Death At The Bar

Chapter XVIII Mr. Legge Commits a Misdemeanor

i

“I’m better,” said Fox presently. “I’d like to sit up.”

Alleyn propped him against the bed.

A car pulled up outside and in a moment Alleyn heard a clatter of steps and the sound of voices. Abel came in.

“Yurr be doctor,” Abel said, “and Nick Harper with police. And Colonel’s on telephone roaring like proper grampus.”

“Oh Lord!” Alleyn ejaculated. “Abel, tell him what’s happened. He’ll probably want to come over here. Apologize for me. Where’s the doctor?”

“Here,” said Dr. Shaw, and walked in. “What’s the trouble? Hullo!”

He went to Fox.

“I’m better, Doctor,” said Fox. “I’ve vomited.”

Dr. Shaw took his pulse, looked at his eyes and nodded.

“You’ll do,” he said, “but we’ll make a job of it. Come into the bathroom. You’d better keep that matter in the basin, Alleyn.”

He opened his bag, took out a tube, and jerked his head at Fox.

“Here!” said Fox resentfully, eyeing the tube.

“How did it happen?” asked Dr. Shaw.

Harper came in.

“I’ve left Oates and another man downstairs,” said Harper. “What’s up?”

“Fox drank a glass of sherry,” said Alleyn. “There’s the glass. We’ll detain all the crowd downstairs. You too, Mr. Pomeroy. Go down and join them.”

“Move along, Abel,” said Harper.

“I yurrd, I yurrd,” grunted Abel irritably, and went out.

“You’d better go down with them, Nick,” said Alleyn. “Tell Oates to watch our man like a lynx. Abel will show you a decanter. Bring it up here. Here’s the key! Use my gloves. You’d better search them. You won’t find anything but you’d better do it. Leave Miss Darragh for the moment.”

Harper went out.

“Did you take any sherry, Alleyn?” asked Dr. Shaw sharply.

“I? No.”

“Sure?”

“Perfectly. Why?”

“You look a bit dicky.”

“I’m all right.”

“Mr. Alleyn has just saved my life for me,” whispered Fox.

“You come along,” said Dr. Shaw, and led him out.

Alleyn took an envelope from his pocket and put it over the glass from which Fox had drunk. He weighted the envelope with a saucer from his wash-hand stand. He got his bag and took out an empty bottle and a funnel. He smelt the sherry in his own glass and then poured it into the bottle, stoppered it, and wrote on the label. He was annoyed to find that his hands shook. His heart thumped intolerably. He grimaced and took another mouthful of brandy.

Harper came back.

“Oates and my other chap are searching them,” said Harper. “They made no objections.”

“They wouldn’t. Sit down, Nick,” said Alleyn, “and listen. Put Fox’s sick out of the way first, for the Lord’s sake. Give it to Shaw. I’ve got palsy or something.”

Harper performed this office and sat down.

“Yesterday evening,” said Alleyn, “Abel Pomeroy opened a bottle of a very sound sherry. Fox and I had a glass each. At a quarter to one to-day Abel decanted the sherry. He, Fox and I had a glass each after it was decanted. George Nark was in the bar. Later on, Miss Darragh, Legge, Parish, Cubitt, and Will Pomeroy came in and we talked about the sherry. They all knew it was for our private use. Some forty minutes ago, Abel poured out two glasses. Fox drank his and within half a minute he was taken very ill. The symptoms were those of cyanide poisoning. I’ll swear Abel didn’t put anything in the glasses. There’s Fox’s glass. We’ll do our stuff with what’s left. I’ve covered it but we’d better get the dregs into an air-tight bottle. You’ll find one in my bag there. There’s a funnel on the dressing-table. D’you mind doing it? Clean the funnel out first. I used it for the stuff in my glass.”

Harper did this.

“It’s a bad blunder,” he said. “What good would it do him? Suppose you’d both been killed? I mean, it’s foolish. Is it panic or spite or both?”

“Neither, I imagine. I see it as a last attempt to bolster up the accident theory. The idea is that in the same mysterious way as cyanide got on the dart so it got into the decanter. The decanter, you see, was brought out from the corner cupboard. Mrs. Ives had washed it in about two dozen changes of boiling water. I don’t think anybody but Nark and Abel were aware of this. We were no doubt supposed to think the decanter was tainted by being in the cupboard.”

