.”

Decima drew away from him.

“But, didn’t you know? I thought last year that you had guessed.”

“About Luke? Yes, I guessed.”

“Everything?”

“Yes, my dear.”

“I wish very much that it hadn’t happened,” said Decima. “Of that I am ashamed. Not for the orthodox reason but because it made such a fool of me; because I pretended to myself that I was sanely satisfying a need, whereas in reality I merely lost my head and behaved like a dairymaid.”

“Hullo,” said Cubitt. “You’re being very county. What’s wrong with dairymaids in the proletariat?”

“Brute,” muttered Decima and, between laughter and tears, stumbled into his arms.

“I love you very much,” whispered Cubitt.

“You’d a funny way of showing it. Nobody ever would have dreamed you thought anything about me.”

“Oh yes, they would. They did.”

“Who?” cried Decima in terror. “Not Will?”

“No. Miss Darragh. She as good as told me so. I’ve seen her eyeing me whenever you were in the offing. God knows I had a hard job to keep my eyes off you. I’ve wanted like hell to do this.”

But after a few moments Decima freed herself.

“This is going the wrong way,” she said. “There mustn’t be any of this.”

Cubitt said, “All right. We’ll come back to earth. I promised myself I’d keep my head. Here, my darling, have a cigarette, for God’s sake, and don’t look at me. Sit down. That’s right. Now listen. You remember the morning of that day?”

“When you and Sebastian came over the hill?”

“Yes. Just as you were telling Luke you could kill him. Did you?”

“No.”

“Of course you didn’t. Nor did I. But we made a botch of things this morning. Seb and I denied that we saw Luke as we came back from Coombe Head and I think Alleyn knew we were lying. I got a nasty jolt when he announced that he was going to see you. I didn’t know what to do. I dithered round and finally followed him, leaving Seb to come home by himself. I was too late. You’d told him?”

“I told him that Luke and I quarrelled that morning because Luke had tried — had tried to make love to me. I didn’t tell him… Norman: I lied about the rest. I said it hadn’t happened before. I was afraid. I was cold with panic. I didn’t know what you and Sebastian had told him. I thought if he found out that I had been Luke’s mistress and that we’d quarrelled, he might think… They say poison’s a woman’s weapon don’t they? It was like one of those awful dreams. I don’t know what I said. I lost my head. And that other man, Fox, kept writing in a book. And then you came and it was as if — oh, as if instead of being alone in the dark, and terrified, I had someone beside me.”

“Why wouldn’t you stay with me when they’d gone?”

“I don’t know. I wanted to think. I was muddled.”

“I was terrified you wouldn’t come here to-night, Decima.”

“I shouldn’t have come. What are we to do about Will?”

“Tell him.”

“He’ll be so bewildered,” said Decima, “and so miserable.”

“Would you have married him if this hadn’t happened?”

“I haven’t said I would marry you.”

“I have,” said Cubitt.

“I don’t know that I believe in the institution of marriage.”

“You’ll find that out when you’ve tried it, my darling.”

“I’m a farmer’s daughter. A peasant.”

“The worst of you communists,” said Cubitt, “is that you’re such snobs. Always worrying about class distinctions. Come here.”

“Norman,” said Decima presently, “who do you think it was?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Cubitt pressed her hands against him and, after a moment, spoke evenly. “Did Will ever guess about you and Luke?”

She moved away from him at arm’s-length. “You can’t think Will would do it?”

“Did he guess?”

“I don’t think — I—”

“I rather thought he had guessed,” said Cubitt.

iii

When Alleyn had gone out, the atmosphere of the taproom changed. Parish began to talk to Abel, Miss Darragh asked Legge when he was moving into Illington, Mr. Nark cleared his throat and, by the simple expedient of shouting down everyone else, won the attention of the company.

“Ah,” he said. “Axing the road to Shankley Court, was he? Ah. I expected it.”

Abel gave a disgruntled snort.

“I expected it,” repeated Mr. Nark firmly. “I had a chat with the Chief Inspector this morning.”

“After which, in course,” said Abel, “he knew his business. All he’s got to do is to clap handcuffs on somebody.”

“Abel,” said Mr. Nark, “you’re a bitter man. I’m not blaming you. A chap with a tumble load on his conscience, same as what you’ve got, is scarcely responsible for his words.”

“On his conscience!” said Abel angrily. “What the devil do you mean? Why doan’t ’ee say straight out I’m a murderer?”

“Because you’re not, Abel. Murder’s one thing and negligence is another. Manslaughter’s the term for your crime. If proper care had been took, as I told the Chief Inspector; though, mind you, I’m not a chap to teach a man his own business—”

“What sort of a chap did you say you wasn’t?”

Miss Darragh intervened.

“I’m sure,” she said, “we all must hope for the end of this terrible affair. Whether ’twas accident, or whether ’twas something else, it’s been a dreadful strain and an anxiety for us all.”

“So it has then, Miss,” agreed Abel. He looked at Legge who had turned his back and was engaged, with the assistance of a twisted handkerchief, on an unattractive exploration of his left ear. “Sooner they catch the murderer the happier all of us’ll be.”

Parish caught Abel’s eyes and he too looked at Legge.

“I can’t believe,” said Parish, “that a crime like this can go unpunished. I shall not rest content until I know my cousin is avenged.”

“Ah now, Mr. Parish,” said Miss Darragh, “you must not let this tragedy make the bitter man of you. Sure, you’re talking like the Count of Monte Cristo if ’twas he was the character I call to mind.”

“Do I sound bitter?” asked Parish in his beautiful voice. “Perhaps I do. Perhaps I am.”

A shadow of something that might have been a twinkle flitted across Miss Darragh’s face.