Superintendent Harper uttered a vulgar and incredulous word.

“I know,” agreed Alleyn. “Of course it is. But if Fox and — or — I had popped off, you’d have had a devil of a job proving it was murder. Oh, it’s a blunder, all right. It shows us two things. The murderer must have kept a bit of cyanide up his sleeve and he must have visited the private bar after Abel decanted the sherry at a quarter to one this afternoon. We will now search their rooms. We won’t find anything, but we’d better do it. I’ll just see how Fox is getting on.”

Fox, white and shaken, was sitting on the edge of the bath. Dr. Shaw was washing his hands.

“He’ll do all right now,” said Dr. Shaw. “Better go to bed and take it easy.”

“I’m damned if I do,” said Fox. “Excuse me, sir, but I’m damned if I do.”

Alleyn took him by the elbow.

“Blast your eyes,” he said, “you’ll do as you’re told. Come on.”

Fox consented, with a bad grace, to lying on his bed. Alleyn and Harper searched the rooms.

ii

At first Harper said that the rooms, in all essentials, were as he had found them on the day after Watchman’s death. In Cubitt’s they found an overwhelming smell of studio and the painting gear that had engendered it. There were bottles of turpentine and oil, half-finished works, Cubitt’s paint-box, and boxes of unopened tubes. Alleyn smelt the bottles and shook his head.

“We needn’t take them,” he said, “their stink is a lawful stink. You can’t put turpentine or oil into vintage sherry and get away with it.”

“What about prussic acid? It smells strong enough.”

“Of almonds. A nutty flavour. Do you remember the account of the murder of Rasputin?”

“Can’t say I do,” said Harper.

“Youssoupoff put cyanide in the wine. Rasputin drank several glasses, apparently with impunity.”

“But—”

“The theory is that the sugar in the wine took the punch out of the poison. That may account for Fox’s escape. No doubt the sherry had a fine old nutty aroma. By God, I’ll get this expert!”

“What are we looking for?”

“For anything that could have held the stuff he put in the decanter. Oh, he’ll have got rid of it somehow, of course. But you never know.”

They went into the bathroom. In a cupboard above the hand basin they found Abel’s second first-aid outfit. Alleyn asked Harper if there had been a bottle of iodine there on the day after the murder. Harper said no. He had checked the contents of the cupboard. They separated and took the rest of the rooms between them, Alleyn going to Legge’s and Parish’s, Harper to the others. Alleyn took a small empty bottle from Parish’s room. It had held pills and smelt of nothing at all. In Legge’s dressing-table he found a phial half-full of a thick pinkish fluid that smelt of antiseptic. Mr. Legge’s ear lotion… He kept it and searched all the drawers and pockets but found nothing else of interest. Abel’s room was neat and spotless, Will’s untidy and full of books. The wearisome and exciting business went on. Down below, in the private bar, Oates and his mate kept company with the patrons of the Plume of Feathers. They were very quiet. Occasionally Alleyn heard the voices of Parish and of Mr. Nark. Ottercombe clock struck ten, sweetly and slowly. There was a moment of complete quiet broken by a violent eruption of noise down in the bar. Alleyn and Harper met in the passage.

“Somebody cutting up rough,” said Harper.

A falsetto voice screamed out an oath. A table was overturned and there followed a great clatter of boots. Harper ran downstairs and Alleyn followed. Inside the private bar they found Legge, mouthing and gibbering, between Oates and a second uniformed constable.

“What’s all this?” asked Harper.

“Misdemeanour, sir,” said Tates, whose nose was bleeding freely. “Assault and battery.”

“I don’t care what it is,” screamed Legge. “I can’t stand any more of this—”

“Shut up, you silly chap,” admonished Oates. “He tried to make a breakaway, sir. Sitting there as quiet as you please, and all of a sudden makes a blind rush for the door and when we intercepts him he wades in and assaults and batters the pair of us. Won’t give over, sir. You’re under arrest, Robert Legge, and it is my duty to warn you that you needn’t say anything, but what you do say may be used in evidence. Stop that.”

“Persecuted,” whispered Legge. “Persecuted, spied upon, driven and badgered and maddened. I know what it means. Let me go. Damn you, let me go!”

He kicked Oates on the shin. Oates swore and twisted Legge’s arm behind his back. Legge screamed and went limp.

“You’ll have to be locked up,” said Harper sadly. “Now, are you going to behave or have we got to put the bracelets on you? Be a sensible chap.”

“I’ll resist,” said Legge, “ ’till you kill me.”

“Oh, take him away,” said Harper. “Put him in a room upstairs, both of you.”

Legge, struggling and gasping horribly, was taken out.

“Ah, it’s at his wits’ end he is, poor wretch,” said Miss Darragh.

Cubitt said: “Look here, this is ghastly. If he’s not guilty why the hell—?”

Parish said: “Not guilty? I must say that for an innocent man, his behaviour is pretty fantastic.”

Will Pomeroy crossed the room and confronted Alleyn and Harper.

“Why’s he arrested?” demanded Will.

“Assaulting a constable and interfering with the police in the execution of their duty,” said Harper.

“My God, he was drove to it! If this is justice the sooner there’s a revolution in the country the better. It’s enough to send the man mad, the way you’ve been pestering him. Haven’t you the sense to see the state he’s got into? Damme if I’m not nigh-ready to take on the lot of you myself. Let that man go.”

“That’ll do, Will,” said Harper.

“ ‘That’ll do!’ The official answer for every blasted blunder in the force. Bob Legge’s my comrade—”

“In which case,” said Alleyn, “you’ll do well to think a little before you speak. You can hardly expect Mr. Harper to set up constables in rows for your comrade Legge to bloody their noses. While his mood lasts he’s better in custody. You pipe down like a sensible fellow.” He turned to Harper. “Stay down here a moment, will you? I’ll take a look at Fox and rejoin you.”

He ran upstairs and met Oates in the landing.

“My mate’s put Legge in his own room, sir,” said Oates.

“Good. He’d better stay with him and you’d better dip your nose in cold water before you resume duty. Then come and relieve Mr. Harper.”

Oates went into the bathroom. Alleyn opened Fox’s door and listened. Fox was snoring deeply and rhythmically. Alleyn closed the door softly and returned to the tap-room.

iii

It was the last time that he was to see that assembly gathered together in the private tap-room of the Plume of Feathers. He had been little over twenty-four hours in Ottercombe but, it seemed more like a week. The suspects in a case of murder become quickly and strangely familiar to the investigating officer. He has an aptitude for noticing mannerisms, tricks of voice, and of movement. Faces and figures make their impression quickly and sharply. Alleyn now expected, before he saw them, Cubitt’s trick of smiling lopsidedly, Parish’s habit of sticking out his jaw, Miss Darragh’s look of inscrutability, Will Pomeroy’s mulish blushes, and his father’s way of opening his eyes very widely. The movement of Nark’s head, slanted conceitedly, and his look of burning self-importance, seemed to be memories of a year rather than of days. Alleyn felt a little as if they were marionettes obeying a few simple jerks of their strings and otherwise inert and stupid. He felt wholeheartedly bored with the lot of them; the thought of another bout of interrogation was almost intolerable. Fox might have been killed. Reaction had set in, and Alleyn was sick at heart.

“Well,” he said crisply, “you may as well know what has happened. Between a quarter to one and five-past seven, somebody put poison in the decanter of sherry that was kept for our use. You will readily understand that we shall require a full account from each one of you of your movements after a quarter to one. Mr. Harper and I will see you in turn in the parlour. If you discuss the matter among yourselves it will be within hearing of Constable Oates, who will be on duty in this room. We’ll see you first if you please, Mr. Cubitt.”

But it was the usual exasperating job that faced him. None of them had a complete alibi. Each of them could have slipped unseen into the tap-room and come out again unnoticed. Abel had locked the bar-shutter during closing-hours but everyone knew where he kept his keys and several times when the bar was open it had been deserted. Cubitt said he was painting from two o’clock until six, when he returned for his evening meal. He had been one of the company in the taproom when Alleyn came in for the sherry, but had left immediately to meet Decima Moore on Coombe Head. The others followed with similar stories — except old Pomeroy, who frankly admitted he had sat in the tap-room for some time, reading his paper. Each of them denied being alone there at any time after Abel had decanted the sherry. An hour’s exhaustive enquiry failed to prove or disprove any of their statements. Last of all, Mr. Legge was brought down in a state of the profoundest dejection and made a series of protestations to the effect that he was being persecuted. He was a pitiful object and Alleyn’s feeling of nausea increased as he watched him. At last Alleyn said:

“Mr. Legge, we only arrived here last evening but, as you must realize, we have already made many enquiries. Of all the people we have interviewed, you alone have objected to the way we set about our job. Why?”