“A little too bitter,” she said, and it was impossible to tell whether or not she spoke ironically.

On the floor above them there was a sudden commotion. A man’s voice spoke urgently. They heard a scuffle of feet and then someone ran along the upstairs passage.

“What’s wrong with the sleuths?” asked Parish.

No one answered. Miss Darragh took up her knitting. Mr. Nark picked his teeth. Parish finished his beer.

“We all want to see the man caught,” said Legge suddenly. He spoke in his usual querulous, muffled voice. He looked ill and he seemed extremely nervous. Miss Darragh glanced at him and said soothingly:

“Of course.”

“Their behaviour,” said Legge, “is abominable. Abominable! I intend writing a letter to the Commissioner of Scotland Yard. It is disgraceful.”

Parish planted his feet apart, put his head on one side, and looked at Legge with the expression he used in films of the Bulldog Drummond type. His voice drawled slightly.

“Feelin’ nervous, Legge?” he asked. “Now isn’t that a pity.”

“Nervous! I am not nervous, Mr. Parish. What do you mean by—”

“Gentlemen,” said old Abel.

There was a brief silence broken by an urgent clatter of footsteps on the stairs.

The door into the private tap swung open. Alleyn stood on the threshold. When Miss Darragh saw his face she uttered a sharp cry that was echoed, oddly, by Parish.

Alleyn said —

“Nobody is to move from this room. Understand? What’s Dr. Shaw’s telephone number?”

Abel said: “Illington 579, sir.”

Alleyn kicked the door wide open and moved to the wall telephone just outside. He dialled a number and came into the doorway with the receiver at his ear.

“You understand,” he said, “none of you is to move. Where’s Cubitt?”

“He’s gone out,” said Parish. “What’s the matter, Mr. Alleyn, for God’s sake?”

Alleyn was speaking into the receiver:

“Dr. Shaw? At once, please, it’s the police.” He eyed them all as he waited.

“There has been an accident,” he said. “Where’s that decanter of sherry?”

“Here, sir,” said Abel.

“Take it by the end of the neck, lock it in the cupboard behind you, and bring the key to me. That you, Shaw? Alleyn. Come at once. Same trouble as last time. I’ve given an emetic. It’s worked, but he’s half-collapsed. I’ll do artificial respiration. For God’s sake be quick.”

He clicked the receiver and took the key Abel brought him. He dialled another number and spoke to Abel as he dialled it.

“Lock the shutters and all the doors. Both bars. Bring the keys here. Illington Police Station? Oates? Inspector Alleyn. I want Mr. Harper and yourself at once at the Plume of Feathers. Jump to it.”

He hung up the receiver. Abel was clattering round the public bar. Alleyn slammed the shutters in the private bar.

“If anyone opens these shutters or tries to leave this room,” he said, “there will be an arrest on a charge of attempted murder. Bring those others through here.”

“But, look here—” said Parish.

“Quiet!” said Alleyn and was obeyed. Abel shepherded a couple of astonished fishermen into the private bar. Will Pomeroy followed. Abel slammed down the bar shutter and locked it. He came to Alleyn and gave him the keys. Alleyn pushed him outside, slammed the door and locked it.

“Now,” he said, “come up here.”

He ran up the stairs, taking three at a stride. Abel followed, panting. The door of Alleyn’s room was open. Fox sat on the bed with the wash-hand basin at his feet. His face was curiously strained and anxious. When he saw Alleyn he tried to speak, but something had gone wrong with his mouth. He kept shutting his jaw with a sharp involuntary movement and his voice was thick. He jerked his hand at the bowl.

“Thank God,” said Alleyn. “Can you do another heave, old thing?”

Fox jerked his head sideways and suddenly pitched forward. Alleyn caught him.

“Move that basin,” he ordered. “I want to get him on the floor.”

Abel moved the basin and together he and Alleyn moved Fox. Alleyn had wrenched open Fox’s collar and tie. He now loosened his clothes. Somewhere in the background of his conscious thoughts was an impression that it was strange to be doing these things to Fox whom he knew so well. He began the movements of resuscitation, working hard and rhythmically. Abel quietly cleared an area round Fox.

“When you’m tiring, sir,” said Abel, “I’ll take a turn.”

But Alleyn scarcely knew he had a body of his own. His body and breath, precariously and dubiously, belonged to Fox. His thoughts were visited by hurrying pictures. He saw a figure that shoved and sweated and set the wheels of a great vehicle in motion. A figure turned and turned again at a crank handle. He was aware, at moments most vividly, of his own glass of untouched sherry on the dressing-table. Fox’s arms were heavy and stiff. Presently his eyes opened. The pupils had widened almost to the rim of the iris, the eyes had no expression. Alleyn’s own eyes were half-blinded with sweat. Suddenly the body on the floor heaved.

“That’s better,” said Abel, stooping to the basin, “he’m going to vomit again.”

Alleyn turned Fox on his side. Fox neatly and prolifically made use of the basin.

“Brandy,” said Alleyn. “In a bag in the wardrobe.”

He watched Abel fetch the flask. Alleyn unscrewed the top, smelt at the contents, and took a mouthful. He squatted on his haunches with the brandy in his mouth. The brandy was all right. He swallowed it, poured some into the cap of the flask, and gave it to Fox.

Downstairs the telephone was pealing.

“Go and answer it,” said Alleyn.

Abel went out.

“Fox,” said Alleyn. “Fox, my dear old thing.”

Fox’s lips moved. Alleyn took his handkerchief and wiped that large face carefully.

“Very inconvenient,” said a voice inside Fox. “Sorry.”

“You b — old b—,” said Alleyn softly.