Legge looked at Alleyn without speaking. His lower lip hung loosely, his eyes, half-veiled, in that now familiar way, by his white lashes, looked like the eyes of a blind man. Only his hands moved restlessly. After a moment’s silence he mumbled something inaudible.

“What do you say?”

“It doesn’t matter. Everything I say is used against me.”

Alleyn looked at him in silence.

“I think,” he said at last, “that it is my duty to tell you that a dart bearing your fingerprints was sent to the Bureau early this morning. They have been identified and the result has been telephoned to us.”

Legge’s hands moved convulsively.

“They have been identified,” Alleyn repeated, “as those of Montague Thringle. Montague Thringle was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for embezzlement, a sentence that was afterwards reduced to four years and was completed twenty-six months ago.” He paused. Legge’s face was clay-coloured. “You must have known we’d find out,” said Alleyn. “Why didn’t you tell me last night who you were?”

“Why? Why?” demanded Legge. “You know why. You know well enough. The very sight and sound of the police! Anathema! Questions, questions, questions! At me all the time. Man with a record! Hound him out! Tell everybody! Slam every door in his face. And you have the impertinence to ask me why I was silent. My God!”

“All right,” said Alleyn, “we’ll leave it at that. How did you spend your afternoon?”

“There you go!” cried Legge, half-crying, but still with that curious air of admonishment. “There you go, you see! Straight off. Asking me things like that. It’s atrocious.”

“Nonsense,” said Alleyn.

“Nonsense!” echoed Legge, in a sort of fury. He shook his finger in Alleyn’s face. “Don’t you talk like that to me, sir. Do you know who I am? Do you know that before my misfortune I was the greatest power in English finance? Let me tell you that there are only three men living who fully comprehended the events that brought about the holocaust of ’29 and ’30, and I am one of them. If I had not put my trust in titled imbeciles, if I had not been betrayed by a sulking moron, I should be in a position to send for you when I wished to command your dubious services, or dismiss them with a contemptuous fiddle-de-dee.”

This astonishing and ridiculous word was delivered with such venom that Alleyn was quite taken aback. Into his thoughts, with the appropriate logic of topsyturvy, popped the memory of a jigging line —

He pulled himself together, cautioned and tackled Mr. Legge, and at last got a statement from him. He had spent the afternoon packing his books, papers, and effects, and putting them in his car. He had intended to take the first load into his new room that evening. He had also written some letters. He offered, frantically, to show Alleyn the letters. Alleyn had already seen them and they amounted to nothing. He turned Legge over to Oates, whose nose was now plugged with cotton-wool.

“You’d better take him to the station,” said Alleyn.

“I demand bail,” cried Legge in a trembling voice.

“Mr. Harper will see about that,” said Alleyn. “You’re under arrest for a misdemeanour.”

“I didn’t kill him. I know what you’re up to. It’s the beginning of the end. I swear—”

“You are under arrest for assaulting police officers,” said Alleyn, wearily. “I will repeat the caution you have already heard.”

He repeated it and was devoutly thankful when Legge, in a condition of hysterical prostration, was led away. Harper, with Oates and his mate, was to drive him to Illington and lodge him in the police station.

“The Colonel’s at the station,” said Harper acidly. “That was him on the telephone while you were upstairs. His car’s broken down again. Why, in his position and with all his money, he doesn’t — oh well! He wants me to bring him back here, or you to come in. Which it’ll be? The man’ll talk us all dotty, wherever he is.”

“I’ll have another look at Fox,” said Alleyn. “If he’s awake, I’ll get him into bed and then follow you into Illington. I’d like the doctor to see him again.”

“There’ll be no need for that, sir, thank you.”

Alleyn spun round on his heel to see Fox, fully dressed and wearing his bowler hat, standing in the doorway.